|
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
A HISTORY
by
THOMAS CARLYLE
This etext was prepared by Sue Asscher <asschers@cyberalink.com.au>
CONTENTS.
VOLUME I.
THE BASTILLE
BOOK 1.I.
DEATH OF LOUIS XV.
Chapter 1.1.I. Louis the Well-Beloved
Chapter 1.1.II. Realised Ideals
Chapter 1.1.III. Viaticum
Chapter 1.1.IV. Louis the Unforgotten
BOOK 1.II.
THE PAPER AGE
Chapter 1.2.I. Astraea Redux
Chapter 1.2.II. Petition in Hieroglyphs
Chapter 1.2.III. Questionable
Chapter 1.2.IV. Maurepas
Chapter 1.2.V. Astraea Redux without Cash
Chapter 1.2.VI. Windbags
Chapter 1.2.VII. Contrat Social
Chapter 1.2.VIII. Printed Paper
BOOK 1.III.
THE PARLEMENT OF PARIS
Chapter 1.3.I. Dishonoured Bills
Chapter 1.3.II. Controller Calonne
Chapter 1.3.III. The Notables
Chapter 1.3.IV. Lomenie's Edicts
Chapter 1.3.V. Lomenie's Thunderbolts
Chapter 1.3.VI. Lomenie's Plots
Chapter 1.3.VII. Internecine
Chapter 1.3.VIII. Lomenie's Death-throes
Chapter 1.3.IX. Burial with Bonfire
BOOK 1.IV.
STATES-GENERAL
Chapter 1.4.I. The Notables Again
Chapter 1.4.II. The Election
Chapter 1.4.III. Grown Electric
Chapter 1.4.IV. The Procession
BOOK 1.V.
THE THIRD ESTATE
Chapter 1.5.I. Inertia
Chapter 1.5.II. Mercury de Breze
Chapter 1.5.III. Broglie the War-God
Chapter 1.5.IV. To Arms!
Chapter 1.5.V. Give us Arms
Chapter 1.5.VI. Storm and Victory
Chapter 1.5.VII. Not a Revolt
Chapter 1.5.VIII. Conquering your King
Chapter 1.5.IX. The Lanterne
Book 1.VI.
CONSOLIDATION
Chapter 1.6.I. Make the Constitution
Chapter 1.6.II. The Constituent Assembly
Chapter 1.6.III. The General Overturn
Chapter 1.6.IV. In Queue
Chapter 1.6.V. The Fourth Estate
BOOK 1.VII.
THE INSURRECTION OF WOMEN
Chapter 1.7.I. Patrollotism
Chapter 1.7.II. O Richard, O my King
Chapter 1.7.III. Black Cockades
Chapter 1.7.IV. The Menads
Chapter 1.7.V. Usher Maillard
Chapter 1.7.VI. To Versailles
Chapter 1.7.VII. At Versailles
Chapter 1.7.VIII. The Equal Diet
Chapter 1.7.IX. Lafayette
Chapter 1.7.X. The Grand Entries
Chapter 1.7.XI. From Versailles
VOLUME II.
THE CONSTITUTION
BOOK 2.I.
THE FEAST OF PIKES
Chapter 2.1.I. In the Tuileries
Chapter 2.1.II. In the Salle de Manege
Chapter 2.1.III. The Muster
Chapter 2.1.IV. Journalism
Chapter 2.1.V. Clubbism
Chapter 2.1.VI. Je le jure
Chapter 2.1.VII. Prodigies
Chapter 2.1.VIII. Solemn League and Covenant
Chapter 2.1.IX. Symbolic
Chapter 2.1.X. Mankind
Chapter 2.1.XI. As in the Age of Gold
Chapter 2.1.XII. Sound and Smoke
BOOK 2.II.
NANCI
Chapter 2.2.I. Bouille
Chapter 2.2.II. Arrears and Aristocrats
Chapter 2.2.III. Bouille at Metz
Chapter 2.2.IV. Arrears at Nanci
Chapter 2.2.V. Inspector Malseigne
Chapter 2.2.VI. Bouille at Nanci
BOOK 2.III.
THE TUILERIES
Chapter 2.3.I. Epimenides
Chapter 2.3.II. The Wakeful
Chapter 2.3.III. Sword in Hand
Chapter 2.3.IV. To fly or not to fly
Chapter 2.3.V. The Day of Poniards
Chapter 2.3.VI. Mirabeau
Chapter 2.3.VII. Death of Mirabeau
BOOK 2.IV.
VARENNES
Chapter 2.4.I. Easter at Saint-Cloud
Chapter 2.4.II. Easter at Paris
Chapter 2.4.III. Count Fersen
Chapter 2.4.IV. Attitude
Chapter 2.4.V. The New Berline
Chapter 2.4.VI. Old-Dragoon Drouet
Chapter 2.4.VII. The Night of Spurs
Chapter 2.4.VIII. The Return
Chapter 2.4.IX. Sharp Shot
BOOK 2.V.
PARLIAMENT FIRST
Chapter 2.5.I. Grande Acceptation
Chapter 2.5.II. The Book of the Law
Chapter 2.5.III. Avignon
Chapter 2.5.IV. No Sugar
Chapter 2.5.V. Kings and Emigrants
Chapter 2.5.VI. Brigands and Jales
Chapter 2.5.VII. Constitution will not march
Chapter 2.5.VIII. The Jacobins
Chapter 2.5.IX. Minister Roland
Chapter 2.5.X. Petion-National-Pique
Chapter 2.5.XI. The Hereditary Representative
Chapter 2.5.XII. Procession of the Black Breeches
BOOK 2.VI.
THE MARSEILLESE
Chapter 2.6.I. Executive that does not act
Chapter 2.6.II. Let us march
Chapter 2.6.III. Some Consolation to Mankind
Chapter 2.6.IV. Subterranean
Chapter 2.6.V. At Dinner
Chapter 2.6.VI. The Steeples at Midnight
Chapter 2.6.VII. The Swiss
Chapter 2.6.VIII. Constitution burst in Pieces
VOLUME III.
THE GUILLOTINE
BOOK 3.I.
SEPTEMBER
Chapter 3.1.I. The Improvised Commune
Chapter 3.1.II. Danton
Chapter 3.1.III. Dumouriez
Chapter 3.1.IV. September in Paris
Chapter 3.1.V. A Trilogy
Chapter 3.1.VI. The Circular
Chapter 3.1.VII. September in Argonne
Chapter 3.1.VIII. Exeunt
BOOK 3.II.
REGICIDE
Chapter 3.2.I. The Deliberative
Chapter 3.2.II. The Executive
Chapter 3.2.III. Discrowned
Chapter 3.2.IV. The Loser pays
Chapter 3.2.V. Stretching of Formulas
Chapter 3.2.VI. At the Bar
Chapter 3.2.VII. The Three Votings
Chapter 3.2.VIII. Place de la Revolution
BOOK 3.III.
THE GIRONDINS
Chapter 3.3.I. Cause and Effect
Chapter 3.3.II. Culottic and Sansculottic
Chapter 3.3.III. Growing shrill
Chapter 3.3.IV. Fatherland in Danger
Chapter 3.3.V. Sansculottism Accoutred
Chapter 3.3.VI. The Traitor
Chapter 3.3.VII. In Fight
Chapter 3.3.VIII. In Death-Grips
Chapter 3.3.IX. Extinct
BOOK 3.IV.
TERROR
Chapter 3.4.I. Charlotte Corday
Chapter 3.4.II. In Civil War
Chapter 3.4.III. Retreat of the Eleven
Chapter 3.4.IV. O Nature
Chapter 3.4.V. Sword of Sharpness
Chapter 3.4.VI. Risen against Tyrants
Chapter 3.4.VII. Marie-Antoinette
Chapter 3.4.VIII. The Twenty-two
BOOK 3.V.
TERROR THE ORDER OF THE DAY
Chapter 3.5.I. Rushing down
Chapter 3.5.II. Death
Chapter 3.5.III. Destruction
Chapter 3.5.IV. Carmagnole complete
Chapter 3.5.V. Like a Thunder-Cloud
Chapter 3.5.VI. Do thy Duty
Chapter 3.5.VII. Flame-Picture
BOOK 3.VI.
THERMIDOR
Chapter 3.6.I. The Gods are athirst
Chapter 3.6.II. Danton, No weakness
Chapter 3.6.III. The Tumbrils
Chapter 3.6.IV. Mumbo-Jumbo
Chapter 3.6.V. The Prisons
Chapter 3.6.VI. To finish the Terror
Chapter 3.6.VII. Go down to
BOOK 3.VII.
VENDEMIAIRE
Chapter 3.7.I. Decadent
Chapter 3.7.II. La Cabarus
Chapter 3.7.III. Quiberon
Chapter 3.7.IV. Lion not dead
Chapter 3.7.V. Lion sprawling its last
Chapter 3.7.VI. Grilled Herrings
Chapter 3.7.VII. The Whiff of Grapeshot
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION A HISTORY
By
THOMAS CARLYLE
VOLUME I.--THE BASTILLE
BOOK 1.I.
DEATH OF LOUIS XV.
Chapter 1.1.I.
Louis the Well-Beloved.
President Henault, remarking on royal Surnames of Honour how difficult it
often is to ascertain not only why, but even when, they were conferred,
takes occasion in his sleek official way, to make a philosophical
reflection. 'The Surname of Bien-aime (Well-beloved),' says he, 'which
Louis XV. bears, will not leave posterity in the same doubt. This Prince,
in the year 1744, while hastening from one end of his kingdom to the other,
and suspending his conquests in Flanders that he might fly to the
assistance of Alsace, was arrested at Metz by a malady which threatened to
cut short his days. At the news of this, Paris, all in terror, seemed a
city taken by storm: the churches resounded with supplications and groans;
the prayers of priests and people were every moment interrupted by their
sobs: and it was from an interest so dear and tender that this Surname of
Bien-aime fashioned itself, a title higher still than all the rest which
this great Prince has earned.' (Abrege Chronologique de l'Histoire de
France (Paris, 1775), p. 701.)
So stands it written; in lasting memorial of that year 1744. Thirty other
years have come and gone; and 'this great Prince' again lies sick; but in
how altered circumstances now! Churches resound not with excessive
groanings; Paris is stoically calm: sobs interrupt no prayers, for indeed
none are offered; except Priests' Litanies, read or chanted at fixed money-
rate per hour, which are not liable to interruption. The shepherd of the
people has been carried home from Little Trianon, heavy of heart, and been
put to bed in his own Chateau of Versailles: the flock knows it, and heeds
it not. At most, in the immeasurable tide of French Speech (which ceases
not day after day, and only ebbs towards the short hours of night), may
this of the royal sickness emerge from time to time as an article of news.
Bets are doubtless depending; nay, some people 'express themselves loudly
in the streets.' (Memoires de M. le Baron Besenval (Paris, 1805), ii. 59-
90.) But for the rest, on green field and steepled city, the May sun
shines out, the May evening fades; and men ply their useful or useless
business as if no Louis lay in danger.
Dame Dubarry, indeed, might pray, if she had a talent for it; Duke
d'Aiguillon too, Maupeou and the Parlement Maupeou: these, as they sit in
their high places, with France harnessed under their feet, know well on
what basis they continue there. Look to it, D'Aiguillon; sharply as thou
didst, from the Mill of St. Cast, on Quiberon and the invading English;
thou, 'covered if not with glory yet with meal!' Fortune was ever
accounted inconstant: and each dog has but his day.
Forlorn enough languished Duke d'Aiguillon, some years ago; covered, as we
said, with meal; nay with worse. For La Chalotais, the Breton
Parlementeer, accused him not only of poltroonery and tyranny, but even of
concussion (official plunder of money); which accusations it was easier to
get 'quashed' by backstairs Influences than to get answered: neither could
the thoughts, or even the tongues, of men be tied. Thus, under disastrous
eclipse, had this grand-nephew of the great Richelieu to glide about;
unworshipped by the world; resolute Choiseul, the abrupt proud man,
disdaining him, or even forgetting him. Little prospect but to glide into
Gascony, to rebuild Chateaus there, (Arthur Young, Travels during the years
1787-88-89 (Bury St. Edmunds, 1792), i. 44.) and die inglorious killing
game! However, in the year 1770, a certain young soldier, Dumouriez by
name, returning from Corsica, could see 'with sorrow, at Compiegne, the old
King of France, on foot, with doffed hat, in sight of his army, at the side
of a magnificent phaeton, doing homage the--Dubarry.' (La Vie et les
Memoires du General Dumouriez (Paris, 1822), i. 141.)
Much lay therein! Thereby, for one thing, could D'Aiguillon postpone the
rebuilding of his Chateau, and rebuild his fortunes first. For stout
Choiseul would discern in the Dubarry nothing but a wonderfully dizened
Scarlet-woman; and go on his way as if she were not. Intolerable: the
source of sighs, tears, of pettings and pouting; which would not end till
'France' (La France, as she named her royal valet) finally mustered heart
to see Choiseul; and with that 'quivering in the chin (tremblement du
menton natural in such cases) (Besenval, Memoires, ii. 21.) faltered out a
dismissal: dismissal of his last substantial man, but pacification of his
scarlet-woman. Thus D'Aiguillon rose again, and culminated. And with him
there rose Maupeou, the banisher of Parlements; who plants you a refractory
President 'at Croe in Combrailles on the top of steep rocks, inaccessible
except by litters,' there to consider himself. Likewise there rose Abbe
Terray, dissolute Financier, paying eightpence in the shilling,--so that
wits exclaim in some press at the playhouse, "Where is Abbe Terray, that he
might reduce us to two-thirds!" And so have these individuals (verily by
black-art) built them a Domdaniel, or enchanted Dubarrydom; call it an
Armida-Palace, where they dwell pleasantly; Chancellor Maupeou 'playing
blind-man's-buff' with the scarlet Enchantress; or gallantly presenting her
with dwarf Negroes;--and a Most Christian King has unspeakable peace within
doors, whatever he may have without. "My Chancellor is a scoundrel; but I
cannot do without him." (Dulaure, Histoire de Paris (Paris, 1824), vii.
328.)
Beautiful Armida-Palace, where the inmates live enchanted lives; lapped in
soft music of adulation; waited on by the splendours of the world;--which
nevertheless hangs wondrously as by a single hair. Should the Most
Christian King die; or even get seriously afraid of dying! For, alas, had
not the fair haughty Chateauroux to fly, with wet cheeks and flaming heart,
from that Fever-scene at Metz; driven forth by sour shavelings? She hardly
returned, when fever and shavelings were both swept into the background.
Pompadour too, when Damiens wounded Royalty 'slightly, under the fifth
rib,' and our drive to Trianon went off futile, in shrieks and madly shaken
torches,--had to pack, and be in readiness: yet did not go, the wound not
proving poisoned. For his Majesty has religious faith; believes, at least
in a Devil. And now a third peril; and who knows what may be in it! For
the Doctors look grave; ask privily, If his Majesty had not the small-pox
long ago?--and doubt it may have been a false kind. Yes, Maupeou, pucker
those sinister brows of thine, and peer out on it with thy malign rat-eyes:
it is a questionable case. Sure only that man is mortal; that with the
life of one mortal snaps irrevocably the wonderfulest talisman, and all
Dubarrydom rushes off, with tumult, into infinite Space; and ye, as
subterranean Apparitions are wont, vanish utterly,--leaving only a smell of
sulphur!
These, and what holds of these may pray,--to Beelzebub, or whoever will
hear them. But from the rest of France there comes, as was said, no
prayer; or one of an opposite character, 'expressed openly in the streets.'
Chateau or Hotel, were an enlightened Philosophism scrutinises many things,
is not given to prayer: neither are Rossbach victories, Terray Finances,
nor, say only 'sixty thousand Lettres de Cachet' (which is Maupeou's
share), persuasives towards that. O Henault! Prayers? From a France
smitten (by black-art) with plague after plague, and lying now in shame and
pain, with a Harlot's foot on its neck, what prayer can come? Those lank
scarecrows, that prowl hunger-stricken through all highways and byways of
French Existence, will they pray? The dull millions that, in the workshop
or furrowfield, grind fore-done at the wheel of Labour, like haltered gin-
horses, if blind so much the quieter? Or they that in the Bicetre
Hospital, 'eight to a bed,' lie waiting their manumission? Dim are those
heads of theirs, dull stagnant those hearts: to them the great Sovereign
is known mainly as the great Regrater of Bread. If they hear of his
sickness, they will answer with a dull Tant pis pour lui; or with the
question, Will he die?
Yes, will he die? that is now, for all France, the grand question, and
hope; whereby alone the King's sickness has still some interest.
Chapter 1.1.II.
Realised Ideals.
Such a changed France have we; and a changed Louis. Changed, truly; and
further than thou yet seest!--To the eye of History many things, in that
sick-room of Louis, are now visible, which to the Courtiers there present
were invisible. For indeed it is well said, 'in every object there is
inexhaustible meaning; the eye sees in it what the eye brings means of
seeing.' To Newton and to Newton's Dog Diamond, what a different pair of
Universes; while the painting on the optical retina of both was, most
likely, the same! Let the Reader here, in this sick-room of Louis,
endeavour to look with the mind too.
Time was when men could (so to speak) of a given man, by nourishing and
decorating him with fit appliances, to the due pitch, make themselves a
King, almost as the Bees do; and what was still more to the purpose,
loyally obey him when made. The man so nourished and decorated,
thenceforth named royal, does verily bear rule; and is said, and even
thought, to be, for example, 'prosecuting conquests in Flanders,' when he
lets himself like luggage be carried thither: and no light luggage;
covering miles of road. For he has his unblushing Chateauroux, with her
band-boxes and rouge-pots, at his side; so that, at every new station, a
wooden gallery must be run up between their lodgings. He has not only his
Maison-Bouche, and Valetaille without end, but his very Troop of Players,
with their pasteboard coulisses, thunder-barrels, their kettles, fiddles,
stage-wardrobes, portable larders (and chaffering and quarrelling enough);
all mounted in wagons, tumbrils, second-hand chaises,--sufficient not to
conquer Flanders, but the patience of the world. With such a flood of loud
jingling appurtenances does he lumber along, prosecuting his conquests in
Flanders; wonderful to behold. So nevertheless it was and had been: to
some solitary thinker it might seem strange; but even to him inevitable,
not unnatural.
For ours is a most fictile world; and man is the most fingent plastic of
creatures. A world not fixable; not fathomable! An unfathomable Somewhat,
which is Not we; which we can work with, and live amidst,--and model,
miraculously in our miraculous Being, and name World.--But if the very
Rocks and Rivers (as Metaphysic teaches) are, in strict language, made by
those outward Senses of ours, how much more, by the Inward Sense, are all
Phenomena of the spiritual kind: Dignities, Authorities, Holies, Unholies!
Which inward sense, moreover is not permanent like the outward ones, but
forever growing and changing. Does not the Black African take of Sticks
and Old Clothes (say, exported Monmouth-Street cast-clothes) what will
suffice, and of these, cunningly combining them, fabricate for himself an
Eidolon (Idol, or Thing Seen), and name it Mumbo-Jumbo; which he can
thenceforth pray to, with upturned awestruck eye, not without hope? The
white European mocks; but ought rather to consider; and see whether he, at
home, could not do the like a little more wisely.
So it was, we say, in those conquests of Flanders, thirty years ago: but
so it no longer is. Alas, much more lies sick than poor Louis: not the
French King only, but the French Kingship; this too, after long rough tear
and wear, is breaking down. The world is all so changed; so much that
seemed vigorous has sunk decrepit, so much that was not is beginning to
be!--Borne over the Atlantic, to the closing ear of Louis, King by the
Grace of God, what sounds are these; muffled ominous, new in our centuries?
Boston Harbour is black with unexpected Tea: behold a Pennsylvanian
Congress gather; and ere long, on Bunker Hill, DEMOCRACY announcing, in
rifle-volleys death-winged, under her Star Banner, to the tune of Yankee-
doodle-doo, that she is born, and, whirlwind-like, will envelope the whole
world!
Sovereigns die and Sovereignties: how all dies, and is for a Time only; is
a 'Time-phantasm, yet reckons itself real!' The Merovingian Kings, slowly
wending on their bullock-carts through the streets of Paris, with their
long hair flowing, have all wended slowly on,--into Eternity. Charlemagne
sleeps at Salzburg, with truncheon grounded; only Fable expecting that he
will awaken. Charles the Hammer, Pepin Bow-legged, where now is their eye
of menace, their voice of command? Rollo and his shaggy Northmen cover not
the Seine with ships; but have sailed off on a longer voyage. The hair of
Towhead (Tete d'etoupes) now needs no combing; Iron-cutter (Taillefer)
cannot cut a cobweb; shrill Fredegonda, shrill Brunhilda have had out their
hot life-scold, and lie silent, their hot life-frenzy cooled. Neither from
that black Tower de Nesle descends now darkling the doomed gallant, in his
sack, to the Seine waters; plunging into Night: for Dame de Nesle how
cares not for this world's gallantry, heeds not this world's scandal; Dame
de Nesle is herself gone into Night. They are all gone; sunk,--down, down,
with the tumult they made; and the rolling and the trampling of ever new
generations passes over them, and they hear it not any more forever.
And yet withal has there not been realised somewhat? Consider (to go no
further) these strong Stone-edifices, and what they hold! Mud-Town of the
Borderers (Lutetia Parisiorum or Barisiorum) has paved itself, has spread
over all the Seine Islands, and far and wide on each bank, and become City
of Paris, sometimes boasting to be 'Athens of Europe,' and even 'Capital of
the Universe.' Stone towers frown aloft; long-lasting, grim with a
thousand years. Cathedrals are there, and a Creed (or memory of a Creed)
in them; Palaces, and a State and Law. Thou seest the Smoke-vapour;
unextinguished Breath as of a thing living. Labour's thousand hammers ring
on her anvils: also a more miraculous Labour works noiselessly, not with
the Hand but with the Thought. How have cunning workmen in all crafts,
with their cunning head and right-hand, tamed the Four Elements to be their
ministers; yoking the winds to their Sea-chariot, making the very Stars
their Nautical Timepiece;--and written and collected a Bibliotheque du Roi;
among whose Books is the Hebrew Book! A wondrous race of creatures: these
have been realised, and what of Skill is in these: call not the Past Time,
with all its confused wretchednesses, a lost one.
Observe, however, that of man's whole terrestrial possessions and
attainments, unspeakably the noblest are his Symbols, divine or divine-
seeming; under which he marches and fights, with victorious assurance, in
this life-battle: what we can call his Realised Ideals. Of which realised
ideals, omitting the rest, consider only these two: his Church, or
spiritual Guidance; his Kingship, or temporal one. The Church: what a
word was there; richer than Golconda and the treasures of the world! In
the heart of the remotest mountains rises the little Kirk; the Dead all
slumbering round it, under their white memorial-stones, 'in hope of a happy
resurrection:'--dull wert thou, O Reader, if never in any hour (say of
moaning midnight, when such Kirk hung spectral in the sky, and Being was as
if swallowed up of Darkness) it spoke to thee--things unspeakable, that
went into thy soul's soul. Strong was he that had a Church, what we can
call a Church: he stood thereby, though 'in the centre of Immensities, in
the conflux of Eternities,' yet manlike towards God and man; the vague
shoreless Universe had become for him a firm city, and dwelling which he
knew. Such virtue was in Belief; in these words, well spoken: I believe.
Well might men prize their Credo, and raise stateliest Temples for it, and
reverend Hierarchies, and give it the tithe of their substance; it was
worth living for and dying for.
Neither was that an inconsiderable moment when wild armed men first raised
their Strongest aloft on the buckler-throne, and with clanging armour and
hearts, said solemnly: Be thou our Acknowledged Strongest! In such
Acknowledged Strongest (well named King, Kon-ning, Can-ning, or Man that
was Able) what a Symbol shone now for them,--significant with the destinies
of the world! A Symbol of true Guidance in return for loving Obedience;
properly, if he knew it, the prime want of man. A Symbol which might be
called sacred; for is there not, in reverence for what is better than we,
an indestructible sacredness? On which ground, too, it was well said there
lay in the Acknowledged Strongest a divine right; as surely there might in
the Strongest, whether Acknowledged or not,--considering who made him
strong. And so, in the midst of confusions and unutterable incongruities
(as all growth is confused), did this of Royalty, with Loyalty environing
it, spring up; and grow mysteriously, subduing and assimilating (for a
principle of Life was in it); till it also had grown world-great, and was
among the main Facts of our modern existence. Such a Fact, that Louis
XIV., for example, could answer the expostulatory Magistrate with his
"L'Etat c'est moi (The State? I am the State);" and be replied to by
silence and abashed looks. So far had accident and forethought; had your
Louis Elevenths, with the leaden Virgin in their hatband, and torture-
wheels and conical oubliettes (man-eating!) under their feet; your Henri
Fourths, with their prophesied social millennium, 'when every peasant
should have his fowl in the pot;' and on the whole, the fertility of this
most fertile Existence (named of Good and Evil),--brought it, in the matter
of the Kingship. Wondrous! Concerning which may we not again say, that in
the huge mass of Evil, as it rolls and swells, there is ever some Good
working imprisoned; working towards deliverance and triumph?
How such Ideals do realise themselves; and grow, wondrously, from amid the
incongruous ever-fluctuating chaos of the Actual: this is what World-
History, if it teach any thing, has to teach us, How they grow; and, after
long stormy growth, bloom out mature, supreme; then quickly (for the
blossom is brief) fall into decay; sorrowfully dwindle; and crumble down,
or rush down, noisily or noiselessly disappearing. The blossom is so
brief; as of some centennial Cactus-flower, which after a century of
waiting shines out for hours! Thus from the day when rough Clovis, in the
Champ de Mars, in sight of his whole army, had to cleave retributively the
head of that rough Frank, with sudden battleaxe, and the fierce words, "It
was thus thou clavest the vase" (St. Remi's and mine) "at Soissons,"
forward to Louis the Grand and his L'Etat c'est moi, we count some twelve
hundred years: and now this the very next Louis is dying, and so much
dying with him!--Nay, thus too, if Catholicism, with and against Feudalism
(but not against Nature and her bounty), gave us English a Shakspeare and
Era of Shakspeare, and so produced a blossom of Catholicism--it was not
till Catholicism itself, so far as Law could abolish it, had been abolished
here.
But of those decadent ages in which no Ideal either grows or blossoms?
When Belief and Loyalty have passed away, and only the cant and false echo
of them remains; and all Solemnity has become Pageantry; and the Creed of
persons in authority has become one of two things: an Imbecility or a
Macchiavelism? Alas, of these ages World-History can take no notice; they
have to become compressed more and more, and finally suppressed in the
Annals of Mankind; blotted out as spurious,--which indeed they are.
Hapless ages: wherein, if ever in any, it is an unhappiness to be born.
To be born, and to learn only, by every tradition and example, that God's
Universe is Belial's and a Lie; and 'the Supreme Quack' the hierarch of
men! In which mournfulest faith, nevertheless, do we not see whole
generations (two, and sometimes even three successively) live, what they
call living; and vanish,--without chance of reappearance?
In such a decadent age, or one fast verging that way, had our poor Louis
been born. Grant also that if the French Kingship had not, by course of
Nature, long to live, he of all men was the man to accelerate Nature. The
Blossom of French Royalty, cactus-like, has accordingly made an astonishing
progress. In those Metz days, it was still standing with all its petals,
though bedimmed by Orleans Regents and Roue Ministers and Cardinals; but
now, in 1774, we behold it bald, and the virtue nigh gone out of it.
Disastrous indeed does it look with those same 'realised ideals,' one and
all! The Church, which in its palmy season, seven hundred years ago, could
make an Emperor wait barefoot, in penance-shift; three days, in the snow,
has for centuries seen itself decaying; reduced even to forget old purposes
and enmities, and join interest with the Kingship: on this younger
strength it would fain stay its decrepitude; and these two will henceforth
stand and fall together. Alas, the Sorbonne still sits there, in its old
mansion; but mumbles only jargon of dotage, and no longer leads the
consciences of men: not the Sorbonne; it is Encyclopedies, Philosophie,
and who knows what nameless innumerable multitude of ready Writers, profane
Singers, Romancers, Players, Disputators, and Pamphleteers, that now form
the Spiritual Guidance of the world. The world's Practical Guidance too is
lost, or has glided into the same miscellaneous hands. Who is it that the
King (Able-man, named also Roi, Rex, or Director) now guides? His own
huntsmen and prickers: when there is to be no hunt, it is well said, 'Le
Roi ne fera rien (To-day his Majesty will do nothing). (Memoires sur la
Vie privee de Marie Antoinette, par Madame Campan (Paris, 1826), i. 12).
He lives and lingers there, because he is living there, and none has yet
laid hands on him.
The nobles, in like manner, have nearly ceased either to guide or misguide;
and are now, as their master is, little more than ornamental figures. It
is long since they have done with butchering one another or their king:
the Workers, protected, encouraged by Majesty, have ages ago built walled
towns, and there ply their crafts; will permit no Robber Baron to 'live by
the saddle,' but maintain a gallows to prevent it. Ever since that period
of the Fronde, the Noble has changed his fighting sword into a court
rapier, and now loyally attends his king as ministering satellite; divides
the spoil, not now by violence and murder, but by soliciting and finesse.
These men call themselves supports of the throne, singular gilt-pasteboard
caryatides in that singular edifice! For the rest, their privileges every
way are now much curtailed. That law authorizing a Seigneur, as he
returned from hunting, to kill not more than two Serfs, and refresh his
feet in their warm blood and bowels, has fallen into perfect desuetude,--
and even into incredibility; for if Deputy Lapoule can believe in it, and
call for the abrogation of it, so cannot we. (Histoire de la Revolution
Francaise, par Deux Amis de la Liberte (Paris, 1793), ii. 212.) No
Charolois, for these last fifty years, though never so fond of shooting,
has been in use to bring down slaters and plumbers, and see them roll from
their roofs; (Lacretelle, Histoire de France pendant le 18me Siecle (Paris,
1819) i. 271.) but contents himself with partridges and grouse. Close-
viewed, their industry and function is that of dressing gracefully and
eating sumptuously. As for their debauchery and depravity, it is perhaps
unexampled since the era of Tiberius and Commodus. Nevertheless, one has
still partly a feeling with the lady Marechale: "Depend upon it, Sir, God
thinks twice before damning a man of that quality." (Dulaure, vii. 261.)
These people, of old, surely had virtues, uses; or they could not have been
there. Nay, one virtue they are still required to have (for mortal man
cannot live without a conscience): the virtue of perfect readiness to
fight duels.
Such are the shepherds of the people: and now how fares it with the flock?
With the flock, as is inevitable, it fares ill, and ever worse. They are
not tended, they are only regularly shorn. They are sent for, to do
statute-labour, to pay statute-taxes; to fatten battle-fields (named 'Bed
of honour') with their bodies, in quarrels which are not theirs; their hand
and toil is in every possession of man; but for themselves they have little
or no possession. Untaught, uncomforted, unfed; to pine dully in thick
obscuration, in squalid destitution and obstruction: this is the lot of
the millions; peuple taillable et corveable a merci et misericorde. In
Brittany they once rose in revolt at the first introduction of Pendulum
Clocks; thinking it had something to do with the Gabelle. Paris requires
to be cleared out periodically by the Police; and the horde of hunger-
stricken vagabonds to be sent wandering again over space--for a time.
'During one such periodical clearance,' says Lacretelle, 'in May, 1750, the
Police had presumed withal to carry off some reputable people's children,
in the hope of extorting ransoms for them. The mothers fill the public
places with cries of despair; crowds gather, get excited: so many women in
destraction run about exaggerating the alarm: an absurd and horrid fable
arises among the people; it is said that the doctors have ordered a Great
Person to take baths of young human blood for the restoration of his own,
all spoiled by debaucheries. Some of the rioters,' adds Lacretelle, quite
coolly, 'were hanged on the following days:' the Police went on.
(Lacretelle, iii. 175.) O ye poor naked wretches! and this, then, is your
inarticulate cry to Heaven, as of a dumb tortured animal, crying from
uttermost depths of pain and debasement? Do these azure skies, like a dead
crystalline vault, only reverberate the echo of it on you? Respond to it
only by 'hanging on the following days?'--Not so: not forever! Ye are
heard in Heaven. And the answer too will come,--in a horror of great
darkness, and shakings of the world, and a cup of trembling which all the
nations shall drink.
Remark, meanwhile, how from amid the wrecks and dust of this universal
Decay new Powers are fashioning themselves, adapted to the new time and its
destinies. Besides the old Noblesse, originally of Fighters, there is a
new recognised Noblesse of Lawyers; whose gala-day and proud battle-day
even now is. An unrecognised Noblesse of Commerce; powerful enough, with
money in its pocket. Lastly, powerfulest of all, least recognised of all,
a Noblesse of Literature; without steel on their thigh, without gold in
their purse, but with the 'grand thaumaturgic faculty of Thought' in their
head. French Philosophism has arisen; in which little word how much do we
include! Here, indeed, lies properly the cardinal symptom of the whole
wide-spread malady. Faith is gone out; Scepticism is come in. Evil
abounds and accumulates: no man has Faith to withstand it, to amend it, to
begin by amending himself; it must even go on accumulating. While hollow
langour and vacuity is the lot of the Upper, and want and stagnation of the
Lower, and universal misery is very certain, what other thing is certain?
That a Lie cannot be believed! Philosophism knows only this: her other
belief is mainly that, in spiritual supersensual matters no Belief is
possible. Unhappy! Nay, as yet the Contradiction of a Lie is some kind of
Belief; but the Lie with its Contradiction once swept away, what will
remain? The five unsatiated Senses will remain, the sixth insatiable Sense
(of vanity); the whole daemonic nature of man will remain,--hurled forth to
rage blindly without rule or rein; savage itself, yet with all the tools
and weapons of civilisation; a spectacle new in History.
In such a France, as in a Powder-tower, where fire unquenched and now
unquenchable is smoking and smouldering all round, has Louis XV. lain down
to die. With Pompadourism and Dubarryism, his Fleur-de-lis has been
shamefully struck down in all lands and on all seas; Poverty invades even
the Royal Exchequer, and Tax-farming can squeeze out no more; there is a
quarrel of twenty-five years' standing with the Parlement; everywhere Want,
Dishonesty, Unbelief, and hotbrained Sciolists for state-physicians: it is
a portentous hour.
Such things can the eye of History see in this sick-room of King Louis,
which were invisible to the Courtiers there. It is twenty years, gone
Christmas-day, since Lord Chesterfield, summing up what he had noted of
this same France, wrote, and sent off by post, the following words, that
have become memorable: 'In short, all the symptoms which I have ever met
with in History, previous to great Changes and Revolutions in government,
now exist and daily increase in France.' (Chesterfield's Letters:
December 25th, 1753.)
Chapter 1.1.III.
Viaticum.
For the present, however, the grand question with the Governors of France
is: Shall extreme unction, or other ghostly viaticum (to Louis, not to
France), be administered?
It is a deep question. For, if administered, if so much as spoken of, must
not, on the very threshold of the business, Witch Dubarry vanish; hardly to
return should Louis even recover? With her vanishes Duke d'Aiguillon and
Company, and all their Armida-Palace, as was said; Chaos swallows the whole
again, and there is left nothing but a smell of brimstone. But then, on
the other hand, what will the Dauphinists and Choiseulists say? Nay what
may the royal martyr himself say, should he happen to get deadly worse,
without getting delirious? For the present, he still kisses the Dubarry
hand; so we, from the ante-room, can note: but afterwards? Doctors'
bulletins may run as they are ordered, but it is 'confluent small-pox,'--of
which, as is whispered too, the Gatekeepers's once so buxom Daughter lies
ill: and Louis XV. is not a man to be trifled with in his viaticum. Was
he not wont to catechise his very girls in the Parc-aux-cerfs, and pray
with and for them, that they might preserve their--orthodoxy? (Dulaure,
viii. (217), Besenval, &c.) A strange fact, not an unexampled one; for
there is no animal so strange as man.
For the moment, indeed, it were all well, could Archbishop Beaumont but be
prevailed upon--to wink with one eye! Alas, Beaumont would himself so fain
do it: for, singular to tell, the Church too, and whole posthumous hope of
Jesuitism, now hangs by the apron of this same unmentionable woman. But
then 'the force of public opinion'? Rigorous Christophe de Beaumont, who
has spent his life in persecuting hysterical Jansenists and incredulous
Non-confessors; or even their dead bodies, if no better might be,--how
shall he now open Heaven's gate, and give Absolution with the corpus
delicti still under his nose? Our Grand-Almoner Roche-Aymon, for his part,
will not higgle with a royal sinner about turning of the key: but there
are other Churchmen; there is a King's Confessor, foolish Abbe Moudon; and
Fanaticism and Decency are not yet extinct. On the whole, what is to be
done? The doors can be well watched; the Medical Bulletin adjusted; and
much, as usual, be hoped for from time and chance.
The doors are well watched, no improper figure can enter. Indeed, few wish
to enter; for the putrid infection reaches even to the Oeil-de-Boeuf; so
that 'more than fifty fall sick, and ten die.' Mesdames the Princesses
alone wait at the loathsome sick-bed; impelled by filial piety. The three
Princesses, Graille, Chiffe, Coche (Rag, Snip, Pig, as he was wont to name
them), are assiduous there; when all have fled. The fourth Princess Loque
(Dud), as we guess, is already in the Nunnery, and can only give her
orisons. Poor Graille and Sisterhood, they have never known a Father:
such is the hard bargain Grandeur must make. Scarcely at the Debotter
(when Royalty took off its boots) could they snatch up their 'enormous
hoops, gird the long train round their waists, huddle on their black cloaks
of taffeta up to the very chin;' and so, in fit appearance of full dress,
'every evening at six,' walk majestically in; receive their royal kiss on
the brow; and then walk majestically out again, to embroidery, small-
scandal, prayers, and vacancy. If Majesty came some morning, with coffee
of its own making, and swallowed it with them hastily while the dogs were
uncoupling for the hunt, it was received as a grace of Heaven. (Campan, i.
11-36.) Poor withered ancient women! in the wild tossings that yet await
your fragile existence, before it be crushed and broken; as ye fly through
hostile countries, over tempestuous seas, are almost taken by the Turks;
and wholly, in the Sansculottic Earthquake, know not your right hand from
your left, be this always an assured place in your remembrance: for the act
was good and loving! To us also it is a little sunny spot, in that dismal
howling waste, where we hardly find another.
Meanwhile, what shall an impartial prudent Courtier do? In these delicate
circumstances, while not only death or life, but even sacrament or no
sacrament, is a question, the skilfulest may falter. Few are so happy as
the Duke d'Orleans and the Prince de Conde; who can themselves, with
volatile salts, attend the King's ante-chamber; and, at the same time, send
their brave sons (Duke de Chartres, Egalite that is to be; Duke de Bourbon,
one day Conde too, and famous among Dotards) to wait upon the Dauphin.
With another few, it is a resolution taken; jacta est alea. Old
Richelieu,--when Beaumont, driven by public opinion, is at last for
entering the sick-room,--will twitch him by the rochet, into a recess; and
there, with his old dissipated mastiff-face, and the oiliest vehemence, be
seen pleading (and even, as we judge by Beaumont's change of colour,
prevailing) 'that the King be not killed by a proposition in Divinity.'
Duke de Fronsac, son of Richelieu, can follow his father: when the Cure of
Versailles whimpers something about sacraments, he will threaten to 'throw
him out of the window if he mention such a thing.'
Happy these, we may say; but to the rest that hover between two opinions,
is it not trying? He who would understand to what a pass Catholicism, and
much else, had now got; and how the symbols of the Holiest have become
gambling-dice of the Basest,--must read the narrative of those things by
Besenval, and Soulavie, and the other Court Newsmen of the time. He will
see the Versailles Galaxy all scattered asunder, grouped into new ever-
shifting Constellations. There are nods and sagacious glances; go-
betweens, silk dowagers mysteriously gliding, with smiles for this
constellation, sighs for that: there is tremor, of hope or desperation, in
several hearts. There is the pale grinning Shadow of Death, ceremoniously
ushered along by another grinning Shadow, of Etiquette: at intervals the
growl of Chapel Organs, like prayer by machinery; proclaiming, as in a kind
of horrid diabolic horse-laughter, Vanity of vanities, all is Vanity!
Chapter 1.1.IV.
Louis the Unforgotten.
Poor Louis! With these it is a hollow phantasmagory, where like mimes they
mope and mowl, and utter false sounds for hire; but with thee it is
frightful earnest.
Frightful to all men is Death; from of old named King of Terrors. Our
little compact home of an Existence, where we dwelt complaining, yet as in
a home, is passing, in dark agonies, into an Unknown of Separation,
Foreignness, unconditioned Possibility. The Heathen Emperor asks of his
soul: Into what places art thou now departing? The Catholic King must
answer: To the Judgment-bar of the Most High God! Yes, it is a summing-up
of Life; a final settling, and giving-in the 'account of the deeds done in
the body:' they are done now; and lie there unalterable, and do bear their
fruits, long as Eternity shall last.
Louis XV. had always the kingliest abhorrence of Death. Unlike that
praying Duke of Orleans, Egalite's grandfather,--for indeed several of them
had a touch of madness,--who honesty believed that there was no Death! He,
if the Court Newsmen can be believed, started up once on a time, glowing
with sulphurous contempt and indignation on his poor Secretary, who had
stumbled on the words, feu roi d'Espagne (the late King of Spain): "Feu
roi, Monsieur?"--"Monseigneur," hastily answered the trembling but adroit
man of business, "c'est une titre qu'ils prennent ('tis a title they
take)." (Besenval, i. 199.) Louis, we say, was not so happy; but he did
what he could. He would not suffer Death to be spoken of; avoided the
sight of churchyards, funereal monuments, and whatsoever could bring it to
mind. It is the resource of the Ostrich; who, hard hunted, sticks his
foolish head in the ground, and would fain forget that his foolish unseeing
body is not unseen too. Or sometimes, with a spasmodic antagonism,
significant of the same thing, and of more, he would go; or stopping his
court carriages, would send into churchyards, and ask 'how many new graves
there were today,' though it gave his poor Pompadour the disagreeablest
qualms. We can figure the thought of Louis that day, when, all royally
caparisoned for hunting, he met, at some sudden turning in the Wood of
Senart, a ragged Peasant with a coffin: "For whom?"--It was for a poor
brother slave, whom Majesty had sometimes noticed slaving in those
quarters. "What did he die of?"--"Of hunger:"--the King gave his steed the
spur. (Campan, iii. 39.)
But figure his thought, when Death is now clutching at his own heart-
strings, unlooked for, inexorable! Yes, poor Louis, Death has found thee.
No palace walls or life-guards, gorgeous tapestries or gilt buckram of
stiffest ceremonial could keep him out; but he is here, here at thy very
life-breath, and will extinguish it. Thou, whose whole existence hitherto
was a chimera and scenic show, at length becomest a reality: sumptuous
Versailles bursts asunder, like a dream, into void Immensity; Time is done,
and all the scaffolding of Time falls wrecked with hideous clangour round
thy soul: the pale Kingdoms yawn open; there must thou enter, naked, all
unking'd, and await what is appointed thee! Unhappy man, there as thou
turnest, in dull agony, on thy bed of weariness, what a thought is thine!
Purgatory and Hell-fire, now all-too possible, in the prospect; in the
retrospect,--alas, what thing didst thou do that were not better undone;
what mortal didst thou generously help; what sorrow hadst thou mercy on?
Do the 'five hundred thousand' ghosts, who sank shamefully on so many
battle-fields from Rossbach to Quebec, that thy Harlot might take revenge
for an epigram,--crowd round thee in this hour? Thy foul Harem; the curses
of mothers, the tears and infamy of daughters? Miserable man! thou 'hast
done evil as thou couldst:' thy whole existence seems one hideous abortion
and mistake of Nature; the use and meaning of thee not yet known. Wert
thou a fabulous Griffin, devouring the works of men; daily dragging virgins
to thy cave;--clad also in scales that no spear would pierce: no spear but
Death's? A Griffin not fabulous but real! Frightful, O Louis, seem these
moments for thee.--We will pry no further into the horrors of a sinner's
death-bed.
And yet let no meanest man lay flattering unction to his soul. Louis was a
Ruler; but art not thou also one? His wide France, look at it from the
Fixed Stars (themselves not yet Infinitude), is no wider than thy narrow
brickfield, where thou too didst faithfully, or didst unfaithfully. Man,
'Symbol of Eternity imprisoned into 'Time!' it is not thy works, which are
all mortal, infinitely little, and the greatest no greater than the least,
but only the Spirit thou workest in, that can have worth or continuance.
But reflect, in any case, what a life-problem this of poor Louis, when he
rose as Bien-Aime from that Metz sick-bed, really was! What son of Adam
could have swayed such incoherences into coherence? Could he? Blindest
Fortune alone has cast him on the top of it: he swims there; can as little
sway it as the drift-log sways the wind-tossed moon-stirred Atlantic.
"What have I done to be so loved?" he said then. He may say now: What
have I done to be so hated? Thou hast done nothing, poor Louis! Thy fault
is properly even this, that thou didst nothing. What could poor Louis do?
Abdicate, and wash his hands of it,--in favour of the first that would
accept! Other clear wisdom there was none for him. As it was, he stood
gazing dubiously, the absurdest mortal extant (a very Solecism Incarnate),
into the absurdest confused world;--wherein at lost nothing seemed so
certain as that he, the incarnate Solecism, had five senses; that were
Flying Tables (Tables Volantes, which vanish through the floor, to come
back reloaded). and a Parc-aux-cerfs.
Whereby at least we have again this historical curiosity: a human being in
an original position; swimming passively, as on some boundless 'Mother of
Dead Dogs,' towards issues which he partly saw. For Louis had withal a
kind of insight in him. So, when a new Minister of Marine, or what else it
might be, came announcing his new era, the Scarlet-woman would hear from
the lips of Majesty at supper: "He laid out his ware like another;
promised the beautifulest things in the world; not a thing of which will
come: he does not know this region; he will see." Or again: "'Tis the
twentieth time I hear all that; France will never get a Navy, I believe."
How touching also was this: "If I were Lieutenant of Police, I would
prohibit those Paris cabriolets." (Journal de Madame de Hausset, p. 293,
&c.)
Doomed mortal;--for is it not a doom to be Solecism incarnate! A new Roi
Faineant, King Donothing; but with the strangest new Mayor of the Palace:
no bow-legged Pepin now, but that same cloud-capt, fire-breathing Spectre
of DEMOCRACY; incalculable, which is enveloping the world!--Was Louis no
wickeder than this or the other private Donothing and Eatall; such as we
often enough see, under the name of Man, and even Man of Pleasure,
cumbering God's diligent Creation, for a time? Say, wretcheder! His Life-
solecism was seen and felt of a whole scandalised world; him endless
Oblivion cannot engulf, and swallow to endless depths,--not yet for a
generation or two.
However, be this as it will, we remark, not without interest, that 'on the
evening of the 4th,' Dame Dubarry issues from the sick-room, with
perceptible 'trouble in her visage.' It is the fourth evening of May, year
of Grace 1774. Such a whispering in the Oeil-de-Boeuf! Is he dying then?
What can be said is, that Dubarry seems making up her packages; she sails
weeping through her gilt boudoirs, as if taking leave. D'Aiguilon and
Company are near their last card; nevertheless they will not yet throw up
the game. But as for the sacramental controversy, it is as good as settled
without being mentioned; Louis can send for his Abbe Moudon in the course
of next night, be confessed by him, some say for the space of 'seventeen
minutes,' and demand the sacraments of his own accord.
Nay, already, in the afternoon, behold is not this your Sorceress Dubarry
with the handkerchief at her eyes, mounting D'Aiguillon's chariot; rolling
off in his Duchess's consolatory arms? She is gone; and her place knows
her no more. Vanish, false Sorceress; into Space! Needless to hover at
neighbouring Ruel; for thy day is done. Shut are the royal palace-gates
for evermore; hardly in coming years shalt thou, under cloud of night,
descend once, in black domino, like a black night-bird, and disturb the
fair Antoinette's music-party in the Park: all Birds of Paradise flying
from thee, and musical windpipes growing mute. (Campan, i. 197.) Thou
unclean, yet unmalignant, not unpitiable thing! What a course was thine:
from that first trucklebed (in Joan of Arc's country) where thy mother bore
thee, with tears, to an unnamed father: forward, through lowest
subterranean depths, and over highest sunlit heights, of Harlotdom and
Rascaldom--to the guillotine-axe, which shears away thy vainly whimpering
head! Rest there uncursed; only buried and abolished: what else befitted
thee?
Louis, meanwhile, is in considerable impatience for his sacraments; sends
more than once to the window, to see whether they are not coming. Be of
comfort, Louis, what comfort thou canst: they are under way, those
sacraments. Towards six in the morning, they arrive. Cardinal Grand-
Almoner Roche-Aymon is here, in pontificals, with his pyxes and his tools;
he approaches the royal pillow; elevates his wafer; mutters or seems to
mutter somewhat;--and so (as the Abbe Georgel, in words that stick to one,
expresses it) has Louis 'made the amende honorable to God;' so does your
Jesuit construe it.--"Wa, Wa," as the wild Clotaire groaned out, when life
was departing, "what great God is this that pulls down the strength of the
strongest kings!" (Gregorius Turonensis, Histor. lib. iv. cap. 21.)
The amende honorable, what 'legal apology' you will, to God:--but not, if
D'Aiguillon can help it, to man. Dubarry still hovers in his mansion at
Ruel; and while there is life, there is hope. Grand-Almoner Roche-Aymon,
accordingly (for he seems to be in the secret), has no sooner seen his
pyxes and gear repacked, then he is stepping majestically forth again, as
if the work were done! But King's Confessor Abbe Moudon starts forward;
with anxious acidulent face, twitches him by the sleeve; whispers in his
ear. Whereupon the poor Cardinal must turn round; and declare audibly;
"That his Majesty repents of any subjects of scandal he may have given (a
pu donner); and purposes, by the strength of Heaven assisting him, to avoid
the like--for the future!" Words listened to by Richelieu with mastiff-
face, growing blacker; answered to, aloud, 'with an epithet,'--which
Besenval will not repeat. Old Richelieu, conqueror of Minorca, companion
of Flying-Table orgies, perforator of bedroom walls, (Besenval, i. 159-172.
Genlis; Duc de Levis, &c.) is thy day also done?
Alas, the Chapel organs may keep going; the Shrine of Sainte Genevieve be
let down, and pulled up again,--without effect. In the evening the whole
Court, with Dauphin and Dauphiness, assist at the Chapel: priests are
hoarse with chanting their 'Prayers of Forty Hours;' and the heaving
bellows blow. Almost frightful! For the very heaven blackens; battering
rain-torrents dash, with thunder; almost drowning the organ's voice: and
electric fire-flashes make the very flambeaux on the altar pale. So that
the most, as we are told, retired, when it was over, with hurried steps,
'in a state of meditation (recueillement),' and said little or nothing.
(Weber, Memoires concernant Marie-Antoinette (London, 1809), i. 22.)
So it has lasted for the better half of a fortnight; the Dubarry gone
almost a week. Besenval says, all the world was getting impatient que cela
finit; that poor Louis would have done with it. It is now the 10th of May
1774. He will soon have done now.
This tenth May day falls into the loathsome sick-bed; but dull, unnoticed
there: for they that look out of the windows are quite darkened; the
cistern-wheel moves discordant on its axis; Life, like a spent steed, is
panting towards the goal. In their remote apartments, Dauphin and
Dauphiness stand road-ready; all grooms and equerries booted and spurred:
waiting for some signal to escape the house of pestilence. (One grudges to
interfere with the beautiful theatrical 'candle,' which Madame Campan (i.
79) has lit on this occasion, and blown out at the moment of death. What
candles might be lit or blown out, in so large an Establishment as that of
Versailles, no man at such distance would like to affirm: at the same
time, as it was two o'clock in a May Afternoon, and these royal Stables
must have been some five or six hundred yards from the royal sick-room, the
'candle' does threaten to go out in spite of us. It remains burning
indeed--in her fantasy; throwing light on much in those Memoires of hers.)
And, hark! across the Oeil-de-Boeuf, what sound is that; sound 'terrible
and absolutely like thunder'? It is the rush of the whole Court, rushing
as in wager, to salute the new Sovereigns: Hail to your Majesties! The
Dauphin and Dauphiness are King and Queen! Over-powered with many
emotions, they two fall on their knees together, and, with streaming tears,
exclaim, "O God, guide us, protect us; we are too young to reign!"--Too
young indeed.
Thus, in any case, 'with a sound absolutely like thunder,' has the Horologe
of Time struck, and an old Era passed away. The Louis that was, lies
forsaken, a mass of abhorred clay; abandoned 'to some poor persons, and
priests of the Chapelle Ardente,'--who make haste to put him 'in two lead
coffins, pouring in abundant spirits of wine.' The new Louis with his
Court is rolling towards Choisy, through the summer afternoon: the royal
tears still flow; but a word mispronounced by Monseigneur d'Artois sets
them all laughing, and they weep no more. Light mortals, how ye walk your
light life-minuet, over bottomless abysses, divided from you by a film!
For the rest, the proper authorities felt that no Funeral could be too
unceremonious. Besenval himself thinks it was unceremonious enough. Two
carriages containing two noblemen of the usher species, and a Versailles
clerical person; some score of mounted pages, some fifty palfreniers;
these, with torches, but not so much as in black, start from Versailles on
the second evening with their leaden bier. At a high trot they start; and
keep up that pace. For the jibes (brocards) of those Parisians, who stand
planted in two rows, all the way to St. Denis, and 'give vent to their
pleasantry, the characteristic of the nation,' do not tempt one to slacken.
Towards midnight the vaults of St. Denis receive their own; unwept by any
eye of all these; if not by poor Loque his neglected Daughter's, whose
Nunnery is hard by.
Him they crush down, and huddle under-ground, in this impatient way; him
and his era of sin and tyranny and shame; for behold a New Era is come; the
future all the brighter that the past was base.
BOOK 1.II.
THE PAPER AGE
Chapter 1.2.I.
Astraea Redux.
A paradoxical philosopher, carrying to the uttermost length that aphorism
of Montesquieu's, 'Happy the people whose annals are tiresome,' has said,
'Happy the people whose annals are vacant.' In which saying, mad as it
looks, may there not still be found some grain of reason? For truly, as it
has been written, 'Silence is divine,' and of Heaven; so in all earthly
things too there is a silence which is better than any speech. Consider it
well, the Event, the thing which can be spoken of and recorded, is it not,
in all cases, some disruption, some solution of continuity? Were it even a
glad Event, it involves change, involves loss (of active Force); and so
far, either in the past or in the present, is an irregularity, a disease.
Stillest perseverance were our blessedness; not dislocation and
alteration,--could they be avoided.
The oak grows silently, in the forest, a thousand years; only in the
thousandth year, when the woodman arrives with his axe, is there heard an
echoing through the solitudes; and the oak announces itself when, with a
far-sounding crash, it falls. How silent too was the planting of the
acorn; scattered from the lap of some wandering wind! Nay, when our oak
flowered, or put on its leaves (its glad Events), what shout of
proclamation could there be? Hardly from the most observant a word of
recognition. These things befell not, they were slowly done; not in an
hour, but through the flight of days: what was to be said of it? This
hour seemed altogether as the last was, as the next would be.
It is thus everywhere that foolish Rumour babbles not of what was done, but
of what was misdone or undone; and foolish History (ever, more or less, the
written epitomised synopsis of Rumour) knows so little that were not as
well unknown. Attila Invasions, Walter-the-Penniless Crusades, Sicilian
Vespers, Thirty-Years Wars: mere sin and misery; not work, but hindrance
of work! For the Earth, all this while, was yearly green and yellow with
her kind harvests; the hand of the craftsman, the mind of the thinker
rested not: and so, after all, and in spite of all, we have this so
glorious high-domed blossoming World; concerning which, poor History may
well ask, with wonder, Whence it came? She knows so little of it, knows so
much of what obstructed it, what would have rendered it impossible. Such,
nevertheless, by necessity or foolish choice, is her rule and practice;
whereby that paradox, 'Happy the people whose annals are vacant,' is not
without its true side.
And yet, what seems more pertinent to note here, there is a stillness, not
of unobstructed growth, but of passive inertness, and symptom of imminent
downfall. As victory is silent, so is defeat. Of the opposing forces the
weaker has resigned itself; the stronger marches on, noiseless now, but
rapid, inevitable: the fall and overturn will not be noiseless. How all
grows, and has its period, even as the herbs of the fields, be it annual,
centennial, millennial! All grows and dies, each by its own wondrous laws,
in wondrous fashion of its own; spiritual things most wondrously of all.
Inscrutable, to the wisest, are these latter; not to be prophesied of, or
understood. If when the oak stands proudliest flourishing to the eye, you
know that its heart is sound, it is not so with the man; how much less with
the Society, with the Nation of men! Of such it may be affirmed even that
the superficial aspect, that the inward feeling of full health, is
generally ominous. For indeed it is of apoplexy, so to speak, and a
plethoric lazy habit of body, that Churches, Kingships, Social
Institutions, oftenest die. Sad, when such Institution plethorically says
to itself, Take thy ease, thou hast goods laid up;--like the fool of the
Gospel, to whom it was answered, Fool, this night thy life shall be
required of thee!
Is it the healthy peace, or the ominous unhealthy, that rests on France,
for these next Ten Years? Over which the Historian can pass lightly,
without call to linger: for as yet events are not, much less performances.
Time of sunniest stillness;--shall we call it, what all men thought it, the
new Age of God? Call it at least, of Paper; which in many ways is the
succedaneum of Gold. Bank-paper, wherewith you can still buy when there is
no gold left; Book-paper, splendent with Theories, Philosophies,
Sensibilities,--beautiful art, not only of revealing Thought, but also of
so beautifully hiding from us the want of Thought! Paper is made from the
rags of things that did once exist; there are endless excellences in
Paper.--What wisest Philosophe, in this halcyon uneventful period, could
prophesy that there was approaching, big with darkness and confusion, the
event of events? Hope ushers in a Revolution,--as earthquakes are preceded
by bright weather. On the Fifth of May, fifteen years hence, old Louis
will not be sending for the Sacraments; but a new Louis, his grandson, with
the whole pomp of astonished intoxicated France, will be opening the
States-General.
Dubarrydom and its D'Aiguillons are gone forever. There is a young, still
docile, well-intentioned King; a young, beautiful and bountiful, well-
intentioned Queen; and with them all France, as it were, become young.
Maupeou and his Parlement have to vanish into thick night; respectable
Magistrates, not indifferent to the Nation, were it only for having been
opponents of the Court, can descend unchained from their 'steep rocks at
Croe in Combrailles' and elsewhere, and return singing praises: the old
Parlement of Paris resumes its functions. Instead of a profligate bankrupt
Abbe Terray, we have now, for Controller-General, a virtuous philosophic
Turgot, with a whole Reformed France in his head. By whom whatsoever is
wrong, in Finance or otherwise, will be righted,--as far as possible. Is
it not as if Wisdom herself were henceforth to have seat and voice in the
Council of Kings? Turgot has taken office with the noblest plainness of
speech to that effect; been listened to with the noblest royal
trustfulness. (Turgot's Letter: Condorcet, Vie de Turgot (Oeuvres de
Condorcet, t. v.), p. 67. The date is 24th August, 1774.) It is true, as
King Louis objects, "They say he never goes to mass;" but liberal France
likes him little worse for that; liberal France answers, "The Abbe Terray
always went." Philosophism sees, for the first time, a Philosophe (or even
a Philosopher) in office: she in all things will applausively second him;
neither will light old Maurepas obstruct, if he can easily help it.
Then how 'sweet' are the manners; vice 'losing all its deformity;' becoming
decent (as established things, making regulations for themselves, do);
becoming almost a kind of 'sweet' virtue! Intelligence so abounds;
irradiated by wit and the art of conversation. Philosophism sits joyful in
her glittering saloons, the dinner-guest of Opulence grown ingenuous, the
very nobles proud to sit by her; and preaches, lifted up over all
Bastilles, a coming millennium. From far Ferney, Patriarch Voltaire gives
sign: veterans Diderot, D'Alembert have lived to see this day; these with
their younger Marmontels, Morellets, Chamforts, Raynals, make glad the
spicy board of rich ministering Dowager, of philosophic Farmer-General. O
nights and suppers of the gods! Of a truth, the long-demonstrated will now
be done: 'the Age of Revolutions approaches' (as Jean Jacques wrote), but
then of happy blessed ones. Man awakens from his long somnambulism; chases
the Phantasms that beleagured and bewitched him. Behold the new morning
glittering down the eastern steeps; fly, false Phantasms, from its shafts
of light; let the Absurd fly utterly forsaking this lower Earth for ever.
It is Truth and Astraea Redux that (in the shape of Philosophism)
henceforth reign. For what imaginable purpose was man made, if not to be
'happy'? By victorious Analysis, and Progress of the Species, happiness
enough now awaits him. Kings can become philosophers; or else philosophers
Kings. Let but Society be once rightly constituted,--by victorious
Analysis. The stomach that is empty shall be filled; the throat that is
dry shall be wetted with wine. Labour itself shall be all one as rest; not
grievous, but joyous. Wheatfields, one would think, cannot come to grow
untilled; no man made clayey, or made weary thereby;--unless indeed
machinery will do it? Gratuitous Tailors and Restaurateurs may start up,
at fit intervals, one as yet sees not how. But if each will, according to
rule of Benevolence, have a care for all, then surely--no one will be
uncared for. Nay, who knows but, by sufficiently victorious Analysis,
'human life may be indefinitely lengthened,' and men get rid of Death, as
they have already done of the Devil? We shall then be happy in spite of
Death and the Devil.--So preaches magniloquent Philosophism her Redeunt
Saturnia regna.
The prophetic song of Paris and its Philosophes is audible enough in the
Versailles Oeil-de-Boeuf; and the Oeil-de-Boeuf, intent chiefly on nearer
blessedness, can answer, at worst, with a polite "Why not?" Good old
cheery Maurepas is too joyful a Prime Minister to dash the world's joy.
Sufficient for the day be its own evil. Cheery old man, he cuts his jokes,
and hovers careless along; his cloak well adjusted to the wind, if so be he
may please all persons. The simple young King, whom a Maurepas cannot
think of troubling with business, has retired into the interior apartments;
taciturn, irresolute; though with a sharpness of temper at times: he, at
length, determines on a little smithwork; and so, in apprenticeship with a
Sieur Gamain (whom one day he shall have little cause to bless), is
learning to make locks. (Campan, i. 125.) It appears further, he
understood Geography; and could read English. Unhappy young King, his
childlike trust in that foolish old Maurepas deserved another return. But
friend and foe, destiny and himself have combined to do him hurt.
Meanwhile the fair young Queen, in her halls of state, walks like a goddess
of Beauty, the cynosure of all eyes; as yet mingles not with affairs; heeds
not the future; least of all, dreads it. Weber and Campan (Ib. i. 100-151.
Weber, i. 11-50.) have pictured her, there within the royal tapestries, in
bright boudoirs, baths, peignoirs, and the Grand and Little Toilette; with
a whole brilliant world waiting obsequious on her glance: fair young
daughter of Time, what things has Time in store for thee! Like Earth's
brightest Appearance, she moves gracefully, environed with the grandeur of
Earth: a reality, and yet a magic vision; for, behold, shall not utter
Darkness swallow it! The soft young heart adopts orphans, portions
meritorious maids, delights to succour the poor,--such poor as come
picturesquely in her way; and sets the fashion of doing it; for as was
said, Benevolence has now begun reigning. In her Duchess de Polignac, in
Princess de Lamballe, she enjoys something almost like friendship; now too,
after seven long years, she has a child, and soon even a Dauphin, of her
own; can reckon herself, as Queens go, happy in a husband.
Events? The Grand events are but charitable Feasts of Morals (Fetes des
moeurs), with their Prizes and Speeches; Poissarde Processions to the
Dauphin's cradle; above all, Flirtations, their rise, progress, decline and
fall. There are Snow-statues raised by the poor in hard winter to a Queen
who has given them fuel. There are masquerades, theatricals; beautifyings
of little Trianon, purchase and repair of St. Cloud; journeyings from the
summer Court-Elysium to the winter one. There are poutings and grudgings
from the Sardinian Sisters-in-law (for the Princes too are wedded); little
jealousies, which Court-Etiquette can moderate. Wholly the lightest-
hearted frivolous foam of Existence; yet an artfully refined foam; pleasant
were it not so costly, like that which mantles on the wine of Champagne!
Monsieur, the King's elder Brother, has set up for a kind of wit; and leans
towards the Philosophe side. Monseigneur d'Artois pulls the mask from a
fair impertinent; fights a duel in consequence,--almost drawing blood.
(Besenval, ii. 282-330.) He has breeches of a kind new in this world;--a
fabulous kind; 'four tall lackeys,' says Mercier, as if he had seen it,
'hold him up in the air, that he may fall into the garment without vestige
of wrinkle; from which rigorous encasement the same four, in the same way,
and with more effort, must deliver him at night.' (Mercier, Nouveau Paris,
iii. 147.) This last is he who now, as a gray time-worn man, sits desolate
at Gratz; (A.D. 1834.) having winded up his destiny with the Three Days.
In such sort are poor mortals swept and shovelled to and fro.
Chapter 1.2.II.
Petition in Hieroglyphs.
With the working people, again it is not so well. Unlucky! For there are
twenty to twenty-five millions of them. Whom, however, we lump together
into a kind of dim compendious unity, monstrous but dim, far off, as the
canaille; or, more humanely, as 'the masses.' Masses, indeed: and yet,
singular to say, if, with an effort of imagination, thou follow them, over
broad France, into their clay hovels, into their garrets and hutches, the
masses consist all of units. Every unit of whom has his own heart and
sorrows; stands covered there with his own skin, and if you prick him he
will bleed. O purple Sovereignty, Holiness, Reverence; thou, for example,
Cardinal Grand-Almoner, with thy plush covering of honour, who hast thy
hands strengthened with dignities and moneys, and art set on thy world
watch-tower solemnly, in sight of God, for such ends,--what a thought:
that every unit of these masses is a miraculous Man, even as thyself art;
struggling, with vision, or with blindness, for his infinite Kingdom (this
life which he has got, once only, in the middle of Eternities); with a
spark of the Divinity, what thou callest an immortal soul, in him!
Dreary, languid do these struggle in their obscure remoteness; their hearth
cheerless, their diet thin. For them, in this world, rises no Era of Hope;
hardly now in the other,--if it be not hope in the gloomy rest of Death,
for their faith too is failing. Untaught, uncomforted, unfed! A dumb
generation; their voice only an inarticulate cry: spokesman, in the King's
Council, in the world's forum, they have none that finds credence. At rare
intervals (as now, in 1775), they will fling down their hoes and hammers;
and, to the astonishment of thinking mankind, (Lacretelle, France pendant
le 18me Siecle, ii. 455. Biographie Universelle, para Turgot (by
Durozoir).) flock hither and thither, dangerous, aimless; get the length
even of Versailles. Turgot is altering the Corn-trade, abrogating the
absurdest Corn-laws; there is dearth, real, or were it even 'factitious;'
an indubitable scarcity of bread. And so, on the second day of May 1775,
these waste multitudes do here, at Versailles Chateau, in wide-spread
wretchedness, in sallow faces, squalor, winged raggedness, present, as in
legible hieroglyphic writing, their Petition of Grievances. The Chateau
gates have to be shut; but the King will appear on the balcony, and speak
to them. They have seen the King's face; their Petition of Grievances has
been, if not read, looked at. For answer, two of them are hanged, 'on a
new gallows forty feet high;' and the rest driven back to their dens,--for
a time.
Clearly a difficult 'point' for Government, that of dealing with these
masses;--if indeed it be not rather the sole point and problem of
Government, and all other points mere accidental crotchets,
superficialities, and beatings of the wind! For let Charter-Chests, Use
and Wont, Law common and special say what they will, the masses count to so
many millions of units; made, to all appearance, by God,--whose Earth this
is declared to be. Besides, the people are not without ferocity; they have
sinews and indignation. Do but look what holiday old Marquis Mirabeau, the
crabbed old friend of Men, looked on, in these same years, from his
lodging, at the Baths of Mont d'Or: 'The savages descending in torrents
from the mountains; our people ordered not to go out. The Curate in
surplice and stole; Justice in its peruke; Marechausee sabre in hand,
guarding the place, till the bagpipes can begin. The dance interrupted, in
a quarter of an hour, by battle; the cries, the squealings of children, of
infirm persons, and other assistants, tarring them on, as the rabble does
when dogs fight: frightful men, or rather frightful wild animals, clad in
jupes of coarse woollen, with large girdles of leather studded with copper
nails; of gigantic stature, heightened by high wooden-clogs (sabots);
rising on tiptoe to see the fight; tramping time to it; rubbing their sides
with their elbows: their faces haggard (figures haves), and covered with
their long greasy hair; the upper part of the visage waxing pale, the lower
distorting itself into the attempt at a cruel laugh and a sort of ferocious
impatience. And these people pay the taille! And you want further to take
their salt from them! And you know not what it is you are stripping barer,
or as you call it, governing; what by the spurt of your pen, in its cold
dastard indifference, you will fancy you can starve always with impunity;
always till the catastrophe come!--Ah Madame, such Government by
Blindman's-buff, stumbling along too far, will end in the General Overturn
(culbute generale). (Memoires de Mirabeau, ecrits par Lui-meme, par son
Pere, son Oncle et son Fils Adoptif (Paris, 34-5), ii.186.)
Undoubtedly a dark feature this in an Age of Gold,--Age, at least, of Paper
and Hope! Meanwhile, trouble us not with thy prophecies, O croaking Friend
of Men: 'tis long that we have heard such; and still the old world keeps
wagging, in its old way.
Chapter 1.2.III.
Questionable.
Or is this same Age of Hope itself but a simulacrum; as Hope too often is?
Cloud-vapour with rainbows painted on it, beautiful to see, to sail
towards,--which hovers over Niagara Falls? In that case, victorious
Analysis will have enough to do.
Alas, yes! a whole world to remake, if she could see it; work for another
than she! For all is wrong, and gone out of joint; the inward spiritual,
and the outward economical; head or heart, there is no soundness in it. As
indeed, evils of all sorts are more or less of kin, and do usually go
together: especially it is an old truth, that wherever huge physical evil
is, there, as the parent and origin of it, has moral evil to a
proportionate extent been. Before those five-and-twenty labouring
Millions, for instance, could get that haggardness of face, which old
Mirabeau now looks on, in a Nation calling itself Christian, and calling
man the brother of man,--what unspeakable, nigh infinite Dishonesty (of
seeming and not being) in all manner of Rulers, and appointed Watchers,
spiritual and temporal, must there not, through long ages, have gone on
accumulating! It will accumulate: moreover, it will reach a head; for the
first of all Gospels is this, that a Lie cannot endure for ever.
In fact, if we pierce through that rosepink vapour of Sentimentalism,
Philanthropy, and Feasts of Morals, there lies behind it one of the
sorriest spectacles. You might ask, What bonds that ever held a human
society happily together, or held it together at all, are in force here?
It is an unbelieving people; which has suppositions, hypotheses, and froth-
systems of victorious Analysis; and for belief this mainly, that Pleasure
is pleasant. Hunger they have for all sweet things; and the law of Hunger;
but what other law? Within them, or over them, properly none!
Their King has become a King Popinjay; with his Maurepas Government,
gyrating as the weather-cock does, blown about by every wind. Above them
they see no God; or they even do not look above, except with astronomical
glasses. The Church indeed still is; but in the most submissive state;
quite tamed by Philosophism; in a singularly short time; for the hour was
come. Some twenty years ago, your Archbishop Beaumont would not even let
the poor Jansenists get buried: your Lomenie Brienne (a rising man, whom
we shall meet with yet) could, in the name of the Clergy, insist on having
the Anti-protestant laws, which condemn to death for preaching, 'put in
execution.' (Boissy d'Anglas, Vie de Malesherbes, i. 15-22.) And, alas,
now not so much as Baron Holbach's Atheism can be burnt,--except as pipe-
matches by the private speculative individual. Our Church stands haltered,
dumb, like a dumb ox; lowing only for provender (of tithes); content if it
can have that; or, dumbly, dully expecting its further doom. And the
Twenty Millions of 'haggard faces;' and, as finger-post and guidance to
them in their dark struggle, 'a gallows forty feet high'! Certainly a
singular Golden Age; with its Feasts of Morals, its 'sweet manners,' its
sweet institutions (institutions douces); betokening nothing but peace
among men!--Peace? O Philosophe-Sentimentalism, what hast thou to do with
peace, when thy mother's name is Jezebel? Foul Product of still fouler
Corruption, thou with the corruption art doomed!
Meanwhile it is singular how long the rotten will hold together, provided
you do not handle it roughly. For whole generations it continues standing,
'with a ghastly affectation of life,' after all life and truth has fled out
of it; so loth are men to quit their old ways; and, conquering indolence
and inertia, venture on new. Great truly is the Actual; is the Thing that
has rescued itself from bottomless deeps of theory and possibility, and
stands there as a definite indisputable Fact, whereby men do work and live,
or once did so. Widely shall men cleave to that, while it will endure; and
quit it with regret, when it gives way under them. Rash enthusiast of
Change, beware! Hast thou well considered all that Habit does in this life
of ours; how all Knowledge and all Practice hang wondrous over infinite
abysses of the Unknown, Impracticable; and our whole being is an infinite
abyss, over-arched by Habit, as by a thin Earth-rind, laboriously built
together?
But if 'every man,' as it has been written, 'holds confined within him a
mad-man,' what must every Society do;--Society, which in its commonest
state is called 'the standing miracle of this world'! 'Without such Earth-
rind of Habit,' continues our author, 'call it System of Habits, in a word,
fixed ways of acting and of believing,--Society would not exist at all.
With such it exists, better or worse. Herein too, in this its System of
Habits, acquired, retained how you will, lies the true Law-Code and
Constitution of a Society; the only Code, though an unwritten one which it
can in nowise disobey. The thing we call written Code, Constitution, Form
of Government, and the like, what is it but some miniature image, and
solemnly expressed summary of this unwritten Code? Is,--or rather alas, is
not; but only should be, and always tends to be! In which latter
discrepancy lies struggle without end.' And now, we add in the same
dialect, let but, by ill chance, in such ever-enduring struggle,--your
'thin Earth-rind' be once broken! The fountains of the great deep boil
forth; fire-fountains, enveloping, engulfing. Your 'Earth-rind' is
shattered, swallowed up; instead of a green flowery world, there is a waste
wild-weltering chaos:--which has again, with tumult and struggle, to make
itself into a world.
On the other hand, be this conceded: Where thou findest a Lie that is
oppressing thee, extinguish it. Lies exist there only to be extinguished;
they wait and cry earnestly for extinction. Think well, meanwhile, in what
spirit thou wilt do it: not with hatred, with headlong selfish violence;
but in clearness of heart, with holy zeal, gently, almost with pity. Thou
wouldst not replace such extinct Lie by a new Lie, which a new Injustice of
thy own were; the parent of still other Lies? Whereby the latter end of
that business were worse than the beginning.
So, however, in this world of ours, which has both an indestructible hope
in the Future, and an indestructible tendency to persevere as in the Past,
must Innovation and Conservation wage their perpetual conflict, as they may
and can. Wherein the 'daemonic element,' that lurks in all human things,
may doubtless, some once in the thousand years--get vent! But indeed may
we not regret that such conflict,--which, after all, is but like that
classical one of 'hate-filled Amazons with heroic Youths,' and will end in
embraces,--should usually be so spasmodic? For Conservation, strengthened
by that mightiest quality in us, our indolence, sits for long ages, not
victorious only, which she should be; but tyrannical, incommunicative. She
holds her adversary as if annihilated; such adversary lying, all the while,
like some buried Enceladus; who, to gain the smallest freedom, must stir a
whole Trinacria with it Aetnas.
Wherefore, on the whole, we will honour a Paper Age too; an Era of hope!
For in this same frightful process of Enceladus Revolt; when the task, on
which no mortal would willingly enter, has become imperative, inevitable,--
is it not even a kindness of Nature that she lures us forward by cheerful
promises, fallacious or not; and a whole generation plunges into the Erebus
Blackness, lighted on by an Era of Hope? It has been well said: 'Man is
based on Hope; he has properly no other possession but Hope; this
habitation of his is named the Place of Hope.'
Chapter 1.2.IV.
Maurepas.
But now, among French hopes, is not that of old M. de Maurepas one of the
best-grounded; who hopes that he, by dexterity, shall contrive to continue
Minister? Nimble old man, who for all emergencies has his light jest; and
ever in the worst confusion will emerge, cork-like, unsunk! Small care to
him is Perfectibility, Progress of the Species, and Astraea Redux: good
only, that a man of light wit, verging towards fourscore, can in the seat
of authority feel himself important among men. Shall we call him, as
haughty Chateauroux was wont of old, 'M. Faquinet (Diminutive of
Scoundrel)'? In courtier dialect, he is now named 'the Nestor of France;'
such governing Nestor as France has.
At bottom, nevertheless, it might puzzle one to say where the Government of
France, in these days, specially is. In that Chateau of Versailles, we
have Nestor, King, Queen, ministers and clerks, with paper-bundles tied in
tape: but the Government? For Government is a thing that governs, that
guides; and if need be, compels. Visible in France there is not such a
thing. Invisible, inorganic, on the other hand, there is: in Philosophe
saloons, in Oeil-de-Boeuf galleries; in the tongue of the babbler, in the
pen of the pamphleteer. Her Majesty appearing at the Opera is applauded;
she returns all radiant with joy. Anon the applauses wax fainter, or
threaten to cease; she is heavy of heart, the light of her face has fled.
Is Sovereignty some poor Montgolfier; which, blown into by the popular
wind, grows great and mounts; or sinks flaccid, if the wind be withdrawn?
France was long a 'Despotism tempered by Epigrams;' and now, it would seem,
the Epigrams have get the upper hand.
Happy were a young 'Louis the Desired' to make France happy; if it did not
prove too troublesome, and he only knew the way. But there is endless
discrepancy round him; so many claims and clamours; a mere confusion of
tongues. Not reconcilable by man; not manageable, suppressible, save by
some strongest and wisest men;--which only a lightly-jesting lightly-
gyrating M. de Maurepas can so much as subsist amidst. Philosophism claims
her new Era, meaning thereby innumerable things. And claims it in no faint
voice; for France at large, hitherto mute, is now beginning to speak also;
and speaks in that same sense. A huge, many-toned sound; distant, yet not
unimpressive. On the other hand, the Oeil-de-Boeuf, which, as nearest, one
can hear best, claims with shrill vehemence that the Monarchy be as
heretofore a Horn of Plenty; wherefrom loyal courtiers may draw,--to the
just support of the throne. Let Liberalism and a New Era, if such is the
wish, be introduced; only no curtailment of the royal moneys? Which latter
condition, alas, is precisely the impossible one.
Philosophism, as we saw, has got her Turgot made Controller-General; and
there shall be endless reformation. Unhappily this Turgot could continue
only twenty months. With a miraculous Fortunatus' Purse in his Treasury,
it might have lasted longer; with such Purse indeed, every French
Controller-General, that would prosper in these days, ought first to
provide himself. But here again may we not remark the bounty of Nature in
regard to Hope? Man after man advances confident to the Augean Stable, as
if he could clean it; expends his little fraction of an ability on it, with
such cheerfulness; does, in so far as he was honest, accomplish something.
Turgot has faculties; honesty, insight, heroic volition; but the
Fortunatus' Purse he has not. Sanguine Controller-General! a whole pacific
French Revolution may stand schemed in the head of the thinker; but who
shall pay the unspeakable 'indemnities' that will be needed? Alas, far
from that: on the very threshold of the business, he proposes that the
Clergy, the Noblesse, the very Parlements be subjected to taxes! One
shriek of indignation and astonishment reverberates through all the Chateau
galleries; M. de Maurepas has to gyrate: the poor King, who had written
few weeks ago, 'Il n'y a que vous et moi qui aimions le peuple (There is
none but you and I that has the people's interest at heart),' must write
now a dismissal; (In May, 1776.) and let the French Revolution accomplish
itself, pacifically or not, as it can.
Hope, then, is deferred? Deferred; not destroyed, or abated. Is not this,
for example, our Patriarch Voltaire, after long years of absence,
revisiting Paris? With face shrivelled to nothing; with 'huge peruke a la
Louis Quatorze, which leaves only two eyes "visible" glittering like
carbuncles,' the old man is here. (February, 1778.) What an outburst!
Sneering Paris has suddenly grown reverent; devotional with Hero-worship.
Nobles have disguised themselves as tavern-waiters to obtain sight of him:
the loveliest of France would lay their hair beneath his feet. 'His
chariot is the nucleus of a comet; whose train fills whole streets:' they
crown him in the theatre, with immortal vivats; 'finally stifle him under
roses,'--for old Richelieu recommended opium in such state of the nerves,
and the excessive Patriarch took too much. Her Majesty herself had some
thought of sending for him; but was dissuaded. Let Majesty consider it,
nevertheless. The purport of this man's existence has been to wither up
and annihilate all whereon Majesty and Worship for the present rests: and
is it so that the world recognises him? With Apotheosis; as its Prophet
and Speaker, who has spoken wisely the thing it longed to say? Add only,
that the body of this same rose-stifled, beatified-Patriarch cannot get
buried except by stealth. It is wholly a notable business; and France,
without doubt, is big (what the Germans call 'Of good Hope'): we shall
wish her a happy birth-hour, and blessed fruit.
Beaumarchais too has now winded-up his Law-Pleadings (Memoires); (1773-6.
See Oeuvres de Beaumarchais; where they, and the history of them, are
given.) not without result, to himself and to the world. Caron
Beaumarchais (or de Beaumarchais, for he got ennobled) had been born poor,
but aspiring, esurient; with talents, audacity, adroitness; above all, with
the talent for intrigue: a lean, but also a tough, indomitable man.
Fortune and dexterity brought him to the harpsichord of Mesdames, our good
Princesses Loque, Graille and Sisterhood. Still better, Paris Duvernier,
the Court-Banker, honoured him with some confidence; to the length even of
transactions in cash. Which confidence, however, Duvernier's Heir, a
person of quality, would not continue. Quite otherwise; there springs a
Lawsuit from it: wherein tough Beaumarchais, losing both money and repute,
is, in the opinion of Judge-Reporter Goezman, of the Parlement Maupeou, of
a whole indifferent acquiescing world, miserably beaten. In all men's
opinions, only not in his own! Inspired by the indignation, which makes,
if not verses, satirical law-papers, the withered Music-master, with a
desperate heroism, takes up his lost cause in spite of the world; fights
for it, against Reporters, Parlements and Principalities, with light
banter, with clear logic; adroitly, with an inexhaustible toughness and
resource, like the skilfullest fencer; on whom, so skilful is he, the whole
world now looks. Three long years it lasts; with wavering fortune. In
fine, after labours comparable to the Twelve of Hercules, our unconquerable
Caron triumphs; regains his Lawsuit and Lawsuits; strips Reporter Goezman
of the judicial ermine; covering him with a perpetual garment of obloquy
instead:--and in regard to the Parlement Maupeou (which he has helped to
extinguish), to Parlements of all kinds, and to French Justice generally,
gives rise to endless reflections in the minds of men. Thus has
Beaumarchais, like a lean French Hercules, ventured down, driven by
destiny, into the Nether Kingdoms; and victoriously tamed hell-dogs there.
He also is henceforth among the notabilities of his generation.
Chapter 1.2.V.
Astraea Redux without Cash.
Observe, however, beyond the Atlantic, has not the new day verily dawned!
Democracy, as we said, is born; storm-girt, is struggling for life and
victory. A sympathetic France rejoices over the Rights of Man; in all
saloons, it is said, What a spectacle! Now too behold our Deane, our
Franklin, American Plenipotentiaries, here in position soliciting; (1777;
Deane somewhat earlier: Franklin remained till 1785.) the sons of the
Saxon Puritans, with their Old-Saxon temper, Old-Hebrew culture, sleek
Silas, sleek Benjamin, here on such errand, among the light children of
Heathenism, Monarchy, Sentimentalism, and the Scarlet-woman. A spectacle
indeed; over which saloons may cackle joyous; though Kaiser Joseph,
questioned on it, gave this answer, most unexpected from a Philosophe:
"Madame, the trade I live by is that of royalist (Mon metier a moi c'est
d'etre royaliste)."
So thinks light Maurepas too; but the wind of Philosophism and force of
public opinion will blow him round. Best wishes, meanwhile, are sent;
clandestine privateers armed. Paul Jones shall equip his Bon Homme
Richard: weapons, military stores can be smuggled over (if the English do
not seize them); wherein, once more Beaumarchais, dimly as the Giant
Smuggler becomes visible,--filling his own lank pocket withal. But surely,
in any case, France should have a Navy. For which great object were not
now the time: now when that proud Termagant of the Seas has her hands
full? It is true, an impoverished Treasury cannot build ships; but the
hint once given (which Beaumarchais says he gave), this and the other loyal
Seaport, Chamber of Commerce, will build and offer them. Goodly vessels
bound into the waters; a Ville de Paris, Leviathan of ships.
And now when gratuitous three-deckers dance there at anchor, with streamers
flying; and eleutheromaniac Philosophedom grows ever more clamorous, what
can a Maurepas do--but gyrate? Squadrons cross the ocean: Gages, Lees,
rough Yankee Generals, 'with woollen night-caps under their hats,' present
arms to the far-glancing Chivalry of France; and new-born Democracy sees,
not without amazement, 'Despotism tempered by Epigrams fight at her side.
So, however, it is. King's forces and heroic volunteers; Rochambeaus,
Bouilles, Lameths, Lafayettes, have drawn their swords in this sacred
quarrel of mankind;--shall draw them again elsewhere, in the strangest way.
Off Ushant some naval thunder is heard. In the course of which did our
young Prince, Duke de Chartres, 'hide in the hold;' or did he materially,
by active heroism, contribute to the victory? Alas, by a second edition,
we learn that there was no victory; or that English Keppel had it. (27th
July, 1778.) Our poor young Prince gets his Opera plaudits changed into
mocking tehees; and cannot become Grand-Admiral,--the source to him of woes
which one may call endless.
Woe also for Ville de Paris, the Leviathan of ships! English Rodney has
clutched it, and led it home, with the rest; so successful was his new
'manoeuvre of breaking the enemy's line.' (9th and 12th April, 1782.) It
seems as if, according to Louis XV., 'France were never to have a Navy.'
Brave Suffren must return from Hyder Ally and the Indian Waters; with small
result; yet with great glory for 'six non-defeats;--which indeed, with such
seconding as he had, one may reckon heroic. Let the old sea-hero rest now,
honoured of France, in his native Cevennes mountains; send smoke, not of
gunpowder, but mere culinary smoke, through the old chimneys of the Castle
of Jales,--which one day, in other hands, shall have other fame. Brave
Laperouse shall by and by lift anchor, on philanthropic Voyage of
Discovery; for the King knows Geography. (August 1st, 1785.) But, alas,
this also will not prosper: the brave Navigator goes, and returns not; the
Seekers search far seas for him in vain. He has vanished trackless into
blue Immensity; and only some mournful mysterious shadow of him hovers long
in all heads and hearts.
Neither, while the War yet lasts, will Gibraltar surrender. Not though
Crillon, Nassau-Siegen, with the ablest projectors extant, are there; and
Prince Conde and Prince d'Artois have hastened to help. Wondrous leather-
roofed Floating-batteries, set afloat by French-Spanish Pacte de Famille,
give gallant summons: to which, nevertheless, Gibraltar answers
Plutonically, with mere torrents of redhot iron,--as if stone Calpe had
become a throat of the Pit; and utters such a Doom's-blast of a No, as all
men must credit. (Annual Register (Dodsley's), xxv. 258-267. September,
October, 1782.)
And so, with this loud explosion, the noise of War has ceased; an Age of
Benevolence may hope, for ever. Our noble volunteers of Freedom have
returned, to be her missionaries. Lafayette, as the matchless of his time,
glitters in the Versailles Oeil-de-Beouf; has his Bust set up in the Paris
Hotel-de-Ville. Democracy stands inexpugnable, immeasurable, in her New
World; has even a foot lifted towards the Old;--and our French Finances,
little strengthened by such work, are in no healthy way.
What to do with the Finance? This indeed is the great question: a small
but most black weather-symptom, which no radiance of universal hope can
cover. We saw Turgot cast forth from the Controllership, with shrieks,--
for want of a Fortunatus' Purse. As little could M. de Clugny manage the
duty; or indeed do anything, but consume his wages; attain 'a place in
History,' where as an ineffectual shadow thou beholdest him still
lingering;--and let the duty manage itself. Did Genevese Necker possess
such a Purse, then? He possessed banker's skill, banker's honesty; credit
of all kinds, for he had written Academic Prize Essays, struggled for India
Companies, given dinners to Philosophes, and 'realised a fortune in twenty
years.' He possessed, further, a taciturnity and solemnity; of depth, or
else of dulness. How singular for Celadon Gibbon, false swain as he had
proved; whose father, keeping most probably his own gig, 'would not hear of
such a union,'--to find now his forsaken Demoiselle Curchod sitting in the
high places of the world, as Minister's Madame, and 'Necker not jealous!'
(Gibbon's Letters: date, 16th June, 1777, &c.)
A new young Demoiselle, one day to be famed as a Madame and De Stael, was
romping about the knees of the Decline and Fall: the lady Necker founds
Hospitals; gives solemn Philosophe dinner-parties, to cheer her exhausted
Controller-General. Strange things have happened: by clamour of
Philosophism, management of Marquis de Pezay, and Poverty constraining even
Kings. And so Necker, Atlas-like, sustains the burden of the Finances, for
five years long? (Till May, 1781.) Without wages, for he refused such;
cheered only by Public Opinion, and the ministering of his noble Wife.
With many thoughts in him, it is hoped;--which, however, he is shy of
uttering. His Compte Rendu, published by the royal permission, fresh sign
of a New Era, shows wonders;--which what but the genius of some Atlas-
Necker can prevent from becoming portents? In Necker's head too there is a
whole pacific French Revolution, of its kind; and in that taciturn dull
depth, or deep dulness, ambition enough.
Meanwhile, alas, his Fotunatus' Purse turns out to be little other than the
old 'vectigal of Parsimony.' Nay, he too has to produce his scheme of
taxing: Clergy, Noblesse to be taxed; Provincial Assemblies, and the
rest,--like a mere Turgot! The expiring M. de Maurepas must gyrate one
other time. Let Necker also depart; not unlamented.
Great in a private station, Necker looks on from the distance; abiding his
time. 'Eighty thousand copies' of his new Book, which he calls
Administration des Finances, will be sold in few days. He is gone; but
shall return, and that more than once, borne by a whole shouting Nation.
Singular Controller-General of the Finances; once Clerk in Thelusson's
Bank!
Chapter 1.2.VI.
Windbags.
So marches the world, in this its Paper Age, or Era of Hope. Not without
obstructions, war-explosions; which, however, heard from such distance, are
little other than a cheerful marching-music. If indeed that dark living
chaos of Ignorance and Hunger, five-and-twenty million strong, under your
feet,--were to begin playing!
For the present, however, consider Longchamp; now when Lent is ending, and
the glory of Paris and France has gone forth, as in annual wont. Not to
assist at Tenebris Masses, but to sun itself and show itself, and salute
the Young Spring. (Mercier, Tableau de Paris, ii. 51. Louvet, Roman de
Faublas, &c.) Manifold, bright-tinted, glittering with gold; all through
the Bois de Boulogne, in longdrawn variegated rows;--like longdrawn living
flower-borders, tulips, dahlias, lilies of the valley; all in their moving
flower-pots (of new-gilt carriages): pleasure of the eye, and pride of
life! So rolls and dances the Procession: steady, of firm assurance, as
if it rolled on adamant and the foundations of the world; not on mere
heraldic parchment,--under which smoulders a lake of fire. Dance on, ye
foolish ones; ye sought not wisdom, neither have ye found it. Ye and your
fathers have sown the wind, ye shall reap the whirlwind. Was it not, from
of old, written: The wages of sin is death?
But at Longchamp, as elsewhere, we remark for one thing, that dame and
cavalier are waited on each by a kind of human familiar, named jokei.
Little elf, or imp; though young, already withered; with its withered air
of premature vice, of knowingness, of completed elf-hood: useful in
various emergencies. The name jokei (jockey) comes from the English; as
the thing also fancies that it does. Our Anglomania, in fact , is grown
considerable; prophetic of much. If France is to be free, why shall she
not, now when mad war is hushed, love neighbouring Freedom? Cultivated
men, your Dukes de Liancourt, de la Rochefoucault admire the English
Constitution, the English National Character; would import what of it they
can.
Of what is lighter, especially if it be light as wind, how much easier the
freightage! Non-Admiral Duke de Chartres (not yet d'Orleans or Egalite)
flies to and fro across the Strait; importing English Fashions; this he, as
hand-and-glove with an English Prince of Wales, is surely qualified to do.
Carriages and saddles; top-boots and redingotes, as we call riding-coats.
Nay the very mode of riding: for now no man on a level with his age but
will trot a l'Anglaise, rising in the stirrups; scornful of the old sitfast
method, in which, according to Shakspeare, 'butter and eggs' go to market.
Also, he can urge the fervid wheels, this brave Chartres of ours; no whip
in Paris is rasher and surer than the unprofessional one of Monseigneur.
Elf jokeis, we have seen; but see now real Yorkshire jockeys, and what they
ride on, and train: English racers for French Races. These likewise we
owe first (under the Providence of the Devil) to Monseigneur. Prince
d'Artois also has his stud of racers. Prince d'Artois has withal the
strangest horseleech: a moonstruck, much-enduring individual, of Neuchatel
in Switzerland,--named Jean Paul Marat. A problematic Chevalier d'Eon, now
in petticoats, now in breeches, is no less problematic in London than in
Paris; and causes bets and lawsuits. Beautiful days of international
communion! Swindlery and Blackguardism have stretched hands across the
Channel, and saluted mutually: on the racecourse of Vincennes or Sablons,
behold in English curricle-and-four, wafted glorious among the
principalities and rascalities, an English Dr. Dodd, (Adelung, Geschichte
der Menschlichen Narrheit, para Dodd.)--for whom also the too early gallows
gapes.
Duke de Chartres was a young Prince of great promise, as young Princes
often are; which promise unfortunately has belied itself. With the huge
Orleans Property, with Duke de Penthievre for Father-in-law (and now the
young Brother-in-law Lamballe killed by excesses),--he will one day be the
richest man in France. Meanwhile, 'his hair is all falling out, his blood
is quite spoiled,'--by early transcendentalism of debauchery. Carbuncles
stud his face; dark studs on a ground of burnished copper. A most signal
failure, this young Prince! The stuff prematurely burnt out of him:
little left but foul smoke and ashes of expiring sensualities: what might
have been Thought, Insight, and even Conduct, gone now, or fast going,--to
confused darkness, broken by bewildering dazzlements; to obstreperous
crotchets; to activities which you may call semi-delirious, or even semi-
galvanic! Paris affects to laugh at his charioteering; but he heeds not
such laughter.
On the other hand, what a day, not of laughter, was that, when he
threatened, for lucre's sake, to lay sacrilegious hand on the Palais-Royal
Garden! (1781-82. (Dulaure, viii. 423.)) The flower-parterres shall be
riven up; the Chestnut Avenues shall fall: time-honoured boscages, under
which the Opera Hamadryads were wont to wander, not inexorable to men.
Paris moans aloud. Philidor, from his Cafe de la Regence, shall no longer
look on greenness; the loungers and losels of the world, where now shall
they haunt? In vain is moaning. The axe glitters; the sacred groves fall
crashing,--for indeed Monseigneur was short of money: the Opera Hamadryads
fly with shrieks. Shriek not, ye Opera Hamadryads; or not as those that
have no comfort. He will surround your Garden with new edifices and
piazzas: though narrowed, it shall be replanted; dizened with hydraulic
jets, cannon which the sun fires at noon; things bodily, things spiritual,
such as man has not imagined;--and in the Palais-Royal shall again, and
more than ever, be the Sorcerer's Sabbath and Satan-at-Home of our Planet.
What will not mortals attempt? From remote Annonay in the Vivarais, the
Brothers Montgolfier send up their paper-dome, filled with the smoke of
burnt wool. (5th June, 1783.) The Vivarais provincial assembly is to be
prorogued this same day: Vivarais Assembly-members applaud, and the shouts
of congregated men. Will victorious Analysis scale the very Heavens, then?
Paris hears with eager wonder; Paris shall ere long see. From Reveilion's
Paper-warehouse there, in the Rue St. Antoine (a noted Warehouse),--the new
Montgolfier air-ship launches itself. Ducks and poultry are borne skyward:
but now shall men be borne. (October and November, 1783.) Nay, Chemist
Charles thinks of hydrogen and glazed silk. Chemist Charles will himself
ascend, from the Tuileries Garden; Montgolfier solemnly cutting the cord.
By Heaven, he also mounts, he and another? Ten times ten thousand hearts
go palpitating; all tongues are mute with wonder and fear; till a shout,
like the voice of seas, rolls after him, on his wild way. He soars, he
dwindles upwards; has become a mere gleaming circlet,--like some Turgotine
snuff-box, what we call 'Turgotine Platitude;' like some new daylight Moon!
Finally he descends; welcomed by the universe. Duchess Polignac, with a
party, is in the Bois de Boulogne, waiting; though it is drizzly winter;
the 1st of December 1783. The whole chivalry of France, Duke de Chartres
foremost, gallops to receive him. (Lacretelle, 18me Siecle, iii. 258.)
Beautiful invention; mounting heavenward, so beautifully,--so unguidably!
Emblem of much, and of our Age of Hope itself; which shall mount,
specifically-light, majestically in this same manner; and hover,--tumbling
whither Fate will. Well if it do not, Pilatre-like, explode; and demount
all the more tragically!--So, riding on windbags, will men scale the
Empyrean.
Or observe Herr Doctor Mesmer, in his spacious Magnetic Halls. Long-stoled
he walks; reverend, glancing upwards, as in rapt commerce; an Antique
Egyptian Hierophant in this new age. Soft music flits; breaking fitfully
the sacred stillness. Round their Magnetic Mystery, which to the eye is
mere tubs with water,--sit breathless, rod in hand, the circles of Beauty
and Fashion, each circle a living circular Passion-Flower: expecting the
magnetic afflatus, and new-manufactured Heaven-on-Earth. O women, O men,
great is your infidel-faith! A Parlementary Duport, a Bergasse,
D'Espremenil we notice there; Chemist Berthollet too,--on the part of
Monseigneur de Chartres.
Had not the Academy of Sciences, with its Baillys, Franklins, Lavoisiers,
interfered! But it did interfere. (Lacretelle, 18me Siecle, iii.258.)
Mesmer may pocket his hard money, and withdraw. Let him walk silent by the
shore of the Bodensee, by the ancient town of Constance; meditating on
much. For so, under the strangest new vesture, the old great truth (since
no vesture can hide it) begins again to be revealed: That man is what we
call a miraculous creature, with miraculous power over men; and, on the
whole, with such a Life in him, and such a World round him, as victorious
Analysis, with her Physiologies, Nervous-systems, Physic and Metaphysic,
will never completely name, to say nothing of explaining. Wherein also the
Quack shall, in all ages, come in for his share. (August, 1784.)
Chapter 1.2.VII.
Contrat Social.
In such succession of singular prismatic tints, flush after flush suffusing
our horizon, does the Era of Hope dawn on towards fulfilment.
Questionable! As indeed, with an Era of Hope that rests on mere universal
Benevolence, victorious Analysis, Vice cured of its deformity; and, in the
long run, on Twenty-five dark savage Millions, looking up, in hunger and
weariness, to that Ecce-signum of theirs 'forty feet high,'--how could it
but be questionable?
Through all time, if we read aright, sin was, is, will be, the parent of
misery. This land calls itself most Christian, and has crosses and
cathedrals; but its High-priest is some Roche-Aymon, some Necklace-Cardinal
Louis de Rohan. The voice of the poor, through long years, ascends
inarticulate, in Jacqueries, meal-mobs; low-whimpering of infinite moan:
unheeded of the Earth; not unheeded of Heaven. Always moreover where the
Millions are wretched, there are the Thousands straitened, unhappy; only
the Units can flourish; or say rather, be ruined the last. Industry, all
noosed and haltered, as if it too were some beast of chase for the mighty
hunters of this world to bait, and cut slices from,--cries passionately to
these its well-paid guides and watchers, not, Guide me; but, Laissez faire,
Leave me alone of your guidance! What market has Industry in this France?
For two things there may be market and demand: for the coarser kind of
field-fruits, since the Millions will live: for the fine kinds of luxury
and spicery,--of multiform taste, from opera-melodies down to racers and
courtesans; since the Units will be amused. It is at bottom but a mad
state of things.
To mend and remake all which we have, indeed, victorious Analysis. Honour
to victorious Analysis; nevertheless, out of the Workshop and Laboratory,
what thing was victorious Analysis yet known to make? Detection of
incoherences, mainly; destruction of the incoherent. From of old, Doubt
was but half a magician; she evokes the spectres which she cannot quell.
We shall have 'endless vortices of froth-logic;' whereon first words, and
then things, are whirled and swallowed. Remark, accordingly, as
acknowledged grounds of Hope, at bottom mere precursors of Despair, this
perpetual theorising about Man, the Mind of Man, Philosophy of Government,
Progress of the Species and such-like; the main thinking furniture of every
head. Time, and so many Montesquieus, Mablys, spokesmen of Time, have
discovered innumerable things: and now has not Jean Jacques promulgated
his new Evangel of a Contrat Social; explaining the whole mystery of
Government, and how it is contracted and bargained for,--to universal
satisfaction? Theories of Government! Such have been, and will be; in
ages of decadence. Acknowledge them in their degree; as processes of
Nature, who does nothing in vain; as steps in her great process.
Meanwhile, what theory is so certain as this, That all theories, were they
never so earnest, painfully elaborated, are, and, by the very conditions of
them, must be incomplete, questionable, and even false? Thou shalt know
that this Universe is, what it professes to be, an infinite one. Attempt
not to swallow it, for thy logical digestion; be thankful, if skilfully
planting down this and the other fixed pillar in the chaos, thou prevent
its swallowing thee. That a new young generation has exchanged the Sceptic
Creed, What shall I believe? for passionate Faith in this Gospel according
to Jean Jacques is a further step in the business; and betokens much.
Blessed also is Hope; and always from the beginning there was some
Millennium prophesied; Millennium of Holiness; but (what is notable) never
till this new Era, any Millennium of mere Ease and plentiful Supply. In
such prophesied Lubberland, of Happiness, Benevolence, and Vice cured of
its deformity, trust not, my friends! Man is not what one calls a happy
animal; his appetite for sweet victual is so enormous. How, in this wild
Universe, which storms in on him, infinite, vague-menacing, shall poor man
find, say not happiness, but existence, and footing to stand on, if it be
not by girding himself together for continual endeavour and endurance?
Woe, if in his heart there dwelt no devout Faith; if the word Duty had lost
its meaning for him! For as to this of Sentimentalism, so useful for
weeping with over romances and on pathetic occasions, it otherwise verily
will avail nothing; nay less. The healthy heart that said to itself, 'How
healthy am I!' was already fallen into the fatalest sort of disease. Is
not Sentimentalism twin-sister to Cant, if not one and the same with it?
Is not Cant the materia prima of the Devil; from which all falsehoods,
imbecilities, abominations body themselves; from which no true thing can
come? For Cant is itself properly a double-distilled Lie; the second-power
of a Lie.
And now if a whole Nation fall into that? In such case, I answer,
infallibly they will return out of it! For life is no cunningly-devised
deception or self-deception: it is a great truth that thou art alive, that
thou hast desires, necessities; neither can these subsist and satisfy
themselves on delusions, but on fact. To fact, depend on it, we shall come
back: to such fact, blessed or cursed, as we have wisdom for. The lowest,
least blessed fact one knows of, on which necessitous mortals have ever
based themselves, seems to be the primitive one of Cannibalism: That I can
devour Thee. What if such Primitive Fact were precisely the one we had
(with our improved methods) to revert to, and begin anew from!
Chapter 1.2.VIII.
Printed Paper.
In such a practical France, let the theory of Perfectibility say what it
will, discontents cannot be wanting: your promised Reformation is so
indispensable; yet it comes not; who will begin it--with himself?
Discontent with what is around us, still more with what is above us, goes
on increasing; seeking ever new vents.
Of Street Ballads, of Epigrams that from of old tempered Despotism, we need
not speak. Nor of Manuscript Newspapers (Nouvelles a la main) do we speak.
Bachaumont and his journeymen and followers may close those 'thirty volumes
of scurrilous eaves-dropping,' and quit that trade; for at length if not
liberty of the Press, there is license. Pamphlets can be surreptititiously
vended and read in Paris, did they even bear to be 'Printed at Pekin.' We
have a Courrier de l'Europe in those years, regularly published at London;
by a De Morande, whom the guillotine has not yet devoured. There too an
unruly Linguet, still unguillotined, when his own country has become too
hot for him, and his brother Advocates have cast him out, can emit his
hoarse wailings, and Bastille Devoilee (Bastille unveiled). Loquacious
Abbe Raynal, at length, has his wish; sees the Histoire Philosophique, with
its 'lubricity,' unveracity, loose loud eleutheromaniac rant (contributed,
they say, by Philosophedom at large, though in the Abbe's name, and to his
glory), burnt by the common hangman;--and sets out on his travels as a
martyr. It was the edition of 1781; perhaps the last notable book that had
such fire-beatitude,--the hangman discovering now that it did not serve.
Again, in Courts of Law, with their money-quarrels, divorce-cases,
wheresoever a glimpse into the household existence can be had, what
indications! The Parlements of Besancon and Aix ring, audible to all
France, with the amours and destinies of a young Mirabeau. He, under the
nurture of a 'Friend of Men,' has, in State Prisons, in marching Regiments,
Dutch Authors' garrets, and quite other scenes, 'been for twenty years
learning to resist 'despotism:' despotism of men, and alas also of gods.
How, beneath this rose-coloured veil of Universal Benevolence and Astraea
Redux, is the sanctuary of Home so often a dreary void, or a dark
contentious Hell-on-Earth! The old Friend of Men has his own divorce case
too; and at times, 'his whole family but one' under lock and key: he
writes much about reforming and enfranchising the world; and for his own
private behoof he has needed sixty Lettres-de-Cachet. A man of insight
too, with resolution, even with manful principle: but in such an element,
inward and outward; which he could not rule, but only madden. Edacity,
rapacity;--quite contrary to the finer sensibilities of the heart! Fools,
that expect your verdant Millennium, and nothing but Love and Abundance,
brooks running wine, winds whispering music,--with the whole ground and
basis of your existence champed into a mud of Sensuality; which, daily
growing deeper, will soon have no bottom but the Abyss!
Or consider that unutterable business of the Diamond Necklace. Red-hatted
Cardinal Louis de Rohan; Sicilian jail-bird Balsamo Cagliostro; milliner
Dame de Lamotte, 'with a face of some piquancy:' the highest Church
Dignitaries waltzing, in Walpurgis Dance, with quack-prophets, pickpurses
and public women;--a whole Satan's Invisible World displayed; working there
continually under the daylight visible one; the smoke of its torment going
up for ever! The Throne has been brought into scandalous collision with
the Treadmill. Astonished Europe rings with the mystery for ten months;
sees only lie unfold itself from lie; corruption among the lofty and the
low, gulosity, credulity, imbecility, strength nowhere but in the hunger.
Weep, fair Queen, thy first tears of unmixed wretchedness! Thy fair name
has been tarnished by foul breath; irremediably while life lasts. No more
shalt thou be loved and pitied by living hearts, till a new generation has
been born, and thy own heart lies cold, cured of all its sorrows.--The
Epigrams henceforth become, not sharp and bitter; but cruel, atrocious,
unmentionable. On that 31st of May, 1786, a miserable Cardinal Grand-
Almoner Rohan, on issuing from his Bastille, is escorted by hurrahing
crowds: unloved he, and worthy of no love; but important since the Court
and Queen are his enemies. (Fils Adoptif, Memoires de Mirabeau, iv. 325.)
How is our bright Era of Hope dimmed: and the whole sky growing bleak with
signs of hurricane and earthquake! It is a doomed world: gone all
'obedience that made men free;' fast going the obedience that made men
slaves,--at least to one another. Slaves only of their own lusts they now
are, and will be. Slaves of sin; inevitably also of sorrow. Behold the
mouldering mass of Sensuality and Falsehood; round which plays foolishly,
itself a corrupt phosphorescence, some glimmer of Sentimentalism;--and over
all, rising, as Ark of their Covenant, the grim Patibulary Fork 'forty feet
high;' which also is now nigh rotted. Add only that the French Nation
distinguishes itself among Nations by the characteristic of Excitability;
with the good, but also with the perilous evil, which belongs to that.
Rebellion, explosion, of unknown extent is to be calculated on. There are,
as Chesterfield wrote, 'all the symptoms I have ever met with in History!'
Shall we say, then: Wo to Philosophism, that it destroyed Religion, what it
called 'extinguishing the abomination (ecraser 'l'infame)'? Wo rather to
those that made the Holy an abomination, and extinguishable; wo at all men
that live in such a time of world-abomination and world-destruction! Nay,
answer the Courtiers, it was Turgot, it was Necker, with their mad
innovating; it was the Queen's want of etiquette; it was he, it was she, it
was that. Friends! it was every scoundrel that had lived, and quack-like
pretended to be doing, and been only eating and misdoing, in all provinces
of life, as Shoeblack or as Sovereign Lord, each in his degree, from the
time of Charlemagne and earlier. All this (for be sure no falsehood
perishes, but is as seed sown out to grow) has been storing itself for
thousands of years; and now the account-day has come. And rude will the
settlement be: of wrath laid up against the day of wrath. O my Brother,
be not thou a Quack! Die rather, if thou wilt take counsel; 'tis but dying
once, and thou art quit of it for ever. Cursed is that trade; and bears
curses, thou knowest not how, long ages after thou art departed, and the
wages thou hadst are all consumed; nay, as the ancient wise have written,--
through Eternity itself, and is verily marked in the Doom-Book of a God!
Hope deferred maketh the heart sick. And yet, as we said, Hope is but
deferred; not abolished, not abolishable. It is very notable, and
touching, how this same Hope does still light onwards the French Nation
through all its wild destinies. For we shall still find Hope shining, be
it for fond invitation, be it for anger and menace; as a mild heavenly
light it shone; as a red conflagration it shines: burning sulphurous blue,
through darkest regions of Terror, it still shines; and goes sent out at
all, since Desperation itself is a kind of Hope. Thus is our Era still to
be named of Hope, though in the saddest sense,--when there is nothing left
but Hope.
But if any one would know summarily what a Pandora's Box lies there for the
opening, he may see it in what by its nature is the symptom of all
symptoms, the surviving Literature of the Period. Abbe Raynal, with his
lubricity and loud loose rant, has spoken his word; and already the fast-
hastening generation responds to another. Glance at Beaumarchais' Mariage
de Figaro; which now (in 1784), after difficulty enough, has issued on the
stage; and 'runs its hundred nights,' to the admiration of all men. By
what virtue or internal vigour it so ran, the reader of our day will rather
wonder:--and indeed will know so much the better that it flattered some
pruriency of the time; that it spoke what all were feeling, and longing to
speak. Small substance in that Figaro: thin wiredrawn intrigues, thin
wiredrawn sentiments and sarcasms; a thing lean, barren; yet which winds
and whisks itself, as through a wholly mad universe, adroitly, with a high-
sniffing air: wherein each, as was hinted, which is the grand secret, may
see some image of himself, and of his own state and ways. So it runs its
hundred nights, and all France runs with it; laughing applause. If the
soliloquising Barber ask: "What has your Lordship done to earn all this?"
and can only answer: "You took the trouble to be born (Vous vous etes
donne la peine de naitre)," all men must laugh: and a gay horse-racing
Anglomaniac Noblesse loudest of all. For how can small books have a great
danger in them? asks the Sieur Caron; and fancies his thin epigram may be a
kind of reason. Conqueror of a golden fleece, by giant smuggling; tamer of
hell-dogs, in the Parlement Maupeou; and finally crowned Orpheus in the
Theatre Francais, Beaumarchais has now culminated, and unites the
attributes of several demigods. We shall meet him once again, in the
course of his decline.
Still more significant are two Books produced on the eve of the ever-
memorable Explosion itself, and read eagerly by all the world: Saint-
Pierre's Paul et Virginie, and Louvet's Chevalier de Faublas. Noteworthy
Books; which may be considered as the last speech of old Feudal France. In
the first there rises melodiously, as it were, the wail of a moribund
world: everywhere wholesome Nature in unequal conflict with diseased
perfidious Art; cannot escape from it in the lowest hut, in the remotest
island of the sea. Ruin and death must strike down the loved one; and,
what is most significant of all, death even here not by necessity, but by
etiquette. What a world of prurient corruption lies visible in that super-
sublime of modesty! Yet, on the whole, our good Saint-Pierre is musical,
poetical though most morbid: we will call his Book the swan-song of old
dying France.
Louvet's again, let no man account musical. Truly, if this wretched
Faublas is a death-speech, it is one under the gallows, and by a felon that
does not repent. Wretched cloaca of a Book; without depth even as a
cloaca! What 'picture of French society' is here? Picture properly of
nothing, if not of the mind that gave it out as some sort of picture. Yet
symptom of much; above all, of the world that could nourish itself thereon.
BOOK 1.III.
THE PARLEMENT OF PARIS
Chapter 1.3.I.
Dishonoured Bills.
While the unspeakable confusion is everywhere weltering within, and through
so many cracks in the surface sulphur-smoke is issuing, the question
arises: Through what crevice will the main Explosion carry itself?
Through which of the old craters or chimneys; or must it, at once, form a
new crater for itself? In every Society are such chimneys, are
Institutions serving as such: even Constantinople is not without its
safety-valves; there too Discontent can vent itself,--in material fire; by
the number of nocturnal conflagrations, or of hanged bakers, the Reigning
Power can read the signs of the times, and change course according to
these.
We may say that this French Explosion will doubtless first try all the old
Institutions of escape; for by each of these there is, or at least there
used to be, some communication with the interior deep; they are national
Institutions in virtue of that. Had they even become personal
Institutions, and what we can call choked up from their original uses,
there nevertheless must the impediment be weaker than elsewhere. Through
which of them then? An observer might have guessed: Through the Law
Parlements; above all, through the Parlement of Paris.
Men, though never so thickly clad in dignities, sit not inaccessible to the
influences of their time; especially men whose life is business; who at all
turns, were it even from behind judgment-seats, have come in contact with
the actual workings of the world. The Counsellor of Parlement, the
President himself, who has bought his place with hard money that he might
be looked up to by his fellow-creatures, how shall he, in all Philosophe-
soirees, and saloons of elegant culture, become notable as a Friend of
Darkness? Among the Paris Long-robes there may be more than one patriotic
Malesherbes, whose rule is conscience and the public good; there are
clearly more than one hotheaded D'Espremenil, to whose confused thought any
loud reputation of the Brutus sort may seem glorious. The Lepelletiers,
Lamoignons have titles and wealth; yet, at Court, are only styled 'Noblesse
of the Robe.' There are Duports of deep scheme; Freteaus, Sabatiers, of
incontinent tongue: all nursed more or less on the milk of the Contrat
Social. Nay, for the whole Body, is not this patriotic opposition also a
fighting for oneself? Awake, Parlement of Paris, renew thy long warfare!
Was not the Parlement Maupeou abolished with ignominy? Not now hast thou
to dread a Louis XIV., with the crack of his whip, and his Olympian looks;
not now a Richelieu and Bastilles: no, the whole Nation is behind thee.
Thou too (O heavens!) mayest become a Political Power; and with the
shakings of thy horse-hair wig shake principalities and dynasties, like a
very Jove with his ambrosial curls!
Light old M. de Maurepas, since the end of 1781, has been fixed in the
frost of death: "Never more," said the good Louis, "shall I hear his step
overhead;" his light jestings and gyratings are at an end. No more can the
importunate reality be hidden by pleasant wit, and today's evil be deftly
rolled over upon tomorrow. The morrow itself has arrived; and now nothing
but a solid phlegmatic M. de Vergennes sits there, in dull matter of fact,
like some dull punctual Clerk (which he originally was); admits what cannot
be denied, let the remedy come whence it will. In him is no remedy; only
clerklike 'despatch of business' according to routine. The poor King,
grown older yet hardly more experienced, must himself, with such no-faculty
as he has, begin governing; wherein also his Queen will give help. Bright
Queen, with her quick clear glances and impulses; clear, and even noble;
but all too superficial, vehement-shallow, for that work! To govern France
were such a problem; and now it has grown well-nigh too hard to govern even
the Oeil-de-Boeuf. For if a distressed People has its cry, so likewise,
and more audibly, has a bereaved Court. To the Oeil-de-Boeuf it remains
inconceivable how, in a France of such resources, the Horn of Plenty should
run dry: did it not use to flow? Nevertheless Necker, with his revenue of
parsimony, has 'suppressed above six hundred places,' before the Courtiers
could oust him; parsimonious finance-pedant as he was. Again, a military
pedant, Saint-Germain, with his Prussian manoeuvres; with his Prussian
notions, as if merit and not coat-of-arms should be the rule of promotion,
has disaffected military men; the Mousquetaires, with much else are
suppressed: for he too was one of your suppressors; and unsettling and
oversetting, did mere mischief--to the Oeil-de-Boeuf. Complaints abound;
scarcity, anxiety: it is a changed Oeil-de-Boeuf. Besenval says, already
in these years (1781) there was such a melancholy (such a tristesse) about
Court, compared with former days, as made it quite dispiriting to look
upon.
No wonder that the Oeil-de-Boeuf feels melancholy, when you are suppressing
its places! Not a place can be suppressed, but some purse is the lighter
for it; and more than one heart the heavier; for did it not employ the
working-classes too,--manufacturers, male and female, of laces, essences;
of Pleasure generally, whosoever could manufacture Pleasure? Miserable
economies; never felt over Twenty-five Millions! So, however, it goes on:
and is not yet ended. Few years more and the Wolf-hounds shall fall
suppressed, the Bear-hounds, the Falconry; places shall fall, thick as
autumnal leaves. Duke de Polignac demonstrates, to the complete silencing
of ministerial logic, that his place cannot be abolished; then gallantly,
turning to the Queen, surrenders it, since her Majesty so wishes. Less
chivalrous was Duke de Coigny, and yet not luckier: "We got into a real
quarrel, Coigny and I," said King Louis; "but if he had even struck me, I
could not have blamed him." (Besenval, iii. 255-58.) In regard to such
matters there can be but one opinion. Baron Besenval, with that frankness
of speech which stamps the independent man, plainly assures her Majesty
that it is frightful (affreux); "you go to bed, and are not sure but you
shall rise impoverished on the morrow: one might as well be in Turkey."
It is indeed a dog's life.
How singular this perpetual distress of the royal treasury! And yet it is
a thing not more incredible than undeniable. A thing mournfully true: the
stumbling-block on which all Ministers successively stumble, and fall. Be
it 'want of fiscal genius,' or some far other want, there is the palpablest
discrepancy between Revenue and Expenditure; a Deficit of the Revenue: you
must 'choke (combler) the Deficit,' or else it will swallow you! This is
the stern problem; hopeless seemingly as squaring of the circle.
Controller Joly de Fleury, who succeeded Necker, could do nothing with it;
nothing but propose loans, which were tardily filled up; impose new taxes,
unproductive of money, productive of clamour and discontent. As little
could Controller d'Ormesson do, or even less; for if Joly maintained
himself beyond year and day, d'Ormesson reckons only by months: till 'the
King purchased Rambouillet without consulting him,' which he took as a hint
to withdraw. And so, towards the end of 1783, matters threaten to come to
still-stand. Vain seems human ingenuity. In vain has our newly-devised
'Council of Finances' struggled, our Intendants of Finance, Controller-
General of Finances: there are unhappily no Finances to control. Fatal
paralysis invades the social movement; clouds, of blindness or of
blackness, envelop us: are we breaking down, then, into the black horrors
of NATIONAL BANKRUPTCY?
Great is Bankruptcy: the great bottomless gulf into which all Falsehoods,
public and private, do sink, disappearing; whither, from the first origin
of them, they were all doomed. For Nature is true and not a lie. No lie
you can speak or act but it will come, after longer or shorter circulation,
like a Bill drawn on Nature's Reality, and be presented there for payment,-
-with the answer, No effects. Pity only that it often had so long a
circulation: that the original forger were so seldom he who bore the final
smart of it! Lies, and the burden of evil they bring, are passed on;
shifted from back to back, and from rank to rank; and so land ultimately on
the dumb lowest rank, who with spade and mattock, with sore heart and empty
wallet, daily come in contact with reality, and can pass the cheat no
further.
Observe nevertheless how, by a just compensating law, if the lie with its
burden (in this confused whirlpool of Society) sinks and is shifted ever
downwards, then in return the distress of it rises ever upwards and
upwards. Whereby, after the long pining and demi-starvation of those
Twenty Millions, a Duke de Coigny and his Majesty come also to have their
'real quarrel.' Such is the law of just Nature; bringing, though at long
intervals, and were it only by Bankruptcy, matters round again to the mark.
But with a Fortunatus' Purse in his pocket, through what length of time
might not almost any Falsehood last! Your Society, your Household,
practical or spiritual Arrangement, is untrue, unjust, offensive to the eye
of God and man. Nevertheless its hearth is warm, its larder well
replenished: the innumerable Swiss of Heaven, with a kind of Natural
loyalty, gather round it; will prove, by pamphleteering, musketeering, that
it is a truth; or if not an unmixed (unearthly, impossible) Truth, then
better, a wholesomely attempered one, (as wind is to the shorn lamb), and
works well. Changed outlook, however, when purse and larder grow empty!
Was your Arrangement so true, so accordant to Nature's ways, then how, in
the name of wonder, has Nature, with her infinite bounty, come to leave it
famishing there? To all men, to all women and all children, it is now
indutiable that your Arrangement was false. Honour to Bankruptcy; ever
righteous on the great scale, though in detail it is so cruel! Under all
Falsehoods it works, unweariedly mining. No Falsehood, did it rise heaven-
high and cover the world, but Bankruptcy, one day, will sweep it down, and
make us free of it.
Chapter 1.3.II.
Controller Calonne.
Under such circumstances of tristesse, obstruction and sick langour, when
to an exasperated Court it seems as if fiscal genius had departed from
among men, what apparition could be welcomer than that of M. de Calonne?
Calonne, a man of indisputable genius; even fiscal genius, more or less; of
experience both in managing Finance and Parlements, for he has been
Intendant at Metz, at Lille; King's Procureur at Douai. A man of weight,
connected with the moneyed classes; of unstained name,--if it were not some
peccadillo (of showing a Client's Letter) in that old D'Aiguillon-
Lachalotais business, as good as forgotten now. He has kinsmen of heavy
purse, felt on the Stock Exchange. Our Foulons, Berthiers intrigue for
him:--old Foulon, who has now nothing to do but intrigue; who is known and
even seen to be what they call a scoundrel; but of unmeasured wealth; who,
from Commissariat-clerk which he once was, may hope, some think, if the
game go right, to be Minister himself one day.
Such propping and backing has M. de Calonne; and then intrinsically such
qualities! Hope radiates from his face; persuasion hangs on his tongue.
For all straits he has present remedy, and will make the world roll on
wheels before him. On the 3d of November 1783, the Oeil-de-Boeuf rejoices
in its new Controller-General. Calonne also shall have trial; Calonne
also, in his way, as Turgot and Necker had done in theirs, shall forward
the consummation; suffuse, with one other flush of brilliancy, our now too
leaden-coloured Era of Hope, and wind it up--into fulfilment.
Great, in any case, is the felicity of the Oeil-de-Boeuf. Stinginess has
fled from these royal abodes: suppression ceases; your Besenval may go
peaceably to sleep, sure that he shall awake unplundered. Smiling Plenty,
as if conjured by some enchanter, has returned; scatters contentment from
her new-flowing horn. And mark what suavity of manners! A bland smile
distinguishes our Controller: to all men he listens with an air of
interest, nay of anticipation; makes their own wish clear to themselves,
and grants it; or at least, grants conditional promise of it. "I fear this
is a matter of difficulty," said her Majesty.--"Madame," answered the
Controller, "if it is but difficult, it is done, if it is impossible, it
shall be done (se fera)." A man of such 'facility' withal. To observe him
in the pleasure-vortex of society, which none partakes of with more gusto,
you might ask, When does he work? And yet his work, as we see, is never
behindhand; above all, the fruit of his work: ready-money. Truly a man of
incredible facility; facile action, facile elocution, facile thought: how,
in mild suasion, philosophic depth sparkles up from him, as mere wit and
lambent sprightliness; and in her Majesty's Soirees, with the weight of a
world lying on him, he is the delight of men and women! By what magic does
he accomplish miracles? By the only true magic, that of genius. Men name
him 'the Minister;' as indeed, when was there another such? Crooked things
are become straight by him, rough places plain; and over the Oeil-de-Boeuf
there rests an unspeakable sunshine.
Nay, in seriousness, let no man say that Calonne had not genius: genius
for Persuading; before all things, for Borrowing. With the skilfulest
judicious appliances of underhand money, he keeps the Stock-Exchanges
flourishing; so that Loan after Loan is filled up as soon as opened.
'Calculators likely to know' (Besenval, iii. 216.) have calculated that he
spent, in extraordinaries, 'at the rate of one million daily;' which indeed
is some fifty thousand pounds sterling: but did he not procure something
with it; namely peace and prosperity, for the time being? Philosophedom
grumbles and croaks; buys, as we said, 80,000 copies of Necker's new Book:
but Nonpareil Calonne, in her Majesty's Apartment, with the glittering
retinue of Dukes, Duchesses, and mere happy admiring faces, can let Necker
and Philosophedom croak.
The misery is, such a time cannot last! Squandering, and Payment by Loan
is no way to choke a Deficit. Neither is oil the substance for quenching
conflagrations;--but, only for assuaging them, not permanently! To the
Nonpareil himself, who wanted not insight, it is clear at intervals, and
dimly certain at all times, that his trade is by nature temporary, growing
daily more difficult; that changes incalculable lie at no great distance.
Apart from financial Deficit, the world is wholly in such a new-fangled
humour; all things working loose from their old fastenings, towards new
issues and combinations. There is not a dwarf jokei, a cropt Brutus'-head,
or Anglomaniac horseman rising on his stirrups, that does not betoken
change. But what then? The day, in any case, passes pleasantly; for the
morrow, if the morrow come, there shall be counsel too. Once mounted (by
munificence, suasion, magic of genius) high enough in favour with the Oeil-
de-Boeuf, with the King, Queen, Stock-Exchange, and so far as possible with
all men, a Nonpareil Controller may hope to go careering through the
Inevitable, in some unimagined way, as handsomely as another.
At all events, for these three miraculous years, it has been expedient
heaped on expedient; till now, with such cumulation and height, the pile
topples perilous. And here has this world's-wonder of a Diamond Necklace
brought it at last to the clear verge of tumbling. Genius in that
direction can no more: mounted high enough, or not mounted, we must fare
forth. Hardly is poor Rohan, the Necklace-Cardinal, safely bestowed in the
Auvergne Mountains, Dame de Lamotte (unsafely) in the Salpetriere, and that
mournful business hushed up, when our sanguine Controller once more
astonishes the world. An expedient, unheard of for these hundred and sixty
years, has been propounded; and, by dint of suasion (for his light
audacity, his hope and eloquence are matchless) has been got adopted,--
Convocation of the Notables.
Let notable persons, the actual or virtual rulers of their districts, be
summoned from all sides of France: let a true tale, of his Majesty's
patriotic purposes and wretched pecuniary impossibilities, be suasively
told them; and then the question put: What are we to do? Surely to adopt
healing measures; such as the magic of genius will unfold; such as, once
sanctioned by Notables, all Parlements and all men must, with more or less
reluctance, submit to.
Chapter 1.3.III.
The Notables.
Here, then is verily a sign and wonder; visible to the whole world; bodeful
of much. The Oeil-de-Boeuf dolorously grumbles; were we not well as we
stood,--quenching conflagrations by oil? Constitutional Philosophedom
starts with joyful surprise; stares eagerly what the result will be. The
public creditor, the public debtor, the whole thinking and thoughtless
public have their several surprises, joyful and sorrowful. Count Mirabeau,
who has got his matrimonial and other Lawsuits huddled up, better or worse;
and works now in the dimmest element at Berlin; compiling Prussian
Monarchies, Pamphlets On Cagliostro; writing, with pay, but not with
honourable recognition, innumerable Despatches for his Government,--scents
or descries richer quarry from afar. He, like an eagle or vulture, or
mixture of both, preens his wings for flight homewards. (Fils Adoptif,
Memoires de Mirabeau, t. iv. livv. 4 et 5.)
M. de Calonne has stretched out an Aaron's Rod over France; miraculous; and
is summoning quite unexpected things. Audacity and hope alternate in him
with misgivings; though the sanguine-valiant side carries it. Anon he
writes to an intimate friend, "Here me fais pitie a moi-meme (I am an
object of pity to myself);" anon, invites some dedicating Poet or Poetaster
to sing 'this Assembly of the Notables and the Revolution that is
preparing.' (Biographie Universelle, para Calonne (by Guizot).) Preparing
indeed; and a matter to be sung,--only not till we have seen it, and what
the issue of it is. In deep obscure unrest, all things have so long gone
rocking and swaying: will M. de Calonne, with this his alchemy of the
Notables, fasten all together again, and get new revenues? Or wrench all
asunder; so that it go no longer rocking and swaying, but clashing and
colliding?
Be this as it may, in the bleak short days, we behold men of weight and
influence threading the great vortex of French Locomotion, each on his
several line, from all sides of France towards the Chateau of Versailles:
summoned thither de par le roi. There, on the 22d day of February 1787,
they have met, and got installed: Notables to the number of a Hundred and
Thirty-seven, as we count them name by name: (Lacretelle, iii. 286.
Montgaillard, i. 347.) add Seven Princes of the Blood, it makes the round
Gross of Notables. Men of the sword, men of the robe; Peers, dignified
Clergy, Parlementary Presidents: divided into Seven Boards (Bureaux);
under our Seven Princes of the Blood, Monsieur, D'Artois, Penthievre, and
the rest; among whom let not our new Duke d'Orleans (for, since 1785, he is
Chartres no longer) be forgotten. Never yet made Admiral, and now turning
the corner of his fortieth year, with spoiled blood and prospects; half-
weary of a world which is more than half-weary of him, Monseigneur's future
is most questionable. Not in illumination and insight, not even in
conflagration; but, as was said, 'in dull smoke and ashes of outburnt
sensualities,' does he live and digest. Sumptuosity and sordidness;
revenge, life-weariness, ambition, darkness, putrescence; and, say, in
sterling money, three hundred thousand a year,--were this poor Prince once
to burst loose from his Court-moorings, to what regions, with what
phenomena, might he not sail and drift! Happily as yet he 'affects to hunt
daily;' sits there, since he must sit, presiding that Bureau of his, with
dull moon-visage, dull glassy eyes, as if it were a mere tedium to him.
We observe finally, that Count Mirabeau has actually arrived. He descends
from Berlin, on the scene of action; glares into it with flashing sun-
glance; discerns that it will do nothing for him. He had hoped these
Notables might need a Secretary. They do need one; but have fixed on
Dupont de Nemours; a man of smaller fame, but then of better;--who indeed,
as his friends often hear, labours under this complaint, surely not a
universal one, of having 'five kings to correspond with.' (Dumont,
Souvenirs sur Mirabeau (Paris, 1832), p. 20.) The pen of a Mirabeau cannot
become an official one; nevertheless it remains a pen. In defect of
Secretaryship, he sets to denouncing Stock-brokerage (Denonciation de
l'Agiotage); testifying, as his wont is, by loud bruit, that he is present
and busy;--till, warned by friend Talleyrand, and even by Calonne himself
underhand, that 'a seventeenth Lettre-de-Cachet may be launched against
him,' he timefully flits over the marches.
And now, in stately royal apartments, as Pictures of that time still
represent them, our hundred and forty-four Notables sit organised; ready to
hear and consider. Controller Calonne is dreadfully behindhand with his
speeches, his preparatives; however, the man's 'facility of work' is known
to us. For freshness of style, lucidity, ingenuity, largeness of view,
that opening Harangue of his was unsurpassable:--had not the subject-matter
been so appalling. A Deficit, concerning which accounts vary, and the
Controller's own account is not unquestioned; but which all accounts agree
in representing as 'enormous.' This is the epitome of our Controller's
difficulties: and then his means? Mere Turgotism; for thither, it seems,
we must come at last: Provincial Assemblies; new Taxation; nay, strangest
of all, new Land-tax, what he calls Subvention Territoriale, from which
neither Privileged nor Unprivileged, Noblemen, Clergy, nor Parlementeers,
shall be exempt!
Foolish enough! These Privileged Classes have been used to tax; levying
toll, tribute and custom, at all hands, while a penny was left: but to be
themselves taxed? Of such Privileged persons, meanwhile, do these
Notables, all but the merest fraction, consist. Headlong Calonne had given
no heed to the 'composition,' or judicious packing of them; but chosen such
Notables as were really notable; trusting for the issue to off-hand
ingenuity, good fortune, and eloquence that never yet failed. Headlong
Controller-General! Eloquence can do much, but not all. Orpheus, with
eloquence grown rhythmic, musical (what we call Poetry), drew iron tears
from the cheek of Pluto: but by what witchery of rhyme or prose wilt thou
from the pocket of Plutus draw gold?
Accordingly, the storm that now rose and began to whistle round Calonne,
first in these Seven Bureaus, and then on the outside of them, awakened by
them, spreading wider and wider over all France, threatens to become
unappeasable. A Deficit so enormous! Mismanagement, profusion is too
clear. Peculation itself is hinted at; nay, Lafayette and others go so far
as to speak it out, with attempts at proof. The blame of his Deficit our
brave Calonne, as was natural, had endeavoured to shift from himself on his
predecessors; not excepting even Necker. But now Necker vehemently denies;
whereupon an 'angry Correspondence,' which also finds its way into print.
In the Oeil-de-Boeuf, and her Majesty's private Apartments, an eloquent
Controller, with his "Madame, if it is but difficult," had been persuasive:
but, alas, the cause is now carried elsewhither. Behold him, one of these
sad days, in Monsieur's Bureau; to which all the other Bureaus have sent
deputies. He is standing at bay: alone; exposed to an incessant fire of
questions, interpellations, objurgations, from those 'hundred and thirty-
seven' pieces of logic-ordnance,--what we may well call bouches a feu,
fire-mouths literally! Never, according to Besenval, or hardly ever, had
such display of intellect, dexterity, coolness, suasive eloquence, been
made by man. To the raging play of so many fire-mouths he opposes nothing
angrier than light-beams, self-possession and fatherly smiles. With the
imperturbablest bland clearness, he, for five hours long, keeps answering
the incessant volley of fiery captious questions, reproachful
interpellations; in words prompt as lightning, quiet as light. Nay, the
cross-fire too: such side questions and incidental interpellations as, in
the heat of the main-battle, he (having only one tongue) could not get
answered; these also he takes up at the first slake; answers even these.
(Besenval, iii. 196.) Could blandest suasive eloquence have saved France,
she were saved.
Heavy-laden Controller! In the Seven Bureaus seems nothing but hindrance:
in Monsieur's Bureau, a Lomenie de Brienne, Archbishop of Toulouse, with an
eye himself to the Controllership, stirs up the Clergy; there are meetings,
underground intrigues. Neither from without anywhere comes sign of help or
hope. For the Nation (where Mirabeau is now, with stentor-lungs,
'denouncing Agio') the Controller has hitherto done nothing, or less. For
Philosophedom he has done as good as nothing,--sent out some scientific
Laperouse, or the like: and is he not in 'angry correspondence' with its
Necker? The very Oeil-de-Boeuf looks questionable; a falling Controller
has no friends. Solid M. de Vergennes, who with his phlegmatic judicious
punctuality might have kept down many things, died the very week before
these sorrowful Notables met. And now a Seal-keeper, Garde-des-Sceaux
Miromenil is thought to be playing the traitor: spinning plots for
Lomenie-Brienne! Queen's-Reader Abbe de Vermond, unloved individual, was
Brienne's creature, the work of his hands from the first: it may be feared
the backstairs passage is open, ground getting mined under our feet.
Treacherous Garde-des-Sceaux Miromenil, at least, should be dismissed;
Lamoignon, the eloquent Notable, a stanch man, with connections, and even
ideas, Parlement-President yet intent on reforming Parlements, were not he
the right Keeper? So, for one, thinks busy Besenval; and, at dinner-table,
rounds the same into the Controller's ear,--who always, in the intervals of
landlord-duties, listens to him as with charmed look, but answers nothing
positive. (Besenval, iii. 203.)
Alas, what to answer? The force of private intrigue, and then also the
force of public opinion, grows so dangerous, confused! Philosophedom
sneers aloud, as if its Necker already triumphed. The gaping populace
gapes over Wood-cuts or Copper-cuts; where, for example, a Rustic is
represented convoking the poultry of his barnyard, with this opening
address: "Dear animals, I have assembled you to advise me what sauce I
shall dress you with;" to which a Cock responding, "We don't want to be
eaten," is checked by "You wander from the point (Vous vous ecartez de la
question)." (Republished in the Musee de la Caricature (Paris, 1834).)
Laughter and logic; ballad-singer, pamphleteer; epigram and caricature:
what wind of public opinion is this,--as if the Cave of the Winds were
bursting loose! At nightfall, President Lamoignon steals over to the
Controller's; finds him 'walking with large strides in his chamber, like
one out of himself.' (Besenval, iii. 209.) With rapid confused speech the
Controller begs M. de Lamoignon to give him 'an advice.' Lamoignon
candidly answers that, except in regard to his own anticipated Keepership,
unless that would prove remedial, he really cannot take upon him to advise.
'On the Monday after Easter,' the 9th of April 1787, a date one rejoices to
verify, for nothing can excel the indolent falsehood of these Histoires and
Memoires,--'On the Monday after Easter, as I, Besenval, was riding towards
Romainville to the Marechal de Segur's, I met a friend on the Boulevards,
who told me that M. de Calonne was out. A little further on came M. the
Duke d'Orleans, dashing towards me, head to the wind' (trotting a
l'Anglaise), 'and confirmed the news.' (Ib. iii. 211.) It is true news.
Treacherous Garde-des-Sceaux Miromenil is gone, and Lamoignon is appointed
in his room: but appointed for his own profit only, not for the
Controller's: 'next day' the Controller also has had to move. A little
longer he may linger near; be seen among the money changers, and even
'working in the Controller's office,' where much lies unfinished: but
neither will that hold. Too strong blows and beats this tempest of public
opinion, of private intrigue, as from the Cave of all the Winds; and blows
him (higher Authority giving sign) out of Paris and France,--over the
horizon, into Invisibility, or uuter (utter, outer?) Darkness.
Such destiny the magic of genius could not forever avert. Ungrateful Oeil-
de-Boeuf! did he not miraculously rain gold manna on you; so that, as a
Courtier said, "All the world held out its hand, and I held out my hat,"--
for a time? Himself is poor; penniless, had not a 'Financier's widow in
Lorraine' offered him, though he was turned of fifty, her hand and the rich
purse it held. Dim henceforth shall be his activity, though unwearied:
Letters to the King, Appeals, Prognostications; Pamphlets (from London),
written with the old suasive facility; which however do not persuade.
Luckily his widow's purse fails not. Once, in a year or two, some shadow
of him shall be seen hovering on the Northern Border, seeking election as
National Deputy; but be sternly beckoned away. Dimmer then, far-borne over
utmost European lands, in uncertain twilight of diplomacy, he shall hover,
intriguing for 'Exiled Princes,' and have adventures; be overset into the
Rhine stream and half-drowned, nevertheless save his papers dry.
Unwearied, but in vain! In France he works miracles no more; shall hardly
return thither to find a grave. Farewell, thou facile sanguine Controller-
General, with thy light rash hand, thy suasive mouth of gold: worse men
there have been, and better; but to thee also was allotted a task,--of
raising the wind, and the winds; and thou hast done it.
But now, while Ex-Controller Calonne flies storm-driven over the horizon,
in this singular way, what has become of the Controllership? It hangs
vacant, one may say; extinct, like the Moon in her vacant interlunar cave.
Two preliminary shadows, poor M. Fourqueux, poor M. Villedeuil, do hold in
quick succession some simulacrum of it, (Besenval, iii. 225.)--as the new
Moon will sometimes shine out with a dim preliminary old one in her arms.
Be patient, ye Notables! An actual new Controller is certain, and even
ready; were the indispensable manoeuvres but gone through. Long-headed
Lamoignon, with Home Secretary Breteuil, and Foreign Secretary Montmorin
have exchanged looks; let these three once meet and speak. Who is it that
is strong in the Queen's favour, and the Abbe de Vermond's? That is a man
of great capacity? Or at least that has struggled, these fifty years, to
have it thought great; now, in the Clergy's name, demanding to have
Protestant death-penalties 'put in execution;' no flaunting it in the Oeil-
de-Boeuf, as the gayest man-pleaser and woman-pleaser; gleaning even a good
word from Philosophedom and your Voltaires and D'Alemberts? With a party
ready-made for him in the Notables?--Lomenie de Brienne, Archbishop of
Toulouse! answer all the three, with the clearest instantaneous concord;
and rush off to propose him to the King; 'in such haste,' says Besenval,
'that M. de Lamoignon had to borrow a simarre,' seemingly some kind of
cloth apparatus necessary for that. (Ib. iii. 224.)
Lomenie-Brienne, who had all his life 'felt a kind of predestination for
the highest offices,' has now therefore obtained them. He presides over
the Finances; he shall have the title of Prime Minister itself, and the
effort of his long life be realised. Unhappy only that it took such talent
and industry to gain the place; that to qualify for it hardly any talent or
industry was left disposable! Looking now into his inner man, what
qualification he may have, Lomenie beholds, not without astonishment, next
to nothing but vacuity and possibility. Principles or methods, acquirement
outward or inward (for his very body is wasted, by hard tear and wear) he
finds none; not so much as a plan, even an unwise one. Lucky, in these
circumstances, that Calonne has had a plan! Calonne's plan was gathered
from Turgot's and Necker's by compilation; shall become Lomenie's by
adoption. Not in vain has Lomenie studied the working of the British
Constitution; for he professes to have some Anglomania, of a sort. Why, in
that free country, does one Minister, driven out by Parliament, vanish from
his King's presence, and another enter, borne in by Parliament?
(Montgaillard, Histoire de France, i. 410-17.) Surely not for mere change
(which is ever wasteful); but that all men may have share of what is going;
and so the strife of Freedom indefinitely prolong itself, and no harm be
done.
The Notables, mollified by Easter festivities, by the sacrifice of Calonne,
are not in the worst humour. Already his Majesty, while the 'interlunar
shadows' were in office, had held session of Notables; and from his throne
delivered promissory conciliatory eloquence: 'The Queen stood waiting at a
window, till his carriage came back; and Monsieur from afar clapped hands
to her,' in sign that all was well. (Besenval, iii. 220.) It has had the
best effect; if such do but last. Leading Notables meanwhile can be
'caressed;' Brienne's new gloss, Lamoignon's long head will profit
somewhat; conciliatory eloquence shall not be wanting. On the whole,
however, is it not undeniable that this of ousting Calonne and adopting the
plans of Calonne, is a measure which, to produce its best effect, should be
looked at from a certain distance, cursorily; not dwelt on with minute near
scrutiny. In a word, that no service the Notables could now do were so
obliging as, in some handsome manner, to--take themselves away! Their 'Six
Propositions' about Provisional Assemblies, suppression of Corvees and
suchlike, can be accepted without criticism. The Subvention on Land-tax,
and much else, one must glide hastily over; safe nowhere but in flourishes
of conciliatory eloquence. Till at length, on this 25th of May, year 1787,
in solemn final session, there bursts forth what we can call an explosion
of eloquence; King, Lomenie, Lamoignon and retinue taking up the successive
strain; in harrangues to the number of ten, besides his Majesty's, which
last the livelong day;--whereby, as in a kind of choral anthem, or bravura
peal, of thanks, praises, promises, the Notables are, so to speak, organed
out, and dismissed to their respective places of abode. They had sat, and
talked, some nine weeks: they were the first Notables since Richelieu's,
in the year 1626.
By some Historians, sitting much at their ease, in the safe distance,
Lomenie has been blamed for this dismissal of his Notables: nevertheless
it was clearly time. There are things, as we said, which should not be
dwelt on with minute close scrutiny: over hot coals you cannot glide too
fast. In these Seven Bureaus, where no work could be done, unless talk
were work, the questionablest matters were coming up. Lafayette, for
example, in Monseigneur d'Artois' Bureau, took upon him to set forth more
than one deprecatory oration about Lettres-de-Cachet, Liberty of the
Subject, Agio, and suchlike; which Monseigneur endeavouring to repress, was
answered that a Notable being summoned to speak his opinion must speak it.
(Montgaillard, i. 360.)
Thus too his Grace the Archbishop of Aix perorating once, with a plaintive
pulpit tone, in these words? "Tithe, that free-will offering of the piety
of Christians"--"Tithe," interrupted Duke la Rochefoucault, with the cold
business-manner he has learned from the English, "that free-will offering
of the piety of Christians; on which there are now forty-thousand lawsuits
in this realm." (Dumont, Souvenirs sur Mirabeau, p. 21.) Nay, Lafayette,
bound to speak his opinion, went the length, one day, of proposing to
convoke a 'National Assembly.' "You demand States-General?" asked
Monseigneur with an air of minatory surprise.--"Yes, Monseigneur; and even
better than that."--Write it," said Monseigneur to the Clerks.
(Toulongeon, Histoire de France depuis la Revolution de 1789 (Paris, 1803),
i. app. 4.)--Written accordingly it is; and what is more, will be acted by
and by.
Chapter 1.3.IV.
Lomenie's Edicts.
Thus, then, have the Notables returned home; carrying to all quarters of
France, such notions of deficit, decrepitude, distraction; and that States-
General will cure it, or will not cure it but kill it. Each Notable, we
may fancy, is as a funeral torch; disclosing hideous abysses, better left
hid! The unquietest humour possesses all men; ferments, seeks issue, in
pamphleteering, caricaturing, projecting, declaiming; vain jangling of
thought, word and deed.
It is Spiritual Bankruptcy, long tolerated; verging now towards Economical
Bankruptcy, and become intolerable. For from the lowest dumb rank, the
inevitable misery, as was predicted, has spread upwards. In every man is
some obscure feeling that his position, oppressive or else oppressed, is a
false one: all men, in one or the other acrid dialect, as assaulters or as
defenders, must give vent to the unrest that is in them. Of such stuff
national well-being, and the glory of rulers, is not made. O Lomenie, what
a wild-heaving, waste-looking, hungry and angry world hast thou, after
lifelong effort, got promoted to take charge of!
Lomenie's first Edicts are mere soothing ones: creation of Provincial
Assemblies, 'for apportioning the imposts,' when we get any; suppression of
Corvees or statute-labour; alleviation of Gabelle. Soothing measures,
recommended by the Notables; long clamoured for by all liberal men. Oil
cast on the waters has been known to produce a good effect. Before
venturing with great essential measures, Lomenie will see this singular
'swell of the public mind' abate somewhat.
Most proper, surely. But what if it were not a swell of the abating kind?
There are swells that come of upper tempest and wind-gust. But again there
are swells that come of subterranean pent wind, some say; and even of
inward decomposion, of decay that has become self-combustion:--as when,
according to Neptuno-Plutonic Geology, the World is all decayed down into
due attritus of this sort; and shall now be exploded, and new-made! These
latter abate not by oil.--The fool says in his heart, How shall not
tomorrow be as yesterday; as all days,--which were once tomorrows? The
wise man, looking on this France, moral, intellectual, economical, sees,
'in short, all the symptoms he has ever met with in history,'--unabatable
by soothing Edicts.
Meanwhile, abate or not, cash must be had; and for that quite another sort
of Edicts, namely 'bursal' or fiscal ones. How easy were fiscal Edicts,
did you know for certain that the Parlement of Paris would what they call
'register' them! Such right of registering, properly of mere writing down,
the Parlement has got by old wont; and, though but a Law-Court, can
remonstrate, and higgle considerably about the same. Hence many quarrels;
desperate Maupeou devices, and victory and defeat;--a quarrel now near
forty years long. Hence fiscal Edicts, which otherwise were easy enough,
become such problems. For example, is there not Calonne's Subvention
Territoriale, universal, unexempting Land-tax; the sheet-anchor of Finance?
Or, to show, so far as possible, that one is not without original finance
talent, Lomenie himself can devise an Edit du Timbre or Stamp-tax,--
borrowed also, it is true; but then from America: may it prove luckier in
France than there!
France has her resources: nevertheless, it cannot be denied, the aspect of
that Parlement is questionable. Already among the Notables, in that final
symphony of dismissal, the Paris President had an ominous tone. Adrien
Duport, quitting magnetic sleep, in this agitation of the world, threatens
to rouse himself into preternatural wakefulness. Shallower but also
louder, there is magnetic D'Espremenil, with his tropical heat (he was born
at Madras); with his dusky confused violence; holding of Illumination,
Animal Magnetism, Public Opinion, Adam Weisshaupt, Harmodius and
Aristogiton, and all manner of confused violent things: of whom can come
no good. The very Peerage is infected with the leaven. Our Peers have, in
too many cases, laid aside their frogs, laces, bagwigs; and go about in
English costume, or ride rising in their stirrups,--in the most headlong
manner; nothing but insubordination, eleutheromania, confused unlimited
opposition in their heads. Questionable: not to be ventured upon, if we
had a Fortunatus' Purse! But Lomenie has waited all June, casting on the
waters what oil he had; and now, betide as it may, the two Finance Edicts
must out. On the 6th of July, he forwards his proposed Stamp-tax and Land-
tax to the Parlement of Paris; and, as if putting his own leg foremost, not
his borrowed Calonne's-leg, places the Stamp-tax first in order.
Alas, the Parlement will not register: the Parlement demands instead a
'state of the expenditure,' a 'state of the contemplated reductions;'
'states' enough; which his Majesty must decline to furnish! Discussions
arise; patriotic eloquence: the Peers are summoned. Does the Nemean Lion
begin to bristle? Here surely is a duel, which France and the Universe may
look upon: with prayers; at lowest, with curiosity and bets. Paris stirs
with new animation. The outer courts of the Palais de Justice roll with
unusual crowds, coming and going; their huge outer hum mingles with the
clang of patriotic eloquence within, and gives vigour to it. Poor Lomenie
gazes from the distance, little comforted; has his invisible emissaries
flying to and fro, assiduous, without result.
So pass the sultry dog-days, in the most electric manner; and the whole
month of July. And still, in the Sanctuary of Justice, sounds nothing but
Harmodius-Aristogiton eloquence, environed with the hum of crowding Paris;
and no registering accomplished, and no 'states' furnished. "States?" said
a lively Parlementeer: "Messieurs, the states that should be furnished us,
in my opinion are the STATES-GENERAL." On which timely joke there follow
cachinnatory buzzes of approval. What a word to be spoken in the Palais de
Justice! Old D'Ormesson (the Ex-Controller's uncle) shakes his judicious
head; far enough from laughing. But the outer courts, and Paris and
France, catch the glad sound, and repeat it; shall repeat it, and re-echo
and reverberate it, till it grow a deafening peal. Clearly enough here is
no registering to be thought of.
The pious Proverb says, 'There are remedies for all things but death.'
When a Parlement refuses registering, the remedy, by long practice, has
become familiar to the simplest: a Bed of Justice. One complete month
this Parlement has spent in mere idle jargoning, and sound and fury; the
Timbre Edict not registered, or like to be; the Subvention not yet so much
as spoken of. On the 6th of August let the whole refractory Body roll out,
in wheeled vehicles, as far as the King's Chateau of Versailles; there
shall the King, holding his Bed of Justice, order them, by his own royal
lips, to register. They may remonstrate, in an under tone; but they must
obey, lest a worse unknown thing befall them.
It is done: the Parlement has rolled out, on royal summons; has heard the
express royal order to register. Whereupon it has rolled back again, amid
the hushed expectancy of men. And now, behold, on the morrow, this
Parlement, seated once more in its own Palais, with 'crowds inundating the
outer courts,' not only does not register, but (O portent!) declares all
that was done on the prior day to be null, and the Bed of Justice as good
as a futility! In the history of France here verily is a new feature. Nay
better still, our heroic Parlement, getting suddenly enlightened on several
things, declares that, for its part, it is incompetent to register Tax-
edicts at all,--having done it by mistake, during these late centuries;
that for such act one authority only is competent: the assembled Three
Estates of the Realm!
To such length can the universal spirit of a Nation penetrate the most
isolated Body-corporate: say rather, with such weapons, homicidal and
suicidal, in exasperated political duel, will Bodies-corporate fight! But,
in any case, is not this the real death-grapple of war and internecine
duel, Greek meeting Greek; whereon men, had they even no interest in it,
might look with interest unspeakable? Crowds, as was said, inundate the
outer courts: inundation of young eleutheromaniac Noblemen in English
costume, uttering audacious speeches; of Procureurs, Basoche-Clerks, who
are idle in these days: of Loungers, Newsmongers and other nondescript
classes,--rolls tumultuous there. 'From three to four thousand persons,'
waiting eagerly to hear the Arretes (Resolutions) you arrive at within;
applauding with bravos, with the clapping of from six to eight thousand
hands! Sweet also is the meed of patriotic eloquence, when your
D'Espremenil, your Freteau, or Sabatier, issuing from his Demosthenic
Olympus, the thunder being hushed for the day, is welcomed, in the outer
courts, with a shout from four thousand throats; is borne home shoulder-
high 'with benedictions,' and strikes the stars with his sublime head.
Chapter 1.3.V.
Lomenie's Thunderbolts.
Arise, Lomenie-Brienne: here is no case for 'Letters of Jussion;' for
faltering or compromise. Thou seest the whole loose fluent population of
Paris (whatsoever is not solid, and fixed to work) inundating these outer
courts, like a loud destructive deluge; the very Basoche of Lawyers' Clerks
talks sedition. The lower classes, in this duel of Authority with
Authority, Greek throttling Greek, have ceased to respect the City-Watch:
Police-satellites are marked on the back with chalk (the M signifies
mouchard, spy); they are hustled, hunted like ferae naturae. Subordinate
rural Tribunals send messengers of congratulation, of adherence. Their
Fountain of Justice is becoming a Fountain of Revolt. The Provincial
Parlements look on, with intent eye, with breathless wishes, while their
elder sister of Paris does battle: the whole Twelve are of one blood and
temper; the victory of one is that of all.
Ever worse it grows: on the 10th of August, there is 'Plainte' emitted
touching the 'prodigalities of Calonne,' and permission to 'proceed'
against him. No registering, but instead of it, denouncing: of
dilapidation, peculation; and ever the burden of the song, States-General!
Have the royal armories no thunderbolt, that thou couldst, O Lomenie, with
red right-hand, launch it among these Demosthenic theatrical thunder-
barrels, mere resin and noise for most part;--and shatter, and smite them
silent? On the night of the 14th of August, Lomenie launches his
thunderbolt, or handful of them. Letters named of the Seal (de Cachet), as
many as needful, some sixscore and odd, are delivered overnight. And so,
next day betimes, the whole Parlement, once more set on wheels, is rolling
incessantly towards Troyes in Champagne; 'escorted,' says History, 'with
the blessings of all people;' the very innkeepers and postillions looking
gratuitously reverent. (A. Lameth, Histoire de l'Assemblee Constituante
(Int. 73).) This is the 15th of August 1787.
What will not people bless; in their extreme need? Seldom had the
Parlement of Paris deserved much blessing, or received much. An isolated
Body-corporate, which, out of old confusions (while the Sceptre of the
Sword was confusedly struggling to become a Sceptre of the Pen), had got
itself together, better and worse, as Bodies-corporate do, to satisfy some
dim desire of the world, and many clear desires of individuals; and so had
grown, in the course of centuries, on concession, on acquirement and
usurpation, to be what we see it: a prosperous social Anomaly, deciding
Lawsuits, sanctioning or rejecting Laws; and withal disposing of its places
and offices by sale for ready money,--which method sleek President Henault,
after meditation, will demonstrate to be the indifferent-best. (Abrege
Chronologique, p. 975.)
In such a Body, existing by purchase for ready-money, there could not be
excess of public spirit; there might well be excess of eagerness to divide
the public spoil. Men in helmets have divided that, with swords; men in
wigs, with quill and inkhorn, do divide it: and even more hatefully these
latter, if more peaceably; for the wig-method is at once irresistibler and
baser. By long experience, says Besenval, it has been found useless to sue
a Parlementeer at law; no Officer of Justice will serve a writ on one; his
wig and gown are his Vulcan's-panoply, his enchanted cloak-of-darkness.
The Parlement of Paris may count itself an unloved body; mean, not
magnanimous, on the political side. Were the King weak, always (as now)
has his Parlement barked, cur-like at his heels; with what popular cry
there might be. Were he strong, it barked before his face; hunting for him
as his alert beagle. An unjust Body; where foul influences have more than
once worked shameful perversion of judgment. Does not, in these very days,
the blood of murdered Lally cry aloud for vengeance? Baited, circumvented,
driven mad like the snared lion, Valour had to sink extinguished under
vindictive Chicane. Behold him, that hapless Lally, his wild dark soul
looking through his wild dark face; trailed on the ignominious death-
hurdle; the voice of his despair choked by a wooden gag! The wild fire-
soul that has known only peril and toil; and, for threescore years, has
buffeted against Fate's obstruction and men's perfidy, like genius and
courage amid poltroonery, dishonesty and commonplace; faithfully enduring
and endeavouring,--O Parlement of Paris, dost thou reward it with a gibbet
and a gag? (9th May, 1766: Biographie Universelle, para Lally.) The
dying Lally bequeathed his memory to his boy; a young Lally has arisen,
demanding redress in the name of God and man. The Parlement of Paris does
its utmost to defend the indefensible, abominable; nay, what is singular,
dusky-glowing Aristogiton d'Espremenil is the man chosen to be its
spokesman in that.
Such Social Anomaly is it that France now blesses. An unclean Social
Anomaly; but in duel against another worse! The exiled Parlement is felt
to have 'covered itself with glory.' There are quarrels in which even
Satan, bringing help, were not unwelcome; even Satan, fighting stiffly,
might cover himself with glory,--of a temporary sort.
But what a stir in the outer courts of the Palais, when Paris finds its
Parlement trundled off to Troyes in Champagne; and nothing left but a few
mute Keepers of records; the Demosthenic thunder become extinct, the
martyrs of liberty clean gone! Confused wail and menace rises from the
four thousand throats of Procureurs, Basoche-Clerks, Nondescripts, and
Anglomaniac Noblesse; ever new idlers crowd to see and hear; Rascality,
with increasing numbers and vigour, hunts mouchards. Loud whirlpool rolls
through these spaces; the rest of the City, fixed to its work, cannot yet
go rolling. Audacious placards are legible, in and about the Palais, the
speeches are as good as seditious. Surely the temper of Paris is much
changed. On the third day of this business (18th of August), Monsieur and
Monseigneur d'Artois, coming in state-carriages, according to use and wont,
to have these late obnoxious Arretes and protests 'expunged' from the
Records, are received in the most marked manner. Monsieur, who is thought
to be in opposition, is met with vivats and strewed flowers; Monseigneur,
on the other hand, with silence; with murmurs, which rise to hisses and
groans; nay, an irreverent Rascality presses towards him in floods, with
such hissing vehemence, that the Captain of the Guards has to give order,
"Haut les armes (Handle arms)!"--at which thunder-word, indeed, and the
flash of the clear iron, the Rascal-flood recoils, through all avenues,
fast enough. (Montgaillard, i. 369. Besenval, &c.) New features these.
Indeed, as good M. de Malesherbes pertinently remarks, "it is a quite new
kind of contest this with the Parlement:" no transitory sputter, as from
collision of hard bodies; but more like "the first sparks of what, if not
quenched, may become a great conflagration." (Montgaillard, i. 373.)
This good Malesherbes sees himself now again in the King's Council, after
an absence of ten years: Lomenie would profit if not by the faculties of
the man, yet by the name he has. As for the man's opinion, it is not
listened to;--wherefore he will soon withdraw, a second time; back to his
books and his trees. In such King's Council what can a good man profit?
Turgot tries it not a second time: Turgot has quitted France and this
Earth, some years ago; and now cares for none of these things. Singular
enough: Turgot, this same Lomenie, and the Abbe Morellet were once a trio
of young friends; fellow-scholars in the Sorbonne. Forty new years have
carried them severally thus far.
Meanwhile the Parlement sits daily at Troyes, calling cases; and daily
adjourns, no Procureur making his appearance to plead. Troyes is as
hospitable as could be looked for: nevertheless one has comparatively a
dull life. No crowds now to carry you, shoulder-high, to the immortal
gods; scarcely a Patriot or two will drive out so far, and bid you be of
firm courage. You are in furnished lodgings, far from home and domestic
comfort: little to do, but wander over the unlovely Champagne fields;
seeing the grapes ripen; taking counsel about the thousand-times consulted:
a prey to tedium; in danger even that Paris may forget you. Messengers
come and go: pacific Lomenie is not slack in negotiating, promising;
D'Ormesson and the prudent elder Members see no good in strife.
After a dull month, the Parlement, yielding and retaining, makes truce, as
all Parlements must. The Stamp-tax is withdrawn: the Subvention Land-tax
is also withdrawn; but, in its stead, there is granted, what they call a
'Prorogation of the Second Twentieth,'--itself a kind of Land-tax, but not
so oppressive to the Influential classes; which lies mainly on the Dumb
class. Moreover, secret promises exist (on the part of the Elders), that
finances may be raised by Loan. Of the ugly word States-General there
shall be no mention.
And so, on the 20th of September, our exiled Parlement returns:
D'Espremenil said, 'it went out covered with glory, but had come back
covered with mud (de boue).' Not so, Aristogiton; or if so, thou surely
art the man to clean it.
Chapter 1.3.VI.
Lomenie's Plots.
Was ever unfortunate Chief Minister so bested as Lomenie-Brienne? The
reins of the State fairly in his hand these six months; and not the
smallest motive-power (of Finance) to stir from the spot with, this way or
that! He flourishes his whip, but advances not. Instead of ready-money,
there is nothing but rebellious debating and recalcitrating.
Far is the public mind from having calmed; it goes chafing and fuming ever
worse: and in the royal coffers, with such yearly Deficit running on,
there is hardly the colour of coin. Ominous prognostics! Malesherbes,
seeing an exhausted, exasperated France grow hotter and hotter, talks of
'conflagration:' Mirabeau, without talk, has, as we perceive, descended on
Paris again, close on the rear of the Parlement, (Fils Adoptif, Mirabeau,
iv. l. 5.)--not to quit his native soil any more.
Over the Frontiers, behold Holland invaded by Prussia; (October, 1787.
Montgaillard, i. 374. Besenval, iii. 283.) the French party oppressed,
England and the Stadtholder triumphing: to the sorrow of War-Secretary
Montmorin and all men. But without money, sinews of war, as of work, and
of existence itself, what can a Chief Minister do? Taxes profit little:
this of the Second Twentieth falls not due till next year; and will then,
with its 'strict valuation,' produce more controversy than cash. Taxes on
the Privileged Classes cannot be got registered; are intolerable to our
supporters themselves: taxes on the Unprivileged yield nothing,--as from a
thing drained dry more cannot be drawn. Hope is nowhere, if not in the old
refuge of Loans.
To Lomenie, aided by the long head of Lamoignon, deeply pondering this sea
of troubles, the thought suggested itself: Why not have a Successive Loan
(Emprunt Successif), or Loan that went on lending, year after year, as much
as needful; say, till 1792? The trouble of registering such Loan were the
same: we had then breathing time; money to work with, at least to subsist
on. Edict of a Successive Loan must be proposed. To conciliate the
Philosophes, let a liberal Edict walk in front of it, for emancipation of
Protestants; let a liberal Promise guard the rear of it, that when our Loan
ends, in that final 1792, the States-General shall be convoked.
Such liberal Edict of Protestant Emancipation, the time having come for it,
shall cost a Lomenie as little as the 'Death-penalties to be put in
execution' did. As for the liberal Promise, of States-General, it can be
fulfilled or not: the fulfilment is five good years off; in five years
much intervenes. But the registering? Ah, truly, there is the
difficulty!--However, we have that promise of the Elders, given secretly at
Troyes. Judicious gratuities, cajoleries, underground intrigues, with old
Foulon, named 'Ame damnee, Familiar-demon, of the Parlement,' may perhaps
do the rest. At worst and lowest, the Royal Authority has resources,--
which ought it not to put forth? If it cannot realise money, the Royal
Authority is as good as dead; dead of that surest and miserablest death,
inanition. Risk and win; without risk all is already lost! For the rest,
as in enterprises of pith, a touch of stratagem often proves furthersome,
his Majesty announces a Royal Hunt, for the 19th of November next; and all
whom it concerns are joyfully getting their gear ready.
Royal Hunt indeed; but of two-legged unfeathered game! At eleven in the
morning of that Royal-Hunt day, 19th of November 1787, unexpected blare of
trumpetting, tumult of charioteering and cavalcading disturbs the Seat of
Justice: his Majesty is come, with Garde-des-Sceaux Lamoignon, and Peers
and retinue, to hold Royal Session and have Edicts registered. What a
change, since Louis XIV. entered here, in boots; and, whip in hand, ordered
his registering to be done,--with an Olympian look which none durst
gainsay; and did, without stratagem, in such unceremonious fashion, hunt as
well as register! (Dulaure, vi. 306.) For Louis XVI., on this day, the
Registering will be enough; if indeed he and the day suffice for it.
Meanwhile, with fit ceremonial words, the purpose of the royal breast is
signified:--Two Edicts, for Protestant Emancipation, for Successive Loan:
of both which Edicts our trusty Garde-des-Sceaux Lamoignon will explain the
purport; on both which a trusty Parlement is requested to deliver its
opinion, each member having free privilege of speech. And so, Lamoignon
too having perorated not amiss, and wound up with that Promise of States-
General,--the Sphere-music of Parlementary eloquence begins. Explosive,
responsive, sphere answering sphere, it waxes louder and louder. The Peers
sit attentive; of diverse sentiment: unfriendly to States-General;
unfriendly to Despotism, which cannot reward merit, and is suppressing
places. But what agitates his Highness d'Orleans? The rubicund moon-head
goes wagging; darker beams the copper visage, like unscoured copper; in the
glazed eye is disquietude; he rolls uneasy in his seat, as if he meant
something. Amid unutterable satiety, has sudden new appetite, for new
forbidden fruit, been vouchsafed him? Disgust and edacity; laziness that
cannot rest; futile ambition, revenge, non-admiralship:--O, within that
carbuncled skin what a confusion of confusions sits bottled!
'Eight Couriers,' in course of the day, gallop from Versailles, where
Lomenie waits palpitating; and gallop back again, not with the best news.
In the outer Courts of the Palais, huge buzz of expectation reigns; it is
whispered the Chief Minister has lost six votes overnight. And from
within, resounds nothing but forensic eloquence, pathetic and even
indignant; heartrending appeals to the royal clemency, that his Majesty
would please to summon States-General forthwith, and be the Saviour of
France:--wherein dusky-glowing D'Espremenil, but still more Sabatier de
Cabre, and Freteau, since named Commere Freteau (Goody Freteau), are among
the loudest. For six mortal hours it lasts, in this manner; the infinite
hubbub unslackened.
And so now, when brown dusk is falling through the windows, and no end
visible, his Majesty, on hint of Garde-des-Sceaux, Lamoignon, opens his
royal lips once more to say, in brief That he must have his Loan-Edict
registered.--Momentary deep pause!--See! Monseigneur d'Orleans rises; with
moon-visage turned towards the royal platform, he asks, with a delicate
graciosity of manner covering unutterable things: "Whether it is a Bed of
Justice, then; or a Royal Session?" Fire flashes on him from the throne
and neighbourhood: surly answer that "it is a Session." In that case,
Monseigneur will crave leave to remark that Edicts cannot be registered by
order in a Session; and indeed to enter, against such registry, his
individual humble Protest. "Vous etes bien le maitre (You will do your
pleasure)", answers the King; and thereupon, in high state, marches out,
escorted by his Court-retinue; D'Orleans himself, as in duty bound,
escorting him, but only to the gate. Which duty done, D'Orleans returns in
from the gate; redacts his Protest, in the face of an applauding Parlement,
an applauding France; and so--has cut his Court-moorings, shall we say?
And will now sail and drift, fast enough, towards Chaos?
Thou foolish D'Orleans; Equality that art to be! Is Royalty grown a mere
wooden Scarecrow; whereon thou, pert scald-headed crow, mayest alight at
pleasure, and peck? Not yet wholly.
Next day, a Lettre-de-Cachet sends D'Orleans to bethink himself in his
Chateau of Villers-Cotterets, where, alas, is no Paris with its joyous
necessaries of life; no fascinating indispensable Madame de Buffon,--light
wife of a great Naturalist much too old for her. Monseigneur, it is said,
does nothing but walk distractedly, at Villers-Cotterets; cursing his
stars. Versailles itself shall hear penitent wail from him, so hard is his
doom. By a second, simultaneous Lettre-de-Cachet, Goody Freteau is hurled
into the Stronghold of Ham, amid the Norman marshes; by a third, Sabatier
de Cabre into Mont St. Michel, amid the Norman quicksands. As for the
Parlement, it must, on summons, travel out to Versailles, with its
Register-Book under its arm, to have the Protest biffe (expunged); not
without admonition, and even rebuke. A stroke of authority which, one
might have hoped, would quiet matters.
Unhappily, no; it is a mere taste of the whip to rearing coursers, which
makes them rear worse! When a team of Twenty-five Millions begins rearing,
what is Lomenie's whip? The Parlement will nowise acquiesce meekly; and
set to register the Protestant Edict, and do its other work, in salutary
fear of these three Lettres-de-Cachet. Far from that, it begins
questioning Lettres-de-Cachet generally, their legality, endurability;
emits dolorous objurgation, petition on petition to have its three Martyrs
delivered; cannot, till that be complied with, so much as think of
examining the Protestant Edict, but puts it off always 'till this day
week.' (Besenval, iii. 309.)
In which objurgatory strain Paris and France joins it, or rather has
preceded it; making fearful chorus. And now also the other Parlements, at
length opening their mouths, begin to join; some of them, as at Grenoble
and at Rennes, with portentous emphasis,--threatening, by way of reprisal,
to interdict the very Tax-gatherer. (Weber, i. 266.) "In all former
contests," as Malesherbes remarks, "it was the Parlement that excited the
Public; but here it is the Public that excites the Parlement."
Chapter 1.3.VII.
Internecine.
What a France, through these winter months of the year 1787! The very
Oeil-de-Boeuf is doleful, uncertain; with a general feeling among the
Suppressed, that it were better to be in Turkey. The Wolf-hounds are
suppressed, the Bear-hounds, Duke de Coigny, Duke de Polignac: in the
Trianon little-heaven, her Majesty, one evening, takes Besenval's arm; asks
his candid opinion. The intrepid Besenval,--having, as he hopes, nothing
of the sycophant in him,--plainly signifies that, with a Parlement in
rebellion, and an Oeil-de-Boeuf in suppression, the King's Crown is in
danger;--whereupon, singular to say, her Majesty, as if hurt, changed the
subject, et ne me parla plus de rien! (Besenval, iii. 264.)
To whom, indeed, can this poor Queen speak? In need of wise counsel, if
ever mortal was; yet beset here only by the hubbub of chaos! Her dwelling-
place is so bright to the eye, and confusion and black care darkens it all.
Sorrows of the Sovereign, sorrows of the woman, think-coming sorrows
environ her more and more. Lamotte, the Necklace-Countess, has in these
late months escaped, perhaps been suffered to escape, from the Salpetriere.
Vain was the hope that Paris might thereby forget her; and this ever-
widening-lie, and heap of lies, subside. The Lamotte, with a V (for
Voleuse, Thief) branded on both shoulders, has got to England; and will
therefrom emit lie on lie; defiling the highest queenly name: mere
distracted lies; (Memoires justificatifs de la Comtesse de Lamotte (London,
1788). Vie de Jeanne de St. Remi, Comtesse de Lamotte, &c. &c. See
Diamond Necklace (ut supra).) which, in its present humour, France will
greedily believe.
For the rest, it is too clear our Successive Loan is not filling. As
indeed, in such circumstances, a Loan registered by expunging of Protests
was not the likeliest to fill. Denunciation of Lettres-de-Cachet, of
Despotism generally, abates not: the Twelve Parlements are busy; the
Twelve hundred Placarders, Balladsingers, Pamphleteers. Paris is what, in
figurative speech, they call 'flooded with pamphlets (regorge de
brochures);' flooded and eddying again. Hot deluge,--from so many Patriot
ready-writers, all at the fervid or boiling point; each ready-writer, now
in the hour of eruption, going like an Iceland Geyser! Against which what
can a judicious friend Morellet do; a Rivarol, an unruly Linguet (well paid
for it),--spouting cold!
Now also, at length, does come discussion of the Protestant Edict: but
only for new embroilment; in pamphlet and counter-pamphlet, increasing the
madness of men. Not even Orthodoxy, bedrid as she seemed, but will have a
hand in this confusion. She, once again in the shape of Abbe Lenfant,
'whom Prelates drive to visit and congratulate,'--raises audible sound from
her pulpit-drum. (Lacretelle, iii. 343. Montgaillard, &c.) Or mark how
D'Espremenil, who has his own confused way in all things, produces at the
right moment in Parlementary harangue, a pocket Crucifix, with the
apostrophe: "Will ye crucify him afresh?" Him, O D'Espremenil, without
scruple;--considering what poor stuff, of ivory and filigree, he is made
of!
To all which add only that poor Brienne has fallen sick; so hard was the
tear and wear of his sinful youth, so violent, incessant is this agitation
of his foolish old age. Baited, bayed at through so many throats, his
Grace, growing consumptive, inflammatory (with humeur de dartre), lies
reduced to milk diet; in exasperation, almost in desperation; with
'repose,' precisely the impossible recipe, prescribed as the indispensable.
(Besenval, iii. 317.)
On the whole, what can a poor Government do, but once more recoil
ineffectual? The King's Treasury is running towards the lees; and Paris
'eddies with a flood of pamphlets.' At all rates, let the latter subside a
little! "D'Orleans gets back to Raincy, which is nearer Paris and the fair
frail Buffon; finally to Paris itself: neither are Freteau and Sabatier
banished forever. The Protestant Edict is registered; to the joy of Boissy
d'Anglas and good Malesherbes: Successive Loan, all protests expunged or
else withdrawn, remains open,--the rather as few or none come to fill it.
States-General, for which the Parlement has clamoured, and now the whole
Nation clamours, will follow 'in five years,'--if indeed not sooner. O
Parlement of Paris, what a clamour was that! "Messieurs," said old
d'Ormesson, "you will get States-General, and you will repent it." Like
the Horse in the Fable, who, to be avenged of his enemy, applied to the
Man. The Man mounted; did swift execution on the enemy; but, unhappily,
would not dismount! Instead of five years, let three years pass, and this
clamorous Parlement shall have both seen its enemy hurled prostrate, and
been itself ridden to foundering (say rather, jugulated for hide and
shoes), and lie dead in the ditch.
Under such omens, however, we have reached the spring of 1788. By no path
can the King's Government find passage for itself, but is everywhere
shamefully flung back. Beleaguered by Twelve rebellious Parlements, which
are grown to be the organs of an angry Nation, it can advance nowhither;
can accomplish nothing, obtain nothing, not so much as money to subsist on;
but must sit there, seemingly, to be eaten up of Deficit.
The measure of the Iniquity, then, of the Falsehood which has been
gathering through long centuries, is nearly full? At least, that of the
misery is! For the hovels of the Twenty-five Millions, the misery,
permeating upwards and forwards, as its law is, has got so far,--to the
very Oeil-de-Boeuf of Versailles. Man's hand, in this blind pain, is set
against man: not only the low against the higher, but the higher against
each other; Provincial Noblesse is bitter against Court Noblesse; Robe
against Sword; Rochet against Pen. But against the King's Government who
is not bitter? Not even Besenval, in these days. To it all men and bodies
of men are become as enemies; it is the centre whereon infinite contentions
unite and clash. What new universal vertiginous movement is this; of
Institution, social Arrangements, individual Minds, which once worked
cooperative; now rolling and grinding in distracted collision? Inevitable:
it is the breaking-up of a World-Solecism, worn out at last, down even to
bankruptcy of money! And so this poor Versailles Court, as the chief or
central Solecism, finds all the other Solecisms arrayed against it. Most
natural! For your human Solecism, be it Person or Combination of Persons,
is ever, by law of Nature, uneasy; if verging towards bankruptcy, it is
even miserable:--and when would the meanest Solecism consent to blame or
amend itself, while there remained another to amend?
These threatening signs do not terrify Lomenie, much less teach him.
Lomenie, though of light nature, is not without courage, of a sort. Nay,
have we not read of lightest creatures, trained Canary-birds, that could
fly cheerfully with lighted matches, and fire cannon; fire whole powder-
magazines? To sit and die of deficit is no part of Lomenie's plan. The
evil is considerable; but can he not remove it, can he not attack it? At
lowest, he can attack the symptom of it: these rebellious Parlements he
can attack, and perhaps remove. Much is dim to Lomenie, but two things are
clear: that such Parlementary duel with Royalty is growing perilous, nay
internecine; above all, that money must be had. Take thought, brave
Lomenie; thou Garde-des-Sceaux Lamoignon, who hast ideas! So often
defeated, balked cruelly when the golden fruit seemed within clutch, rally
for one other struggle. To tame the Parlement, to fill the King's coffers:
these are now life-and-death questions.
Parlements have been tamed, more than once. Set to perch 'on the peaks of
rocks in accessible except by litters,' a Parlement grows reasonable. O
Maupeou, thou bold man, had we left thy work where it was!--But apart from
exile, or other violent methods, is there not one method, whereby all
things are tamed, even lions? The method of hunger! What if the
Parlement's supplies were cut off; namely its Lawsuits!
Minor Courts, for the trying of innumerable minor causes, might be
instituted: these we could call Grand Bailliages. Whereon the Parlement,
shortened of its prey, would look with yellow despair; but the Public, fond
of cheap justice, with favour and hope. Then for Finance, for registering
of Edicts, why not, from our own Oeil-de-Boeuf Dignitaries, our Princes,
Dukes, Marshals, make a thing we could call Plenary Court; and there, so to
speak, do our registering ourselves? St. Louis had his Plenary Court, of
Great Barons; (Montgaillard, i. 405.) most useful to him: our Great Barons
are still here (at least the Name of them is still here); our necessity is
greater than his.
Such is the Lomenie-Lamoignon device; welcome to the King's Council, as a
light-beam in great darkness. The device seems feasible, it is eminently
needful: be it once well executed, great deliverance is wrought. Silent,
then, and steady; now or never!--the World shall see one other Historical
Scene; and so singular a man as Lomenie de Brienne still the Stage-manager
there.
Behold, accordingly, a Home-Secretary Breteuil 'beautifying Paris,' in the
peaceablest manner, in this hopeful spring weather of 1788; the old hovels
and hutches disappearing from our Bridges: as if for the State too there
were halcyon weather, and nothing to do but beautify. Parlement seems to
sit acknowledged victor. Brienne says nothing of Finance; or even says,
and prints, that it is all well. How is this; such halcyon quiet; though
the Successive Loan did not fill? In a victorious Parlement, Counsellor
Goeslard de Monsabert even denounces that 'levying of the Second Twentieth
on strict valuation;' and gets decree that the valuation shall not be
strict,--not on the privileged classes. Nevertheless Brienne endures it,
launches no Lettre-de-Cachet against it. How is this?
Smiling is such vernal weather; but treacherous, sudden! For one thing, we
hear it whispered, 'the Intendants of Provinces 'have all got order to be
at their posts on a certain day.' Still more singular, what incessant
Printing is this that goes on at the King's Chateau, under lock and key?
Sentries occupy all gates and windows; the Printers come not out; they
sleep in their workrooms; their very food is handed in to them! (Weber, i.
276.) A victorious Parlement smells new danger. D'Espremenil has ordered
horses to Versailles; prowls round that guarded Printing-Office; prying,
snuffing, if so be the sagacity and ingenuity of man may penetrate it.
To a shower of gold most things are penetrable. D'Espremenil descends on
the lap of a Printer's Danae, in the shape of 'five hundred louis d'or:'
the Danae's Husband smuggles a ball of clay to her; which she delivers to
the golden Counsellor of Parlement. Kneaded within it, their stick printed
proof-sheets;--by Heaven! the royal Edict of that same self-registering
Plenary Court; of those Grand Bailliages that shall cut short our Lawsuits!
It is to be promulgated over all France on one and the same day.
This, then, is what the Intendants were bid wait for at their posts: this
is what the Court sat hatching, as its accursed cockatrice-egg; and would
not stir, though provoked, till the brood were out! Hie with it,
D'Espremenil, home to Paris; convoke instantaneous Sessions; let the
Parlement, and the Earth, and the Heavens know it.
Chapter 1.3.VIII.
Lomenie's Death-throes.
On the morrow, which is the 3rd of May, 1788, an astonished Parlement sits
convoked; listens speechless to the speech of D'Espremenil, unfolding the
infinite misdeed. Deed of treachery; of unhallowed darkness, such as
Despotism loves! Denounce it, O Parlement of Paris; awaken France and the
Universe; roll what thunder-barrels of forensic eloquence thou hast: with
thee too it is verily Now or never!
The Parlement is not wanting, at such juncture. In the hour of his extreme
jeopardy, the lion first incites himself by roaring, by lashing his sides.
So here the Parlement of Paris. On the motion of D'Espremenil, a most
patriotic Oath, of the One-and-all sort, is sworn, with united throat;--an
excellent new-idea, which, in these coming years, shall not remain
unimitated. Next comes indomitable Declaration, almost of the rights of
man, at least of the rights of Parlement; Invocation to the friends of
French Freedom, in this and in subsequent time. All which, or the essence
of all which, is brought to paper; in a tone wherein something of
plaintiveness blends with, and tempers, heroic valour. And thus, having
sounded the storm-bell,--which Paris hears, which all France will hear; and
hurled such defiance in the teeth of Lomenie and Despotism, the Parlement
retires as from a tolerable first day's work.
But how Lomenie felt to see his cockatrice-egg (so essential to the
salvation of France) broken in this premature manner, let readers fancy!
Indignant he clutches at his thunderbolts (de Cachet, of the Seal); and
launches two of them: a bolt for D'Espremenil; a bolt for that busy
Goeslard, whose service in the Second Twentieth and 'strict valuation' is
not forgotten. Such bolts clutched promptly overnight, and launched with
the early new morning, shall strike agitated Paris if not into
requiescence, yet into wholesome astonishment.
Ministerial thunderbolts may be launched; but if they do not hit?
D'Espremenil and Goeslard, warned, both of them, as is thought, by the
singing of some friendly bird, elude the Lomenie Tipstaves; escape
disguised through skywindows, over roofs, to their own Palais de Justice:
the thunderbolts have missed. Paris (for the buzz flies abroad) is struck
into astonishment not wholesome. The two martyrs of Liberty doff their
disguises; don their long gowns; behold, in the space of an hour, by aid of
ushers and swift runners, the Parlement, with its Counsellors, Presidents,
even Peers, sits anew assembled. The assembled Parlement declares that
these its two martyrs cannot be given up, to any sublunary authority;
moreover that the 'session is permanent,' admitting of no adjournment, till
pursuit of them has been relinquished.
And so, with forensic eloquence, denunciation and protest, with couriers
going and returning, the Parlement, in this state of continual explosion
that shall cease neither night nor day, waits the issue. Awakened Paris
once more inundates those outer courts; boils, in floods wilder than ever,
through all avenues. Dissonant hubbub there is; jargon as of Babel, in the
hour when they were first smitten (as here) with mutual unintelligibilty,
and the people had not yet dispersed!
Paris City goes through its diurnal epochs, of working and slumbering; and
now, for the second time, most European and African mortals are asleep.
But here, in this Whirlpool of Words, sleep falls not; the Night spreads
her coverlid of Darkness over it in vain. Within is the sound of mere
martyr invincibility; tempered with the due tone of plaintiveness. Without
is the infinite expectant hum,--growing drowsier a little. So has it
lasted for six-and-thirty hours.
But hark, through the dead of midnight, what tramp is this? Tramp as of
armed men, foot and horse; Gardes Francaises, Gardes Suisses: marching
hither; in silent regularity; in the flare of torchlight! There are
Sappers, too, with axes and crowbars: apparently, if the doors open not,
they will be forced!--It is Captain D'Agoust, missioned from Versailles.
D'Agoust, a man of known firmness;--who once forced Prince Conde himself,
by mere incessant looking at him, to give satisfaction and fight; (Weber,
i. 283.) he now, with axes and torches is advancing on the very sanctuary
of Justice. Sacrilegious; yet what help? The man is a soldier; looks
merely at his orders; impassive, moves forward like an inanimate engine.
The doors open on summons, there need no axes; door after door. And now
the innermost door opens; discloses the long-gowned Senators of France: a
hundred and sixty-seven by tale, seventeen of them Peers; sitting there,
majestic, 'in permanent session.' Were not the men military, and of cast-
iron, this sight, this silence reechoing the clank of his own boots, might
stagger him! For the hundred and sixty-seven receive him in perfect
silence; which some liken to that of the Roman Senate overfallen by
Brennus; some to that of a nest of coiners surprised by officers of the
Police. (Besenval, iii. 355.) Messieurs, said D'Agoust, De par le Roi!
Express order has charged D'Agoust with the sad duty of arresting two
individuals: M. Duval d'Espremenil and M. Goeslard de Monsabert. Which
respectable individuals, as he has not the honour of knowing them, are
hereby invited, in the King's name, to surrender themselves.--Profound
silence! Buzz, which grows a murmur: "We are all D'Espremenils!" ventures
a voice; which other voices repeat. The President inquires, Whether he
will employ violence? Captain D'Agoust, honoured with his Majesty's
commission, has to execute his Majesty's order; would so gladly do it
without violence, will in any case do it; grants an august Senate space to
deliberate which method they prefer. And thereupon D'Agoust, with grave
military courtesy, has withdrawn for the moment.
What boots it, august Senators? All avenues are closed with fixed
bayonets. Your Courier gallops to Versailles, through the dewy Night; but
also gallops back again, with tidings that the order is authentic, that it
is irrevocable. The outer courts simmer with idle population; but
D'Agoust's grenadier-ranks stand there as immovable floodgates: there will
be no revolting to deliver you. "Messieurs!" thus spoke D'Espremenil,
"when the victorious Gauls entered Rome, which they had carried by assault,
the Roman Senators, clothed in their purple, sat there, in their curule
chairs, with a proud and tranquil countenance, awaiting slavery or death.
Such too is the lofty spectacle, which you, in this hour, offer to the
universe (a l'univers), after having generously"--with much more of the
like, as can still be read. (Toulongeon, i. App. 20.)
In vain, O D'Espremenil! Here is this cast-iron Captain D'Agoust, with his
cast-iron military air, come back. Despotism, constraint, destruction sit
waving in his plumes. D'Espremenil must fall silent; heroically give
himself up, lest worst befall. Him Goeslard heroically imitates. With
spoken and speechless emotion, they fling themselves into the arms of their
Parlementary brethren, for a last embrace: and so amid plaudits and
plaints, from a hundred and sixty-five throats; amid wavings, sobbings, a
whole forest-sigh of Parlementary pathos,--they are led through winding
passages, to the rear-gate; where, in the gray of the morning, two Coaches
with Exempts stand waiting. There must the victims mount; bayonets
menacing behind. D'Espremenil's stern question to the populace, 'Whether
they have courage?' is answered by silence. They mount, and roll; and
neither the rising of the May sun (it is the 6th morning), nor its setting
shall lighten their heart: but they fare forward continually; D'Espremenil
towards the utmost Isles of Sainte Marguerite, or Hieres (supposed by some,
if that is any comfort, to be Calypso's Island); Goeslard towards the land-
fortress of Pierre-en-Cize, extant then, near the City of Lyons.
Captain D'Agoust may now therefore look forward to Majorship, to
Commandantship of the Tuilleries; (Montgaillard, i. 404.)--and withal
vanish from History; where nevertheless he has been fated to do a notable
thing. For not only are D'Espremenil and Goeslard safe whirling southward,
but the Parlement itself has straightway to march out: to that also his
inexorable order reaches. Gathering up their long skirts, they file out,
the whole Hundred and Sixty-five of them, through two rows of unsympathetic
grenadiers: a spectacle to gods and men. The people revolt not; they only
wonder and grumble: also, we remark, these unsympathetic grenadiers are
Gardes Francaises,--who, one day, will sympathise! In a word, the Palais
de Justice is swept clear, the doors of it are locked; and D'Agoust returns
to Versailles with the key in his pocket,--having, as was said, merited
preferment.
As for this Parlement of Paris, now turned out to the street, we will
without reluctance leave it there. The Beds of Justice it had to undergo,
in the coming fortnight, at Versailles, in registering, or rather refusing
to register, those new-hatched Edicts; and how it assembled in taverns and
tap-rooms there, for the purpose of Protesting, (Weber, i. 299-303.) or
hovered disconsolate, with outspread skirts, not knowing where to assemble;
and was reduced to lodge Protest 'with a Notary;' and in the end, to sit
still (in a state of forced 'vacation'), and do nothing; all this, natural
now, as the burying of the dead after battle, shall not concern us. The
Parlement of Paris has as good as performed its part; doing and misdoing,
so far, but hardly further, could it stir the world.
Lomenie has removed the evil then? Not at all: not so much as the symptom
of the evil; scarcely the twelfth part of the symptom, and exasperated the
other eleven! The Intendants of Provinces, the Military Commandants are at
their posts, on the appointed 8th of May: but in no Parlement, if not in
the single one of Douai, can these new Edicts get registered. Not
peaceable signing with ink; but browbeating, bloodshedding, appeal to
primary club-law! Against these Bailliages, against this Plenary Court,
exasperated Themis everywhere shows face of battle; the Provincial Noblesse
are of her party, and whoever hates Lomenie and the evil time; with her
attorneys and Tipstaves, she enlists and operates down even to the
populace. At Rennes in Brittany, where the historical Bertrand de
Moleville is Intendant, it has passed from fatal continual duelling,
between the military and gentry, to street-fighting; to stone-volleys and
musket-shot: and still the Edicts remained unregistered. The afflicted
Bretons send remonstrance to Lomenie, by a Deputation of Twelve; whom,
however, Lomenie, having heard them, shuts up in the Bastille. A second
larger deputation he meets, by his scouts, on the road, and persuades or
frightens back. But now a third largest Deputation is indignantly sent by
many roads: refused audience on arriving, it meets to take council;
invites Lafayette and all Patriot Bretons in Paris to assist; agitates
itself; becomes the Breton Club, first germ of--the Jacobins' Society. (A.
F. de Bertrand-Moleville, Memoires Particuliers (Paris, 1816), I. ch. i.
Marmontel, Memoires, iv. 27.)
So many as eight Parlements get exiled: (Montgaillard, i. 308.) others
might need that remedy, but it is one not always easy of appliance. At
Grenoble, for instance, where a Mounier, a Barnave have not been idle, the
Parlement had due order (by Lettres-de-Cachet) to depart, and exile itself:
but on the morrow, instead of coaches getting yoked, the alarm-bell bursts
forth, ominous; and peals and booms all day: crowds of mountaineers rush
down, with axes, even with firelocks,--whom (most ominous of all!) the
soldiery shows no eagerness to deal with. 'Axe over head,' the poor
General has to sign capitulation; to engage that the Lettres-de-Cachet
shall remain unexecuted, and a beloved Parlement stay where it is.
Besancon, Dijon, Rouen, Bourdeaux, are not what they should be! At Pau in
Bearn, where the old Commandant had failed, the new one (a Grammont, native
to them) is met by a Procession of townsmen with the Cradle of Henri
Quatre, the Palladium of their Town; is conjured as he venerates this old
Tortoise-shell, in which the great Henri was rocked, not to trample on
Bearnese liberty; is informed, withal, that his Majesty's cannon are all
safe--in the keeping of his Majesty's faithful Burghers of Pau, and do now
lie pointed on the walls there; ready for action! (Besenval, iii. 348.)
At this rate, your Grand Bailliages are like to have a stormy infancy. As
for the Plenary Court, it has literally expired in the birth. The very
Courtiers looked shy at it; old Marshal Broglie declined the honour of
sitting therein. Assaulted by a universal storm of mingled ridicule and
execration, (La Cour Pleniere, heroi-tragi-comedie en trois actes et en
prose; jouee le 14 Juillet 1788, par une societe d'amateurs dans un Chateau
aux environs de Versailles; par M. l'Abbe de Vermond, Lecteur de la Reine:
A Baville (Lamoignon's Country-house), et se trouve a Paris, chez la Veuve
Liberte, a l'enseigne de la Revolution, 1788.--La Passion, la Mort et la
Resurrection du Peuple: Imprime a Jerusalem, &c. &c.--See Montgaillard, i.
407.) this poor Plenary Court met once, and never any second time.
Distracted country! Contention hisses up, with forked hydra-tongues,
wheresoever poor Lomenie sets his foot. 'Let a Commandant, a Commissioner
of the King,' says Weber, 'enter one of these Parlements to have an Edict
registered, the whole Tribunal will disappear, and leave the Commandant
alone with the Clerk and First President. The Edict registered and the
Commandant gone, the whole Tribunal hastens back, to declare such
registration null. The highways are covered with Grand Deputations of
Parlements, proceeding to Versailles, to have their registers expunged by
the King's hand; or returning home, to cover a new page with a new
resolution still more audacious.' (Weber, i. 275.)
Such is the France of this year 1788. Not now a Golden or Paper Age of
Hope; with its horse-racings, balloon-flyings, and finer sensibilities of
the heart: ah, gone is that; its golden effulgence paled, bedarkened in
this singular manner,--brewing towards preternatural weather! For, as in
that wreck-storm of Paul et Virginie and Saint-Pierre,--'One huge
motionless cloud' (say, of Sorrow and Indignation) 'girdles our whole
horizon; streams up, hairy, copper-edged, over a sky of the colour of
lead.' Motionless itself; but 'small clouds' (as exiled Parlements and
suchlike), 'parting from it, fly over the zenith, with the velocity of
birds:'--till at last, with one loud howl, the whole Four Winds be dashed
together, and all the world exclaim, There is the tornado! Tout le monde
s'ecria, Voila l'ouragan!
For the rest, in such circumstances, the Successive Loan, very naturally,
remains unfilled; neither, indeed, can that impost of the Second Twentieth,
at least not on 'strict valuation,' be levied to good purpose: 'Lenders,'
says Weber, in his hysterical vehement manner, 'are afraid of ruin; tax-
gatherers of hanging.' The very Clergy turn away their face: convoked in
Extraordinary Assembly, they afford no gratuitous gift (don gratuit),--if
it be not that of advice; here too instead of cash is clamour for States-
General. (Lameth, Assemb. Const. (Introd.) p. 87.)
O Lomenie-Brienne, with thy poor flimsy mind all bewildered, and now 'three
actual cauteries' on thy worn-out body; who art like to die of inflamation,
provocation, milk-diet, dartres vives and maladie--(best untranslated);
(Montgaillard, i. 424.) and presidest over a France with innumerable actual
cauteries, which also is dying of inflammation and the rest! Was it wise
to quit the bosky verdures of Brienne, and thy new ashlar Chateau there,
and what it held, for this? Soft were those shades and lawns; sweet the
hymns of Poetasters, the blandishments of high-rouged Graces: (See Memoires
de Morellet.) and always this and the other Philosophe Morellet (nothing
deeming himself or thee a questionable Sham-Priest) could be so happy in
making happy:--and also (hadst thou known it), in the Military School hard
by there sat, studying mathematics, a dusky-complexioned taciturn Boy,
under the name of: NAPOLEON BONAPARTE!--With fifty years of effort, and
one final dead-lift struggle, thou hast made an exchange! Thou hast got
thy robe of office,--as Hercules had his Nessus'-shirt.
On the 13th of July of this 1788, there fell, on the very edge of harvest,
the most frightful hailstorm; scattering into wild waste the Fruits of the
Year; which had otherwise suffered grievously by drought. For sixty
leagues round Paris especially, the ruin was almost total. (Marmontel, iv.
30.) To so many other evils, then, there is to be added, that of dearth,
perhaps of famine.
Some days before this hailstorm, on the 5th of July; and still more
decisively some days after it, on the 8th of August,--Lomenie announces
that the States-General are actually to meet in the following month of May.
Till after which period, this of the Plenary Court, and the rest, shall
remain postponed. Further, as in Lomenie there is no plan of forming or
holding these most desirable States-General, 'thinkers are invited' to
furnish him with one,--through the medium of discussion by the public
press!
What could a poor Minister do? There are still ten months of respite
reserved: a sinking pilot will fling out all things, his very biscuit-
bags, lead, log, compass and quadrant, before flinging out himself. It is
on this principle, of sinking, and the incipient delirium of despair, that
we explain likewise the almost miraculous 'invitation to thinkers.'
Invitation to Chaos to be so kind as build, out of its tumultuous drift-
wood, an Ark of Escape for him! In these cases, not invitation but command
has usually proved serviceable.--The Queen stood, that evening, pensive, in
a window, with her face turned towards the Garden. The Chef de Gobelet had
followed her with an obsequious cup of coffee; and then retired till it
were sipped. Her Majesty beckoned Dame Campan to approach: "Grand Dieu!"
murmured she, with the cup in her hand, "what a piece of news will be made
public to-day! The King grants States-General." Then raising her eyes to
Heaven (if Campan were not mistaken), she added: "'Tis a first beat of the
drum, of ill-omen for France. This Noblesse will ruin us." (Campan, iii.
104, 111.)
During all that hatching of the Plenary Court, while Lamoignon looked so
mysterious, Besenval had kept asking him one question: Whether they had
cash? To which as Lamoignon always answered (on the faith of Lomenie) that
the cash was safe, judicious Besenval rejoined that then all was safe.
Nevertheless, the melancholy fact is, that the royal coffers are almost
getting literally void of coin. Indeed, apart from all other things this
'invitation to thinkers,' and the great change now at hand are enough to
'arrest the circulation of capital,' and forward only that of pamphlets. A
few thousand gold louis are now all of money or money's worth that remains
in the King's Treasury. With another movement as of desperation, Lomenie
invites Necker to come and be Controller of Finances! Necker has other
work in view than controlling Finances for Lomenie: with a dry refusal he
stands taciturn; awaiting his time.
What shall a desperate Prime Minister do? He has grasped at the strongbox
of the King's Theatre: some Lottery had been set on foot for those
sufferers by the hailstorm; in his extreme necessity, Lomenie lays hands
even on this. (Besenval, iii. 360.) To make provision for the passing
day, on any terms, will soon be impossible.--On the 16th of August, poor
Weber heard, at Paris and Versailles, hawkers, 'with a hoarse stifled tone
of voice (voix etouffee, sourde)' drawling and snuffling, through the
streets, an Edict concerning Payments (such was the soft title Rivarol had
contrived for it): all payments at the Royal Treasury shall be made
henceforth, three-fifths in Cash, and the remaining two-fifths--in Paper
bearing interest! Poor Weber almost swooned at the sound of these cracked
voices, with their bodeful raven-note; and will never forget the effect it
had on him. (Weber, i. 339.)
But the effect on Paris, on the world generally? From the dens of Stock-
brokerage, from the heights of Political Economy, of Neckerism and
Philosophism; from all articulate and inarticulate throats, rise hootings
and howlings, such as ear had not yet heard. Sedition itself may be
imminent! Monseigneur d'Artois, moved by Duchess Polignac, feels called to
wait upon her Majesty; and explain frankly what crisis matters stand in.
'The Queen wept;' Brienne himself wept;--for it is now visible and palpable
that he must go.
Remains only that the Court, to whom his manners and garrulities were
always agreeable, shall make his fall soft. The grasping old man has
already got his Archbishopship of Toulouse exchanged for the richer one of
Sens: and now, in this hour of pity, he shall have the Coadjutorship for
his nephew (hardly yet of due age); a Dameship of the Palace for his niece;
a Regiment for her husband; for himself a red Cardinal's-hat, a Coupe de
Bois (cutting from the royal forests), and on the whole 'from five to six
hundred thousand livres of revenue:' (Weber, i. 341.) finally, his
Brother, the Comte de Brienne, shall still continue War-minister. Buckled-
round with such bolsters and huge featherbeds of Promotion, let him now
fall as soft as he can!
And so Lomenie departs: rich if Court-titles and Money-bonds can enrich
him; but if these cannot, perhaps the poorest of all extant men. 'Hissed
at by the people of Versailles,' he drives forth to Jardi; southward to
Brienne,--for recovery of health. Then to Nice, to Italy; but shall
return; shall glide to and fro, tremulous, faint-twinkling, fallen on awful
times: till the Guillotine--snuff out his weak existence? Alas, worse:
for it is blown out, or choked out, foully, pitiably, on the way to the
Guillotine! In his Palace of Sens, rude Jacobin Bailiffs made him drink
with them from his own wine-cellars, feast with them from his own larder;
and on the morrow morning, the miserable old man lies dead. This is the
end of Prime Minister, Cardinal Archbishop Lomenie de Brienne. Flimsier
mortal was seldom fated to do as weighty a mischief; to have a life as
despicable-envied, an exit as frightful. Fired, as the phrase is, with
ambition: blown, like a kindled rag, the sport of winds, not this way, not
that way, but of all ways, straight towards such a powder-mine,--which he
kindled! Let us pity the hapless Lomenie; and forgive him; and, as soon as
possible, forget him.
Chapter 1.3.IX.
Burial with Bonfire.
Besenval, during these extraordinary operations, of Payment two-fifths in
Paper, and change of Prime Minister, had been out on a tour through his
District of Command; and indeed, for the last months, peacefully drinking
the waters of Contrexeville. Returning now, in the end of August, towards
Moulins, and 'knowing nothing,' he arrives one evening at Langres; finds
the whole Town in a state of uproar (grande rumeur). Doubtless some
sedition; a thing too common in these days! He alights nevertheless;
inquires of a 'man tolerably dressed,' what the matter is?--"How?" answers
the man, "you have not heard the news? The Archbishop is thrown out, and
M. Necker is recalled; and all is going to go well!" (Besenval, iii. 366.)
Such rumeur and vociferous acclaim has risen round M. Necker, ever from
'that day when he issued from the Queen's Apartments,' a nominated
Minister. It was on the 24th of August: 'the galleries of the Chateau, the
courts, the streets of Versailles; in few hours, the Capital; and, as the
news flew, all France, resounded with the cry of Vive le Roi! Vive M.
Necker! (Weber, i. 342.) In Paris indeed it unfortunately got the length
of turbulence.' Petards, rockets go off, in the Place Dauphine, more than
enough. A 'wicker Figure (Mannequin d'osier),' in Archbishop's stole, made
emblematically, three-fifths of it satin, two-fifths of it paper, is
promenaded, not in silence, to the popular judgment-bar; is doomed; shriven
by a mock Abbe de Vermond; then solemnly consumed by fire, at the foot of
Henri's Statue on the Pont Neuf;--with such petarding and huzzaing that
Chevalier Dubois and his City-watch see good finally to make a charge (more
or less ineffectual); and there wanted not burning of sentry-boxes, forcing
of guard-houses, and also 'dead bodies thrown into the Seine over-night,'
to avoid new effervescence. (Histoire Parlementaire de la Revolution
Francaise; ou Journal des Assemblees Nationales depuis 1789 (Paris, 1833 et
seqq.), i. 253. Lameth, Assemblee Constituante, i. (Introd.) p. 89.)
Parlements therefore shall return from exile: Plenary Court, Payment two-
fifths in Paper have vanished; gone off in smoke, at the foot of Henri's
Statue. States-General (with a Political Millennium) are now certain; nay,
it shall be announced, in our fond haste, for January next: and all, as
the Langres man said, is 'going to go.'
To the prophetic glance of Besenval, one other thing is too apparent: that
Friend Lamoignon cannot keep his Keepership. Neither he nor War-minister
Comte de Brienne! Already old Foulon, with an eye to be war-minister
himself, is making underground movements. This is that same Foulon named
ame damnee du Parlement; a man grown gray in treachery, in griping,
projecting, intriguing and iniquity: who once when it was objected, to
some finance-scheme of his, "What will the people do?"--made answer, in the
fire of discussion, "The people may eat grass:" hasty words, which fly
abroad irrevocable,--and will send back tidings!
Foulon, to the relief of the world, fails on this occasion; and will always
fail. Nevertheless it steads not M. de Lamoignon. It steads not the
doomed man that he have interviews with the King; and be 'seen to return
radieux,' emitting rays. Lamoignon is the hated of Parlements: Comte de
Brienne is Brother to the Cardinal Archbishop. The 24th of August has
been; and the 14th September is not yet, when they two, as their great
Principal had done, descend,--made to fall soft, like him.
And now, as if the last burden had been rolled from its heart, and
assurance were at length perfect, Paris bursts forth anew into extreme
jubilee. The Basoche rejoices aloud, that the foe of Parlements is fallen;
Nobility, Gentry, Commonalty have rejoiced; and rejoice. Nay now, with new
emphasis, Rascality itself, starting suddenly from its dim depths, will
arise and do it,--for down even thither the new Political Evangel, in some
rude version or other, has penetrated. It is Monday, the 14th of September
1788: Rascality assembles anew, in great force, in the Place Dauphine;
lets off petards, fires blunderbusses, to an incredible extent, without
interval, for eighteen hours. There is again a wicker Figure, 'Mannequin
of osier:' the centre of endless howlings. Also Necker's Portrait
snatched, or purchased, from some Printshop, is borne processionally, aloft
on a perch, with huzzas;--an example to be remembered.
But chiefly on the Pont Neuf, where the Great Henri, in bronze, rides
sublime; there do the crowds gather. All passengers must stop, till they
have bowed to the People's King, and said audibly: Vive Henri Quatre; au
diable Lamoignon! No carriage but must stop; not even that of his Highness
d'Orleans. Your coach-doors are opened: Monsieur will please to put forth
his head and bow; or even, if refractory, to alight altogether, and kneel:
from Madame a wave of her plumes, a smile of her fair face, there where she
sits, shall suffice;--and surely a coin or two (to buy fusees) were not
unreasonable from the Upper Classes, friends of Liberty? In this manner it
proceeds for days; in such rude horse-play,--not without kicks. The City-
watch can do nothing; hardly save its own skin: for the last twelve-month,
as we have sometimes seen, it has been a kind of pastime to hunt the Watch.
Besenval indeed is at hand with soldiers; but they have orders to avoid
firing, and are not prompt to stir.
On Monday morning the explosion of petards began: and now it is near
midnight of Wednesday; and the 'wicker Mannequin' is to be buried,--
apparently in the Antique fashion. Long rows of torches, following it,
move towards the Hotel Lamoignon; but 'a servant of mine' (Besenval's) has
run to give warning, and there are soldiers come. Gloomy Lamoignon is not
to die by conflagration, or this night; not yet for a year, and then by
gunshot (suicidal or accidental is unknown). (Histoire de la Revolution,
par Deux Amis de la Liberte, i. 50.) Foiled Rascality burns its 'Mannikin
of osier,' under his windows; 'tears up the sentry-box,' and rolls off: to
try Brienne; to try Dubois Captain of the Watch. Now, however, all is
bestirring itself; Gardes Francaises, Invalides, Horse-patrol: the Torch
Procession is met with sharp shot, with the thrusting of bayonets, the
slashing of sabres. Even Dubois makes a charge, with that Cavalry of his,
and the cruelest charge of all: 'there are a great many killed and
wounded.' Not without clangour, complaint; subsequent criminal trials, and
official persons dying of heartbreak! (Histoire de la Revolution, par Deux
Amis de la Liberte, i. 58.) So, however, with steel-besom, Rascality is
brushed back into its dim depths, and the streets are swept clear.
Not for a century and half had Rascality ventured to step forth in this
fashion; not for so long, showed its huge rude lineaments in the light of
day. A Wonder and new Thing: as yet gamboling merely, in awkward
Brobdingnag sport, not without quaintness; hardly in anger: yet in its
huge half-vacant laugh lurks a shade of grimness,--which could unfold
itself!
However, the thinkers invited by Lomenie are now far on with their
pamphlets: States-General, on one plan or another, will infallibly meet;
if not in January, as was once hoped, yet at latest in May. Old Duke de
Richelieu, moribund in these autumn days, opens his eyes once more,
murmuring, "What would Louis Fourteenth" (whom he remembers) "have said!"--
then closes them again, forever, before the evil time.
BOOK 1.IV.
STATES-GENERAL
Chapter 1.4.I.
The Notables Again.
The universal prayer, therefore, is to be fulfilled! Always in days of
national perplexity, when wrong abounded and help was not, this remedy of
States-General was called for; by a Malesherbes, nay by a Fenelon;
(Montgaillard, i. 461.) even Parlements calling for it were 'escorted with
blessings.' And now behold it is vouchsafed us; States-General shall
verily be!
To say, let States-General be, was easy; to say in what manner they shall
be, is not so easy. Since the year of 1614, there have no States-General
met in France, all trace of them has vanished from the living habits of
men. Their structure, powers, methods of procedure, which were never in
any measure fixed, have now become wholly a vague possibility. Clay which
the potter may shape, this way or that:--say rather, the twenty-five
millions of potters; for so many have now, more or less, a vote in it! How
to shape the States-General? There is a problem. Each Body-corporate,
each privileged, each organised Class has secret hopes of its own in that
matter; and also secret misgivings of its own,--for, behold, this monstrous
twenty-million Class, hitherto the dumb sheep which these others had to
agree about the manner of shearing, is now also arising with hopes! It has
ceased or is ceasing to be dumb; it speaks through Pamphlets, or at least
brays and growls behind them, in unison,--increasing wonderfully their
volume of sound.
As for the Parlement of Paris, it has at once declared for the 'old form of
1614.' Which form had this advantage, that the Tiers Etat, Third Estate,
or Commons, figured there as a show mainly: whereby the Noblesse and
Clergy had but to avoid quarrel between themselves, and decide unobstructed
what they thought best. Such was the clearly declared opinion of the Paris
Parlement. But, being met by a storm of mere hooting and howling from all
men, such opinion was blown straightway to the winds; and the popularity of
the Parlement along with it,--never to return. The Parlements part, we
said above, was as good as played. Concerning which, however, there is
this further to be noted: the proximity of dates. It was on the 22nd of
September that the Parlement returned from 'vacation' or 'exile in its
estates;' to be reinstalled amid boundless jubilee from all Paris.
Precisely next day it was, that this same Parlement came to its 'clearly
declared opinion:' and then on the morrow after that, you behold it
covered with outrages;' its outer court, one vast sibilation, and the glory
departed from it for evermore. (Weber, i. 347.) A popularity of twenty-
four hours was, in those times, no uncommon allowance.
On the other hand, how superfluous was that invitation of Lomenie's: the
invitation to thinkers! Thinkers and unthinkers, by the million, are
spontaneously at their post, doing what is in them. Clubs labour: Societe
Publicole; Breton Club; Enraged Club, Club des Enrages. Likewise Dinner-
parties in the Palais Royal; your Mirabeaus, Talleyrands dining there, in
company with Chamforts, Morellets, with Duponts and hot Parlementeers, not
without object! For a certain Neckerean Lion's-provider, whom one could
name, assembles them there; (Ibid. i. 360.)--or even their own private
determination to have dinner does it. And then as to Pamphlets--in
figurative language; 'it is a sheer snowing of pamphlets; like to snow up
the Government thoroughfares!' Now is the time for Friends of Freedom;
sane, and even insane.
Count, or self-styled Count, d'Aintrigues, 'the young Languedocian
gentleman,' with perhaps Chamfort the Cynic to help him, rises into furor
almost Pythic; highest, where many are high. (Memoire sur les Etats-
Generaux. See Montgaillard, i. 457-9.) Foolish young Languedocian
gentleman; who himself so soon, 'emigrating among the foremost,' must fly
indignant over the marches, with the Contrat Social in his pocket,--towards
outer darkness, thankless intriguings, ignis-fatuus hoverings, and death by
the stiletto! Abbe Sieyes has left Chartres Cathedral, and canonry and
book-shelves there; has let his tonsure grow, and come to Paris with a
secular head, of the most irrefragable sort, to ask three questions, and
answer them: What is the Third Estate? All.--What has it hitherto been in
our form of government? Nothing.--What does it want? To become Something.
D'Orleans,--for be sure he, on his way to Chaos, is in the thick of this,--
promulgates his Deliberations; (Deliberations a prendre pour les Assemblees
des Bailliages.) fathered by him, written by Laclos of the Liaisons
Dangereuses. The result of which comes out simply: 'The Third Estate is
the Nation.' On the other hand, Monseigneur d'Artois, with other Princes
of the Blood, publishes, in solemn Memorial to the King, that if such
things be listened to, Privilege, Nobility, Monarchy, Church, State and
Strongbox are in danger. (Memoire presente au Roi, par Monseigneur Comte
d'Artois, M. le Prince de Conde, M. le Duc de Bourbon, M. le Duc d'Enghien,
et M. le Prince de Conti. (Given in Hist. Parl. i. 256.)) In danger
truly: and yet if you do not listen, are they out of danger? It is the
voice of all France, this sound that rises. Immeasurable, manifold; as the
sound of outbreaking waters: wise were he who knew what to do in it,--if
not to fly to the mountains, and hide himself?
How an ideal, all-seeing Versailles Government, sitting there on such
principles, in such an environment, would have determined to demean itself
at this new juncture, may even yet be a question. Such a Government would
have felt too well that its long task was now drawing to a close; that,
under the guise of these States-General, at length inevitable, a new
omnipotent Unknown of Democracy was coming into being; in presence of which
no Versailles Government either could or should, except in a provisory
character, continue extant. To enact which provisory character, so
unspeakably important, might its whole faculties but have sufficed; and so
a peaceable, gradual, well-conducted Abdication and Domine-dimittas have
been the issue!
This for our ideal, all-seeing Versailles Government. But for the actual
irrational Versailles Government? Alas, that is a Government existing
there only for its own behoof: without right, except possession; and now
also without might. It foresees nothing, sees nothing; has not so much as
a purpose, but has only purposes,--and the instinct whereby all that exists
will struggle to keep existing. Wholly a vortex; in which vain counsels,
hallucinations, falsehoods, intrigues, and imbecilities whirl; like
withered rubbish in the meeting of winds! The Oeil-de-Boeuf has its
irrational hopes, if also its fears. Since hitherto all States-General
have done as good as nothing, why should these do more? The Commons,
indeed, look dangerous; but on the whole is not revolt, unknown now for
five generations, an impossibility? The Three Estates can, by management,
be set against each other; the Third will, as heretofore, join with the
King; will, out of mere spite and self-interest, be eager to tax and vex
the other two. The other two are thus delivered bound into our hands, that
we may fleece them likewise. Whereupon, money being got, and the Three
Estates all in quarrel, dismiss them, and let the future go as it can! As
good Archbishop Lomenie was wont to say: "There are so many accidents; and
it needs but one to save us."--How many to destroy us?
Poor Necker in the midst of such an anarchy does what is possible for him.
He looks into it with obstinately hopeful face; lauds the known rectitude
of the kingly mind; listens indulgent-like to the known perverseness of the
queenly and courtly;--emits if any proclamation or regulation, one
favouring the Tiers Etat; but settling nothing; hovering afar off rather,
and advising all things to settle themselves. The grand questions, for the
present, have got reduced to two: the Double Representation, and the Vote
by Head. Shall the Commons have a 'double representation,' that is to say,
have as many members as the Noblesse and Clergy united? Shall the States-
General, when once assembled, vote and deliberate, in one body, or in three
separate bodies; 'vote by head, or vote by class,'--ordre as they call it?
These are the moot-points now filling all France with jargon, logic and
eleutheromania. To terminate which, Necker bethinks him, Might not a
second Convocation of the Notables be fittest? Such second Convocation is
resolved on.
On the 6th of November of this year 1788, these Notables accordingly have
reassembled; after an interval of some eighteen months. They are Calonne's
old Notables, the same Hundred and Forty-four,--to show one's impartiality;
likewise to save time. They sit there once again, in their Seven Bureaus,
in the hard winter weather: it is the hardest winter seen since 1709;
thermometer below zero of Fahrenheit, Seine River frozen over. (Marmontel,
Memoires (London, 1805), iv. 33. Hist. Parl, &c.) Cold, scarcity and
eleutheromaniac clamour: a changed world since these Notables were
'organed out,' in May gone a year! They shall see now whether, under their
Seven Princes of the Blood, in their Seven Bureaus, they can settle the
moot-points.
To the surprise of Patriotism, these Notables, once so patriotic, seem to
incline the wrong way; towards the anti-patriotic side. They stagger at
the Double Representation, at the Vote by Head: there is not affirmative
decision; there is mere debating, and that not with the best aspects. For,
indeed, were not these Notables themselves mostly of the Privileged
Classes? They clamoured once; now they have their misgivings; make their
dolorous representations. Let them vanish, ineffectual; and return no
more! They vanish after a month's session, on this 12th of December, year
1788: the last terrestrial Notables, not to reappear any other time, in
the History of the World.
And so, the clamour still continuing, and the Pamphlets; and nothing but
patriotic Addresses, louder and louder, pouting in on us from all corners
of France,--Necker himself some fortnight after, before the year is yet
done, has to present his Report, (Rapport fait au Roi dans son Conseil, le
27 Decembre 1788.) recommending at his own risk that same Double
Representation; nay almost enjoining it, so loud is the jargon and
eleutheromania. What dubitating, what circumambulating! These whole six
noisy months (for it began with Brienne in July,) has not Report followed
Report, and one Proclamation flown in the teeth of the other? (5th July;
8th August; 23rd September, &c. &c.)
However, that first moot-point, as we see, is now settled. As for the
second, that of voting by Head or by Order, it unfortunately is still left
hanging. It hangs there, we may say, between the Privileged Orders and the
Unprivileged; as a ready-made battle-prize, and necessity of war, from the
very first: which battle-prize whosoever seizes it--may thenceforth bear
as battle-flag, with the best omens!
But so, at least, by Royal Edict of the 24th of January, (Reglement du Roi
pour la Convocation des Etats-Generaux a Versailles. (Reprinted, wrong
dated, in Histoire Parlementaire, i. 262.)) does it finally, to impatient
expectant France, become not only indubitable that National Deputies are to
meet, but possible (so far and hardly farther has the royal Regulation
gone) to begin electing them.
Chapter 1.4.II.
The Election.
Up, then, and be doing! The royal signal-word flies through France, as
through vast forests the rushing of a mighty wind. At Parish Churches, in
Townhalls, and every House of Convocation; by Bailliages, by Seneschalsies,
in whatsoever form men convene; there, with confusion enough, are Primary
Assemblies forming. To elect your Electors; such is the form prescribed:
then to draw up your 'Writ of Plaints and Grievances (Cahier de plaintes et
doleances),' of which latter there is no lack.
With such virtue works this Royal January Edict; as it rolls rapidly, in
its leathern mails, along these frostbound highways, towards all the four
winds. Like some fiat, or magic spell-word;--which such things do
resemble! For always, as it sounds out 'at the market-cross,' accompanied
with trumpet-blast; presided by Bailli, Seneschal, or other minor
Functionary, with beef-eaters; or, in country churches is droned forth
after sermon, 'au prone des messes paroissales;' and is registered, posted
and let fly over all the world,--you behold how this multitudinous French
People, so long simmering and buzzing in eager expectancy, begins heaping
and shaping itself into organic groups. Which organic groups, again, hold
smaller organic grouplets: the inarticulate buzzing becomes articulate
speaking and acting. By Primary Assembly, and then by Secondary; by
'successive elections,' and infinite elaboration and scrutiny, according to
prescribed process--shall the genuine 'Plaints and Grievances' be at length
got to paper; shall the fit National Representative be at length laid hold
of.
How the whole People shakes itself, as if it had one life; and, in
thousand-voiced rumour, announces that it is awake, suddenly out of long
death-sleep, and will thenceforth sleep no more! The long looked-for has
come at last; wondrous news, of Victory, Deliverance, Enfranchisement,
sounds magical through every heart. To the proud strong man it has come;
whose strong hands shall no more be gyved; to whom boundless unconquered
continents lie disclosed. The weary day-drudge has heard of it; the beggar
with his crusts moistened in tears. What! To us also has hope reached;
down even to us? Hunger and hardship are not to be eternal? The bread we
extorted from the rugged glebe, and, with the toil of our sinews, reaped
and ground, and kneaded into loaves, was not wholly for another, then; but
we also shall eat of it, and be filled? Glorious news (answer the prudent
elders), but all-too unlikely!--Thus, at any rate, may the lower people,
who pay no money-taxes and have no right to vote, (Reglement du Roi (in
Histoire Parlementaire, as above, i. 267-307.) assiduously crowd round
those that do; and most Halls of Assembly, within doors and without, seem
animated enough.
Paris, alone of Towns, is to have Representatives; the number of them
twenty. Paris is divided into Sixty Districts; each of which (assembled in
some church, or the like) is choosing two Electors. Official deputations
pass from District to District, for all is inexperience as yet, and there
is endless consulting. The streets swarm strangely with busy crowds,
pacific yet restless and loquacious; at intervals, is seen the gleam of
military muskets; especially about the Palais, where Parlement, once more
on duty, sits querulous, almost tremulous.
Busy is the French world! In those great days, what poorest speculative
craftsman but will leave his workshop; if not to vote, yet to assist in
voting? On all highways is a rustling and bustling. Over the wide surface
of France, ever and anon, through the spring months, as the Sower casts his
corn abroad upon the furrows, sounds of congregating and dispersing; of
crowds in deliberation, acclamation, voting by ballot and by voice,--rise
discrepant towards the ear of Heaven. To which political phenomena add
this economical one, that Trade is stagnant, and also Bread getting dear;
for before the rigorous winter there was, as we said, a rigorous summer,
with drought, and on the 13th of July with destructive hail. What a
fearful day! all cried while that tempest fell. Alas, the next anniversary
of it will be a worse. (Bailly, Memoires, i. 336.) Under such aspects is
France electing National Representatives.
The incidents and specialties of these Elections belong not to Universal,
but to Local or Parish History: for which reason let not the new troubles
of Grenoble or Besancon; the bloodshed on the streets of Rennes, and
consequent march thither of the Breton 'Young Men' with Manifesto by their
'Mothers, Sisters and Sweethearts;' (Protestation et Arrete des Jeunes Gens
de la Ville de Nantes, du 28 Janvier 1789, avant leur depart pour Rennes.
Arrete des Jeunes Gens de la Ville d'Angers, du 4 Fevrier 1789. Arrete des
Meres, Soeurs, Epouses et Amantes des Jeunes Citoyens d'Angers, du 6
Fevrier 1789. (Reprinted in Histoire Parlementaire, i. 290-3.)) nor
suchlike, detain us here. It is the same sad history everywhere; with
superficial variations. A reinstated Parlement (as at Besancon), which
stands astonished at this Behemoth of a States-General it had itself
evoked, starts forward, with more or less audacity, to fix a thorn in its
nose; and, alas, is instantaneously struck down, and hurled quite out,--for
the new popular force can use not only arguments but brickbats! Or else,
and perhaps combined with this, it is an order of Noblesse (as in
Brittany), which will beforehand tie up the Third Estate, that it harm not
the old privileges. In which act of tying up, never so skilfully set
about, there is likewise no possibility of prospering; but the Behemoth-
Briareus snaps your cords like green rushes. Tie up? Alas, Messieurs!
And then, as for your chivalry rapiers, valour and wager-of-battle, think
one moment, how can that answer? The plebeian heart too has red life in
it, which changes not to paleness at glance even of you; and 'the six
hundred Breton gentlemen assembled in arms, for seventy-two hours, in the
Cordeliers' Cloister, at Rennes,'--have to come out again, wiser than they
entered. For the Nantes Youth, the Angers Youth, all Brittany was astir;
'mothers, sisters and sweethearts' shrieking after them, March! The Breton
Noblesse must even let the mad world have its way. (Hist. Parl. i. 287.
Deux Amis de la Liberte, i. 105-128.)
In other Provinces, the Noblesse, with equal goodwill, finds it better to
stick to Protests, to well-redacted 'Cahiers of grievances,' and satirical
writings and speeches. Such is partially their course in Provence; whither
indeed Gabriel Honore Riquetti Comte de Mirabeau has rushed down from
Paris, to speak a word in season. In Provence, the Privileged, backed by
their Aix Parlement, discover that such novelties, enjoined though they be
by Royal Edict, tend to National detriment; and what is still more
indisputable, 'to impair the dignity of the Noblesse.' Whereupon Mirabeau
protesting aloud, this same Noblesse, amid huge tumult within doors and
without, flatly determines to expel him from their Assembly. No other
method, not even that of successive duels, would answer with him, the
obstreperous fierce-glaring man. Expelled he accordingly is.
'In all countries, in all times,' exclaims he departing, 'the Aristocrats
have implacably pursued every friend of the People; and with tenfold
implacability, if such a one were himself born of the Aristocracy. It was
thus that the last of the Gracchi perished, by the hands of the Patricians.
But he, being struck with the mortal stab, flung dust towards heaven, and
called on the Avenging Deities; and from this dust there was born Marius,--
Marius not so illustrious for exterminating the Cimbri, as for overturning
in Rome the tyranny of the Nobles.' (Fils Adoptif, v. 256.) Casting up
which new curious handful of dust (through the Printing-press), to breed
what it can and may, Mirabeau stalks forth into the Third Estate.
That he now, to ingratiate himself with this Third Estate, 'opened a cloth-
shop in Marseilles,' and for moments became a furnishing tailor, or even
the fable that he did so, is to us always among the pleasant memorabilities
of this era. Stranger Clothier never wielded the ell-wand, and rent webs
for men, or fractional parts of men. The Fils Adoptif is indignant at such
disparaging fable, (Memoires de Mirabeau, v. 307.)--which nevertheless was
widely believed in those days. (Marat, Ami-du-Peuple Newspaper (in
Histoire Parlementaire, ii. 103), &c.) But indeed, if Achilles, in the
heroic ages, killed mutton, why should not Mirabeau, in the unheroic ones,
measure broadcloth?
More authentic are his triumph-progresses through that disturbed district,
with mob jubilee, flaming torches, 'windows hired for two louis,' and
voluntary guard of a hundred men. He is Deputy Elect, both of Aix and of
Marseilles; but will prefer Aix. He has opened his far-sounding voice, the
depths of his far-sounding soul; he can quell (such virtue is in a spoken
word) the pride-tumults of the rich, the hunger-tumults of the poor; and
wild multitudes move under him, as under the moon do billows of the sea:
he has become a world compeller, and ruler over men.
One other incident and specialty we note; with how different an interest!
It is of the Parlement of Paris; which starts forward, like the others
(only with less audacity, seeing better how it lay), to nose-ring that
Behemoth of a States-General. Worthy Doctor Guillotin, respectable
practitioner in Paris, has drawn up his little 'Plan of a Cahier of
doleances;'--as had he not, having the wish and gift, the clearest liberty
to do? He is getting the people to sign it; whereupon the surly Parlement
summons him to give an account of himself. He goes; but with all Paris at
his heels; which floods the outer courts, and copiously signs the Cahier
even there, while the Doctor is giving account of himself within! The
Parlement cannot too soon dismiss Guillotin, with compliments; to be borne
home shoulder-high. (Deux Amis de la Liberte, i. 141.) This respectable
Guillotin we hope to behold once more, and perhaps only once; the Parlement
not even once, but let it be engulphed unseen by us.
Meanwhile such things, cheering as they are, tend little to cheer the
national creditor, or indeed the creditor of any kind. In the midst of
universal portentous doubt, what certainty can seem so certain as money in
the purse, and the wisdom of keeping it there? Trading Speculation,
Commerce of all kinds, has as far as possible come to a dead pause; and the
hand of the industrious lies idle in his bosom. Frightful enough, when now
the rigour of seasons has also done its part, and to scarcity of work is
added scarcity of food! In the opening spring, there come rumours of
forestalment, there come King's Edicts, Petitions of bakers against
millers; and at length, in the month of April--troops of ragged Lackalls,
and fierce cries of starvation! These are the thrice-famed Brigands: an
actual existing quotity of persons: who, long reflected and reverberated
through so many millions of heads, as in concave multiplying mirrors,
become a whole Brigand World; and, like a kind of Supernatural Machinery
wondrously move the Epos of the Revolution. The Brigands are here: the
Brigands are there; the Brigands are coming! Not otherwise sounded the
clang of Phoebus Apollos's silver bow, scattering pestilence and pale
terror; for this clang too was of the imagination; preternatural; and it
too walked in formless immeasurability, having made itself like to the
Night (Greek.)!
But remark at least, for the first time, the singular empire of Suspicion,
in those lands, in those days. If poor famishing men shall, prior to
death, gather in groups and crowds, as the poor fieldfares and plovers do
in bitter weather, were it but that they may chirp mournfully together, and
misery look in the eyes of misery; if famishing men (what famishing
fieldfares cannot do) should discover, once congregated, that they need not
die while food is in the land, since they are many, and with empty wallets
have right hands: in all this, what need were there of Preternatural
Machinery? To most people none; but not to French people, in a time of
Revolution. These Brigands (as Turgot's also were, fourteen years ago)
have all been set on; enlisted, though without tuck of drum,--by
Aristocrats, by Democrats, by D'Orleans, D'Artois, and enemies of the
public weal. Nay Historians, to this day, will prove it by one argument:
these Brigands pretending to have no victual, nevertheless contrive to
drink, nay, have been seen drunk. (Lacretelle, 18me Siecle, ii. 155.) An
unexampled fact! But on the whole, may we not predict that a people, with
such a width of Credulity and of Incredulity (the proper union of which
makes Suspicion, and indeed unreason generally), will see Shapes enough of
Immortals fighting in its battle-ranks, and never want for Epical
Machinery?
Be this as it may, the Brigands are clearly got to Paris, in considerable
multitudes: (Besenval, iii. 385, &c.) with sallow faces, lank hair (the
true enthusiast complexion), with sooty rags; and also with large clubs,
which they smite angrily against the pavement! These mingle in the
Election tumult; would fain sign Guillotin's Cahier, or any Cahier or
Petition whatsoever, could they but write. Their enthusiast complexion,
the smiting of their sticks bodes little good to any one; least of all to
rich master-manufacturers of the Suburb Saint-Antoine, with whose workmen
they consort.
Chapter 1.4.III.
Grown Electric.
But now also National Deputies from all ends of France are in Paris, with
their commissions, what they call pouvoirs, or powers, in their pockets;
inquiring, consulting; looking out for lodgings at Versailles. The States-
General shall open there, if not on the First, then surely on the Fourth of
May, in grand procession and gala. The Salle des Menus is all new-
carpentered, bedizened for them; their very costume has been fixed; a grand
controversy which there was, as to 'slouch-hats or slouched-hats,' for the
Commons Deputies, has got as good as adjusted. Ever new strangers arrive;
loungers, miscellaneous persons, officers on furlough,--as the worthy
Captain Dampmartin, whom we hope to be acquainted with: these also, from
all regions, have repaired hither, to see what is toward. Our Paris
Committees, of the Sixty Districts, are busier than ever; it is now too
clear, the Paris Elections will be late.
On Monday, the 27th of April, Astronomer Bailly notices that the Sieur
Reveillon is not at his post. The Sieur Reveillon, 'extensive Paper
Manufacturer of the Rue St. Antoine;' he, commonly so punctual, is absent
from the Electoral Committee;--and even will never reappear there. In
those 'immense Magazines of velvet paper' has aught befallen? Alas, yes!
Alas, it is no Montgolfier rising there to-day; but Drudgery, Rascality and
the Suburb that is rising! Was the Sieur Reveillon, himself once a
journeyman, heard to say that 'a journeyman might live handsomely on
fifteen sous a-day?' Some sevenpence halfpenny: 'tis a slender sum! Or
was he only thought, and believed, to be heard saying it? By this long
chafing and friction it would appear the National temper has got electric.
Down in those dark dens, in those dark heads and hungry hearts, who knows
in what strange figure the new Political Evangel may have shaped itself;
what miraculous 'Communion of Drudges' may be getting formed! Enough:
grim individuals, soon waxing to grim multitudes, and other multitudes
crowding to see, beset that Paper-Warehouse; demonstrate, in loud
ungrammatical language (addressed to the passions too), the insufficiency
of sevenpence halfpenny a-day. The City-watch cannot dissipate them;
broils arise and bellowings; Reveillon, at his wits' end, entreats the
Populace, entreats the authorities. Besenval, now in active command,
Commandant of Paris, does, towards evening, to Reveillon's earnest prayer,
send some thirty Gardes Francaises. These clear the street, happily
without firing; and take post there for the night in hope that it may be
all over. (Besenval, iii. 385-8.)
Not so: on the morrow it is far worse. Saint-Antoine has arisen anew,
grimmer than ever;--reinforced by the unknown Tatterdemalion Figures, with
their enthusiast complexion and large sticks. The City, through all
streets, is flowing thitherward to see: 'two cartloads of paving-stones,
that happened to pass that way' have been seized as a visible godsend.
Another detachment of Gardes Francaises must be sent; Besenval and the
Colonel taking earnest counsel. Then still another; they hardly, with
bayonets and menace of bullets, penetrate to the spot. What a sight! A
street choked up, with lumber, tumult and the endless press of men. A
Paper-Warehouse eviscerated by axe and fire: mad din of Revolt; musket-
volleys responded to by yells, by miscellaneous missiles; by tiles raining
from roof and window,--tiles, execrations and slain men!
The Gardes Francaises like it not, but have to persevere. All day it
continues, slackening and rallying; the sun is sinking, and Saint-Antoine
has not yielded. The City flies hither and thither: alas, the sound of
that musket-volleying booms into the far dining-rooms of the Chaussee
d'Antin; alters the tone of the dinner-gossip there. Captain Dampmartin
leaves his wine; goes out with a friend or two, to see the fighting.
Unwashed men growl on him, with murmurs of "A bas les Aristocrates (Down
with the Aristocrats);" and insult the cross of St. Louis? They elbow him,
and hustle him; but do not pick his pocket;--as indeed at Reveillon's too
there was not the slightest stealing. (Evenemens qui se sont passes sous
mes yeux pendant la Revolution Francaise, par A. H. Dampmartin (Berlin,
1799), i. 25-27.)
At fall of night, as the thing will not end, Besenval takes his resolution:
orders out the Gardes Suisses with two pieces of artillery. The Swiss
Guards shall proceed thither; summon that rabble to depart, in the King's
name. If disobeyed, they shall load their artillery with grape-shot,
visibly to the general eye; shall again summon; if again disobeyed, fire,--
and keep firing 'till the last man' be in this manner blasted off, and the
street clear. With which spirited resolution, as might have been hoped,
the business is got ended. At sight of the lit matches, of the foreign
red-coated Switzers, Saint-Antoine dissipates; hastily, in the shades of
dusk. There is an encumbered street; there are 'from four to five hundred'
dead men. Unfortunate Reveillon has found shelter in the Bastille; does
therefrom, safe behind stone bulwarks, issue, plaint, protestation,
explanation, for the next month. Bold Besenval has thanks from all the
respectable Parisian classes; but finds no special notice taken of him at
Versailles,--a thing the man of true worth is used to. (Besenval, iii.
389.)
But how it originated, this fierce electric sputter and explosion? From
D'Orleans! cries the Court-party: he, with his gold, enlisted these
Brigands,--surely in some surprising manner, without sound of drum: he
raked them in hither, from all corners; to ferment and take fire; evil is
his good. From the Court! cries enlightened Patriotism: it is the cursed
gold and wiles of Aristocrats that enlisted them; set them upon ruining an
innocent Sieur Reveillon; to frighten the faint, and disgust men with the
career of Freedom.
Besenval, with reluctance, concludes that it came from 'the English, our
natural enemies.' Or, alas, might not one rather attribute it to Diana in
the shape of Hunger? To some twin Dioscuri, OPPRESSION and REVENGE; so
often seen in the battles of men? Poor Lackalls, all betoiled, besoiled,
encrusted into dim defacement; into whom nevertheless the breath of the
Almighty has breathed a living soul! To them it is clear only that
eleutheromaniac Philosophism has yet baked no bread; that Patrioti
Committee-men will level down to their own level, and no lower. Brigands,
or whatever they might be, it was bitter earnest with them. They bury
their dead with the title of Defenseurs de la Patrie, Martyrs of the good
Cause.
Or shall we say: Insurrection has now served its Apprenticeship; and this
was its proof-stroke, and no inconclusive one? Its next will be a master-
stroke; announcing indisputable Mastership to a whole astonished world.
Let that rock-fortress, Tyranny's stronghold, which they name Bastille, or
Building, as if there were no other building,--look to its guns!
But, in such wise, with primary and secondary Assemblies, and Cahiers of
Grievances; with motions, congregations of all kinds; with much thunder of
froth-eloquence, and at last with thunder of platoon-musquetry,--does
agitated France accomplish its Elections. With confused winnowing and
sifting, in this rather tumultuous manner, it has now (all except some
remnants of Paris) sifted out the true wheat-grains of National Deputies,
Twelve Hundred and Fourteen in number; and will forthwith open its States-
General.
Chapter 1.4.IV.
The Procession.
On the first Saturday of May, it is gala at Versailles; and Monday, fourth
of the month, is to be a still greater day. The Deputies have mostly got
thither, and sought out lodgings; and are now successively, in long well-
ushered files, kissing the hand of Majesty in the Chateau. Supreme Usher
de Breze does not give the highest satisfaction: we cannot but observe
that in ushering Noblesse or Clergy into the anointed Presence, he
liberally opens both his folding-doors; and on the other hand, for members
of the Third Estate opens only one! However, there is room to enter;
Majesty has smiles for all.
The good Louis welcomes his Honourable Members, with smiles of hope. He
has prepared for them the Hall of Menus, the largest near him; and often
surveyed the workmen as they went on. A spacious Hall: with raised
platform for Throne, Court and Blood-royal; space for six hundred Commons
Deputies in front; for half as many Clergy on this hand, and half as many
Noblesse on that. It has lofty galleries; wherefrom dames of honour,
splendent in gaze d'or; foreign Diplomacies, and other gilt-edged white-
frilled individuals to the number of two thousand,--may sit and look.
Broad passages flow through it; and, outside the inner wall, all round it.
There are committee-rooms, guard-rooms, robing-rooms: really a noble Hall;
where upholstery, aided by the subject fine-arts, has done its best; and
crimson tasseled cloths, and emblematic fleurs-de-lys are not wanting.
The Hall is ready: the very costume, as we said, has been settled; and the
Commons are not to wear that hated slouch-hat (chapeau clabaud), but one
not quite so slouched (chapeau rabattu). As for their manner of working,
when all dressed: for their 'voting by head or by order' and the rest,--
this, which it were perhaps still time to settle, and in few hours will be
no longer time, remains unsettled; hangs dubious in the breast of Twelve
Hundred men.
But now finally the Sun, on Monday the 4th of May, has risen;--unconcerned,
as if it were no special day. And yet, as his first rays could strike
music from the Memnon's Statue on the Nile, what tones were these, so
thrilling, tremulous of preparation and foreboding, which he awoke in every
bosom at Versailles! Huge Paris, in all conceivable and inconceivable
vehicles, is pouring itself forth; from each Town and Village come
subsidiary rills; Versailles is a very sea of men. But above all, from the
Church of St. Louis to the Church of Notre-Dame: one vast suspended-billow
of Life,--with spray scattered even to the chimney-pots! For on chimney-
tops too, as over the roofs, and up thitherwards on every lamp-iron, sign-
post, breakneck coign of vantage, sits patriotic Courage; and every window
bursts with patriotic Beauty: for the Deputies are gathering at St. Louis
Church; to march in procession to Notre-Dame, and hear sermon.
Yes, friends, ye may sit and look: boldly or in thought, all France, and
all Europe, may sit and look; for it is a day like few others. Oh, one
might weep like Xerxes:--So many serried rows sit perched there; like
winged creatures, alighted out of Heaven: all these, and so many more that
follow them, shall have wholly fled aloft again, vanishing into the blue
Deep; and the memory of this day still be fresh. It is the baptism-day of
Democracy; sick Time has given it birth, the numbered months being run.
The extreme-unction day of Feudalism! A superannuated System of Society,
decrepit with toils (for has it not done much; produced you, and what ye
have and know!)--and with thefts and brawls, named glorious-victories; and
with profligacies, sensualities, and on the whole with dotage and
senility,--is now to die: and so, with death-throes and birth-throes, a
new one is to be born. What a work, O Earth and Heavens, what a work!
Battles and bloodshed, September Massacres, Bridges of Lodi, retreats of
Moscow, Waterloos, Peterloos, Tenpound Franchises, Tarbarrels and
Guillotines;--and from this present date, if one might prophesy, some two
centuries of it still to fight! Two centuries; hardly less; before
Democracy go through its due, most baleful, stages of Quackocracy; and a
pestilential World be burnt up, and have begun to grow green and young
again.
Rejoice nevertheless, ye Versailles multitudes; to you, from whom all this
is hid, and glorious end of it is visible. This day, sentence of death is
pronounced on Shams; judgment of resuscitation, were it but far off, is
pronounced on Realities. This day it is declared aloud, as with a Doom-
trumpet, that a Lie is unbelievable. Believe that, stand by that, if more
there be not; and let what thing or things soever will follow it follow.
'Ye can no other; God be your help!' So spake a greater than any of you;
opening his Chapter of World-History.
Behold, however! The doors of St. Louis Church flung wide; and the
Procession of Processions advancing towards Notre-Dame! Shouts rend the
air; one shout, at which Grecian birds might drop dead. It is indeed a
stately, solemn sight. The Elected of France, and then the Court of
France; they are marshalled and march there, all in prescribed place and
costume. Our Commons 'in plain black mantle and white cravat;' Noblesse,
in gold-worked, bright-dyed cloaks of velvet, resplendent, rustling with
laces, waving with plumes; the Clergy in rochet, alb, or other best
pontificalibus: lastly comes the King himself, and King's Household, also
in their brightest blaze of pomp,--their brightest and final one. Some
Fourteen Hundred Men blown together from all winds, on the deepest errand.
Yes, in that silent marching mass there lies Futurity enough. No symbolic
Ark, like the old Hebrews, do these men bear: yet with them too is a
Covenant; they too preside at a new Era in the History of Men. The whole
Future is there, and Destiny dim-brooding over it; in the hearts and
unshaped thoughts of these men, it lies illegible, inevitable. Singular to
think: they have it in them; yet not they, not mortal, only the Eye above
can read it,--as it shall unfold itself, in fire and thunder, of siege, and
field-artillery; in the rustling of battle-banners, the tramp of hosts, in
the glow of burning cities, the shriek of strangled nations! Such things
lie hidden, safe-wrapt in this Fourth day of May;--say rather, had lain in
some other unknown day, of which this latter is the public fruit and
outcome. As indeed what wonders lie in every Day,--had we the sight, as
happily we have not, to decipher it: for is not every meanest Day 'the
conflux of two Eternities!'
Meanwhile, suppose we too, good Reader, should, as now without miracle Muse
Clio enables us--take our station also on some coign of vantage; and glance
momentarily over this Procession, and this Life-sea; with far other eyes
than the rest do, namely with prophetic? We can mount, and stand there,
without fear of falling.
As for the Life-sea, or onlooking unnumbered Multitude, it is unfortunately
all-too dim. Yet as we gaze fixedly, do not nameless Figures not a few,
which shall not always be nameless, disclose themselves; visible or
presumable there! Young Baroness de Stael--she evidently looks from a
window; among older honourable women. (Madame de Stael, Considerations sur
la Revolution Francaise (London, 1818), i. 114-191.) Her father is
Minister, and one of the gala personages; to his own eyes the chief one.
Young spiritual Amazon, thy rest is not there; nor thy loved Father's: 'as
Malebranche saw all things in God, so M. Necker sees all things in
Necker,'--a theorem that will not hold.
But where is the brown-locked, light-behaved, fire-hearted Demoiselle
Theroigne? Brown eloquent Beauty; who, with thy winged words and glances,
shalt thrill rough bosoms, whole steel battalions, and persuade an Austrian
Kaiser,--pike and helm lie provided for thee in due season; and, alas, also
strait-waistcoat and long lodging in the Salpetriere! Better hadst thou
staid in native Luxemburg, and been the mother of some brave man's
children: but it was not thy task, it was not thy lot.
Of the rougher sex how, without tongue, or hundred tongues, of iron,
enumerate the notabilities! Has not Marquis Valadi hastily quitted his
quaker broadbrim; his Pythagorean Greek in Wapping, and the city of
Glasgow? (Founders of the French Republic (London, 1798), para Valadi.)
De Morande from his Courrier de l'Europe; Linguet from his Annales, they
looked eager through the London fog, and became Ex-Editors,--that they
might feed the guillotine, and have their due. Does Louvet (of Faublas)
stand a-tiptoe? And Brissot, hight De Warville, friend of the Blacks? He,
with Marquis Condorcet, and Claviere the Genevese 'have created the
Moniteur Newspaper,' or are about creating it. Able Editors must give
account of such a day.
Or seest thou with any distinctness, low down probably, not in places of
honour, a Stanislas Maillard, riding-tipstaff (huissier a cheval) of the
Chatelet; one of the shiftiest of men? A Captain Hulin of Geneva, Captain
Elie of the Queen's Regiment; both with an air of half-pay? Jourdan, with
tile-coloured whiskers, not yet with tile-beard; an unjust dealer in mules?
He shall be, in a few months, Jourdan the Headsman, and have other work.
Surely also, in some place not of honour, stands or sprawls up querulous,
that he too, though short, may see,--one squalidest bleared mortal,
redolent of soot and horse-drugs: Jean Paul Marat of Neuchatel! O Marat,
Renovator of Human Science, Lecturer on Optics; O thou remarkablest
Horseleech, once in D'Artois' Stables,--as thy bleared soul looks forth,
through thy bleared, dull-acrid, wo-stricken face, what sees it in all
this? Any faintest light of hope; like dayspring after Nova-Zembla night?
Or is it but blue sulphur-light, and spectres; woe, suspicion, revenge
without end?
Of Draper Lecointre, how he shut his cloth-shop hard by, and stepped forth,
one need hardly speak. Nor of Santerre, the sonorous Brewer from the
Faubourg St. Antoine. Two other Figures, and only two, we signalise there.
The huge, brawny, Figure; through whose black brows, and rude flattened
face (figure ecrasee), there looks a waste energy as of Hercules not yet
furibund,--he is an esurient, unprovided Advocate; Danton by name: him
mark. Then that other, his slight-built comrade and craft-brother; he with
the long curling locks; with the face of dingy blackguardism, wondrously
irradiated with genius, as if a naphtha-lamp burnt within it: that Figure
is Camille Desmoulins. A fellow of infinite shrewdness, wit, nay humour;
one of the sprightliest clearest souls in all these millions. Thou poor
Camille, say of thee what they may, it were but falsehood to pretend one
did not almost love thee, thou headlong lightly-sparkling man! But the
brawny, not yet furibund Figure, we say, is Jacques Danton; a name that
shall be 'tolerably known in the Revolution.' He is President of the
electoral Cordeliers District at Paris, or about to be it; and shall open
his lungs of brass.
We dwell no longer on the mixed shouting Multitude: for now, behold, the
Commons Deputies are at hand!
Which of these Six Hundred individuals, in plain white cravat, that have
come up to regenerate France, might one guess would become their king? For
a king or leader they, as all bodies of men, must have: be their work what
it may, there is one man there who, by character, faculty, position, is
fittest of all to do it; that man, as future not yet elected king, walks
there among the rest. He with the thick black locks, will it be? With the
hure, as himself calls it, or black boar's-head, fit to be 'shaken' as a
senatorial portent? Through whose shaggy beetle-brows, and rough-hewn,
seamed, carbuncled face, there look natural ugliness, small-pox,
incontinence, bankruptcy,--and burning fire of genius; like comet-fire
glaring fuliginous through murkiest confusions? It is Gabriel Honore
Riquetti de Mirabeau, the world-compeller; man-ruling Deputy of Aix!
According to the Baroness de Stael, he steps proudly along, though looked
at askance here, and shakes his black chevelure, or lion's-mane; as if
prophetic of great deeds.
Yes, Reader, that is the Type-Frenchman of this epoch; as Voltaire was of
the last. He is French in his aspirations, acquisitions, in his virtues,
in his vices; perhaps more French than any other man;--and intrinsically
such a mass of manhood too. Mark him well. The National Assembly were all
different without that one; nay, he might say with the old Despot: "The
National Assembly? I am that."
Of a southern climate, of wild southern blood: for the Riquettis, or
Arighettis, had to fly from Florence and the Guelfs, long centuries ago,
and settled in Provence; where from generation to generation they have ever
approved themselves a peculiar kindred: irascible, indomitable, sharp-
cutting, true, like the steel they wore; of an intensity and activity that
sometimes verged towards madness, yet did not reach it. One ancient
Riquetti, in mad fulfilment of a mad vow, chains two Mountains together;
and the chain, with its 'iron star of five rays,' is still to be seen. May
not a modern Riquetti unchain so much, and set it drifting,--which also
shall be seen?
Destiny has work for that swart burly-headed Mirabeau; Destiny has watched
over him, prepared him from afar. Did not his Grandfather, stout Col.
d'Argent (Silver-Stock, so they named him), shattered and slashed by seven-
and-twenty wounds in one fell day lie sunk together on the Bridge at
Casano; while Prince Eugene's cavalry galloped and regalloped over him,--
only the flying sergeant had thrown a camp-kettle over that loved head; and
Vendome, dropping his spyglass, moaned out, 'Mirabeau is dead, then!'
Nevertheless he was not dead: he awoke to breathe, and miraculous
surgery;--for Gabriel was yet to be. With his silver stock he kept his
scarred head erect, through long years; and wedded; and produced tough
Marquis Victor, the Friend of Men. Whereby at last in the appointed year
1749, this long-expected rough-hewn Gabriel Honore did likewise see the
light: roughest lion's-whelp ever littered of that rough breed. How the
old lion (for our old Marquis too was lion-like, most unconquerable,
kingly-genial, most perverse) gazed wonderingly on his offspring; and
determined to train him as no lion had yet been! It is in vain, O Marquis!
This cub, though thou slay him and flay him, will not learn to draw in
dogcart of Political Economy, and be a Friend of Men; he will not be Thou,
must and will be Himself, another than Thou. Divorce lawsuits, 'whole
family save one in prison, and three-score Lettres-de-Cachet' for thy own
sole use, do but astonish the world.
Our Luckless Gabriel, sinned against and sinning, has been in the Isle of
Rhe, and heard the Atlantic from his tower; in the Castle of If, and heard
the Mediterranean at Marseilles. He has been in the Fortress of Joux; and
forty-two months, with hardly clothing to his back, in the Dungeon of
Vincennes;--all by Lettre-de-Cachet, from his lion father. He has been in
Pontarlier Jails (self-constituted prisoner); was noticed fording estuaries
of the sea (at low water), in flight from the face of men. He has pleaded
before Aix Parlements (to get back his wife); the public gathering on
roofs, to see since they could not hear: "the clatter-teeth (claque-
dents)!" snarles singular old Mirabeau; discerning in such admired forensic
eloquence nothing but two clattering jaw-bones, and a head vacant,
sonorous, of the drum species.
But as for Gabriel Honore, in these strange wayfarings, what has he not
seen and tried! From drill-sergeants, to prime-ministers, to foreign and
domestic booksellers, all manner of men he has seen. All manner of men he
has gained; for at bottom it is a social, loving heart, that wild
unconquerable one:--more especially all manner of women. From the Archer's
Daughter at Saintes to that fair young Sophie Madame Monnier, whom he could
not but 'steal,' and be beheaded for--in effigy! For indeed hardly since
the Arabian Prophet lay dead to Ali's admiration, was there seen such a
Love-hero, with the strength of thirty men. In War, again, he has helped
to conquer Corsica; fought duels, irregular brawls; horsewhipped calumnious
barons. In Literature, he has written on Despotism, on Lettres-de-Cachet;
Erotics Sapphic-Werterean, Obscenities, Profanities; Books on the Prussian
Monarchy, on Cagliostro, on Calonne, on the Water Companies of Paris:--each
book comparable, we will say, to a bituminous alarum-fire; huge, smoky,
sudden! The firepan, the kindling, the bitumen were his own; but the
lumber, of rags, old wood and nameless combustible rubbish (for all is fuel
to him), was gathered from huckster, and ass-panniers, of every description
under heaven. Whereby, indeed, hucksters enough have been heard to
exclaim: Out upon it, the fire is mine!
Nay, consider it more generally, seldom had man such a talent for
borrowing. The idea, the faculty of another man he can make his; the man
himself he can make his. "All reflex and echo (tout de reflet et de
reverbere)!" snarls old Mirabeau, who can see, but will not. Crabbed old
Friend of Men! it is his sociality, his aggregative nature; and will now be
the quality of all for him. In that forty-years 'struggle against
despotism,' he has gained the glorious faculty of self-help, and yet not
lost the glorious natural gift of fellowship, of being helped. Rare union!
This man can live self-sufficing--yet lives also in the life of other men;
can make men love him, work with him: a born king of men!
But consider further how, as the old Marquis still snarls, he has "made
away with (hume, swallowed) all Formulas;"--a fact which, if we meditate
it, will in these days mean much. This is no man of system, then; he is
only a man of instincts and insights. A man nevertheless who will glare
fiercely on any object; and see through it, and conquer it: for he has
intellect, he has will, force beyond other men. A man not with logic-
spectacles; but with an eye! Unhappily without Decalogue, moral Code or
Theorem of any fixed sort; yet not without a strong living Soul in him, and
Sincerity there: a Reality, not an Artificiality, not a Sham! And so he,
having struggled 'forty years against despotism,' and 'made away with all
formulas,' shall now become the spokesman of a Nation bent to do the same.
For is it not precisely the struggle of France also to cast off despotism;
to make away with her old formulas,--having found them naught, worn out,
far from the reality? She will make away with such formulas;--and even go
bare, if need be, till she have found new ones.
Towards such work, in such manner, marches he, this singular Riquetti
Mirabeau. In fiery rough figure, with black Samson-locks under the slouch-
hat, he steps along there. A fiery fuliginous mass, which could not be
choked and smothered, but would fill all France with smoke. And now it has
got air; it will burn its whole substance, its whole smoke-atmosphere too,
and fill all France with flame. Strange lot! Forty years of that
smouldering, with foul fire-damp and vapour enough, then victory over
that;--and like a burning mountain he blazes heaven-high; and, for twenty-
three resplendent months, pours out, in flame and molten fire-torrents, all
that is in him, the Pharos and Wonder-sign of an amazed Europe;--and then
lies hollow, cold forever! Pass on, thou questionable Gabriel Honore, the
greatest of them all: in the whole National Deputies, in the whole Nation,
there is none like and none second to thee.
But now if Mirabeau is the greatest, who of these Six Hundred may be the
meanest? Shall we say, that anxious, slight, ineffectual-looking man,
under thirty, in spectacles; his eyes (were the glasses off) troubled,
careful; with upturned face, snuffing dimly the uncertain future-time;
complexion of a multiplex atrabiliar colour, the final shade of which may
be the pale sea-green. (See De Stael, Considerations (ii. 142); Barbaroux,
Memoires, &c.) That greenish-coloured (verdatre) individual is an Advocate
of Arras; his name is Maximilien Robespierre. The son of an Advocate; his
father founded mason-lodges under Charles Edward, the English Prince or
Pretender. Maximilien the first-born was thriftily educated; he had brisk
Camille Desmoulins for schoolmate in the College of Louis le Grand, at
Paris. But he begged our famed Necklace-Cardinal, Rohan, the patron, to
let him depart thence, and resign in favour of a younger brother. The
strict-minded Max departed; home to paternal Arras; and even had a Law-case
there and pleaded, not unsuccessfully, 'in favour of the first Franklin
thunder-rod.' With a strict painful mind, an understanding small but clear
and ready, he grew in favour with official persons, who could foresee in
him an excellent man of business, happily quite free from genius. The
Bishop, therefore, taking counsel, appoints him Judge of his diocese; and
he faithfully does justice to the people: till behold, one day, a culprit
comes whose crime merits hanging; and the strict-minded Max must abdicate,
for his conscience will not permit the dooming of any son of Adam to die.
A strict-minded, strait-laced man! A man unfit for Revolutions? Whose
small soul, transparent wholesome-looking as small ale, could by no chance
ferment into virulent alegar,--the mother of ever new alegar; till all
France were grown acetous virulent? We shall see.
Between which two extremes of grandest and meanest, so many grand and mean
roll on, towards their several destinies, in that Procession! There is
Cazales, the learned young soldier; who shall become the eloquent orator of
Royalism, and earn the shadow of a name. Experienced Mounier, experienced
Malouet; whose Presidential Parlementary experience the stream of things
shall soon leave stranded. A Petion has left his gown and briefs at
Chartres for a stormier sort of pleading; has not forgotten his violin,
being fond of music. His hair is grizzled, though he is still young:
convictions, beliefs, placid-unalterable are in that man; not hindmost of
them, belief in himself. A Protestant-clerical Rabaut-St.-Etienne, a
slender young eloquent and vehement Barnave, will help to regenerate
France. There are so many of them young. Till thirty the Spartans did not
suffer a man to marry: but how many men here under thirty; coming to
produce not one sufficient citizen, but a nation and a world of such! The
old to heal up rents; the young to remove rubbish:--which latter, is it
not, indeed, the task here?
Dim, formless from this distance, yet authentically there, thou noticest
the Deputies from Nantes? To us mere clothes-screens, with slouch-hat and
cloak, but bearing in their pocket a Cahier of doleances with this singular
clause, and more such in it: 'That the master wigmakers of Nantes be not
troubled with new gild-brethren, the actually existing number of ninety-two
being more than sufficient!' (Histoire Parlementaire, i. 335.) The Rennes
people have elected Farmer Gerard, 'a man of natural sense and rectitude,
without any learning.' He walks there, with solid step; unique, 'in his
rustic farmer-clothes;' which he will wear always; careless of short-cloaks
and costumes. The name Gerard, or 'Pere Gerard, Father Gerard,' as they
please to call him, will fly far; borne about in endless banter; in
Royalist satires, in Republican didactic Almanacks. (Actes des Apotres (by
Peltier and others); Almanach du Pere Gerard (by Collot d'Herbois) &c. &c.)
As for the man Gerard, being asked once, what he did, after trial of it,
candidly think of this Parlementary work,--"I think," answered he, "that
there are a good many scoundrels among us." so walks Father Gerard; solid
in his thick shoes, whithersoever bound.
And worthy Doctor Guillotin, whom we hoped to behold one other time? If
not here, the Doctor should be here, and we see him with the eye of
prophecy: for indeed the Parisian Deputies are all a little late.
Singular Guillotin, respectable practitioner: doomed by a satiric destiny
to the strangest immortal glory that ever kept obscure mortal from his
resting-place, the bosom of oblivion! Guillotin can improve the
ventilation of the Hall; in all cases of medical police and hygiene be a
present aid: but, greater far, he can produce his 'Report on the Penal
Code;' and reveal therein a cunningly devised Beheading Machine, which
shall become famous and world-famous. This is the product of Guillotin's
endeavours, gained not without meditation and reading; which product
popular gratitude or levity christens by a feminine derivative name, as if
it were his daughter: La Guillotine! "With my machine, Messieurs, I whisk
off your head (vous fais sauter la tete) in a twinkling, and you have no
pain;"--whereat they all laugh. (Moniteur Newspaper, of December 1st, 1789
(in Histoire Parlementaire).) Unfortunate Doctor! For two-and-twenty
years he, unguillotined, shall near nothing but guillotine, see nothing but
guillotine; then dying, shall through long centuries wander, as it were, a
disconsolate ghost, on the wrong side of Styx and Lethe; his name like to
outlive Caesar's.
See Bailly, likewise of Paris, time-honoured Historian of Astronomy Ancient
and Modern. Poor Bailly, how thy serenely beautiful Philosophising, with
its soft moonshiny clearness and thinness, ends in foul thick confusion--of
Presidency, Mayorship, diplomatic Officiality, rabid Triviality, and the
throat of everlasting Darkness! Far was it to descend from the heavenly
Galaxy to the Drapeau Rouge: beside that fatal dung-heap, on that last
hell-day, thou must 'tremble,' though only with cold, 'de froid.'
Speculation is not practice: to be weak is not so miserable; but to be
weaker than our task. Wo the day when they mounted thee, a peaceable
pedestrian, on that wild Hippogriff of a Democracy; which, spurning the
firm earth, nay lashing at the very stars, no yet known Astolpho could have
ridden!
In the Commons Deputies there are Merchants, Artists, Men of Letters; three
hundred and seventy-four Lawyers; (Bouille, Memoires sur la Revolution
Francaise (London, 1797), i. 68.) and at least one Clergyman: the Abbe
Sieyes. Him also Paris sends, among its twenty. Behold him, the light
thin man; cold, but elastic, wiry; instinct with the pride of Logic;
passionless, or with but one passion, that of self-conceit. If indeed that
can be called a passion, which, in its independent concentrated greatness,
seems to have soared into transcendentalism; and to sit there with a kind
of godlike indifference, and look down on passion! He is the man, and
wisdom shall die with him. This is the Sieyes who shall be System-builder,
Constitution-builder General; and build Constitutions (as many as wanted)
skyhigh,--which shall all unfortunately fall before he get the scaffolding
away. "La Politique," said he to Dumont, "Polity is a science I think I
have completed (achevee)." (Dumont, Souvenirs sur Mirabeau, p. 64.) What
things, O Sieyes, with thy clear assiduous eyes, art thou to see! But were
it not curious to know how Sieyes, now in these days (for he is said to be
still alive) (A.D. 1834.) looks out on all that Constitution masonry,
through the rheumy soberness of extreme age? Might we hope, still with the
old irrefragable transcendentalism? The victorious cause pleased the gods,
the vanquished one pleased Sieyes (victa Catoni).
Thus, however, amid skyrending vivats, and blessings from every heart, has
the Procession of the Commons Deputies rolled by.
Next follow the Noblesse, and next the Clergy; concerning both of whom it
might be asked, What they specially have come for? Specially, little as
they dream of it, to answer this question, put in a voice of thunder: What
are you doing in God's fair Earth and Task-garden; where whosoever is not
working is begging or stealing? Wo, wo to themselves and to all, if they
can only answer: Collecting tithes, Preserving game!--Remark, meanwhile,
how D'Orleans affects to step before his own Order, and mingle with the
Commons. For him are vivats: few for the rest, though all wave in plumed
'hats of a feudal cut,' and have sword on thigh; though among them is
D'Antraigues, the young Languedocian gentleman,--and indeed many a Peer
more or less noteworthy.
There are Liancourt, and La Rochefoucault; the liberal Anglomaniac Dukes.
There is a filially pious Lally; a couple of liberal Lameths. Above all,
there is a Lafayette; whose name shall be Cromwell-Grandison, and fill the
world. Many a 'formula' has this Lafayette too made away with; yet not all
formulas. He sticks by the Washington-formula; and by that he will stick;-
-and hang by it, as by sure bower-anchor hangs and swings the tight war-
ship, which, after all changes of wildest weather and water, is found still
hanging. Happy for him; be it glorious or not! Alone of all Frenchmen he
has a theory of the world, and right mind to conform thereto; he can become
a hero and perfect character, were it but the hero of one idea. Note
further our old Parlementary friend, Crispin-Catiline d'Espremenil. He is
returned from the Mediterranean Islands, a redhot royalist, repentant to
the finger-ends;--unsettled-looking; whose light, dusky-glowing at best,
now flickers foul in the socket; whom the National Assembly will by and by,
to save time, 'regard as in a state of distraction.' Note lastly that
globular Younger Mirabeau; indignant that his elder Brother is among the
Commons: it is Viscomte Mirabeau; named oftener Mirabeau Tonneau (Barrel
Mirabeau), on account of his rotundity, and the quantities of strong liquor
he contains.
There then walks our French Noblesse. All in the old pomp of chivalry:
and yet, alas, how changed from the old position; drifted far down from
their native latitude, like Arctic icebergs got into the Equatorial sea,
and fast thawing there! Once these Chivalry Duces (Dukes, as they are
still named) did actually lead the world,--were it only towards battle-
spoil, where lay the world's best wages then: moreover, being the ablest
Leaders going, they had their lion's share, those Duces; which none could
grudge them. But now, when so many Looms, improved Ploughshares, Steam-
Engines and Bills of Exchange have been invented; and, for battle-brawling
itself, men hire Drill-Sergeants at eighteen-pence a-day,--what mean these
goldmantled Chivalry Figures, walking there 'in black-velvet cloaks,' in
high-plumed 'hats of a feudal cut'? Reeds shaken in the wind!
The Clergy have got up; with Cahiers for abolishing pluralities, enforcing
residence of bishops, better payment of tithes. (Hist. Parl. i. 322-27.)
The Dignitaries, we can observe, walk stately, apart from the numerous
Undignified,--who indeed are properly little other than Commons disguised
in Curate-frocks. Here, however, though by strange ways, shall the Precept
be fulfilled, and they that are greatest (much to their astonishment)
become least. For one example, out of many, mark that plausible Gregoire:
one day Cure Gregoire shall be a Bishop, when the now stately are wandering
distracted, as Bishops in partibus. With other thought, mark also the Abbe
Maury: his broad bold face; mouth accurately primmed; full eyes, that ray
out intelligence, falsehood,--the sort of sophistry which is astonished you
should find it sophistical. Skilfulest vamper-up of old rotten leather, to
make it look like new; always a rising man; he used to tell Mercier, "You
will see; I shall be in the Academy before you." (Mercier, Nouveau Paris.)
Likely indeed, thou skilfullest Maury; nay thou shalt have a Cardinal's
Hat, and plush and glory; but alas, also, in the longrun--mere oblivion,
like the rest of us; and six feet of earth! What boots it, vamping rotten
leather on these terms? Glorious in comparison is the livelihood thy good
old Father earns, by making shoes,--one may hope, in a sufficient manner.
Maury does not want for audacity. He shall wear pistols, by and by; and at
death-cries of "The Lamp-iron;" answer coolly, "Friends, will you see
better there?"
But yonder, halting lamely along, thou noticest next Bishop Talleyrand-
Perigord, his Reverence of Autun. A sardonic grimness lies in that
irreverent Reverence of Autun. He will do and suffer strange things; and
will become surely one of the strangest things ever seen, or like to be
seen. A man living in falsehood, and on falsehood; yet not what you can
call a false man: there is the specialty! It will be an enigma for future
ages, one may hope: hitherto such a product of Nature and Art was possible
only for this age of ours,--Age of Paper, and of the Burning of Paper.
Consider Bishop Talleyrand and Marquis Lafayette as the topmost of their
two kinds; and say once more, looking at what they did and what they were,
O Tempus ferax rerum!
On the whole, however, has not this unfortunate Clergy also drifted in the
Time-stream, far from its native latitude? An anomalous mass of men; of
whom the whole world has already a dim understanding that it can understand
nothing. They were once a Priesthood, interpreters of Wisdom, revealers of
the Holy that is in Man: a true Clerus (or Inheritance of God on Earth):
but now?--They pass silently, with such Cahiers as they have been able to
redact; and none cries, God bless them.
King Louis with his Court brings up the rear: he cheerful, in this day of
hope, is saluted with plaudits; still more Necker his Minister. Not so the
Queen; on whom hope shines not steadily any more. Ill-fated Queen! Her
hair is already gray with many cares and crosses; her first-born son is
dying in these weeks: black falsehood has ineffaceably soiled her name;
ineffaceably while this generation lasts. Instead of Vive la Reine, voices
insult her with Vive d'Orleans. Of her queenly beauty little remains
except its stateliness; not now gracious, but haughty, rigid, silently
enduring. With a most mixed feeling, wherein joy has no part, she resigns
herself to a day she hoped never to have seen. Poor Marie Antoinette; with
thy quick noble instincts; vehement glancings, vision all-too fitful narrow
for the work thou hast to do! O there are tears in store for thee;
bitterest wailings, soft womanly meltings, though thou hast the heart of an
imperial Theresa's Daughter. Thou doomed one, shut thy eyes on the
future!--
And so, in stately Procession, have passed the Elected of France. Some
towards honour and quick fire-consummation; most towards dishonour; not a
few towards massacre, confusion, emigration, desperation: all towards
Eternity!--So many heterogeneities cast together into the fermenting-vat;
there, with incalculable action, counteraction, elective affinities,
explosive developments, to work out healing for a sick moribund System of
Society! Probably the strangest Body of Men, if we consider well, that
ever met together on our Planet on such an errand. So thousandfold complex
a Society, ready to burst-up from its infinite depths; and these men, its
rulers and healers, without life-rule for themselves,--other life-rule than
a Gospel according to Jean Jacques! To the wisest of them, what we must
call the wisest, man is properly an Accident under the sky. Man is without
Duty round him; except it be 'to make the Constitution.' He is without
Heaven above him, or Hell beneath him; he has no God in the world.
What further or better belief can be said to exist in these Twelve Hundred?
Belief in high-plumed hats of a feudal cut; in heraldic scutcheons; in the
divine right of Kings, in the divine right of Game-destroyers. Belief, or
what is still worse, canting half-belief; or worst of all, mere
Macchiavellic pretence-of-belief,--in consecrated dough-wafers, and the
godhood of a poor old Italian Man! Nevertheless in that immeasurable
Confusion and Corruption, which struggles there so blindly to become less
confused and corrupt, there is, as we said, this one salient point of a New
Life discernible: the deep fixed Determination to have done with Shams. A
determination, which, consciously or unconsciously, is fixed; which waxes
ever more fixed, into very madness and fixed-idea; which in such embodiment
as lies provided there, shall now unfold itself rapidly: monstrous,
stupendous, unspeakable; new for long thousands of years!--How has the
Heaven's light, oftentimes in this Earth, to clothe itself in thunder and
electric murkiness; and descend as molten lightning, blasting, if
purifying! Nay is it not rather the very murkiness, and atmospheric
suffocation, that brings the lightning and the light? The new Evangel, as
the old had been, was it to be born in the Destruction of a World?
But how the Deputies assisted at High Mass, and heard sermon, and applauded
the preacher, church as it was, when he preached politics; how, next day,
with sustained pomp, they are, for the first time, installed in their
Salles des Menus (Hall no longer of Amusements), and become a States-
General,--readers can fancy for themselves. The King from his estrade,
gorgeous as Solomon in all his glory, runs his eye over that majestic Hall;
many-plumed, many-glancing; bright-tinted as rainbow, in the galleries and
near side spaces, where Beauty sits raining bright influence.
Satisfaction, as of one that after long voyaging had got to port, plays
over his broad simple face: the innocent King! He rises and speaks, with
sonorous tone, a conceivable speech. With which, still more with the
succeeding one-hour and two-hour speeches of Garde-des-Sceaux and M.
Necker, full of nothing but patriotism, hope, faith, and deficiency of the
revenue,--no reader of these pages shall be tried.
We remark only that, as his Majesty, on finishing the speech, put on his
plumed hat, and the Noblesse according to custom imitated him, our Tiers-
Etat Deputies did mostly, not without a shade of fierceness, in like manner
clap-on, and even crush on their slouched hats; and stand there awaiting
the issue. (Histoire Parlementaire (i. 356). Mercier, Nouveau Paris, &c.)
Thick buzz among them, between majority and minority of Couvrezvous,
Decrouvrez-vous (Hats off, Hats on)! To which his Majesty puts end, by
taking off his own royal hat again.
The session terminates without further accident or omen than this; with
which, significantly enough, France has opened her States-General.
BOOK 1.V.
THE THIRD ESTATE
Chapter 1.5.I.
Inertia.
That exasperated France, in this same National Assembly of hers, has got
something, nay something great, momentous, indispensable, cannot be
doubted; yet still the question were: Specially what? A question hard to
solve, even for calm onlookers at this distance; wholly insoluble to actors
in the middle of it. The States-General, created and conflated by the
passionate effort of the whole nation, is there as a thing high and lifted
up. Hope, jubilating, cries aloud that it will prove a miraculous Brazen
Serpent in the Wilderness; whereon whosoever looks, with faith and
obedience, shall be healed of all woes and serpent-bites.
We may answer, it will at least prove a symbolic Banner; round which the
exasperating complaining Twenty-Five Millions, otherwise isolated and
without power, may rally, and work--what it is in them to work. If battle
must be the work, as one cannot help expecting, then shall it be a battle-
banner (say, an Italian Gonfalon, in its old Republican Carroccio); and
shall tower up, car-borne, shining in the wind: and with iron tongue peal
forth many a signal. A thing of prime necessity; which whether in the van
or in the centre, whether leading or led and driven, must do the fighting
multitude incalculable services. For a season, while it floats in the very
front, nay as it were stands solitary there, waiting whether force will
gather round it, this same National Carroccio, and the signal-peals it
rings, are a main object with us.
The omen of the 'slouch-hats clapt on' shows the Commons Deputies to have
made up their minds on one thing: that neither Noblesse nor Clergy shall
have precedence of them; hardly even Majesty itself. To such length has
the Contrat Social, and force of public opinion, carried us. For what is
Majesty but the Delegate of the Nation; delegated, and bargained with (even
rather tightly),--in some very singular posture of affairs, which Jean
Jacques has not fixed the date of?
Coming therefore into their Hall, on the morrow, an inorganic mass of Six
Hundred individuals, these Commons Deputies perceive, without terror, that
they have it all to themselves. Their Hall is also the Grand or general
Hall for all the Three Orders. But the Noblesse and Clergy, it would seem,
have retired to their two separate Apartments, or Halls; and are there
'verifying their powers,' not in a conjoint but in a separate capacity.
They are to constitute two separate, perhaps separately-voting Orders,
then? It is as if both Noblesse and Clergy had silently taken for granted
that they already were such! Two Orders against one; and so the Third
Order to be left in a perpetual minority?
Much may remain unfixed; but the negative of that is a thing fixed: in the
Slouch-hatted heads, in the French Nation's head. Double representation,
and all else hitherto gained, were otherwise futile, null. Doubtless, the
'powers must be verified;'--doubtless, the Commission, the electoral
Documents of your Deputy must be inspected by his brother Deputies, and
found valid: it is the preliminary of all. Neither is this question, of
doing it separately or doing it conjointly, a vital one: but if it lead to
such? It must be resisted; wise was that maxim, Resist the beginnings!
Nay were resistance unadvisable, even dangerous, yet surely pause is very
natural: pause, with Twenty-five Millions behind you, may become
resistance enough.--The inorganic mass of Commons Deputies will restrict
itself to a 'system of inertia,' and for the present remain inorganic.
Such method, recommendable alike to sagacity and to timidity, do the
Commons Deputies adopt; and, not without adroitness, and with ever more
tenacity, they persist in it, day after day, week after week. For six
weeks their history is of the kind named barren; which indeed, as
Philosophy knows, is often the fruitfulest of all. These were their still
creation-days; wherein they sat incubating! In fact, what they did was to
do nothing, in a judicious manner. Daily the inorganic body reassembles;
regrets that they cannot get organisation, 'verification of powers in
common, and begin regenerating France. Headlong motions may be made, but
let such be repressed; inertia alone is at once unpunishable and
unconquerable.
Cunning must be met by cunning; proud pretension by inertia, by a low tone
of patriotic sorrow; low, but incurable, unalterable. Wise as serpents;
harmless as doves: what a spectacle for France! Six Hundred inorganic
individuals, essential for its regeneration and salvation, sit there, on
their elliptic benches, longing passionately towards life; in painful
durance; like souls waiting to be born. Speeches are spoken; eloquent;
audible within doors and without. Mind agitates itself against mind; the
Nation looks on with ever deeper interest. Thus do the Commons Deputies
sit incubating.
There are private conclaves, supper-parties, consultations; Breton Club,
Club of Viroflay; germs of many Clubs. Wholly an element of confused
noise, dimness, angry heat;--wherein, however, the Eros-egg, kept at the
fit temperature, may hover safe, unbroken till it be hatched. In your
Mouniers, Malouets, Lechapeliers in science sufficient for that; fervour in
your Barnaves, Rabauts. At times shall come an inspiration from royal
Mirabeau: he is nowise yet recognised as royal; nay he was 'groaned at,'
when his name was first mentioned: but he is struggling towards
recognition.
In the course of the week, the Commons having called their Eldest to the
chair, and furnished him with young stronger-lunged assistants,--can speak
articulately; and, in audible lamentable words, declare, as we said, that
they are an inorganic body, longing to become organic. Letters arrive; but
an inorganic body cannot open letters; they lie on the table unopened. The
Eldest may at most procure for himself some kind of List or Muster-roll, to
take the votes by, and wait what will betide. Noblesse and Clergy are all
elsewhere: however, an eager public crowds all galleries and vacancies;
which is some comfort. With effort, it is determined, not that a
Deputation shall be sent,--for how can an inorganic body send deputations?-
-but that certain individual Commons Members shall, in an accidental way,
stroll into the Clergy Chamber, and then into the Noblesse one; and mention
there, as a thing they have happened to observe, that the Commons seem to
be sitting waiting for them, in order to verify their powers. That is the
wiser method!
The Clergy, among whom are such a multitude of Undignified, of mere Commons
in Curates' frocks, depute instant respectful answer that they are, and
will now more than ever be, in deepest study as to that very matter.
Contrariwise the Noblesse, in cavalier attitude, reply, after four days,
that they, for their part, are all verified and constituted; which, they
had trusted, the Commons also were; such separate verification being
clearly the proper constitutional wisdom-of-ancestors method;--as they the
Noblesse will have much pleasure in demonstrating by a Commission of their
number, if the Commons will meet them, Commission against Commission!
Directly in the rear of which comes a deputation of Clergy, reiterating, in
their insidious conciliatory way, the same proposal. Here, then, is a
complexity: what will wise Commons say to this?
Warily, inertly, the wise Commons, considering that they are, if not a
French Third Estate, at least an Aggregate of individuals pretending to
some title of that kind, determine, after talking on it five days, to name
such a Commission,--though, as it were, with proviso not to be convinced:
a sixth day is taken up in naming it; a seventh and an eighth day in
getting the forms of meeting, place, hour and the like, settled: so that
it is not till the evening of the 23rd of May that Noblesse Commission
first meets Commons Commission, Clergy acting as Conciliators; and begins
the impossible task of convincing it. One other meeting, on the 25th, will
suffice: the Commons are inconvincible, the Noblesse and Clergy
irrefragably convincing; the Commissions retire; each Order persisting in
its first pretensions. (Reported Debates, 6th May to 1st June, 1789 (in
Histoire Parlementaire, i. 379-422.)
Thus have three weeks passed. For three weeks, the Third-Estate Carroccio,
with far-seen Gonfalon, has stood stockstill, flouting the wind; waiting
what force would gather round it.
Fancy can conceive the feeling of the Court; and how counsel met counsel,
the loud-sounding inanity whirled in that distracted vortex, where wisdom
could not dwell. Your cunningly devised Taxing-Machine has been got
together; set up with incredible labour; and stands there, its three pieces
in contact; its two fly-wheels of Noblesse and Clergy, its huge working-
wheel of Tiers-Etat. The two fly-wheels whirl in the softest manner; but,
prodigious to look upon, the huge working-wheel hangs motionless, refuses
to stir! The cunningest engineers are at fault. How will it work, when it
does begin? Fearfully, my Friends; and to many purposes; but to gather
taxes, or grind court-meal, one may apprehend, never. Could we but have
continued gathering taxes by hand! Messeigneurs d'Artois, Conti, Conde
(named Court Triumvirate), they of the anti-democratic Memoire au Roi, has
not their foreboding proved true? They may wave reproachfully their high
heads; they may beat their poor brains; but the cunningest engineers can do
nothing. Necker himself, were he even listened to, begins to look blue.
The only thing one sees advisable is to bring up soldiers. New regiments,
two, and a battalion of a third, have already reached Paris; others shall
get in march. Good were it, in all circumstances, to have troops within
reach; good that the command were in sure hands. Let Broglie be appointed;
old Marshal Duke de Broglie; veteran disciplinarian, of a firm drill-
sergeant morality, such as may be depended on.
For, alas, neither are the Clergy, or the very Noblesse what they should
be; and might be, when so menaced from without: entire, undivided within.
The Noblesse, indeed, have their Catiline or Crispin D'Espremenil, dusky-
glowing, all in renegade heat; their boisterous Barrel-Mirabeau; but also
they have their Lafayettes, Liancourts, Lameths; above all, their
D'Orleans, now cut forever from his Court-moorings, and musing drowsily of
high and highest sea-prizes (for is not he too a son of Henri Quatre, and
partial potential Heir-Apparent?)--on his voyage towards Chaos. From the
Clergy again, so numerous are the Cures, actual deserters have run over:
two small parties; in the second party Cure Gregoire. Nay there is talk of
a whole Hundred and Forty-nine of them about to desert in mass, and only
restrained by an Archbishop of Paris. It seems a losing game.
But judge if France, if Paris sat idle, all this while! Addresses from far
and near flow in: for our Commons have now grown organic enough to open
letters. Or indeed to cavil at them! Thus poor Marquis de Breze, Supreme
Usher, Master of Ceremonies, or whatever his title was, writing about this
time on some ceremonial matter, sees no harm in winding up with a
'Monsieur, yours with sincere attachment.'--"To whom does it address
itself, this sincere attachment?" inquires Mirabeau. "To the Dean of the
Tiers-Etat."--"There is no man in France entitled to write that," rejoins
he; whereat the Galleries and the World will not be kept from applauding.
(Moniteur (in Histoire Parlementaire, i. 405).) Poor De Breze! These
Commons have a still older grudge at him; nor has he yet done with them.
In another way, Mirabeau has had to protest against the quick suppression
of his Newspaper, Journal of the States-General;--and to continue it under
a new name. In which act of valour, the Paris Electors, still busy
redacting their Cahier, could not but support him, by Address to his
Majesty: they claim utmost 'provisory freedom of the press;' they have
spoken even about demolishing the Bastille, and erecting a Bronze Patriot
King on the site!--These are the rich Burghers: but now consider how it
went, for example, with such loose miscellany, now all grown
eleutheromaniac, of Loungers, Prowlers, social Nondescripts (and the
distilled Rascality of our Planet), as whirls forever in the Palais Royal;-
-or what low infinite groan, first changing into a growl, comes from Saint-
Antoine, and the Twenty-five Millions in danger of starvation!
There is the indisputablest scarcity of corn;--be it Aristocrat-plot,
D'Orleans-plot, of this year; or drought and hail of last year: in city
and province, the poor man looks desolately towards a nameless lot. And
this States-General, that could make us an age of gold, is forced to stand
motionless; cannot get its powers verified! All industry necessarily
languishes, if it be not that of making motions.
In the Palais Royal there has been erected, apparently by subscription, a
kind of Wooden Tent (en planches de bois); (Histoire Parlementaire, i.
429.)-- most convenient; where select Patriotism can now redact
resolutions, deliver harangues, with comfort, let the weather but as it
will. Lively is that Satan-at-Home! On his table, on his chair, in every
cafe, stands a patriotic orator; a crowd round him within; a crowd
listening from without, open-mouthed, through open door and window; with
'thunders of applause for every sentiment of more than common hardiness.'
In Monsieur Dessein's Pamphlet-shop, close by, you cannot without strong
elbowing get to the counter: every hour produces its pamphlet, or litter
of pamphlets; 'there were thirteen to-day, sixteen yesterday, nine-two last
week.' (Arthur Young, Travels, i. 104.) Think of Tyranny and Scarcity;
Fervid-eloquence, Rumour, Pamphleteering; Societe Publicole, Breton Club,
Enraged Club;--and whether every tap-room, coffee-room, social reunion,
accidental street-group, over wide France, was not an Enraged Club!
To all which the Commons Deputies can only listen with a sublime inertia of
sorrow; reduced to busy themselves 'with their internal police.' Surer
position no Deputies ever occupied; if they keep it with skill. Let not
the temperature rise too high; break not the Eros-egg till it be hatched,
till it break itself! An eager public crowds all Galleries and vacancies!
'cannot be restrained from applauding.' The two Privileged Orders, the
Noblesse all verified and constituted, may look on with what face they
will; not without a secret tremor of heart. The Clergy, always acting the
part of conciliators, make a clutch at the Galleries, and the popularity
there; and miss it. Deputation of them arrives, with dolorous message
about the 'dearth of grains,' and the necessity there is of casting aside
vain formalities, and deliberating on this. An insidious proposal; which,
however, the Commons (moved thereto by seagreen Robespierre) dexterously
accept as a sort of hint, or even pledge, that the Clergy will forthwith
come over to them, constitute the States-General, and so cheapen grains!
(Bailly, Memoires, i. 114.)--Finally, on the 27th day of May, Mirabeau,
judging the time now nearly come, proposes that 'the inertia cease;' that,
leaving the Noblesse to their own stiff ways, the Clergy be summoned, 'in
the name of the God of Peace,' to join the Commons, and begin. (Histoire
Parlementaire, i. 413.) To which summons if they turn a deaf ear,--we
shall see! Are not one Hundred and Forty-nine of them ready to desert?
O Triumvirate of Princes, new Garde-des-Sceaux Barentin, thou Home-
Secretary Breteuil, Duchess Polignac, and Queen eager to listen,--what is
now to be done? This Third Estate will get in motion, with the force of
all France in it; Clergy-machinery with Noblesse-machinery, which were to
serve as beautiful counter-balances and drags, will be shamefully dragged
after it,--and take fire along with it. What is to be done? The Oeil-de-
Boeuf waxes more confused than ever. Whisper and counter-whisper; a very
tempest of whispers! Leading men from all the Three Orders are nightly
spirited thither; conjurors many of them; but can they conjure this?
Necker himself were now welcome, could he interfere to purpose.
Let Necker interfere, then; and in the King's name! Happily that
incendiary 'God-of-Peace' message is not yet answered. The Three Orders
shall again have conferences; under this Patriot Minister of theirs,
somewhat may be healed, clouted up;--we meanwhile getting forward Swiss
Regiments, and a 'hundred pieces of field-artillery.' This is what the
Oeil-de-Boeuf, for its part, resolves on.
But as for Necker--Alas, poor Necker, thy obstinate Third Estate has one
first-last word, verification in common, as the pledge of voting and
deliberating in common! Half-way proposals, from such a tried friend, they
answer with a stare. The tardy conferences speedily break up; the Third
Estate, now ready and resolute, the whole world backing it, returns to its
Hall of the Three Orders; and Necker to the Oeil-de-Boeuf, with the
character of a disconjured conjuror there--fit only for dismissal.
(Debates, 1st to 17th June 1789 (in Histoire Parlementaire, i. 422-478).)
And so the Commons Deputies are at last on their own strength getting under
way? Instead of Chairman, or Dean, they have now got a President:
Astronomer Bailly. Under way, with a vengeance! With endless vociferous
and temperate eloquence, borne on Newspaper wings to all lands, they have
now, on this 17th day of June, determined that their name is not Third
Estate, but--National Assembly! They, then, are the Nation? Triumvirate
of Princes, Queen, refractory Noblesse and Clergy, what, then, are you? A
most deep question;--scarcely answerable in living political dialects.
All regardless of which, our new National Assembly proceeds to appoint a
'committee of subsistences;' dear to France, though it can find little or
no grain. Next, as if our National Assembly stood quite firm on its legs,-
-to appoint 'four other standing committees;' then to settle the security
of the National Debt; then that of the Annual Taxation: all within eight-
and-forty hours. At such rate of velocity it is going: the conjurors of
the Oeil-de-Boeuf may well ask themselves, Whither?
Chapter 1.5.II.
Mercury de Breze.
Now surely were the time for a 'god from the machine;' there is a nodus
worthy of one. The only question is, Which god? Shall it be Mars de
Broglie, with his hundred pieces of cannon?--Not yet, answers prudence; so
soft, irresolute is King Louis. Let it be Messenger Mercury, our Supreme
Usher de Breze.
On the morrow, which is the 20th of June, these Hundred and Forty-nine
false Curates, no longer restrainable by his Grace of Paris, will desert in
a body: let De Breze intervene, and produce--closed doors! Not only shall
there be Royal Session, in that Salle des Menus; but no meeting, nor
working (except by carpenters), till then. Your Third Estate, self-styled
'National Assembly,' shall suddenly see itself extruded from its Hall, by
carpenters, in this dexterous way; and reduced to do nothing, not even to
meet, or articulately lament,--till Majesty, with Seance Royale and new
miracles, be ready! In this manner shall De Breze, as Mercury ex machina,
intervene; and, if the Oeil-de-Boeuf mistake not, work deliverance from the
nodus.
Of poor De Breze we can remark that he has yet prospered in none of his
dealings with these Commons. Five weeks ago, when they kissed the hand of
Majesty, the mode he took got nothing but censure; and then his 'sincere
attachment,' how was it scornfully whiffed aside! Before supper, this
night, he writes to President Bailly, a new Letter, to be delivered shortly
after dawn tomorrow, in the King's name. Which Letter, however, Bailly in
the pride of office, will merely crush together into his pocket, like a
bill he does not mean to pay.
Accordingly on Saturday morning the 20th of June, shrill-sounding heralds
proclaim through the streets of Versailles, that there is to be a Seance
Royale next Monday; and no meeting of the States-General till then. And
yet, we observe, President Bailly in sound of this, and with De Breze's
Letter in his pocket, is proceeding, with National Assembly at his heels,
to the accustomed Salles des Menus; as if De Breze and heralds were mere
wind. It is shut, this Salle; occupied by Gardes Francaises. "Where is
your Captain?" The Captain shows his royal order: workmen, he is grieved
to say, are all busy setting up the platform for his Majesty's Seance; most
unfortunately, no admission; admission, at furthest, for President and
Secretaries to bring away papers, which the joiners might destroy!--
President Bailly enters with Secretaries; and returns bearing papers:
alas, within doors, instead of patriotic eloquence, there is now no noise
but hammering, sawing, and operative screeching and rumbling! A
profanation without parallel.
The Deputies stand grouped on the Paris Road, on this umbrageous Avenue de
Versailles; complaining aloud of the indignity done them. Courtiers, it is
supposed, look from their windows, and giggle. The morning is none of the
comfortablest: raw; it is even drizzling a little. (Bailly, Memoires, i.
185-206.) But all travellers pause; patriot gallery-men, miscellaneous
spectators increase the groups. Wild counsels alternate. Some desperate
Deputies propose to go and hold session on the great outer Staircase at
Marly, under the King's windows; for his Majesty, it seems, has driven over
thither. Others talk of making the Chateau Forecourt, what they call Place
d'Armes, a Runnymede and new Champ de Mai of free Frenchmen: nay of
awakening, to sounds of indignant Patriotism, the echoes of the Oeil-de-
boeuf itself.--Notice is given that President Bailly, aided by judicious
Guillotin and others, has found place in the Tennis-Court of the Rue St.
Francois. Thither, in long-drawn files, hoarse-jingling, like cranes on
wing, the Commons Deputies angrily wend.
Strange sight was this in the Rue St. Francois, Vieux Versailles! A naked
Tennis-Court, as the pictures of that time still give it: four walls;
naked, except aloft some poor wooden penthouse, or roofed spectators'-
gallery, hanging round them:--on the floor not now an idle teeheeing, a
snapping of balls and rackets; but the bellowing din of an indignant
National Representation, scandalously exiled hither! However, a cloud of
witnesses looks down on them, from wooden penthouse, from wall-top, from
adjoining roof and chimney; rolls towards them from all quarters, with
passionate spoken blessings. Some table can be procured to write on; some
chair, if not to sit on, then to stand on. The Secretaries undo their
tapes; Bailly has constituted the Assembly.
Experienced Mounier, not wholly new to such things, in Parlementary
revolts, which he has seen or heard of, thinks that it were well, in these
lamentable threatening circumstances, to unite themselves by an Oath.--
Universal acclamation, as from smouldering bosoms getting vent! The Oath
is redacted; pronounced aloud by President Bailly,--and indeed in such a
sonorous tone, that the cloud of witnesses, even outdoors, hear it, and
bellow response to it. Six hundred right-hands rise with President
Bailly's, to take God above to witness that they will not separate for man
below, but will meet in all places, under all circumstances, wheresoever
two or three can get together, till they have made the Constitution. Made
the Constitution, Friends! That is a long task. Six hundred hands,
meanwhile, will sign as they have sworn: six hundred save one; one
Loyalist Abdiel, still visible by this sole light-point, and nameable, poor
'M. Martin d'Auch, from Castelnaudary, in Languedoc.' Him they permit to
sign or signify refusal; they even save him from the cloud of witnesses, by
declaring 'his head deranged.' At four o'clock, the signatures are all
appended; new meeting is fixed for Monday morning, earlier than the hour of
the Royal Session; that our Hundred and Forty-nine Clerical deserters be
not balked: we shall meet 'at the Recollets Church or elsewhere,' in hope
that our Hundred and Forty-nine will join us;--and now it is time to go to
dinner.
This, then, is the Session of the Tennis-Court, famed Seance du Jeu de
Paume; the fame of which has gone forth to all lands. This is Mercurius de
Breze's appearance as Deus ex machina; this is the fruit it brings! The
giggle of Courtiers in the Versailles Avenue has already died into gaunt
silence. Did the distracted Court, with Gardes-des-Sceaux Barentin,
Triumvirate and Company, imagine that they could scatter six hundred
National Deputies, big with a National Constitution, like as much barndoor
poultry, big with next to nothing,--by the white or black rod of a Supreme
Usher? Barndoor poultry fly cackling: but National Deputies turn round,
lion-faced; and, with uplifted right-hand, swear an Oath that makes the
four corners of France tremble.
President Bailly has covered himself with honour; which shall become
rewards. The National Assembly is now doubly and trebly the Nation's
Assembly; not militant, martyred only, but triumphant; insulted, and which
could not be insulted. Paris disembogues itself once more, to witness,
'with grim looks,' the Seance Royale: (See Arthur Young (Travels, i. 115-
118); A. Lameth, &c.) which, by a new felicity, is postponed till Tuesday.
The Hundred and Forty-nine, and even with Bishops among them, all in
processional mass, have had free leisure to march off, and solemnly join
the Commons sitting waiting in their Church. The Commons welcomed them
with shouts, with embracings, nay with tears; (Dumont, Souvenirs sur
Mirabeau, c. 4.) for it is growing a life-and-death matter now.
As for the Seance itself, the Carpenters seem to have accomplished their
platform; but all else remains unaccomplished. Futile, we may say fatal,
was the whole matter. King Louis enters, through seas of people, all grim-
silent, angry with many things,--for it is a bitter rain too. Enters, to a
Third Estate, likewise grim-silent; which has been wetted waiting under
mean porches, at back-doors, while Court and Privileged were entering by
the front. King and Garde-des-Sceaux (there is no Necker visible) make
known, not without longwindedness, the determinations of the royal breast.
The Three Orders shall vote separately. On the other hand, France may look
for considerable constitutional blessings; as specified in these Five-and-
thirty Articles, (Histoire Parlementaire, i. 13.) which Garde-des-Sceaux is
waxing hoarse with reading. Which Five-and-Thirty Articles, adds his
Majesty again rising, if the Three Orders most unfortunately cannot agree
together to effect them, I myself will effect: "seul je ferai le bien de
mes peuples,"--which being interpreted may signify, You, contentious
Deputies of the States-General, have probably not long to be here! But, in
fine, all shall now withdraw for this day; and meet again, each Order in
its separate place, to-morrow morning, for despatch of business. This is
the determination of the royal breast: pithy and clear. And herewith
King, retinue, Noblesse, majority of Clergy file out, as if the whole
matter were satisfactorily completed.
These file out; through grim-silent seas of people. Only the Commons
Deputies file not out; but stand there in gloomy silence, uncertain what
they shall do. One man of them is certain; one man of them discerns and
dares! It is now that King Mirabeau starts to the Tribune, and lifts up
his lion-voice. Verily a word in season; for, in such scenes, the moment
is the mother of ages! Had not Gabriel Honore been there,--one can well
fancy, how the Commons Deputies, affrighted at the perils which now yawned
dim all round them, and waxing ever paler in each other's paleness, might
very naturally, one after one, have glided off; and the whole course of
European History have been different!
But he is there. List to the brool of that royal forest-voice; sorrowful,
low; fast swelling to a roar! Eyes kindle at the glance of his eye:--
National Deputies were missioned by a Nation; they have sworn an Oath;
they--but lo! while the lion's voice roars loudest, what Apparition is
this? Apparition of Mercurius de Breze, muttering somewhat!--"Speak out,"
cry several.--"Messieurs," shrills De Breze, repeating himself, "You have
heard the King's orders!"--Mirabeau glares on him with fire-flashing face;
shakes the black lion's mane: "Yes, Monsieur, we have heard what the King
was advised to say: and you who cannot be the interpreter of his orders to
the States-General; you, who have neither place nor right of speech here;
you are not the man to remind us of it. Go, Monsieur, tell these who sent
you that we are here by the will of the People, and that nothing shall send
us hence but the force of bayonets!" (Moniteur (Hist. Parl. ii. 22.).)
And poor De Breze shivers forth from the National Assembly;--and also (if
it be not in one faintest glimmer, months later) finally from the page of
History!--
Hapless De Breze; doomed to survive long ages, in men's memory, in this
faint way, with tremulent white rod! He was true to Etiquette, which was
his Faith here below; a martyr to respect of persons. Short woollen cloaks
could not kiss Majesty's hand as long velvet ones did. Nay lately, when
the poor little Dauphin lay dead, and some ceremonial Visitation came, was
he not punctual to announce it even to the Dauphin's dead body:
"Monseigneur, a Deputation of the States-General!" (Montgaillard, ii. 38.)
Sunt lachrymae rerum.
But what does the Oeil-de-Boeuf, now when De Breze shivers back thither?
Despatch that same force of bayonets? Not so: the seas of people still
hang multitudinous, intent on what is passing; nay rush and roll, loud-
billowing, into the Courts of the Chateau itself; for a report has risen
that Necker is to be dismissed. Worst of all, the Gardes Francaises seem
indisposed to act: 'two Companies of them do not fire when ordered!'
(Histoire Parlementaire, ii. 26.) Necker, for not being at the Seance,
shall be shouted for, carried home in triumph; and must not be dismissed.
His Grace of Paris, on the other hand, has to fly with broken coach-panels,
and owe his life to furious driving. The Gardes-du-Corps (Body-Guards),
which you were drawing out, had better be drawn in again. (Bailly, i.
217.) There is no sending of bayonets to be thought of.
Instead of soldiers, the Oeil-de-Boeuf sends--carpenters, to take down the
platform. Ineffectual shift! In few instants, the very carpenters cease
wrenching and knocking at their platform; stand on it, hammer in hand, and
listen open-mouthed. (Histoire Parlementaire, ii. 23.) The Third Estate
is decreeing that it is, was, and will be, nothing but a National Assembly;
and now, moreover, an inviolable one, all members of it inviolable:
'infamous, traitorous, towards the Nation, and guilty of capital crime, is
any person, body-corporate, tribunal, court or commission that now or
henceforth, during the present session or after it, shall dare to pursue,
interrogate, arrest, or cause to be arrested, detain or cause to be
detained, any,' &c. &c. 'on whose part soever the same be commanded.'
(Montgaillard, ii. 47.) Which done, one can wind up with this comfortable
reflection from Abbe Sieyes: "Messieurs, you are today what you were
yesterday."
Courtiers may shriek; but it is, and remains, even so. Their well-charged
explosion has exploded through the touch-hole; covering themselves with
scorches, confusion, and unseemly soot! Poor Triumvirate, poor Queen; and
above all, poor Queen's Husband, who means well, had he any fixed meaning!
Folly is that wisdom which is wise only behindhand. Few months ago these
Thirty-five Concessions had filled France with a rejoicing, which might
have lasted for several years. Now it is unavailing, the very mention of
it slighted; Majesty's express orders set at nought.
All France is in a roar; a sea of persons, estimated at 'ten thousand,'
whirls 'all this day in the Palais Royal.' (Arthur Young, i. 119.) The
remaining Clergy, and likewise some Forty-eight Noblesse, D'Orleans among
them, have now forthwith gone over to the victorious Commons; by whom, as
is natural, they are received 'with acclamation.'
The Third Estate triumphs; Versailles Town shouting round it; ten thousand
whirling all day in the Palais Royal; and all France standing a-tiptoe, not
unlike whirling! Let the Oeil-de-Boeuf look to it. As for King Louis, he
will swallow his injuries; will temporise, keep silence; will at all costs
have present peace. It was Tuesday the 23d of June, when he spoke that
peremptory royal mandate; and the week is not done till he has written to
the remaining obstinate Noblesse, that they also must oblige him, and give
in. D'Espremenil rages his last; Barrel Mirabeau 'breaks his sword,'
making a vow,--which he might as well have kept. The 'Triple Family' is
now therefore complete; the third erring brother, the Noblesse, having
joined it;--erring but pardonable; soothed, so far as possible, by sweet
eloquence from President Bailly.
So triumphs the Third Estate; and States-General are become National
Assembly; and all France may sing Te Deum. By wise inertia, and wise
cessation of inertia, great victory has been gained. It is the last night
of June: all night you meet nothing on the streets of Versailles but 'men
running with torches' with shouts of jubilation. From the 2nd of May when
they kissed the hand of Majesty, to this 30th of June when men run with
torches, we count seven weeks complete. For seven weeks the National
Carroccio has stood far-seen, ringing many a signal; and, so much having
now gathered round it, may hope to stand.
Chapter 1.5.III.
Broglie the War-God.
The Court feels indignant that it is conquered; but what then? Another
time it will do better. Mercury descended in vain; now has the time come
for Mars.--The gods of the Oeil-de-Boeuf have withdrawn into the darkness
of their cloudy Ida; and sit there, shaping and forging what may be
needful, be it 'billets of a new National Bank,' munitions of war, or
things forever inscrutable to men.
Accordingly, what means this 'apparatus of troops'? The National Assembly
can get no furtherance for its Committee of Subsistences; can hear only
that, at Paris, the Bakers' shops are besieged; that, in the Provinces,
people are living on 'meal-husks and boiled grass.' But on all highways
there hover dust-clouds, with the march of regiments, with the trailing of
cannon: foreign Pandours, of fierce aspect; Salis-Samade, Esterhazy,
Royal-Allemand; so many of them foreign, to the number of thirty thousand,-
-which fear can magnify to fifty: all wending towards Paris and
Versailles! Already, on the heights of Montmartre, is a digging and
delving; too like a scarping and trenching. The effluence of Paris is
arrested Versailles-ward by a barrier of cannon at Sevres Bridge. From the
Queen's Mews, cannon stand pointed on the National Assembly Hall itself.
The National Assembly has its very slumbers broken by the tramp of
soldiery, swarming and defiling, endless, or seemingly endless, all round
those spaces, at dead of night, 'without drum-music, without audible word
of command.' (A. Lameth, Assemblee Constituante, i. 41.) What means it?
Shall eight, or even shall twelve Deputies, our Mirabeaus, Barnaves at the
head of them, be whirled suddenly to the Castle of Ham; the rest
ignominiously dispersed to the winds? No National Assembly can make the
Constitution with cannon levelled on it from the Queen's Mews! What means
this reticence of the Oeil-de-Boeuf, broken only by nods and shrugs? In
the mystery of that cloudy Ida, what is it that they forge and shape?--Such
questions must distracted Patriotism keep asking, and receive no answer but
an echo.
Enough of themselves! But now, above all, while the hungry food-year,
which runs from August to August, is getting older; becoming more and more
a famine-year? With 'meal-husks and boiled grass,' Brigands may actually
collect; and, in crowds, at farm and mansion, howl angrily, Food! Food! It
is in vain to send soldiers against them: at sight of soldiers they
disperse, they vanish as under ground; then directly reassemble elsewhere
for new tumult and plunder. Frightful enough to look upon; but what to
hear of, reverberated through Twenty-five Millions of suspicious minds!
Brigands and Broglie, open Conflagration, preternatural Rumour are driving
mad most hearts in France. What will the issue of these things be?
At Marseilles, many weeks ago, the Townsmen have taken arms; for
'suppressing of Brigands,' and other purposes: the military commandant may
make of it what he will. Elsewhere, everywhere, could not the like be
done? Dubious, on the distracted Patriot imagination, wavers, as a last
deliverance, some foreshadow of a National Guard. But conceive, above all,
the Wooden Tent in the Palais Royal! A universal hubbub there, as of
dissolving worlds: their loudest bellows the mad, mad-making voice of
Rumour; their sharpest gazes Suspicion into the pale dim World-Whirlpool;
discerning shapes and phantasms; imminent bloodthirsty Regiments camped on
the Champ-de-Mars; dispersed National Assembly; redhot cannon-balls (to
burn Paris);--the mad War-god and Bellona's sounding thongs. To the
calmest man it is becoming too plain that battle is inevitable.
Inevitable, silently nod Messeigneurs and Broglie: Inevitable and brief!
Your National Assembly, stopped short in its Constitutional labours, may
fatigue the royal ear with addresses and remonstrances: those cannon of
ours stand duly levelled; those troops are here. The King's Declaration,
with its Thirty-five too generous Articles, was spoken, was not listened
to; but remains yet unrevoked: he himself shall effect it, seul il fera!
As for Broglie, he has his headquarters at Versailles, all as in a seat of
war: clerks writing; significant staff-officers, inclined to taciturnity;
plumed aides-de-camp, scouts, orderlies flying or hovering. He himself
looks forth, important, impenetrable; listens to Besenval Commandant of
Paris, and his warning and earnest counsels (for he has come out repeatedly
on purpose), with a silent smile. (Besenval, iii. 398.) The Parisians
resist? scornfully cry Messeigneurs. As a meal-mob may! They have sat
quiet, these five generations, submitting to all. Their Mercier declared,
in these very years, that a Parisian revolt was henceforth 'impossible.'
(Mercier, Tableau de Paris, vi. 22.) Stand by the royal Declaration, of
the Twenty-third of June. The Nobles of France, valorous, chivalrous as of
old, will rally round us with one heart;--and as for this which you call
Third Estate, and which we call canaille of unwashed Sansculottes, of
Patelins, Scribblers, factious Spouters,--brave Broglie, 'with a whiff of
grapeshot (salve de canons), if need be, will give quick account of it.
Thus reason they: on their cloudy Ida; hidden from men,--men also hidden
from them.
Good is grapeshot, Messeigneurs, on one condition: that the shooter also
were made of metal! But unfortunately he is made of flesh; under his buffs
and bandoleers your hired shooter has instincts, feelings, even a kind of
thought. It is his kindred, bone of his bone, this same canaille that
shall be whiffed; he has brothers in it, a father and mother,--living on
meal-husks and boiled grass. His very doxy, not yet 'dead i' the spital,'
drives him into military heterodoxy; declares that if he shed Patriot
blood, he shall be accursed among men. The soldier, who has seen his pay
stolen by rapacious Foulons, his blood wasted by Soubises, Pompadours, and
the gates of promotion shut inexorably on him if he were not born noble,--
is himself not without griefs against you. Your cause is not the soldier's
cause; but, as would seem, your own only, and no other god's nor man's.
For example, the world may have heard how, at Bethune lately, when there
rose some 'riot about grains,' of which sort there are so many, and the
soldiers stood drawn out, and the word 'Fire!; was given,--not a trigger
stirred; only the butts of all muskets rattled angrily against the ground;
and the soldiers stood glooming, with a mixed expression of countenance;--
till clutched 'each under the arm of a patriot householder,' they were all
hurried off, in this manner, to be treated and caressed, and have their pay
increased by subscription! (Histoire Parlementaire.)
Neither have the Gardes Francaises, the best regiment of the line, shown
any promptitude for street-firing lately. They returned grumbling from
Reveillon's; and have not burnt a single cartridge since; nay, as we saw,
not even when bid. A dangerous humour dwells in these Gardes. Notable men
too, in their way! Valadi the Pythagorean was, at one time, an officer of
theirs. Nay, in the ranks, under the three-cornered felt and cockade, what
hard heads may there not be, and reflections going on,--unknown to the
public! One head of the hardest we do now discern there: on the shoulders
of a certain Sergeant Hoche. Lazare Hoche, that is the name of him; he
used to be about the Versailles Royal Stables, nephew of a poor herbwoman;
a handy lad; exceedingly addicted to reading. He is now Sergeant Hoche,
and can rise no farther: he lays out his pay in rushlights, and cheap
editions of books. (Dictionnaire des Hommes Marquans, Londres (Paris),
1800, ii. 198.)
On the whole, the best seems to be: Consign these Gardes Francaises to
their Barracks. So Besenval thinks, and orders. Consigned to their
barracks, the Gardes Francaises do but form a 'Secret Association,' an
Engagement not to act against the National Assembly. Debauched by Valadi
the Pythagorean; debauched by money and women! cry Besenval and innumerable
others. Debauched by what you will, or in need of no debauching, behold
them, long files of them, their consignment broken, arrive, headed by their
Sergeants, on the 26th day of June, at the Palais Royal! Welcomed with
vivats, with presents, and a pledge of patriot liquor; embracing and
embraced; declaring in words that the cause of France is their cause! Next
day and the following days the like. What is singular too, except this
patriot humour, and breaking of their consignment, they behave otherwise
with 'the most rigorous accuracy.' (Besenval, iii. 394-6.)
They are growing questionable, these Gardes! Eleven ring-leaders of them
are put in the Abbaye Prison. It boots not in the least. The imprisoned
Eleven have only, 'by the hand of an individual,' to drop, towards
nightfall, a line in the Cafe de Foy; where Patriotism harangues loudest on
its table. 'Two hundred young persons, soon waxing to four thousand,' with
fit crowbars, roll towards the Abbaye; smite asunder the needful doors; and
bear out their Eleven, with other military victims:--to supper in the
Palais Royal Garden; to board, and lodging 'in campbeds, in the Theatre des
Varietes;' other national Prytaneum as yet not being in readiness. Most
deliberate! Nay so punctual were these young persons, that finding one
military victim to have been imprisoned for real civil crime, they returned
him to his cell, with protest.
Why new military force was not called out? New military force was called
out. New military force did arrive, full gallop, with drawn sabre: but
the people gently 'laid hold of their bridles;' the dragoons sheathed their
swords; lifted their caps by way of salute, and sat like mere statues of
dragoons,--except indeed that a drop of liquor being brought them, they
'drank to the King and Nation with the greatest cordiality.' (Histoire
Parlementaire, ii. 32.)
And now, ask in return, why Messeigneurs and Broglie the great god of war,
on seeing these things, did not pause, and take some other course, any
other course? Unhappily, as we said, they could see nothing. Pride, which
goes before a fall; wrath, if not reasonable, yet pardonable, most natural,
had hardened their hearts and heated their heads; so, with imbecility and
violence (ill-matched pair), they rush to seek their hour. All Regiments
are not Gardes Francaises, or debauched by Valadi the Pythagorean: let
fresh undebauched Regiments come up; let Royal-Allemand, Salais-Samade,
Swiss Chateau-Vieux come up,--which can fight, but can hardly speak except
in German gutturals; let soldiers march, and highways thunder with
artillery-waggons: Majesty has a new Royal Session to hold,--and miracles
to work there! The whiff of grapeshot can, if needful, become a blast and
tempest.
In which circumstances, before the redhot balls begin raining, may not the
Hundred-and-twenty Paris Electors, though their Cahier is long since
finished, see good to meet again daily, as an 'Electoral Club'? They meet
first 'in a Tavern;'--where 'the largest wedding-party' cheerfully give
place to them. (Dusaulx, Prise de la Bastille (Collection des Memoires,
par Berville et Barriere, Paris, 1821), p. 269.) But latterly they meet in
the Hotel-de-Ville, in the Townhall itself. Flesselles, Provost of
Merchants, with his Four Echevins (Scabins, Assessors), could not prevent
it; such was the force of public opinion. He, with his Echevins, and the
Six-and-Twenty Town-Councillors, all appointed from Above, may well sit
silent there, in their long gowns; and consider, with awed eye, what
prelude this is of convulsion coming from Below, and how themselves shall
fare in that!
Chapter 1.5.IV.
To Arms!
So hangs it, dubious, fateful, in the sultry days of July. It is the
passionate printed advice of M. Marat, to abstain, of all things, from
violence. (Avis au Peuple, ou les Ministres devoiles, 1st July, 1789 (in
Histoire Parlementaire, ii. 37.) Nevertheless the hungry poor are already
burning Town Barriers, where Tribute on eatables is levied; getting
clamorous for food.
The twelfth July morning is Sunday; the streets are all placarded with an
enormous-sized De par le Roi, 'inviting peaceable citizens to remain within
doors,' to feel no alarm, to gather in no crowd. Why so? What mean these
'placards of enormous size'? Above all, what means this clatter of
military; dragoons, hussars, rattling in from all points of the compass
towards the Place Louis Quinze; with a staid gravity of face, though
saluted with mere nicknames, hootings and even missiles? (Besenval, iii.
411.) Besenval is with them. Swiss Guards of his are already in the
Champs Elysees, with four pieces of artillery.
Have the destroyers descended on us, then? From the Bridge of Sevres to
utmost Vincennes, from Saint-Denis to the Champ-de-Mars, we are begirt!
Alarm, of the vague unknown, is in every heart. The Palais Royal has
become a place of awestruck interjections, silent shakings of the head:
one can fancy with what dolorous sound the noon-tide cannon (which the Sun
fires at the crossing of his meridian) went off there; bodeful, like an
inarticulate voice of doom. (Histoire Parlementaire, ii. 81.) Are these
troops verily come out 'against Brigands'? Where are the Brigands? What
mystery is in the wind?--Hark! a human voice reporting articulately the
Job's-news: Necker, People's Minister, Saviour of France, is dismissed.
Impossible; incredible! Treasonous to the public peace! Such a voice
ought to be choked in the water-works; (Ibid.)--had not the news-bringer
quickly fled. Nevertheless, friends, make of it what you will, the news is
true. Necker is gone. Necker hies northward incessantly, in obedient
secrecy, since yesternight. We have a new Ministry: Broglie the War-god;
Aristocrat Breteuil; Foulon who said the people might eat grass!
Rumour, therefore, shall arise; in the Palais Royal, and in broad France.
Paleness sits on every face; confused tremor and fremescence; waxing into
thunder-peals, of Fury stirred on by Fear.
But see Camille Desmoulins, from the Cafe de Foy, rushing out, sibylline in
face; his hair streaming, in each hand a pistol! He springs to a table:
the Police satellites are eyeing him; alive they shall not take him, not
they alive him alive. This time he speaks without stammering:--Friends,
shall we die like hunted hares? Like sheep hounded into their pinfold;
bleating for mercy, where is no mercy, but only a whetted knife? The hour
is come; the supreme hour of Frenchman and Man; when Oppressors are to try
conclusions with Oppressed; and the word is, swift Death, or Deliverance
forever. Let such hour be well-come! Us, meseems, one cry only befits:
To Arms! Let universal Paris, universal France, as with the throat of the
whirlwind, sound only: To arms!--"To arms!" yell responsive the
innumerable voices: like one great voice, as of a Demon yelling from the
air: for all faces wax fire-eyed, all hearts burn up into madness. In
such, or fitter words, (Ibid.) does Camille evoke the Elemental Powers, in
this great moment.--Friends, continues Camille, some rallying sign!
Cockades; green ones;--the colour of hope!--As with the flight of locusts,
these green tree leaves; green ribands from the neighbouring shops; all
green things are snatched, and made cockades of. Camille descends from his
table, 'stifled with embraces, wetted with tears;' has a bit of green
riband handed him; sticks it in his hat. And now to Curtius' Image-shop
there; to the Boulevards; to the four winds; and rest not till France be on
fire! (Vieux Cordelier, par Camille Desmoulins, No. 5 (reprinted in
Collection des Memoires, par Baudouin Freres, Paris, 1825), p. 81.)
France, so long shaken and wind-parched, is probably at the right
inflammable point.--As for poor Curtius, who, one grieves to think, might
be but imperfectly paid,--he cannot make two words about his Images. The
Wax-bust of Necker, the Wax-bust of D'Orleans, helpers of France: these,
covered with crape, as in funeral procession, or after the manner of
suppliants appealing to Heaven, to Earth, and Tartarus itself, a mixed
multitude bears off. For a sign! As indeed man, with his singular
imaginative faculties, can do little or nothing without signs: thus Turks
look to their Prophet's banner; also Osier Mannikins have been burnt, and
Necker's Portrait has erewhile figured, aloft on its perch.
In this manner march they, a mixed, continually increasing multitude; armed
with axes, staves and miscellanea; grim, many-sounding, through the
streets. Be all Theatres shut; let all dancing, on planked floor, or on
the natural greensward, cease! Instead of a Christian Sabbath, and feast
of guinguette tabernacles, it shall be a Sorcerer's Sabbath; and Paris,
gone rabid, dance,--with the Fiend for piper!
However, Besenval, with horse and foot, is in the Place Louis Quinze.
Mortals promenading homewards, in the fall of the day, saunter by, from
Chaillot or Passy, from flirtation and a little thin wine; with sadder step
than usual. Will the Bust-Procession pass that way! Behold it; behold
also Prince Lambesc dash forth on it, with his Royal-Allemands! Shots
fall, and sabre-strokes; Busts are hewn asunder; and, alas, also heads of
men. A sabred Procession has nothing for it but to explode, along what
streets, alleys, Tuileries Avenues it finds; and disappear. One unarmed
man lies hewed down; a Garde Francaise by his uniform: bear him (or bear
even the report of him) dead and gory to his Barracks;--where he has
comrades still alive!
But why not now, victorious Lambesc, charge through that Tuileries Garden
itself, where the fugitives are vanishing? Not show the Sunday promenaders
too, how steel glitters, besprent with blood; that it be told of, and men's
ears tingle?--Tingle, alas, they did; but the wrong way. Victorious
Lambesc, in this his second or Tuileries charge, succeeds but in
overturning (call it not slashing, for he struck with the flat of his
sword) one man, a poor old schoolmaster, most pacifically tottering there;
and is driven out, by barricade of chairs, by flights of 'bottles and
glasses,' by execrations in bass voice and treble. Most delicate is the
mob-queller's vocation; wherein Too-much may be as bad as Not-enough. For
each of these bass voices, and more each treble voice, borne to all points
of the City, rings now nothing but distracted indignation; will ring all
another. The cry, To arms! roars tenfold; steeples with their metal storm-
voice boom out, as the sun sinks; armorer's shops are broken open,
plundered; the streets are a living foam-sea, chafed by all the winds.
Such issue came of Lambesc's charge on the Tuileries Garden: no striking
of salutary terror into Chaillot promenaders; a striking into broad
wakefulness of Frenzy and the three Furies,--which otherwise were not
asleep! For they lie always, those subterranean Eumenides (fabulous and
yet so true), in the dullest existence of man;--and can dance, brandishing
their dusky torches, shaking their serpent-hair. Lambesc with Royal-
Allemand may ride to his barracks, with curses for his marching-music; then
ride back again, like one troubled in mind: vengeful Gardes Francaises,
sacreing, with knit brows, start out on him, from their barracks in the
Chaussee d'Antin; pour a volley into him (killing and wounding); which he
must not answer, but ride on. (Weber, ii. 75-91.)
Counsel dwells not under the plumed hat. If the Eumenides awaken, and
Broglie has given no orders, what can a Besenval do? When the Gardes
Francaises, with Palais-Royal volunteers, roll down, greedy of more
vengeance, to the Place Louis Quinze itself, they find neither Besenval,
Lambesc, Royal-Allemand, nor any soldier now there. Gone is military
order. On the far Eastern Boulevard, of Saint-Antoine, the Chasseurs
Normandie arrive, dusty, thirsty, after a hard day's ride; but can find no
billet-master, see no course in this City of confusions; cannot get to
Besenval, cannot so much as discover where he is: Normandie must even
bivouac there, in its dust and thirst,--unless some patriot will treat it
to a cup of liquor, with advices.
Raging multitudes surround the Hotel-de-Ville, crying: Arms! Orders! The
Six-and-twenty Town-Councillors, with their long gowns, have ducked under
(into the raging chaos);--shall never emerge more. Besenval is painfully
wriggling himself out, to the Champ-de-Mars; he must sit there 'in the
cruelest uncertainty:' courier after courier may dash off for Versailles;
but will bring back no answer, can hardly bring himself back. For the
roads are all blocked with batteries and pickets, with floods of carriages
arrested for examination: such was Broglie's one sole order; the Oeil-de-
Boeuf, hearing in the distance such mad din, which sounded almost like
invasion, will before all things keep its own head whole. A new Ministry,
with, as it were, but one foot in the stirrup, cannot take leaps. Mad
Paris is abandoned altogether to itself.
What a Paris, when the darkness fell! A European metropolitan City hurled
suddenly forth from its old combinations and arrangements; to crash
tumultuously together, seeking new. Use and wont will now no longer direct
any man; each man, with what of originality he has, must begin thinking; or
following those that think. Seven hundred thousand individuals, on the
sudden, find all their old paths, old ways of acting and deciding, vanish
from under their feet. And so there go they, with clangour and terror,
they know not as yet whether running, swimming or flying,--headlong into
the New Era. With clangour and terror: from above, Broglie the war-god
impends, preternatural, with his redhot cannon-balls; and from below, a
preternatural Brigand-world menaces with dirk and firebrand: madness rules
the hour.
Happily, in place of the submerged Twenty-six, the Electoral Club is
gathering; has declared itself a 'Provisional Municipality.' On the morrow
it will get Provost Flesselles, with an Echevin or two, to give help in
many things. For the present it decrees one most essential thing: that
forthwith a 'Parisian Militia' shall be enrolled. Depart, ye heads of
Districts, to labour in this great work; while we here, in Permanent
Committee, sit alert. Let fencible men, each party in its own range of
streets, keep watch and ward, all night. Let Paris court a little fever-
sleep; confused by such fever-dreams, of 'violent motions at the Palais
Royal;'--or from time to time start awake, and look out, palpitating, in
its nightcap, at the clash of discordant mutually-unintelligible Patrols;
on the gleam of distant Barriers, going up all-too ruddy towards the vault
of Night. (Deux Amis, i. 267-306.)
Chapter 1.5.V.
Give us Arms.
On Monday the huge City has awoke, not to its week-day industry: to what a
different one! The working man has become a fighting man; has one want
only: that of arms. The industry of all crafts has paused;--except it be
the smith's, fiercely hammering pikes; and, in a faint degree, the
kitchener's, cooking off-hand victuals; for bouche va toujours. Women too
are sewing cockades;--not now of green, which being D'Artois colour, the
Hotel-de-Ville has had to interfere in it; but of red and blue, our old
Paris colours: these, once based on a ground of constitutional white, are
the famed TRICOLOR,--which (if Prophecy err not) 'will go round the world.'
All shops, unless it be the Bakers' and Vintners', are shut: Paris is in
the streets;--rushing, foaming like some Venice wine-glass into which you
had dropped poison. The tocsin, by order, is pealing madly from all
steeples. Arms, ye Elector Municipals; thou Flesselles with thy Echevins,
give us arms! Flesselles gives what he can: fallacious, perhaps insidious
promises of arms from Charleville; order to seek arms here, order to seek
them there. The new Municipals give what they can; some three hundred and
sixty indifferent firelocks, the equipment of the City-Watch: 'a man in
wooden shoes, and without coat, directly clutches one of them, and mounts
guard.' Also as hinted, an order to all Smiths to make pikes with their
whole soul.
Heads of Districts are in fervent consultation; subordinate Patriotism
roams distracted, ravenous for arms. Hitherto at the Hotel-de-Ville was
only such modicum of indifferent firelocks as we have seen. At the so-
called Arsenal, there lies nothing but rust, rubbish and saltpetre,--
overlooked too by the guns of the Bastille. His Majesty's Repository, what
they call Garde-Meuble, is forced and ransacked: tapestries enough, and
gauderies; but of serviceable fighting-gear small stock! Two silver-
mounted cannons there are; an ancient gift from his Majesty of Siam to
Louis Fourteenth: gilt sword of the Good Henri; antique Chivalry arms and
armour. These, and such as these, a necessitous Patriotism snatches
greedily, for want of better. The Siamese cannons go trundling, on an
errand they were not meant for. Among the indifferent firelocks are seen
tourney-lances; the princely helm and hauberk glittering amid ill-hatted
heads,--as in a time when all times and their possessions are suddenly sent
jumbling!
At the Maison de Saint-Lazare, Lazar-House once, now a Correction-House
with Priests, there was no trace of arms; but, on the other hand, corn,
plainly to a culpable extent. Out with it, to market; in this scarcity of
grains!--Heavens, will 'fifty-two carts,' in long row, hardly carry it to
the Halle aux Bleds? Well, truly, ye reverend Fathers, was your pantry
filled; fat are your larders; over-generous your wine-bins, ye plotting
exasperators of the Poor; traitorous forestallers of bread!
Vain is protesting, entreaty on bare knees: the House of Saint-Lazarus has
that in it which comes not out by protesting. Behold, how, from every
window, it vomits: mere torrents of furniture, of bellowing and
hurlyburly;--the cellars also leaking wine. Till, as was natural, smoke
rose,--kindled, some say, by the desperate Saint-Lazaristes themselves,
desperate of other riddance; and the Establishment vanished from this world
in flame. Remark nevertheless that 'a thief' (set on or not by
Aristocrats), being detected there, is 'instantly hanged.'
Look also at the Chatelet Prison. The Debtors' Prison of La Force is
broken from without; and they that sat in bondage to Aristocrats go free:
hearing of which the Felons at the Chatelet do likewise 'dig up their
pavements,' and stand on the offensive; with the best prospects,--had not
Patriotism, passing that way, 'fired a volley' into the Felon world; and
crushed it down again under hatches. Patriotism consorts not with thieving
and felony: surely also Punishment, this day, hitches (if she still hitch)
after Crime, with frightful shoes-of-swiftness! 'Some score or two' of
wretched persons, found prostrate with drink in the cellars of that Saint-
Lazare, are indignantly haled to prison; the Jailor has no room; whereupon,
other place of security not suggesting itself, it is written, 'on les
pendit, they hanged them.' (Histoire Parlementaire, ii. 96.) Brief is the
word; not without significance, be it true or untrue!
In such circumstances, the Aristocrat, the unpatriotic rich man is packing-
up for departure. But he shall not get departed. A wooden-shod force has
seized all Barriers, burnt or not: all that enters, all that seeks to
issue, is stopped there, and dragged to the Hotel-de-Ville: coaches,
tumbrils, plate, furniture, 'many meal-sacks,' in time even 'flocks and
herds' encumber the Place de Greve. (Dusaulx, Prise de la Bastille, p.
20.)
And so it roars, and rages, and brays; drums beating, steeples pealing;
criers rushing with hand-bells: "Oyez, oyez. All men to their Districts
to be enrolled!" The Districts have met in gardens, open squares; are
getting marshalled into volunteer troops. No redhot ball has yet fallen
from Besenval's Camp; on the contrary, Deserters with their arms are
continually dropping in: nay now, joy of joys, at two in the afternoon,
the Gardes Francaises, being ordered to Saint-Denis, and flatly declining,
have come over in a body! It is a fact worth many. Three thousand six
hundred of the best fighting men, with complete accoutrement; with
cannoneers even, and cannon! Their officers are left standing alone; could
not so much as succeed in 'spiking the guns.' The very Swiss, it may now
be hoped, Chateau-Vieux and the others, will have doubts about fighting.
Our Parisian Militia,--which some think it were better to name National
Guard,--is prospering as heart could wish. It promised to be forty-eight
thousand; but will in few hours double and quadruple that number:
invincible, if we had only arms!
But see, the promised Charleville Boxes, marked Artillerie! Here, then,
are arms enough?--Conceive the blank face of Patriotism, when it found them
filled with rags, foul linen, candle-ends, and bits of wood! Provost of
the Merchants, how is this? Neither at the Chartreux Convent, whither we
were sent with signed order, is there or ever was there any weapon of war.
Nay here, in this Seine Boat, safe under tarpaulings (had not the nose of
Patriotism been of the finest), are 'five thousand-weight of gunpowder;'
not coming in, but surreptitiously going out! What meanest thou,
Flesselles? 'Tis a ticklish game, that of 'amusing' us. Cat plays with
captive mouse: but mouse with enraged cat, with enraged National Tiger?
Meanwhile, the faster, O ye black-aproned Smiths, smite; with strong arm
and willing heart. This man and that, all stroke from head to heel, shall
thunder alternating, and ply the great forge-hammer, till stithy reel and
ring again; while ever and anon, overhead, booms the alarm-cannon,--for the
City has now got gunpowder. Pikes are fabricated; fifty thousand of them,
in six-and-thirty hours: judge whether the Black-aproned have been idle.
Dig trenches, unpave the streets, ye others, assiduous, man and maid; cram
the earth in barrel-barricades, at each of them a volunteer sentry; pile
the whinstones in window-sills and upper rooms. Have scalding pitch, at
least boiling water ready, ye weak old women, to pour it and dash it on
Royal-Allemand, with your old skinny arms: your shrill curses along with
it will not be wanting!--Patrols of the newborn National Guard, bearing
torches, scour the streets, all that night; which otherwise are vacant, yet
illuminated in every window by order. Strange-looking; like some naphtha-
lighted City of the Dead, with here and there a flight of perturbed Ghosts.
O poor mortals, how ye make this Earth bitter for each other; this fearful
and wonderful Life fearful and horrible; and Satan has his place in all
hearts! Such agonies and ragings and wailings ye have, and have had, in
all times:--to be buried all, in so deep silence; and the salt sea is not
swoln with your tears.
Great meanwhile is the moment, when tidings of Freedom reach us; when the
long-enthralled soul, from amid its chains and squalid stagnancy, arises,
were it still only in blindness and bewilderment, and swears by Him that
made it, that it will be free! Free? Understand that well, it is the deep
commandment, dimmer or clearer, of our whole being, to be free. Freedom is
the one purport, wisely aimed at, or unwisely, of all man's struggles,
toilings and sufferings, in this Earth. Yes, supreme is such a moment (if
thou have known it): first vision as of a flame-girt Sinai, in this our
waste Pilgrimage,--which thenceforth wants not its pillar of cloud by day,
and pillar of fire by night! Something it is even,--nay, something
considerable, when the chains have grown corrosive, poisonous, to be free
'from oppression by our fellow-man.' Forward, ye maddened sons of France;
be it towards this destiny or towards that! Around you is but starvation,
falsehood, corruption and the clam of death. Where ye are is no abiding.
Imagination may, imperfectly, figure how Commandant Besenval, in the Champ-
de-Mars, has worn out these sorrowful hours Insurrection all round; his men
melting away! From Versailles, to the most pressing messages, comes no
answer; or once only some vague word of answer which is worse than none. A
Council of Officers can decide merely that there is no decision: Colonels
inform him, 'weeping,' that they do not think their men will fight. Cruel
uncertainty is here: war-god Broglie sits yonder, inaccessible in his
Olympus; does not descend terror-clad, does not produce his whiff of
grapeshot; sends no orders.
Truly, in the Chateau of Versailles all seems mystery: in the Town of
Versailles, were we there, all is rumour, alarm and indignation. An august
National Assembly sits, to appearance, menaced with death; endeavouring to
defy death. It has resolved 'that Necker carries with him the regrets of
the Nation.' It has sent solemn Deputation over to the Chateau, with
entreaty to have these troops withdrawn. In vain: his Majesty, with a
singular composure, invites us to be busy rather with our own duty, making
the Constitution! Foreign Pandours, and suchlike, go pricking and
prancing, with a swashbuckler air; with an eye too probably to the Salle
des Menus,--were it not for the 'grim-looking countenances' that crowd all
avenues there. (See Lameth; Ferrieres, &c.) Be firm, ye National
Senators; the cynosure of a firm, grim-looking people!
The august National Senators determine that there shall, at least, be
Permanent Session till this thing end. Wherein, however, consider that
worthy Lafranc de Pompignan, our new President, whom we have named Bailly's
successor, is an old man, wearied with many things. He is the Brother of
that Pompignan who meditated lamentably on the Book of Lamentations:
Saves-voux pourquoi Jeremie
Se lamentait toute sa vie?
C'est qu'il prevoyait
Que Pompignan le traduirait!
Poor Bishop Pompignan withdraws; having got Lafayette for helper or
substitute: this latter, as nocturnal Vice-President, with a thin house in
disconsolate humour, sits sleepless, with lights unsnuffed;--waiting what
the hours will bring.
So at Versailles. But at Paris, agitated Besenval, before retiring for the
night, has stept over to old M. de Sombreuil, of the Hotel des Invalides
hard by. M. de Sombreuil has, what is a great secret, some eight-and-
twenty thousand stand of muskets deposited in his cellars there; but no
trust in the temper of his Invalides. This day, for example, he sent
twenty of the fellows down to unscrew those muskets; lest Sedition might
snatch at them; but scarcely, in six hours, had the twenty unscrewed twenty
gun-locks, or dogsheads (chiens) of locks,--each Invalide his dogshead! If
ordered to fire, they would, he imagines, turn their cannon against
himself.
Unfortunate old military gentlemen, it is your hour, not of glory! Old
Marquis de Launay too, of the Bastille, has pulled up his drawbridges long
since, 'and retired into his interior;' with sentries walking on his
battlements, under the midnight sky, aloft over the glare of illuminated
Paris;--whom a National Patrol, passing that way, takes the liberty of
firing at; 'seven shots towards twelve at night,' which do not take effect.
(Deux Amis de la Liberte, i. 312.) This was the 13th day of July, 1789; a
worse day, many said, than the last 13th was, when only hail fell out of
Heaven, not madness rose out of Tophet, ruining worse than crops!
In these same days, as Chronology will teach us, hot old Marquis Mirabeau
lies stricken down, at Argenteuil,--not within sound of these alarm-guns;
for he properly is not there, and only the body of him now lies, deaf and
cold forever. It was on Saturday night that he, drawing his last life-
breaths, gave up the ghost there;--leaving a world, which would never go to
his mind, now broken out, seemingly, into deliration and the culbute
generale. What is it to him, departing elsewhither, on his long journey?
The old Chateau Mirabeau stands silent, far off, on its scarped rock, in
that 'gorge of two windy valleys;' the pale-fading spectre now of a
Chateau: this huge World-riot, and France, and the World itself, fades
also, like a shadow on the great still mirror-sea; and all shall be as God
wills.
Young Mirabeau, sad of heart, for he loved this crabbed brave old Father,
sad of heart, and occupied with sad cares,--is withdrawn from Public
History. The great crisis transacts itself without him. (Fils Adoptif,
Mirabeau, vi. l. 1.)
Chapter 1.5.VI.
Storm and Victory.
But, to the living and the struggling, a new, Fourteenth morning dawns.
Under all roofs of this distracted City, is the nodus of a drama, not
untragical, crowding towards solution. The bustlings and preparings, the
tremors and menaces; the tears that fell from old eyes! This day, my sons,
ye shall quit you like men. By the memory of your fathers' wrongs, by the
hope of your children's rights! Tyranny impends in red wrath: help for
you is none if not in your own right hands. This day ye must do or die.
From earliest light, a sleepless Permanent Committee has heard the old cry,
now waxing almost frantic, mutinous: Arms! Arms! Provost Flesselles, or
what traitors there are among you, may think of those Charleville Boxes. A
hundred-and-fifty thousand of us; and but the third man furnished with so
much as a pike! Arms are the one thing needful: with arms we are an
unconquerable man-defying National Guard; without arms, a rabble to be
whiffed with grapeshot.
Happily the word has arisen, for no secret can be kept,--that there lie
muskets at the Hotel des Invalides. Thither will we: King's Procureur M.
Ethys de Corny, and whatsoever of authority a Permanent Committee can lend,
shall go with us. Besenval's Camp is there; perhaps he will not fire on
us; if he kill us we shall but die.
Alas, poor Besenval, with his troops melting away in that manner, has not
the smallest humour to fire! At five o'clock this morning, as he lay
dreaming, oblivious in the Ecole Militaire, a 'figure' stood suddenly at
his bedside: 'with face rather handsome; eyes inflamed, speech rapid and
curt, air audacious:' such a figure drew Priam's curtains! The message
and monition of the figure was, that resistance would be hopeless; that if
blood flowed, wo to him who shed it. Thus spoke the figure; and vanished.
'Withal there was a kind of eloquence that struck one.' Besenval admits
that he should have arrested him, but did not. (Besenval, iii. 414.) Who
this figure, with inflamed eyes, with speech rapid and curt, might be?
Besenval knows but mentions not. Camille Desmoulins? Pythagorean Marquis
Valadi, inflamed with 'violent motions all night at the Palais Royal?'
Fame names him, 'Young M. Meillar'; (Tableaux de la Revolution, Prise de la
Bastille (a folio Collection of Pictures and Portraits, with letter-press,
not always uninstructive,--part of it said to be by Chamfort).) Then shuts
her lips about him for ever.
In any case, behold about nine in the morning, our National Volunteers
rolling in long wide flood, south-westward to the Hotel des Invalides; in
search of the one thing needful. King's procureur M. Ethys de Corny and
officials are there; the Cure of Saint-Etienne du Mont marches unpacific,
at the head of his militant Parish; the Clerks of the Bazoche in red coats
we see marching, now Volunteers of the Bazoche; the Volunteers of the
Palais Royal:--National Volunteers, numerable by tens of thousands; of one
heart and mind. The King's muskets are the Nation's; think, old M. de
Sombreuil, how, in this extremity, thou wilt refuse them! Old M. de
Sombreuil would fain hold parley, send Couriers; but it skills not: the
walls are scaled, no Invalide firing a shot; the gates must be flung open.
Patriotism rushes in, tumultuous, from grundsel up to ridge-tile, through
all rooms and passages; rummaging distractedly for arms. What cellar, or
what cranny can escape it? The arms are found; all safe there; lying
packed in straw,--apparently with a view to being burnt! More ravenous
than famishing lions over dead prey, the multitude, with clangour and
vociferation, pounces on them; struggling, dashing, clutching:--to the
jamming-up, to the pressure, fracture and probable extinction, of the
weaker Patriot. (Deux Amis, i. 302.) And so, with such protracted crash
of deafening, most discordant Orchestra-music, the Scene is changed: and
eight-and-twenty thousand sufficient firelocks are on the shoulders of so
many National Guards, lifted thereby out of darkness into fiery light.
Let Besenval look at the glitter of these muskets, as they flash by!
Gardes Francaises, it is said, have cannon levelled on him; ready to open,
if need were, from the other side of the River. (Besenval, iii. 416.)
Motionless sits he; 'astonished,' one may flatter oneself, 'at the proud
bearing (fiere contenance) of the Parisians.'--And now, to the Bastille, ye
intrepid Parisians! There grapeshot still threatens; thither all men's
thoughts and steps are now tending.
Old de Launay, as we hinted, withdrew 'into his interior' soon after
midnight of Sunday. He remains there ever since, hampered, as all military
gentlemen now are, in the saddest conflict of uncertainties. The Hotel-de-
Ville 'invites' him to admit National Soldiers, which is a soft name for
surrendering. On the other hand, His Majesty's orders were precise. His
garrison is but eighty-two old Invalides, reinforced by thirty-two young
Swiss; his walls indeed are nine feet thick, he has cannon and powder; but,
alas, only one day's provision of victuals. The city too is French, the
poor garrison mostly French. Rigorous old de Launay, think what thou wilt
do!
All morning, since nine, there has been a cry everywhere: To the Bastille!
Repeated 'deputations of citizens' have been here, passionate for arms;
whom de Launay has got dismissed by soft speeches through portholes.
Towards noon, Elector Thuriot de la Rosiere gains admittance; finds de
Launay indisposed for surrender; nay disposed for blowing up the place
rather. Thuriot mounts with him to the battlements: heaps of paving-
stones, old iron and missiles lie piled; cannon all duly levelled; in every
embrasure a cannon,--only drawn back a little! But outwards behold, O
Thuriot, how the multitude flows on, welling through every street; tocsin
furiously pealing, all drums beating the generale: the Suburb Saint-
Antoine rolling hitherward wholly, as one man! Such vision (spectral yet
real) thou, O Thuriot, as from thy Mount of Vision, beholdest in this
moment: prophetic of what other Phantasmagories, and loud-gibbering
Spectral Realities, which, thou yet beholdest not, but shalt! "Que voulez
vous?" said de Launay, turning pale at the sight, with an air of reproach,
almost of menace. "Monsieur," said Thuriot, rising into the moral-sublime,
"What mean you? Consider if I could not precipitate both of us from this
height,"--say only a hundred feet, exclusive of the walled ditch!
Whereupon de Launay fell silent. Thuriot shews himself from some pinnacle,
to comfort the multitude becoming suspicious, fremescent: then descends;
departs with protest; with warning addressed also to the Invalides,--on
whom, however, it produces but a mixed indistinct impression. The old
heads are none of the clearest; besides, it is said, de Launay has been
profuse of beverages (prodigua des buissons). They think, they will not
fire,--if not fired on, if they can help it; but must, on the whole, be
ruled considerably by circumstances.
Wo to thee, de Launay, in such an hour, if thou canst not, taking some one
firm decision, rule circumstances! Soft speeches will not serve; hard
grape-shot is questionable; but hovering between the two is unquestionable.
Ever wilder swells the tide of men; their infinite hum waxing ever louder,
into imprecations, perhaps into crackle of stray musketry,--which latter,
on walls nine feet thick, cannot do execution. The Outer Drawbridge has
been lowered for Thuriot; new deputation of citizens (it is the third, and
noisiest of all) penetrates that way into the Outer Court: soft speeches
producing no clearance of these, de Launay gives fire; pulls up his
Drawbridge. A slight sputter;--which has kindled the too combustible
chaos; made it a roaring fire-chaos! Bursts forth insurrection, at sight
of its own blood (for there were deaths by that sputter of fire), into
endless rolling explosion of musketry, distraction, execration;--and
overhead, from the Fortress, let one great gun, with its grape-shot, go
booming, to shew what we could do. The Bastille is besieged!
On, then, all Frenchmen that have hearts in their bodies! Roar with all
your throats, of cartilage and metal, ye Sons of Liberty; stir
spasmodically whatsoever of utmost faculty is in you, soul, body or spirit;
for it is the hour! Smite, thou Louis Tournay, cartwright of the Marais,
old-soldier of the Regiment Dauphine; smite at that Outer Drawbridge chain,
though the fiery hail whistles round thee! Never, over nave or felloe, did
thy axe strike such a stroke. Down with it, man; down with it to Orcus:
let the whole accursed Edifice sink thither, and Tyranny be swallowed up
for ever! Mounted, some say on the roof of the guard-room, some 'on
bayonets stuck into joints of the wall,' Louis Tournay smites, brave Aubin
Bonnemere (also an old soldier) seconding him: the chain yields, breaks;
the huge Drawbridge slams down, thundering (avec fracas). Glorious: and
yet, alas, it is still but the outworks. The Eight grim Towers, with their
Invalides' musketry, their paving stones and cannon-mouths, still soar
aloft intact;--Ditch yawning impassable, stone-faced; the inner Drawbridge
with its back towards us: the Bastille is still to take!
To describe this Siege of the Bastille (thought to be one of the most
important in history) perhaps transcends the talent of mortals. Could one
but, after infinite reading, get to understand so much as the plan of the
building! But there is open Esplanade, at the end of the Rue Saint-
Antoine; there are such Forecourts, Cour Avance, Cour de l'Orme, arched
Gateway (where Louis Tournay now fights); then new drawbridges, dormant-
bridges, rampart-bastions, and the grim Eight Towers: a labyrinthic Mass,
high-frowning there, of all ages from twenty years to four hundred and
twenty;--beleaguered, in this its last hour, as we said, by mere Chaos come
again! Ordnance of all calibres; throats of all capacities; men of all
plans, every man his own engineer: seldom since the war of Pygmies and
Cranes was there seen so anomalous a thing. Half-pay Elie is home for a
suit of regimentals; no one would heed him in coloured clothes: half-pay
Hulin is haranguing Gardes Francaises in the Place de Greve. Frantic
Patriots pick up the grape-shots; bear them, still hot (or seemingly so),
to the Hotel-de-Ville:--Paris, you perceive, is to be burnt! Flesselles is
'pale to the very lips' for the roar of the multitude grows deep. Paris
wholly has got to the acme of its frenzy; whirled, all ways, by panic
madness. At every street-barricade, there whirls simmering, a minor
whirlpool,--strengthening the barricade, since God knows what is coming;
and all minor whirlpools play distractedly into that grand Fire-Mahlstrom
which is lashing round the Bastille.
And so it lashes and it roars. Cholat the wine-merchant has become an
impromptu cannoneer. See Georget, of the Marine Service, fresh from Brest,
ply the King of Siam's cannon. Singular (if we were not used to the like):
Georget lay, last night, taking his ease at his inn; the King of Siam's
cannon also lay, knowing nothing of him, for a hundred years. Yet now, at
the right instant, they have got together, and discourse eloquent music.
For, hearing what was toward, Georget sprang from the Brest Diligence, and
ran. Gardes Francaises also will be here, with real artillery: were not
the walls so thick!--Upwards from the Esplanade, horizontally from all
neighbouring roofs and windows, flashes one irregular deluge of musketry,--
without effect. The Invalides lie flat, firing comparatively at their ease
from behind stone; hardly through portholes, shew the tip of a nose. We
fall, shot; and make no impression!
Let conflagration rage; of whatsoever is combustible! Guard-rooms are
burnt, Invalides mess-rooms. A distracted 'Peruke-maker with two fiery
torches' is for burning 'the saltpetres of the Arsenal;'--had not a woman
run screaming; had not a Patriot, with some tincture of Natural Philosophy,
instantly struck the wind out of him (butt of musket on pit of stomach),
overturned barrels, and stayed the devouring element. A young beautiful
lady, seized escaping in these Outer Courts, and thought falsely to be de
Launay's daughter, shall be burnt in de Launay's sight; she lies swooned on
a paillasse: but again a Patriot, it is brave Aubin Bonnemere the old
soldier, dashes in, and rescues her. Straw is burnt; three cartloads of
it, hauled thither, go up in white smoke: almost to the choking of
Patriotism itself; so that Elie had, with singed brows, to drag back one
cart; and Reole the 'gigantic haberdasher' another. Smoke as of Tophet;
confusion as of Babel; noise as of the Crack of Doom!
Blood flows, the aliment of new madness. The wounded are carried into
houses of the Rue Cerisaie; the dying leave their last mandate not to yield
till the accursed Stronghold fall. And yet, alas, how fall? The walls are
so thick! Deputations, three in number, arrive from the Hotel-de-Ville;
Abbe Fouchet (who was of one) can say, with what almost superhuman courage
of benevolence. (Fauchet's Narrative (Deux Amis, i. 324.).) These wave
their Town-flag in the arched Gateway; and stand, rolling their drum; but
to no purpose. In such Crack of Doom, de Launay cannot hear them, dare not
believe them: they return, with justified rage, the whew of lead still
singing in their ears. What to do? The Firemen are here, squirting with
their fire-pumps on the Invalides' cannon, to wet the touchholes; they
unfortunately cannot squirt so high; but produce only clouds of spray.
Individuals of classical knowledge propose catapults. Santerre, the
sonorous Brewer of the Suburb Saint-Antoine, advises rather that the place
be fired, by a 'mixture of phosphorous and oil-of-turpentine spouted up
through forcing pumps:' O Spinola-Santerre, hast thou the mixture ready?
Every man his own engineer! And still the fire-deluge abates not; even
women are firing, and Turks; at least one woman (with her sweetheart), and
one Turk. (Deux Amis (i. 319); Dusaulx, &c.) Gardes Francaises have come:
real cannon, real cannoneers. Usher Maillard is busy; half-pay Elie, half-
pay Hulin rage in the midst of thousands.
How the great Bastille Clock ticks (inaudible) in its Inner Court there, at
its ease, hour after hour; as if nothing special, for it or the world, were
passing! It tolled One when the firing began; and is now pointing towards
Five, and still the firing slakes not.--Far down, in their vaults, the
seven Prisoners hear muffled din as of earthquakes; their Turnkeys answer
vaguely.
Wo to thee, de Launay, with thy poor hundred Invalides! Broglie is
distant, and his ears heavy: Besenval hears, but can send no help. One
poor troop of Hussars has crept, reconnoitring, cautiously along the Quais,
as far as the Pont Neuf. "We are come to join you," said the Captain; for
the crowd seems shoreless. A large-headed dwarfish individual, of smoke-
bleared aspect, shambles forward, opening his blue lips, for there is sense
in him; and croaks: "Alight then, and give up your arms!" the Hussar-
Captain is too happy to be escorted to the Barriers, and dismissed on
parole. Who the squat individual was? Men answer, it is M. Marat, author
of the excellent pacific Avis au Peuple! Great truly, O thou remarkable
Dogleech, is this thy day of emergence and new birth: and yet this same
day come four years--!--But let the curtains of the future hang.
What shall de Launay do? One thing only de Launay could have done: what
he said he would do. Fancy him sitting, from the first, with lighted
taper, within arm's length of the Powder-Magazine; motionless, like old
Roman Senator, or bronze Lamp-holder; coldly apprising Thuriot, and all
men, by a slight motion of his eye, what his resolution was:--Harmless he
sat there, while unharmed; but the King's Fortress, meanwhile, could,
might, would, or should, in nowise, be surrendered, save to the King's
Messenger: one old man's life worthless, so it be lost with honour; but
think, ye brawling canaille, how will it be when a whole Bastille springs
skyward!--In such statuesque, taper-holding attitude, one fancies de Launay
might have left Thuriot, the red Clerks of the Bazoche, Cure of Saint-
Stephen and all the tagrag-and-bobtail of the world, to work their will.
And yet, withal, he could not do it. Hast thou considered how each man's
heart is so tremulously responsive to the hearts of all men; hast thou
noted how omnipotent is the very sound of many men? How their shriek of
indignation palsies the strong soul; their howl of contumely withers with
unfelt pangs? The Ritter Gluck confessed that the ground-tone of the
noblest passage, in one of his noblest Operas, was the voice of the
Populace he had heard at Vienna, crying to their Kaiser: Bread! Bread!
Great is the combined voice of men; the utterance of their instincts, which
are truer than their thoughts: it is the greatest a man encounters, among
the sounds and shadows, which make up this World of Time. He who can
resist that, has his footing some where beyond Time. De Launay could not
do it. Distracted, he hovers between the two; hopes in the middle of
despair; surrenders not his Fortress; declares that he will blow it up,
seizes torches to blow it up, and does not blow it. Unhappy old de Launay,
it is the death-agony of thy Bastille and thee! Jail, Jailoring and
Jailor, all three, such as they may have been, must finish.
For four hours now has the World-Bedlam roared: call it the World-
Chimaera, blowing fire! The poor Invalides have sunk under their
battlements, or rise only with reversed muskets: they have made a white
flag of napkins; go beating the chamade, or seeming to beat, for one can
hear nothing. The very Swiss at the Portcullis look weary of firing;
disheartened in the fire-deluge: a porthole at the drawbridge is opened,
as by one that would speak. See Huissier Maillard, the shifty man! On his
plank, swinging over the abyss of that stone-Ditch; plank resting on
parapet, balanced by weight of Patriots,--he hovers perilous: such a Dove
towards such an Ark! Deftly, thou shifty Usher: one man already fell; and
lies smashed, far down there, against the masonry! Usher Maillard falls
not: deftly, unerring he walks, with outspread palm. The Swiss holds a
paper through his porthole; the shifty Usher snatches it, and returns.
Terms of surrender: Pardon, immunity to all! Are they accepted?--"Foi
d'officier, On the word of an officer," answers half-pay Hulin,--or half-
pay Elie, for men do not agree on it, "they are!" Sinks the drawbridge,--
Usher Maillard bolting it when down; rushes-in the living deluge: the
Bastille is fallen! Victoire! La Bastille est prise! (Histoire de la
Revolution, par Deux Amis de la Liberte, i. 267-306; Besenval, iii. 410-
434; Dusaulx, Prise de la Bastille, 291-301. Bailly, Memoires (Collection
de Berville et Barriere), i. 322 et seqq.)
Chapter 1.5.VII.
Not a Revolt.
Why dwell on what follows? Hulin's foi d'officer should have been kept,
but could not. The Swiss stand drawn up; disguised in white canvas smocks;
the Invalides without disguise; their arms all piled against the wall. The
first rush of victors, in ecstacy that the death-peril is passed, 'leaps
joyfully on their necks;' but new victors rush, and ever new, also in
ecstacy not wholly of joy. As we said, it was a living deluge, plunging
headlong; had not the Gardes Francaises, in their cool military way,
'wheeled round with arms levelled,' it would have plunged suicidally, by
the hundred or the thousand, into the Bastille-ditch.
And so it goes plunging through court and corridor; billowing
uncontrollable, firing from windows--on itself: in hot frenzy of triumph,
of grief and vengeance for its slain. The poor Invalides will fare ill;
one Swiss, running off in his white smock, is driven back, with a death-
thrust. Let all prisoners be marched to the Townhall, to be judged!--Alas,
already one poor Invalide has his right hand slashed off him; his maimed
body dragged to the Place de Greve, and hanged there. This same right
hand, it is said, turned back de Launay from the Powder-Magazine, and saved
Paris.
De Launay, 'discovered in gray frock with poppy-coloured riband,' is for
killing himself with the sword of his cane. He shall to the Hotel-de-
Ville; Hulin Maillard and others escorting him; Elie marching foremost
'with the capitulation-paper on his sword's point.' Through roarings and
cursings; through hustlings, clutchings, and at last through strokes! Your
escort is hustled aside, felled down; Hulin sinks exhausted on a heap of
stones. Miserable de Launay! He shall never enter the Hotel de Ville:
only his 'bloody hair-queue, held up in a bloody hand;' that shall enter,
for a sign. The bleeding trunk lies on the steps there; the head is off
through the streets; ghastly, aloft on a pike.
Rigorous de Launay has died; crying out, "O friends, kill me fast!"
Merciful de Losme must die; though Gratitude embraces him, in this fearful
hour, and will die for him; it avails not. Brothers, your wrath is cruel!
Your Place de Greve is become a Throat of the Tiger; full of mere fierce
bellowings, and thirst of blood. One other officer is massacred; one other
Invalide is hanged on the Lamp-iron: with difficulty, with generous
perseverance, the Gardes Francaises will save the rest. Provost Flesselles
stricken long since with the paleness of death, must descend from his seat,
'to be judged at the Palais Royal:'--alas, to be shot dead, by an unknown
hand, at the turning of the first street!--
O evening sun of July, how, at this hour, thy beams fall slant on reapers
amid peaceful woody fields; on old women spinning in cottages; on ships far
out in the silent main; on Balls at the Orangerie of Versailles, where
high-rouged Dames of the Palace are even now dancing with double-jacketted
Hussar-Officers;--and also on this roaring Hell porch of a Hotel-de-Ville!
Babel Tower, with the confusion of tongues, were not Bedlam added with the
conflagration of thoughts, was no type of it. One forest of distracted
steel bristles, endless, in front of an Electoral Committee; points itself,
in horrid radii, against this and the other accused breast. It was the
Titans warring with Olympus; and they scarcely crediting it, have
conquered: prodigy of prodigies; delirious,--as it could not but be.
Denunciation, vengeance; blaze of triumph on a dark ground of terror: all
outward, all inward things fallen into one general wreck of madness!
Electoral Committee? Had it a thousand throats of brass, it would not
suffice. Abbe Lefevre, in the Vaults down below, is black as Vulcan,
distributing that 'five thousand weight of Powder;' with what perils, these
eight-and-forty hours! Last night, a Patriot, in liquor, insisted on
sitting to smoke on the edge of one of the Powder-barrels; there smoked he,
independent of the world,--till the Abbe 'purchased his pipe for three
francs,' and pitched it far.
Elie, in the grand Hall, Electoral Committee looking on, sits 'with drawn
sword bent in three places;' with battered helm, for he was of the Queen's
Regiment, Cavalry; with torn regimentals, face singed and soiled;
comparable, some think, to 'an antique warrior;'--judging the people;
forming a list of Bastille Heroes. O Friends, stain not with blood the
greenest laurels ever gained in this world: such is the burden of Elie's
song; could it but be listened to. Courage, Elie! Courage, ye Municipal
Electors! A declining sun; the need of victuals, and of telling news, will
bring assuagement, dispersion: all earthly things must end.
Along the streets of Paris circulate Seven Bastille Prisoners, borne
shoulder-high: seven Heads on pikes; the Keys of the Bastille; and much
else. See also the Garde Francaises, in their steadfast military way,
marching home to their barracks, with the Invalides and Swiss kindly
enclosed in hollow square. It is one year and two months since these same
men stood unparticipating, with Brennus d'Agoust at the Palais de Justice,
when Fate overtook d'Espremenil; and now they have participated; and will
participate. Not Gardes Francaises henceforth, but Centre Grenadiers of
the National Guard: men of iron discipline and humour,--not without a kind
of thought in them!
Likewise ashlar stones of the Bastille continue thundering through the
dusk; its paper-archives shall fly white. Old secrets come to view; and
long-buried Despair finds voice. Read this portion of an old Letter:
(Dated, a la Bastille, 7 Octobre, 1752; signed Queret-Demery. Bastille
Devoilee, in Linguet, Memoires sur la Bastille (Paris, 1821), p. 199.) 'If
for my consolation Monseigneur would grant me for the sake of God and the
Most Blessed Trinity, that I could have news of my dear wife; were it only
her name on card to shew that she is alive! It were the greatest
consolation I could receive; and I should for ever bless the greatness of
Monseigneur.' Poor Prisoner, who namest thyself Queret Demery, and hast no
other history,--she is dead, that dear wife of thine, and thou art dead!
'Tis fifty years since thy breaking heart put this question; to be heard
now first, and long heard, in the hearts of men.
But so does the July twilight thicken; so must Paris, as sick children, and
all distracted creatures do, brawl itself finally into a kind of sleep.
Municipal Electors, astonished to find their heads still uppermost, are
home: only Moreau de Saint-Mery of tropical birth and heart, of coolest
judgment; he, with two others, shall sit permanent at the Townhall. Paris
sleeps; gleams upward the illuminated City: patrols go clashing, without
common watchword; there go rumours; alarms of war, to the extent of
'fifteen thousand men marching through the Suburb Saint-Antoine,'--who
never got it marched through. Of the day's distraction judge by this of
the night: Moreau de Saint-Mery, 'before rising from his seat, gave
upwards of three thousand orders.' (Dusaulx.) What a head; comparable to
Friar Bacon's Brass Head! Within it lies all Paris. Prompt must the
answer be, right or wrong; in Paris is no other Authority extant.
Seriously, a most cool clear head;--for which also thou O brave Saint-Mery,
in many capacities, from august Senator to Merchant's-Clerk, Book-dealer,
Vice-King; in many places, from Virginia to Sardinia, shalt, ever as a
brave man, find employment. (Biographie Universelle, para Moreau Saint-
Mery (by Fournier-Pescay).)
Besenval has decamped, under cloud of dusk, 'amid a great affluence of
people,' who did not harm him; he marches, with faint-growing tread, down
the left bank of the Seine, all night,--towards infinite space. Resummoned
shall Besenval himself be; for trial, for difficult acquittal. His King's-
troops, his Royal Allemand, are gone hence for ever.
The Versailles Ball and lemonade is done; the Orangery is silent except for
nightbirds. Over in the Salle des Menus, Vice-president Lafayette, with
unsnuffed lights, 'with some hundred of members, stretched on tables round
him,' sits erect; outwatching the Bear. This day, a second solemn
Deputation went to his Majesty; a second, and then a third: with no
effect. What will the end of these things be?
In the Court, all is mystery, not without whisperings of terror; though ye
dream of lemonade and epaulettes, ye foolish women! His Majesty, kept in
happy ignorance, perhaps dreams of double-barrels and the Woods of Meudon.
Late at night, the Duke de Liancourt, having official right of entrance,
gains access to the Royal Apartments; unfolds, with earnest clearness, in
his constitutional way, the Job's-news. "Mais," said poor Louis, "c'est
une revolte, Why, that is a revolt!"--"Sire," answered Liancourt, "It is
not a revolt, it is a revolution."
Chapter 1.5.VIII.
Conquering your King.
On the morrow a fourth Deputation to the Chateau is on foot: of a more
solemn, not to say awful character, for, besides 'orgies in the Orangery,'
it seems, 'the grain convoys are all stopped;' nor has Mirabeau's thunder
been silent. Such Deputation is on the point of setting out--when lo, his
Majesty himself attended only by his two Brothers, step in; quite in the
paternal manner; announces that the troops, and all causes of offence, are
gone, and henceforth there shall be nothing but trust, reconcilement, good-
will; whereof he 'permits and even requests,' a National Assembly to assure
Paris in his name! Acclamation, as of men suddenly delivered from death,
gives answer. The whole Assembly spontaneously rises to escort his Majesty
back; 'interlacing their arms to keep off the excessive pressure from him;'
for all Versailles is crowding and shouting. The Chateau Musicians, with a
felicitous promptitude, strike up the Sein de sa Famille (Bosom of one's
Family): the Queen appears at the balcony with her little boy and girl,
'kissing them several times;' infinite Vivats spread far and wide;--and
suddenly there has come, as it were, a new Heaven-on-Earth.
Eighty-eight august Senators, Bailly, Lafayette, and our repentant
Archbishop among them, take coach for Paris, with the great intelligence;
benedictions without end on their heads. From the Place Louis Quinze,
where they alight, all the way to the Hotel-de-Ville, it is one sea of
Tricolor cockades, of clear National muskets; one tempest of huzzaings,
hand-clappings, aided by 'occasional rollings' of drum-music. Harangues of
due fervour are delivered; especially by Lally Tollendal, pious son of the
ill-fated murdered Lally; on whose head, in consequence, a civic crown (of
oak or parsley) is forced,--which he forcibly transfers to Bailly's.
But surely, for one thing, the National Guard must have a General! Moreau
de Saint-Mery, he of the 'three thousand orders,' casts one of his
significant glances on the Bust of Lafayette, which has stood there ever
since the American War of Liberty. Whereupon, by acclamation, Lafayette is
nominated. Again, in room of the slain traitor or quasi-traitor
Flesselles, President Bailly shall be--Provost of the Merchants? No:
Mayor of Paris! So be it. Maire de Paris! Mayor Bailly, General
Lafayette; vive Bailly, vive Lafayette--the universal out-of-doors
multitude rends the welkin in confirmation.--And now, finally, let us to
Notre-Dame for a Te Deum.
Towards Notre-Dame Cathedral, in glad procession, these Regenerators of the
Country walk, through a jubilant people; in fraternal manner; Abbe Lefevre,
still black with his gunpowder services, walking arm in arm with the white-
stoled Archbishop. Poor Bailly comes upon the Foundling Children, sent to
kneel to him; and 'weeps.' Te Deum, our Archbishop officiating, is not
only sung, but shot--with blank cartridges. Our joy is boundless as our wo
threatened to be. Paris, by her own pike and musket, and the valour of her
own heart, has conquered the very wargods,--to the satisfaction now of
Majesty itself. A courier is, this night, getting under way for Necker:
the People's Minister, invited back by King, by National Assembly, and
Nation, shall traverse France amid shoutings, and the sound of trumpet and
timbrel.
Seeing which course of things, Messeigneurs of the Court Triumvirate,
Messieurs of the dead-born Broglie-Ministry, and others such, consider that
their part also is clear: to mount and ride. Off, ye too-loyal Broglies,
Polignacs, and Princes of the Blood; off while it is yet time! Did not the
Palais-Royal in its late nocturnal 'violent motions,' set a specific price
(place of payment not mentioned) on each of your heads?--With precautions,
with the aid of pieces of cannon and regiments that can be depended on,
Messeigneurs, between the 16th night and the 17th morning, get to their
several roads. Not without risk! Prince Conde has (or seems to have) 'men
galloping at full speed;' with a view, it is thought, to fling him into the
river Oise, at Pont-Sainte-Mayence. (Weber, ii. 126.) The Polignacs
travel disguised; friends, not servants, on their coach-box. Broglie has
his own difficulties at Versailles, runs his own risks at Metz and Verdun;
does nevertheless get safe to Luxemburg, and there rests.
This is what they call the First Emigration; determined on, as appears, in
full Court-conclave; his Majesty assisting; prompt he, for his share of it,
to follow any counsel whatsoever. 'Three Sons of France, and four Princes
of the blood of Saint Louis,' says Weber, 'could not more effectually
humble the Burghers of Paris 'than by appearing to withdraw in fear of
their life.' Alas, the Burghers of Paris bear it with unexpected Stoicism!
The Man d'Artois indeed is gone; but has he carried, for example, the Land
D'Artois with him? Not even Bagatelle the Country-house (which shall be
useful as a Tavern); hardly the four-valet Breeches, leaving the Breeches-
maker!--As for old Foulon, one learns that he is dead; at least a
'sumptuous funeral' is going on; the undertakers honouring him, if no other
will. Intendant Berthier, his son-in-law, is still living; lurking: he
joined Besenval, on that Eumenides' Sunday; appearing to treat it with
levity; and is now fled no man knows whither.
The Emigration is not gone many miles, Prince Conde hardly across the Oise,
when his Majesty, according to arrangement, for the Emigration also thought
it might do good,--undertakes a rather daring enterprise: that of visiting
Paris in person. With a Hundred Members of Assembly; with small or no
military escort, which indeed he dismissed at the Bridge of Sevres, poor
Louis sets out; leaving a desolate Palace; a Queen weeping, the Present,
the Past, and the Future all so unfriendly for her.
At the Barrier of Passy, Mayor Bailly, in grand gala, presents him with the
keys; harangues him, in Academic style; mentions that it is a great day;
that in Henri Quatre's case, the King had to make conquest of his People,
but in this happier case, the People makes conquest of its King (a conquis
son Roi). The King, so happily conquered, drives forward, slowly, through
a steel people, all silent, or shouting only Vive la Nation; is harangued
at the Townhall, by Moreau of the three-thousand orders, by King's
Procureur M. Ethys de Corny, by Lally Tollendal, and others; knows not what
to think of it, or say of it; learns that he is 'Restorer of French
Liberty,'--as a Statue of him, to be raised on the site of the Bastille,
shall testify to all men. Finally, he is shewn at the Balcony, with a
Tricolor cockade in his hat; is greeted now, with vehement acclamation,
from Square and Street, from all windows and roofs:--and so drives home
again amid glad mingled and, as it were, intermarried shouts, of Vive le
Roi and Vive la Nation; wearied but safe.
It was Sunday when the red-hot balls hung over us, in mid air: it is now
but Friday, and 'the Revolution is sanctioned.' An August National
Assembly shall make the Constitution; and neither foreign Pandour, domestic
Triumvirate, with levelled Cannon, Guy-Faux powder-plots (for that too was
spoken of); nor any tyrannic Power on the Earth, or under the Earth, shall
say to it, What dost thou?--So jubilates the people; sure now of a
Constitution. Cracked Marquis Saint-Huruge is heard under the windows of
the Chateau; murmuring sheer speculative-treason. (Campan, ii. 46-64.)
Chapter 1.5.IX.
The Lanterne.
The Fall of the Bastille may be said to have shaken all France to the
deepest foundations of its existence. The rumour of these wonders flies
every where: with the natural speed of Rumour; with an effect thought to
be preternatural, produced by plots. Did d'Orleans or Laclos, nay did
Mirabeau (not overburdened with money at this time) send riding Couriers
out from Paris; to gallop 'on all radii,' or highways, towards all points
of France? It is a miracle, which no penetrating man will call in
question. (Toulongeon, (i. 95); Weber, &c. &c.)
Already in most Towns, Electoral Committees were met; to regret Necker, in
harangue and resolution. In many a Town, as Rennes, Caen, Lyons, an
ebullient people was already regretting him in brickbats and musketry. But
now, at every Town's-end in France, there do arrive, in these days of
terror,--'men,' as men will arrive; nay, 'men on horseback,' since Rumour
oftenest travels riding. These men declare, with alarmed countenance, The
BRIGANDS to be coming, to be just at hand; and do then--ride on, about
their further business, be what it might! Whereupon the whole population
of such Town, defensively flies to arms. Petition is soon thereafter
forwarded to National Assembly; in such peril and terror of peril, leave to
organise yourself cannot be withheld: the armed population becomes
everywhere an enrolled National Guard. Thus rides Rumour, careering along
all radii, from Paris outwards, to such purpose: in few days, some say in
not many hours, all France to the utmost borders bristles with bayonets.
Singular, but undeniable,--miraculous or not!--But thus may any chemical
liquid; though cooled to the freezing-point, or far lower, still continue
liquid; and then, on the slightest stroke or shake, it at once rushes
wholly into ice. Thus has France, for long months and even years, been
chemically dealt with; brought below zero; and now, shaken by the Fall of a
Bastille, it instantaneously congeals: into one crystallised mass, of
sharp-cutting steel! Guai a chi la tocca; 'Ware who touches it!
In Paris, an Electoral Committee, with a new Mayor and General, is urgent
with belligerent workmen to resume their handicrafts. Strong Dames of the
Market (Dames de la Halle) deliver congratulatory harangues; present
'bouquets to the Shrine of Sainte Genevieve.' Unenrolled men deposit their
arms,--not so readily as could be wished; and receive 'nine francs.' With
Te Deums, Royal Visits, and sanctioned Revolution, there is halcyon
weather; weather even of preternatural brightness; the hurricane being
overblown.
Nevertheless, as is natural, the waves still run high, hollow rocks
retaining their murmur. We are but at the 22nd of the month, hardly above
a week since the Bastille fell, when it suddenly appears that old Foulon is
alive; nay, that he is here, in early morning, in the streets of Paris; the
extortioner, the plotter, who would make the people eat grass, and was a
liar from the beginning!--It is even so. The deceptive 'sumptuous funeral'
(of some domestic that died); the hiding-place at Vitry towards
Fontainbleau, have not availed that wretched old man. Some living domestic
or dependant, for none loves Foulon, has betrayed him to the Village.
Merciless boors of Vitry unearth him; pounce on him, like hell-hounds:
Westward, old Infamy; to Paris, to be judged at the Hotel-de-Ville! His
old head, which seventy-four years have bleached, is bare; they have tied
an emblematic bundle of grass on his back; a garland of nettles and
thistles is round his neck: in this manner; led with ropes; goaded on with
curses and menaces, must he, with his old limbs, sprawl forward; the
pitiablest, most unpitied of all old men.
Sooty Saint-Antoine, and every street, mustering its crowds as he passes,--
the Place de Greve, the Hall of the Hotel-de-Ville will scarcely hold his
escort and him. Foulon must not only be judged righteously; but judged
there where he stands, without any delay. Appoint seven judges, ye
Municipals, or seventy-and-seven; name them yourselves, or we will name
them: but judge him! (Histoire Parlementaire, ii. 146-9.) Electoral
rhetoric, eloquence of Mayor Bailly, is wasted explaining the beauty of the
Law's delay. Delay, and still delay! Behold, O Mayor of the People, the
morning has worn itself into noon; and he is still unjudged!--Lafayette,
pressingly sent for, arrives; gives voice: This Foulon, a known man, is
guilty almost beyond doubt; but may he not have accomplices? Ought not the
truth to be cunningly pumped out of him,--in the Abbaye Prison? It is a
new light! Sansculottism claps hands;--at which hand-clapping, Foulon (in
his fainness, as his Destiny would have it) also claps. "See! they
understand one another!" cries dark Sansculottism, blazing into fury of
suspicion.--"Friends," said 'a person in good clothes,' stepping forward,
"what is the use of judging this man? Has he not been judged these thirty
years?" With wild yells, Sansculottism clutches him, in its hundred hands:
he is whirled across the Place de Greve, to the 'Lanterne,' Lamp-iron which
there is at the corner of the Rue de la Vannerie; pleading bitterly for
life,--to the deaf winds. Only with the third rope (for two ropes broke,
and the quavering voice still pleaded), can he be so much as got hanged!
His Body is dragged through the streets; his Head goes aloft on a pike, the
mouth filled with grass: amid sounds as of Tophet, from a grass-eating
people. (Deux Amis de la Liberte, ii. 60-6.)
Surely if Revenge is a 'kind of Justice,' it is a 'wild' kind! O mad
Sansculottism hast thou risen, in thy mad darkness, in thy soot and rags;
unexpectedly, like an Enceladus, living-buried, from under his Trinacria?
They that would make grass be eaten do now eat grass, in this manner?
After long dumb-groaning generations, has the turn suddenly become thine?--
To such abysmal overturns, and frightful instantaneous inversions of the
centre-of-gravity, are human Solecisms all liable, if they but knew it; the
more liable, the falser (and topheavier) they are!--
To add to the horror of Mayor Bailly and his Municipals, word comes that
Berthier has also been arrested; that he is on his way hither from
Compiegne. Berthier, Intendant (say, Tax-levier) of Paris; sycophant and
tyrant; forestaller of Corn; contriver of Camps against the people;--
accused of many things: is he not Foulon's son-in-law; and, in that one
point, guilty of all? In these hours too, when Sansculottism has its blood
up! The shuddering Municipals send one of their number to escort him, with
mounted National Guards.
At the fall of day, the wretched Berthier, still wearing a face of courage,
arrives at the Barrier; in an open carriage; with the Municipal beside him;
five hundred horsemen with drawn sabres; unarmed footmen enough, not
without noise! Placards go brandished round him; bearing legibly his
indictment, as Sansculottism, with unlegal brevity, 'in huge letters,'
draws it up. ('Il a vole le Roi et la France (He robbed the King and
France).' 'He devoured the substance of the People.' 'He was the slave of
the rich, and the tyrant of the poor.' 'He drank the blood of the widow
and orphan.' 'He betrayed his country.' See Deux Amis, ii. 67-73.) Paris
is come forth to meet him: with hand-clappings, with windows flung up;
with dances, triumph-songs, as of the Furies! Lastly the Head of Foulon:
this also meets him on a pike. Well might his 'look become glazed,' and
sense fail him, at such sight!--Nevertheless, be the man's conscience what
it may, his nerves are of iron. At the Hotel-de-Ville, he will answer
nothing. He says, he obeyed superior order; they have his papers; they may
judge and determine: as for himself, not having closed an eye these two
nights, he demands, before all things, to have sleep. Leaden sleep, thou
miserable Berthier! Guards rise with him, in motion towards the Abbaye.
At the very door of the Hotel-de-Ville, they are clutched; flung asunder,
as by a vortex of mad arms; Berthier whirls towards the Lanterne. He
snatches a musket; fells and strikes, defending himself like a mad lion; is
borne down, trampled, hanged, mangled: his Head too, and even his Heart,
flies over the City on a pike.
Horrible, in Lands that had known equal justice! Not so unnatural in Lands
that had never known it. Le sang qui coule est-il donc si pure? asks
Barnave; intimating that the Gallows, though by irregular methods, has its
own.--Thou thyself, O Reader, when thou turnest that corner of the Rue de
la Vannerie, and discernest still that same grim Bracket of old Iron, wilt
not want for reflections. 'Over a grocer's shop,' or otherwise; with 'a
bust of Louis XIV. in the niche under it,' or now no longer in the niche,--
it still sticks there: still holding out an ineffectual light, of fish-
oil; and has seen worlds wrecked, and says nothing.
But to the eye of enlightened Patriotism, what a thunder-cloud was this;
suddenly shaping itself in the radiance of the halcyon weather! Cloud of
Erebus blackness: betokening latent electricity without limit. Mayor
Bailly, General Lafayette throw up their commissions, in an indignant
manner;--need to be flattered back again. The cloud disappears, as
thunder-clouds do. The halcyon weather returns, though of a grayer
complexion; of a character more and more evidently not supernatural.
Thus, in any case, with what rubs soever, shall the Bastille be abolished
from our Earth; and with it, Feudalism, Despotism; and, one hopes,
Scoundrelism generally, and all hard usage of man by his brother man.
Alas, the Scoundrelism and hard usage are not so easy of abolition! But as
for the Bastille, it sinks day after day, and month after month; its
ashlars and boulders tumbling down continually, by express order of our
Municipals. Crowds of the curious roam through its caverns; gaze on the
skeletons found walled up, on the oubliettes, iron cages, monstrous stone-
blocks with padlock chains. One day we discern Mirabeau there; along with
the Genevese Dumont. (Dumont, Souvenirs sur Mirabeau, p. 305.) Workers
and onlookers make reverent way for him; fling verses, flowers on his path,
Bastille-papers and curiosities into his carriage, with vivats.
Able Editors compile Books from the Bastille Archives; from what of them
remain unburnt. The Key of that Robber-Den shall cross the Atlantic; shall
lie on Washington's hall-table. The great Clock ticks now in a private
patriotic Clockmaker's apartment; no longer measuring hours of mere
heaviness. Vanished is the Bastille, what we call vanished: the body, or
sandstones, of it hanging, in benign metamorphosis, for centuries to come,
over the Seine waters, as Pont Louis Seize; (Dulaure: Histoire de Paris,
viii. 434.) the soul of it living, perhaps still longer, in the memories of
men.
So far, ye august Senators, with your Tennis-Court Oaths, your inertia and
impetus, your sagacity and pertinacity, have ye brought us. "And yet
think, Messieurs," as the Petitioner justly urged, "you who were our
saviours, did yourselves need saviours,"--the brave Bastillers, namely;
workmen of Paris; many of them in straightened pecuniary circumstances!
(Moniteur: Seance du Samedi 18 Juillet 1789 (in Histoire Parlementaire,
ii. 137.) Subscriptions are opened; Lists are formed, more accurate than
Elie's; harangues are delivered. A Body of Bastille Heroes, tolerably
complete, did get together;--comparable to the Argonauts; hoping to endure
like them. But in little more than a year, the whirlpool of things threw
them asunder again, and they sank. So many highest superlatives achieved
by man are followed by new higher; and dwindle into comparatives and
positives! The Siege of the Bastille, weighed with which, in the
Historical balance, most other sieges, including that of Troy Town, are
gossamer, cost, as we find, in killed and mortally wounded, on the part of
the Besiegers, some Eighty-three persons: on the part of the Besieged,
after all that straw-burning, fire-pumping, and deluge of musketry, One
poor solitary invalid, shot stone-dead (roide-mort) on the battlements;
(Dusaulx: Prise de la Bastille, p. 447, &c.) The Bastille Fortress, like
the City of Jericho, was overturned by miraculous sound.
BOOK VI.
CONSOLIDATION
Chapter 1.6.I.
Make the Constitution.
Here perhaps is the place to fix, a little more precisely, what these two
words, French Revolution, shall mean; for, strictly considered, they may
have as many meanings as there are speakers of them. All things are in
revolution; in change from moment to moment, which becomes sensible from
epoch to epoch: in this Time-World of ours there is properly nothing else
but revolution and mutation, and even nothing else conceivable.
Revolution, you answer, means speedier change. Whereupon one has still to
ask: How speedy? At what degree of speed; in what particular points of
this variable course, which varies in velocity, but can never stop till
Time itself stops, does revolution begin and end; cease to be ordinary
mutation, and again become such? It is a thing that will depend on
definition more or less arbitrary.
For ourselves we answer that French Revolution means here the open violent
Rebellion, and Victory, of disimprisoned Anarchy against corrupt worn-out
Authority: how Anarchy breaks prison; bursts up from the infinite Deep,
and rages uncontrollable, immeasurable, enveloping a world; in phasis after
phasis of fever-frenzy;--'till the frenzy burning itself out, and what
elements of new Order it held (since all Force holds such) developing
themselves, the Uncontrollable be got, if not reimprisoned, yet harnessed,
and its mad forces made to work towards their object as sane regulated
ones. For as Hierarchies and Dynasties of all kinds, Theocracies,
Aristocracies, Autocracies, Strumpetocracies, have ruled over the world; so
it was appointed, in the decrees of Providence, that this same Victorious
Anarchy, Jacobinism, Sansculottism, French Revolution, Horrors of French
Revolution, or what else mortals name it, should have its turn. The
'destructive wrath' of Sansculottism: this is what we speak, having
unhappily no voice for singing.
Surely a great Phenomenon: nay it is a transcendental one, overstepping
all rules and experience; the crowning Phenomenon of our Modern Time. For
here again, most unexpectedly, comes antique Fanaticism in new and newest
vesture; miraculous, as all Fanaticism is. Call it the Fanaticism of
'making away with formulas, de humer les formulas.' The world of formulas,
the formed regulated world, which all habitable world is,--must needs hate
such Fanaticism like death; and be at deadly variance with it. The world
of formulas must conquer it; or failing that, must die execrating it,
anathematising it;--can nevertheless in nowise prevent its being and its
having been. The Anathemas are there, and the miraculous Thing is there.
Whence it cometh? Whither it goeth? These are questions! When the age of
Miracles lay faded into the distance as an incredible tradition, and even
the age of Conventionalities was now old; and Man's Existence had for long
generations rested on mere formulas which were grown hollow by course of
time; and it seemed as if no Reality any longer existed but only Phantasms
of realities, and God's Universe were the work of the Tailor and
Upholsterer mainly, and men were buckram masks that went about becking and
grimacing there,--on a sudden, the Earth yawns asunder, and amid Tartarean
smoke, and glare of fierce brightness, rises SANSCULOTTISM, many-headed,
fire-breathing, and asks: What think ye of me? Well may the buckram masks
start together, terror-struck; 'into expressive well-concerted groups!' It
is indeed, Friends, a most singular, most fatal thing. Let whosoever is
but buckram and a phantasm look to it: ill verily may it fare with him;
here methinks he cannot much longer be. Wo also to many a one who is not
wholly buckram, but partially real and human! The age of Miracles has come
back! 'Behold the World-Phoenix, in fire-consummation and fire-creation;
wide are her fanning wings; loud is her death-melody, of battle-thunders
and falling towns; skyward lashes the funeral flame, enveloping all things:
it is the Death-Birth of a World!'
Whereby, however, as we often say, shall one unspeakable blessing seem
attainable. This, namely: that Man and his Life rest no more on
hollowness and a Lie, but on solidity and some kind of Truth. Welcome, the
beggarliest truth, so it be one, in exchange for the royallest sham! Truth
of any kind breeds ever new and better truth; thus hard granite rock will
crumble down into soil, under the blessed skyey influences; and cover
itself with verdure, with fruitage and umbrage. But as for Falsehood,
which in like contrary manner, grows ever falser,--what can it, or what
should it do but decease, being ripe; decompose itself, gently or even
violently, and return to the Father of it,--too probably in flames of fire?
Sansculottism will burn much; but what is incombustible it will not burn.
Fear not Sansculottism; recognise it for what it is, the portentous,
inevitable end of much, the miraculous beginning of much. One other thing
thou mayest understand of it: that it too came from God; for has it not
been? From of old, as it is written, are His goings forth; in the great
Deep of things; fearful and wonderful now as in the beginning: in the
whirlwind also He speaks! and the wrath of men is made to praise Him.--But
to gauge and measure this immeasurable Thing, and what is called account
for it, and reduce it to a dead logic-formula, attempt not! Much less
shalt thou shriek thyself hoarse, cursing it; for that, to all needful
lengths, has been already done. As an actually existing Son of Time, look,
with unspeakable manifold interest, oftenest in silence, at what the Time
did bring: therewith edify, instruct, nourish thyself, or were it but to
amuse and gratify thyself, as it is given thee.
Another question which at every new turn will rise on us, requiring ever
new reply is this: Where the French Revolution specially is? In the
King's Palace, in his Majesty's or her Majesty's managements, and
maltreatments, cabals, imbecilities and woes, answer some few:--whom we do
not answer. In the National Assembly, answer a large mixed multitude: who
accordingly seat themselves in the Reporter's Chair; and therefrom noting
what Proclamations, Acts, Reports, passages of logic-fence, bursts of
parliamentary eloquence seem notable within doors, and what tumults and
rumours of tumult become audible from without,--produce volume on volume;
and, naming it History of the French Revolution, contentedly publish the
same. To do the like, to almost any extent, with so many Filed Newspapers,
Choix des Rapports, Histoires Parlementaires as there are, amounting to
many horseloads, were easy for us. Easy but unprofitable. The National
Assembly, named now Constituent Assembly, goes its course; making the
Constitution; but the French Revolution also goes its course.
In general, may we not say that the French Revolution lies in the heart and
head of every violent-speaking, of every violent-thinking French Man? How
the Twenty-five Millions of such, in their perplexed combination, acting
and counter-acting may give birth to events; which event successively is
the cardinal one; and from what point of vision it may best be surveyed:
this is a problem. Which problem the best insight, seeking light from all
possible sources, shifting its point of vision whithersoever vision or
glimpse of vision can be had, may employ itself in solving; and be well
content to solve in some tolerably approximate way.
As to the National Assembly, in so far as it still towers eminent over
France, after the manner of a car-borne Carroccio, though now no longer in
the van; and rings signals for retreat or for advance,--it is and continues
a reality among other realities. But in so far as it sits making the
Constitution, on the other hand, it is a fatuity and chimera mainly. Alas,
in the never so heroic building of Montesquieu-Mably card-castles, though
shouted over by the world, what interest is there? Occupied in that way,
an august National Assembly becomes for us little other than a Sanhedrim of
pedants, not of the gerund-grinding, yet of no fruitfuller sort; and its
loud debatings and recriminations about Rights of Man, Right of Peace and
War, Veto suspensif, Veto absolu, what are they but so many Pedant's-
curses, 'May God confound you for your Theory of Irregular Verbs!'
A Constitution can be built, Constitutions enough a la Sieyes: but the
frightful difficulty is that of getting men to come and live in them!
Could Sieyes have drawn thunder and lightning out of Heaven to sanction his
Constitution, it had been well: but without any thunder? Nay, strictly
considered, is it not still true that without some such celestial sanction,
given visibly in thunder or invisibly otherwise, no Constitution can in the
long run be worth much more than the waste-paper it is written on? The
Constitution, the set of Laws, or prescribed Habits of Acting, that men
will live under, is the one which images their Convictions,--their Faith as
to this wondrous Universe, and what rights, duties, capabilities they have
there; which stands sanctioned therefore, by Necessity itself, if not by a
seen Deity, then by an unseen one. Other laws, whereof there are always
enough ready-made, are usurpations; which men do not obey, but rebel
against, and abolish, by their earliest convenience.
The question of questions accordingly were, Who is it that especially for
rebellers and abolishers, can make a Constitution? He that can image forth
the general Belief when there is one; that can impart one when, as here,
there is none. A most rare man; ever as of old a god-missioned man! Here,
however, in defect of such transcendent supreme man, Time with its infinite
succession of merely superior men, each yielding his little contribution,
does much. Force likewise (for, as Antiquarian Philosophers teach, the
royal Sceptre was from the first something of a Hammer, to crack such heads
as could not be convinced) will all along find somewhat to do. And thus in
perpetual abolition and reparation, rending and mending, with struggle and
strife, with present evil and the hope and effort towards future good, must
the Constitution, as all human things do, build itself forward; or unbuild
itself, and sink, as it can and may. O Sieyes, and ye other Committeemen,
and Twelve Hundred miscellaneous individuals from all parts of France!
What is the Belief of France, and yours, if ye knew it? Properly that
there shall be no Belief; that all formulas be swallowed. The Constitution
which will suit that? Alas, too clearly, a No-Constitution, an Anarchy;--
which also, in due season, shall be vouchsafed you.
But, after all, what can an unfortunate National Assembly do? Consider
only this, that there are Twelve Hundred miscellaneous individuals; not a
unit of whom but has his own thinking-apparatus, his own speaking-
apparatus! In every unit of them is some belief and wish, different for
each, both that France should be regenerated, and also that he individually
should do it. Twelve Hundred separate Forces, yoked miscellaneously to any
object, miscellaneously to all sides of it; and bid pull for life!
Or is it the nature of National Assemblies generally to do, with endless
labour and clangour, Nothing? Are Representative Governments mostly at
bottom Tyrannies too! Shall we say, the Tyrants, the ambitious contentious
Persons, from all corners of the country do, in this manner, get gathered
into one place; and there, with motion and counter-motion, with jargon and
hubbub, cancel one another, like the fabulous Kilkenny Cats; and produce,
for net-result, zero;--the country meanwhile governing or guiding itself,
by such wisdom, recognised or for most part unrecognised, as may exist in
individual heads here and there?--Nay, even that were a great improvement:
for, of old, with their Guelf Factions and Ghibelline Factions, with their
Red Roses and White Roses, they were wont to cancel the whole country as
well. Besides they do it now in a much narrower cockpit; within the four
walls of their Assembly House, and here and there an outpost of Hustings
and Barrel-heads; do it with tongues too, not with swords:--all which
improvements, in the art of producing zero, are they not great? Nay, best
of all, some happy Continents (as the Western one, with its Savannahs,
where whosoever has four willing limbs finds food under his feet, and an
infinite sky over his head) can do without governing.--What Sphinx-
questions; which the distracted world, in these very generations, must
answer or die!
Chapter 1.6.II.
The Constituent Assembly.
One thing an elected Assembly of Twelve Hundred is fit for: Destroying.
Which indeed is but a more decided exercise of its natural talent for Doing
Nothing. Do nothing, only keep agitating, debating; and things will
destroy themselves.
So and not otherwise proved it with an august National Assembly. It took
the name, Constituent, as if its mission and function had been to construct
or build; which also, with its whole soul, it endeavoured to do: yet, in
the fates, in the nature of things, there lay for it precisely of all
functions the most opposite to that. Singular, what Gospels men will
believe; even Gospels according to Jean Jacques! It was the fixed Faith of
these National Deputies, as of all thinking Frenchmen, that the
Constitution could be made; that they, there and then, were called to make
it. How, with the toughness of Old Hebrews or Ishmaelite Moslem, did the
otherwise light unbelieving People persist in this their Credo quia
impossibile ; and front the armed world with it; and grow fanatic, and even
heroic, and do exploits by it! The Constituent Assembly's Constitution,
and several others, will, being printed and not manuscript, survive to
future generations, as an instructive well-nigh incredible document of the
Time: the most significant Picture of the then existing France; or at
lowest, Picture of these men's Picture of it.
But in truth and seriousness, what could the National Assembly have done?
The thing to be done was, actually as they said, to regenerate France; to
abolish the old France, and make a new one; quietly or forcibly, by
concession or by violence, this, by the Law of Nature, has become
inevitable. With what degree of violence, depends on the wisdom of those
that preside over it. With perfect wisdom on the part of the National
Assembly, it had all been otherwise; but whether, in any wise, it could
have been pacific, nay other than bloody and convulsive, may still be a
question.
Grant, meanwhile, that this Constituent Assembly does to the last continue
to be something. With a sigh, it sees itself incessantly forced away from
its infinite divine task, of perfecting 'the Theory of Irregular Verbs,'--
to finite terrestrial tasks, which latter have still a significance for us.
It is the cynosure of revolutionary France, this National Assembly. All
work of Government has fallen into its hands, or under its control; all men
look to it for guidance. In the middle of that huge Revolt of Twenty-five
millions, it hovers always aloft as Carroccio or Battle-Standard, impelling
and impelled, in the most confused way; if it cannot give much guidance, it
will still seem to give some. It emits pacificatory Proclamations, not a
few; with more or with less result. It authorises the enrolment of
National Guards,--lest Brigands come to devour us, and reap the unripe
crops. It sends missions to quell 'effervescences;' to deliver men from
the Lanterne. It can listen to congratulatory Addresses, which arrive
daily by the sackful; mostly in King Cambyses' vein: also to Petitions and
complaints from all mortals; so that every mortal's complaint, if it cannot
get redressed, may at least hear itself complain. For the rest, an august
National Assembly can produce Parliamentary Eloquence; and appoint
Committees. Committees of the Constitution, of Reports, of Researches; and
of much else: which again yield mountains of Printed Paper; the theme of
new Parliamentary Eloquence, in bursts, or in plenteous smooth-flowing
floods. And so, from the waste vortex whereon all things go whirling and
grinding, Organic Laws, or the similitude of such, slowly emerge.
With endless debating, we get the Rights of Man written down and
promulgated: true paper basis of all paper Constitutions. Neglecting, cry
the opponents, to declare the Duties of Man! Forgetting, answer we, to
ascertain the Mights of Man;--one of the fatalest omissions!--Nay,
sometimes, as on the Fourth of August, our National Assembly, fired
suddenly by an almost preternatural enthusiasm, will get through whole
masses of work in one night. A memorable night, this Fourth of August:
Dignitaries temporal and spiritual; Peers, Archbishops, Parlement-
Presidents, each outdoing the other in patriotic devotedness, come
successively to throw their (untenable) possessions on the 'altar of the
fatherland.' With louder and louder vivats, for indeed it is 'after
dinner' too,--they abolish Tithes, Seignorial Dues, Gabelle, excessive
Preservation of Game; nay Privilege, Immunity, Feudalism root and branch;
then appoint a Te Deum for it; and so, finally, disperse about three in the
morning, striking the stars with their sublime heads. Such night,
unforeseen but for ever memorable, was this of the Fourth of August 1789.
Miraculous, or semi-miraculous, some seem to think it. A new Night of
Pentecost, shall we say, shaped according to the new Time, and new Church
of Jean Jacques Rousseau? It had its causes; also its effects.
In such manner labour the National Deputies; perfecting their Theory of
Irregular Verbs; governing France, and being governed by it; with toil and
noise;--cutting asunder ancient intolerable bonds; and, for new ones,
assiduously spinning ropes of sand. Were their labours a nothing or a
something, yet the eyes of all France being reverently fixed on them,
History can never very long leave them altogether out of sight.
For the present, if we glance into that Assembly Hall of theirs, it will be
found, as is natural, 'most irregular.' As many as 'a hundred members are
on their feet at once;' no rule in making motions, or only commencements of
a rule; Spectators' Gallery allowed to applaud, and even to hiss; (Arthur
Young, i. 111.) President, appointed once a fortnight, raising many times
no serene head above the waves. Nevertheless, as in all human Assemblages,
like does begin arranging itself to like; the perennial rule, Ubi homines
sunt modi sunt, proves valid. Rudiments of Methods disclose themselves;
rudiments of Parties. There is a Right Side (Cote Droit), a Left Side
(Cote Gauche); sitting on M. le President's right hand, or on his left:
the Cote Droit conservative; the Cote Gauche destructive. Intermediate is
Anglomaniac Constitutionalism, or Two-Chamber Royalism; with its Mouniers,
its Lallys,--fast verging towards nonentity. Preeminent, on the Right
Side, pleads and perorates Cazales, the Dragoon-captain, eloquent, mildly
fervent; earning for himself the shadow of a name. There also blusters
Barrel-Mirabeau, the Younger Mirabeau, not without wit: dusky d'Espremenil
does nothing but sniff and ejaculate; might, it is fondly thought, lay
prostrate the Elder Mirabeau himself, would he but try, (Biographie
Universelle, para D'Espremenil (by Beaulieu).)--which he does not. Last
and greatest, see, for one moment, the Abbe Maury; with his jesuitic eyes,
his impassive brass face, 'image of all the cardinal sins.' Indomitable,
unquenchable, he fights jesuitico-rhetorically; with toughest lungs and
heart; for Throne, especially for Altar and Tithes. So that a shrill voice
exclaims once, from the Gallery: "Messieurs of the Clergy, you have to be
shaved; if you wriggle too much, you will get cut." (Dictionnaire des
Hommes Marquans, ii. 519.)
The Left side is also called the d'Orleans side; and sometimes derisively,
the Palais Royal. And yet, so confused, real-imaginary seems everything,
'it is doubtful,' as Mirabeau said, 'whether d'Orleans himself belong to
that same d'Orleans Party.' What can be known and seen is, that his moon-
visage does beam forth from that point of space. There likewise sits
seagreen Robespierre; throwing in his light weight, with decision, not yet
with effect. A thin lean Puritan and Precisian; he would make away with
formulas; yet lives, moves, and has his being, wholly in formulas, of
another sort. 'Peuple,' such according to Robespierre ought to be the
Royal method of promulgating laws, 'Peuple, this is the Law I have framed
for thee; dost thou accept it?'--answered from Right Side, from Centre and
Left, by inextinguishable laughter. (Moniteur, No. 67 (in Hist.Parl.).)
Yet men of insight discern that the Seagreen may by chance go far: "this
man," observes Mirabeau, "will do somewhat; he believes every word he
says."
Abbe Sieyes is busy with mere Constitutional work: wherein, unluckily,
fellow-workmen are less pliable than, with one who has completed the
Science of Polity, they ought to be. Courage, Sieyes nevertheless! Some
twenty months of heroic travail, of contradiction from the stupid, and the
Constitution shall be built; the top-stone of it brought out with
shouting,--say rather, the top-paper, for it is all Paper; and thou hast
done in it what the Earth or the Heaven could require, thy utmost. Note
likewise this Trio; memorable for several things; memorable were it only
that their history is written in an epigram: 'whatsoever these Three have
in hand,' it is said, 'Duport thinks it, Barnave speaks it, Lameth does
it.' (See Toulongeon, i. c. 3.)
But royal Mirabeau? Conspicuous among all parties, raised above and beyond
them all, this man rises more and more. As we often say, he has an eye, he
is a reality; while others are formulas and eye-glasses. In the Transient
he will detect the Perennial, find some firm footing even among Paper-
vortexes. His fame is gone forth to all lands; it gladdened the heart of
the crabbed old Friend of Men himself before he died. The very Postilions
of inns have heard of Mirabeau: when an impatient Traveller complains that
the team is insufficient, his Postilion answers, "Yes, Monsieur, the
wheelers are weak; but my mirabeau (main horse), you see, is a right one,
mais mon mirabeau est excellent." (Dumont, Souvenirs sur Mirabeau, p.
255.)
And now, Reader, thou shalt quit this noisy Discrepancy of a National
Assembly; not (if thou be of humane mind) without pity. Twelve Hundred
brother men are there, in the centre of Twenty-five Millions; fighting so
fiercely with Fate and with one another; struggling their lives out, as
most sons of Adam do, for that which profiteth not. Nay, on the whole, it
is admitted further to be very dull. "Dull as this day's Assembly," said
some one. "Why date, Pourquoi dater?" answered Mirabeau.
Consider that they are Twelve Hundred; that they not only speak, but read
their speeches; and even borrow and steal speeches to read! With Twelve
Hundred fluent speakers, and their Noah's Deluge of vociferous commonplace,
unattainable silence may well seem the one blessing of Life. But figure
Twelve Hundred pamphleteers; droning forth perpetual pamphlets: and no man
to gag them! Neither, as in the American Congress, do the arrangements
seem perfect. A Senator has not his own Desk and Newspaper here; of
Tobacco (much less of Pipes) there is not the slightest provision.
Conversation itself must be transacted in a low tone, with continual
interruption: only 'pencil Notes' circulate freely; 'in incredible numbers
to the foot of the very tribune.' (See Dumont (pp. 159-67); Arthur Young,
&c.)--Such work is it, regenerating a Nation; perfecting one's Theory of
Irregular Verbs!
Chapter 1.6.III.
The General Overturn.
Of the King's Court, for the present, there is almost nothing whatever to
be said. Silent, deserted are these halls; Royalty languishes forsaken of
its war-god and all its hopes, till once the Oeil-de-Boeuf rally again.
The sceptre is departed from King Louis; is gone over to the Salles des
Menus, to the Paris Townhall, or one knows not whither. In the July days,
while all ears were yet deafened by the crash of the Bastille, and
Ministers and Princes were scattered to the four winds, it seemed as if the
very Valets had grown heavy of hearing. Besenval, also in flight towards
Infinite Space, but hovering a little at Versailles, was addressing his
Majesty personally for an Order about post-horses; when, lo, 'the Valet in
waiting places himself familiarly between his Majesty and me,' stretching
out his rascal neck to learn what it was! His Majesty, in sudden choler,
whirled round; made a clutch at the tongs: 'I gently prevented him; he
grasped my hand in thankfulness; and I noticed tears in his eyes.'
(Besenval, iii. 419.)
Poor King; for French Kings also are men! Louis Fourteenth himself once
clutched the tongs, and even smote with them; but then it was at Louvois,
and Dame Maintenon ran up.--The Queen sits weeping in her inner apartments,
surrounded by weak women: she is 'at the height of unpopularity;'
universally regarded as the evil genius of France. Her friends and
familiar counsellors have all fled; and fled, surely, on the foolishest
errand. The Chateau Polignac still frowns aloft, on its 'bold and
enormous' cubical rock, amid the blooming champaigns, amid the blue
girdling mountains of Auvergne: (Arthur Young, i. 165.) but no Duke and
Duchess Polignac look forth from it; they have fled, they have 'met Necker
at Bale;' they shall not return. That France should see her Nobles resist
the Irresistible, Inevitable, with the face of angry men, was unhappy, not
unexpected: but with the face and sense of pettish children? This was her
peculiarity. They understood nothing; would understand nothing. Does not,
at this hour, a new Polignac, first-born of these Two, sit reflective in
the Castle of Ham; (A.D. 1835.) in an astonishment he will never recover
from; the most confused of existing mortals?
King Louis has his new Ministry: mere Popularities; Old-President
Pompignan; Necker, coming back in triumph; and other such. (Montgaillard,
ii. 108.) But what will it avail him? As was said, the sceptre, all but
the wooden gilt sceptre, has departed elsewhither. Volition, determination
is not in this man: only innocence, indolence; dependence on all persons
but himself, on all circumstances but the circumstances he were lord of.
So troublous internally is our Versailles and its work. Beautiful, if seen
from afar, resplendent like a Sun; seen near at hand, a mere Sun's-
Atmosphere, hiding darkness, confused ferment of ruin!
But over France, there goes on the indisputablest 'destruction of
formulas;' transaction of realities that follow therefrom. So many
millions of persons, all gyved, and nigh strangled, with formulas; whose
Life nevertheless, at least the digestion and hunger of it, was real
enough! Heaven has at length sent an abundant harvest; but what profits it
the poor man, when Earth with her formulas interposes? Industry, in these
times of Insurrection, must needs lie dormant; capital, as usual, not
circulating, but stagnating timorously in nooks. The poor man is short of
work, is therefore short of money; nay even had he money, bread is not to
be bought for it. Were it plotting of Aristocrats, plotting of d'Orleans;
were it Brigands, preternatural terror, and the clang of Phoebus Apollo's
silver bow,--enough, the markets are scarce of grain, plentiful only in
tumult. Farmers seem lazy to thresh;--being either 'bribed;' or needing no
bribe, with prices ever rising, with perhaps rent itself no longer so
pressing. Neither, what is singular, do municipal enactments, 'That along
with so many measures of wheat you shall sell so many of rye,' and other
the like, much mend the matter. Dragoons with drawn swords stand ranked
among the corn-sacks, often more dragoons than sacks. (Arthur Young, i.
129, &c.) Meal-mobs abound; growing into mobs of a still darker quality.
Starvation has been known among the French Commonalty before this; known
and familiar. Did we not see them, in the year 1775, presenting, in sallow
faces, in wretchedness and raggedness, their Petition of Grievances; and,
for answer, getting a brand-new Gallows forty feet high? Hunger and
Darkness, through long years! For look back on that earlier Paris Riot,
when a Great Personage, worn out by debauchery, was believed to be in want
of Blood-baths; and Mothers, in worn raiment, yet with living hearts under
it, 'filled the public places' with their wild Rachel-cries,--stilled also
by the Gallows. Twenty years ago, the Friend of Men (preaching to the
deaf) described the Limousin Peasants as wearing a pain-stricken (souffre-
douleur) look, a look past complaint, 'as if the oppression of the great
were like the hail and the thunder, a thing irremediable, the ordinance of
Nature.' (Fils Adoptif: Memoires de Mirabeau, i. 364-394.) And now, if
in some great hour, the shock of a falling Bastille should awaken you; and
it were found to be the ordinance of Art merely; and remediable,
reversible!
Or has the Reader forgotten that 'flood of savages,' which, in sight of the
same Friend of Men, descended from the mountains at Mont d'Or? Lank-haired
haggard faces; shapes rawboned, in high sabots; in woollen jupes, with
leather girdles studded with copper-nails! They rocked from foot to foot,
and beat time with their elbows too, as the quarrel and battle which was
not long in beginning went on; shouting fiercely; the lank faces distorted
into the similitude of a cruel laugh. For they were darkened and hardened:
long had they been the prey of excise-men and tax-men; of 'clerks with the
cold spurt of their pen.' It was the fixed prophecy of our old Marquis,
which no man would listen to, that 'such Government by Blind-man's-buff,
stumbling along too far, would end by the General Overturn, the Culbute
Generale!'
No man would listen, each went his thoughtless way;--and Time and Destiny
also travelled on. The Government by Blind-man's-buff, stumbling along,
has reached the precipice inevitable for it. Dull Drudgery, driven on, by
clerks with the cold dastard spurt of their pen, has been driven--into a
Communion of Drudges! For now, moreover, there have come the strangest
confused tidings; by Paris Journals with their paper wings; or still more
portentous, where no Journals are, (See Arthur Young, i. 137, 150, &c.) by
rumour and conjecture: Oppression not inevitable; a Bastille prostrate,
and the Constitution fast getting ready! Which Constitution, if it be
something and not nothing, what can it be but bread to eat?
The Traveller, 'walking up hill bridle in hand,' overtakes 'a poor woman;'
the image, as such commonly are, of drudgery and scarcity; 'looking sixty
years of age, though she is not yet twenty-eight.' They have seven
children, her poor drudge and she: a farm, with one cow, which helps to
make the children soup; also one little horse, or garron. They have rents
and quit-rents, Hens to pay to this Seigneur, Oat-sacks to that; King's
taxes, Statute-labour, Church-taxes, taxes enough;--and think the times
inexpressible. She has heard that somewhere, in some manner, something is
to be done for the poor: "God send it soon; for the dues and taxes crush
us down (nous ecrasent)!" (Ibid. i. 134.)
Fair prophecies are spoken, but they are not fulfilled. There have been
Notables, Assemblages, turnings out and comings in. Intriguing and
manoeuvring; Parliamentary eloquence and arguing, Greek meeting Greek in
high places, has long gone on; yet still bread comes not. The harvest is
reaped and garnered; yet still we have no bread. Urged by despair and by
hope, what can Drudgery do, but rise, as predicted, and produce the General
Overturn?
Fancy, then, some Five full-grown Millions of such gaunt figures, with
their haggard faces (figures haves); in woollen jupes, with copper-studded
leather girths, and high sabots,--starting up to ask, as in forest-
roarings, their washed Upper-Classes, after long unreviewed centuries,
virtually this question: How have ye treated us; how have ye taught us,
fed us, and led us, while we toiled for you? The answer can be read in
flames, over the nightly summer sky. This is the feeding and leading we
have had of you: EMPTINESS,--of pocket, of stomach, of head, and of heart.
Behold there is nothing in us; nothing but what Nature gives her wild
children of the desert: Ferocity and Appetite; Strength grounded on
Hunger. Did ye mark among your Rights of Man, that man was not to die of
starvation, while there was bread reaped by him? It is among the Mights of
Man.
Seventy-two Chateaus have flamed aloft in the Maconnais and Beaujolais
alone: this seems the centre of the conflagration; but it has spread over
Dauphine, Alsace, the Lyonnais; the whole South-East is in a blaze. All
over the North, from Rouen to Metz, disorder is abroad: smugglers of salt
go openly in armed bands: the barriers of towns are burnt; toll-gatherers,
tax-gatherers, official persons put to flight. 'It was thought,' says
Young, 'the people, from hunger, would revolt;' and we see they have done
it. Desperate Lackalls, long prowling aimless, now finding hope in
desperation itself, everywhere form a nucleus. They ring the Church bell
by way of tocsin: and the Parish turns out to the work. (See Hist. Parl.
ii. 243-6.) Ferocity, atrocity; hunger and revenge: such work as we can
imagine!
Ill stands it now with the Seigneur, who, for example, 'has walled up the
only Fountain of the Township;' who has ridden high on his chartier and
parchments; who has preserved Game not wisely but too well. Churches also,
and Canonries, are sacked, without mercy; which have shorn the flock too
close, forgetting to feed it. Wo to the land over which Sansculottism, in
its day of vengeance, tramps roughshod,--shod in sabots! Highbred
Seigneurs, with their delicate women and little ones, had to 'fly half-
naked,' under cloud of night; glad to escape the flames, and even worse.
You meet them at the tables-d'hote of inns; making wise reflections or
foolish that 'rank is destroyed;' uncertain whither they shall now wend.
(See Young, i. 149, &c.) The metayer will find it convenient to be slack
in paying rent. As for the Tax-gatherer, he, long hunting as a biped of
prey, may now get hunted as one; his Majesty's Exchequer will not 'fill up
the Deficit,' this season: it is the notion of many that a Patriot
Majesty, being the Restorer of French Liberty, has abolished most taxes,
though, for their private ends, some men make a secret of it.
Where this will end? In the Abyss, one may prophecy; whither all Delusions
are, at all moments, travelling; where this Delusion has now arrived. For
if there be a Faith, from of old, it is this, as we often repeat, that no
Lie can live for ever. The very Truth has to change its vesture, from time
to time; and be born again. But all Lies have sentence of death written
down against them, and Heaven's Chancery itself; and, slowly or fast,
advance incessantly towards their hour. 'The sign of a Grand Seigneur
being landlord,' says the vehement plain-spoken Arthur Young, 'are wastes,
landes, deserts, ling: go to his residence, you will find it in the middle
of a forest, peopled with deer, wild boars and wolves. The fields are
scenes of pitiable management, as the houses are of misery. To see so many
millions of hands, that would be industrious, all idle and starving: Oh,
if I were legislator of France, for one day, I would make these great lords
skip again!' (Arthur Young, i. 12, 48, 84, &c.) O Arthur, thou now
actually beholdest them skip:--wilt thou grow to grumble at that too?
For long years and generations it lasted, but the time came. Featherbrain,
whom no reasoning and no pleading could touch, the glare of the firebrand
had to illuminate: there remained but that method. Consider it, look at
it! The widow is gathering nettles for her children's dinner; a perfumed
Seigneur, delicately lounging in the Oeil-de-Boeuf, has an alchemy whereby
he will extract from her the third nettle, and name it Rent and Law: such
an arrangement must end. Ought it? But, O most fearful is such an ending!
Let those, to whom God, in His great mercy, has granted time and space,
prepare another and milder one.
To women it is a matter of wonder that the Seigneurs did not do something
to help themselves; say, combine, and arm: for there were a 'hundred and
fifty thousand of them,' all violent enough. Unhappily, a hundred and
fifty thousand, scattered over wide Provinces, divided by mutual ill-will,
cannot combine. The highest Seigneurs, as we have seen, had already
emigrated,--with a view of putting France to the blush. Neither are arms
now the peculiar property of Seigneurs; but of every mortal who has ten
shillings, wherewith to buy a secondhand firelock.
Besides, those starving Peasants, after all, have not four feet and claws,
that you could keep them down permanently in that manner. They are not
even of black colour; they are mere Unwashed Seigneurs; and a Seigneur too
has human bowels!--The Seigneurs did what they could; enrolled in National
Guards; fled, with shrieks, complaining to Heaven and Earth. One Seigneur,
famed Memmay of Quincey, near Vesoul, invited all the rustics of his
neighbourhood to a banquet; blew up his Chateau and them with gunpowder;
and instantaneously vanished, no man yet knows whither. (Hist. Parl. ii.
161.) Some half dozen years after, he came back; and demonstrated that it
was by accident.
Nor are the authorities idle: though unluckily, all Authorities,
Municipalities and such like, are in the uncertain transitionary state;
getting regenerated from old Monarchic to new Democratic; no Official yet
knows clearly what he is. Nevertheless, Mayors old or new do gather
Marechaussees, National Guards, Troops of the line; justice, of the most
summary sort, is not wanting. The Electoral Committee of Macon, though but
a Committee, goes the length of hanging, for its own behoof, as many as
twenty. The Prevot of Dauphine traverses the country 'with a movable
column,' with tipstaves, gallows-ropes; for gallows any tree will serve,
and suspend its culprit, or 'thirteen' culprits.
Unhappy country! How is the fair gold-and-green of the ripe bright Year
defaced with horrid blackness: black ashes of Chateaus, black bodies of
gibetted Men! Industry has ceased in it; not sounds of the hammer and saw,
but of the tocsin and alarm-drum. The sceptre has departed, whither one
knows not;--breaking itself in pieces: here impotent, there tyrannous.
National Guards are unskilful, and of doubtful purpose; Soldiers are
inclined to mutiny: there is danger that they two may quarrel, danger that
they may agree. Strasburg has seen riots: a Townhall torn to shreds, its
archives scattered white on the winds; drunk soldiers embracing drunk
citizens for three days, and Mayor Dietrich and Marshal Rochambeau reduced
nigh to desperation. (Arthur Young, i. 141.--Dampmartin: Evenemens qui se
sont passes sous mes yeux, i. 105-127.)
Through the middle of all which phenomena, is seen, on his triumphant
transit, 'escorted,' through Befort for instance, 'by fifty National
Horsemen and all the military music of the place,'--M. Necker, returning
from Bale! Glorious as the meridian; though poor Necker himself partly
guesses whither it is leading. (Biographie Universelle, para Necker (by
Lally-Tollendal).) One highest culminating day, at the Paris Townhall;
with immortal vivats, with wife and daughter kneeling publicly to kiss his
hand; with Besenval's pardon granted,--but indeed revoked before sunset:
one highest day, but then lower days, and ever lower, down even to lowest!
Such magic is in a name; and in the want of a name. Like some enchanted
Mambrino's Helmet, essential to victory, comes this 'Saviour of France;'
beshouted, becymballed by the world:--alas, so soon, to be disenchanted, to
be pitched shamefully over the lists as a Barber's Bason! Gibbon 'could
wish to shew him' (in this ejected, Barber's-Bason state) to any man of
solidity, who were minded to have the soul burnt out of him, and become a
caput mortuum, by Ambition, unsuccessful or successful. (Gibbon's
Letters.)
Another small phasis we add, and no more: how, in the Autumn months, our
sharp-tempered Arthur has been 'pestered for some days past,' by shot,
lead-drops and slugs, 'rattling five or six times into my chaise and about
my ears;' all the mob of the country gone out to kill game! (Young, i.
176.) It is even so. On the Cliffs of Dover, over all the Marches of
France, there appear, this autumn, two Signs on the Earth: emigrant
flights of French Seigneurs; emigrant winged flights of French Game!
Finished, one may say, or as good as finished, is the Preservation of Game
on this Earth; completed for endless Time. What part it had to play in the
History of Civilisation is played plaudite; exeat!
In this manner does Sansculottism blaze up, illustrating many things;--
producing, among the rest, as we saw, on the Fourth of August, that semi-
miraculous Night of Pentecost in the National Assembly; semi miraculous,
which had its causes, and its effects. Feudalism is struck dead; not on
parchment only, and by ink; but in very fact, by fire; say, by self-
combustion. This conflagration of the South-East will abate; will be got
scattered, to the West, or elsewhither: extinguish it will not, till the
fuel be all done.
Chapter 1.6.IV.
In Queue.
If we look now at Paris, one thing is too evident: that the Baker's shops
have got their Queues, or Tails; their long strings of purchasers, arranged
in tail, so that the first come be the first served,--were the shop once
open! This waiting in tail, not seen since the early days of July, again
makes its appearance in August. In time, we shall see it perfected by
practice to the rank almost of an art; and the art, or quasi-art, of
standing in tail become one of the characteristics of the Parisian People,
distinguishing them from all other Peoples whatsoever.
But consider, while work itself is so scarce, how a man must not only
realise money; but stand waiting (if his wife is too weak to wait and
struggle) for half days in the Tail, till he get it changed for dear bad
bread! Controversies, to the length, sometimes of blood and battery, must
arise in these exasperated Queues. Or if no controversy, then it is but
one accordant Pange Lingua of complaint against the Powers that be. France
has begun her long Curriculum of Hungering, instructive and productive
beyond Academic Curriculums; which extends over some seven most strenuous
years. As Jean Paul says, of his own Life, 'to a great height shall the
business of Hungering go.'
Or consider, in strange contrast, the jubilee Ceremonies; for, in general,
the aspect of Paris presents these two features: jubilee ceremonials and
scarcity of victual. Processions enough walk in jubilee; of Young Women,
decked and dizened, their ribands all tricolor; moving with song and tabor,
to the Shrine of Sainte Genevieve, to thank her that the Bastille is down.
The Strong Men of the Market, and the Strong Women, fail not with their
bouquets and speeches. Abbe Fauchet, famed in such work (for Abbe Lefevre
could only distribute powder) blesses tricolor cloth for the National
Guard; and makes it a National Tricolor Flag; victorious, or to be
victorious, in the cause of civil and religious liberty all over the world.
Fauchet, we say, is the man for Te-Deums, and public Consecrations;--to
which, as in this instance of the Flag, our National Guard will 'reply with
volleys of musketry,' Church and Cathedral though it be; (See Hist. Parl.
iii. 20; Mercier, Nouveau Paris, &c.) filling Notre Dame with such noisiest
fuliginous Amen, significant of several things.
On the whole, we will say our new Mayor Bailly; our new Commander
Lafayette, named also 'Scipio-Americanus,' have bought their preferment
dear. Bailly rides in gilt state-coach, with beefeaters and sumptuosity;
Camille Desmoulins, and others, sniffing at him for it: Scipio bestrides
the 'white charger,' and waves with civic plumes in sight of all France.
Neither of them, however, does it for nothing; but, in truth, at an
exorbitant rate. At this rate |
