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Title: The French Revolution - Volume 1

Author: Hippolyte Taine

Annotator: Svend Rom

Translator: John Durand

Release date: June 22, 2008 [eBook #2578]
Most recently updated: January 10, 2013

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2578

Credits: Produced by Svend Rom and David Widger

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FRENCH
REVOLUTION - VOLUME 1 ***

THE ORIGINS OF
CONTEMPORARY FRANCE,
VOLUME 2

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, VOLUME 1.

by Hippolyte A. Taine

Text Transcriber's Note: The numbering of Volumes, Books, Chapters
and Sections are as in the French not the American edition.
Annotations by the transcriber are initialled SR.

Svend Rom, April 2000.

HTML Producer's Note: Footnote numbering has been changed to
include as a prefix to the original footnote number, the book and
chapter numbers. A table of contents has been added with active
links.

David Widger, June 2008

CONTENTS

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, VOLUME 1.

PREFACE

BOOK FIRST. SPONTANEOUS ANARCHY.

CHAPTER I. THE BEGINNINGS OF ANARCHY.
I.—Dearth the first cause.
II.—Expectations the second cause
III.—The provinces during the first six
months of 1789
IV.—Intervention of ruffians and
vagabonds.
V.—Effect on the Population of the New
Ideas.

VI.—The first jacquerie in Province

CHAPTER II. PARIS UP TO THE 14TH OF JULY.
I.—Mob recruits in the vicinity
II. The Press.
III.—The Réveillon affair.
IV.—The Palais-Royal.
V.—Popular mobs become a political force.
VI.—July 13th and 14th 1789.
VII.—Murders of Foulon and Berthier.
VIII.—Paris in the hands of the people.

CHAPTER III.
I.—Anarchy from July 14th to October 6th,
1789
II.—The provinces
III.—Public feeling.—Famine
IV.—Panic.
V.—Attacks on public individuals and
public property.
VI.—Taxes are no longer paid.
VII.—Attack upon private individuals and
private property.

CHAPTER IV. PARIS.
I.—Paris.
II.—The distress of the people.
III.—The new popular leaders.
IV.—Intervention by the popular leaders
with the Government.
V.—The 5th and 6th of October.
VI.—The Government and the nation in the
hands of the revolutionary party.

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

CHAPTER I.—CONDITIONS REQUIRED FOR THE
FRAMING OF GOOD LAWS.
I.—These conditions absent in the
Assembly
II.—Inadequacy of its information.
III.—The Power Of Simple, General Ideas.
IV.—Refusal to supply the ministry

CHAPTER II. DESTRUCTION.
I.—Two principal vices of the ancient
régime.
II—Nature of societies, and the principle of
enduring constitutions.
III.—The estates of a society.
IV.—Abuse and lukewarmness in 1789 in
the ecclesiastical bodies.

CHAPTER III. THE CONSTRUCTIONS—THE
CONSTITUTION OF 1791.
I.—Powers of the Central Government.
II.—The Creation Of Popular Democracy.
III.—Municipal Kingdoms.
IV.—On Universal Suffrage.
V.—The Ruling Minority.
VI.—Summary of the work of the
Constituent Assembly.

BOOK THIRD. THE APPLICATION OF THE
CONSTITUTION.

CHAPTER I.
I.—The Federations.
II.—Independence of the municipalities.
III.—Independent Assemblies.

CHAPTER II. SOVEREIGNTY OF UNRESTRAINED
PASSIONS.

I.—Old Religious Grudges
II.—Passion Supreme.
III.—Egotism of the tax-payer.
IV.—Cupidity of tenants.

CHAPTER III. DEVELOPMENT OF THE RULING
PASSION
I.—Attitude of the nobles. Their moderate
resistance.
II.—Workings of the popular imagination
with respect to them.
III.—Domiciliary visits.
IV.—The nobles obliged to leave the rural
districts.
V.—Persecutions in private life.
VI.—Conduct of officers.
VI.—Conduct of the officers.
VII.—Emigration and its causes.
VIII.—Attitude of the non-juring priests.
IX.—General state of opinion.

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION,
VOLUME 1.

PREFACE
This second part of "Les Origines de la France Contemporaine" will
consist of two volumes.—Popular insurrections and the laws of the
Constituent Assembly end in destroying all government in France; this
forms the subject of the present volume.—A party arises around an extreme
doctrine, grabs control of the government, and rules in conformity with its
doctrine. This will form the subject of the second volume.
A third volume would be required to criticize and evaluate the source
material. I lack the necessary space: I merely state the rule that I have
observed. The trustworthiest testimony will always be that of an eyewitness,
especially
* When this witness is an honorable, attentive, and intelligent man,
* When he is writing on the spot, at the moment, and under the dictate of
the facts themselves,
* When it is obvious that his sole object is to preserve or furnish
information,
* When his work instead of a piece of polemics planned for the needs of
a cause, or a passage of eloquence arranged for popular effect is a legal
deposition, a secret report, a confidential dispatch, a private letter, or a
personal memento.
The nearer a document approaches this type, the more it merits
confidence, and supplies superior material.—I have found many of this kind
in the national archives, principally in the manuscript correspondence of
ministers, intendants, sub-delegates, magistrates, and other functionaries; of
military commanders, officers in the army, and gendarmerie; of royal
commissioners, and of the Assembly; of administrators of departments,
districts, and municipalities, besides persons in private life who address the
King, the National Assembly, or the ministry. Among these are men of
every rank, profession, education, and party. They are distributed by
hundreds and thousands over the whole surface of the territory. They write
apart, without being able to consult each other, and without even knowing
each other. No one is so well placed for collecting and transmitting accurate

information. None of them seek literary effect, or even imagine that what
they write will ever be published. They draw up their statements at once,
under the direct impression of local events. Testimony of this character, of
the highest order, and at first hand, provides the means by which all other
testimony ought to be verified.—The footnotes at the bottom of the pages
indicate the condition, office, name, and address of those decisive
witnesses. For greater certainty I have transcribed as often as possible their
own words. In this way the reader, confronting the texts, can interpret them
for himself, and form his own opinions; he will have the same documents as
myself for arriving at his conclusions, and, if he is pleased to do so, he may
conclude otherwise. As for allusions, if he finds any, he himself will have
introduced them, and if he applies them he is alone responsible for them. To
my mind, the past has features of its own, and the portrait here presented
resembles only the France of the past. I have drawn it without concerning
myself with the discussions of the day; I have written as if my subject were
the revolutions of Florence or Athens. This is history, and nothing more,
and, if I may fully express myself, I esteem my vocation of historian too
highly to make a cloak of it for the concealment of another. (December
1877).

BOOK FIRST. SPONTANEOUS ANARCHY.

CHAPTER I. THE BEGINNINGS OF
ANARCHY.

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

During the night of July 14-15, 1789, the Duc de la Rochefoucauld-
Liancourt caused Louis XVI to be aroused to inform him of the taking of
the Bastille. "It is a revolt, then?" exclaimed the King. "Sire!" replied the
Duke; "it is a revolution!" The event was even more serious. Not only had
power slipped from the hands of the King, but also it had not fallen into
those of the Assembly. It now lay on the ground, ready to the hands of the
unchained populace, the violent and over-excited crowd, the mobs, which
picked it up like some weapon that had been thrown away in the street. In
fact, there was no longer any government; the artificial structure of human
society was giving way entirely; things were returning to a state of nature.
This was not a revolution, but a dissolution.
Two causes excite and maintain the universal upheaval. The first one is
food shortages and dearth, which being constant, lasting for ten years, and
aggravated by the very disturbances which it excites, bids fair to inflame the
popular passions to madness, and change the whole course of the
Revolution into a series of spasmodic stumbles.
When a stream is brimful, a slight rise suffices to cause an overflow. So
was it with the extreme distress of the eighteenth century. A poor man, who
finds it difficult to live when bread is cheap, sees death staring him in the
face when it is dear. In this state of suffering the animal instinct revolts, and
the universal obedience which constitutes public peace depends on a degree
more or less of dryness or damp, heat or cold. In 1788, a year of severe
drought, the crops had been poor. In addition to this, on the eve of the
harvest,1101 a terrible hail-storm burst over the region around Paris, from
Normandy to Champagne, devastating sixty leagues of the most fertile
territory, and causing damage to the amount of one hundred millions of
francs. Winter came on, the severest that had been seen since 1709. At the
close of December the Seine was frozen over from Paris to Havre, while the
thermometer stood at 180 below zero. A third of the olive-trees died in
Provence, and the rest suffered to such an extent that they were considered

incapable of bearing fruit for two years to come. The same disaster befell
Languedoc. In Vivarais, and in the Cevennes, whole forests of chestnuts had
perished, along with all the grain and grass crops on the uplands. On the
plain the Rhone remained in a state of overflow for two months. After the
spring of 1789 the famine spread everywhere, and it increased from month
to month like a rising flood. In vain did the Government order the farmers,
proprietors, and corn-dealers to keep the markets supplied. In vain did it
double the bounty on imports, resort to all sorts of expedients, involve itself
in debt, and expend over forty millions of francs to furnish France with
wheat. In vain do individuals, princes, noblemen, bishops, chapters, and
communities multiply their charities. The Archbishop of Paris incurring a
debt of 400,000 livres, one rich man distributing 40,000 francs the morning
after the hailstorm, and a convent of Bernardines feeding twelve hundred
poor persons for six weeks1102. But it had been too devastating. Neither
public measures nor private charity could meet the overwhelming need. In
Normandy, where the last commercial treaty had ruined the manufacture of
linen and of lace trimmings, forty thousand workmen were out of work. In
many parishes one-fourth of the population1103 are beggars. Here, "nearly
all the inhabitants, not excepting the farmers and landowners, are eating
barley bread and drinking water;" there, "many poor creatures have to eat
oat bread, and others soaked bran, which has caused the death of several
children."—"Above all," writes the Rouen Parliament, "let help be sent to a
perishing people. . .. Sire, most of your subjects are unable to pay the price
of bread, and what bread is given to those who do buy it "—Arthur
Young,1104 who was traveling through France at this time, heard of nothing
but the high cost of bread and the distress of the people. At Troyes bread
costs four sous a pound—that is to say, eight sous of the present day; and
unemployed artisans flock to the relief works, where they can earn only
twelve sous a day. In Lorraine, according to the testimony of all observers,
"the people are half dead with hunger." In Paris the number of paupers has
been trebled; there are thirty thousand in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine alone.
Around Paris there is a short supply of grain, or it is spoilt1105. In the
beginning of July, at Montereau, the market is empty. "The bakers could not
have baked" if the police officers had not increased the price of bread to
five sous per pound; the rye and barley which the intendant is able to send
"are of the worst possible quality, rotten and in a condition to produce
dangerous diseases. Nevertheless, most of the small consumers are reduced

to the hard necessity of using this spoilt grain." At Villeneuve-le-Roi, writes
the mayor, "the rye of the two lots last sent is so black and poor that it
cannot be retailed without wheat." At Sens the barley "tastes musty" to such
an extent that buyers of it throw the detestable bread, which it makes in the
face of the sub-delegate. At Chevreuse the barley has sprouted and smells
bad; the "poor wretches," says an employee, "must be hard pressed with
hunger to put up with it." At Fontainebleau "the barley, half eaten away,
produces more bran than flour, and to make bread of it, one is obliged to
work it over several times." This bread, such as it is, is an object of savage
greed; "it has come to this, that it is impossible to distribute it except
through wickets." And those who thus obtain their ration, "are often
attacked on the road and robbed of it by the more vigorous of the famished
people." At Nangis "the magistrates prohibit the same person from buying
more than two bushels in the same market." In short, provisions are so
scarce that there is a difficulty in feeding the soldiers; the minister
dispatches two letters one after another to order the cutting down of
250,000 bushels of rye before the harvest1106. Paris thus, in a perfect state
of tranquility, appears like a famished city put on rations at the end of a
long siege, and the dearth will not be greater nor the food worse in
December 1870, than in July 1789.
"The nearer the 14th of July approached," says an eyewitness,1107 "the
more did the dearth increase. Every baker's shop was surrounded by a
crowd, to which bread was distributed with the most grudging economy.
This bread was generally blackish, earthy, and bitter, producing
inflammation of the throat and pain in the bowels. I have seen flour of
detestable quality at the military school and at other depots. I have seen
portions of it yellow in color, with an offensive smell; some forming blocks
so hard that they had to be broken into fragments by repeated blows of a
hatchet. For my own part, wearied with the difficulty of procuring this poor
bread, and disgusted with that offered to me at the tables d'hôte, I avoided
this kind of food altogether. In the evening I went to the Café du Caveau,
where, fortunately, they were kind enough to reserve for me two of those
rolls which are called flutes, and this is the only bread I have eaten for a
week at a time."
But this resource is only for the rich. As for the people, to get bread fit
for dogs, they must stand in a line for hours. And here they fight for it;
"they snatch food from one another." There is no more work to be had; "the

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

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

It is just through this breach that hope steals like a beam of light, and
gradually finds its way down to the depths below. For the last fifty years it
has been rising, and its rays, which first illuminated the upper class in their
splendid apartments in the first story, and next the middle class in their
entresol and on the ground floor. They have now for two years penetrated to
the cellars where the people toil, and even to the deep sinks and obscure
corners where rogues and vagabonds and malefactors, a foul and swarming
herd, crowd and hide themselves from the persecution of the law.—To the
first two provincial assemblies instituted by Necker in 1778 and 1779,
Loménie de Brienne has in 1787 just added nineteen others; under each of
these are assemblies of the arrondissement, under each assembly of the
arrondissement are parish assemblies1108. Thus the whole machinery of
administration has been changed. It is the new assemblies which assess the
taxes and superintend their collection; which determine upon and direct all
public works; and which form the court of final appeal in regard to matters
in dispute. The intendant, the sub-delegate, the elected representative1109,
thus lose three-quarters of their authority. Conflicts arise, consequently,
between rival powers whose frontiers are not clearly defined; command
shifts about, and obedience is diminished. The subject no longer feels on his
shoulders the commanding weight of the one hand which, without
possibility of interference or resistance, held him in, urged him forward, and
made him move on. Meanwhile, in each assembly of the parish
arrondissement, and even of the province, plebeians, "husband-men,"1110
and often common farmers, sit by the side of lords and prelates. They listen
to and remember the vast figure of the taxes which are paid exclusively, or
almost exclusively, by them—the taille and its accessories, the poll-tax and
road dues, and assuredly on their return home they talk all this over with
their neighbor. These figures are all printed; the village attorney discusses

the matter with his clients, the artisans and rustics, on Sunday as they leave
the mass, or in the evening in the large public room of the tavern. These
little gatherings, moreover, are sanctioned, encouraged by the powers
above. In the earliest days of 1788 the provincial assemblies order a board
of inquiry to be held by the syndics and inhabitants of each parish.
Knowledge is wanted in detail of their grievances. What part of the revenue
is chargeable to each impost? What must the cultivator pay and how much
does he suffer? How many privileged persons there are in the parish, what
is the amount of their fortune, are they residents, and what their exemptions
amount to? In replying, the attorney who holds the pen, names and points
out with his finger each privileged individual, criticizes his way of living,
and estimates his fortune, calculates the injury done to the village by his
immunities, inveighs against the taxes and the tax-collectors. On leaving
these assemblies the villager broods over what he has just heard. He sees
his grievances no longer singly as before, but in mass, and coupled with the
enormity of evils under which his fellows suffer. Besides this, they begin to
disentangle the causes of their misery: the King is good—why then do his
collectors take so much of our money? This or that canon or nobleman is
not unkind—why then do they make us pay in their place?—Imagine that a
sudden gleam of reason should allow a beast of burden to comprehend the
contrast between the species of horse and mankind. Imagine, if you can,
what its first ideas would be in relation to the coachmen and drivers who
bridle and whip it and again in relation to the good-natured travelers and
sensitive ladies who pity it, but who to the weight of the vehicle add their
own and that of their luggage.
Likewise, in the mind of the peasant, athwart his perplexed brooding, a
new idea, slowly, little by little, is unfolded:—that of an oppressed
multitude of which he makes one, a vast herd scattered far beyond the
visible horizon, everywhere ill used, starved, and fleeced. Towards the end
of 1788 we begin to detect in the correspondence of the intendants and
military commandants the dull universal muttering of coming wrath. Men's
characters seem to change; they become suspicious and restive.—And just
at this moment, the Government, dropping the reins, calls upon them to
direct themselves.1111. In the month of November 1787, the King declared
that he would convoke the States-General. On the 5th of July 1788, he calls
for memoranda (des mémoires) on this subject from every competent
person and body. On the 8th of August he fixes the date of the session. On

the 5th of October he convokes the notables, in order to consider the subject
with them. On the 27th of December he grants a double representation to
the Third-Estate, because "its cause is allied with generous sentiments, and
it will always obtain the support of public opinion." The same day he
introduces into the electoral assemblies of the clergy a majority of curés1112,
"because good and useful pastors are daily and closely associated with the
indigence and relief of the people," from which it follows "that they are
much more familiar with their sufferings" and necessities. On the 24th
January 1789, he prescribes the procedure and method of the meetings.
After the 7th of February writs of summons are sent out one after the other.
Eight days after, each parish assembly begins to draw up its memorial of
grievances, and becomes excited over the detailed enumeration of all the
miseries which it sets down in writing.—All these appeals and all these acts
are so many strokes, which reverberate, in the popular imagination. "It is
the desire of His Majesty," says the order issued, "that every one, from the
extremities of his kingdom, and from the most obscure of its hamlets,
should be certain of his wishes and protests reaching him." Thus, it is all
quite true: there can be no mistake about it, the thing is sure. The people are
invited to speak out, they are summoned, and they are consulted. There is a
disposition to relieve them; henceforth their misery shall be less; better
times are coming. This is all they know about it. A few month after, in
July,1113 the only answer a peasant girl can make to Arthur Young is,
"something was to be done by some great folks for such poor ones, but she
did not know who nor how." The thing is too complicated, beyond the reach
of a stupefied and mechanical brain.—One idea alone emerges, the hope of
immediate relief. The persuasion that one is entitled to it, the resolution to
aid it with every possible means. Consequently, an anxious waiting, a ready
fervor, a tension of the will simply due to the waiting for the opportunity to
let go and take off like a irresistible arrow towards the unknown end which
will reveal itself all of a sudden. Hunger is to mark this sudden target out
for them.
The market must be supplied with wheat; the farmers and land-owners
must bring it; wholesale buyers, whether the Government or individuals,
must not be allowed to send it elsewhere. The wheat must be sold at a low
price; the price must be cut down and fixed, so that the baker can sell bread
at two sous the pound. Grain, flour, wine, salt, and provisions must pay no
more duties. Seignorial dues and claims, ecclesiastical tithes, and royal or

municipal taxes must no longer exist. On the strength of this idea
disturbances broke out on all sides in March, April, and May.
Contemporaries "do not know what to think of such a scourge;1114 they
cannot comprehend how such a vast number of criminals, without visible
leaders, agree amongst themselves everywhere to commit the same
excesses just at the time when the States-General are going to begin their
sittings." The reason is that, under the ancient régime, the conflagration was
smoldering in a closed chamber; the great door is suddenly opened, the air
enters, and immediately the flame breaks out.

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

At first there are only intermittent, isolated fires, which are extinguished
or go out of themselves; but, a moment after, in the same place, or very near
it, the sparks again appear. Their number, like their recurrence, shows the
vastness, depth, and heat of the combustible matter, which is about to
explode. In the four months, which precede the taking of the Bastille, over
three hundred outbreaks may be counted in France. They take place from
month to month and from week to week, in Poitou, Brittany, Touraine,
Orléanais, Normandy, Ile-de-France, Picardy, Champagne, Alsace,
Burgundy, Nivernais, Auvergne, Languedoc, and Provence. On the 28th of
May the parliament of Rouen announces robberies of grain, "violent and
bloody tumults, in which men on both sides have fallen," throughout the
province, at Caen, Saint-Lô, Mortain, Granville, Evreux, Bernay, Pont-
Andemer, Elboeuf; Louviers, and in other sections besides. On the 20th of
April Baron de Bezenval, military commander in the Central Provinces,
writes: "I once more lay before M. Necker a picture of the frightful
condition of Touraine and of Orléanais. Every letter I receive from these
two provinces is the narrative of three or four riots, which are put down
with difficulty by the troops and constabulary,"1115—and throughout the
whole extent of the kingdom a similar state of things is seen. The women,
as is natural, are generally at the head of these outbreaks. It is they who, at
Montlhéry, rip open the sacks of grain with their scissors. On learning each
week, on market day that the price of a loaf of bread advances three, four,
or seven sous, they break out into shrieks of rage: at this rate for bread, with
the small salaries of the men, and when work fails,1116 how can a family be
fed? Crowds gather around the sacks of flour and the doors of the bakers.
Amidst outcries and reproaches some one in the crowd makes a push; the
proprietor or dealer is hustled and knocked down. The shop is invaded, the
commodity is in the hands of the buyers and of the famished, each one
grabbing for himself, pay or no pay, and running away with the booty.—

Sometimes a party is made up beforehand1117 At Bray-sur-Seine, on the 1st
of May, the villagers for four leagues around, armed with stones, knives,
and cudgels, to the number of four thousand, compel the metayers and
farmers, who have brought grain with them, to sell it at 3 livres, instead of 4
livres 10 sous the bushel. They threaten to do the same thing on the
following market-day: but the farmers do not return, the storehouse remains
empty. Now soldiers must be at hand, or the inhabitants of Bray will be
pillaged. At Bagnols, in Languedoc, on the 1st and 2nd of April, the
peasants, armed with cudgels and assembled by tap of drum, "traverse the
town, threatening to burn and destroy everything if flour and money are not
given to them." They go to private houses for grain, divide it amongst
themselves at a reduced price, "promising to pay when the next crop comes
round," and force the Consuls to put bread at two sous the pound, and to
increase the day's wages four sous.—Indeed this is now the regular thing; it
is not the people who obey the authorities, but the authorities who obey the
people. Consuls, sheriffs, mayors, municipal officers, town-clerks, become
confused and hesitating in the face of this huge clamor; they feel that they
are likely to be trodden under foot or thrown out of the windows. Others,
with more firmness, being aware that a riotous crowd is mad, and having
scruples to spill blood; yield for the time being, hoping that at the next
market-day there will be more soldiers and better precautions taken. At
Amiens, "after a very violent outbreak,"1118 they decide to take the wheat
belonging to the Jacobin monks, and, protected by the troops, to sell it to
the people at a third below its value. At Nantes, where the town hall is
attacked, they are forced to lower the price of bread one sou per pound. At
Angoulême, to avoid a recourse to arms, they request the Comte d'Artois to
renounce his dues on flour for two months, reduce the price of bread, and
compensate the bakers. At Cette they are so maltreated they let everything
take its course; the people sack their dwellings and get the upper hand; they
announce by sound of trumpet that all their demands are granted. On other
occasions, the mob dispenses with their services and acts for itself. If there
happens to be no grain on the market-place, the people go after it wherever
they can find it—to proprietors and farmers who are unable to bring it for
fear of pillage; to convents, which by royal edict are obliged always to have
one year's crop in store; to granaries where the Government keeps its
supplies; and to convoys which are dispatched by the intendants to the relief
of famished towns. Each for himself—so much the worse for his neighbor.

The inhabitants of Fougères beat and drive out those who come from Ernée
to buy in their market; a similar violence is shown at Vitré to the in-
habitants of Maine.1119 At Sainte-Léonard the people stop the grain started
for Limoges; at Bost that intended for Aurillac; at Saint-Didier that ordered
for Moulins; and at Tournus that dispatched to Macon. In vain are escorts
added to the convoys; troops of men and women, armed with hatchets and
guns, put themselves in ambush in the woods along the road, and seize the
horses by their bridles; the saber has to be used to secure any advance. In
vain are arguments and kind words offered, "and in vain even is wheat
offered for money; they refuse, shouting out that the convoy shall not go
on." They have taken a stubborn stand, their resolution being that of a bull
planted in the middle of the road and lowering his horns. Since the wheat is
in the district, it is theirs; whoever carries it off or withholds it is a robber.
This fixed idea cannot be driven out of their minds. At Chant-nay, near
Mans,1120 they prevent a miller from carrying that which he had just bought
to his mill. At Montdragon, in Languedoc, they stone a dealer in the act of
sending his last wagon load elsewhere. At Thiers, workmen go in force to
gather wheat in the fields; a proprietor with whom some is found is nearly
killed; they drink wine in the cellars, and leave the taps running. At Nevers,
the bakers not having put bread on their counters for four days, the mob
force the granaries of private persons, of dealers and religious communities.
"The frightened corn-dealers part with their grain at any price; most of it is
stolen in the face of the guards," and, in the tumult of these searches of
homes, a number of houses are sacked.—In these days woe to all who are
concerned in the acquisition, commerce, and manipulation of grain! Popular
imagination requires living beings to who it may impute its misfortunes,
and on whom it may gratify its resentments. To it, all such persons are
monopolists, and, at any rate, public enemies. Near Angers the Benedictine
establishment is invaded, and its fields and woods are devastated.1121 At
Amiens "the people are arranging to pillage and perhaps burn the houses of
two merchants, who have built labor-saving mills." Restrained by the
soldiers, they confine themselves to breaking windows; but other "groups
come to destroy or plunder the houses of two or three persons whom they
suspect of being monopolists." At Nantes, a sieur Geslin, being deputized
by the people to inspect a house, and finding no wheat, a shout is set up that
he is a receiver, an accomplice! The crowd rush at him, and he is wounded
and almost cut in pieces.—It is very evident that there is no more security in

France; property, even life, is in danger. The primary possession, food, is
violated in hundreds of places, and is everywhere menaced and precarious.
The local officials everywhere call for aid, declare the constabulary
incompetent, and demand regular troops. And mark how public authority,
everywhere inadequate, disorganized, and tottering, finds stirred up against
it not only the blind madness of hunger, but, in addition, the evil instincts
which profit by every disorder and the inveterate lusts which every political
commotion frees from restraint.

IV.—Intervention of ruffians and vagabonds.
We have seen how numerous the smugglers, dealers in contraband salt,
poachers, vagabonds, beggars, and escaped convicts1122 have become, and
how a year of famine increases the number. All are so many recruits for the
mobs, and whether in a disturbance or by means of a disturbance each one
of them fills his pouch. Around Caux,1123 even up to the environs of Rouen,
at Roncherolles, Quévrevilly, Préaux, Saint-Jacques, and in the entire
surrounding neighborhood bands of armed bandits force their way into the
houses, particularly the parsonages, and lay their hands on whatever they
please. To the south of Chartres "three or four hundred woodcutters, from
the forests of Bellème, chop away everything that opposes them, and force
grain to be given up to them at their own price." In the vicinity of Étampes,
fifteen bandits enter the farmhouses at night and put the farmer to ransom,
threatening him with a conflagration. In Cambrésis they pillage the abbeys
of Vauchelles, of Verger, and of Guillemans, the château of the Marquis de
Besselard, the estate of M. Doisy, two farms, the wagons of wheat passing
along the road to Saint-Quentin, and, besides this, seven farms in Picardy.
"The seat of this revolt is in some villages bordering on Picardy and
Cambrésis, familiar with smuggling operations and to the license of that
pursuit." The peasants allow themselves to be enticed away by the bandits.
Man slips rapidly down the incline of dishonesty; one who is half-honest,
and takes part in a riot inadvertently or in spite of himself; repeats the act,
allured on by impunity or by gain. In fact, "it is not dire necessity which
impels them;" they make a speculation of cupidity, a new sort of illicit
trade. An old soldier, saber in hand, a forest-keeper, and "about eight
persons sufficiently lax, put themselves at the head of four or five hundred
men, go off each day to three or four villages. Here they force everybody
who has any wheat to give it to them at 24 livres," and even at 18 livres, the
sack. Those among the band, who say that they have no money, carry away
their portion without payment. Others, after having paid what they please,
re-sell at a profit, which amounts to even 45 livres the sack. This is a good
business, and one in which greed takes poverty for its accomplice. At the
next harvest the temptation will be similar: "they have threatened to come

and do our harvesting for us, and also to take our cattle and sell the meat in
the villages at the rate of two sous the pound."—In every important
insurrection there are similar evil-does and vagabonds, enemies to the law,
savage, prowling desperadoes, who, like wolves, roam about wherever they
scent a prey. It is they who serve as the directors and executioners of public
or private malice. Near Uzès twenty-five masked men, with guns and clubs,
enter the house of a notary, fire a pistol at him, beat him, wreck the
premises, and burn his registers along with the title-deeds and papers which
he has in keeping for the Count de Rouvres. Seven of them are arrested, but
the people are on their side, and fall on the constabulary and free them.1124
—They are known by their acts, by their love of destruction for the sake of
destruction, by their foreign accent, by their savage faces and their rags.
Some of them come from Paris to Rouen, and, for four days, the town is at
their mercy.1125 The stores are forced open, train wagons are discharged,
wheat is wasted, and convents and seminaries are put to ransom. They
invade the dwelling of the attorney-general, who has begun proceedings
against them, and want to tear him to pieces. They break his mirrors and his
furniture, leave the premises laden with booty, and go into the town and its
outskirts to pillage the manufactories and break up or burn all the
machinery.—Henceforth these constitute the new leaders: for in every mob
it is the boldest and least scrupulous who march ahead and set the example
in destruction. The example is contagious: the beginning was the craving
for bread, the end is murder and arson; the savagery which is unchained
adding its unlimited violence to the limited revolt of necessity.

V.—Effect on the Population of the New Ideas.
Bad as it is, this savagery might, perhaps, have been overcome, in spite
of the dearth and of the brigands; but what renders it irresistible is the belief
of its being authorized, and that by those whose duty it is to repress it. Here
and there words and actions of a brutal frankness break forth, and reveal
beyond the somber present a more threatening future—After the 9th of
January, 1789, among the mob which attacks the Hôtel-de-Ville and
besieges the bakers' shops of Nantes, "shouts of Vive la Liberté!1126
mingled with those of Vive le Roi! are heard." A few months later, around
Ploërmel, the peasants refuse to pay tithes, alleging that the memorial of
their seneschal's court demands their abolition. In Alsace, after March, there
is the same refusal "in many places;" many of the communities even
maintain that they will pay no more taxes until their deputies to the States-
General shall have fixed the precise amount of the public contributions. In
Isère it is decided, by proceedings, printed and published, that "personal
dues" shall no longer be paid, while the landowners who are affected by this
dare not prosecute in the tribunals. At Lyons, the people have come to the
conclusion "that all levies of taxes are to cease," and, on the 29th of June,
on hearing of the meeting of the three orders, "astonished by the
illuminations and signs of public rejoicing," they believe that the good time
has come." They think of forcing the delivery of meat to them at four sous
the pound, and wine at the same rate. The publicans insinuate to them the
prospective abolition of octrois.1127 and that, meanwhile, the King, in favor
of the re-assembling of the three orders, has granted three days' freedom
from all duties at Paris, and that Lyons ought to enjoy the same privilege."
Upon this the crowd, rushing off to the barriers, to the gates of Sainte-Claire
and Perrache, and to the Guillotière bridge, burn or demolish the bureaux,
destroy the registers, sack the lodgings of the clerks, carry off the money
and pillage the wine on hand in the depot. In the mean time a rumor has
circulated all round through the country that there is free entrance into the
town for all provisions. During the following days the peasantry stream in
with enormous files of wagons loaded with wine and drawn by several
oxen, so that, in spite of the re-established guard, it is necessary to let them

enter all day without paying the dues. It is only on the 7th of July that these
can again be collected.—The same thing occurs in the southern provinces,
where the principal imposts are levied on provisions. There also the
collections are suspended in the name of public authority. At Agde,1128 "the
people, considering the so-called will of the King as to equality of classes,
are foolish enough to think that they are everything and can do everything."
Thus do they interpret in their own way and in their own terms the double
representation accorded to the Third-Estate. They threaten the town,
consequently, with general pillage if the prices of all provisions are not
reduced, and if the duties of the province on wine, fish, and meat are not
suppressed. They also wish to nominate consuls who have sprung up out of
their body." The bishop, the lord of the manor, the mayor and the notables,
against whom they forcibly stir up the peasantry in the country, are obliged
to proclaim by sound of trumpet that their demands shall be granted. Three
days afterwards they exact a diminution of one-half of the tax on grinding,
and go in quest of the bishop who owns the mills. The prelate, who is ill,
sinks down in the street and seats himself on a stone; they compel him
forthwith to sign an act of renunciation, and hence "his mill, valued at
15,000 livres, is reduced to 7,500 livres."—At Limoux, under the pretext of
searching for grain, they enter the houses of the comptroller and tax
contractors, carry off their registers, and throw them into the water along
with the furniture of their clerks.—In Provence it is worse; for most
unjustly, and through inconceivable imprudence, the taxes of the towns are
all levied on flour. It is therefore to this impost that the dearness of bread is
directly attributed. Hence the fiscal agent becomes a manifest enemy, and
revolts on account of hunger are transformed into insurrections against the
State.

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

Here, again, political novelties are the spark that ignites the mass of
gunpowder. Everywhere, the uprising of the people takes place on the very
day on which the electoral assembly meets. From forty to fifty riots occur in
the provinces in less than a fortnight. Popular imagination, like that of a
child, goes straight to its mark. The reforms having been announced, people
think them accomplished and, to make sure of them, steps are at once taken
to carry them out. Now that we are to have relief, let us relieve ourselves.
"This is not an isolated riot as usual," writes the commander of the
troops;1129 "here the faction is united and governed by uniform principles;
the same errors are diffused through all minds. . . . . The principles
impressed on the people are that the King desires equality. No more bishops
or lords, no more distinctions of rank, no tithes, and no seignorial
privileges. Thus, these misguided people fancy that they are exercising their
rights, and obeying the will of the King."—The effect of sonorous phrases
is apparent. The people have been told that the States-General were to bring
about the "regeneration of the kingdom" The inference is "that the date of
their assembly was to be one of an entire and absolute change of conditions
and fortunes." Hence, "the insurrection against the nobles and the clergy is
as active as it is widespread." "In many places it was distinctly announced
that there was a sort of war declared against landowners and property," and
"in the towns as well as in the rural districts the people persist in declaring
that they will pay nothing, neither taxes, duties, nor debts."—Naturally, the
first assault is against the piquèt, or flour-tax. At Aix, Marseilles, Toulon,
and in more than forty towns and market-villages, this is summarily
abolished; at Aupt and at Luc nothing remains of the weighing-house but
the four walls. At Marseilles the home of the slaughter-house contractor and
at Brignolles that of the director of the leather excise, are sacked. The
determination is "to purge the land of excise-men. "—This is only a
beginning; bread and other provisions must become cheap, and that without
delay. At Arles, the Corporation of sailors, presided over by M. de Barras,
consul, had just elected its representatives. By way of conclusion to the

meeting, they pass a resolution insisting that M. de Barras should reduce the
price of all comestibles. On his refusal, they "open the window, exclaiming,
'We hold him, and we have only to throw him into the street for the rest to
pick him up.'" Compliance is inevitable. The resolution is proclaimed by the
town-criers, and at each article which is reduced in price the crowd shout,
"Vive le Roi, vive M. Barras!"—One must yield to brute force. But the
inconvenience is great for, through the suppression of the flour-tax, the
towns have no longer a revenue. On the other hand, as they are obliged to
indemnify the butchers and bakers, Toulon, for instance, incurs a debt of
2,500 livres a day.
In this state of disorder, woe to those who are under suspicion of having
contributed, directly or indirectly, to the evils, which the people endure! At
Toulon a demand is made for the head of the mayor, who signs the tax-list,
and of the keeper of the records. They are trodden under foot, and their
houses are ransacked. At Manosque, the Bishop of Sisteron, who is visiting
the seminary, is accused of favoring a monopolist. On his way to his
carriage, on foot, he is hooted and menaced. He is first pelted with mud,
and then with stones. The consuls in attendance, and the sub-delegate, who
come to his assistance, are mauled and repulsed. Meanwhile, some of the
most furious begin, before his eyes, "to dig a ditch to bury him in."
Protected by five or six brave fellows, amidst a volley of stones, and
wounded on the head and on many parts of his body, he succeeds in
reaching his carriage. He is finally only saved because the horses, which are
likewise stoned, run away. Foreigners, Italians, bandits, are mingled with
the peasants and artisans, and expressions are heard and acts are seen which
indicate a jacquerie.1130 "The most excited said to the bishop, 'we are poor
and you are rich, and we mean to have all your property.'"1131 Elsewhere,
"the seditious mob exacts contributions from all people in good
circumstances. At Brignolles, thirteen houses are pillaged from top to
bottom, and thirty others partly half.—At Aupt, M. de Montferrat, in
defending himself, is killed and "hacked to pieces."—At La Seyne, the
mob, led by a peasant, assembles by beat of drum. Some women fetch a
bier, and set it down before the house of a leading bourgeois, telling him to
prepare for death, and that "they will have the honor of burying him." He
escapes; his house is pillaged, as well as the bureau of the flour-tax. The
following day, the chief of the band "obliges the principal inhabitants to
give him a sum of money to indemnify, as he states it, the peasants who

have abandoned their work," and devoted the day to serving the public.—At
Peinier, the Président de Peinier, an octogenarian, is "besieged in his
chateau by a band of a hundred and fifty artisans and peasants," who bring
with them a consul and a notary. Aided by these two functionaries, they
force the president "to pass an act by which he renounces his seignorial
rights of every description "—At Sollier they destroy the mills belonging to
M. de Forbin-Janson. They sack the house of his business agent, pillage the
château, and demolish the roof, chapel, altar, railings, and escutcheons.
They enter the cellars, stave in the casks, and carry away everything that
can be carried, "the transportation taking two days;" all of which cause
damages of a hundred thousand crowns to the marquis.—At Riez they
surround the episcopal palace with fagots, threatening to burn it, "and
compromise with the bishop on a promise of fifty thousand livres," and
want him to burn his archives.—In short, the sedition is social for it singles
out for attack all that profit by, or stand at the head of, the established order
of things.
Seeing them act in this way, one would say that the theory of the Contrat-
Social had been instilled into them. They treat magistrates as domestics,
promulgate laws, and conduct themselves like sovereigns. They exercise
public power, and establish, summarily, arbitrarily, and brutally, whatever
they think to be in conformity with natural right.—At Peinier they exact a
second electoral assembly, and, for themselves, the right of suffrage.—At
Saint-Maximin they themselves elect new consuls and officers of justice.—
At Solliez they oblige the judge's lieutenant to give in his resignation, and
they break his staff of office.—At Barjols "they use consuls and judges as
their town servants, announcing that they are masters and that they will
themselves administer justice."—In fact, they do administer it, as they
understand it—that is to say, through many exactions and robberies! One
man has wheat; he must share it with him who has none. Another has
money; he must give it to him who has not enough to buy bread with. On
this principle, at Barjols, they tax the Ursulin nuns 1,800 livres, carry off
fifty loads of wheat from the Chapter, eighteen from one poor artisan, and
forty from another, and constrain canons and beneficiaries to give
acquittances to their farmers. Then, from house to house, with club in hand,
they oblige some to hand over money, others to abandon their claims on
their debtors, "one to desist from criminal proceedings, another to nullify a
decree obtained, a third to reimburse the expenses of a lawsuit gained years

before, a father to give his consent to the marriage of his son."—All their
grievances are brought to mind, and we all know the tenacity of a peasant's
memory. Having become the master, he redresses wrongs, and especially
those of which he thinks himself the object. There must be a general
restitution; and first, of the feudal dues which have been collected. They
take of M. de Montmeyan's business agent all the money he has as
compensation for that received by him during fifteen years as a notary. A
former consul of Brignolles had, in 1775, inflicted penalties to the amount
of 1,500 or 1,800 francs, which had been given to the poor; this sum is
taken from his strong box. Moreover, if consuls and law officers are
wrongdoers, the title deeds, rent-rolls, and other documents by which they
do their business are still worse. To the fire with all old writings—not only
office registers, but also, at Hyères, all the papers in the town hall and those
of the principal notary.—In the matter of papers none are good but new
ones—those which convey some discharge, quittance, or obligation to the
advantage of the people. At Brignolles the owners of the gristmills are
constrained to execute a contract of sale by which they convey their mills to
the commune in consideration of 5,000 francs per annum, payable in ten
years without interest—an arrangement which ruins them. On seeing the
contract signed the peasants shout and cheer, and so great is their faith in
this piece of stamped paper that they at once cause a mass of thanksgiving
to be celebrated in the Cordeliers. Formidable omens these! Which mark the
inward purpose, the determined will, and the coming deeds of this rising
power. If it prevails, its first work will be to destroy all ancient documents,
all title deeds, rent-rolls, contracts, and claims to which force compels it to
submit. By force likewise it will draw up others to its own advantage, and
the scribes who do it will be its own deputies and administrators whom it
holds in its rude grasp.
Those who are in high places are not alarmed; they even find that there is
some good in the revolt, inasmuch as it compels the towns to suppress
unjust taxation.1132 The new Marseilles guard, formed of young men, is
allowed to march to Aubagne, "to insist that M. le lieutenant criminel and
M. l'avocat du Roi release the prisoners." The disobedience of Marseilles,
which refuses to receive the magistrates sent under letters patent to take
testimony, is tolerated. And better still, in spite of the remonstrances of the
parliament of Aix, a general amnesty is proclaimed; "no one is excepted but
a few of the leaders, to whom is allowed the liberty of leaving the

kingdom." The mildness of the King and of the military authorities is
admirable. It is admitted that the people are children, that they err only
through ignorance, that faith must be had in their repentance, and, as soon
as they return to order, they must be received with paternal effusions.—The
truth is, that the child is a blind Colossus, exasperated by sufferings. hence
whatever it takes hold of is shattered—not only the local wheels of the
provinces, which, if temporarily deranged, may be repaired, but even the
incentive at the center which puts the rest in motion, and the destruction of
which will throw the whole machinery into confusion.

1101 (return)
[ Marmontel, "Mémoires," II. 221.—Albert Babeau,
"Histoire de la Révolution Française," I. 91, 187. (Letter by
Huez Mayor of Troyes, July 30, 1788.)—Archives
Nationales, H. 1274. (Letter by M. de Caraman, April 22,
1789.) H. 942 (Cahier des demandes des Etats de
Languedoc).—Buchez et Roux, "Histoire Parlementaire," I.
283.]
1102 (return)
[ See "The Ancient Régime," p.34. Albert Babeau, I. 91.
(The Bishop of Troyes gives 12,000 francs, and the chapter
6,000, for the relief workshops.)]
1103 (return)
[ "The Ancient Regime," 350, 387.—Floquet, "Histoire du
Parlement de Normandie," VII. 505-518. (Reports of the
Parliament of Normandy, May 3,1788. Letter from the
Parliament to the King, July 15, 1789.)]
1104 (return)
[ Arthur Young, "Voyages in France," June 29th, July 2nd
and 18th—" Journal de Paris," January 2, 1789. Letter of the
curé of Sainte-Marguerite.]
1105 (return)
[ Buchez and Roux, IV. 79-82. (Letter from the intermediary
bureau of Montereau, July 9, 1789; from the maire of
Villeneuve-le-Roi, July 10th; from M. Baudry, July 10th;
from M. Prioreau, July 11th, etc.)—Montjoie, "Histoire de la
Révolution de France," 2nd part, ch. XXI, p. 5.]
1106 (return)
[ Roux et Buchez, ibid. "It is very unfortunate," writes the
Marquis d'Autichamp, "to be obliged to cut down the
standing crops ready to be gathered in; but it is dangerous to
let the troops die of hunger."]
1107 (return)
[ Montjoie, "Histoire de la Révolution de France," ch.
XXXIX, V, 37.—De Goncourt, "La Société Française

pendant la Révolution," p. 5l3.—Deposition of Maillard
(Criminal Inquiry of the Châtelet concerning the events of
October 5th and 6th).]
1108 (return)
[ De Tocqueville, "L'Ancien Régime et la Révolution," 272-
290. De Lavergne, "Les Assemblées provinciales," 109.
Procès-verbaux des assemblées provinciales, passim.]
1109 (return)
[ A magistrate who gives judgment in a lower court in cases
relative to taxation. These terms are retained because there
are no equivalents in English. (Tr.)]
1110 (return)
[ "Laboureurs,"—this term, at this epoch, is applied to those
who till their own land. (Tr.)]
1111 (return)
[ Duvergier. "Collection des lois et décrets," I. 1 to 23, and
particularly p. 15.]
1112 (return)
[ Parish priests. (SR.)]
1113 (return)
[ Arthur Young, July 12th, 1789 (in Champagne).]
1114 (return)
[ Montjoie, 1st part, 102.]
1115 (return)
[ Floquet, "Histoire du Parlement de Normandie," VII. 508.
—" Archives Nationales," H. 1453.]
1116 (return)
[ Arthur Young, June 29th (at Nangis).]
1117 (return)
[ "Archives Nationales," H.1453. Letter of the Duc de
Mortemart, Seigneur of Bray, May 4th; of M. de
Ballainvilliers, intendant of Languedoc, April 15th.]
1118 (return)
[ "Archives Nationales," H.1453. Letter of the intendant, M.
d'Agay, April 30th; of the municipal officers of Nantes,
January 9th; of the intendant, M. Meulan d'Ablois, June
22nd; of M. de Ballainvilliers, April 15th.]
1119 (return)
[ "Archives Nationales," H. 1453. Letter of the Count de
Langeron, July 4th; of M. de Meulan d'Ablois, June 5th;
"Minutes of the meeting of la Maréchaussée de Bost," April
29th. Letters of M. de Chazerat, May 29th; of M. de
Bezenval, June 2nd; of the intendant, M. Amelot, April
25th.]
1120 (return)
[ '"Archives Nationales," H.1453. Letter of M. de Bezenval,

May 27th; of M. de Ballainvilliers, April 25th; of M. de
Foullonde, April 19th.]
1121 (return)
[ "Archives Nationales," H.1453. Letter of the intendant, M.
d'Aine, March 12th; of M. d'Agay, April 30th; of M. Amelot,
April 25th; of the municipal authorities of Nantes, January
9th, etc.]
1122 (return)
[ "The Ancient Régime," pp. 380-389.]
1123 (return)
[ Floquet, VII. 508, (Report of February 27th).—Hippeau,
"La Gouvernement de Normandie," IV. 377. (Letter of M.
Perrot, June 23rd.)—" Archives Nationales," H. 1453. Letter
of M. de Sainte-Suzanne, April 29th. Ibid. F7, 3250. Letter
of M. de Rochambeau, May 16th Ibid. F7, 3250. Letter of
the Abbé Duplaquet, Deputy of the Third Estate of Saint-
Quentin, May 17th. Letter of three husbandmen in the
environs of Saint-Quentin, May 14th.]
1124 (return)
[ "Archives Nationales," H. 1453. Letter of the Count de
Perigord, military commandant of Languedoc, April 22nd.]
1125 (return)
[ Floquet, VII. 511 (from the 11th to the 14th July).]
1126 (return)
[ "Archives Nationales," H. 1453. Letter of the municipal
authorities of Nantes, January 9th; of the sub-delegate of
Ploërmel, July 4th; ibid. F7, 2353. Letter of the intermediary
commission of Alsace, September 8th ibid. F7, 3227. Letter
of the intendant, Caze de la Bove, June 16th; ibid. H. 1453.
Letter of Terray, intendant of Lyons, July 4th; of the prévot
des échevins, July 5th and 7th.]
1127 (return)
[ (A tax on all goods entering a town. SR.)]
1128 (return)
[ "Archives Nationales," H. 1453. Letter of the mayor and
councils of Agde, April 21st; of M. de Perigord, April 19th,
May 5th.]
1129 (return)
[ "Archives Nationales," H. 1453. Letters of M. de Caraman,
March 23rd, 26th 27th 28th; of the seneschal Missiessy,
March 24th; of the mayor of Hyères, March 25th, etc.; ibid.
H. 1274; of M. de Montmayran, April 2nd; of M. de
Caraman, March 18th, April 12th; of the intendant, M. de la
Tour, April 2nd; of the procureur-géneral, M. d'Antheman,
April 17th, and the report of June 15th; of the municipal
authorities of Toulon, April 11th; of the sub-delegate of
Manosque, March 14th; of M. de Saint-Tropez, March 21st.

—Minutes of the meeting, signed by 119 witnesses, of the
insurrection at Aix, March 5th, etc.]
1130 (return)
[ An uprising of the peasants. The term is used to indicate a
country mob in contradistinction to a city or town mob.-Tr.]
1131 (return)
[ "Archives Nationales," H.1274. Letter of M. de la Tour,
April 2nd (with a detailed memorandum and depositions).]
1132 (return)
[ "Archives Nationales," H. 1274. Letter of M. de Caraman,
April 22nd:—"One real benefit results from this misfortune.
. . The well-to-do class is brought to sustain that which
exceeded the strength of the poor daily laborers. We see the
nobles and people in good circumstances a little more
attentive to the poor peasants: they are now habituated to
speaking to them with more gentleness." M. de Caraman
was wounded, as well as his Son, at Aix, and if the Soldiery,
who were stoned, at length fired on the crowd, he did not
give the order.—Ibid, letter of M. d'Anthéman, April 17th; of
M. de Barentin, June 11th.]

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

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

INDEED it is in the center that the convulsive shocks are strongest.
Nothing is lacking to aggravate the insurrection—neither the liveliest
provocation to stimulate it, nor the most numerous bands to carry it out. The
environs of Paris all furnish recruits for it; nowhere are there so many
miserable wretches, so many of the famished, and so many rebellious
beings. Robberies of grain take place everywhere—at Orleans, at Cosne, at
Rambouillet, at Jouy, at Pont-Saint-Maxence, at Bray-sur-Seine, at Sens, at
Nangis.1201 Wheat flour is so scarce at Meudon, that every purchaser is
ordered to buy at the same time an equal quantity of barley. At Viroflay,
thirty women, with a rear-guard of men, stop on the main road vehicles,
which they suppose to be loaded with grain. At Montlhéry stones and clubs
disperse seven brigades of the police. An immense throng of eight thousand
persons, women and men, provided with bags, fall upon the grain exposed
for sale. They force the delivery to them of wheat worth 40 francs at 24
francs, pillaging the half of it and conveying it off without payment. "The
constabulary is disheartened," writes the sub-delegate; "the determination of
the people is wonderful; I am frightened at what I have seen and heard."—
After the 13th of July, 1788, the day of the hail-storm, despair seized the
peasantry; well disposed as the proprietors may have been, it was
impossible to assist them. "Not a workshop is open;1202 the noblemen and
the bourgeois, obliged to grant delays in the payment of their incomes, can
give no work." Accordingly, "the famished people are on the point of
risking life for life," and, publicly and boldly, they seek food wherever it
can be found. At Conflans-Saint-Honorine, Eragny, Neuville, Chenevières,
at Cergy, Pontoise, Ile-Adam, Presle, and Beaumont, men, women, and
children, the hole parish, range the country, set snares, and destroy the
burrows. "The rumor is current that the Government, informed of the
damage done by the game to cultivators, allows its destruction. . . and really
the hares ravaged about a fifth of the crop. At first an arrest is made of nine
of these poachers; but they are released, "taking circumstances into
account." Consequently, for two months, there is a slaughter on the property

of the Prince de Conti and of the Ambassador Mercy d'Argenteau; in default
of bread they eat rabbits.—Along with the abuse of property they are led,
by a natural impulse, to attack property itself. Near Saint-Denis the woods
belonging to the abbey are devastated. "The farmers of the neighborhood
carry away loads of wood, drawn by four and five horses;" the inhabitants
of the villages of Ville-Parisis, Tremblay, Vert-Galant, Villepinte, sell it
publicly, and threaten the wood-rangers with a beating. On the 15th of June
the damage is already estimated at 60,000 livres.—It makes little difference
whether the proprietor has been benevolent, like M. de Talaru,1203 who had
supported the poor on his estate at Issy the preceding winter. The peasants
destroy the dike which conducts water to his communal mill; condemned by
the parliament to restore it, they declare that not only will they not obey.
Should M. de Talaru try to rebuild it they will return with three hundred
armed men, and tear it away the second time.
For those who are most compromised Paris is the nearest refuge. For the
poorest and most exasperated, the door of nomadic life stands wide open.
Bands rise up around the capital, just as in countries where human society
has not yet been formed, or has ceased to exist. During the first two weeks
of May1204 near Villejuif a band of five or six hundred vagabonds strive to
force Bicêtre and approach Saint-Cloud. They arrive from thirty, forty, and
sixty leagues off, from Champagne, from Lorraine, from the whole circuit
of country devastated by the hailstorm. All hover around Paris and are there
engulfed as in a sewer, the unfortunate along with criminals, some to find
work, others to beg and to rove about under the injurious prompting of
hunger and the rumors of the public thoroughfares. During the last days of
April,1205 the clerks at the tollhouses note the entrance of "a frightful
number of poorly clad men of sinister aspect." During the first days of May
a change in the appearance of the crowd is remarked. There mingle in it "a
number of foreigners, from all countries, most of them in rags, armed with
big sticks, and whose very aspect announces what is to be feared from
them." Already, before this final influx, the public sink is full to
overflowing. Think of the extraordinary and rapid increase of population in
Paris, the multitude of artisans brought there by recent demolition and
constructions. Think of all the craftsmen whom the stagnation of
manufactures, the augmentation of octrois, the rigor of winter, and the
dearness of bread have reduced to extreme distress. Remember that in 1786
"two hundred thousand persons are counted whose property, all told, has not

the intrinsic worth of fifty crowns." Remember that, from time immemorial,
these have been at war with the city watchmen. Remember that in 1789
there are twenty thousand poachers in the capital and that, to provide them
with work, it is found necessary to establish national workshops. Remember
"that twelve thousand are kept uselessly occupied digging on the hill of
Montmartre, and paid twenty sous per day. Remember that the wharves and
quays are covered with them, that the Hôtel-de-Ville is invested by them,
and that, around the palace, they seem to be a reproach to the inactivity of
disarmed justice." Daily they grow bitter and excited around the doors of
the bakeries, where, kept waiting a long time, they are not sure of obtaining
bread. You can imagine the fury and the force with which they will storm
any obstacle to which their attention may be directed.

II. The Press.
Excitement of the press and of opinion.—The people make
their choice.

Such an obstacle has been pointed out to them during the last two years,
it is the Ministry, the Court, the Government, in short the entire ancient
régime. Whoever protests against it in favor of the people is sure to be
followed as far, and perhaps even farther, than he chooses to lead.—The
moment the Parliament of a large city refuses to register fiscal edicts it finds
a riot at its service. On the 7th of June 1788, at Grenoble, tiles rain down on
the heads of the soldiery, and the military force is powerless. At Rennes, to
put down the rebellious city, an army and after this a permanent camp of
four regiments of infantry and two of cavalry, under the command of a
Marshal of France, is required.1206—The following year, when the
Parliaments now side with the privileged class, the disturbances again
begin, but this time against the Parliaments. In February 1789, at Besançon
and at Aix, the magistrates are hooted at, chased in the streets, besieged in
the town hall, and obliged to conceal themselves or take to flight.—If such
is the disposition in the provincial capitals, what must it be in the capital of
the kingdom? For a start, in the month of August, 1788, after the dismissal
of Brienne and Lamoignon, the mob, collected on the Place Dauphine,
constitutes itself judge, burns both ministers in effigy, disperses the watch,
and resists the troops: no sedition, as bloody as this, had been seen for a
century. Two days later, the riot bursts out a second time; the people are
seized with a resolve to go and burn the residences of the two ministers and
that of Dubois, the lieutenant of police.—Clearly a new ferment has been
infused among the ignorant and brutal masses, and the new ideas are
producing their effect. They have for a long time imperceptibly been
filtering downwards from layer to layer After having gained over the
aristocracy, the whole of the lettered portion of the Third-Estate, the
lawyers, the schools, all the young, they have insinuated themselves drop
by drop and by a thousand fissures into the class which supports itself by
the labor of its own hands. Noblemen, at their toilettes, have scoffed at
Christianity, and affirmed the rights of man before their valets, hairdressers,

purveyors, and all those that are in attendance upon them. Men of letters,
lawyers, and attorneys have repeated, in the bitterest tone, the same
diatribes and the same theories in the coffee-houses and in the restaurants,
on the promenades and in all public places. They have spoken out before
the lower class as if it were not present, and, from all this eloquence poured
out without precaution, some bubbles besprinkle the brain of the artisan, the
publican, the messenger, the shopkeeper, and the soldier.
Hence it is that a year suffices to convert mute discontent into political
passion. From the 5th of July 1787, on the invitation of the King, who
convokes the States-General and demands advice from everybody, both
speech and the press alter in tone.1207 Instead of general conversation of a
speculative turn there is preaching, with a view to practical effect, sudden,
radical, and close at hand, preaching as shrill and thrilling as the blast of a
trumpet. Revolutionary pamphlets appear in quick succession: "Qu'est-ce
que le Tiers?" by Sieyès; "Mémoire pour le Peuple Français," by Cerutti;
"Considerations sur les Intérêts des Tiers-Etat," by Rabtau Saint-Etienne;
"Ma Pétition," by Target; "Les Droits des Etats-généraux," by M.
d'Entraigues, and, a little later, "La France libre," par Camille Desmoulins,
and others by hundreds and thousands.1208 All of which are repeated and
amplified in the electoral assemblies, where new-made citizens come to
declaim and increase their own excitement.1209 The unanimous, universal
and daily shout rolls along from echo to echo, into barracks and into
faubourgs, into markets, workshops, and garrets. In the month of February,
1789, Necker avows "that obedience is not to be found anywhere, and that
even the troops are not to be relied on." In the month of May, the
fisherwomen, and next the greengrocers, of the town market halls come to
recommend the interests of the people to the bodies of electors, and to sing
rhymes in honor of the Third-Estate. In the month of June pamphlets are in
all hands; "even lackeys are poring over them at the gates of hotels." In the
month of July, as the King is signing an order, a patriotic valet becomes
alarmed and reads it over his shoulder.—There is no illusion here; it is not
merely the bourgeoisie which ranges itself against the legal authorities and
against the established regime. It is the entire people as well. The craftsmen,
the shopkeepers and the domestics, workmen of every kind and degree, the
mob underneath the people, the vagabonds, street rovers, and beggars, the
whole multitude, which, bound down by anxiety for its daily bread, had

never lifted its eyes to look at the great social order of which it is the lowest
stratum, and the whole weight of which it bears.

III.—The Réveillon affair.
Suddenly the people stirs, and the superposed scaffolding totters. It is the
movement of a brute nature exasperated by want and maddened by
suspicion.—Have paid hands, which are invisible goaded it on from
beneath? Contemporaries are convinced of this, and it is probably the
case.1210 But the uproar made around the suffering brute would alone
suffice to make it shy, and explain its arousal.—On the 21st of April the
Electoral Assemblies have begun in Paris; there is one in each quarter, one
for the clergy, one for the nobles, and one for the Third-Estate. Every day,
for almost a month, files of electors are seen passing along the streets.
Those of the first degree continue to meet after having nominated those of
the second: the nation must needs watch its mandatories and maintain its
imprescriptible rights. If this exercise of their rights has been delegated to
them, they still belong to the nation, and it reserves to itself the privilege of
interposing when it pleases. A pretension of this kind travels fast;
immediately after the Third-Estate of the Assemblies it reaches the Third-
Estate of the streets. Nothing is more natural than the desire to lead one's
leaders: the first time any dissatisfaction occurs, they lay hands on those
who halt and make them march on as directed. On a Saturday, April
25th,1211 a rumor is current that Réveillon, an elector and manufacturer of
wall-paper, Rue Saint-Antoine, and Lerat, a commissioner, have "spoken
badly" at the Electoral Assembly of Sainte-Marguerite. To speak badly
means to speak badly of the people. What has Réveillon said? Nobody
knows, but popular imagination with its terrible powers of invention and
precision, readily fabricates or welcomes a murderous phrase. He said that
"a working-man with a wife and children could live on fifteen sous a day."
Such a man is a traitor, and must be disposed of at once; "all his belongings
must be put to fire and sword." The rumor, it must be noted, is false.1212
Réveillon pays his poorest workman twenty-five sous a day, he provides
work for three hundred and fifty, and, in spite of a dull season the previous
winter, he kept all on at the same rate of wages. He himself was once a
workman, and obtained a medal for his inventions, and is benevolent and
respected by all respectable persons.—All this avails nothing; bands of

vagabonds and foreigners, who have just passed through the barriers, do not
look so closely into matters, while the Journeymen, the carters, the
cobblers, the masons, the braziers, and the stone-cutters whom they go to
solicit in their lodgings are just as ignorant as they are. When irritation has
accumulated, it breaks out haphazardly.
Just at this time the clergy of Paris renounce their privileges in way of
imposts,1213 and the people, taking friends for adversaries, add in their
invectives the name of the clergy to that of Réveillon. During the whole of
the day, and also during the leisure of Sunday, the fermentation increases;
on Monday the 27th, another day of idleness and drunkenness, the bands
begin to move. Certain witnesses encounter one of these in the Rue Saint-
Sévérin, "armed with clubs," and so numerous as to bar the passage. "Shops
and doors are closed on all sides, and the people cry out, 'There's the
revolt!'" The seditious crowd belch out curses and invectives against the
clergy, "and, catching sight of an abbé, shout 'Priest!'" Another band parades
an effigy of Réveillon decorated with the ribbon of the order of St. Michael,
which undergoes the parody of a sentence and is burnt on the Place de
Grève, after which they threaten his house. Driven back by the guard, they
invade that of a manufacturer of saltpeter, who is his friend, and burn and
smash his effects and furniture.1214 It is only towards midnight that the
crowd is dispersed and the insurrection is supposed to have ended. On the
following day it begins again with greater violence; for, besides the
ordinary stimulants of misery1215 and the craving for license, they have a
new stimulant in the idea of a cause to defend, the conviction that they are
fighting "for the Third-Estate." In a cause like this each one should help
himself; and all should help each other. "We should be lost," one of them
exclaimed, "if we did not sustain each other." Strong in this belief, they sent
deputations three times into the Faubourg Saint-Marceau to obtain recruits,
and on their way, with uplifted clubs they enrol, willingly or unwillingly, all
they encounter. Others, at the gate of Saint-Antoine, arrest people who are
returning from the races, demanding of them if they are for the nobles or for
the Third-Estate, and force women to descend from their vehicles and to cry
"Vive le Tiers-Etat "1216. Meanwhile the crowd has increased before
Réveillon's dwelling; the thirty men on guard are unable to resist; the house
is invaded and sacked from top to bottom; the furniture, provisions,
clothing, registers, wagons, even the poultry in the back-yard, all is cast into
blazing bonfires lighted in three different places; five hundred louis d'or, the

ready money, and the silver plate are stolen. Several roam through the
cellars, drink liquor or varnish at haphazard until they fall down dead drunk
or expire in convulsions. Against this howling horde, a corps of the watch,
mounted and on foot, is seen approaching;1217 also a hundred cavalry of the
"Royal Croats," the French Guards, and later on the Swiss Guards. "Tiles
and chimneys are rained down on the soldiers," who fire back four files at a
time. The rioters, drunk with brandy and rage, defend themselves
desperately for several hours; more than two hundred are killed, and nearly
three hundred are wounded; they are only put down by cannon, while the
mob keeps active until far into the night.—Towards eight in the evening, in
the rue Vieille-du-Temple, the Paris Guard continue to make charges in
order to protect the doors which the miscreants try to force. Two doors are
forced at half-past eleven o'clock in the Rue Saintonge and in the Rue de
Bretagne, that of a pork-dealer and that of a baker. Even to this last wave of
the outbreak which is subsiding we can distinguish the elements which have
produced the insurrection, and which are about to produce the Revolution.
—Starvation is one of these: in the Rue de Bretagne the band robbing the
baker's shop carries bread off to the women staying at the corner of the Rue
Saintonge.—Brigandage is another: in the middle of the night M. du
Châtelet's spies, gliding alongside of a ditch, "see a group of ruffians"
assembled beyond the Barrière du Trône, their leader, mounted on a little
knoll, urging them to begin again; and the following days, on the highways,
vagabonds are saying to each other, "We can do no more at Paris, because
they are too sharp on the look-out; let us go to Lyons!" There are, finally,
the patriots: on the evening of the insurrection, between the Pont-au-Change
and the Pont-Marie, the half-naked ragamuffins, besmeared with dirt,
bearing along their hand-barrows, are fully alive to their cause; they beg
alms in a loud tone of voice, and stretch out their hats to the passers, saying,
"Take pity on this poor Third-Estate!"—The starving, the ruffians, and the
patriots, all form one body, and henceforth misery, crime, and public spirit
unite to provide an ever-ready insurrection for the agitators who desire to
raise one.

IV.—The Palais-Royal.
But the agitators are already in permanent session. The Palais-Royal is an
open-air club where, all day and even far into the night, one excites the
other and urges on the crowd to blows. In this enclosure, protected by the
privileges of the House of Orleans, the police dare not enter. Speech is free,
and the public who avail themselves of this freedom seem purposely chosen
to abuse it.—The public and the place are adapted to each other.1218 The
Palais-Royal, the center of prostitution, of play, of idleness, and of
pamphlets, attracts the whole of that uprooted population which floats about
in a great city, and which, without occupation or home, lives only for
curiosity or for pleasure—the frequenters of the coffee-houses, the runners
for gambling halls, adventurers, and social outcasts, the runaway children or
forlorn hopefuls of literature, arts, and the bar, attorneys' clerks, students of
the institutions of higher learning, the curious, loungers, strangers, and the
occupants of furnished lodgings, these amounting, it is said, to forty
thousand in Paris. They fill the garden and the galleries; "one would hardly
find here one of what were called the "Six Bodies,"1219 a bourgeois settled
down and occupied with his own affairs, a man whom business and family
cares render serious and influential. There is no place here for industrious
and orderly bees; it is the rendezvous of political and literary drones. They
flock into it from every quarter of Paris, and the tumultuous, buzzing swarm
covers the ground like an overturned hive. "Ten thousand people," writes
Arthur Young,1220 "have been all this day in the Palais-Royal;" the press is
so great that an apple thrown from a balcony on the moving floor of heads
would not reach the ground. The condition of these heads may be imagined;
they are emptier of ballast than any in France, the most inflated with
speculative ideas, the most excitable and the most excited. In this pell-mell
of improvised politicians no one knows who is speaking; nobody is
responsible for what he says. Each is there as in the theater, unknown
among the unknown, requiring sensational impressions and strong
emotions, a prey to the contagion of the passions around him, borne along
in the whirl of sounding phrases, of ready-made news, growing rumors, and
other exaggerations by which fanatics keep outdoing each other. There are

shouting, tears, applause, stamping and clapping, as at the performance of a
tragedy; one or another individual becomes so inflamed and hoarse that he
dies on the spot with fever and exhaustion. In vain has Arthur Young been
accustomed to the tumult of political liberty; he is dumb-founded at what he
sees.1221 According to him, the excitement is "incredible. . . . We think
sometimes that Debrett's or Stockdale's shops at London are crowded; but
they are mere deserts compared to Desenne's and some others here, in
which one can scarcely squeeze from the door to the counter. . . . Every
hour produces its pamphlet; 13 came out to-day, 16 yesterday, and 92 last
week. 95% of these productions are in favor of liberty;" and by liberty is
meant the extinction of privileges, numerical sovereignty, the application of
the Contrat-Social, "The Republic", and even more besides, a universal
leveling, permanent anarchy, and even the jacquerie. Camille Desmoulins,
one of the orators, commonly there, announces it and urges it in precise
terms:
"Now that the animal is in the trap, let him be battered to death... Never
will the victors have a richer prey. Forty thousand palaces, mansions, and
châteaux, two-fifth of the property of France, will be the recompense of
valor. Those who pretend to be the conquerors will be conquered in turn.
The nation shall be purged."
Here, in advance, is the program of the Reign of Terror.
Now all this is not only read, but declaimed, amplified, and turned to
practical account. In front of the coffee-houses "those who have stentorian
lungs relieve each other every evening."1222 "They get up on a chair or a
table, they read the strongest articles on current affairs, . . . the eagerness
with which they are heard, and the thunder of applause they receive for
every sentiment of more than common hardiness or violence against the
present Government, cannot easily be imagined." "Three days ago a child of
four years, well taught and intelligent, was promenaded around the garden,
in broad daylight, at least twenty times, borne on the shoulders of a street
porter, crying out, 'Verdict of the French people: Polignac exiled one
hundred leagues from Paris; Condé the same; Conti the same; Artois the
same; the Queen,—I dare not write it.'" A hall made of boards in the middle
of the Palais-Royal is always full, especially of young men, who carry on
their deliberations in parliamentary fashion: in the evening the president
invites the spectators to come forward and sign motions passed during the

day, and of which the originals are placed in the Café Foy.1223 They count
on their fingers the enemies of the country; "and first two Royal Highnesses
(Monsieur and the Count d'Artois), three Most Serene Highnesses (the
Prince de Condé, Duc de Bourbon, and the Prince de Conti), one favorite
(Madame de Polignac), MM. de Vandreuil, de la Trémoille, du Châtelet, de
Villedeuil, de Barentin, de la Galaisière, Vidaud de la Tour, Berthier,
Foulon, and also M. Linguet." Placards are posted demanding the pillory on
the Pont-Neuf for the Abbeé Maury. One speaker proposes "to burn the
house of M. d'Espréménil, his wife, children and furniture, and himself: this
is passed unanimously."—No opposition is tolerated. One of those present
having manifested some horror at such sanguinary motions, "is seized by
the collar, obliged to kneel down, to make an apology, and to kiss the
ground. The punishment inflicted on children is given to him; he is ducked
repeatedly in one of the fountain-basins, after which they him over to the
mob, who roll him in the mud." On the following day an ecclesiastic is
trodden under foot, and flung from hand to hand. A few days after, on the
22nd of June, there are two similar events. The sovereign mob exercises all
the functions of sovereign authority, with those of the legislator those of the
judge, and those of the judge with those of the executioner.—Its idols are
sacred; if any one fails to show them respect he is guilty of lése-majesté,
and at once punished. In the first week of July, an abbé who speaks ill of
Necker is flogged; a woman who insults the bust of Necker is stripped by
the fishwomen, and beaten until she is covered with blood. War is declared
against suspicious uniforms. "On the appearance of a hussar," writes
Desmoulins, "they shout, 'There goes Punch!' and the stone-cutters fling
stones at him. Last night two officers of the hussars, MM. de Sombreuil and
de Polignac, came to the Palais-Royal. . . chairs were flung at them, and
they would have been knocked down if they had not run away. The day
before yesterday they seized a spy of the police and gave him a ducking in
the fountain. They ran him down like a stag, hustled him, pelted him with
stones, struck him with canes, forced one of his eyes out of its socket, and
finally, in spite of his entreaties and cries for mercy, plunged him a second
time in the fountain. His torments lasted from noon until half-past five
o'clock, and he had about ten thousand executioners."—Consider the effect
of such a focal center at a time like this. A new power has sprung up
alongside the legal powers, a legislature of the highways and public
squares, anonymous, irresponsible, without restraint. It is driven onward by

coffeehouse theories, by strong emotions and the vehemence of
mountebanks, while the bare arms which have just accomplished the work
of destruction in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, form its bodyguard and
ministerial cabinet.

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

This is the dictatorship of a mob, and its proceedings, conforming to its
nature, consist in acts of violence, wherever it finds resistance, it strikes.—
The people of Versailles, in the streets and at the doors of the Assembly,
daily "come and insult those whom they call aristocrats."1224 On Monday,
June 22nd, "d'Espréménil barely escapes being knocked down; the Abbé
Maury. . . owes his escape to the strength of a curé, who takes him up in his
arms and tosses him into the carriage of the Archbishop of Arles." On the
23rd, "the Archbishop of Paris and the Keeper of the Seals are hooted,
railed at, scoffed at, and derided, until they almost sink with shame and
rage." So formidable is the tempest of rage with which they are greeted, that
Passeret, the King's secretary, who accompanies the minister, dies of the
excitement that very day. On the 24th, the Bishop of Beauvais is almost
knocked down by a stone striking him on the head. On the 25th, the
Archbishop of Paris is saved only by the speed of his horses, the multitude
pursuing him and pelting him with stones. His mansion is besieged, the
windows are all shattered, and, notwithstanding the intervention of the
French Guards, the peril is so great that he is obliged to promise that he will
join the deputies of the Third-Estate. This is the way in which the rude hand
of the people effects a reunion of the Orders. It bears as heavily on its own
representatives as on its adversaries. "Although our hall was closed to the
public," says Bailly, "there were always more than six hundred
spectators."1225 These were not respectful and silent, but active and noisy,
mingling with the deputies, raising their hands to vote in all cases, taking
part in the deliberations, by their applause and hisses: a collateral Assembly
which often imposes its own will on the other. They take note of and put
down the names of their opponents, transmit them to the chair-bearers in
attendance at the entrance of the hall, and from them to the mob waiting for
the departure of the deputies, these names are from now considered as the
names of public enemies.1226 Lists are made out and printed, and, at the
Palais-Royal in the evening, they become the lists of the proscribed.—It is
under this brutal pressure that many decrees are passed, and, amongst them,

that by which the commons declare themselves the National Assembly and
assume supreme power. The night before, Malouet had proposed to
ascertain, by a preliminary vote, on which side the majority was. In an
instant all those against had gathered around him to the number of three
hundred. "Upon which a mans springs out from the galleries, falls upon him
and takes him by the collar exclaiming, 'Hold your tongue, you false
citizen!'" Malouet is released and the guard comes forward, "but terror has
spread through the hall, threats are uttered against opponents, and the next
day we were only ninety." Moreover, the lists of their names had been
circulated; some of them, deputies from Paris, went to see Bailly that very
evening. One amongst them, "a very honest man and good patriot," had
been told that his house was to be set on fire. Now his wife had just given
birth to a child, and the slightest tumult before the house would have been
fatal. Such arguments are decisive. Consequently, three days afterwards, at
the Tennis-court, but one deputy, Martin d'Auch, dares to write the word
"opposing" after his name. Insulted by many of colleagues, "at once
denounced to the people who had collected at the entrance of the building,
he is obliged to escape by a side door to avoid being cut to pieces," and, for
several days, to keep away from the meetings.1227—Owing to this
intervention of the galleries the radical minority, numbering about thirty,1228
lead the majority, and they do not allow them to free themselves.—On the
28th of May, Malouet, having demanded a secret session to discuss the
conciliatory measures which the King had proposed, the galleries hoot at
him, and a deputy, M. Bourche, addresses him in very plain terms. "You
must know, sir, that we are deliberating here in the presence of our masters,
and that we must account to them for our opinions." This is the doctrine of
the Contrat-Social. Through timidity, fear of the Court and of the privileged
class, through optimism and faith in human nature, through enthusiasm and
the necessity of adhering to previous actions, the deputies, who are novices,
provincial, and given up to theories, neither dare nor know how to escape
from the tyranny of the prevailing dogma.—Henceforth it becomes the law.
All the Assemblies, the Constituent, the Legislative, the Convention,1229
submit to it entirely. The public in the galleries is the admitted
representatives of the people, under the same title, and even under a higher
title, than the deputies. Now, this public is that of the Palais-Royal,
consisting of strangers, idlers, lovers of novelties, Paris romancers, leaders
of the coffee-houses, the future pillars of the clubs, in short, the wild

enthusiasts among the middle-class, just as the crowd which threatens doors
and throws stones is recruited from among the wild enthusiasts of the
lowest class. Thus by an involuntary selection, the faction which constitutes
itself a public power is composed of nothing but violent minds and violent
hands. Spontaneously and without previous concert dangerous fanatics are
joined with dangerous brutes, and in the increasing discord between the
legal authorities this is the illegal league which is certain to overthrow all.
When a commanding general sits in council with his staff-officers and his
counselors, and discusses the plan of a campaign, the chief public interest is
that discipline should remain intact, and that intruders, soldiers, or menials,
should not throw the weight of their turbulence and thoughtlessness into the
scales which have to be cautiously and firmly held by their chiefs. This was
the express demand of the Government;1230 but the demand was not
regarded; and against the persistent usurpation of the multitude nothing is
left to it but the employment of force. But force itself is slipping from its
hands, while growing disobedience, like a contagion, after having gained
the people is spreading among the troops.—From the 23rd of June,1231 two
companies of the French Guards refused to do duty. Confined to their
barracks, they on the 27th break out, and henceforth "they are seen every
evening entering the Palais-Royal, marching in double file." They know the
place well; it is the general rendezvous of the abandoned women whose
lovers and parasites they are.1232 "The patriots all gather around them, treat
them to ice cream and wine, and debauch them in the face of their
officers."—To this, moreover, must be added the fact that their colonel, M.
du Châtelet, has long been odious to them, that he has fatigued them with
forced drills, worried them and diminished the number of their sergeants;
that he suppressed the school for the education of the children of their
musicians; that he uses the stick in punishing the men, and picks quarrels
with them about their appearance, their board, and their clothing. This
regiment is lost to discipline: a secret society has been formed in it, and the
soldiers have pledged themselves to their ensigns not to act against the
National Assembly. Thus the confederation between them and the Palais-
Royal is established.—On the 30th of June, eleven of their leaders, taken
off to the Abbaye, write to claim their assistance. A young man mounts a
chair in front of the Café Foy and reads their letter aloud; a band sets out on
the instant, forces the gate with a sledge-hammer and iron bars, brings back
the prisoners in triumph, gives them a feast in the garden and mounts guard

around them to prevent their being re-taken.—When disorders of this kind
go unpunished, order cannot be maintained; in fact, on the morning of the
14th of July, five out of six battalions had deserted.—As to the other corps,
they are no better and are also seduced. "Yesterday," Desmoulins writes,
"the artillery regiment followed the example of the French Guards,
overpowering the sentinels and coming over to mingle with the patriots in
the Palais-Royal. . .. We see nothing but the rabble attaching themselves to
soldiers whom they chance to encounter. 'Allons, Vive le Tiers-Etat!' and
they lead them off to a tavern to drink the health of the Commons."
Dragoons tell the officers who are marching them to Versailles: "We obey
you, but you may tell the ministers on our arrival that if we are ordered to
use the least violence against our fellow-citizens, the first shot shall be for
you." At the Invalides twenty men, ordered to remove the cocks and
ramrods from the guns stored in a threatened arsenal, devote six hours to
rendering twenty guns useless; their object is to keep them intact for
plunder and for the arming of the people.
In short, the largest portion of the army has deserted. However kind a
superior officer might be, the fact of his being a superior officer secures for
him the treatment of an enemy. The governor, "M. de Sombreuil, against
whom these people could utter no reproach," will soon see his artillerists
point their guns at his apartment, and will just escape being hung on the
iron-railings by their own hands. Thus the force which is brought forward to
suppress insurrection only serves to furnish it with recruits. And even
worse, for the display of arms that was relied on to restrain the mob,
furnished the instigation to rebellion.

VI.—July 13th and 14th 1789.
The fatal moment has arrived; it is no longer a government which falls
that it may give way to another; it is all government which ceases to exist in
order to make way for an intermittent despotism, for factions blindly
impelled on by enthusiasm, credulity, misery, and fear.1233 Like a tame
elephant suddenly become wild again, the mob throws off it ordinary driver,
and the new guides who it tolerates perched on its neck are there simply for
show. In future it will move along as it pleases, freed from control, and
abandoned to its own feelings, instincts, and appetites.—Apparently, there
was no desire to do more than anticipate its aberrations. The King has
forbidden all violence; the commanders order the troops not to fire;1234 but
the excited and wild animal takes all precautions for insults; in future, it
intends to be its own conductor, and, to begin, it treads its guides under
foot.—On the 12th of July, near noon,1235 on the news of the dismissal of
Necker, a cry of rage arises in the Palais-Royal; Camille Desmoulins,
mounted on a table, announces that the Court meditates "a St. Bartholomew
of patriots." The crowd embrace him, adopt the green cockade which he has
proposed, and oblige the dancing-saloons and theaters to close in sign of
mourning: they hurry off to the residence of Curtius, and take the busts of
the Duke of Orleans and of Necker and carry them about in triumph.—
Meanwhile, the dragoons of the Prince de Lambesc, drawn up on the Place
Louis-Quinze, find a barricade of chairs at the entrance of the Tuileries, and
are greeted with a shower of stones and bottles.1236 Elsewhere, on the
Boulevard, before the Hôtel Montmorency, some of the French Guards,
escaped from their barracks, fired on a loyal detachment of the "Royal
Allemand."—The alarm bell is sounding on all sides, the shops where arms
are sold are pillaged, and the Hôtel-de-Ville is invaded; fifteen or sixteen
well-disposed electors, who meet there, order the districts to be assembled
and armed.—The new sovereign, the people in arms and in the street, has
declared himself.
The dregs of society at once come to the surface. During the night
between the 12th and 13th of July,1237 "all the barriers, from the Faubourg
Saint-Antoine to the Faubourg Saint-Honoré, besides those of the

Faubourgs Saint-Marcel and Saint-Jacques, are forced and set on fire."
There is no longer an octroi; the city is without a revenue just at the
moment when it is obliged to make the heaviest expenditures; but this is of
no consequence to the mob, which, above all things, wants to have cheap
wine. "Ruffians, armed with pikes and sticks, proceed in several parties to
give up to pillage the houses of those who are regarded as enemies to the
public welfare." "They go from door to door crying, 'Arms and bread!'
During this fearful night, the bourgeoisie kept themselves shut up, each
trembling at home for himself and those belonging to him." On the
following day, the 13th, the capital appears to be given up to bandits and the
lowest of the low. One of the bands hews down the gate of the Lazarists,
destroys the library and clothes-presses, the pictures, the windows and
laboratory, and rushes to the cellars; where it staves in the casks and gets
drunk: twenty-four hours after this, about thirty of them are found dead and
dying, drowned in wine, men and women, one of these being at the point of
childbirth. In front of the house1238 the street is full of the wreckage, and of
ruffians who hold in their hands, "some, eatables, others a jug, forcing the
passers-by to drink, and pouring out wine to all comers. Wine runs down
into the gutter, and the scent of it fills the air;" it is a drinking bout:
meanwhile they carry away the grain and flour which the monks kept on
hand according to law, fifty-two loads of it being taken to the market.
Another troop comes to La Force, to deliver those imprisoned for debt; a
third breaks into the Garde Meuble, carrying away valuable arms and
armour. Mobs assemble before the hotel of Madame de Breteuil and the
Palais-Bourbon, which they intend to ransack, in order to punish their
proprietors. M. de Crosne, one of the most liberal and most respected men
of Paris, but, unfortunately for himself a lieutenant of the police, is pursued,
escaping with difficulty, and his hotel is sacked.—During the night between
the 13th and 14th of May, the baker's shops and the wine shops are pillaged;
"men of the vilest class, armed with guns, pikes, and turnspits, make people
open their doors and give them something to eat and drink, as well as
money and arms." Vagrants, ragged men, several of them "almost naked,"
and "most of them armed like savages, and of hideous appearance;" they are
"such as one does not remember to have seen in broad daylight;" many of
them are strangers, come from nobody knows where.1239 It is stated that
there were 50,000 of them, and that they had taken possession of the
principal guard-houses.

During these two days and nights, says Bailly, "Paris ran the risk of being
pillaged, and was only saved from the marauders by the National Guard."
Already, in the open street,1240 "these creatures tore off women's shoes and
earrings," and the robbers were beginning to have full sway.—Fortunately
the militia organized itself and the principal inhabitants and gentlemen
enrolled themselves; 48,000 men are formed into battalions and companies;
the bourgeoisie buy guns of the vagabonds for three livres apiece, and
sabers or pistols for twelve sous. At last, some of the offenders are hung on
the spot, and others disarmed, and the insurrection again becomes political.
But, whatever its object, it remains always wild, because it is in the hands
of the mob. Dusaulx, its panegyrist, confesses1241 that "he thought he was
witnessing the total dissolution of society." There is no leader, no
management. The electors who have converted themselves into the
representatives of Paris seem to command the crowd, but it is the crowd
which commands them. One of them, Legrand, to save the Hôtel-de-Ville,
has no other resource but to send for six barrels of gun-powder, and to
declare to the assailants that he is about to blow everything into the air. The
commandant whom they themselves have chosen, M. de Salles, has twenty
bayonets at his breast during a quarter of an hour, and, more than once, the
whole committee is near being massacred. Let the reader imagine, on the
premises where the discussions are going on, and petitions are being made,
"a concourse of fifteen hundred men pressed by a hundred thousand others
who are forcing an entrance," the wainscoting cracking, the benches upset
one over another, the enclosure of the bureau pushed back against the
president's chair, a tumult such as to bring to mind 'the day of judgment,"
the death-shrieks, songs, yells, and "people beside themselves, for the most
part not knowing where they are nor what they want."—Each district is also
a petty center, while the Palais-Royal is the main center. Propositions,
"accusations, and deputations travel to and fro from one to the other, along
with the human torrent which is obstructed or rushes ahead with no other
guide than its own inclination and the chances of the way. One wave
gathers here and another there, their strategy consisting in pushing and in
being pushed. Yet, their entrance is effected only because they are let in. If
they get into the Invalides it is owing to the connivance of the soldiers.—At
the Bastille, firearms are discharged from ten in the morning to five in the
evening against walls forty feet high and thirty feet thick, and it is by
chance that one of their shots reaches an invalid on the towers. They are

treated the same as children whom one wishes to hurt as little as possible.
The governor, on the first summons to surrender, orders the cannon to be
withdrawn from the embrasures; he makes the garrison swear not to fire if it
is not attacked; he invites the first of the deputations to lunch; he allows the
messenger dispatched from the Hôtel-de-Ville to inspect the fortress; he
receives several discharges without returning them, and lets the first bridge
be carried without firing a shot.1242 When, at length, he does fire, it is at the
last extremity, to defend the second bridge, and after having notified the
assailants that he is going to do so. In short, his forbearance and patience
are excessive, in conformity with the humanity of the times. The people, in
turn, are infatuated with the novel sensations of attack and resistance, with
the smell of gunpowder, with the excitement of the contest; all they can
think of doing is to rush against the mass of stone, their expedients being on
a level with their tactics. A brewer fancies that he can set fire to this block
of masonry by pumping over it spikenard and poppy-seed oil mixed with
phosphorus. A young carpenter, who has some archaeological notions,
proposes to construct a catapult. Some of them think that they have seized
the governor's daughter, and want to burn her in order to make the father
surrender. Others set fire to a projecting mass of buildings filled with straw,
and thus close up the passage. "The Bastille was not taken by main force,"
says the brave Elie, one of the combatants; "it surrendered before even it
was attacked,"1243 by capitulation, on the promise that no harm should be
done to anybody. The garrison, being perfectly secure, had no longer the
heart to fire on human beings while themselves risking nothing,1244 and, on
the other hand, they were unnerved by the sight of the immense crowd.
Eight or nine hundred men only1245 were concerned in the attack, most of
them workmen or shopkeepers belonging to the faubourg, tailors,
wheelwrights, mercers and wine-dealers, mixed with the French Guards.
The Place de la Bastille, however, and all the streets in the vicinity, were
crowded with the curious who came to witness the sight; "among them,"
says a witness,1246 "were a number of fashionable women of very good
appearance, who had left their carriages at some distance." To the hundred
and twenty men of the garrison looking down from their parapets it seemed
as though all Paris had come out against them. It is they, also, who lower
the drawbridge an introduce the enemy: everybody has lost his head, the
besieged as well as the besiegers, the latter more completely because they
are intoxicated with the sense of victory. Scarcely have they entered when

they begin the work of destruction, and the latest arrivals shoot at random
those that come earlier; "each one fires without heeding where or on whom
his shot tells." Sudden omnipotence and the liberty to kill are a wine too
strong for human nature; giddiness is the result; men see red, and their
frenzy ends in ferocity.
For the peculiarity of a popular insurrection is that nobody obeys
anybody; the bad passions are free as well as the generous ones; heroes are
unable to restrain assassins. Elie, who is the first to enter the fortress,
Cholat, Hulin, the brave fellows who are in advance, the French Guards
who are cognizant of the laws of war, try to keep their word of honor; but
the crowd pressing on behind them know not whom to strike, and they
strike at random. They spare the Swiss soldiers who have fired at them, and
who, in their blue smocks, seem to them to be prisoners; on the other hand,
by way of compensation, they fall furiously on the invalides who opened
the gates to them; the man who prevented the governor from blowing up the
fortress has his wrist severed by the blow of a saber, is twice pierced with a
sword and is hung, and the hand which had saved one of the districts of
Paris is promenaded through the streets in triumph. The officers are dragged
along and five of them are killed, with three soldiers, on the spot, or on the
way. During the long hours of firing, the murderous instinct has become
aroused, and the wish to kill, changed into a fixed idea, spreads afar among
the crowd which has hitherto remained inactive. It is convinced by its own
clamor; a hue and cry is all that it now needs; the moment one strikes, all
want to strike. "Those who had no arms," says an officer, "threw stones at
me;1247 the women ground their teeth and shook their fists at me. Two of
my men had already been assassinated behind me. I finally got to within
some hundreds of paces of the Hôtel-de-Ville, amidst a general cry that I
should be hung, when a head, stuck on a pike, was presented to me to look
at, while at. the same moment I was told that it was that of M. de Launay,"
the governor.—The latter, on going out, had received the cut of a sword on
his right shoulder; on reaching the Rue Saint-Antoine "everybody pulled his
hair out and struck him." Under the arcade of Saint-Jean he was already
"severely wounded." Around him, some said, "his head ought to be struck
off;" others, "let him be hung;" and others, "he ought to be tied to a horse's
tail." Then, in despair, and wishing to put an end to his torments, he cried
out, "Kill me," and, in struggling, kicked one of the men who held him in
the lower abdomen. On the instant he is pierced with bayonets, dragged in

the gutter, and, striking his corpse, they exclaim, "He's a scurvy wretch
(galeux) and a monster who has betrayed us; the nation demands his head to
exhibit to the public," and the man who was kicked is asked to cut it off.—
This man, an unemployed cook, a simpleton who "went to the Bastille to
see what was going on," thinks that as it is the general opinion, the act is
patriotic, and even believes that he "deserves a medal for destroying a
monster." Taking a saber which is lent to him, he strikes the bare neck, but
the dull saber not doing its work, he takes a small black-handled knife from
his pocket, and, "as in his capacity of cook he knows how to cut meat," he
finishes the operation successfully. Then, placing the head on the end of a
three-pronged pitchfork, and accompanied by over two hundred armed men,
"not counting the mob," he marches along, and, in the Rue Saint-Honoré, he
has two inscriptions attached to the head, to indicate without mistake whose
head it is.—They grow merry over it: after filing alongside of the Palais-
Royal, the procession arrives at the Pont-Neuf, where, before the statue of
Henry IV., they bow the head three times, saying, "Salute thy master!"—
This is the last joke: it is to be found in every triumph, and inside the
butcher, we find the rogue.

VII.—Murders of Foulon and Berthier.
Meanwhile, at the Palais-Royal, other buffoons, who with the levity of
gossips sport with lives as freely as with words, have drawn u. During the
night between the 13th and 14th of July, a list of proscriptions, copies of
which are hawked about. Care is taken to address one of them to each of the
persons designated, the Comte d'Artois, Marshal de Broglie, the Prince de
Lambesc, Baron de Bezenval, MM. de Breteuil, Foulon, Berthier, Maury,
d'Espréménil, Lefèvre d'Amécourt, and others besides.1248 A reward is
promised to whoever will bring their heads to the Café de Caveau. Here are
names for the unchained multitude; all that now is necessary is that some
band should encounter a man who is denounced; he will go as far as the
lamppost at the street corner, but not beyond it.—Throughout the day of the
14th, this improvised tribunal holds a permanent session, and follows up its
decisions with its actions. M. de Flesselles, provost of the merchants and
president of the electors at the Hôtel-de-Ville, having shown himself
somewhat lukewarm,1249 the Palais-Royal declares him a traitor and sends
him off to be hung. On the way a young man fells him with a pistol-shot,
others fall upon his body, while his head, borne upon a pike, goes to join
that of M. de Launay.—Equally deadly accusations and of equally speedy
execution float in the air and from every direction. "On the slightest
pretext," says an elector, "they denounced to us those whom they thought
opposed to the Revolution, which already signified the same as enemies of
the State. Without any investigation, there was only talk of the seizure of
their persons, the ruin of their homes, and the razing of their houses. One
young man exclaimed: 'Follow me at once, let us start off at once to
Bezenval's!'"—Their brains are so frightened, and their minds so distrustful,
that at every step in the streets "one's name has to be given, one's profession
declared, one's residence, and one's intentions. . .. One can neither enter nor
leave Paris without being suspected of treason." The Prince de Montbarrey,
advocate of the new ideas, and his wife, are stopped in their carriage at the
barrier, and are on the point of being cut to pieces. A deputy of the nobles,
on his way to the National Assembly, is seized in his cab and conducted to
the Place de Grève; the corpse of M. de Launay is shown to him, and he is

told that he is to be treated in the same fashion.—Every life hangs by a
thread, and, on the following days, when the King had sent away his troops,
dismissed his Ministers, recalled Necker, and granted everything, the
danger remains just as great. The multitude, abandoned to the
revolutionaries and to itself, continues the same bloody antics, while the
municipal chiefs1250 whom it has elected, Bailly, Mayor of Paris, and
Lafayette, commandant of the National Guard, are obliged to use cunning,
to implore, to throw themselves between the multitude and the unfortunates
whom they wish to destroy.
On the 15th of July, in the night, a woman disguised as a man is arrested
in the court of the Hôtel-de-Ville, and so maltreated that she faints away;
Bailly, in order to save her, is obliged to feign anger against her and have
her sent immediately to prison. From the 14th to the 22nd of July,
Lafayette, at the risk of his life, saves with his own hand seventeen persons
in different quarters.1251—On the 22nd of July, upon the denunciations
which multiply around Paris like trains of gunpowder, two administrators of
high rank, M. Foulon, Councillor of State, and M. Berthier, his son-in-law,
are arrested, one near Fontainebleau, and the other near Compiègne. M.
Foulon, a strict master,1252 but intelligent and useful, expended sixty
thousand francs the previous winter on his estate in giving employment to
the poor. M. Berthier, an industrious and capable man, had officially
surveyed and valued Ile-de-France, to equalize the taxes, and had reduced
the overcharged quotas first one-eighth and then a quarter. But both of these
gentlemen have arranged the details of the camp against which Paris has
risen; both are publicly proscribed for eight days previously by the Palais-
Royal, and, with a people frightened by disorder, exasperated by hunger,
and stupefied by suspicion, an accused person is a guilty one.—With regard
to Foulon, as with Réveillon, a story is made up, coined in the same mint, a
sort of currency for popular circulation, and which the people itself
manufactures by casting into one tragic expression the sum of its sufferings
and rankling memories:1253 "He said that we were worth no more than his
horses; and that if we had no bread we had only to eat grass."—The old
man of seventy-four is brought to Paris, with a truss of hay on his head, a
collar of thistles around his neck, and his mouth stuffed with hay. In vain
does the electoral bureau order his imprisonment that he may be saved; the
crowd yells out: "Sentenced and hung!" and, authoritatively, appoints the
judges. In vain does Lafayette insist and entreat three times that the

judgment be regularly rendered, and that the accused be sent to the Abbaye.
A new wave of people comes up, and one man, "well dressed," cries out:
"What is the need of a sentence for a man who has been condemned for
thirty years?" Foulon is carried off; dragged across the square, and hung to
the lamp post. The cord breaks twice, and twice he falls upon the pavement.
Re-hung with a fresh cord and then cut down, his head is severed from his
body and placed on the end of a pike.1254 Meanwhile, Berthier, sent away
from Compiègne by the municipality, afraid to keep him in his prison where
he was constantly menaced, arrives in a cabriolet under escort. The people
carry placards around him filled with opprobrious epithets; in changing
horses they threw hard black bread into the carriage, exclaiming, "There,
wretch, see the bread you made us eat!" On reaching the church of Saint-
Merry, a fearful storm of insults burst forth against him. He is called a
monopolist, "although he had never bought or sold a grain of wheat." In the
eyes of the multitude, who has to explain the evil as caused by some evil-
doer, he is the author of the famine. Conducted to the Abbaye, his escort is
dispersed and he is pushed over to the lamp post. Then, seeing that all is
lost, he snatches a gun from one of his murderers and bravely defends
himself. A soldier of the "Royal Croats" gives him a cut with his saber
across the stomach, and another tears out his heart. As the cook, who had
cut off the head of M. de Launay, happens to be on the spot, they hand him
the heart to carry while the soldiers take the head, and both go to the Hôtel-
de-Ville to show their trophies to M. de Lafayette. On their return to the
Palais-Royal, and while they are seated at table in a tavern, the people
demand these two remains. They throw them out of the window and finish
their supper, whilst the heart is marched about below in a bouquet of white
carnations.—Such are the spectacles which this garden presents where, a
year before, "good society in full dress" came on leaving the Opera to chat,
often until two o'clock in the morning, under the mild light of the moon,
listening now to the violin of Saint-Georges, and now to the charming voice
of Garat.

VIII.—Paris in the hands of the people.
Henceforth it is clear that no one is safe: neither the new militia nor the
new authorities suffice to enforce respect for the law. "They did not dare,"
says Bailly,1255 "oppose the people who, eight days before this, had taken
the Bastille."—In vain, after the last two murders, do Bailly and Lafayette
indignantly threaten to withdraw; they are forced to remain; their
protection, such as it is, is all that is left, and, if the National Guard is
unable to prevent every murder, it prevents some of them. People live as
they can under the constant expectation of fresh popular violence. "To every
impartial man," says Malouet, "the Terror dates from the 14th of July".—On
the 17th, before setting out for Paris, the King attends communion and
makes his will in anticipation of assassination. From the 16th to the 18th,
twenty personages of high rank, among others most of those on whose
heads a price is set by the Palais-Royal, leave France: The Count d'Artois,
Marshal de Broglie, the Princes de Condé, de Conti, de Lambesc, de
Vaudemont, the Countess de Polignac, and the Duchesses de Polignac and
de Guiche.—The day following the two murders, M. de Crosne, M.
Doumer, M. Sureau, the most zealous and most valuable members of the
committee on subsistence, all those appointed to make purchases and to
take care of the storehouses, conceal themselves or fly. On the eve of the
two murders, the notaries of Paris, being menaced with a riot, had to
advance 45,000 francs which were promised to the workmen of the
Faubourg Saint-Antoine; while the public treasury, almost empty, is drained
of 30,000 livres per day to diminish the cost of bread.—Persons and
possessions, great and small, private individuals and public functionaries,
the Government itself, all is in the hands of the mob. "From this moment,"
says a deputy,1256 "liberty did not exist even in the National Assembly. . .
France stood dumb before thirty factious persons. The Assembly became in
their hands a passive instrument, which they forced to serve them in the
execution of their projects."—They themselves do not lead, although they
seem to lead. The great brute, which has taken the bit in its mouth, holds on
to it, and it's plunging becomes more violent. Not only do both spurs which
maddened it, I mean the desire for innovation and the daily scarcity of food,

continue to prick it on. But also the political hornets which, increasing by
thousands, buzz around its ears. And the license in which it revels for the
first time, joined to the applause lavished upon it, urges it forward more
violently each day. The insurrection is glorified. Not one of the assassins is
sought out. It is against the conspiracy of Ministers that the Assembly
institutes an inquiry. Rewards are bestowed upon the conquerors of the
Bastille; it is declared that they have saved France. All honors are awarded
to the people-to their good sense, their magnanimity, and their justice.
Adoration is paid to this new sovereign: he is publicly and officially told, in
the Assembly and by the press, that he possesses every virtue, all rights and
all powers. If he spills blood it is inadvertently, on provocation, and always
with an infallible instinct. Moreover, says a deputy, "this blood, was it so
pure?" The greater number of people prefers the theories of their books to
the experience of their eyes; they persist in the idyll, which they have
fashioned for themselves. At the worst their dream, driven out from the
present, takes refuge in the future. To-morrow, when the Constitution is
complete, the people, made happy, will again become wise: let us endure
the storm, which leads us on to so noble a harbor.
Meanwhile, beyond the King, inert and disarmed, beyond the Assembly,
disobeyed or submissive, appears the real monarch, the people—that is to
say, a crowd of a hundred, a thousand, a hundred thousand individuals
gathered together at random, on an impulse, on an alarm, suddenly and
irresistibly made legislators, judges, and executioners. A formidable power,
undefined and destructive, on which no one has any hold, and which, with
its mother, howling and misshapen Liberty, sits at the threshold of the
Revolution like Milton's two specters at the gates of Hell.

. . . Before the gates there sat
On either side a formidable shape;
The one seem'd woman to the waist, and fair,
but ended foul in many a scaly fold
Voluminous and vast, a serpent arm'd
With mortal sting: about her middle round
A cry of hell hounds never ceasing bark'd
With wide Cerberean mouths full loud, and rung
A hideous peal: yet, when they list, would creep,
If aught disturb'd their noise, into her womb,
And kennel there; yet there still bark'd and howl'd
Within unseen. . .
........the other shape,
If shape it might be call'd, that shape had none
Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb,
Or substance might be call'd that shadow seem'd

For each seem'd either: black it stood as night,
Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell,
And shook a dreadful dart; what seem'd his head
The likeness of a kingly crown had on.

The monster moving onward came as fast,
With horrid strides; hell trembled as he strode.

1201 (return)
[ "Archives Nationales," H. 1453. Letter of M. Miron,
lieutenant de police, April 26th; of M. Joly de Fleury,
procureur-général, May 29th; of MM. Marchais and
Berthier, April 18th and 27th, March 23rd, April 5th, May
5th.—Arthur Young, June 10th and 29th. "Archives
Nationales," H. 1453 Letter of the sub-delegate of
Montlhéry, April 14th.]
1202 (return)
[ "Archives Nationales," H. 1453. Letter of the sub-delegate
Gobert, March 17th; of the officers of police, June 15th:—"
On the 12th, 13th, 14th and 15th of March the inhabitants of
Conflans generally rebelled against the game law in relation
to the rabbit."]
1203 (return)
[ Montjoie, 2nd part, ch. XXI. p.14 (the first week in June).
Montjoie is a party man; but he gives dates and details, and
his testimony, when it is confirmed elsewhere, deserves, to
be admitted.]
1204 (return)
[ Montjoie, 1st part, 92-101.—"Archives Nationales," H.
1453. Letter of the officer of police of Saint-Denis: "A good
many workmen arrive daily from Lorraine as well as from
Champagne," which increases the prices.]
1205 (return)
[ De Bezenval, "Mémoires," I.353. Cf. "The Ancient
Regime," p.509.—Marmontel, II, 252 and following pages.
—De Ferrières, I. 407.]
1206 (return)
[ Arthur Young, September 1st, 1788]
1207 (return)
[ Barrère, "Mémoires," I. 234.]
1208 (return)
[ See, in the National Library, the long catalogue of those
which have survived.]
1209 (return)
[ Malouet, I. 255. Bailly, I. 43 (May 9th and 19th).—
D'Hezecques, "Souvenirs d'un page de Louis XV." 293.—De
Bezenval, I. 368.]

1210 (return)
[ Marmontel, II, 249.—Montjoie, 1st part, p. 92.—De
Bezenval, I. 387: "These spies added that persons were seen
exciting the tumult and were distributing money."]
1211 (return)
[ "Archives Nationales," Y.11441. Interrogatory of the Abbé
Roy, May 5th.—Y.11033, Interrogatory (April 28th and May
4th) of twenty-three wounded persons brought to the Hôtel-
Dieu—These two documents are of prime importance in
presenting the true aspect of the insurrection; to these must
be added the narrative of M. de Bezenval, who was
commandant at this time with M. de Châtelet. Almost all
other narratives are amplified or falsified through party
bias.]
1212 (return)
[ De Ferrières, vol. III. note A. (justificatory explanation by
Réveillon).]
1213 (return)
[ Bailly I. 25 (April 26th).]
1214 (return)
[ Hippeau, IV. 377 (Letters of M. Perrot, April 29th).]
1215 (return)
[ Letter to the King by an inhabitant of the Faubourg Saint-
Antoine—"Do not doubt, sire, that our recent misfortunes
are due to the dearness of bread"]
1216 (return)
[ Dampmartin, "Evénements qui se sont passés sous mes
yeux," etc. I. 25: "We turned back and were held up by small
bands of scoundrels, who insolently proposed to us to shout
'Vive Necker! Vive le Tiers-Etat!'" His two companions were
knights of St. Louis, and their badges seemed an object of
"increasing hatred." "The badge excited coarse mutterings,
even on the part of persons who appeared superior to the
agitators."]
1217 (return)
[ Dampmartin, ibid. i. 25: "I was dining this very day at the
Hôtel d'Ecquevilly, in the Rue Saint-Louis." He leaves the
house on foot and witnesses the disturbance. "Fifteen to
Sixteen hundred wretches, the excrement of the nation,
degraded by shameful vices, covered with rags, and gorged
with brandy, presented the most disgusting and revolting
spectacle. More than a hundred thousand persons of both
sexes and of all ages and conditions interfered greatly with
the operations of the troops. The firing soon commenced and
blood flowed: two innocent persons were wounded near
me."]
1218 (return)
[ De Goncourt, "La Société Française pendant la

Révolution." Thirty-one gambling-houses are counted here,
while a pamphlet of the day is entitled "Pétition des deux
mill cent filles du Palais-Royal."]
1219 (return)
[ Montjoie, 2nd part, 144.—Bailly, II, 130.]
1220 (return)
[ Arthur Young, June 24th, 1789.—Montjoie, 2nd part, 69.]
1221 (return)
[ Arthur Young, June 9th, 24th, and 26th.—"La France
libre," passim, by C. Desmoulins.]
1222 (return)
[ C. Desmoulins, letters to his father, and Arthur Young, June
9th.]
1223 (return)
[ Montjoie, 2nd part, 69, 77, 124, 144. C. Desmoulins, letter,
of June 24th and the following days.]
1224 (return)
[ Etienne Dumont, "Souvenirs," p.72.—C. Desmoulins,
letter of; June 24th.—Arthur Young, June 25th.—Buchez
and Roux, II. 28.]
1225 (return)
[ Bailly, I. 227 and 179.—Monnier, "Recherches sur les
causes," etc. I. 289, 291; II.61;—Malouet, I. 299; II. 10.
—"Actes des Apôtres," V.43. (Letter of M. de Guillermy,
July 31st, 1790).—Marmontel, I. 28: "The people came even
into the Assembly, to encourage their partisans, to select and
indicate their victims, and to terrify the feeble with the
dreadful trial of open balloting."]
1226 (return)
[ Manuscript letters of M. Boullé, deputy, to the municipal
authorities of Pontivy, from May 1st, 1789, to September
4th, 1790 (communicated by M. Rosenzweig, archivist at
Vannes). June 16th, 1789: "The crowd gathered around the
hall. . . was, during these days, from 3,000 to 4,000
persons."]
1227 (return)
[ Letters of M. Boullé, June 23rd. "How sublime the
moment, that in which we enthusiastically bind ourselves to
the country by a new oath!. . . . Why should this moment be
selected by one of our number to dishonor himself? His
name is now blasted throughout France. And the unfortunate
man has children! Suddenly overwhelmed by public
contempt he leaves, and falls fainting at the door,
exclaiming, 'Ah! this will be my death!' I do not know what
has become of him since. What is strange is, he had not
behaved badly up to that time, and he voted for the
Constitution."]

1228 (return)
[ De Ferrières, I. 168.—Malouet, I. 298 (according to him
the faction did not number more than ten members),—idem
II. 10.—Dumont, 250.]
1229 (return)
[ "Convention nationale" governed France from 21st
September 1792 until Oct. 26th 1796. We distinguish
between three different assemblies, "la Convention
Girondine" 1792-93, "the Mountain," 1793-94 and "la
Thermidorienne," from 1794-1795. (SR).]
1230 (return)
[ Declaration of June 23rd, article 15.]
1231 (return)
[ Montjoie, 2nd part, 118.—C. Desmoulins, letters of June
24th and the following days. A faithful narrative by M. de
Sainte-Fère, formerly an officer in the French Guard, p.9.—
De Bezenval, III, 413.—Buchez and Roux, II. 35.
—"Souvenirs", by PASQUIER (Etienne-Dennis, duc),
chancelier de France. in VI volumes, Librarie Plon, Paris
1893..]
1232 (return)
[ Peuchet ("Encyclopédie Méthodique," 1789, quoted by
Parent Duchâtelet): "Almost all of the soldiers of the Guard
belong to that class (the procurers of public women): many,
indeed, only enlist in the corps that they may live at the
expense of these unfortunates."]
1233 (return)
[ Gouverneur Morris, "Liberty is now the general cry;
authority is a name and no longer a reality."
(Correspondence with Washington, July 19th.)]
1234 (return)
[ Bailly. I. 302. "The King was very well-disposed; his
measures were intended only to preserve order and the
public peace. . . Du Châtelet was forced by facts to acquit
M. de Bezenval of attempts against the people and the
country."—Cf. Marmontel, IV. 183; Mounier, II, 40.]
1235 (return)
[ Desmoulins, letter of the 16th July. Buchez and Roux, II.
83.]
1236 (return)
[ Trial of the Prince de Lambesc (Paris, 1790), with the
eighty-three depositions and the discussion of the testimony.
—It is the crowd which began the attack. The troops fired in
the air. But one man, a sieur Chauvel, was wounded slightly
by the Prince de Lambesc. (Testimony of M. Carboire, p.84,
and of Captain de Reinack, p. 101.) "M. le Prince de
Lambesc, mounted on a gray horse with a gray saddle
without holsters or pistols, had scarcely entered the garden

when a dozen persons jumped at the mane and bridle of his
horse and made every effort to drag him off. A small man in
gray clothes fired at him with a pistol. . . . The prince tried
hard to free himself, and succeeded by making his horse rear
up and by flourishing his sword; without, however, up to this
time, wounding any one. . . . He deposes that he saw the
prince strike a man on the head with the flat of his saber who
was trying to close the turning-bridge, which would have cut
off the retreat of his troops The troops did no more than try
to keep off the crowd which assailed them with stones, and
even with firearms, from the top of the terraces."—The man
who tried to close the bridge had seized the prince's horse
with one hand; the wound he received was a scratch about
23 lines long, which was dressed and cured with a bandage
soaked in brandy. All the details of the affair prove that the
patience and humanity of the officer, were extreme.
Nevertheless "on the following day, the 13th, some one
posted a written placard on the crossing Bussy
recommending the citizens of Paris to seize the prince and
quarter him at once."—(Deposition of M. Cosson, p.114.)]
1237 (return)
[ Bailly, I. 3, 6.—Marmontel, IV. 310]
1238 (return)
[ Montjoie, part 3, 86. "I talked with those who guarded the
château of the Tuileries. They did not belong to Paris. . . . A
frightful physiognomy and hideous apparel." Montjoie, not
to be trusted in many places, merits consultation for little
facts of which he was an eye-witness.—Morellet,
"Mémoires," I. 374.—Dusaulx, "L'oeuvre des sept jours,"
352.—Revue Historique," March, 1876. Interrogatory of
Desnot. His occupation during the 13th of July (published
by Guiffrey).]
1239 (return)
[ Mathieu Dumas, "Mémoires," I. 531. "Peaceable people
fled at the sight of these groups of strange, frantic
vagabonds. Everybody closed their houses. . .. When I
reached home, in the Saint-Denis quarter, several of these
brigands caused great alarm by firing off guns in the air."]
1240 (return)
[ Dusaulx, 379.]
1241 (return)
[ Dusaulx, 359, 360, 361, 288, 336. "In effect their entreaties
resembled commands, and, more than once, it was
impossible to resist them."]
1242 (return)
[ Dusaulx, 447 (Deposition of the invalides).—"Revue
Rétrospective," IV. 282 (Narrative of the commander of the
thirty-two Swiss Guards).]

1243 (return)
[ Marmontel, IV. 317.]
1244 (return)
[ Dusaulx, 454. "The soldiers replied that they would accept
whatever happened rather than cause the destruction of so
great a number of their fellow-citizens."]
1245 (return)
[ Dusaulx, 447. The number of combatants, maimed,
wounded, dead, and living, is 825.—Marmontel, IV. 320.
"To the number of victors, which has been carried up to 800,
people have been added who were never near the place."]
1246 (return)
[ "Memoires", by PASQUIER (Etienne-Dennis, duc, 1767-
1862), chancelier de France. in VI volumes, Librarie Plon,
Paris 1893. Vol. I. p.52. Pasquier was eye-witness. He
leaned against the fence of the Beaumarchais garden and
looked on, with mademoiselle Contat, the actress, at his side,
who had left her carriage in the Place-Royale.—Marat,
"L'ami du peuple," No. 530. "When an unheard-of
conjunction of circumstances had caused the fall of the
badly defended walls of the Bastille, under the efforts of a
handful of soldiers and a troop of unfortunate creatures,
most of them Germans and almost all provincials, the
Parisians presented themselves the fortress, curiosity alone
having led them there."]
1247 (return)
[ Narrative of the commander of the thirty-two Swiss.—
Narrative of Cholat, wine-dealer, one of the victors.—
Examination of Desnot (who cut off the head of M. de
Launay).]
1248 (return)
[ Montjoie, part 3, 85.—Dusaulx, 355, 287, 368.]
1249 (return)
[ Nothing more. No Witness states that he had seen the
pretended note to M. do Launay. According to Dusaulx, he
could not have had either the time or the means to write it.]
1250 (return)
[ Bailly, II. 32, 74, 88, 90, 95, 108, 117, 137, 158, 174. "I
gave orders which were neither obeyed nor listened to. . . .
They gave me to understand that I was not safe." (July 15th.)
"In these sad times one enemy and one calumnious report
sufficed to excite the multitude. All who had formerly held
power, all who had annoyed or restrained the
insurrectionists, were sure of being arrested."]
1251 (return)
[ M. de Lafayette, "Mémoires," III. 264. Letter of July 16th,
1789. "I have already saved the lives of six persons whom
they were hanging in different quarters."]

1252 (return)
[ Poujoulat. "Histoire de la Révolution Française," p.100
(with supporting documents). Procès-verbaux of the
Provincial Assembly, lle-de-France (1787), p.127.]
1253 (return)
[ For instance: "He is severe with his peasants."—"He gives
them no bread, and he wants them then to eat grass." "He
wants them to eat grass like horses."—"He has said that they
could very well eat hay, and that they are no better than
horses."—The same story is found in many of the
contemporary jacqueries.]
1254 (return)
[ Bailly, II. 108. "The people, less enlightened and as
imperious as despots, recognize no positive signs of good
administration but success."]
1255 (return)
[ Bailly, II, 108, 95.—Malouet, II, 14.]
1256 (return)
[ De Ferrières, I. 168.]

CHAPTER III.

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

However bad a particular government may be, there is something still
worse, and that is the suppression of all government. For, it is owing to
government that human wills form a harmony instead of chaos. It serves
society as the brain serves a living being. Incapable, inconsiderate,
extravagant, engrossing, it often abuses its position, overstraining or
misleading the body for which it should care, and which it should direct.
But, taking all things into account, whatever it may do, more good than
harm is done, for through it the body stands erect, marches on and guides its
steps. Without it there is no organized deliberate action, serviceable to the
whole body. In it alone do we find the comprehensive views, knowledge of
the members of which it consists and of their aims, an idea of outward
relationships, full and accurate information, in short, the superior
intelligence which conceives what is best for the common interests, and
adapts means to ends. If it falters and is no longer obeyed, if it is forced and
pushed from without by a violent pressure, it ceases to control public
affairs, and the social organization retrogrades by many steps. Through the
dissolution of society, and the isolation of individuals, each man returns to
his original feeble state, while power is vested in passing aggregates that
like whirlwinds spring up from the human dust.—One may divine how this
power, which the most competent find it difficult to apply properly, is
exercised by bands of men springing out of nowhere. It is a matter of
supplies, of their possessions, price and distribution. It is a matter of taxes,
its proportion, apportionment and collection; of private property, its
varieties, rights, and limitations It is a problem of public authority, its
allocation and its limits; of all those delicate cogwheels which, working into
each other, constitute the great economic, social, and political machine.
Each band in its own canton lays its rude hands on the wheels within its
reach. They wrench or break them haphazardly, under the impulse of the
moment, heedless and indifferent to consequences, even when the reaction
of to-morrow crushes them in the ruin that they cause to day. Thus do

unchained Negroes, each pulling and hauling his own way, undertake to
manage a ship of which they have just obtained mastery.—In such a state of
things white men are hardly worth more than black ones. For, not only is
the band, whose aim is violence, composed of those who are most destitute,
most wildly enthusiastic, and most inclined to destructiveness and to
license. But also, as this band tumultuously carries out its violent action,
each individual the most brutal, the most irrational, and most corrupt,
descends lower than himself, even to the darkness, the madness, and the
savagery of the dregs of society. In fact, a man who in the interchange of
blows, would resist the excitement of murder, and not use his strength like a
savage, must be familiar with arms. He must be accustomed to danger, be
cool-blooded, alive to the sentiment of honor, and above all, sensitive to
that stern military code which, to the imagination of the soldier, ever holds
out to him the provost's gibbet to which he is sure to rise, should he strike
one blow too many. Should all these restraints, inward as well as outward,
be wanting, the man plunges into insurrection. He is a novice in the acts of
violence, which he carries out. He has no fear of the law, because he
abolishes it. The action begun carries him further than he intended to go.
Peril and resistance exasperate his anger. He catches the fever from contact
with those who are fevered, and follows robbers who have become his
comrades.1301 Add to this the clamors, the drunkenness, the spectacle of
destruction, the nervous tremor of the body strained beyond its powers of
endurance, and we can comprehend how, from the peasant, the laborer, and
the bourgeois, pacified and tamed by an old civilization, we see all of a
sudden spring forth the barbarian. Or still worse, the primitive animal, the
grinning, sanguinary, wanton baboon, who giggles while he slays, and
gambols over the ruin he has accomplished. Such is the actual government
to which France is given up, and after eighteen months' experience, the best
qualified, most judicious and profoundest observer of the Revolution will
find nothing to compare it to but the invasion of the Roman Empire in the
fourth century.1302 "The Huns, the Heruli, the Vandals, and the Goths will
come neither from the north nor from the Black Sea; they are in our very
midst."

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

When in a building the principal beam gives way, cracks follow and
multiply, and the secondary joists fall in one by one for lack of the prop,
which supported them. In a similar manner the authority of the King being
broken, all the powers, which he delegated, fall to the ground.1303
Intendants, parliaments, military commands, grand provosts, administrative,
judicial, and police functionaries in every province, and of every branch of
the service, who maintain order and protect property, taught by the murder
of M. de Launey, the imprisonment of M. de Besenval, the flight of Marshal
de Broglie, the assassinations of Foullon and Bertier, know what it costs
should they try to perform their duties. Should it be forgotten local
insurrections intervene, and keep them in mind of it.
The officer in command in Burgundy is a prisoner at Dijon, with a guard
at his door; and he is not allowed to speak with any one without permission,
and without the presence of witnesses.1304 The Commandant of Caen is
besieged in the old palace and capitulates. The Commandant of Bordeaux
surrenders Château-Trompette with its guns and equipment. The
Commandant at Metz, who remains firm, suffers the insults and the orders
of the populace. The Commandant of Brittany wanders about his province
"like a vagabond," while at Rennes his people, furniture, and plate are kept
as pledges. As soon as he sets foot in Normandy he is surrounded, and a
sentinel is placed at his door.—The Intendant of Besançon takes to flight;
that of Rouen sees his dwelling sacked from top to bottom, and escapes
amid the shouts of a mob demanding his head.—At Rennes, the Dean of the
Parliament is arrested, maltreated, kept in his room with a guard over him,
and then, although ill, sent out of the town under an escort.—At Strasbourg
"thirty-six houses of magistrates are marked for pillage."1305—At
Besançon, the President of the Parliament is constrained to let out of prison
the insurgents arrested in a late out-break, and to publicly burn the whole of
the papers belonging to the prosecution.—In Alsace, since the beginning of
the troubles, the provosts were obliged to fly, the bailiffs and manorial

judges hid themselves, the forest-inspectors ran away, and the houses of the
guards were demolished. One man, sixty years of age, is outrageously
beaten and marched about the village, the people, meanwhile, pulling out
his hair; nothing remains of his dwelling but the walls and a portion of the
roof. All his furniture and effects are broken up, burnt or stolen. He is
forced to sign, along with his wife, an act by which he binds himself to
refund all penalties inflicted by him, and to abandon all claims for damages
for the injuries to which he has just been subjected.—In Franche-Comté the
authorities dare not condemn delinquents, and the police do not arrest them;
the military commandant writes that "crimes of every kind are on the
increase, and that he has no means of punishing them." Insubordination is
permanent in all the provinces; one of the provincial commissions states
with sadness:
"When all powers are in confusion and annihilated, when public force no
longer exists, when all ties are sundered, when every individual considers
himself relieved from all kinds of obligation, when public authority no
longer dares make itself felt, and it is a crime to have been clothed with it,
what can be expected of our efforts to restore order?"1306
All that remains of this great demolished State is forty thousand groups
of people, each separated and isolated, in towns and small market villages
where municipal bodies, elected committees, and improvised National
Guards strive to prevent the worst excesses.—But these local chiefs are
novices; they are human, and they are timid. Chosen by acclamation they
believe in popular rights; in the midst of riots they feel themselves in
danger. Hence, they generally obey the crowd.
"Rarely," says one of the provincial commissions reports, "do the
municipal authorities issue a summons; they allow the greatest excesses
rather than enter upon prosecutions for which, sooner or later, they may be
held responsible by their fellow-citizens. . . . Municipal bodies have no
longer the power to resist anything."
Especially in the rural districts the mayor or syndic, who is a farmer,
makes it his first aim to make no enemies, and would resign his place if it
were to bring him any "unpleasantness" with it. His rule in the towns, and
especially in large cities, is almost as lax and more precarious, because
explosive material is accumulated here to a much larger extent, and the
municipal officers, in their arm-chairs at the town-hall, sit over a mine

which may explode at any time. To-morrow, perhaps, some resolution
passed at a tavern in the suburbs, or some incendiary newspaper just
received from Paris, will furnish the spark.—No other defense against the
populace is at hand than the sentimental proclamations of the National
Assembly, the useless presence of troops who stand by and look on, and the
uncertain help of a National Guard which will arrive too late. Occasionally
these townspeople, who are now the rulers, utter a cry of distress from
under the hands of the sovereigns of the street who grasp them by the
throat. At Puy-en-Velay,1307 a town of twenty thousand inhabitants, the
présidial,1308 the committee of twenty-four commissioners, a body of two
hundred dragoons, and eight hundred men of the guard of burgesses, are
"paralyzed, and completely stupefied, by the vile populace. A mild
treatment only increases its insubordination and insolence." This populace
proscribes whomsoever it pleases, and six days ago a gibbet, erected by its
hands, has announced to the new magistrates the fate that awaits them.
" What will become of us this winter," they exclaim, "in our
impoverished country, where bread is not to be had! We shall be the prey of
wild beasts!"

III.—Public feeling.—Famine
These people, in truth, are hungry, and, since the Revolution, their misery
has increased. Around Puy-en-Velay the country is laid waste, and the soil
broken up by a terrible tempest, a fierce hailstorm, and a deluge of rain. In
the south, the crop proved to be moderate and even insufficient.
"To trace a picture of the condition of Languedoc," writes the
intendant,1309 "would be to give an account of calamities of every
description. The panic which prevails in all communities, and which is
stronger than all laws, stops traffic, and would cause famine even in the
midst of plenty. Commodities are enormously expensive, and there is a lack
of cash. Communities are ruined by the enormous outlays to which they are
exposed: The payment of the deputies to the seneschal's court, the
establishment of the burgess guards, guardhouses for this militia, and the
purchase of arms, uniforms, and outlays in forming communes and
permanent councils. To this must be add the cost of the printing of all kinds,
and the publication of trivial deliberations. Further the loss of time due to
disturbances occasioned by these circumstances, and the utter stagnation of
manufactures and of trade." All these causes combined "have reduced
Languedoc to the last extremity."—In the Center, and in the North, where
the crops are good, provisions are not less scarce, because wheat is not put
in circulation, and is kept concealed.
"For five months," writes the municipal assembly of Louviers,1310 "not a
farmer has made his appearance in the markets of this town. Such a
circumstance was never known before, although, from time to time, high
prices have prevailed to a considerable extent. On the contrary, the markets
were always well supplied in proportion to the high price of grain."
In vain the municipality orders the surrounding forty-seven parishes to
provide them with wheat. They pay no attention to the mandate; each for
himself and each for his own house; the intendant is no longer present to
compel local interests to give way to public interests.
"In the wheat districts around us," says a letter from one of the Burgundy
towns, "we cannot rely on being able to make free purchases. Special

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

IV.—Panic.
General arming.

From the earliest of these weeks they were already alarmed. Accustomed
to being led, the human herd is scared at being left to itself; it misses its
leaders who it has trodden under foot; in throwing off their trammels it has
deprived itself of their protection. It feels lonely, in an unknown country,
exposed to dangers of which it is ignorant, and against which it is unable to
guard itself. Now that the shepherds are slain or disarmed, suppose the
wolves should unexpectedly appear!—And there are wolves—I mean
vagabonds and criminals—who have but just issued out of the darkness.
They have robbed and burned, and are to be found at every insurrection.
Now that the police force no longer puts them down, they show themselves
instead of keeping themselves concealed. They have only to lie in wait and
come forth in a band, and both life and property will be at their mercy.—
Deep anxiety, a vague feeling of dread, spreads through both town and
country: towards the end of July the panic, like a blinding, suffocating whirl
of dusts, suddenly sweeps over hundreds of leagues of territory. The
brigands are coming! They are burning the crops! They are only six leagues
off, and then only two—the refugees who have run away from the disorder
prove it.
On the 28th of July, at Angoulême,1311 the alarm bell is heard about three
o'clock in the afternoon; the drums beat to arms, and cannon are mounted
on the ramparts. The town has to be put in a state of defense against 15,000
bandits who are approaching, and from the walls a cloud of dust on the road
is discovered with terror. It proves to be the post-wagon on its way to
Bordeaux. After this the number of brigands is reduced to 1,500, but there is
no doubt that they are ravaging the country. At nine o'clock in the evening
20,000 men are under arms, and thus they pass the night, always listening
without hearing anything. Towards three o'clock in the morning there is
another alarm, the church bells ringing and the people forming a battle
array. They are convinced that the brigands have burned Ruffec, Vernenil,
La Rochefoucauld, and other places. The next day countrymen flock in to

give their aid against bandits who are still absent. "At nine o'clock," says a
witness, "we had 40,000 men in the town, to whom we showed our
gratitude." As the bandits do not show themselves, it must be because they
are concealed; a hundred horsemen, a large number of men on foot, start out
to search the forest of Braçonne, and to their great surprise they find
nothing. But the terror is not allayed; "during the following days a guard is
kept mounted, and companies are enrolled among the townsmen," while
Bordeaux, duly informed, dispatches a courier to offer the support of 20,000
men and even 30,000. "What is surprising," adds the narrator, is that at ten
leagues off in the neighborhood, in each parish, a similar disturbance took
place, and at about the same hour."—All that is required is that a girl,
returning to the village at night, should meet two men who do not belong to
the neighborhood. The case is the same in Auvergne. Whole parishes, on the
strength of this, betake themselves at night to the woods, abandoning their
houses, and carrying away their furniture; "the fugitives trod down and
destroyed their own crops; pregnant women were injured in the forests, and
others lost their wits." Fear lends them wings. Two years after this, Madame
Campan was shown a rocky peak on which a woman had taken refuge, and
from which she was obliged to be let down with ropes.—The people at last
return to their homes, and resume their usual routines. But such large
masses are not unsettled with impunity; a tumult like this is, in itself, a
lively source of alarm. As the country did rise, it must have been on account
of threatened danger and if the peril was not due to brigands, it must have
come from some other quarter. Arthur Young, at Dijon and in Alsace,1312
hears at the public dinner tables that the Queen had formed a plot to
undermine the National Assembly and to massacre all Paris. Later on he is
arrested in a village near Clermont, and examined because he is evidently
conspiring with the Queen and the Comte d'Entraigues to blow up the town
and send the survivors to the galleys.
No argument, no experience has any effect against the multiplying
phantoms of an over-excited imagination. Henceforth every commune, and
every man, provide themselves with arms and keep them ready for use. The
peasant searches his hoard, and "finds from ten to twelve francs for the
purchase of a gun." "A national militia is found in the poorest village."
Burgess guards and companies of volunteers patrol all the towns. Military
commanders deliver arms, ammunition, and equipment, on the requisition
of municipal bodies, while, in case of refusal, the arsenals are pillaged, and,

voluntarily or by force, four hundred thousand guns thus pass into the hands
of the people in six months.1313 Not content with this they must have
cannon. Brest having demanded two, every town in Brittany does the same
thing; their self-esteem is at stake as well as a need of feeling themselves
strong.—They lack nothing now to render themselves masters. All
authority, all force, every means of constraint and of intimidation is in their
hands, and in theirs alone; and these sovereign hands have nothing to guide
them in this actual interregnum of all legal powers, but the wild or
murderous suggestions of hunger or distrust.

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

It would take too much space to recount all the violent acts which were
committed,—convoys arrested, grain pillaged, millers and corn merchants
hung, decapitated, slaughtered, farmers called upon under the threats of
death to give up even the seed reserved for sowing, proprietors ransomed
and houses sacked.1314 These outrages, unpunished, tolerated and even
excused or badly suppressed, are constantly repeated, and are, at first,
directed against public men and public property. As is commonly the case,
the rabble head the march and stamp the character of the whole
insurrection.
On the 19th of July, at Strasbourg, on the news of Necker's return to
office, it interprets after its own fashion the public joy, which it witnesses.
Five or six hundred beggars,1315 their numbers soon increased by the petty
tradesmen, rush to the town hall, the magistrates only having time to fly
through a back door. The soldiers, on their part, with arms in their hands,
allow all these things to go on, while several of them spur the assailants on.
The windows are dashed to pieces under a hailstorm of stones, the doors are
forced with iron crowbars, and the populace enter amid a burst of
acclamations from the spectators. Immediately, through every opening in
the building, which has a facade frontage of eighty feet, "there is a shower
of shutters, sashes, chairs, tables, sofas, books and papers, and then another
of tiles, boards, balconies and fragments of wood-work." The public
archives are thrown to the wind, and the surrounding streets are strewed
with them; the letters of enfranchisement, the charters of privileges, all the
authentic acts which, since Louis XIV, have guaranteed the liberties of the
town, perish in the flames. Some of the rabble in the cellars stave in casks
of precious wine; fifteen thousand measures of it are lost, making a pool
five feet deep in which several are drowned. Others, loaded with booty, go
away under the eyes of the soldiers without being arrested. The havoc

continues for three days; a number of houses belonging to some of the
magistrates "are sacked from garret to cellar." When the honest citizens at
last obtain arms and restore order, they are content with the hanging of one
of the robbers; although, in order to please the people, the magistrates are
changed and the price of bread and meat is reduced.—It is not surprising
that after such tactics, and with such rewards, the riot should spread through
the neighborhood far and near: in fact, starting from Strasbourg it overruns
Alsace, while in the country as in the city, there are always drunkards and
rascals found to head it.
No matter where, be it in the East, in the West, or in the North, the
instigators are always of this stamp. At Cherbourg, on the 21st of July,1316
the two leaders of the riot are "highway robbers," who place themselves at
the head of women of the suburbs, foreign sailors, the populace of the
harbor, and it includes soldiers in workmen's smocks. They force the
delivery of the keys of the grain warehouses, and wreck the dwellings of the
three richest merchants, also that of M. de Garantot, the sub-delegate: "All
records and papers are burnt; at M. de Garantot's alone the loss is estimated
at more than 100,000 crowns at least."—The same instinct of destruction
prevails everywhere, a sort of envious fury against all who possess,
command, or enjoy anything. At Maubeuge, on the 27th of July, at the very
assembly of the representatives of the commune,1317 the rabble interferes
directly in its usual fashion. A band of nail and gun-makers takes possession
of the town-hall, and obliges the mayor to reduce the price of bread. Almost
immediately after this another band follows uttering cries of death, and
smashes the windows, while the garrison, which has been ordered out,
quietly contemplates the damage done. Death to the mayor, to all rulers, and
to all employees! The rioters force open the prisons, set the prisoners free,
and attack the tax-offices. The octroi offices are demolished from top to
bottom: they pull down the harbor offices and throw the scales and weights
into the river. All the custom and excise stores are carried off; and the
officials are compelled to give acquaintances. The houses of the registrar
and of the sheriff, that of the revenue comptroller, two hundred yards
outside the town, are sacked; the doors and the windows are smashed, the
furniture and linen is torn to shreds, and the plate and jewelry is thrown into
the wells. The same havoc is committed in the mayor's town-house, also in
his country-house a league off. "Not a window, not a door, not one article or
eatable," is preserved; their work, moreover, is conscientiously done,

without stopping a moment, "from ten in the evening up to ten in the
morning on the following day." In addition to this the mayor, who has
served for thirty-four years, resigns his office at the solicitation of the well-
disposed but terrified people, and leaves the country.—At Rouen, after the
24th of July,1318 a written placard shows, by its orthography and its style,
what sort of intellects composed it and what kind of actions are to follow it:
"Nation, you have here four heads to strike off, those of Pontcarry (the
first president), Maussion (the intendant), Godard de Belboeuf (the
attorney-general), and Durand (the attorney of the King in the town).
Without this we are lost, and if you do not do it, people will take you for a
heartless nation."
Nothing could be more explicit. The municipal body, however, to whom
the Parliament denounces this list of proscriptions, replies, with its forced
optimism, that
"no citizen should consider himself or be considered as proscribed; he
may and must believe himself to be safe in his own dwelling, satisfied that
there is not a person in the city who would not fly to his rescue."
This is equal to telling the populace that it is free to do as it pleases. On
the strength of this the leaders of the riot work on in security for ten days.
One of them is a man named Jourdain, a lawyer of Lisieux, and, like most
of his brethren, a demagogue in principles; the other is a strolling actor
from Paris named Bordier, famous in the part of harlequin,1319 a bully in a
house of ill-fame, "a night-rover and drunkard, and who, fearing neither
God nor devil," has taken up patriotism, and comes down into the provinces
to play tragedy, and that, tragedy in real life. The fifth act begins on the
night of the 3rd of August, with Bordier and Jourdain as the principal
actors, and behind them the rabble along with several companies of fresh
volunteers. A shout is heard, "Death to the monopolists! death to Maussion!
we must have his head!" They pillage his hotel: many of them become
intoxicated and fall asleep in his cellar. The revenue offices, the toll-gates of
the town, the excise office, all buildings in which the royal revenue is
collected, are wrecked. Immense bonfires are lighted in the streets and on
the old market square; furniture, clothes, papers, kitchen utensils, are all
thrown in pell-mell, while carriages are dragged out and tumbled into the
Seine. It is only when the town-hall is attacked that the National Guard,
beginning to be alarmed, makes up its mind to seize Bordier and some

others. The following morning, however, at the shout of Carabo, and led by
Jourdain, the prison is forced, Bordier set free, and the intendant's
residence, with its offices, is sacked a second time. When, finally, the two
rascals are taken and led to the scaffold, the populace is so strongly in their
favor as to require the pointing of loaded cannon on them to keep them
down.—At Besançon,1320 on the 13th of August, the leaders consist of the
servant of an exhibitor of wild animals, two goal-birds of whom one has
already been branded in consequence of a riot, and a number of "inhabitants
of ill-repute," who, towards evening, spread through the town along with
the soldiers. The gunners insult the officers they meet, seize them by the
throat and want to throw them into the Doubs. Others go to the house of the
commandant, M. de Langeron, and demand money of him; on his refusing
to give it they tear off their cockades and exclaim, "We too belong to the
Third-Estate!" in other words, that they are the masters: subsequently they
demand the head of the intendant, M. de Caumartin, forcibly enter his
dwelling and break up his furniture. On the following day the rabble and the
soldiers enter the coffee-houses, the convents, and the inns, and demand to
be served with wine and eatables as much as they want, and then, heated by
drink, they burn the excise offices, force open several prisons, and set free
all the smugglers and deserters. To put an end to this saturnalia a grand
banquet in the open air is suggested, in which the National Guard is to
fraternize with the whole garrison; but the banquet turns into a drinking-
bout, entire companies remaining under the tables dead drunk; other
companies carry away with them four hogsheads of wine, and the rest,
finding themselves left in the lurch, are scattered abroad outside the walls in
order to rob the cellars of the neighboring villages. The next day,
encouraged by the example set them, a portion of the garrison, accompanied
by a number of workmen, repeat the expedition in the country. Finally, after
four days of this orgy, to prevent Besançon and its outskirts from being
indefinitely treated as a conquered country, the burgess guard, in alliance
with the soldiers who have remained loyal, rebel against the rebellion, go in
quest of the marauders and hang two of them that same evening.—Such is
rioting!1321 an irruption of brute force which, turned loose on the
habitations of men, can do nothing but gorge itself, waste, break, destroy,
and do damage to itself; and if we follow the details of local history, we see
how, in these days, similar outbreaks of violence might be expected at any
time.

At Troyes,1322 on the 18th of July, a market-day, the peasants refuse to
pay the entrance duties; the octroi having been suppressed at Paris, it ought
also to be suppressed at Troyes. The populace, excited by this first
disorderly act, gather into a mob for the purpose of dividing the grain and
arms amongst themselves, and the next day the town-hall is invested by
seven or eight thousand men, armed with clubs and stones. The day after, a
band, recruited in the surrounding villages, armed with flails, shovels, and
pitch-forks, enters under the leadership of a joiner who marches at the head
of it with a drawn saber; fortunately, "all the honest folks among the
burgesses "immediately form themselves into a National Guard, and this
first attempt at a Jacquerie is put down. But the agitation continues, and
false rumors constantly keep it up.—On the 29th of July, on the report being
circulated that five hundred "brigands" had left Paris and were coming to
ravage the country, the alarm bell sounds in the villages, and the peasants
go forth armed. Henceforth, a vague idea of some impending danger fills all
minds; the necessity of defense and of guarding against enemies is
maintained. The new demagogues avail themselves of this to keep their
hold on the people, and when the time comes, to use it against their chiefs.
—It is of no use to assure the people that the latter are patriots; that the
recently welcomed Necker with enthusiastic shouts; that the priests, the
monks, and canons were the first to adopt the national cockade; that the
nobles of the city and its environs are the most liberal in France; that, on the
20th of July, the burgess guard saved the town; that all the wealthy give to
the national workshops; that Mayor Huez, "a venerable and honest
magistrate," is a benefactor to the poor and to the public. All the old leaders
are objects of distrust.—On the 8th of August, a mob demands the dismissal
of the dragoons, arms for all volunteers, bread at two sous the pound, and
the freedom of all prisoners. On the 19th of August the National Guard
rejects its old officers as aristocrats, and elects new ones. On the 27th of
August, the crowd invade the town-hall and distribute the arms amongst
themselves. On the 5th of September, two hundred men, led by Truelle,
president of the new committee, force the salt depot and have salt delivered
to them at six sous per pound.—Meanwhile, in the lowest quarters of the
city, a story is concocted to the effect that if wheat is scarce it is because
Huez, the mayor, and M. de St. Georges, the old commandant, are
monopolists, and now they say of Huez what they said five weeks before of
Foulon, that "he wants to make the people eat hay." The many-headed brute

growls fiercely and is about to spring. As usual, instead of restraining him,
they try to manage him.
"You must put your authority aside for a moment," writes the deputy of
Troyes to the sheriffs," and act towards the people as to a friend; be as
gentle with them as you would be with your equals, and rest assured that
they are capable of responding to it."
Thus does Huez act, and he even does more, paying no attention to their
menaces, refusing to provide for his own safety and almost offering himself
as a sacrifice.
"I have wronged no one," he exclaimed; "why should any one bear me
ill-will?"
His sole precaution is to provide something for the unfortunate poor
when he is gone: he bequeaths in his will 18,000 livres to the poor, and, on
the eve of his death, sends 100 crowns to the bureau of charity. But what
avail self-abnegation and beneficence against blind, insane rage! On the 9th
of September, three loads of flour proving to be unsound, the people collect
and shout out,
"Down with the flour-dealers! Down with machinery! Down with the
mayor! Death to the mayor, and let Truelle be put in his place!"
Huez, on leaving his court-room, is knocked down, murdered by kicks
and blows, throttled, dragged to the reception hall, struck on his head with a
wooden-shoe and pitched down the grand staircase. The municipal officers
strive in vain to protect him; a rope is put around his neck and they begin to
drag him along. A priest, who begs to be allowed at least to save his soul, is
repulsed and beaten. A woman jumps on the prostrate old man, stamps on
his face and repeatedly thrusts her scissors in his eyes. He is dragged along
with the rope around his neck up to the Pont de la Selle, and thrown into the
neighboring ford, and then drawn out, again dragged through the streets and
in the gutters, with a bunch of hay crammed in his mouth.1323
In the meantime, his house as well as that of the lieutenant of police, that
of the notary Guyot, and that of M. de Saint-Georges, are sacked; the
pillaging and destruction lasts four hours; at the notary's house, six hundred
bottles of wine are consumed or carried off; objects of value are divided,
and the rest, even down to the iron balcony, is demolished or broken; the
rioters cry out, on leaving, that they have still to burn twenty-seven houses,
and to take twenty-seven heads. "No one at Troyes went to bed that fatal

night."—During the succeeding days, for nearly two weeks, society seems
to be dissolved. Placards posted about the streets proscribe municipal
officers, canons, divines, privileged persons, prominent merchants, and
even ladies of charity; the latter are so frightened that they throw up their
office, while a number of persons move off into the country; others
barricade themselves in their dwellings and only open their doors with saber
in hand. Not until the 26th does the orderly class rally sufficiently to resume
the ascendancy and arrest the miscreants.—Such is public life in France
after the 14th of July: the magistrates in each town feel that they are at the
mercy of a band of savages and sometimes of cannibals. Those of Troyes
had just tortured Huez after the fashion of Hurons, while those of Caen did
worse; Major de Belzance, not less innocent, and under sworn
protection,1324 was cut to pieces like Laperouse in the Fiji Islands, and a
woman ate his heart.

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

It is, under such circumstances, possible to foretell whether taxes come
in, and whether municipalities that sway about in every popular breeze will
have the authority to collect the odious revenues.—Towards the end of
September,1325 I find a list of thirty-six committees or municipal bodies
which, within a radius of fifty leagues around Paris, refuse to ensure the
collection of taxes. One of them tolerates the sale of contraband salt, in
order not to excite a riot. Another takes the precaution to disarm the
employees in the excise department. In a third the municipal officers were
the first to provide themselves with contraband salt and contraband tobacco.
At Peronne and at Ham, the order having come to restore the toll-houses,
the people destroy the soldiers' quarters, conduct all the employees to their
homes, and order them to leave within twenty-four hours, under penalty of
death. After twenty months' resistance Paris will end the matter by forcing
the National Assembly to give in and by obtaining the final suppression of
its octroi.1326—Of all the creditors whose hand each one felt on his
shoulders, that of the exchequer was the heaviest, and now it is the weakest;
hence this is the first whose grasp is to be shaken off; there is none which is
more heartily detested or which receives harsher treatment. Especially
against collectors of the salt-tax, custom-house officers, and excisemen the
fury is universal. These, everywhere,1327 are in danger of their lives and are
obliged to fly. At Falaise, in Normandy, the people threaten to "cut to pieces
the director of the excise." At Baignes, in Saintonge, his house is devastated
and his papers and effects are burned; they put a knife to the throat of his
son, a child six years of age, saying, "Thou must perish that there may be no
more of thy race." For four hours the clerks are on the point of being torn to
pieces; through the entreaties of the lord of the manor, who sees scythes and
sabers aimed at his own head, they are released only on the condition that
they "abjure their employment."—Again, for two months following the
taking of the Bastille, insurrections break out by hundreds, like a volley of
musketry, against indirect taxation. From the 23rd of July the Intendant of

Champagne reports that "the uprising is general in almost all the towns
under his command." On the following day the Intendant of Alençon writes
that, in his province, "the royal dues will no longer be paid anywhere." On
the 7th of August, M. Necker states to the National Assembly that in the
two intendants' districts of Caen and Alençon it has been necessary to
reduce the price of salt one-half; that "in an infinity of places" the collection
of the excise is stopped or suspended; that the smuggling of salt and
tobacco is done by "convoys and by open force" in Picardy, in Lorraine, and
in the Trois-Évêchés; that the indirect tax does not come in, that the
receivers-general and the receivers of the taille are "at bay" and can no
longer keep their engagements. The public income diminishes from month
to month; in the social body, the heart, already so feeble, faints; deprived of
the blood which no longer reaches it, it ceases to propel to the muscles the
vivifying current which restores their waste and adds to their energy.
"All controlling power is slackened," says Necker, "everything is a prey
to the passions of individuals." Where is the power to constrain them and to
secure to the State its dues?—The clergy, the nobles, wealthy townsmen,
and certain brave artisans and farmers, undoubtedly pay, and even
sometimes give spontaneously. But in society those who possess
intelligence, who are in easy circumstances and conscientious, form a small
select class; the great mass is egotistic, ignorant, and needy, and lets its
money go only under constraint; there is but one way to collect the taxes,
and that is to extort them. From time immemorial, direct taxes in France
have been collected only by bailiffs and seizures; which is not surprising, as
they take away a full half of the net income. Now that the peasants of each
village are armed and form a band, let the collector come and make seizures
if he dare!—" Immediately after the decree on the equality of the taxes,"
writes the provincial commission of Alsace,1328 "the people generally
refused to make any payments, until those who were exempt and privileged
should have been inscribed on the local lists." In many places the peasants
threaten to obtain the reimbursement of their installments, while in others
they insist that the decree should be retrospective and that the new rate-
payers should pay for the past year. "No collector dare send an official to
distrain; none that are sent dare fulfill their mission."—" It is not the good
bourgeois" of whom there is any fear, "but the rabble who make the latter
and every one else afraid of them;" resistance and disorder everywhere
come from "people that have nothing to lose."—Not only do they shake off

taxation, but they usurp property, and declare that, being the Nation,
whatever belongs to the Nation belongs to them. The forests of Alsace are
laid waste, the seignorial as well as communal, and wantonly destroyed
with the wastefulness of children or of maniacs. "In many places, to avoid
the trouble of removing the woods, they are burnt, and the people content
themselves with carrying off the ashes."—After the decrees of August 4th,
and in spite of the law which licenses the proprietor only to hunt on his own
grounds, the impulse to break the law becomes irresistible. Every man who
can procure a gun begins operations;1329 the crops which are still standing
are trodden under foot, the lordly residences are invaded and the palings are
scaled; the King himself at Versailles is wakened by shots fired in his park.
Stags, fawns, deer, wild boars, hares, and rabbits, are slain by thousands,
cooked with stolen wood, and eaten up on the spot. There is a constant
discharge of musketry throughout France for more than two months, and, as
on an American prairie, every living animal belongs to him who kills it. At
Choiseul, in Champagne, not only are all the hares and partridges of the
barony exterminated, but the ponds are exhausted of fish; the court of the
chateau even is entered, to fire on the pigeon-house and destroy the
pigeons, and then the pigeons and fish, of which they have too many, are
offered to the proprietor for sale—It is "the patriots" of the village with
"smugglers and bad characters" belonging to the neighborhood who make
this expedition; they are seen in the front ranks of every act of violence, and
it is not difficult to foresee that, under their leadership, attacks on public
persons and public property will be followed by attacks on private persons
and private property.

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

Indeed, an outlawed class already exists, they are called "aristocrats."
This deadly term, applied at first to the nobles and prelates in the States-
General who declined to take part in the reunion of the three orders, is
extended so as to embrace all whose titles, offices, alliances, and manner of
living distinguish them from the multitude. That which entitled them to
respect is that which marks them out as objects of ill-will; while the people,
who, though suffering from their privileges, did not regard them personally
with hatred, are now taught to consider them as their enemies. Each, on his
own estate, is held accountable for the evil designs attributed to his brethren
at Versailles, and, on the false report of a plot at the center, the peasants
classify him as one of the conspirators.1330 Thus does the peasant jacquerie
commence, and the fanatics who have fanned the flame in Paris are to do
the same in the provinces. "You wish to know the authors of the agitation,"
writes a sensible man to the committee of investigation; "you will find them
amongst the deputies of the Third-Estate," and especially among the
attorneys and advocates. "These dispatch incendiary letters to their
constituents, which letters are received by municipal bodies alike composed
of attorneys and of advocates.... they are read aloud in the public squares,
while copies of them are distributed among all the villages. In these
villages, if any one knows how to read besides the priest and the lord of the
manor, it is the legal practitioner," the born enemy of the lord of the manor,
whose place he covets, vain of his oratorical powers, embittered by his
power, and never failing to blacken everything.1331 It is highly probable that
he is the one who composes and circulates the placards calling on the
people, in the King's name, to resort to violence.—At Secondigny, in
Poitou, on the 23rd of July,1332 the laborers in the forest receive a letter
"which summons them to attack all the country gentlemen round about, and

to massacre without mercy all those who refuse to renounce their
privileges.... promising them that not only will their crimes go unpunished,
but that they will even be rewarded." M. Despretz-Montpezat,
correspondent of the deputies of the nobles, is seized, and dragged with his
son to the dwelling of the procurator-fiscal, to force him to give his
signature; the inhabitants are forbidden to render him assistance "on pain of
death and fire." "Sign," they exclaim, "or we will tear out your heart, and
set fire to this house!" At this moment the neighboring notary, who is
doubtless an accomplice, appears with a stamped paper, and says to him,
"Monsieur, I have just come from Niort, where the Third-Estate has done
the same thing to all the gentlemen of the town; one, who refused, was cut
to pieces before our eyes."—"We are compelled to sign renunciations of our
privileges, and give our assent to one and the same taxation, as if the nobles
had not already done so." The band gives notice that it will proceed in the
same fashion with all the chateaux in the vicinity, and terror precedes or
follows them. "Nobody dares write," M. Despretz sends word; "I attempt it
at the risk of my life."—Nobles and prelates become objects of suspicion
everywhere; village committees open their letters, and they have to suffer
their houses to be searched.1333 They are forced to adopt the new cockade:
to be a gentleman, and not wear it, is to deserve hanging. At Mamers, in
Maine, M. de Beauvoir refuses to wear it, and is at the point of being put
into the pillory and felled. Near La F1èche, M. de Brissac is arrested, and a
message is sent to Paris to know if he shall be taken there, "or be beheaded
in the meantime." Two deputies of the nobles, MM. de Montesson and de
Vassé who had come to ask the consent of their constituents to their joining
the Third-Estate, are recognized near Mans; their honorable scruples and
their pledges to the constituents are considered of no importance, nor even
the step that they are now taking to fulfill them; it suffices that they voted
against the Third-Estate at Versailles; the populace pursues them and breaks
up their carriages, and pillages their trunks.—Woe to the nobles, especially
if they have taken any part in local rule, and if they are opposed to popular
panics! M. Cureau, deputy-mayor of Mans,1334 had issued orders during the
famine, and, having retired to his chateau of Nouay, had told the peasants
that the announcement of the coming of brigands was a false alarm; he
thought that it was not necessary to sound the alarm bell, and all that was
necessary was that they should remain quiet. Accordingly he is set down as
being in league with the brigands, and besides this he is a monopolist, and a

buyer of standing crops. The peasants lead him off; along with his son-in-
law, M. de Montesson, to the neighboring village, where there are judges.
On the way "they dragged their victims on the ground, pummeled them,
trampled on them, spit in their faces, and besmeared them with filth." M. de
Montesson is shot, while M. Cureau is killed by degrees; a carpenter cuts
off the two heads with a double-edged ax, and children bear them along to
the sound of drums and violins. Meanwhile, the judges of the place, brought
by force, draw up an official report stating the finding of thirty louis and
several bills of the Banque d'Escompte in the pockets of M. de Cureau, on
the discovery of which a shout of triumph is set up: this evidence proves
that they were going to buy up the standing wheat!—Such is the course of
popular justice. Now that the Third-Estate has become the nation, every
mob thinks that it has the right to pronounce sentences, which it carries out,
on lives and on possessions.
These explosions are isolated in the western, central and southern
provinces; the conflagration, however, is universal in the east. On a strip of
ground from thirty to fifty leagues broad, extending from the extreme north
down to Provence. Alsace, Franche-Comté, Burgundy, Mâconnais,
Beaujolais, Auvergne, Viennois, Dauphiny, the whole of this territory
resembles a continuous mine which explodes at the same time. The first
column of flame which shoots up is on the frontiers of Alsace and Franche-
Comté, in the vicinity of Belfort and Vésoul, a feudal district, in which the
peasant, over-burdened with taxes, bears the heavier yoke with greater
impatience. An instinctive argument is going on in his mind without his
knowing it. "The good Assembly and the good King want us to be happy,
suppose we help them! They say that the King has already relieved us of the
taxes, suppose we relieve ourselves of paying rents! Down with the nobles!
They are no better than the tax-collectors!"—On the 16th of July, the
chateau of Sancy, belonging to the Princesses de Beaufremont, is sacked,
and on the 18th those of Lure, Bithaine, and Molans.1335 On the 29th, an
accident which occurs with some fire-works at a popular festival at the
house of M. de Mesmay, leads the lower class to believe that the invitation
extended to them was a trap, and that there was a desire to get rid of them
by treachery.1336 Seized with rage they set fire to the chateau, and during
the following week1337 destroy three abbeys, ruin eleven chateaux and
pillage others. "All records are destroyed, the registers and court-rolls are
carried off; and the deposits violated."—Starting from this spot, "the

hurricane of insurrection" stretches over the whole of Alsace from
Huningue to Landau.1338 The insurgents display placards, signed Louis,
stating that for a certain lapse of time they shall be permitted to exercise
justice themselves, and, in Sundgau, a well-dressed weaver, decorated with
a blue belt, passes for a prince, the King's second son. They begin by falling
on the Jews, their hereditary leeches; they sack their dwellings, divide their
money among themselves, and hunt them down like so many fallow-deer.
At Bâle alone, it is said that twelve hundred of these unfortunate fugitives
arrived with their families.—The distance between the Jew creditor and the
Christian proprietor is not great, and this is soon cleared. Remiremont is
only saved by a detachment of dragoons. Eight hundred men attack the
chateau of Uberbrünn. The abbey of Neubourg is taken by storm. At
Guebwiller, on the 31st of July, five hundred peasants, subjects of the abbey
of Murbach, make a descent on the abbot's palace and on the house of the
canons. Cupboards, chests, beds, windows, mirrors, frames, even the tiles of
the roof and the hinges of the casements are hacked to pieces: "They kindle
fires on the beautiful inlaid floors of the apartments, and there burn up the
library and the title-deeds." The abbot's superb carriage is so broken up that
not a wheel remains entire. "Wine streams through the cellars. One cask of
sixteen hundred measures is half lost; the plate and the linen are carried
off."—Society is evidently being overthrown, while with the power,
property is changing hands.
These are their very words. In Franche-Comte1339 the inhabitants of eight
communes come and declare to the Bernardins of Grâce-Dieu and of Lieu-
Croissant "that, being of the Third-Estate, it is time now for the people to
rule over abbots and monks, considering that the domination of the latter
has lasted too long," and thereupon they carry off all the titles to property
and to rentals belonging to the abbey in their commune. In Upper
Dauphiny, during the destruction of M. de Murat's chateau, a man named
Ferréol struck the furniture with a big stick, exclaiming, "Hey, so much for
you, Murat; you have been master a good while, now it's our turn!"1340
Those who rifle houses, and steal like highway robbers, think that they are
defending a cause, and reply to the challenge, "Who goes there?" "We are
for the brigand Third-Estate!"—Everywhere the belief prevails that they are
clothed with authority, and they conduct themselves like a conquering horde
under the orders of an absent general. At Remiremont and at Luxeuil they
produce an edict, stating that "all this brigandage, pillage, and destruction"

is permitted. In Dauphiny, the leaders of the bands say that they possess the
King's orders. In Auvergne, "they follow imperative orders, being advised
that such is his Majesty's will." Nowhere do we see that an insurgent village
exercises personal vengeance against its lord. If the people fire on the
nobles they encounter, it is not through personal hatred. They are destroying
the class, and do not pursue individuals. They detest feudal privileges,
holders of charters, the cursed parchments by virtue of which they are made
to pay, but not the nobleman who, when he resides at home, is of humane
intentions, compassionate, and even often beneficent. At Luxeuil, the abbot,
who is forced with uplifted ax to sign a relinquishment of his seignorial
rights over twenty-three estates, has dwelt among them for forty-six years,
and has been wholly devoted to them.1341 In the canton of Crémieu, "where
the havoc is immense," all the nobles, write the municipal officers, are
"patriots and benevolent." In Dauphiny, the engineers, magistrates, and
prelates, whose chateaux are sacked, were the first to espouse the cause of
the people and of public liberties against the ministers. In Auvergne, the
peasants themselves "manifest a good deal of repugnance to act in this way
against such kind masters." But it must be done; the only concession which
can be made in consideration of the kindness which had been extended to
them is, not to burn the chateau of the ladies of Vanes, who had been so
charitable; but they burn all their title-deeds, and torture the business agent
at three different times by fire, to force him to deliver a document which he
does not possess; they then only withdraw him from the fire half-broiled,
because the ladies, on their knees, implore mercy for him. They are like the
soldiers on a campaign who execute orders with docility, for which
necessity is the only plea, and who, without regarding themselves as
brigands, commit acts of brigandage.
But here the situation is more tragic, for it is war in the midst of peace, a
war of the brutal and barbaric multitude against the highly cultivated, well-
disposed and confiding, who had not anticipated anything of the kind, who
had not even dreamt of defending themselves, and who had no protection.
The Comte de Courtivron, with his family, was staying at the watering-
place of Luxeuil with his uncle, the Abbé of Clermont-Tonnerre, an old man
of seventy years. On the 19th of July, fifty peasants from Fougerolle break
into and demolish everything in the houses of an usher and a collector of
the excise. Thereupon the mayor of the place intimates to the nobles and
magistrates who are taking the waters, that they had better leave the house

in twenty-four hours, as "he had been advised of an intention to burn the
houses in which they were staying," and he did not wish to have Luxeuil
exposed to this danger on account of their presence there. The following
day, the guard, as obliging as the mayor, allows the band to enter the town
and to force the abbey: the usual events follow, renunciations are extorted,
records and cellars are ransacked, plate and other effects are stolen. M. de
Courtivron escaping with his uncle during the night, the alarm bell is
sounded and they are pursued, and with difficulty obtain refuge in
Plombières. The bourgeoisie of Plombières, however, for fear of
compromising themselves, oblige them to depart. On the road two hundred
insurgents threaten to kill their horses and to smash their carriage, and they
only find safety at last at Porentruy, outside of France. On his return, M. de
Courtivron is shot at by the band which has just pillaged the abbey of Lure,
and they shout out at him as he passes, "Let's massacre the nobles!"
Meanwhile, the chateau of Vauvilliers, to which his sick wife had been
carried, is devastated from top to bottom; the mob search for her
everywhere, and she only escapes by hiding herself in a hay-loft. Both are
anxious to fly into Burgundy, but word is sent them that at Dijon "the
nobles are blockaded by the people," and that, in the country, they threaten
to set their houses on fire.—There is no asylum to be had, either in their
own homes nor in the homes of others, nor in places along the roads,
fugitives being stopped in all the small villages and market-towns. In
Dauphiny1342 "the Abbess of St. Pierre de Lyon, one of the nuns, M. de
Perrotin, M. de Bellegarde, the Marquis de la Tour-du-Pin, and the
Chevalier de Moidieu, are arrested at Champier by the armed population,
led to the Côte Saint-André, confined in the town-hall, whence they send to
Grenoble for assistance," and, to have them released, the Grenoble
Committee is obliged to send commissioners. Their only refuge is in the
large cities, where some semblance of a precarious order exists, and in the
ranks of the City Guards, which march from Lyons, Dijon, and Grenoble, to
keep the inundation down. Throughout the country scattered chateaux are
swallowed up by the popular tide, and, as the feudal rights are often in
plebeian hands, it insensibly rises beyond its first overflow.—There is no
limit to an insurrection against property. This one extends from abbeys and
chateaux to the "houses of the bourgeoisie."1343 The grudge at first was
confined to the holders of charters; now it is extended to all who possess
anything. Well-to-do farmers and priests abandon their parishes and fly to

the towns. Travelers are put to ransom. Thieves, robbers, and returned
convicts, at the head of armed bands, seize whatever they can lay their
hands on. Cupidity becomes inflamed by such examples; on domains which
are deserted and in a state of confusion, where there is nothing to indicate a
master's presence, all seems to lapse to the first comer. A small farmer of
the neighborhood has carried away wine and returns the following day in
search of hay. All the furniture of a chateau in Dauphin is removed, even to
the hinges of the doors, by a large reinforcement of carts.—" It is the war of
the poor against the rich," says a deputy, "and, on the 3rd of August, the
Committee on Reports declares to the National Assembly "that no kind of
property has been spared." In Franche-Comté, "nearly forty chateaux and
seignorial mansions have been pillaged or burnt."1344 From Lancers to Gray
about three out of five chateaux are sacked. In Dauphin twenty-seven are
burned or destroyed; five in the small district of Viennese, and, besides
these, all the monasteries—nine at least in Auvergne, seventy-two, it is said,
in Mâconnais and Beaujolais, without counting those of Alsace. On the 31st
of July, Lally-Tollendal, on entering the tribune, has his hands full of letters
of distress, with a list of thirty-six chateaux burnt, demolished, or pillaged,
in one province, and the details of still worse violence against persons:1345
"in Languedoc, M. de Barras, cut to pieces in the presence of his wife
who is about to be confined, and who is dead in consequence; in Normandy,
a paralytic gentleman left on a burning pile and taken off from it with his
hands burnt; in Franche-Comté, Madame de Bathilly compelled, with an ax
over her head, to give up her title-deeds and even her estate; Madame de
Listenay forced to do the same, with a pitchfork at her neck and her two
daughters in a swoon at her feet; Comte de Montjustin, with his wife,
having a pistol at his throat for three hours; and both dragged from their
carriage to be thrown into a pond, where they are saved by a passing
regiment of soldiers; Baron de Montjustin, one of the twenty-two popular
noblemen, suspended for an hour in a well, listening to a discussion
whether he shall be dropped down or whether he should die in some other
way; the Chevalier d'Ambly, torn from his chateau and dragged naked into
the village, placed on a dung-heap after having his eyebrows and all his hair
pulled out, while the crowd kept on dancing around him."
In the midst of a disintegrated society, under the semblance only of a
government, it is manifest that an invasion is under way, an invasion of
barbarians which will complete by terror that which it has begun by

violence, and which, like the invasions of the Normans in the tenth and
eleventh centuries, ends in the conquest and dispossession of an entire class.
In vain the National Guard and the other troops that remain loyal succeed in
stemming the first torrent; in vain does the Assembly hollow out a bed for it
and strive to bank it in by fixed boundaries. The decrees of the 4th of
August and the regulations which follow are but so many spiders' webs
stretched across a torrent. The peasants, moreover, putting their own
interpretation on the decrees, convert the new laws into authority for
continuing in their course or beginning over again. No more rents, however
legitimate, however legal!
"Yesterday,"1346 writes a gentleman of Auvergne, we were notified that
the fruit-tithe (percières) would no longer be paid, and that the example of
other provinces was only being followed which no longer, even by royal
order, pay tithes." In Franche-Comté "numerous communities are satisfied
that they no longer owe anything either to the King or to their lords. . . . The
villages divide amongst themselves the fields and woods belonging to the
nobles."—
It must be noted that charter-holding and feudal titles are still intact in
three-fourths of France, that it is the interest of the peasant to ensure their
disappearance, and that he is always armed. To secure a new outbreak of
jacqueries, it is only necessary that central control, already thrown into
disorder, should be withdrawn. This is the work of Versailles and of Paris;
and there, at Paris as well as at Versailles, some, through lack of foresight
and infatuation, and others, through blindness and indecision—the latter
through weakness and the former through violence—all are laboring to
accomplish it.

1301 (return)
[ Dusaulx, 374. "I remarked that if there were a few among
the people at that time who dared commit crime, there were
several who wished it, and that every one endured it."—"
Archives Nationales," DXXIX, 3. (Letter of the municipal
authorities of Crémieu, Dauphiny, November 3, 1789.) "The
care taken to lead them first to the cellars and to intoxicate
them, can alone give a conception of the incredible excesses
of rage to which they gave themselves up in the sacking and
burning of the chateaux."]
1302 (return)
[ Mercure de France, January 4, 1792. ("Revue politique de
l'année 1791," by Mallet du Pan.)]

1303 (return)
[ Albert Babeau, I. 206. (Letter of the deputy Camuzet de
Belombre, August 22, 1789.) The executive power is
absolutely gone to-day."—Gouverneur Morris, letter of July
31, 1789: "This country is now as near in a state of anarchy
as it is possible for a community to be without breaking
up."]
1304 (return)
[ "Archives Nationales," H. 1453. Letter of M. Amelot, July
24th; H. 784, of M. de Langeron, October 16th and 18th.—
KK. 1105. correspondence of M. de Thiard, October 7th and
30th, September 4th.—Floquet, VII. 527, 555.—Guadet,
"Histoire des Girondins" (July 29, 1789).]
1305 (return)
[ M. de Rochambeau, "Mémoires," I. 353 (July 18th).—
Sauzay, "Histoire de la Persécution Révolutionnaire dans le
Département de Doubs," I. 128 (July 19th.)—"Archives
Nationales," F7, 3253. (Letter of the deputies of the
provincial commission of Alsace, September 8th.) D. XXIX.
I. note of M. de Latour-du-Pin, October 28, 1789.—Letter of
M. de Langeron, September 3rd; of Breitman, garde-
marteau, Val Saint-Amarin (Upper Alsace), July 26th.]
1306 (return)
[ Léonce de Lavergne, 197. (Letter of the intermediate
commission of Poitou, the last month in 1789.)—Cf. Brissot
(Le patriote français, August, 1789). "General
insubordination prevails in the provinces because the
restraints of executive power are no longer felt. What were
but lately the guarantees of that power? The intendants,
tribunals, and the army. The intendants are gone, the
tribunals are silent, and the army is against the executive
power and on the side of the people. Liberty is not a
nourishment for unprepared stomachs."]
1307 (return)
[ "Archives Nationales," D. XXIX. I. (Letter of the clergy,
consuls, présidial-councillors and principal merchants of
Puy-en-Velay, September 16, 1789.)—H. 1453. (letter of the
Intendant or Alençon, July 18th). "I must not leave you in
ignorance of the multiplied outbreaks we have in all parts of
my jurisdiction. The impunity with which they flatter
themselves, because the judges are afraid of irritating the
people by examples of severity, only emboldens them.
Mischief-makers, confounded with honest folks, spread false
reports about particular persons whom they accuse of
concealing grain, or of not belonging to the Third-Estate,
and, under this pretext, they pillage their houses, taking
whatever they can find, the owners only avoiding death by
flight."]

1308 (return)
[ A body of magistrates forming one of the lower tribunals.]
1309 (return)
[ "Archives Nationales," H. 942. (Observations of M. de
Ballainvilliers, October 30, 1789.)]
1310 (return)
[ "Archives Nationales," D, XXIX. 1. Letter of the
municipal assembly of Louviers, the end of August, 1789.—
Letter of the communal assembly of Saint-Bris (bailiwick of
Auxerre), September 25th.—Letter of the municipal officers
of Ricey-Haut, near Bar-sur-Seine, August 25th; of the
Chevalier d'Allouville, September 8th.]
1311 (return)
[ "Archives Nationales," D, XXIX. I. Letter of M. Briand-
Delessart (Angoulême, August 1st).—Of M. Bret,
Lieutenant-General of the provostship of Mardogne,
September 5th.—Of the Chevalier de Castellas (Auvergue),
September 15th (relating to the night between the 2nd and
3rd of August).—Madame Campan, II. 65.]
1312 (return)
[ Arthur Young, "Voyages in France," July 24th and 31st,
August 13th and 19th.]
1313 (return)
[ De Bouillé, 108.—"Archives Nationales," KK. 1105.
Correspondence of M. deThiard, September 20, 1789
(apropos of one hundred guns given to the town of Saint-
Brieuc). "They are not of the slightest use, but this passion
for arms is a temporary epidemic which must be allowed to
subside of itself. People are determined to believe in
brigands and in enemies, whereas neither exist."—
September 25th, "Vanity alone impels them, and the pride of
having cannon is their sole motive."]
1314 (return)
[ "Archives Nationales," H. 1453. Letters of M. Amelot, July
17th and 24th. "Several wealthy private persons of the town
(Auxonne) have been put to ransom by this band, of which
the largest portion consists of ruffians."—Letter of nine
cultivators of Breteuil (Picardy) July 23rd (their granaries
were pillaged up to the last grain the previous evening).
"They threaten to pillage our crops and set our barns on fire
as soon as they are full. M. Tassard, the notary, has been
visited in his house by the populace, and his life has been
threatened." Letter of Moreau, Procureur du Roi at the
Senechal's Court at Bar-le-Duc, September 15, 1789, D,
XXIX, 1. "On the 27th of July the people rose and most
cruelly assassinated a merchant trading in wheat. On the
27th and 28th his house and that of another were sacked,"
etc.]

1315 (return)
[ Chronicle of Dominick Schmutz ("Revue d'Alsace," V. III.
3rd series). These are his own expressions: Gesindel,
Lumpen-gesindel.—De Rochambeau, "Mémoires," I. 353.—
Arthur Young (an eye-witness), July 21st.—Of Dampmartin
(eye-witness), I. 105. M. de Rochambeau shows the usual
indecision and want of vigor: whilst the mob are pillaging
houses and throwing things out of the windows, he passes in
front of his regiments (8,000 men) drawn up for action, and
says, "My friends, my good friends, you see what is going
on. How horrible! Alas! these are your papers, your titles
and those of your parents." The soldiers smile at this
sentimental prattle.]
1316 (return)
[ Dumouriez (an eye-witness), book III. ch. 3.—The trial
was begun and judgment given by twelve lawyers and an
assessor, whom the people, in arms, had themselves
appointed.—Hippeau, IV. 382.]
1317 (return)
[ "Archives Nationales," F7 3248. (Letter of the mayor, M.
Poussiaude de Thierri, September 11th.)]
1318 (return)
[ Floquet, VII. 551.]
1319 (return)
[ De Goncourt, "La Société française pendant la
Révolution," 37.]
1320 (return)
[ "Archives Nationales," D. XXIX. 1. Letter of the officers
of the bailiwick of Dôle, August 24th.—Sauzay I. 128.]
1321 (return)
[ There is a similar occurrence at Strasbourg, a few days
after the sacking of the town-hall. The municipality having
given each man of the garrison twenty sous, the soldiers
abandon their post, set the prisoners free at the Pont-
Couvert, feast publicly in the streets with the women taken
out of the penitentiary, and force innkeepers and the keepers
of drinking-places to give up their provisions. The shops are
all closed, and, for twenty-four hours, the officers are not
obeyed. (De Dampmartin, I. 105.)]
1322 (return)
[ Albert Babeau, I. 187-273.—Moniteur, II. 379. (Extract
from the provost's verdict of November 27, 1789.)]
1323 (return)
[ Moniteur, ibid. Picard, the principal murderer, confessed
"that he had made him suffer a great deal; that the said sieur
Huez did not die until they came near the Chaudron Inn; that
he nevertheless intended to make him suffer more by
stabbing him in the neck at the corner of each street, (and)

by contriving it so that he might do it often, as long as there
was life in him; that the day on which M. Huez died yielded
him ten francs, together with the neck-buckle of M. Hues,
found on him when he was arrested in his flight."]
1324 (return)
[ Mercure de France,, September 26, 1789. Letters of the
officers of the Bourbon regiment and of members of the
general committee of Caen.—Floquet, VII. 545.]
1325 (return)
[ "Archives Nationales," H. 1453.—Ibid. D. XXIX. I. Note
of M. de la Tour-du-Pin, October 28th.]
1326 (return)
[ Decree, February 5, 1789, enforced May 1st following.]
1327 (return)
[ "Archives Nationales," D. XXIX. I. Letter of the count de
Montausier, August 8th, with notes by M. Paulian, director
of the excise (an admirable letter, modest and liberal, and
ending by demanding a pardon for people led astray).—H.
1453. Letter of the attorney of the election district of Falaise,
July 17th, etc.—Moniteur, I. 303, 387, 505 (sessions of
August 7th and 27th and of September 23rd). "The royal
revenues are diminishing steadily."—Buchez and Roux, III.
219 (session of October 24, 1789). Discourse of a deputation
from Anjou: "Sixty thousand men are armed; the barriers
have been destroyed, the clerks' horses have been sold by
auction; the employees have been told to withdraw from the
province within eight days. The inhabitants have declared
that they will not pay taxes so long as the salt-tax exists.]
1328 (return)
[ "Archives Nationales," F7 3253 (Letter of September 8,
1789).]
1329 (return)
[ Arthur Young, September 30th. "It is being said that every
rusty gun in Provence is at work, killing all sorts of birds;
the shot has fallen five or six times in my chaise and about
my ears."—Beugnot, I.142.—"Archives Nationales," D.
XXIX. I. Letter of the Chevalier d'Allonville, September 8,
1789 (Near Bar-sur-Aube). "The peasants go in armed bands
into the woods belonging to the Abbey of Trois-Fontaines,
which they cut down. They saw up the oaks and transport
them on wagons to Pont-Saint-Dizier, where they sell them.
In other places they fish in the ponds and break the
embankments."]
1330 (return)
[ "Archives Nationales," D. XXIX. 1. Letter of the assessor
of the police of Saint-Flour, October 3, 1789. On the 31st of
July, a rumor is spread that the brigands are coming. On the
1st of August the peasants arm themselves. "They amuse

themselves by drinking, awaiting the arrival of the brigands;
the excitement increases to such an extent as to make them
believe that M. le Comte d'Espinchal had arrived in disguise
the evening before at Massiac, that he was the author of the
troubles disturbing the province at this time, and that he was
concealed in his chateau." On the strength of this shots are
fired into the windows, and there are searches, etc.]
1331 (return)
[ "Archives Nationales," D, XXIX, I, Letter of Etienne
Fermier, Naveinne, September 18th (it is possible that the
author, for the sake of caution, took a fictitious name).—The
manuscript correspondence of M. Boullé, deputy of Pontivy,
to his constituents, is a type of this declamatory and
incendiary writing.—Letter of the consuls, priests, and
merchants of Puy-en-Velay, September 16th.—" The Ancient
Régime," p. 396.]
1332 (return)
[ "Archives Nationales," D. XXIX. 1. Letter of M. Despretz-
Montpezat, a former artillery officer, July 24th (with several
other signatures). On the same day the alarm bell is sounded
In fifty villages on the rumor spreading that 7,000 brigands,
English and Breton, were invading the country.]
1333 (return)
[ "Archives Nationales," D. XXIX. I. Letter of Briand-
Delessart, August 1st (domiciliary visits to the Carmelites of
Angoulême where it is pretended that Mme. de Polignac has
just arrived.—Beugnot, I. 140.—Arthur Young, July 20th,
etc.—Buchez and Roux, IV. 166. Letter of Mamers, July
24th; of Mans, July 26th.]
1334 (return)
[ Montjoie, ch. LXXII, p. 93 (according to acts of legal
procedure). There was a soldier in the band who had served
under M. de Montesson and who wanted to avenge himself
for the punishments he had undergone in the regiment.]
1335 (return)
[ Mercure de France, August 20th (Letter from Vésoul,
August 13th).]
1336 (return)
[ M. de Memmay proved his innocence later on, and was
rehabilitated by a public decision after two years'
proceedings (session of June 4, 1791; Mercure of June
11th).]
1337 (return)
[ Journal des Débats et Décrets, I. 258. (Letter of the
municipality of Vésoul, July 22nd.—Discourse of M. de
Toulougeon, July 29th.)]
1338 (return)
[ De Rochambeau, "Mémoires," I. 353.—"Archives

Nationales," F7, 3253. (Letter of M. de Rochamheau,
August 4th.)—Chronicle of Schmutz (ibid. ), p. 284.
"Archives Nationales," D. XXIX. I. (Letter of Mme.
Ferrette, of Remiremont, August 9th.)]
1339 (return)
[ Sauzay, I. 180. (Letters of monks, July 22nd and 26th.)]
1340 (return)
[ "Archives Nationales," D. XXIX. I. (Letter of M. de
Bergeron, attorney to the présidial of Valence, August 28th,
with the details of the verdict stated.) Official report of the
militia of Lyons, sent to the president of the National
Assembly, August 10th. (Expedition to Serrière, in
Dauphiny, July 31st.)]
1341 (return)
[ Letter of the Count of Courtivron, deputy substitute (an
eye-witness).—"Archives Nationales," D. XXIX. I. Letter of
the municipal officers of Crémieu (Dauphiny), November
3rd. Letter of the Vicomte de Carbonnière (Auvergne),
August 3rd.—Arthur Young, July 30th (Dijon) says, apropos
of a noble family which escaped almost naked from its
burning chateau, "they were esteemed by the neighbors;
their virtues ought to have commanded the love of the poor,
for whose resentment there was no cause."]
1342 (return)
[ "Archives Nationales," XXIX. I. (Letter of the commission
of the States of Dauphiny, July 31st.)]
1343 (return)
[ "Désastres du Mâconnais," by Puthod de la Maison-Rouge
(August, 1789). "Ravages du Mâconnais."—Arthur Young,
July 27th.—Buchez and Roux, IV. 215, 214.—Mercure de
France, September 12, 1789. (Letter by a volunteer of
Orleans.) "On the 15th of August, eighty-eight ruffians,
calling themselves reapers, present themselves at Bascon, in
Beauce, and, the next day, at a chateau in the neighborhood,
where they demand within an hour the head of the son of the
lord of the manor, M. Tassin, who can only redeem himself
by a contribution of 1,600 livres and the pillaging of his
cellars.]
1344 (return)
[ Letter of the Count de Courtivron.—Arthur Young, July
31st.—Buchez and Roux, II. 243.—Mercure de France,
August 15, 1789 (sitting of the 8th, discourse of a deputy
from Dauphiné.)—Mermet, "Histoire de la Ville de Vienne,"
445—" Archives Nationales," ibid. (Letter of the
commission of the States of Dauphiny, July 31st.)—"The list
of burnt or devastated chateaux is immense." The committee
already cites sixteen of them.—Puthod de la Maison-Rouge,
ibid.: "Were all devastated places to be mentioned, it would
be necessary to cite the whole province" (Letter from

Mâcon). "They have not the less destroyed most of the
chateaux and bourgeois dwellings, either burning them and
or else tearing them down."]
1345 (return)
[ Lally-Tollendal, "Second Letter to my Constituents," 104.]
1346 (return)
[ Doniol, "La Révolution et la Féodalité," p.60 (a few days
after the 4th of August).—"Archives Nationales," H. 784.
Letters of M. de Langeron, military commander at
Besançon, October 16th and 18th.—Ibid. , D. XXIX. I.
Letter of the same, September 3rd.—Arthur Young (in
Provence, at the house of Baron de la Tour-d'Aignes). "The
baron is an enormous sufferer by the Revolution; a great
extent of country which belonged in absolute right to his
ancestors, has been granted for quit-rents, ceus, and other
feudal payments, so that there is no comparison between the
lands retained and those thus granted by his family. . . . The
solid payments which the Assembly have declared to be
redeemable are every hour falling to nothing, without a
shadow of recompense. . . The situation of the nobility in
this country is pitiable; they are under apprehensions that
nothing will be left them, but simply such houses as the mob
allows to stand unburned; that the small farmers will retain
their farms without paying the landlord his half of the
produce; and that, in case of such a refusal, there is actually
neither law nor authority in the country to prevent it. This
chateau, splendid even in ruins, with the fortune and lives of
the owners, is at the mercy of an armed rabble."]

CHAPTER IV. PARIS.

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

The powerlessness, indeed, of the heads of the Government, and the lack
of discipline among all its subordinates, are much greater in the capital than
in the provinces.—Paris possesses a mayor, Bailly; but "from the first day,
and in the easiest manner possible,"1401 his municipal council, that is to say,
"the assembly of the representatives of the commune, has accustomed itself
to carry on the government alone, overlooking him entirely." There is a
central administration, the municipal council, presided over by the mayor;
but, "at this time, authority is everywhere except where the preponderating
authority should be; the districts have delegated it and at the same time
retained it;" each of them acts as if it were alone and supreme.—There are
secondary powers, the district-committees, each with its president, its clerk,
its offices, and commissioners; but the mobs of the street march on without
awaiting their orders; while the people, shouting under their" windows,
impose their will on them;—in short, says Bailly again, "everybody knew
how to command, but nobody knew how to obey."
"Imagine," writes Loustalot1402 himself; "a man whose feet, hands, and
limbs possessed each its own intelligence and will, whose one leg would
wish to walk when the other one wanted to rest, whose throat would close
when the stomach demanded food, whose mouth would sing when the
eyelids were weighed down with sleep; and you will have a striking picture
of the condition of things in the capital"
There are "sixty Republics"1403 in Paris; each district is an independent,
isolated power, which receives no order without criticizing it, always in
disagreement and often in conflict with the central authority or with the
other districts. It receives denunciations, orders domiciliary visits, sends
deputations to the National Assembly, passes resolutions, posts its bills, not
only in its own quarter but throughout the city, and sometimes even extends
its jurisdiction outside of Paris. Everything comes within its province, and
particularly that which ought not to do so.—On the 18th of July, the district
of Petits-Augustins1404 "decrees in its own name the establishment of

justices of the peace," under the title of tribunes, and proceeds at once to
elect its own, nominating the actor Molé. On the 30th, that of the Oratoire
annuls the amnesty which the representatives of the commune in the Hôtel-
de-Ville had granted, and orders two of its members to go to a distance of
thirty leagues to arrest M. de Bezenval. On the 19th of August, that of
Nazareth issues commissions to seize and bring to Paris the arms deposited
in strong places. From the beginning each assembly sent to the Arsenal in
its own name, and "obtained as many cartridges and as much powder as it
desired." Others claim the right of keeping a watchful eye over the Hôtel-
de-Ville and of reprimanding the National Assembly. The Oratoire decides
that the representatives of the commune shall be invited to deliberate in
public. Saint-Nicholas des Champs deliberates on the veto and begs the
Assembly to suspend its vote.—It is a strange spectacle, that of these
various authorities each contradicting and destroying the other. To-day the
Hôtel-de-Ville appropriates five loads of cloth which have been dispatched
by the Government, and the district of Saint-Gervais opposes the decision
of the Hôtel-de-Ville. To-morrow Versailles intercepts grain destined for
Paris, while Paris threatens, if it is not restored, to march on Versailles. I
omit the incidents that are ridiculous:1405 anarchy in its essence is both
tragic and grotesque, and, in this universal breaking up of things, the
capital, like the kingdom, resembles a bear-garden when it does not
resemble a Babel.
But behind all these discordant authorities the real sovereign, who is the
mob, is very soon apparent.—On the 15th of July it undertakes the
demolition of the Bastille of its own accord, and this popular act is
sanctioned; for it is necessary that appearances should be kept up; even to
give orders after the blow is dealt, and to follow when it is impossible to
lead.1406 A short time after this the collection of the octroi at the barriers is
ordered to be resumed; forty armed individuals, however, present
themselves in their district and say, that if guards are placed at the octroi
stations, "they will resist force with force, and even make use of their
cannon."—On the false rumor that arms are concealed in the Abbey of
Montmartre, the abbess, Madame de Montmorency, is accused of treachery,
and twenty thousand persons invade the monastery.—The commander of
the National Guard and the mayor are constantly expecting a riot; they
hardly dare absent themselves a day to attend the King fête at Versailles. As
soon as the multitude can assemble in the streets, an explosion is imminent.

"On rainy days," says Bailly, "I was quite at my ease."—It is under this
constant pressure that the Government is carried on; and the elect of the
people, the most esteemed magistrates, those who are in best repute, are at
the mercy of the throng who clamor at their doors. In the district of St.
Roch,1407 after many useless refusals, the General Assembly,
notwithstanding all the reproaches of its conscience and the resistance of its
reason, is obliged to open letters addressed to Monsieur, to the Duke of
Orleans, and to the Ministers of War, of Foreign Affairs, and of the Marine.
In the committee on subsistence, M. Serreau, who is indispensable and who
is confirmed by a public proclamation, is denounced, threatened, and
constrained to leave Paris. M. de la Salle, one of the strongest patriots
among the nobles, is on the point of being murdered for having signed an
order for the transport of gunpowder;1408 the multitude, in pursuit of him,
attach a rope to the nearest street-lamp, ransack the Hôtel-de-Ville, force
every door, mount into the belfry, and seek for the traitor even under the
carpet of the bureau and between the legs of the electors, and are only
stayed in their course by the arrival of the National Guard.
The people not only sentence but they execute, and, as is always the case,
blindly. At Saint-Denis, Chatel, the mayor's lieutenant, whose duty it is to
distribute flour, had reduced the price of bread at his own expense: on the
3rd of August his house is forced open at two o'clock in the morning, and he
takes refuge in a steeple; the mob follow him, cut his throat and drag his
head along the streets.—Not only do the people execute, but they pardon—
and with equal discernment. On the 11th of August, at Versailles, as a
parricide is about to be broken on the wheel, the crowd demand his release,
fly at the executioner, and set the man free.1409 Veritably this is sovereign
power like that of the oriental sovereign who arbitrarily awards life or
death! A woman who protests against this scandalous pardon is seized and
comes near being hung; for the new monarch considers as a crime whatever
is offensive to his new majesty. Again, he receives public and humble
homage. The Prime Minister, on imploring the pardon of M. de Bezenval at
the Hôtel-de-Ville, in the presence of the electors and of the public, has put
it in appropriate words:
"It is before the most unknown, the obscurest citizen of Paris that I
prostrate myself; at whose feet I kneel."

A few days before this, at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, and at Poissy, the
deputies of the National Assembly not only kneel down in words, but
actually, and for a long time, on the pavement in the street, and stretch forth
their hands, weeping, to save two lives of which only one is granted to
them.—Behold the monarch by these brilliant signs! Already do the young,
who are eager imitators of all actions that are in fashion, ape them in
miniature; during the month which follows the murder of Berthier and
Foulon, Bailly is informed that the gamins in the streets are parading about
with the heads of two cats stuck on the ends of two poles.1410

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

A pitiable monarch, whose recognized sovereignty leaves him more
miserable than he was before! Bread is always scarce, and before the
baker's doors the row of waiting people does not diminish. In vain Bailly
passes his nights with the committee on supplies; they are always in a state
of terrible anxiety. Every morning for two months there is only one or two
days' supply of flour, and often, in the evening, there is not enough for the
following morning.1411 The life of the capital depends on a convoy which is
ten, fifteen, twenty leagues off; and which may never arrive: one convoy of
twenty carts is pillaged on the 18th of July, on the Rouen road; another, on
the 4th of August, in the vicinity of Louviers. Were it not for Salis' Swiss
regiment, which, from the 14th of July to the end of September, marches
day and night as an escort, not a boat-load of grain would reach Paris from
Rouen.1412—The commissaries charged with making purchases or with
supervising the expeditions are in danger of their lives. Those who are sent
to provinces are seized, and a column of four hundred men with cannon has
to be dispatched to deliver them. The one who is sent to Rouen learns that
he will be hung if he dares to enter the place. At Mantes a mob surrounds
his cabriolet, the people regarding whoever comes there for the purpose of
carrying away grain as a public pest; he escapes with difficulty out of a
back door and returns on foot to Paris.—From the very beginning,
according to a universal rule, the fear of a short supply helps to augment the
famine. Every one lays in a stock for several days; on one occasion sixteen
loaves of four pounds each are found in an old woman's garret. The
bakings, consequently, which are estimated according to the quantity
needed for a single day, become inadequate, and the last of those who wait
at the bakers' shops for bread return home empty-handed.—On the other
hand the appropriations made by the city and the State to diminish the price
of bread simply serve to lengthen the rows of those who wait for it; the
countrymen flock in thither, and return home loaded to their villages. At
Saint-Denis, bread having been reduced to two sous the pound, none is left

for the inhabitants. To this constant anxiety add that of unemployment. Not
only is there no certainty of there being bread at the bakers' during the
coming week, but many know that they will not have money in the coming
week with which to buy bread. Now that security has disappeared and the
rights of property are shaken, work is wanting. The rich, deprived of their
feudal dues, and, in addition thereto of their rents, have reduced their
expenditure; many of them, threatened by the committee of investigation,
exposed to domiciliary visits, and liable to be informed against by their
servants, have emigrated. In the month of September M. Necker laments the
delivery of six thousand passports in fifteen days to the wealthiest
inhabitants. In the month of October ladies of high rank, refugees in Rome,
send word that their domestics should be discharged and their daughters
placed in convents. Before the end of 1789 there are so many fugitives in
Switzerland that a house, it is said, brings in more rent than it is worth as
capital. With this first emigration, which is that of the chief spendthrifts, the
Count d'Artois, Prince de Conti, Duc de Bourbon, and so many others, the
opulent foreigners have left, and, at the head of them, the Duchesse de
l'Infantado, who spent 800,000 livres a year. There are only three
Englishmen in Paris.
It used to be a city of luxury, it was the European hot-house of costly and
refined pleasures, but once the glass was broken then the delicate plants
perish, their lovers leave, and there is no employment now for the
innumerable hands which cultivated them. Fortunate are they who at the
relief works obtain a miserable sum by handling a pick-axe! "I saw," says
Bailly, "mercers, jewellers, and merchants implore the favor of being
employed at twenty sous the day." Enumerate, if you can, in one or two
recognized callings, the hands which are doing nothing:1413 1,200 hair-
dressers keep about 6,000 journeymen; 2,000 others follow the same calling
in private-houses; 6,000 lackeys do but little else than this work. The body
of tailors is composed of 2,800 masters, who have under them 5,000
workmen. "Add to these the number privately employed—the refugees in
privileged places like the abbeys of Saint-Germain and Saint-Marcel, the
vast enclosure of the Temple, that of Saint-John the Lateran, and the
Faubourg Saint-Antoine, and you will find at least 12,000 persons cutting,
fitting, and sewing." How many in these two groups are now idle! How
many others are walking the streets, such as upholsterers, lace-makers,
embroiderers, fan-makers, gilders, carnage-makers, binders, engravers, and

all the other producers of Parisian nick-nacks! For those who are still at
work how many days are lost at the doors of bakers' shops and in patrolling
as National Guards! Gatherings are formed in spite of the prohibitions of
the Hôtel-de-Ville,1414 and the crowd openly discuss their miserable
condition: 3,000 journeymen-tailors near the Colonnade, as many
journeymen-shoemakers in the Place Louis XV., the journeymen-
hairdressers in the Champs-Elysees, 4,000 domestics without places on the
approaches to the Louvre,—and their propositions are on a level with their
intelligence. Servants demand the expulsion from Paris of the Savoyards
who enter into competition with them. Journeymen-tailors demand that a
day's wages be fixed at forty sous, and that the old-clothes dealers shall not
be allowed to make new ones. The journeymen-shoemakers declare that
those who make shoes below the fixed price shall be driven out of the
kingdom. Each of these irritated and agitated crowds contains the germ of
an outbreak—and, in truth, these germs are found on every pavement in
Paris: at the relief works, which at Montmartre collect 17,000 paupers; in
the Market, where the bakers want to hang the flour commissioners, and at
the doors of the bakers, of whom two, on the 14th of September and on the
5th of October, are conducted to the lamp post and barely escape with their
lives.—In this suffering, mendicant crowd, enterprising men become more
numerous every day: they consist of deserters, and from every regiment;
they reach Paris in bands, often 250 in one day. There, "caressed and fed to
the top of their bent,"1415 having received from the National Assembly 50
livres each, maintained by the King in the enjoyment of their advance-
money, entertained by the districts, of which one alone incurs a debt of
14,000 livres for wine and sausages furnished to them, "they accustom
themselves to greater expense," to greater license, and are followed by their
companions. "During the night of the 31st of July the French Guards on
duty at Versailles abandon the custody of the King and betake themselves to
Paris, without their officers, but with their arms and baggage," that "they
may take part in the cheer which the city of Paris extends to their regiment."
At the beginning of September, 16,000 deserters of this stamp are
counted.1416 Now, among those who commit murder these are in the first
rank; and this is not surprising when we take the least account of their
antecedents, education, and habits. It was a soldier of the "Royal Croat"
who tore out the heart of Berthier. They were three soldiers of the regiment
of Provence who forced the house of Chatel at Saint-Denis, and dragged his

head through the streets. It is Swiss soldiers who, at Passy, knock down the
commissioners of police with their guns. Their headquarters are at the
Palais-Royal, amongst women whose instruments they are, and amongst
agitators from whom they receive the word of command. Henceforth, all
depends on this word, and we have only to contemplate the new popular
leaders to know what it will be.

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

Administrators and members of district assemblies, agitators of barracks,
coffee-houses, clubs and public thoroughfares, writers of pamphlets, penny-
a-liners are multiplying as fast as buzzing insects are hatched on a sultry
night. After the 14th of July thousands of jobs have become available for
released ambitions; "attorneys, notaries' clerks, artists, merchants,
shopkeepers, comedians and especially advocates;1417 each wants to be
either an officer, a director, a councillor, or a minister of the new reign;
while journals, which are established by dozens,1418 form a permanent
tribune, where speakers come to court the people to their personal
advantage." Philosophy, fallen into such hands, seems to parody itself; and
nothing equals its emptiness, unless it be its mischievousness and success.
Lawyers, in the sixty assembly districts, roll out the high-sounding dogmas
of the revolutionary catechism. This or that one, passing from the question
of a party wall to the constitution of empires, becomes the improvised
legislator, so much the more inexhaustible and the more applauded as his
flow of words, showered upon his hearers, proves to them that every
capacity and every right are naturally and legitimately theirs.
"When that man opened his mouth," says a cold-blooded witness, "we
were sure of being inundated with quotations and maxims, often apropos of
street lamp posts, or of the stall of a herb-dealer. His stentorian voice made
the vaults ring; and after he had spoken for two hours, and his breath was
completely exhausted, the admiring and enthusiastic shouts which greeted
him amounted almost to frenzy. Thus the orator fancied himself a Mirabeau,
while the spectators imagined themselves the Constituent Assembly,
deciding the fate of France."
The journals and pamphlets are written in the same style. Every brain is
filled with the fumes of conceit and of big words; the leader of the crowd is
he who raves the most, and he guides the wild enthusiasm which he
increases.

Let us consider the most popular of these chiefs; they are the green or the
dry fruit of literature, and of the bar. The newspaper is the stall which every
morning offers them for sale, and if they suit the overexcited public it is
simply owing to their acid or bitter flavor. Their empty, unpracticed minds
are wholly void of political conceptions; they have no capacity or practical
experience. Desmoulins is twenty-nine years of age, Loustalot twenty-
seven, and their intellectual ballast consists of college reminiscences,
souvenirs of the law schools, and the common-places picked up in the
houses of Raynal and his associates. As to Brissot and Marat, who are
ostentatious humanitarians, their knowledge of France and of foreign
countries consists in what they have seen through the dormer windows of
their garrets, and through utopian spectacles. In minds like these, empty or
led astray, the Contrat-Social could not fail to become a gospel; for it
reduces political science to a strict application of an elementary axiom
which relieves them of all study, and hands society over to the caprice of
the people, or, in other words, delivers it into their own hands.—Hence they
demolish all that remains of social institutions, and push on equalization
until everything is brought down to the same level.
"With my principles," writes Desmoulins,1419 "is associated the
satisfaction of putting myself where I belong, of showing my strength to
those who have despised me, of lowering to my level all whom fortune has
placed above me: my motto is that of all honest people: 'No superiors!'"
Thus, under the great name of Liberty, each vain spirit seeks its revenge
and finds its nourishment. What is sweeter and more natural than to justify
passion by theory, to be factious in the belief that this is patriotism, and to
cloak the interests of ambition with the interests of humanity?
Let us picture to ourselves these directors of public opinion as they were
three months earlier: Desmoulins, a briefless barrister, living in furnished
lodgings with petty debts, and on a few louis extracted from his relations.
Loustalot, still more unknown, was admitted the previous year to the
Parliament of Bordeaux, and has landed at Paris in search of a career.
Danton, another second-rate lawyer, coming out of a hovel in Champagne,
borrowed the money to pay his expenses, while his stinted household is
kept up only by means of a louis which is given to him weekly by his
father-in-law, who is a coffee-house keeper. Brissot, a strolling Bohemian,
formerly employee of literary pirates, has roamed over the world for fifteen

years, without bringing back with him either from England or America
anything but a coat out at elbows and false ideas; and, finally, Marat; a
writer that has been hissed, an abortive scholar and philosopher, a
misrepresenter of his own experiences, caught by the natural philosopher
Charles in the act of committing a scientific fraud, and fallen from the top
of his inordinate ambition to the subordinate post of doctor in the stables of
the Comte d'Artois.—At the present time, Danton, President of the
Cordeliers, can arrest any one he pleases in his district, and his violent
gestures and thundering voice secure to him, till something better turns up,
the government of his section of the city. A word of Marat's has just caused
Major Belzunce at Caen to be assassinated. Desmoulins announces, with a
smile of triumph, that "a large section of the capital regards him as one
among the principal instigators of the Revolution, and that many even go so
far as to say that he is the author of it." Is it to be supposed that, borne so
high by such a sudden jerk of fortune, they wish to put on the drag and
again descend? and is it not clear that they will aid with all their might the
revolt which hoists them towards the loftiest summits?—Moreover, the
brain reels at a height like this; suddenly launched in the air and feeling as if
everything was tottering around them, they utter exclamations of
indignation and terror, they see plots on all sides, imagine invisible cords
pulling in an opposite direction, and they call upon the people to cut them.
With the full weight of their inexperience, incapacity, and improvidence, of
their fears, credulity, and dogmatic obstinacy, they urge on popular attacks,
and their newspaper articles or discourses are all summed up in the
following phrases:
"Fellow-citizens, you, the people of the lower class, you who listen to
me, you have enemies in the Court and the aristocracy. The Hôtel-de-Ville
and the National Assembly are your servants. Seize your enemies with a
strong hand, and hang them, and let your servants know that they must
quicken their steps!"
Desmoulins styles himself "District-attorney of the gallows,"1420 and if
he at all regrets the murders of Foulon and Berthier, it is because this too
expeditious judgment has allowed the proofs of conspiracy to perish,
thereby saving a number of traitors: he himself mentions twenty of them
haphazard, and little does he care whether he makes mistakes.

"We are in the dark, and it is well that faithful dogs should bark, even at
all who pass by, so that there may be no fear of robbers."
From this time forth Marat1421 denounces the King, the ministers, the
administration, the bench, the bar, the financial system and the academies,
all as "suspicious;" at all events the people only suffer on their account.
"The Government is monopolizing grain, to make us to pay through the
nose for a poisonous bread."
The Government, again, through a new conspiracy is about to blockade
Paris, so as to starve it with greater ease. Utterances of this kind, at such a
time, are firebrands thrown upon fear and hunger to kindle the flames of
rage and cruelty. To this frightened and fasting crowd the agitators and
newspaper writers continue to repeat that it must act, and act alongside of
the authorities, and, if need be, against them. In other words, We will do as
we please; we are the sole legitimate masters;
"in a well-constituted government, the people as a body are the real
sovereign: our delegates are appointed only to execute our orders; what
right has the clay to rebel against the potter?"
On the strength of such principles, the tumultuous club which occupies
the Palais-Royal substitutes itself for the Assembly at Versailles. Has it not
all the titles for this office? The Palais-Royal "saved the nation" on the 12th
and 13th of July. The Palais-Royal, "through its spokesmen and pamphlets,"
has made everybody and even the soldiers "philosophers." It is the house of
patriotism, "the rendezvous of the select among the patriotic," whether
provincials or Parisians, of all who possess the right of suffrage, and who
cannot or will not exercise it in their own district. "It saves time to come to
the Palais-Royal. There is no need there of appealing to the President for the
right to speak, or to wait one's time for a couple of hours. The orator
proposes his motion, and, if it finds supporters, mounts a chair. If he is
applauded, it is put into proper shape. If he is hissed, he goes away. This
was the way of the Romans." Behold the veritable National Assembly! It is
superior to the other semi-feudal affair, encumbered with "six hundred
deputies of the clergy and nobility," who are so many intruders and who
"should be sent out into the galleries."—Hence the pure Assembly rules the
impure Assembly, and "the Café Foy lays claim to the government of
France."

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

On the 30th of July, the harlequin who led the insurrection at Rouen
having been arrested, "it is openly proposed at the Palais Royal1422 to go in
a body and demand his release."—On the 1st of August, Thouret, whom the
moderate party of the Assembly have just made President, is obliged to
resign; the Palais-Royal threatens to send a band and murder him along
with those who voted for him, and lists of proscriptions, in which several of
the deputies are inscribed, begin to be circulated.—From this time forth, on
all great questions-the abolition of the feudal system, the suppression of
tithes, a declaration of the rights of man, the dispute about the Chambers,
the King's power of veto,1423 the pressure from without inclines the
balance: in this way the Declaration of Rights, which is rejected in secret
session by twenty-eight bureaus out of thirty, is forced through by the
tribunes in a public sitting and passed by a majority.—Just as before the
14th of July, and to a still greater extent, two kinds of compulsion influence
the votes, and it is always the ruling faction which employs both its hands
to throttle its opponents. On the one hand this faction takes post on the
galleries in knots composed nearly always of the same persons, "five or six
hundred permanent actors," who yell according to understood signals and at
the word of command.1424 Many of these are French Guards, in civilian
clothes, and who relieve each other: previously they have asked of their
favorite deputy "at what hour they must come, whether all goes on well,
and whether he is satisfied with those fools of parsons (calotins) and the
aristocrats." Others consist of low women under the command of Théroigne
de Méricourt, a virago courtesan, who assigns them their positions and
gives them the signal for hooting or for applause. Publicly and in full
session, on the occasion of the debate on the veto, "the deputies are
applauded or insulted by the galleries according as they utter the word
'suspensive,' or the word 'indefinite.' "Threats," (says one of them)
"circulated; I heard them on all sides around me." These threats are repeated

on going out: "Valets dismissed by their masters, deserters, and women in
rags," threaten the refractory with the lamp post, "and thrust their fists in
their faces. In the hall itself, and much more accurately than before the 14th
of July, their names are taken down, and the lists, handed over to the
populace," travel to the Palais-Royal, from where they are dispatched in
correspondence and in newspapers to the provinces.1425—Thus we see the
second means of compulsion; each deputy is answerable for his vote, at
Paris, with his own life, and, in the province, with those of his family.
Members of the former Third-Estate avow that they abandon the idea of two
Chambers, because "they are not disposed to get their wives' and children's
throats cut." On the 30th of August, Saint-Hurugue, the most noisy of the
Palais-Royal barkers, marches off to Versailles, at the head of 1,500 men, to
complete the conversion of the Assembly. This garden club indeed, from the
heights of its great learning, integrity, and immaculate reputation, decides
that the ignorant, corrupt, and doubtful deputies must be got rid of." That
they are such cannot be questioned, because they defend the royal sanction;
there are over 600 and more, 120 are deputies of the communes, who must
be expelled to begin with, and then must be brought to judgment.1426 In the
meantime they are informed, as well as the Bishop of Langres, President of
the National Assembly, that "15,000 men are ready to light up their
chateaux and in particular yours, sir." To avoid all mistake, the secretaries
of the Assembly are informed in writing that '2,000 letters" will be sent into
the provinces to denounce to the people the conduct of the malignant
deputies: "Your houses are held as a surety for your opinions: keep this in
mind, and save yourselves!" At last, on the morning of the 1st of August,
five deputations from the Palais-Royal, one of them led by Loustalot, march
in turn to the Hôtel-de-Ville, insisting that the drums should be beaten and
the citizens be called together for the purpose of changing the deputies, or
their instructions, and of ordering the National Assembly to suspend its
discussion on the veto until the districts and provinces could give
expression to their will: the people, in effect, alone being sovereign, and
alone competent, always has the right to dismiss or instruct anew its
servants, the deputies. On the following day, August 2nd, to make matters
plainer, new delegates from the same Palais-Royal suit gestures to words;
they place two fingers on their throats, on being introduced before the
representatives of the commune, as a hint that, if the latter do not obey, they
will be hung.

After this it is vain for the National Assembly to make any show of
indignation, to declare that it despises threats, and to protest its
independence; the impression is already produced. "More than 300
members of the communes," says Mounier, "had decided to support the
absolute veto." At the end of ten days most of these had gone over, several
of them through attachment to the King, because they were afraid of "a
general uprising," and "were not willing to jeopardize the lives of the royal
family." But concessions like these only provoke fresh extortions. The
politicians of the street now know by experience the effect of brutal
violence on legal authority. Emboldened by success and by impunity, they
reckon up their strength and the weakness of the latter. One blow more, and
they are undisputed masters. Besides, the issue is already apparent to clear-
sighted men. When the agitators of the public thoroughfares, and the porters
at the street-corners, convinced of their superior wisdom, impose decrees by
the strength of their lungs, of their fists, and of their pikes, at that moment
experience, knowledge, good sense, cool-blood, genius, and judgment,
disappear from human affairs, and things revert back to chaos. Mirabeau, in
favor of the veto for life, saw the crowd imploring him with tears in their
eyes to change his opinion:
"Monsieur le Comte, if the King obtains this veto, what will be the use of
a National Assembly? We shall all be slaves "1427
Outbursts of this description are not to be resisted, and all is lost.
Already, near the end of September, the remark applies which Mirabeau
makes to the Comte de la Marck:
"Yes, all is lost; the King and Queen will be swept away, and you will see
the populace trampling on their lifeless bodies."
Eight days after this, on the 5th and 6th of October, it breaks out against
both King and Queen, against the National Assembly and the Government,
against all government present and to come; the violent party which rules in
Paris obtains possession of the chiefs of France to hold them under strict
surveillance, and to justify its intermittent outrages by one permanent
outrage.

V.—The 5th and 6th of October.
Once more, two different currents combine into one torrent to hurry the
crowd onward to a common end.—On the one hand are the cravings of the
stomach, and women excited by the famine:
"Now that bread cannot be had in Paris, let us go to Versailles and
demand it there; once we have the King, Queen, and Dauphin in the midst
of us, they will be obliged to feed us;" we will bring back "the Baker, the
Bakeress, and the Baker's boy." —On the other hand, there is fanaticism,
and men who are pushed on by the need to dominate.
"Now that our chiefs yonder disobey us,—let us go and make them obey
us forthwith; the King is quibbling over the Constitution and the Rights of
Man—make him approve them; his guards refuse to wear our cockade—
make them accept it; they want to carry him off to Metz—make him come
to Paris, here, under our eyes and in our hands, he, and the lame Assembly
too, will march straight on, and quickly, whether they like it or not, and
always on the right road."—Under this confluence of ideas the expedition is
arranged.1428 Ten days before this, it is publicly alluded to at Versailles. On
the 4th of October, at Paris, a woman proposes it at the Palais-Royal;
Danton roars at the Cordeliers; Marat, "alone, makes as much noise as the
four trumpets on the Day of Judgment." Loustalot writes that a second
revolutionary paroxysm is necessary." "The day passes," says Desmoulins,
"in holding councils at the Palais-Royal, and in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine,
on the ends of the bridges, and on the quays... in pulling off the cockades of
but one color.... These are torn off and trampled under foot with threats of
the lamp post, in case of fresh offense; a soldier who is trying to refasten
his, changes his mind on seeing a hundred sticks raised against him."1429
These are the premonitory symptoms of a crisis; a huge ulcer has formed in
this feverish, suffering body, and it is about to break.
But, as is usually the case, it is a purulent concentration of the most
poisonous passions and the foulest motives. The vilest of men and women
were engaged in it. Money was freely distributed. Was it done by intriguing
subalterns who, playing upon the aspirations of the Duke of Orleans,
extracted millions from him under the pretext of making him lieutenant-

general of the kingdom? Or is it due to the fanatics who, from the end of
April, clubbed together to debauch the soldiery, and stir up a body of
ruffians for the purpose of leveling and destroying everything around them?
1430 There are always Machiavellis of the highways and of houses of ill-
fame ready to excite the foul and the vile of both sexes. On the first day that
the Flemish regiment goes into garrison at Versailles an attempt is made to
corrupt it with money and women. Sixty abandoned women are sent from
Paris for this purpose, while the French Guards come and treat their new
comrades. The latter have been treated at the Palais-Royal, while three of
them, at Versailles, exclaim, showing some crown pieces of six livres,
"What a pleasure it is to go to Paris! one always comes back with money!"
In this way, resistance is overcome beforehand. As to the attack, women are
to be the advanced guard, because the soldiers will scruple to fire at them;
their ranks, however, will be reinforced by a number of men disguised as
women. On looking closely at them they are easily recognized,
notwithstanding their rouge, by their badly-shaven beards, and by their
voices and gait.1431 No difficulty has been found in obtaining men and
women among the prostitutes of the Palais-Royal and the military deserters
who serve them as bullies. It is probable that the former lent their lovers the
cast-off dresses they had to spare. At night all will meet again at the
common rendezvous, on the benches of the National Assembly, where they
are quite as much at home as in their own houses.1432—In any event, the
first band which marches out is of this stamp, displaying the finery and the
gaiety of the profession; "most of them young, dressed in white, with
powdered hair and a sprightly air;" many of them "laughing, singing, and
drinking," as they would do at setting out for a picnic in the country. Three
or four of them are known by name—one brandishing a sword, and another,
the notorious Théroigne. Madeleine Chabry Louison, who is selected to
address the King, is a pretty grisette who sells flowers, and, no doubt,
something else, at the Palais-Royal. Some appear to belong to the first rank
in their calling, and to have tact and the manners of society—suppose, for
instance, that Champfort and Laclos sent their mistresses. To these must be
added washerwomen, beggars, bare-footed women, and fishwomen,
enlisted for several days before and paid accordingly. This is the first
nucleus, and it keeps on growing; for, by compulsion or consent, the troop
incorporates into it, as it passes along, all the women it encounters—
seamstresses, portresses, housekeepers, and even respectable females,

whose dwellings are entered with threats of cutting off their hair if they do
not fall in. To these must be added vagrants, street-rovers, ruffians and
robbers—the lees of Paris, which accumulate and come to the surface every
time agitation occurs: they are to be found already at the first hour, behind
the troop of women at the Hôtel-de-Ville. Others are to follow during the
evening and in the night. Others are waiting at Versailles. Many, both at
Paris and Versailles, are under pay: one, in a dirty whitish vest, chinks gold
and silver coin in his hand.—Such is the foul scum which, both in front and
in the rear, rolls along with the popular tide; whatever is done to stem the
torrent, it widens out and will leave its mark at every stage of its overflow.
The first troop, consisting of four or five hundred women, begin
operations by forcing the guard of the Hôtel-de-Ville, which is unwilling to
make use of its bayonets. They spread through the rooms and try to burn all
the written documents they can find, declaring that there has been nothing
but scribbling since the Revolution began.1433 A crowd of men follow after
them, bursting open doors, and pillaging the magazine of arms. Two
hundred thousand francs in Treasury notes are stolen or disappear; several
of the ruffians set fire to the building, while others hang an abbé. The abbé
is cut down, and the fire extinguished only just in time: such are the
interludes of the popular drama. In the meantime, the crowd of women
increases on the Place de Grève, always with the same unceasing cry,
"Bread!" and "To Versailles!" One of the conquerors of the Bastille; the
usher Maillard, offers himself as a leader. He is accepted, and taps his drum;
on leaving Paris, he has seven or eight thousand women with him, and, in
addition, some hundreds of men; by dint of remonstrances, he succeeds in
maintaining some kind of order amongst this rabble as far as Versailles.—
But it is a rabble notwithstanding, and consequently so much brute force, at
once anarchical and imperious. On the one hand, each, and the worst among
them, does what he pleases—which will be quite evident this very evening.
On the other hand, its ponderous mass crushes all authority and overrides
all rules and regulations—which is at once apparent on reaching Versailles.
—Admitted into the Assembly, at first in small numbers, the women crowd
against the door, push in with a rush, fill the galleries, then the hall, the men
along with them, armed with clubs, halberds, and pikes, all pell-mell, side
by side with the deputies, taking possession of their benches, voting along
with them, and gathering about the President, who, surrounded, threatened,
and insulted, finally abandons the position, while his chair is taken by a

woman.1434 A fishwoman commands in a gallery, and about a hundred
women around her shout or keep silence at her bidding, while she interrupts
and abuses the deputies:
"Who is that speaker there? Silence that blabbermouth; he does not know
what he is talking about. The question is how to get bread. Let papa
Mirabeau speak—we want to hear him."
A decree on subsistence having been passed, the leaders demand
something in addition; they must be allowed to enter all places where they
suspect any monopolizing to be going on, and the price of "bread must be
fixed at six sous the four pounds, and meat at six sous per pound."
"You must not think that we are children to be played with. We are ready
to strike. Do as you are bidden."
All their political injunctions emanate from this central idea. And further:
"Send back the Flemish regiment—it is a thousand men more to feed,
and they take bread out of our mouths."—"Punish the aristocrats, who
hinder the bakers from baking." "Down with the skull-cap; the priests are
the cause of our trouble!"—"Monsieur Mounier, why did you advocate that
villainous veto? Beware of the lamp post!"
Under this pressure, a deputation of the Assembly, with the President at
its head, sets out on foot, in the mud, through the rain, and watched by a
howling escort of women and men armed with pikes: after five hours of
waiting and entreaty, it wrings from the King, besides the decree on
subsistence, about which there was no difficulty, the acceptance, pure and
simple, of the Declaration of Rights, and his sanction to the constitutional
articles.—Such is the independence of the King and the Assembly.1435 Thus
are the new principles of justice established, the grand outlines of the
Constitution, the abstract axioms of political truth under the dictatorship of
a crowd which extorts not only blindly, but which is half-conscious of its
blindness.
"Monsieur le President," some among the women say to Mounier, who
returns with the Royal sanction, "will it be of any real use to us? will it give
poor folks bread in Paris?"
Meanwhile, the scum has been bubbling up around the chateau; and the
abandoned women subsidized in Paris are pursuing their calling.1436 They
slip through into the lines of the regiment drawn on the square, in spite of

the sentinels. Théroigne, in an Amazonian red vest, distributes money
among them.
"Side with us," some say to the men; "we shall soon beat the King's
Guards, strip off their fine coats and sell them."
Others lie sprawling on the ground, alluring the soldiers, and make such
offers as to lead one of them to exclaim, "We are going to have a jolly time
of it!" Before the day is over, the regiment is seduced; the women have,
according to their own idea, acted for a good motive. When a political idea
finds its way into such heads, instead of ennobling them, it becomes
degraded there; its only effect is to let loose vices which a remnant of
modesty still keeps in subjection, and full play is given to luxurious or
ferocious instincts under cover of the public good.—The passions,
moreover, become intensified through their mutual interaction; crowds,
clamor, disorder, longings, and fasting, end in a state of frenzy, from which
nothing can issue but dizzy madness and rage.—This frenzy began to show
itself on the way. Already, on setting out, a woman had exclaimed,
"We shall bring back the Queen's head on the end of a pike!"1437
On reaching the Sèvres bridge others added,
"Let us cut her throat, and make cockades of her entrails!"
Rain is falling; they are cold, tired, and hungry, and get nothing to eat but
a bit of bread, distributed at a late hour, and with difficulty, on the Place
d'Armes. One of the bands cuts up a slaughtered horse, roasts it, and
consumes it half raw, after the manner of savages. It is not surprising that,
under the names of patriotism and "justice," savage ideas spring up in their
minds against "members of the National Assembly who are not with the
principles of the people," against "the Bishop of Langres, Mounier, and the
rest." One man in a ragged old red coat declares that "he must have the head
of the Abbé Maury to play nine-pins with." But it is especially against the
Queen, who is a woman, and in sight, that the feminine imagination is the
most aroused.
"She alone is the cause of the evils we endure.... she must be killed, and
quartered." —Night advances; there are acts of violence, and violence
engenders violence.
"How glad I should be," says one man, "if I could only lay my hand on
that she-devil, and strike off her head on the first curbstone!"

Towards morning, some cry out,
"Where is that cursed cat? We must eat her heart out... We'll take off her
head, cut her heart out, and fry her liver!" —With the first murders the
appetite for blood has been awakened; the women from Paris say that "they
have brought tubs to carry away the stumps of the Royal Guards," and at
these words others clap their hands. Some of the riffraff of the crowd
examine the rope of the lamp post in the court of the National Assembly,
and judging it not to be sufficiently strong, are desirous of supplying its
place with another "to hang the Archbishop of Paris, Maury, and
d'Espréménil."—This murderous, carnivorous rage penetrates even among
those whose duty it is to maintain order, one of the National Guard being
heard to say that "the body-guards must be killed to the last man, and their
hearts torn out for a breakfast."
Finally, towards midnight, the National Guard of Paris arrives; but it only
adds one insurrection to another, for it has likewise mutinied against its
chiefs.1438
"If M. de Lafayette is not disposed to accompany us," says one of the
grenadiers, "we will take an old grenadier for our commander."
Having come to this decision, they sought the general at the Hôtel-de-
Ville, and the delegates of six of the companies made their instructions
known to him.
"General, we do not believe that you are a traitor, but we think that the
Government is betraying us.... The committee on subsistence is deceiving
us, and must be removed. We want to go to Versailles to exterminate the
body-guard and the Flemish regiment who have trampled on the national
cockade. If the King of France is too feeble to wear his crown, let him take
it off; we will crown his son and things will go better."
In vain Lafayette refuses, and harangues them on the Place de Grève; in
vain he resists for hours, now addressing them and now imposing silence.
Armed bands, coming from the Faubourgs Saint-Antoine and Saint-
Marceau, swell the crowd; they take aim at him; others prepare the lamp-
post. He then dismounts and endeavors to return to the Hôtel-de-Ville, but
his grenadiers bar the way:
"Morbleu, General, you will stay with us; you will not abandon us!"

Being their chief it is pretty plain that he must follow them; which is also
the sentiment of the representatives of the commune at the Hôtel-de-Ville,
who send him their authorization, and even the order to march, "seeing that
it is impossible for him to refuse."
Fifteen thousand men thus reach Versailles, and in front of and along
with them thousands of ruffians, protected by the darkness. On this side the
National Guard of Versailles, posted around the chateau, together with the
people of Versailles, who bar the way against vehicles, have closed up every
outlet.1439 The King is prisoner in his own palace, he and his, with his
ministers and his court, and with no defense. For, with his usual optimism,
he has confided the outer posts of the chateau to Lafayette's soldiers, and,
through a humanitarian obstinacy which he is to maintain up to the last,1440
he has forbidden his own guards to fire on the crowd, so that they are only
there for show. With common right in his favor, the law, and the oath which
Lafayette had just obliged his troops to renew, what could he have to fear?
What could be more effective with the people than trust in them and
prudence? And by playing the sheep one is sure of taming brutes!
From five o'clock in the morning they prowl around the palace-railings.
Lafayette, exhausted with fatigue, has taken an hour's repose,1441 which
hour suffices for them.1442 A populace armed with pikes and clubs, men and
women, surrounds a squad of eighty-eight National Guards, forces them to
fire on the King's Guards, bursts open a door, seizes two of the guards and
chops their heads off. The executioner, who is a studio model, with a heavy
beard, stretches out his blood-stained hands and glories in the act; and so
great is the effect on the National Guard that they move off; through
sensibility, in order not to witness such sights: such is the resistance! In the
meantime the crowd invade the staircases, beat down and trample on the
guards they encounter, and burst open the doors with imprecations against
the Queen. The Queen runs off; just in time, in her underclothes; she takes
refuge with the King and the rest of the royal family, who have in vain
barricaded themselves in the oeil-de-Boeuf, a door of which is broken in:
here they stand, awaiting death, when Lafayette arrives with his grenadiers
and saves all that can be saved—their lives, and nothing more. For, from the
crowd huddled in the marble court the shout rises, "To Paris with the King!"
a command to which the King submits.

Now that the great hostage is in their hands, will they deign to accept the
second one? This is doubtful. On the Queen approaching the balcony with
her son and daughter, a howl arises of "No children!" They want to have her
alone in the sights of their guns, and she understands that. At this moment
M. de Lafayette, throwing the shield of his popularity over her, appears on
the balcony at her side and respectfully kisses her hand. The reaction is
instantaneous in this over-excited crowd. Both the men and especially the
women, in such a state of nervous tension, readily jump from one extreme
to another, rage bordering on tears. A portress, who is a companion of
Maillard's,1443 imagines that she hears Lafayette promise in the Queen's
name "to love her people and be as much attached to them as Jesus Christ to
his Church." People sob and embrace each other; the grenadiers shift their
caps to the heads of the body-guard. Everything will be fine: "the people
have won their King back."—Nothing is to be done now but to rejoice; and
the cortege moves on. The royal family and a hundred deputies, in
carriages, form the center, and then comes the artillery, with a number of
women bestriding the cannons; next, a convoy of flour. Round about are the
King's Guards, each with a National Guard mounted behind him; then
comes the National Guard of Paris, and after them men with pikes and
women on foot, on horseback, in cabs, and on carts; in front is a band
bearing two severed heads on the ends of two poles, which halts at a
hairdresser's, in Sèvres, to have these heads powdered and curled;1444 they
are made to bow by way of salutation, and are daubed all over with cream;
there are jokes and shouts of laughter; the people stop to eat and drink on
the road, and oblige the guards to clink glasses with them; they shout and
fire salvos of musketry; men and women hold each other's hands and sing
and dance about in the mud.—Such is the new fraternity: a funeral
procession of legal and legitimate authorities, a triumph of brutality over
intelligence, a murderous and political Mardi-gras, a formidable
masquerade which, preceded by the insignia of death, drags along with it
the heads of France, the King, the ministers, and the deputies, that it may
constrain them to rule to until according to its frenzy, that it may hold them
under its them pikes until it is pleased to slaughter them.

VI.—The Government and the nation in the
hands of the revolutionary party.
This time there can be no mistake: the Reign of Terror is fully and firmly
established. On this very day the mob stops a vehicle, in which it hopes to
find M. de Virieu, and declares, on searching it, that "they are looking for
the deputy to massacre him, as well as others of whom they have a list."1445
Two days afterwards the Abbé Grégoire tells the National Assembly that not
a day passes without ecclesiastics being insulted in Paris, and pursued with
"horrible threats." Malouet is advised that "as soon as guns are distributed
among the militia, the first use made of them will be to get rid of those
deputies who are bad citizens," and among others of the Abbé Maury. "The
moment I stepped out into the streets," writes Mounier, "I was publicly
followed. It was a crime to be seen in my company. Wherever I happened to
go, along with two or three of my companions, it was stated that an
assembly of aristocrats was forming. I had become such an object of terror
that they threatened to set fire to a country-house where I had passed
twenty-four hours; and, to relieve their minds, a promise had to be given
that neither myself nor my friends should be again received into it." In one
week five or six hundred deputies have their passports1446 made out, and
hold themselves ready to depart. During the following month one hundred
and twenty give in their resignations, or no longer appear in the Assembly.
Mounier, Lally-Tollendal, the Bishop of Langres, and others besides, quit
Paris, and afterwards France. Mallet du Pan writes, "Opinion now dictates
its judgment with steel in hand. Believe or die is the anathema which
vehement spirits pronounce, and this in the name of Liberty. Moderation
has become a crime." After the 7th of October, Mirabeau says to the Comte
de la Marck:
"If you have any influence with the King or the Queen, persuade them
that they and France are lost if the royal family does not leave Paris. I am
busy with a plan for getting them away."
He prefers everything to the present situation, "even civil war;" for "war,
at least, invigorates the soul," while here, "under the dictatorship of

demagogues, we are being drowned in slime." Given up to itself, Paris, in
three months, "will certainly be a hospital, and, perhaps, a theater of
horrors." Against the rabble and its leaders, it is essential that the King
should at once coalesce "with his people," that he should go to Rouen,
appeal to the provinces, provide a Centre for public opinion, and, if
necessary, resort to armed resistance. Malouet, on his side, declares that
"the Revolution, since the 5th of October, "horrifies all sensible men, and
every party, but that it is complete and irresistible." Thus the three best
minds that are associated with the Revolution—those whose verified
prophecies attest genius or good sense; the only ones who, for two or three
years, and from week to week, have always predicted wisely, and who have
employed reason in their demonstrations—these three, Mallet du Pan,
Mirabeau, Mabuet, agree in their estimate of the event, and in measuring its
consequences. The nation is gliding down a declivity, and no one possesses
the means or the force to arrest it. The King cannot do it: "undecided and
weak beyond all expression, his character resembles those oiled ivory balls
which one vainly strives to keep together."1447 And as for the Assembly,
blinded, violated, and impelled on by the theory it proclaims, and by the
faction which supports it, each of its grand decrees only renders its fall the
more precipitate.

1401 (return)
[ Bailly, "Mémoires," II. 195, 242.]
1402 (return)
[ Elysée Loustalot, journalist, editor of the paper
"Révolutions de Paris," was a young lawyer who had shown
a natural genius for innovative journalism. He was to die
already in 1790. (SR.)]
1403 (return)
[ Montjoie, ch. LXX, p. 65.]
1404 (return)
[ Bailly, II. 74, 174, 242, 261, 282, 345, 392.]
1405 (return)
[ Such as domiciliary visits and arrests apparently made by
lunatics. ("Archives de la Préfecture de Police de Paris.")—
And Montjoie, ch. LXX. p.67. Expedition of the National
Guard against imaginary brigands who are cutting down the
crops at Montmorency and the volley fired in the air.—
Conquest of Ile-Adam and Chantilly.]
1406 (return)
[ Bailly, II. 46, 95, 232, 287, 296.]

1407 (return)
[ "Archives de la Préfecture de Police," minutes of the
meeting of the section of Butte des Moulins, October 5,
1789.]
1408 (return)
[ Bailly, II. 224.—Dusaulx, 418, 202, 257, 174, 158. The
powder transported was called poudre de traite (transport);
the people understood it as poudre de traître (traitor). M. de
la Salle was near being killed through the addition of an r. It
is he who had taken command of the National Guard on the
13th of July.]
1409 (return)
[ Floquet, VII. 54. There is the same scene at Granville, in
Normandy, on the 16th of October. A woman had
assassinated her husband, while a soldier who was her lover
is her accomplice; the woman was about to be hung and the
man broken on the wheel, when the populace shout, "The
nation has the right of pardon," upset the scaffold, and save
the two assassins.]
1410 (return)
[ Bailly, II. 274 (August 17th).]
1411 (return)
[ Bailly, II, 83, 202, 230, 235, 283, 299.]
1412 (return)
[ Mercure de France, the number for September 26th.—De
Goncourt, p. 111.]
1413 (return)
[ Mercier, "Tableau de Paris," I, 58; X. 151.]
1414 (return)
[ De Ferrières, I. 178.—Buchez and Roux, II. 311, 316.—
Bai11y, II. 104, 174, 207, 246, 257, 282.]
1415 (return)
[ Mercure de France, September 5th, 1789. Horace
Walpole's Letters, September 5, 1789.—M. de Lafayette,
"Mémoires," I. 272. During the week following the 14th of
July, 6,000 soldiers deserted and went over to the people,
besides 400 and 800 Swiss Guards and six battalions of the
French Guards, who remain without officers, and do as they
please. Vagabonds from the neighboring villages flock in,
and there are more than "30,000 strangers and vagrants" in
Paris.]
1416 (return)
[ Bailly, II. 282. The crowd of deserters was so great that
Lafayette was obliged to place a guard at the barriers to keep
them from entering the city. "Without this precaution the
whole army would have come in."]

1417 (return)
[ De Ferrières, I. 103.—De Lavalette, I. 39.—Bailly, I. 53
(on the lawyers). "It may be said that the success of the
Revolution is due to this class."—Marmontel, II. 243 "Since
the first elections of Paris, in 1789, I remarked," he says,
"this species of restless intriguing men, contending with
each other to be heard, impatient to make themselves
prominent....It is well known what interest this body (the
lawyers) had to change Reform into Revolution, the
Monarchy into a Republic; the object was to organize for
itself a perpetual aristocracy."—Buchez and Roux, II. 358
(article by C. Desmoulins). "In the districts everybody
exhausts his lungs and his time in trying to be president,
vice-president, secretary or vice-secretary"]
1418 (return)
[ Eugène Hatin, "Histoire de la Presse," vol. V. p. 113. "Le
Patriote français" by Brissot, July 28, 1789.—"L'Ami du
Peuple," by Marat, September 12, 1789.—"Annales
patriotiques et littéraires," by Carra and Mercier, October 5,
1789,—"Les Révolutions de Paris," chief editor Loustalot,
July 17th, 1789.—"Le Tribun du peuple," letters by (middle
of 1789).—"Révolutions de France et de Brabant," by C.
Desmoulins, November 28, 1789; his "France libre" (I
believe of the month of August, and his "Discours de la
Lanterne" of the month of September).—"The Moniteur"
does not make its appearance until November 24, 1789. In
the seventy numbers which follow, up to February 3, 1790,
the debates of the Assembly were afterwards written out,
amplified, and put in a dramatic form. All numbers anterior
to February 3, 1790, are the result of a compilation executed
in the year IV. The narrative part during the first six months
of the Revolution is of no value. The report of the sittings of
the Assembly is more exact, but should be revised sitting by
sitting and discourse by discourse for a detailed history of
the National Assembly. The principal authorities which are
really contemporary are, "Le Mercure de France," "Le
Journal de Paris," "Le point de Jour" by Barrère, the
"Courrier de Versailles," by Gorsas, the "Courrier de
Provence" by Mirabeau, the "Journal des Débats et Décrets,"
the official reports of the National assembly, the "Bulletin de
l'Asemblée Nationale," by Marat, besides the newspapers
above cited for the period following the 14th of July, and the
speeches, which are printed separately.]
1419 (return)
[ C. Desmoulins, letters of September 20th and of
subsequent dates. (He quote, a passage from Lucan in the
sense indicated).—Brissot, "Mémoires," passim.—
Biography of Danton by Robinet. (See the testimony of
Madame Roland and of Rousselin de Saint-Albin.)]

1420 (return)
[ "Discours de la Lanterne." See the epigraph of the
engraving.]
1421 (return)
[ Buchez and Roux; III. 55; article of Marat, October lst.
"Sweep all the suspected men out of the Hôtel-de-Ville. . . . .
Reduce the deputies of the communes to fifty; do not let
them remain in office more than a month or six weeks, and
compel them to transact business only in public."—And II.
412, another article by Marat.—Ibid. III. 21. An article by
Loustalot.—C. Desmoulins, "Discours de la Lanterne,"
passim.—Bailly, II. 326.]
1422 (return)
[ Mounier, "Des causes qui ont empêche les Français d'être
libre," I. 59.—Lally-Tollendal, second letter, 104.—Bailly,
II. 203.]
1423 (return)
[ De Bouillé, 207.—Lally-Tollendal, ibid, 141, 146.—
Mounier, ibid., 41, 60.]
1424 (return)
[ Mercure de France, October 2, 1790 (article of Mallet du
Pan: "I saw it"). Criminal proceedings at the Châtelet on the
events of October 5th and 6th. Deposition of M. Feydel, a
deputy, No. 178.——De Montlosier, i. 259.—Desmoulins
(La Lanterne). "Some members of the communes are
gradually won over by pensions, by plans for making a
fortune and by flattery. Happily, the incorruptible galleries
are always on the side of the patriots. They represent the
tribunes of the people seated on a bench in attendance on the
deliberations of the Senate and who had the veto. They
represent the metropolis and, fortunately, it is under the
batteries of the metropolis that the constitution is being
framed." (C. Desmoulins, simple-minded politician, always
let the cat out of the bag.)]
1425 (return)
[ "Procédure du Châtelet," Ibid. Deposition of M. Malouet
(No. 111). "I received every day, as well as MM. Lally and
Mounier, anonymous letters and lists of proscriptions on
which we were inscribed. These letters announced a prompt
and violent death to every deputy that advocated the
authority of the King."]
1426 (return)
[ Buchez and Roux, I. 368, 376.—-Bailly, II. 326, 341.—
Mounier, ibid., 62, 75.]
1427 (return)
[ Etienne Dumont, 145.—Correspondence between Comte
de Mirabeau and Comte de la Marck.]

1428 (return)
[ "Procédure criminelle du Châtelet," Deposition 148.—
Buchez and Roux, III. 67, 65. (Narrative of Desmoulins,
article of Loustalot.) Mercure de France, number for
September 5, 1789. "Sunday evening, August 30, at the
Palais-Royal, the expulsion of several deputies of every
class was demanded, and especially some of those from
Dauphiny... They spoke of bringing the King to Paris as well
as the Dauphin. All virtuous citizens, every incorruptible
patriot, was exhorted to set out immediately for Versailles."]
1429 (return)
[ These acts of violence were not reprisals; nothing of the
kind took place at the banquet of the body-guards (October
1st). "Amidst the general joy," says an eye-witness, "I heard
no insults against the National Assembly, nor against the
popular party, nor against anybody. The only cries were
'Vive le Roi! Vive la Reine! We will defend them to the
death!'" (Madame de Larochejacquelein, p.40.—Ibid.
Madame Campan, another eye-witness.)—It appears to be
certain, however, that the younger members of the National
Guard at Versailles turned their cockades so as to be like
other people, and it is also probable that some of the ladies
distributed white cockades. The rest is a story made up
before and after the event to justify the insurrection.—Cf.
Lerol, "Histoire de Versailles," II. 20-107. Ibid. p. 141. "As
to that proscription of the national cockade, all witnesses
deny it." The originator of the calumny is Gorsas, editor of
the Courrier de Versailles.]
1430 (return)
[ "Procédure Criminelle du Châtelet." Depositions 88, 110,
120, 126, 127, 140, 146, 148.—Marmontel, "Mémoires," a
conversation with Champfort, in May, 1789.—Morellet,
"Mémoires," I. 398. (According to the evidence of Garat,
Champfort gave all his savings, 3,000 livres, to defray the
expenses of maneuvers of this description.)—Malouet (II.
2). knew four of the deputies "who took direct part in this
conspiracy."]
1431 (return)
[ "Procédure Criminelle du Châtelet." 1st. On the Flemish
soldiers. Depositions 17, 20, 24, 35, 87, 89, 98.—2nd. On
the men disguised as women. Depositions 5, 10, 14, 44, 49,
59, 60, 110, 120, 139, 145, 146, 148. The prosecutor
designates six of them to be seized.—3rd. On the condition
of the women of the expedition. Depositions 35, 83, 91, 98,
146, and 24.—4th. On the money distributed. Depositions
49, 56, 71, 82, 110, 126.]
1432 (return)
[ "Procédure Criminelle du Châtelet." Deposition 61.

"During the night scenes, not very decent, occurred among
these people, which the witness thought it useless to relate."]
1433 (return)
[ "Procédure Criminelle du Châtelet." Depositions 35, 44,
81.—Buchez and Roux, III. 120. (Minutes of the meeting of
the Commune, October 5th.) Journal de Paris, October 12th.
A few days after, M. Pic, clerk of the prosecutor, brought "a
package of 100,000 francs which he had saved from the
enemies' hands," and another package of notes was found
thrown, in the hubbub, into a receipt-box.]
1434 (return)
[ "Procédure Criminelle du Châtelet." Depositions 61, 77,
81, 148, 154.—Dumont, 181.—Mounier, "Exposé
justificatif," and specially "Fait relatif à la dernière
insurrection."]
1435 (return)
[ "Procédure Criminelle du Châtelet." Deposition 168. The
witness sees on leaving the King's apartment "several
women dressed as fish-wives, one of whom, with a pretty
face, has a paper in her hand, and who exclaims as she holds
it up, 'He! F..., we have forced the guy to sign.' "]
1436 (return)
[ "Procédure Criminelle du Châtelet." Depositions 89, 91,
98. "Promising all, even raising their petticoats before
them."]
1437 (return)
[ "Procédure Criminelle du Châtelet," Depositions 9, 20, 24,
30, 49, 61, 82, 115, 149, 155.]
1438 (return)
[ Procédure criminelle du Châtelet." Depositions 7, 30, 35,
40.—Cf. Lafayette, "Mémoires," and Madame Campan,
"Mémoires."]
1439 (return)
[ "Procédure Criminelle du Châtelet." Deposition 24. A
number of butcher-boys run after the carriages issuing from
the Petite-Ecurie shouting out, "Don't let the curs escape!"]
1440 (return)
[ "Procédure Criminelle du Châtelet." Depositions 101, 91,
89, and 17. M. de Miomandre, a body-guard, mildly says to
the ruffians mounting the staircase: "My friends, you love
your King, and yet you come to annoy him even in his
palace!"]
1441 (return)
[ Malouet, II. 2. "I felt no distrust," says Lafayette in 1798;
"the people promised to remain quiet."]
1442 (return)
[ "Procédure Criminelle du Chatelet." Depositions 9, 16, 60,

128, 129, 130, 139, 158, 168, 170.—M. du Repaire, body-
guard, being sentry at the railing from two o'clock in the
morning, a man passes his pike through the bars saying,
"You embroidered b. . . , your turn will come before long."
M. de Repaire, "retires within the sentry-box without saying
a word to this man, considering the orders that have been
issued not to act."]
1443 (return)
[ "Procédure Criminelle du Châtelet." Depositions 82, 170—
Madame Campan. II. 87.—De Lavalette, I.33.—Cf.
Bertrand de Molleville, Mémoires.]
1444 (return)
[ Duval, "Souvenirs de la Terreur," I. 78. (Doubtful in almost
everything, but here he is an eye-witness. He dined opposite
the hair-dresser's, near the railing of the Park of Saint-
Cloud.)—M. de Lally-Tollendal's second letter to a friend.
"At the moment the King entered his capital with two
bishops of his council with him in the carriage, the cry was
heard, 'Off to the lamp post with the bishops!'"]
1445 (return)
[ De Montlosier, I. 303.—Moniteur, sessions of the 8th, 9th,
and 10th of October.—Malouet, II. 9, 10, 20.—Mounier,
Recherches sur les Causes, etc., and "Addresse aux
Dauphinois."]
1446 (return)
[ De Ferrières, I. 346. (On the 9th of October, 300 members
have already taken their passports.) Mercure de France, No.
of the 17th October. Correspondence of Mirabeau and M. de
la Marck, I. 116, 126, 364.]
1447 (return)
[ Correspondence of Mirabeau and M. de la Marck, I.175.
(The words of Monsieur to M. de la Marck.)]

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

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

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

We have only to look at it outwardly to have some doubts about it. At
Versailles, and then at Paris, the sessions are held in an immense hall
capable of seating 2,000 persons, in which the most powerful voice must be
strained in order to be heard. It is not calculated for the moderate tone
suitable for the discussion of business; the speaker is obliged to shout, and
the strain on the voice communicates itself to the mind; the place itself
suggests declamation; and this all the more readily because the assemblage
consists of 1,200, that is to say, a crowd, and almost a mob. 'At the present
day (1877), in our assemblies of five or six hundred deputies, there are
constant interruptions and an incessant buzz; there is nothing so rare as self-
control, and the firm resolve to give an hour's attention to a discourse
opposed to the opinions of the hearers.—What can be done here to compel
silence and patience? Arthur Young on different occasions sees "a hundred
members on the floor at once," shouting and gesticulating. "Gentlemen, you
are killing me!" says Bailly, one day, sinking with exhaustion. Another
president exclaims in despair, "Two hundred speaking at the same time
cannot be heard; will you make it impossible then to restore order in the
Assembly?" The rumbling, discordant din is further increased by the uproar
of the galleries.2101
"In the British Parliament," writes Mallet du Pan, "I saw the galleries
cleared in a trice because the Duchess of Gordon happened unintentionally
to laugh too loud."
Here, the thronging crowd of spectators, stringers, delegates from the
Palais-Royal, soldiers disguised as citizens, and prostitutes collected and
marshaled, applaud, clap their hands, stamp and hoot, at their pleasure. This
is carried to so great an extent that M. de Montlosier ironically proposes "to

give the galleries a voice in the deliberations."2102 Another member wishes
to know whether the representatives are so many actors, whom the nation
sends there to endure the hisses of the Paris public. Interruptions, in fact,
take place as in a theater, and, frequently, if the members do not give
satisfaction, they are forced to desist. On the other hand, the deputies who
are popular with this energetic audience, on which they keep and eye, are
actors before the footlights: they involuntarily yield to its influence, and
exaggerate their ideas as well as their words to be in unison with it. Tumult
and violence, under such circumstances, become a matter of course, and the
chances of an Assembly acting wisely are diminished by one-half; on
becoming a club of agitators, it ceases to be a conclave of legislators.
Let us enter and see how this one proceeds. Thus encumbered, thus
surrounded and agitated, does it take at least those precautions without
which no assembly of men can govern itself. When several hundred persons
assemble together for deliberation, it is evident that some sort of an internal
police is necessary; first of all, some code of accepted usage, some written
precedents, by which its acts may be prepared and defined, considered in
detail, and properly passed. The best of these codes it ready to hand: at the
request of Mirabeau, Romilly has sent over the standing orders of the
English House of Commons.2103 But with the presumption of novices, they
pay no attention to this code; they imagine it is needless for them; they will
borrow nothing from foreigners; they accord no authority to experience,
and, not content with rejecting the forms it prescribes, "it is with difficulty
they can be made to follow any rule whatever." They leave the field open to
the impulsiveness of individuals; any kind of influence, even that of a
deputy, even of one elected by themselves, is suspected by them; hence
their choice of a new president every fortnight.—They submit to no
constraint or control, neither to the legal authority of a parliamentary code,
nor to the moral authority of parliamentary chiefs. They are without any
such; they are not organized in parties; neither on one side nor on the other
is a recognized leader found who fixes the time, arranges the debate, draws
up the motion, assigns parts, and gives the rein to or restrains his
supporters. Mirabeau is the only one capable of obtaining this ascendancy;
but, on the opening of the Assembly, he is discredited by the notoriety of his
vices, and, towards the last, is compromised by his connections with the
Court. No other is of sufficient eminence to have any influence; there is too
much of average and too little of superior talent.—Their self-esteem is,

moreover, as yet too strong to allow any concessions. Each of these
improvised legislators has come satisfied with his own system, and to
submit to a leader to whom he would entrust his political conscience, to
make of him what three out of four of these deputies should be, a voting
machine, would require an apprehension of danger, some painful
experience, an enforced surrender which he is far from realizing.2104 For
this reason, save in the violent party, each acts as his own chief, according
to the impulse of the moment, and the confusion may be imagined.
Strangers who witness it, lift their hands in pity and astonishment. "They
discuss nothing in their Assembly," writes Gouverneur Morris,2105 "One
large half of the time is spent in hallowing and bawling.... Each Man
permitted to speak delivers the Result of his Lubrications," amidst this
noise, taking his turn as inscribed, without replying to his predecessor, or
being replied to by his successor, without ever meeting argument by
argument; so that while the firing is interminable, "all their shots are fired in
the air." Before this "frightful clatter" can be reported, the papers of the day
are obliged to make all sorts of excisions, to prune away "nonsense," and
reduce the "inflated and bombastic style." Chatter and clamor, that is the
whole substance of most of these famous sittings.
"You would hear," says a journalist, "more yells than speeches; the
sittings seemed more likely to end in fights than in decrees... . Twenty times
I said to myself, on leaving, that if anything could arrest and turn the tide of
the Revolution, it would be a picture of these meetings traced without
caution or adaptation... All my efforts were therefore directed to represent
the truth, without rendering it repulsive. Out of what had been merely a
row, I concocted a scene... I gave all the sentiments, but not always in the
same words. I translated their yells into words, their furious gestures into
attitudes, and when I could not inspire esteem, I endeavored to rouse the
emotions."
There is no remedy for this evil; for, besides the absence of discipline,
there is an inward and fundamental cause for the disorder. These people are
too susceptible. They are Frenchmen, and Frenchmen of the eighteenth
century; brought up in the amenities of the utmost refinement, accustomed
to deferential manners, to constant kind attentions and mutual obligations,
so thoroughly imbued with the instinct of good breeding that their
conversation seems almost insipid to strangers.2106—And suddenly they
find themselves on the thorny soil of politics, exposed to insulting debates,

flat contradictions, venomous denunciation, constant detraction and open
invective; engaged in a battle in which every species of weapon peculiar to
a parliamentary life is employed, and in which the hardiest veterans are
scarcely able to keep cool. Judge of the effect of all this on inexperienced,
highly strung nerves, on men of the world accustomed to the
accommodations and amiabilities of universal urbanity. They are at once
beside themselves.—And all the more so because they never anticipated a
battle; but, on the contrary, a festival, a grand and charming idyll, in which
everybody, hand in hand, would assemble in tears around the throne and
save the country amid mutual embraces. Necker himself arranges, like a
theater, the chamber in which the sessions of the Assembly are to be
held.2107 "He was not disposed to regard the Assemblies of the States-
General as anything but a peaceful, imposing, solemn, august spectacle,
which the people would enjoy;" and when the idyll suddenly changes into a
drama, he is so frightened that it seems to him as if a landslide had occurred
that threatened, during the night, to break down the framework of the
building.—At the time of the meeting of the States-General, everybody is
delighted; all imagine that they are about to enter the promised land. During
the procession of the 4th of May,
"tears of joy," says the Marquis de Ferrières, "filled my eyes... . In a state
of sweet rapture I beheld France supported by Religion" exhorting us all to
concord. "The sacred ceremonies, the music, the incense, the priests in their
sacrificial robes, that dais, that orb radiant with precious stones. .. I called to
my mind the words of the prophet... . My God, my country, and my
countrymen, all were one with myself!"
Such emotions repeatedly explode in the course of the session, and
resulted in the passage of laws which no one could have imagined.
"Sometimes,"2108 writes the American ambassador, "a speaker gets up in
the midst of a deliberation, makes a fine discourse on a different subject,
and closes with a nice little resolution which is carried with a hurrah. Thus,
in considering the plan of a national bank proposed by M. Necker, one of
them took it into his head to move that every member should give his silver
buckles, which was agreed to at once, and the honorable mover laid his
upon the table, after which the business went on again."
Thus, over-excited, they do not know in the morning what they will do in
the afternoon, and they are at the mercy of every surprise. When they are

seized with these fits of enthusiasm, infatuation spreads over all the
benches; prudence gives way, all foresight disappears and every objection is
stifled. During the night of the 4th of August,2109 "nobody is master of
himself. The Assembly presents the spectacle of an inebriated crowd in a
shop of valuable furniture, breaking and smashing at will whatever they can
lay their hands on."
"That which would have required a year of care and reflection," says a
competent foreigner, "was proposed, deliberated over, and passed by
general acclamation. The abolition of feudal rights, of titles, of the
privileges of the provinces, three articles which alone embraced a whole
system of jurisprudence and statesmanship, were decided with ten or twelve
other measures in less time than is required in the English Parliament for
the first reading of an important bill."
"Such are our Frenchmen," says Mirabeau again, "they spend a month in
disputes about syllables, and overthrow, in a single night, the whole
established system of the Monarchy!"2110
The truth is, they display the nervousness of women, and, from one end
of the Revolution to the other, this excitability keeps on increasing.
Not only are they excited, but the pitch of excitement must be
maintained, and, like the drunkard who, once stimulated, has recourse again
to strong waters, one would say that they carefully try to expel the last
remnants of calmness and common sense from their brains. They delight in
pompous phrases, in high-sounding rhetoric, in declamatory sentimental
strokes of eloquence: this is the style of nearly all their speeches, and so
strong is their taste, they are not satisfied with the orations made amongst
themselves. Lally and Necker, having made "affecting and sublime"
speeches at the Hôtel-de-Ville, the Assembly wish them to be repeated
before them:2111 this being the heart of France, it is proper for it to answer
to the noble emotions of all Frenchmen. Let this heart throb on, and as
strongly as possible, for that is its office, and day by day it receives fresh
impulses. Almost all sittings begin with the reading of flattering addresses
or of threatening denunciations. The petitioners frequently appear in person,
and read their enthusiastic effusions, their imperious advice, their doctrines
of dissolution. To-day it is Danton, in the name of Paris, with his bull visage
and his voice that seems a tocsin of insurrection; to-morrow, the
vanquishers of the Bastille, or some other troop, with a band of music

which continues playing even into the hall. The meeting is not a conference
for business, but a patriotic opera, where the eclogue, the melodrama, and
sometimes the masquerade, mingle with the cheers and the clapping of
hands.2112—A serf of the Jura is brought to the bar of the Assembly aged
one hundred and twenty years, and one of the members of the cortège, "M.
Bourbon de la Crosnière, director of a patriotic school, asks permission to
take charge of an honorable old man, that he may be waited on by the
young people of all ranks, and especially by the children of those whose
fathers were killed in the attack on the Bastille." 2113 Great is the hubbub
and excitement. The scene seems to be in imitation of Berquin,2114 with the
additional complication of a mercenary consideration.
But small matters are not closely looked into, and the Assembly, under
the pressure of the galleries, stoops to shows, such as are held at fairs. Sixty
vagabonds who are paid twelve francs a head, in the costumes of Spaniards,
Dutchmen, Turks, Arabs, Tripolitans, Persians, Hindus, Mongols, and
Chinese, conducted by the Prussian Anacharsis Clootz, enter, under the title
of Ambassadors of the Human Race, to declaim against tyrants, and they
are admitted to the honors of the sitting. On this occasion the masquerade is
a stroke devised to hasten and extort the abolition of nobility.2115 At other
times, there is little or no object in it; its ridiculousness is inexpressible, for
the farce is played out as seriously and earnestly as in a village award of
prizes. For three days, the children who have taken their first communion
before the constitutional bishop have been promenaded through the streets
of Paris; at the Jacobin club they recite the nonsense they have committed
to memory; and, on the fourth day, admitted to the bar of the Assembly,
their spokesman, a poor little thing of twelve years, repeats the parrot-like
tirade. He winds up with the accustomed oath, upon which all the others cry
out in their piping, shrill voices, "We swear!" As a climax, the President,
Trejlhard, a sober lawyer, replies to the little gamins with perfect gravity in
a similar strain, employing metaphors, personifications, and everything else
belonging to the stock-in-trade of a pedant on his platform:
"You merit a share in the glory of the founders of liberty, prepared as you
are to shed your blood in her behalf."
Immense applause from the "left" and the galleries, and a decree ordering
the speeches of both president and children to be printed. The children,

probably, would rather have gone out to play; but, willingly or unwillingly,
they receive or endure the honors of the sitting.2116
Such are the tricks of the stage and of the platform by which the
managers here move their political puppets. Emotional susceptibility, once
recognized as a legitimate force, thus becomes an instrument of intrigue and
constraint. The Assembly, having accepted theatrical exhibitions when these
were sincere and earnest, is obliged to tolerate them when they become
mere sham and buffoonery. At this vast national banquet, over which it
meant to preside, and to which, throwing the doors wide open, it invited all
France, its first intoxication was due to wine of a noble quality; but it has
touched glasses with the populace, and by degrees, under the pressure of its
associates, it has descended to adulterated and burning drinks, to a
grotesque unwholesome inebriety which is all the more grotesque and
unwholesome, because it persists in believing itself to be reason.

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

If reason could only resume its empire during the lucid intervals! But
reason must exist before it can govern, and in no French Assembly, except
the two following this, have there ever been fewer political intellects.—
Strictly speaking, with careful search, there could undoubtedly be found in
France, in 1789, five or six hundred experienced men, such as the
intendants and military commanders of every province; next to these the
prelates, administrators of large dioceses the members of the local
"parlements," whose courts gave them influence, and who, besides judicial
functions, possessed a portion of administrative power; and finally, the
principal members of the Provincial Assemblies, all of them influential and
sensible people who had exercised control over men and affairs, at once
humane, liberal, moderate, and capable of understanding the difficulty, as
well as the necessity, of a great reform; indeed, their correspondence, full of
facts, stated with precision and judgment, when compared with the
doctrinaire rubbish of the Assembly, presents the strongest possible
contrast.—But most of these lights remain under a bushel; only a few of
them get into the Assembly; these burn without illuminating, and are soon
extinguished in the tempest.' I. The venerable Machault is not there, nor
Malesherbes; there are none of the old ministers or the marshals of France.
Not one of the intendants is there, except Malouet, and by the superiority of
this man, the most judicious of the Assembly, one can judge the services
which his colleagues would have rendered. Out of two hundred and ninety-
one members of the clergy,2117 there are indeed forty-eight bishops or
archbishops and thirty-five abbots or canons, but, being prelates and with
large endowments, they excite the envy of their order, and are generals
without any soldiers. We have the same spectacle among the nobles. Most
of them, the gentry of the provinces, have been elected in opposition to the
grandees of the Court. Moreover, neither the grandees of the Court, devoted

to worldly pursuits, nor the gentry of the provinces, confined to private life,
are practically familiar with public affairs. A small group among them,
twenty-eight magistrates and about thirty superior officials who have held
command or have been connected with the administration, probably have
some idea of the peril of society; but it is precisely for this reason that they
seem to be behind the age and remain without influence.—In the Third-
Estate, out of five hundred and seventy-seven members, only ten have
exercised any important functions, those of intendant, councillor of state,
receiver-general, lieutenant of police, director of the mint, and others of the
same category. The great majority is composed of unknown lawyers and
people occupying inferior positions in the profession, notaries, royal
attorneys, register commissaries, judges and assessors of; the présidial,
bailiffs and lieutenants of the bailiwick, simple practitioners confined from
their youth to the narrow circle of an inferior jurisdiction or to a routine of
scribbling, with no escape but philosophical excursions in imaginary space
under the guidance of Rousseau and Raynal. There are three hundred and
seventy-three of this class, to whom may be added thirty-eight farmers and
husbandmen, fifteen physicians, and, among the manufacturers, merchants,
and capitalists, some fifty or sixty who are their equals in education and in
political capacity. Scarcely one hundred and fifty proprietors are here from
the middle class.2118 To these four hundred and fifty deputies, whose
condition, education, instruction, and mental range qualified them for being
good clerks, prominent men in a commune, honorable fathers of a family,
or, at best, provincial academicians, add two hundred and eight curés, their
equals; this makes six hundred and fifty out of eleven hundred and eighteen
deputies, forming a positive majority, which, again, is augmented by about
fifty philosophical nobles, leaving out the weak who follow the current, and
the ambitious who range themselves on the strong side.—We may divine
what a chamber thus made up can do, and those who are familiar with such
matters prophesy what it will do.2119
"There are some able men in the National Assembly," writes the
American minister, "yet the best heads among them would not be injured by
experience, and, unfortunately, there are great numbers who, with much
imagination, have little knowledge, judgment, or reflection."
It would be just as sensible to select eleven hundred notables from an
inland province and entrust them to the repair of an old frigate. They would

conscientiously break the vessel up, and the frigate they would construct in
its place would founder before it left port.
If they would only consult the pilots and professional shipbuilders!—
There are several of such to be found around them, whom they cannot
suspect, for most of them are foreigners, born in free countries, impartial,
sympathetic, and, what is more, unanimous. The Minister of the United
States writes, two months before the convocation of the States-General:2120
"I, a republican, and just, as it were, emerged from that Assembly which
has formed one of the most republican of republican constitutions,—I
preach incessantly respect for the prince, attention to the rights of the
nobility, and moderation, not only in the object, but also in the pursuit of it."
Jefferson, a democrat and radical, expresses himself no differently. At the
time of the oath of the Tennis Court, he redoubles his efforts to induce
Lafayette and other patriots to make some arrangement with the King to
secure freedom of the press, religious, liberty, trial by jury, the habeas
corpus, and a national legislature,—things which he could certainly be
made to adopt,—and then to retire into private life, and let these institutions
act upon the condition of the people until they had rendered it capable of
further progress, with the assurance that there would be no lack of
opportunity for them to obtain still more.
"This was all," he continues, "that I thought your countrymen able to bear
soberly and usefully."
Arthur Young, who studies the moral life of France so conscientiously,
and who is so severe in depicting old abuses, cannot comprehend the
conduct of the Commons.
"To set aside practice for theory... in establishing the interests of a great
kingdom, in securing freedom to 25,000,000 of people, seems to me the
very acme of imprudence, the very quintessence of insanity."
Undoubtedly, now that the Assembly is all-powerful, it is to be hoped
that it will be reasonable:
"I will not allow myself to believe for a moment that the representatives
of the people can ever so far forget their duty to the French nation, to
humanity, and their own fame, as to suffer any inordinate and impracticable
views—any visionary or theoretic systems—... to turn aside their exertions
from that security which is in their hands, to place on the chance and hazard

of public commotion and civil war the invaluable blessings which are
certainly in their power. I will not conceive it possible that men who have
eternal fame within their grasp will place the rich inheritance on the cast of
a die, and, losing the venture, be damned among the worst and most
profligate adventurers that ever disgraced humanity."
As their plan becomes more definite the remonstrances become more
decided, and all the expert judges point out to them the importance of the
wheels which they are willfully breaking.
"As they have2121 hitherto felt severely the authority exercised over them
in the name of their princes, every limitation of that authority seems to them
desirable. Never having felt the evils of too weak an executive, the
disorders to be apprehended from anarchy make as yet no
impression"—"They want an American Constitution,2122 but with a King
instead of a President, without reflecting they have no American citizens to
support that Constitution... If they have the good sense to give the nobles, as
nobles, some portion of the national power, this free constitution will
probably last, But otherwise it will degenerate either into a pure monarchy,
or a vast republic, or a democracy. Will the latter last? I doubt it. I am sure
that it will not, unless the whole nation is changed."
A little later, when they renounce a parliamentary monarchy to put in its
place "a royal democracy," it is at once explained to them that such an
institution applied to France can produce nothing but anarchy, and finally
end in despotism.
"Nowhere2123 has liberty proved to be stable without a sacrifice of its
excesses, without some barrier to its own omnipotence... . Under this
miserable government... the people, soon weary of storms, and abandoned
without legal protection to their seducers or to their oppressors, will shatter
the helm, or hand it over to some audacious hand that stands ready to seize
it."
Events occur from month to month in fulfillment of these predictions,
and the predictions grow gloomier and more gloomy. It is a flock of wild
birds:2124
"It is very difficult to guess whereabouts the flock will settle when it flies
so wild... . This unhappy country, bewildered in the pursuit of metaphysical
whims, presents to our moral view a mighty ruin. The Assembly, at once
master and slave, new in power, wild in theory, raw in practice, engrossing

all functions without being able to exercise any, has freed that fierce,
ferocious people from every restraint of religion and respect... . Such a state
of things cannot last... The glorious opportunity is lost and for this time, at
least, the Revolution has failed."
We see, from the replies of Washington, that he is of the same opinion.
On the other side of the Channel, Pitt, the ablest practician, and Burke, the
ablest theorist, of political liberty, express the same judgment. Pitt, after
1789, declares that the French have overleaped freedom. After 1790, Burke,
in a work which is a prophecy as well as a masterpiece, points to military
dictatorship as the termination of the Revolution, "the most completely
arbitrary power that has ever appeared on earth." Nothing is of any effect.
With the exception of the small powerless group around Malouet and
Mounier, the warnings of Morris, Jefferson, Romilly, Dumont, Mallet du
Pan, Arthur Young, Pitt and Burke, all of them men who have experience of
free institutions, are received with indifference or repelled with disdain. Not
only are our new politicians incapable, but they think themselves the
contrary, and their incompetence is aggravated by their infatuation.
"I often used to say, "writes Dumont,2125 "that if a hundred persons were
stopped at haphazard in the streets of London, and a hundred in the streets
of Paris, and a proposal were made to them to take charge of the
Government, ninety-nine would accept it in Paris and ninety-nine would
refuse it in London... The Frenchman thinks that all difficulties can be
overcome by a little quickness of wit. Mirabeau accepted the post of
reporter to the Committee on Mines without having the slightest tincture of
knowledge on the subject."
In short, most of them enter politics "like the gentleman who, on being
asked if he knew how to play on the harpsichord, replied, 'I cannot tell, I
never tried, but I will see.'"
"The Assembly had so high an opinion of itself, especially the left side of
it, that it would willingly have undertaken the framing of the Code of Laws
for all nations... Never has so many men been seen together, fancying that
they were all legislators, and that they were there to correct all the errors of
the past, to remedy all mistakes of the human mind, and ensure the
happiness of all ages to come. Doubt had no place in their minds, and
infallibility always presided over their contradictory decrees."—

This is because they have a theory and because, according to their notion,
this theory renders special knowledge unnecessary. Herein they are
thoroughly sincere, and it is of set purpose that they reverse all ordinary
modes of procedure. Up to this time a constitution used to be organized or
repaired like a ship. Experiments were made from time to time, or a model
was taken from vessels in the neighborhood; the first aim was to make the
ship sail; its construction was subordinated to its work; it was fashioned in
this or that way according to the materials on hand; a beginning was made
by examining these materials, and trying to estimate their rigidity, weight,
and strength.—All this is reactionary; the age of Reason has come and the
Assembly is too enlightened to drag on in a rut. In conformity with the
fashion of the time it works by deduction, after the method of Rousseau,
according to an abstract notion of right, of the State and of the social
compact.2126 According to this process, by virtue of political geometry
alone, they shall have the perfect vessel and since it perfect it follows that it
will sail, and that much better than any empirical craft.—They legislate
according to this principle, and one may imagine the nature of their
discussions. There are no convincing facts, no pointed arguments; nobody
would ever imagine that the speakers were gathered together to conduct real
business. Through speech after speech, strings of hollow abstractions are
endlessly renewed as in a meeting of students in rhetoric for the purpose of
practice, or in a society of old bookworms for their own amusement. On the
question of the veto "each orator in turn, armed with his portfolio, reads a
dissertation which has no bearing whatever" on the preceding one, which
makes a "sort of academical session,"2127 a succession of pamphlets fresh
every morning for several days. On the question of the Rights of Man fifty-
four speakers are placed on the list.
"I remember," says Dumont, "that long discussion, which lasted for
weeks, as a period of deadly boredom,—vain disputes over words, a
metaphysical jumble, and most tedious babble; the Assembly was turned
into a Sorbonne lecture-room," and all this while chateaux were burning,
while town-halls were being sacked, and courts dared no longer hold assize,
while the distribution of wheat was stopped, and while society was in
course of dissolution. In the same manner the theologians of the Easter
Roman Empire kept up their wrangles about the uncreated light of Mount
Tabor while Mahomet II was battering the walls of Constantinople with his
cannon.—Ours, of course, are another sort of men, juvenile in feeling,

sincere, enthusiastic, even generous, and further, more devoted, laborious,
and in some cases endowed with rare talent. But neither zeal, nor labor, nor
talent are of any use when not employed in the service of a sound idea; and
if in the service of a false one, the greater they are the more mischief they
do.
Towards the end of the year 1789, there can be not doubt of this; and the
parties now formed reveal their presumption, improvidence, incapacity, and
obstinacy. "This Assembly," writes the American ambassador,2128 "may be
divided into three parties;—
one called the aristocrats, consists of the high clergy, the parliamentary
judges, and such of the nobility as think they ought to form a separate
order." This is the party which offers resistance to follies and errors, but
with follies and errors almost equally great. In the beginning "the
prelates,2129 instead of conciliating the curés, kept them at a humiliating
distance, affecting distinctions, exacting respect," and, in their own
chamber, "ranging themselves apart on separate benches." The nobles, on
the other hand, the more to alienate the commons, began by charging these
with, "revolt, treachery, and treason," and by demanding the use of military
force against them. Now that the victorious Third-Estate has again
overcome them and overwhelms them with numbers, they become still
more maladroit, and conduct the defense much less efficiently than the
attack. "In the Assembly," says one of them, "they do not listen, but laugh
and talk aloud;" they take pains to embitter their adversaries and the
galleries by their impertinence. "They leave the chamber when the President
puts the question and invite the deputies of their party to follow them, or cry
out to them not to take part in the deliberation: through this desertion, the
clubbists become the majority, and decree whatever they please." It is in
this way that the appointment of judges and bishops is withdrawn from the
King and assigned to the people. Again, after the return from Varennes,
when the Assembly finds out that the result of its labors is impracticable
and wants to make it less democratic, the whole of the right side refuses to
share in the debates, and, what is worse, votes with the revolutionaries to
exclude the members of the Constituent from the Legislative Assembly.
Thus, not only does it abandon its own cause, but it commits self-
destruction, and its desertion ends in suicide.—

A second party remains, "the middle party,"2130 which consists of well-
intentioned people from every class, sincere partisans of a good
government; but, unfortunately, they have acquired their ideas of
government from books, and are admirable on paper. But as it happens that
the men who live in the world are very different from imaginary men who
dwell in the heads of philosophers, it is not to be wondered at if the systems
taken out of books are fit for nothing but to be upset by another book.
Intellects of this stamp are the natural prey of utopians. Lacking the ballast
of experience they are carried away by pure logic and serve to enlarge the
flock of theorists.—The latter form the third party, which is called the
"enragés (the wild men), and who, at the expiration of six months, find
themselves "the most numerous of all."
"It is composed," says Morris, "of that class which in America is known
by the name of pettifogging lawyers, together with a host of curates and
many of those persons who in all revolutions throng to the standard of
change because they are not well.2131 This last party is in close alliance with
the populace and derives from this circumstance very great authority."
All powerful passions are on its side, not merely the irritation of the
people tormented by misery and suspicion, not merely the ambition and
self-esteem of the bourgeois, in revolt against the ancient régime, but also
the inveterate bitterness and fixed ideas of so many suffering minds and so
many factious intellects, Protestants, Jansenists, economists, philosophers,
men who, like Fréteau, Rabout-Saint-Etienne, Volney, Sieyès, are hatching
out a long arrears of resentments or hopes, and who only await the
opportunity to impose their system with all the intolerance of dogmatism
and of faith. To minds of this stamp the past is a dead letter; example is no
authority; realities are of no account; they live in their own Utopia. Sieyès,
the most important of them all, judges that "the whole English constitution
is charlatanism, designed for imposing on the people;"2132 he regards the
English "as children in the matter of a constitution," and thinks that he is
capable of giving France a much better one. Dumont, who sees the first
committees at the houses of Brissot and Clavières, goes away with as much
anxiety as "disgust."
"It is impossible," he says, "to depict the confusion of ideas, the license
of the imagination, the burlesque of popular notions. One would think that
they saw before them the world on the day after the Creation."

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

III.—The Power Of Simple, General Ideas.
Ascendancy of the revolutionary party—Theory in its favor—
The constraint thus imposed on men's minds—Appeal to the
passions—Brute force on the side of the party—It profits
by this—Oppression of the minority.

Two advantages give this party the ascendancy, and these advantages are
of such importance that henceforth whoever possesses them is sure of being
master.—In the first place the prevailing theory is on the side of the
revolutionaries, and they alone are, in the second place, determined
thoroughly to apply it. This party, therefore, is the only one which is
consistent and popular in the face of adversaries who are unpopular and
inconsequent. Nearly all of the latter, indeed, defenders of the ancient
régime, or partisans of a limited monarchy, are likewise imbued with
abstract principles and philosophical speculation. The most refractory
nobles have advocated the rights of man in their memorials. Mounier, the
principal opponent of the demagogues, was the leader of the commons
when they proclaimed themselves to be the National—Assembly.2133 This
is enough: they have entered the narrow defile which leads to the abyss.
They had no idea of it at the first start, but one step leads to another, and,
willing or unwilling, they march on, or are pushed on. When the abyss
comes in sight it is too late; they have been driven there by the logical
results of their own concessions; they can do nothing but wax eloquent and
indignant; having abandoned their vantage ground, they find no halting-
place remaining.—There is an enormous power in general ideas, especially
if they are simple, and appeal to the passions. None are simpler than these,
since they are reducible to the axiom which assumes the rights of man, and
subordinate to them every institution, old or new. None are better calculated
to inflame the sentiments, since the doctrine enlists human arrogance and
pride in its service, and, in the name of justice, consecrates all the demands
of independence and domination. Consider three-fourths of the deputies,
immature and prejudiced, possessing no information but a few formulas of
the current philosophy, with no thread to guide them but pure logic,
abandoned to the declamation of lawyers, to the wild utterances of the
newspapers, to the promptings of self-esteem, to the hundred thousand

tongues which, on all sides, at the bar of the Assembly, at the tribune, in the
clubs, in the streets, in their own breasts, repeat unanimously to them, and
every day, the same flattery:
"You are sovereign and omnipotent. Right is vested in you alone. The
King exists only to execute your will. Every order, every corporation, every
power, every civil or ecclesiastical association is illegitimate and null the
moment you declare it to be so. You may even transform religion. You are
the fathers of the country. You have saved France, you will regenerate
humanity. The whole world looks on you in admiration; finish your glorious
work—forward, always forward."
Superior good sense and rooted convictions could alone stand firm
against this flood of seductions and solicitations; but vacillating and
ordinary men are carried away by it. In the harmony of applause which
rises, they do not hear the crash of the ruins they produce. In any case, they
stop their ears, and shun the cries of the oppressed; they refuse to admit that
their work could possibly bring about evil results; they accept the sophisms
and untruths which justify it; they allow the assassinated to be calumniated
in order to excuse the assassins; they listen to Merlin de Douay, who, after
three or four jacqueries, when pillaging, arson, and murder are going on in
all the provinces, has just declared in the name of the Committee on
Feudalism2134 that "a law must be presented to the people, the justice of
which may enforce silence on the feudatory egoists who, for the past six
months, so indecently protest against plunder; the wisdom of which may
restore to a sense of duty the peasant who has been led astray for a moment
by his resentment of a long oppression." And when Raynal, the surviving
patriarch of the philosophic party, one day, for a wonder, takes the plain
truth with him into their tribune, they resent his straightforwardness as an
outrage, and excuse it solely on the ground of his imbecility. An omnipotent
legislator cannot depreciate himself; like a king he is condemned to self-
admiration in his public capacity. "There were not thirty deputies amongst
us," says a witness, "who thought differently from Raynal," but "in each
other's presence the credit of the Revolution, the perspective of its
blessings, was an article of faith which had to be believed in;" and, against
their own reason, against their conscience, the moderates, caught in the net
of their own acts, join the revolutionaries to complete the Revolution.

Had they refused, they would have been compelled; for, to obtain the
power, the Assembly has, from the very first, either tolerated or solicited the
violence of the streets. But, in accepting insurrectionists for its allies, it
makes them masters, and henceforth, in Paris as in the provinces, illegal and
brutal force becomes the principal power of the State. "The triumph was
accomplished through the people; it was impossible to be severe with
them;"2135 hence, when insurrections were to be put down, the Assembly
had neither the courage nor the force necessary. "They blame for the sake of
decency; they frame their deeds by expediency." and in turn justly undergo
the pressure which they themselves have sanctioned against others. Only
three or four times do the majority, when the insurrection becomes too
daring—after the murder of the baker François, the insurrection of the
Swiss Guard at Nancy, and the outbreak of the Champ de Mars—feel that
they themselves are menaced, vote for and apply martial law, and repel
force with force. But, in general, when the despotism of the people is
exercised only against the royalist minority, they allow their adversaries to
be oppressed, and do not consider themselves affected by the violence
which assails the party of the "right:" they are enemies, and may be given
up to the wild beasts. In accordance with this, the "left" has made its
arrangements; its fanaticism has no scruples; it is principle, it is absolute
truth that is at stake; this must triumph at any cost. Besides, can there be
any hesitation in having recourse to the people in the people's own cause? A
little compulsion will help along the good cause, and hence the siege of the
Assembly is continually renewed. This was the practice already at
Versailles before the 6th of October, while now, at Paris, it is kept up more
actively and with less disguise.
At the beginning of the year 1790,2136 the band under pay comprises
seven hundred and fifty effective men, most of them deserters or soldiers
drummed out of their regiments, who are at first paid five francs and then
forty sous a day. It is their business to make or support motions in the
coffee-houses and in the streets, to mix with the spectators at the sittings of
the sections, with the groups at the Palais-Royal, and especially in the
galleries of the National-Assembly, where they are to hoot or applaud at a
given signal. Their leader is a Chevalier de Saint-Louis, to whom they
swear obedience, and who receives his orders from the Committee of
Jacobins. His first lieutenant at the Assembly is a M. Saule, "a stout, small,
stunted old fellow, formerly an upholsterer, then a charlatan hawker of four

penny boxes of grease (made from the fat of those that had been hung—for
the cure of diseases of the kidneys) and all his life a sot.... who, by means of
a tolerably shrill voice, which was always well moistened, has acquired
some reputation in the galleries of the Assembly." In fact, he has forged
admission tickets he has been turned out; he has been obliged to resume
"the box of ointment, and travel for one or two months in the provinces
with a man of letters for his companion." But on his return, "through the
protection of a groom of the Court, he obtained a piece of ground for a
coffee-house against the wall of the Tuileries garden, almost alongside of
the National Assembly," and now it is at home in his coffee-shop behind his
counter that the hirelings of the galleries "come to him to know what they
must say, and to be told the order of the day in regard to applause." Besides
this, he is there himself; "it is he who for three years is to regulate public
sentiment in the galleries confided to his care, and, for his useful and
satisfactory services, the Constituent Assembly will award him a
recompense," to which the Legislative Assembly will add "a pension of six
hundred livres, besides a lodging in an apartment of the Feuillants."
We can divine how men of this stamp, thus compensated, do their work.
From the top of the galleries2137 they drown the demands of the "right" by
the force of their lungs; this or that decree, as, for instance, the abolition of
titles of nobility, is carried, "not by shouts, but by terrific howls."2138 On the
arrival of the news of the sacking of the Hôtel de Castries by the populace,
they applaud. On the question coming up as to the decision whether the
Catholic faith shall be dominant, "they shout out that the aristocrats must all
be hung, and then things will go on well." Their outrages not only remain
unpunished, but are encouraged: this or that noble who complains of their
hooting is called to order, while their interference and vociferations, their
insults and their menaces, are from this time introduced as one of the
regular wheels of legislative operations. Their pressure is still worse outside
the Chamber.2139 The Assembly is obliged several times to double its guard.
On the 27th of September, 1790, there are 40,000 men around the building
to extort the dismissal of the Ministers, and "motions for assassination" are
made under the windows, On the 4th of January, 1791, whilst on a call of
the house the ecclesiastical deputies pass in turn to the tribune, to take or
refuse the oath to the civil constitution of the clergy, a furious clamor
ascends in the Tuileries, and even penetrates into the Chamber. "To the
lamp post with all those who refuse!" On the 27th of September, 1790, M.

Dupont, economist, having spoken against the assignats, is surrounded on
leaving the Chamber and hooted at, hustled, pushed against the basin of the
Tuileries, into which he was being thrown when the guard rescued him. On
the 21st of June, 1790, M. de Cazalès just misses "being torn to pieces by
the people."2140 Deputies of the "right" are threatened over and over again
by gestures in the streets and in the coffee-houses; effigies of them with
ropes about the neck are publicly displayed. The Abbé Maury is several
times on the point of being hung: he saves himself once by presenting a
pistol. Another time the Vicomte de Mirabeau is obliged to draw his sword.
M. de Clermont-Tonnerre, having voted against the annexation of the
Comtat to France, is assailed with chairs and clubs in the Palais-Royal,
pursued into a porter's room and from thence to his dwelling; the howling
crowd break in the doors, and are only repelled with great difficulty. It is
impossible for the members of the "right" to assemble together; they are
"stoned" in the church of the Capuchins, then in the Salon Français in the
Rue Royale, and then, to crown the whole, an ordinance of the new judges
shuts up their hall, and punishes them for the violence which they have to
suffer.2141 In short they are at the mercy of the mob. The most moderate, the
most liberal, and the most manly both in heart and head, Malouet, declares
that "in going to the Assembly he rarely forgot to carry his pistols with
him."2142 "For two years," he says, "after the King's flight, we never
enjoyed one moment of freedom and security."
" On going into a slaughter-house," writes another deputy, "you see some
animals at the entrance which still have a short time to live, until the hour
comes to dispatch them. Such was the impression which the assemblage of
nobles, bishops, and parliamentarians2143 on the right side made on my
mind every time I entered the Assembly, the executioners of the left side
permitting them to breathe a little longer."
They are insulted and outraged even upon their benches; "placed between
peril within and peril without, between the hostility of the galleries,"2144
and that of the howlers at the entrance, "between personal insults and the
abbey of Saint-Germain, between shouts of laughter celebrating the burning
of their chateaux and the clamors which, thirty times in a quarter of an hour,
cry down their opinions," they are given over and denounced "to the ten
thousand Cerberuses" of the journals and of the streets, who pursue them
with their yells and "cover them with their slaver." Any expedient is good
enough for putting down their opposition, and, at the end of the session, in

full Assembly, they are threatened with "a recommendation to the
departments," which means the excitement of riots and of the permanent
jacquerie of the provinces against them in their own houses.—
Parliamentary strategy of this sort, employed uninterruptedly for twenty-
nine months, finally produces its effect. Many of the weak are gained
over;2145 even on characters of firm temper fear has a hold; he who would
march under fire with head erect shuddered at the idea of being dragged in
the gutter by the rabble; the brutality of the populace always exercises a
material ascendancy over finely strung nerves. On the 12th of July,
1791,2146 the call of the house decreed against the absentees proves that one
hundred and thirty-two deputies no longer appear in their places. Eleven
days before, among those who take no further part in the proceedings. Thus,
before the completion of the Constitution, the whole of the opposition, more
than four hundred members, over one-third of the Assembly, is reduced to
flight or to silence. By dint of oppression, the revolutionary party has got
rid of all resistance, while the violence which gave to it ascendancy in the
streets, now gives to it equal ascendance within the walls of Parliament.

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

Generally in an omnipotent assembly, when a party takes the lead and
forms a majority, it furnishes the Ministry; and this fact suffices to give, or
to bring back to it, some glimpse of common sense. For its leaders, with the
Government in their own hands, become responsible for it, and when they
propose or pass a law, they are obliged to anticipate its effect. Rarely will a
Secretary of War or of the Navy adopt a military code which goes to
establish permanent disobedience in the army or in the navy. Rarely will a
Secretary of the Treasury propose an expenditure for which there is not a
sufficient revenue, or a system of taxation that provides no returns. Placed
where full information can be procured, daily advised of every details,
surrounded by skillful counselors and expert clerks, the chiefs of the
majority, who thus become heads of the administration, immediately drop
theory for practice; and the fumes of political speculation must be pretty
dense in their minds if they exclude the multiplied rays of light which
experience constantly sheds upon them. Let the most stubborn of theorists
take his stand at the helm of a ship, and, whatever be the obstinacy of his
principles or his prejudices, he will never, unless he is blind or led by the
blind, persist in steering always to the right or always to the left. Just so
after the flight to Varennes, when the Assembly, in full possession of the
executive power, directly controls the Ministry, it comes to recognize for
itself that its constitutional machine will not work, except in the way of
destruction; and it is the principal revolutionaries, Barnave, Duport, the
Lameths, Chapelier, and Thouret,2147 who undertake to make alterations in
the mechanisms so as to lessen its friction. But this source of knowledge
and reason, however, to which they are momentarily induced to draw, in
spite of themselves and too late, has been turned off by themselves from the
very beginning. On the 6th of November, 1789, in deference to principle
and in dread of corruption, the Assembly had declared that none of its
members should hold ministerial office. We see it in consequence deprived

of all the instruction which comes from direct contact with affairs,
surrendered without any counterpoise to the seductions of theory, reduced
by its own decision to become a mere academy of legislation only.
Nay, still worse, through another effect of the same error, it condemns
itself by its own act to constant fits of panic. For, having allowed the power
which it was not willing to assume to slip into indifferent or suspect hands,
it is always uneasy, and all its decrees bear an uniform stamp, not only of
the willful ignorance within which it confines itself, but also of the
exaggerated or chimerical fears in which its life is passed.—Imagine a ship
conveying a company of lawyers, literary men, and other passengers, who,
supported by a mutinous and poorly fed crew, take full command, but
refuse to select one of their own number for a pilot or for the officer of the
watch. The former captain continues to nominate them; through very
shame, and because he is a good sort of man, his title is left to him, and he
is retained for the transmission of orders. If these orders are absurd, so
much the worse for him; if he resists them, a fresh mutiny forces him to
yield; and even when they cannot be executed, he has to answer for their
being carried out. In the meantime, in a room between decks, far away from
the helm and the compass, our club of amateurs discuss the equilibrium of
floating bodies, decree a new system of navigation, have the ballast thrown
overboard, crowd on all sail, and are astonished to find that the ship heels
over on its side. The officer of the watch and the pilot must, evidently, have
managed the maneuver badly. They are accordingly dismissed and others
put in their place, while the ship heels over farther yet and begins to leak in
every joint. Enough: it is the fault of the captain and the old staff of officers,
They are not well-disposed; for a beautiful system of navigation like this
ought to work well; and if it fails to do so, it is because some one interferes
with it. It is positively certain that some of those people belonging to the
former régime must be traitors, who would rather have the ship go down
than submit; they are public enemies and monsters. They must be seized,
disarmed, put under surveillance, and punished.—Such is the reasoning of
the Assembly. Evidently, to reassure it, a message from the Minister of the
Interior chosen by the Assembly, to the lieutenant of police whom he had
appointed, to come to his office every morning, would be all that was
necessary. But it is deprived of this simple resource by its own act, and has
no other expedient than to appoint a committee of investigation to discover
crimes of "treason against the nation."2148 What could be more vague than

such a term? What could be more mischievous than such an institution?—
Renewed every month, deprived of special agents, composed of credulous
and inexperienced deputies, this committee, set to perform the work of a
Lenoir or a Fouché, makes up for its incapacity by violence, and its
proceedings anticipate those of the Jacobine inquisition.2149 Alarmist and
suspicious, it encourages accusations, and, for lack of plots to discover, it
invents them. Inclinations, in its eyes, stand for actions, and floating
projects become accomplished outrages. On the denunciation of a domestic
who has listened at a door, on the gossip of a washerwoman who has found
a scrap of paper in a dressing-gown, on the false interpretation of a letter, on
vague indications which it completes and patches together by the strength
of its imagination, it forges a coup d'état, makes examinations, domiciliary
visits, nocturnal surprises and arrests;2150 it exaggerates, blackens, and
comes in public session to denounce the whole affair to the National
Assembly. First comes the plot of the Breton nobles to deliver Brest to the
English;2151 then the plot for hiring brigands to destroy the crops; then the
plot of 14th of July to burn Paris; then the plot of Favras to murder
Lafayette, Necker, and Bailly; then the plot of Augeard to carry off the
King, and many others, week after week, not counting those which swarm
in the brains of the journalists, and which Desmoulins, Fréron, and Marat
reveal with a flourish of trumpets in each of their publications.
"All these alarms are cried daily in the streets like cabbages and turnips,
the good people of Paris inhaling them along with the pestilential vapors of
our mud."2152
..............Now, in this aspect, as well as in a good many others, the
Assembly is the people; satisfied that it is in danger,2153 it makes laws as
the former make their insurrections, and protects itself by strokes of
legislation as the former protects itself by blows with pikes. Failing to take
hold of the motor spring by which it might direct the government machine,
it distrusts all the old and all the new wheels. The old ones seem to it an
obstacle, and, instead of utilizing them, it breaks them one by one—
parliaments, provincial states, religious orders, the church, the nobles, and
royalty. The new ones are suspicious, and instead of harmonizing them, it
puts them out of gear in advance—the executive power, administrative
powers, judicial powers, the police, the gendarmerie, and the army.2154
Thanks to these precautions it is impossible for any of them to be turned

against itself; but, also, thanks to these precautions, none of them can
perform their functions.2155
In building, as well as in destroying, the Assembly had two bad
counselors, on the one hand fear, on the other hand theory; and on the ruins
of the old machine which it had demolished without discernment, the new
machine, which it has constructed without forecast, will work only to its
own ruin.

2101 (return)
[ Arthur Young, June 15, 1789.—Bailly, passim,—Moniteur,
IV. 522 (June 2, 1790).—Mercure de France (Feb. 11
1792).]
2102 (return)
[ Moniteur, v. 631 (Sep. 12, 1790), and September 8th (what
is said by the Abbé Maury).—Marmontel, book XIII. 237.—
Malouet, I. 261.—Bailly, I. 227.]
2103 (return)
[ Sir Samuel Romilly, "Mémoires," I. 102, 354.—Dumont,
158. (The official rules bear are dated July 29, 1789.)]
2104 (return)
[ Cf. Ferrières, I. 3. His repentance is affecting.]
2105 (return)
[ Letter from Morris to Washington, January 24, 1790 See
page 382, "A diary of the French revolution", Greenwood
Press, Westport, Conn. 1972.—Dumont 125—Garat, letter to
Condorcet.]
2106 (return)
[ Arthur Young, I. 46. "Tame and elegant, uninteresting and
polite, the mingled mass of communicated ideas has power
neither to offend nor instruct..... All vigor of thought seems
excluded from expression..... Where there is much polish of
character there is little argument."—Cabinet des Estampes.
See engravings of the day by Moreau, Prieur, Monet,
representing the opening of the States-General. All the
figures have a graceful, elegant, and genteel air.]
2107 (return)
[ Marmontel, book XIII. 237.—Malouet, I. 261.—Ferrières,
I. 19.]
2108 (return)
[ Gouverneur Morris, January 24, 1790.—Likewise (De
Ferrières, I.71) the decree on the abolition of nobility was
not the order of the day, and was carried by surprise.]
2109 (return)
[ Ferrières, I. 189.—Dumont, 146.]

2110 (return)
[ Letter of Mirabeau to Sieyès, June 11, 1790. "Our nation of
monkeys with the throats of parrots."—Dumont, 146.
"Sieyès and Mirabeau always entertained a contemptible
opinion of the Constituent Assembly."]
2111 (return)
[ Moniteur, I, 256, 431 (July 16 and 31, 1789).—Journal des
Débats et Décrets, 105, July 16th "A member demands that
M. de Lally should put his speech in writing. The whole
Assembly has repeated this request."]
2112 (return)
[ Moniteur. (March 11, 1790). "A nun of St. Mandé, brought
to the bar of the house, thanks the Assembly for the decree
by which the cloisters are opened, and denounces the tricks,
intrigues, and even violence exercised in the convents to
prevent the execution of the decree."—Ibid. March 29, 1790.
See the various addresses which are read. "At Lagnon, the
mother of a family assembled her ten children, and swore
with them and for them to be loyal to the nation and to the
King."—Ibid. June 5, 1790. "M. Chambroud reads the letter
of the collector of customs of Lannion, in Brittany, to a
priest, a member of the National Assembly. He implores his
influence to secure the acceptance of his civic oath and that
of all his family, ready to wield either the censer, the cart,
the scales, the sword, or the pen." On reading a number of
these addresses the Assembly appears to be a supplement of
the Petites Affiches (a small advertising journal in Paris).]
2113 (return)
[ Moniteur, October 23, 1789.]
2114 (return)
[ A well-known writer of children's stories.— 21Tr.]
2115 (return)
[ Ferrières, II. 65 (June 10,1790).—De Montlosier, I. 402.
"One of these puppets came the following day to get his
money of the Comte de Billancourt, mistaking him for the
Duc de Liancourt. 'Monsieur,' says he, 'I am the man who
played the Chaldean yesterday.'"]
2116 (return)
[ Buchez and Roux, X. 118 (June 16, 1791).]
2117 (return)
[ See the printed list of deputies, with the indication of their
baillage or sénéchaussée, quality, condition, and profession.]
2118 (return)
[ De Bouillé, 75.—When the King first saw the list of the
deputies, he exclaimed," What would the nation have said if
I had made up my council or the Notables in this way?"
(Buchez and Roux, IV. 39.)]

2119 (return)
[ Gouverneur Morris, July 31, 1789.]
2120 (return)
[ Gouverneur Morris, February 25, 1789.—Lafayette,
"Mémoires," V. 492. Letter of Jefferson, February 14, 1815.
—Arthur Young, June 27 and 29, 1789.]
2121 (return)
[ Morris, July 1, 1789.]
2122 (return)
[ Morris, July 4, 1789.]
2123 (return)
[ Mallet du Pan, Mercure, September 26, 1789.]
2124 (return)
[ Gouverneur Morris, January 24, 1790; November 22,
1790.]
2125 (return)
[ Dumont, 33, 58, 62.]
2126 (return)
[ Sir Samuel. Romilly, "Mémoirs," I. 102. "It was their
constant course first, decree the principle and leave the
drawing up of what they had so resolved (or, as they called
it, la rédaction) for later. It is astonishing how great an
influence it had on their debates and measures".—Ibid. I.
354. Letter by Dumont, June 2, 1789. "They prefer their own
folly to all the results of British experience. They revolt at
the idea of borrowing anything from our government, which
is scoffed at here as one of the iniquities of human reason;
although they admit that you have two or three good laws;
but that you should presume to have a constitution is not to
be sustained."]
2127 (return)
[ Dumont, 138, 151.]
2128 (return)
[ Morris, January 24, 1790.]
2129 (return)
[ Marmontel, XII. 265.—Ferrières,. I. 48¸ II. 50, 58, 126.—
Dumont, 74.]
2130 (return)
[ Gouverneur Morris, January 24, 1790.—According to
Ferrières this party comprised about three hundred
members.]
2131 (return)
[ Here Ambassador Morris describes the kind of man who
should form the backbone of all later revolutions whether
communist or fascist ones. (SR.)]
2132 (return)
[ Dumont, 33, 58, 62.]

2133 (return)
[ De Lavergne, "Les Assemblées Provinciales," 384.
Deliberations of the States of Dauphiny, drawn up by
Mournier and signed by two hundred gentlemen (July,
1788). "The rights of man are derived from nature alone, and
are independent of human conventions."]
2134 (return)
[ Report by Merlin de Douai, February 8, 1790, p.2.—
Malouet, II, 51.]
2135 (return)
[ Dumont, 133.—De Montlosier, I, 355, 361.]
2136 (return)
[ Bertrand de Molleville, II. 221 (according to a police
report).—Schmidt, "Tableaux de la Révolution," I. 215.
(Report of the agent Dutard, May 13, 1793)—Lacretelle,
"Dix Ans d'Epreuves," p.35. "It was about midnight when
we went out in the rain, sleet, and snow, in the piercing cold,
to the church of the Feuillants, to secure places for the
galleries of the Assembly, which we were not to occupy till
noon on the following day. We were obliged, moreover, to
contend for them with a crowd animated by passions, and
even by interests, very different from our own. We were not
long in perceiving that a considerable part of the galleries
was under pay, and that the scenes of cruelty which gave
pain to us were joy to them. I cannot express the horror I felt
on hearing those women, since called tricoteuses, take a
delight in the already homicidal doctrines of Robespierre,
enjoying his sharp voice and feasting their eyes on his ugly
face, the living type of envy." (The first months of 1790.)]
2137 (return)
[ Moniteur, V. 237 (July 26, 1790); V. 594. (September 8,
1790); V. 631 (September 12, 1790); VI. 310 (October 6,
1790). (Letter of the Abbé Peretti.)]
2138 (return)
[ De Ferrières, II. 75.—Moniteur, VI. 373 (September 6,
1790).—M. de Virieu. "Those who insult certain members
and hinder the freedom of debate by hooting or applause
must be silenced. Is it the three hundred spectators who are
to be our judges, or the nation?" M. Chasset, President:
"Monsieur opinionist, I call you to order. You speak of
hindrances to a free vote; there has never been anything of
the kind in this Assembly."]
2139 (return)
[ Sauzay, I 140. Letter of M. Lompré, liberal deputy, to M.
Séguin, chanoine (towards the end of November, 1789).
"The service becomes more difficult every day; we have
become objects of popular fury, and, when no other resource
was left to us to avoid the tempest but to get rid of the
endowments of the clergy, we yielded to force. It had

become a pressing necessity, and I should have been sorry to
have had you still here, exposed to the outrages and violence
with which I have been repeatedly threatened."]
2140 (return)
[ Mercure de France, Nos. of January 15, 1791; October 2,
1790; May 14,1791.—Buchez and Roux, V. 343 (April 13,
1790); VII. 76 (September 2, 1790); X. 225 ( June 21, 1791).
—De Montlosier, I. 357.—Moniteur, IV, 427.]
2141 (return)
[ Archives of the Police, exposed by the Committee of the
district of Saint-Roch. Judgment of the Police Tribunal, May
15, 1790.]
2142 (return)
[ Malouet, II. 68.—De Montlosier, II. 217, 257 (Speech of
M. Lavie, September 18, 1791).]
2143 (return)
[ I.e. members of the old local parlements.]
2144 (return)
[ Mercure, October 1, 1791. (Article by Mallet du Pan.)]
2145 (return)
[ Malouet II. 66. "Those only who were not intimidated by
insults or threats, nor by actual blows, could come forward
as opponents."]
2146 (return)
[ Buchez and Roux, X. 432, 465.]
2147 (return)
[ Malouet, II, 153.]
2148 (return)
[ Decrees of July 23rd and 28th, 1789.—"Archives
Nationales." Papers of Committee of Investigation, passim.
Among other affairs see that of Madame de Persan
(Moniteur, V. 611, sitting of September 9, 1790), and that of
Malouet ("Mémoires" II. 12).]
2149 (return)
[ Buchez and Roux, IV. 56 (Report of Garan de Coulon); V.
49 (Decision of the Committee of Investigation, December
28, 1789).]
2150 (return)
[ The arrests of M. de Riolles, M. de Bussy, etc., of Madame
de Jumilhac, of two other ladies, one at Bar-le-Duc and the
other of Nancy, etc.]
2151 (return)
[ Sitting of July 28, 1789, the speeches of Duport and
Rewbell, etc.—Mercure, No. of January 1, 1791 (article by
Mallet du Pan).—Buchez and Roux, V. 146l "Behold five or
six successive conspiracies—that of the sacks of flour, that

of the sacks of money, etc." (Article by Camille
Desmoulins.)]
2152 (return)
[ "Archives de la Préfecture de Police." Extract from the
registers of the deliberations of the Conseil-Général of the
district of Saint-Roch, October 10 1789: Arrête: to request
all the men in the commune to devote themselves, with all
the prudence, activity, and force of which they are capable,
to the discovery, exposure, and publication of the horrible
plots and infernal treachery which are constantly meditated
against the inhabitants of the capital; to denounce to the
public the authors, abettors, and adherents of the said plots,
whatever their rank may be; to secure their persons and
insure their punishment with all the rigor which outrages of
this kind call for. The commandant of the battalion and the
district captains come daily to consult with the committee.
"While the alarm lasts, the first story of each house is to be
lighted with lamps during the night: all citizens of the
district are requested to be at home by ten o'clock in the
evening at the latest, unless they should be on duty... . All
citizens are invited to communicate whatever they may learn
or discover in relation to the abominable plots which are
secretly going on in the capital."]
2153 (return)
[ Letter of M. de Guillermy, July 31, 1790 ("Actes des
Apôtres," V. 56). "During these two nights (July 13th and
14th, 1789) that we remained in session I heard one deputy
try to get it believed that an artillery corps had been ordered
to point its guns against our hall; another, that it was
undermined, and that it was to be blown up; another went so
far as to declare that he smelt powder, upon which M. le
Comte de Virieu replied that power had no odor until it was
burnt."]
2154 (return)
[ Dumont, 351. "Each constitutional law was a party
triumph."]
2155 (return)
[ Here Taine indicates how subversive parties may proceed
to weaken a nation prior to their take-over.(SR.)]

CHAPTER II. DESTRUCTION.

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

In the structure of the old society there were two fundamental vices
which called for two reforms of corresponding importance.2201
In the first place, those who were privileged having ceased to render the
services for which the advantages they enjoyed constituted their
compensation and their privileges were no longer anything but a gratuitous
charge imposed on one portion of the nation for the benefit of the other.
Hence the necessity for suppressing them.
In the second place, the Government, being absolute, made use of public
resources as if they were its own private property, arbitrarily and
wastefully;2202 it was therefore necessary to impose upon it some effective
and regular restraints.
To render all citizens equal before taxation, to put the purse of the tax-
payers into the hands of their representatives, such was the twofold
operation to be carried out in 1789; and the privileged class as well as the
King willingly lent themselves to it. Not only, in this respect, were the
memorials of nobles and clergy in perfect harmony, but the monarch
himself; in his declaration of the 23rd of June, 1789, decreed the two
articles. Henceforth, every tax or loan was to obtain the consent of the
States-General; this consent was to be renewed at each new meeting of the
States; the public estimates were to be annually published, discussed,
specified, apportioned, voted on and verified by the States; there were to be
no arbitrary assessments or use of public funds; allowances were to be
specially assigned for all separate services, the household of the King
included. In each province or district-general, there was to be an elected
Provincial Assembly, one-half composed of ecclesiastics and nobles, and
the other half of members of the Third-Estate, to apportion general taxes, to
manage local affairs, to decree and direct public works, to administer
hospitals, prisons, workhouses, and to continue its function, in the interval
of the sessions, through an intermediary commission chosen by itself; so

that, besides the principal control of the center, there were to be thirty
subordinate controlling powers at the extremities. There was to be no more
exemption or distinction in the matter of taxation; the roadtax (covée) was
to be abolished, also the right of franc-fief2203 imposed on plebeians; the
rights of mortmain,2204 subject to indemnity, and internal customs duties.
There was to be a reduction of the captaincies, a modification of the salt-tax
and of the excise, the transformation of civil justice, too costly for the poor,
and of criminal justice, too severe for the humbler classes. Here we have,
besides the principal reform, equalization of taxes; the beginning and
inducement of the more complete operation which is to strike off the last of
the feudal manacles. Moreover; six weeks later, on the 4th of August; the
privileged, in an outburst of generosity, come forward of their own accord
to cut off or undo the whole of them. This double reform thus encountered
no obstacles, and, as Arthur Young reported to his friends, it merely
required one vote to have it adopted.2205
This was enough; for all real necessities were now satisfied. On the one
hand, through the abolition of privileges in the matter of taxation, the
burden of the peasant and, in general, on the small tax-payer was
diminished one-half, and perhaps two thirds; instead of paying fifty-three
francs on one hundred francs of net income, he paid no more than twenty-
five or even sixteen;2206 an enormous relief, and one which, with the
proposed revision of the excise and salt duties, made a complete change in
his condition. Add to this the gradual redemption of ecclesiastical and
feudal dues: and after twenty years the peasant, already proprietor of a fifth
of the soil, would, without the violent events of the Revolution, in any case
have attained the same degree of independence and well-being which he
was to achieve by passing through it. On the other hand, through the annual
vote on the taxes, not only were waste and arbitrariness in the employment
of the public funds put a stop to, but also the foundations of the
parliamentary system of government were laid: whoever holds the purse-
strings is, or becomes, master of the rest; henceforth in the maintenance or
establishment of any service, the assent of the States was to be necessary.
Now, in the three Chambers which the three orders were thenceforward to
form, there were two in which the plebeians predominated. Public opinion,
moreover, was on their side, while the King, the true constitutional
monarch, far from possessing the imperious inflexibility of a despot, did not
now possess the initiative of an ordinary person. Thus the preponderance

fell to the communes, and they could legally, without any collision, execute
multiply, and complete, with the aid of the prince and through him, all
useful reforms.2207—This was enough; for human society, like a living
body, is seized with convulsions when it is subjected to operations on too
great a scale, and these, although restricted, were probably all that France in
1789 could endure. To equitably reorganize afresh the whole system of
direct and indirect taxation; to revise, recast, and transfer to the frontiers the
customs-tariffs; to suppress, through negotiations and with indemnity,
feudal and ecclesiastical claims, was an operation of the greatest magnitude,
and as complex as it was delicate. Things could be satisfactorily arranged
only through minute inquiries, verified calculations, prolonged essays, and
mutual concessions. In England, in our day, a quarter of a century has been
required to bring about a lesser reform, the transformation of tithes and
manorial-rights; and time likewise was necessary for our Assemblies to
perfect their political education,2208 to get of their theories, to learn, by
contact with practical business, and in the study of details, the distance
which separates speculation from practice; to discover that a new system of
institutions works well only through a new system of habits, and that to
decree a new system of habits is tantamount to attempting to build an old
house.—Such, however, is the work they undertake. They reject the King's
proposals, the limited reforms, the gradual transformations. According to
them, it is their right and their duty to re-make society from top to bottom.
Such is the command of pure reason, which has discovered the Rights of
Man and the conditions of the Social Contract.

II—Nature of societies, and the principle of
enduring constitutions.
Apply the Social Contract, if you like, but apply it only to those for
whom it was drawn up. These were abstract beings, belonging neither to a
period nor to a country, perfect creatures hatched out under the magic wand
of a metaphysician. They had as a matter of fact come into existence by
removing all the characteristics which distinguish one man from
another,2209 a Frenchman from a Papuan, a modern Englishman from a
Briton in the time of Caesar, and by retaining only the part which is
common to all.2210 The essence thus obtained is a prodigiously meager one,
an infinitely curtailed extract of human nature, that is, in the phraseology of
the day,
"A BEING WITH A DESIRE TO BE HAPPY AND THE FACULTY OF
REASONING,"
nothing more and nothing else. After this pattern several million
individuals, all precisely alike, have been prepared while, through a second
simplification, as extraordinary as the first one, they are all supposed to be
free and all equal, without a past, without kindred, without responsibility,
without traditions, without customs, like so many mathematical units, all
separable and all equivalent, and then it is imagined that, assembled
together for the first time, these proceed to make their primitive bargain.
From the nature they are supposed to possess and the situation in which
they are placed, no difficulty is found in deducing their interests, their wills,
and the contract between them. But if this contract suits them, it does not
follow that it suits others. On the contrary, if follows that is does not suit
others; the inconvenience becomes extreme on its being imposed on a living
society; the measure of that inconvenience will be the immensity of the
distance which divides a hollow abstraction, a philosophical phantom, an
empty insubstantial image from the real and complete man.
In any event we are not here considering a specimen, so reduced and
mutilated as to be only an outline of a human being; no, we are to the
contrary considering Frenchmen of the year 1789. It is for them alone that

the constitution is being made: it is therefore they alone who should be
considered; they are manifestly men of a particular species, having their
peculiar temperament, their special aptitudes, their own inclinations, their
religion, their history, all adding up into a mental and moral structure,
hereditary and deeply rooted, bequeathed to them by the indigenous stock,
and to which every great event, each political or literary phase for twenty
centuries, has added a growth, a transformation or a custom. It is like some
tree of a unique species whose trunk, thickened by age, preserves in its
annual rings and in its knots, branches, and curvatures, the deposits which
its sap has made and the imprint of the innumerable seasons through which
it has passed. Using the philosophic definition, so vague and trite, to such
an organism, is only a puerile label teaching us nothing.—And all the more
because extreme diversities and inequalities show themselves on this
exceedingly elaborate and complicated background,—those of age,
education, faith, class and fortune; and these must be taken into account, for
these contribute to the formation of interests, passions, and dispositions. To
take only the most important of these, it is clear that, according to the
average of human life,2211 one-half of the population is composed of
children, and, besides this, one-half of the adults are women. In every
twenty inhabitants eighteen are Catholic, of whom sixteen are believers, at
least through habit and tradition. Twenty-five out of twenty-six millions of
Frenchmen cannot read, one million at the most being able to do so; and in
political matters only five or six hundred are competent. As to the condition
of each class, its ideas, its sentiments, its kind and degree of culture, we
should have to devote a large volume to a mere sketch of them.
There is still another feature and the most important of all. These men
who are so different from each other are far from being independent, or
from contracting together for the first time. They and their ancestors for
eight hundred years form a national body, and it is because they belong to
this body that they live, multiply, labor, make acquisitions, become
enlightened and civilized, and accumulate the vast heritage of comforts and
intelligence which they now enjoy. Each in this community is like the cell
of an organized body; undoubtedly the body is only an accumulation of
cells, but the cell is born, subsists, develops and attains its individual ends
only be the healthy condition of the whole body. Its chief interest,
accordingly, is the prosperity of the whole organism, and the fundamental
requirement of all the little fragmentary lives, whether they know it or not,

is the conservation of the great total life in which they are comprised as
musical notes in a concert.—Not only is this a necessity for them, but it is
also a duty. We are all born with a debt to our country, and this debt
increases while we grow up; it is with the assistance of our country, under
the protection of the law, upheld by the authorities, that our ancestors and
parents have given us life, property, and education. Each person's faculties,
ideas, attitudes, his or her entire moral and physical being are the products
to which the community has contributed, directly or indirectly, at least as
tutor and guardian. By virtue of this the state is his creditor, just as a
destitute father is of his able-bodied son; it can lay claim to nourishment,
services, and, in all the force or resources of which he disposes, it
deservedly demands a share.—This he knows and feels, the notion of
country is deeply implanted within him, and when occasion calls for it, it
will show itself in ardent emotions, fueling steady sacrifice and heroic
effort.—Such are veritable Frenchmen, and we at once see how different
they are from the simple, indistinguishable, detached monads which the
philosophers insist on substituting for them. Their association need not be
created, for it already exists; for eight centuries they have a "common weal"
(la chose publique). The safety and prosperity of this common weal is at
once their interest, their need, their duty, and even their most secret wish. If
it is possible to speak here of a contract, their quasi-contract is made and
settled for them beforehand. The first article, at all events, is stipulated for,
and this overrides all the others. The nation must not be dissolved. Public
authorities must, accordingly, exist, and these must be respected. If there are
a number of these, they must be so defined and so balanced as to be of
mutual assistance, instead of neutralizing each other by their opposition.
Whatever government is adopted, it must place matters in the hands best
qualified to conduct them. The law must not exist for the advantage of the
minority, nor for that of the majority, but for the entire community.—In
regard to this first article no one must derogate from it, neither the minority
nor the majority, neither the Assembly elected by the nation, nor the nation
itself, even if unanimous. It has no right arbitrarily to dispose of the
common weal, to put it in peril according to its caprice, to subordinate it to
the application of a theory or to the interest of a single class, even if this
class is the most numerous. For, that which is the common weal does not
belong to it, but to the whole community, past, present, and to come. Each
generation is simply the temporary manager and responsible trustee of a

precious and glorious patrimony which it has received from the former
generation, and which it has to transmit to the one that comes after it. In this
perpetual endowment, to which all Frenchmen from the first days of France
have brought their offerings, there is no doubt about the intentions of
countless benefactors; they have made their gifts conditionally, that is, on
the condition that the endowment should remain intact, and that each
successive beneficiary should merely serve as the administrator of it.
Should any of the beneficiaries, through presumption or levity, through
rashness or one-sidedness, compromise the charge entrusted to them, they
wrong all their predecessors whose sacrifices they invalidate, and all their
successors whose hopes they frustrate. Accordingly, before undertaking to
frame a constitution, let the whole community be considered in its entirety,
not merely in the present but in the future, as far as the eye can reach. The
interest of the public, viewed in this far-sighted manner, is the end to which
all the rest must be subordinate, and for which a constitution provides. A
constitution, whether oligarchic, monarchist, or aristocratic, is simply an
instrument, good if it attains this end, and bad if it does not attain it, and
which, to attain it, must, like every species of mechanism, vary according to
the ground, materials, and circumstances. The most ingenious is illegitimate
if it dissolves the State, while the clumsiest is legitimate if it keeps the State
intact. There is none that springs out of an anterior, universal, and absolute
right. According to the people, the epoch, and the degree of civilization,
according to the outer or inner condition of things, all civil or political
equality or inequality may, in turn, be or cease to be beneficial or hurtful,
and therefore justify the legislator in removing or preserving it. It is
according to this superior and salutary law, and not according to an
imaginary and impossible contract, that he is to organize, limit, delegate and
distribute from the center to the extremities, through inheritance or through
election, through equalization or through privilege, the rights of the citizen
and the power of the community.

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

Was it necessary to begin by making a clean sweep, and was it advisable
to abolish or only to reform the various orders and corporations?—Two
prominent orders, the clergy and the nobles, enlarged by the ennobled
plebeians who had grown wealthy and acquired titled estates, formed a
privileged aristocracy side by side with the Government, whose favors it
might receive on the condition of seeking them assiduously and with due
acknowledgment, privileged on its own domains, and taking advantage
there of all rights belonging to the feudal chieftain without performing his
duties. This abuse was evidently an enormous one and had to be ended. But,
it did not follow that, because the position of the privileged class on their
domains and in connection with the Government was open to abuse, they
should be deprived of protection for person and property on their domains,
and of influence and occupation under the Government.—A favored
aristocracy, when it is unoccupied and renders none of the services which
its rank admits of, when it monopolizes all honors, offices, promotions,
preferences, and pensions,2212 to the detriment of others not less needy and
deserving, is undoubtedly a serious evil. But when an aristocracy is subject
to the common law, when it is occupied, especially when its occupation is
in conformity with its aptitudes, and more particularly when it is available
for the formation of an upper elective chamber or an hereditary peerage, it
is a vast service.—In any case it cannot be irreversibly suppressed; for,
although it may be abolished by law, it is reconstituted by facts. The
legislator must necessarily choose between two systems, that which lets it
lie fallow, or that which enables it to be productive, that which drives it

away from, or that which rallies it round, the public service. In every
society which has lived for any length of time, a nucleus of families always
exists whose fortunes and importance are of ancient date. Even when, as in
France in 1789, this class seems to be exclusive, each half century
introduces into it new families; judges, governors, rich businessmen or
bankers who have risen to the tope of the social ladder through the wealth
they have acquired or through the important offices they have filled; and
here, in the medium thus constituted, the statesman and wise counselor of
the people, the independent and able politician is most naturally developed.
—Because, on the one hand, thanks to his fortune and his rank, a man of
this class is above all vulgar ambitions and temptations. He is able to serve
gratis; he is not obliged to concern himself about money or about providing
for his family and making his way in the world. A political mission is no
interruption to his career; he is not obliged, like the engineer, merchant, or
physician, to sacrifice either his business, his advancement, or his clients.
He can resign his post without injury to himself or to those dependent on
him, follow his own convictions, resist the noisy deleterious opinions of the
day, and be the loyal servant, not the low flatterer of the public. Whilst,
consequently, in the inferior or average conditions of life, the incentive is
self-interest, with him the grand motive is pride. Now, amongst the deeper
feelings of man there is none which is more adapted for transformation into
probity, patriotism, and conscientiousness; for the first requisite of the high-
spirited man is self-respect, and, to obtain that, he is induced to deserve it.
Compare, from this point of view, the gentry and nobility of England with
the "politicians" of the United States.—On the other hand, with equal
talents, a man who belongs to this sphere of life enjoys opportunities for
acquiring a better comprehension of public affairs than a poor man of the
lower classes. The information he requires is not the erudition obtained in
libraries and in private study. He must be familiar with living men, and,
besides these, with agglomerations of men, and even more with human
organizations, with States, with Governments, with parties, with
administrative systems, at home and abroad, in full operation and on the
spot. There is but one way to reach this end, and that is to see for himself,
with his own eyes, at once in general outline and in details, by intercourse
with the heads of departments, with eminent men and specialists, in whom
are gathered up the information and the ideas of a whole class. Now the
young do not frequent society of this description, either at home or abroad,

except on the condition of possessing a name, family, fortune, education
and a knowledge of social observances. All this is necessary to enable a
young man of twenty to find doors everywhere open to him to be received
everywhere on an equal footing, to be able to speak and to write three or
four living languages, to make long, expensive, and instructive sojourns in
foreign lands, to select and vary his position in the different branches of the
public service, without pay or nearly so, and with no object in view but that
of his political culture Thus brought up a man, even of common capacity, is
worthy of being consulted. If he is of superior ability, and there is
employment for him, he may become a statesman before thirty; he may
acquire ripe capacities, become prime Minister, the sole pilot, alone able,
like Pitt, Canning, or Peel, to steer the ship of State between the reefs, or
give in the nick of time the touch to the helm which will save the ship.—
Such is the service to which an upper class is adapted. Only this kind of
specialized stud farm can furnish a regular supply of racers, and, now and
then, the favorite winner that distances all his competitors in the European
field.
But in order that they may prepare and educate themselves for this career,
the way must be clear, and they must not be compelled to travel too
repulsive a road. If rank, inherited fortune, personal dignity, and refined
manners are sources of disfavor with the people; if, to obtain their votes, he
is forced to treat as equals electoral brokers of low character; if impudent
charlatanism, vulgar declamation, and servile flattery are the sole means by
which votes can be secured, then, as nowadays in the United States, and
formerly in Athens, the aristocratic body will retire into private life and
soon settle down into a state of idleness. A man of culture and refinement,
born with an income of a hundred thousand a year, is not tempted to
become either manufacturer, lawyer, or physician. For want of other
occupation he loiters about, entertains his friends, chats, indulges in the
tastes and hobbies of an amateur, is bored or enjoys himself. As a result one
of society's great forces is thus lost to the nation. In this way the best and
largest acquisition of the past, the heaviest accumulation of material and of
moral capital, remain unproductive. In a pure democracy the upper
branches of the social tree, not only the old ones but the young ones, remain
sterile. When a vigorous branch passes above the rest and reaches the top it
ceases to bear fruit. The élite of the nation is thus condemned to constant
and irremediable failures because it cannot find a suitable outlet for its

activity. It wants no other outlet, for in all directions its rival, who are born
below it, can serve as usefully and as well as itself. But this one it must
have, for on this its aptitudes are superior, natural, unique, and the State
which refuses to employ it resembles the gardener who in his fondness for a
plane surface would repress his best shoots.2213—Hence, in the
constructions which aim to utilize the permanent forces of society and yet
maintain civil equality, the aristocracy is brought to take a part in public
affairs by the duration and gratuitous character of its mission, by the
institution of an hereditary character, by the application of various
machinery, all of which is combined so as to develop the ambition, the
culture, and the political capacity of the upper class, and to place power, or
the control of power, in its hands, on the condition that it shows itself
worthy of exercising it.—Now, in 1789, the upper class was not unworthy
of it. Members of the parliaments, the noblemen, bishops, capitalists, were
the men amongst whom, and through whom, the philosophy of the
eighteenth century was propagated. Never was an aristocracy more liberal,
more humane, and more thoroughly converted to useful reforms;2214 many
of them remain so under the knife of the guillotine. The magistrates of the
superior tribunals, in particular, traditionally and by virtue of their
institution, were the enemies of excessive expenditure and the critics of
arbitrary acts. As to the gentry of the provinces, "they were so weary," says
one of them,2215 "of the Court and the Ministers that most of them were
democrats." For many years, in the Provincial Assemblies, the whole of the
upper class, the clergy, nobles, and Third-Estate, furnishes abundant
evidence of its good disposition, of its application to business, its capacity
and even generosity. Its mode of studying, discussing, and assigning the
local taxation indicates what it would have done with the general budget
had this been entrusted to it. It is evident that it would have protected the
general taxpayer as zealously as the taxpayer of the province, and kept as
close an eye upon the public purse at Paris as on that of Bourges or of
Montauban.—Thus were the materials of a good chamber ready at hand,
and the only thing that had to be done was to convene them. On having the
facts presented to them, its members would have passed without difficulty
from a hazardous theory to common-sense practice, and the aristocracy
which had enthusiastically given an impetus to reform in its saloons would,
in all probability, have carried it out effectively and with moderation in the
Parliament.

Unhappily, the Assembly is not providing a Constitution for
contemporary Frenchmen, but for abstract beings. Instead of seeing classes
in society one placed above the other, it simply sees individuals in
juxtaposition; its attention is not fixed on the advantage of the nation, but
on the imaginary rights of man. As all men are equal, all must have an equal
share in the government. There must be no orders in a State, no avowed or
concealed political privileges, no constitutional complications or electoral
combinations by which an aristocracy, however liberal and capable, may
put its hands upon any portion of the public power.—On the contrary,
because it was once privileged to enjoy important and rewarding public
employment, the candidacy of the upper classes is now suspect. All projects
which, directly or indirectly, reserve or provide a place for it, are refused: At
first the Royal Declaration, which, in conformity with historical precedents,
maintained the three orders in three distinct chambers, and only summoned
them to deliberate together "on matters of general utility." Then the plan of
the Constitutional Committee, which proposed a second Chamber,
appointed for life by the King on the nomination of the Provincial
Assemblies. And finally the project of Mounier who proposed to confide to
these same Assemblies the election of a Senate for six years, renewed by
thirds every two years. This Senate was to be composed of men of at least
thirty-five years of age, and with an income in real property of 30,000 livres
per annum. The instinct of equality is too powerful and a second Chamber
is not wanted, even if accessible to plebeians. Through it,2216
"The smaller number would control the greater;"... "we should fall back
on the humiliating distinctions" of the ancient regime; "we should revivify
the germ of an aristocracy which must be exterminated.".... "Moreover,
whatever recalls or revives feudal Institutions is bad, and an Upper
Chamber is one of its remnants." ...."If the English have one, it is because
they have been forced to make a compromise with prejudice."
The National Assembly, sovereign and philosophic, soars above their
errors, their trammel; and their example. The depository of truth, it has not
to receive lessons from others, but to give them, and to offer to the world's
admiration the first type of a Constitution which is perfect and in
conformity with principle, the most effective of any in preventing the
formation of a governing class; in closing the way to public business, not
only to the old noblesse, but to the aristocracy of the future; in continuing
and exaggerating the work of absolute monarchy; in preparing for a

community of officials and administrators; in lowering the level of
humanity; in reducing to sloth and brutalizing or blighting the elite of the
families which maintain or raise themselves; and in withering the most
precious of nurseries, that in which the State recruits its statesmen.2217
Excluded from the Government, the aristocracy is about to retire into
private life. Let us follow them to their estates: Feudal rights instituted for a
barbarous State are certainly a great draw-back in a modern State. If
appropriate in an epoch when property and sovereignty were fused together,
when the Government was local, when life was militant, they form an
incongruity at a time when sovereignty and property are separated, when
the Government is centralized, when the regime is a pacific one. The
bondage which, in the tenth century, was necessary to re-established
security and agriculture, is, in the eighteenth century, purposeless thralldom
which impoverishes the soil and fetters the peasant. But, because these
ancient claims are liable to abuse and injurious at the present day, it does
not follow that they never were useful and legitimate, nor that it is
allowable to abolish them without indemnity On the contrary, for many
centuries, and, on the whole, so long as the lord of the manor resided on his
estates this primitive contract was advantageous to both parties, and to such
an extent that it has led to the modern contract. Thanks to the pressure of
this tight bandage, the broken fragments of the community can be again
united, and society once more recover its solidity, force, and activity.—In
any event, that the institution, like all human institutions, took its rise in
violence and was corrupted by abuses is of little consequence; the State, for
eight hundred years, recognized these feudal claims, and, with its own
consent and the concurrence of its Courts, they were transmitted,
bequeathed, sold, mortgaged, and exchanged, like any other species of
property. Only two or three hundred, at most, now remained in the families
of the original proprietors. "The largest portion of the titled estates," says a
contemporary,2218 "have become the property of capitalists, merchants, and
their descendants; the fiefs, for the most part, being in the hands of the
bourgeois of the towns." All the fiefs which, during two centuries past, have
been bought by new men, now represent the economy and labor of their
purchasers.—Moreover; whoever the actual holders may be, whether old or
whether new men, the State is under obligation to them, not only by general
right—and because, from the beginning, it is in its nature the guardian of all
property,—but also by a special right, because it has itself sanctioned this

particular species of property. The buyers of yesterday paid their money
only under its guarantee; its signature is affixed to the contract, and it has
bound itself to secure to them the enjoyment of it. If it prevents them from
doing so, let it make them compensation; in default of the thing promised to
them, it owes them the value of it. Such is the law in cases of expropriation
for public utility; in 1834, for instance, the English, for the legal abolition
of slavery, paid to their planters the sum of £20,000,000. —But that is not
sufficient: when, in the suppression of feudal rights, the legislator's thoughts
are taken up with the creditors, he has only half performed his task; there
are two sides to the question, and he must likewise think of the debtors. If
he is not merely a lover of abstractions and of fine phrases, if that which
interests him is men and not words, if he is bent upon the effective
enfranchisement of the cultivator of the soil, he will not rest content with
proclaiming a principle, with permitting the redemption of rents, with fixing
the rate of redemption, and, in case of dispute, with sending parties before
the tribunals. He will reflect that the peasantry, jointly responsible for the
same debt will find difficulty in agreeing among themselves; that they are
afraid of litigation; that, being ignorant, they will not know how to set about
it; that, being poor, they will be unable to pay; and that, under the weight of
discord, distrust, indigence, and inertia, the new law will remain a dead
letter, and only exasperate their cupidity or kindle their resentment. In
anticipation of this disorder the legislator will come to their assistance; he
will interpose commissions of arbitration between them and the lord of the
manor; he will substitute a scale of annuities for a full and immediate
redemption; he will lend them the capital which they cannot borrow
elsewhere; he will establish a bank, rights, and a mode of procedure,—in
short, as in Savoy in 1771, in England in 1845,2219 and in Russia in 1861,
he will relieve the poor without despoiling the rich; he will establish liberty
without violating the rights of property; he will conciliate interests and
classes; he will not let loose a brutal peasant revolt (Jacquerie) to enforce
unjust confiscation; and he will terminate the social conflict not with strife
but with peace.
It is just the reverse in 1789 In conformity with the doctrine of the social
contract, the principle is set up that every man is born free, and that his
freedom has always been inalienable. If he formerly submitted to slavery or
to serfdom, it was owing to his having had a knife at his throat; a contract of
this sort is essentially null and void. So much the worse for those who have

the benefit of it at the present day; they are holders of stolen property, and
must restore it to the legitimate owners. Let no one object that this property
was acquired for cash down, and in good faith; they ought to have known
beforehand that man and his liberty are not commercial matters, and that
unjust acquisitions rightly perish in their hands.2220 Nobody dreams that the
State which was a party to this transaction is the responsible guarantor.
Only one scruple affects the Assembly; its jurists and Merlin, its reporter,
are obliged to yield to proof; they know that in current practice, and by
innumerable ancient and modern titles, the noble in many cases is nothing
but an ordinary lessor, and that if, in those cases, he collects his dues, it is
simply in his capacity as a private person, by virtue of a mutual contract,
because he has given a perpetual lease of a certain portion of his land; and
he has given it only in consideration of an annual payment in money or
produce, or services, together with another contingent claim which the
farmer pays in case of the transmission of the lease. These two obligations
could not be canceled without indemnity; if it were done, more than one-
half of the proprietors in France would be dispossessed in favor of the
farmers. Hence the distinction which the Assembly makes in the feudal
dues.—On the one hand it abolishes without indemnity all those dues which
the noble receives by virtue of being the local sovereign, the ancient
proprietor of persons and the usurper of public powers; all those which the
lessee paid as serf, subject to rights of inheritance, and as former vassal or
dependent. On the other hand, it maintains and decrees as redeemable at a
certain rate all those which the noble receives through his title of landed
proprietor and of simple lessor; all those which the lessee pays by virtue of
being a free contracting party, former purchaser, tenant, farmer or grantee of
landed estate.—By this division it fancies that it has respected lawful
ownership by overthrowing illegitimate property, and that in the feudal
scheme of obligations, it has separated the wheat from the chaff.2221
But, through the principle, the drawing up and the omissions of its law, it
condemns both to a common destruction; the fire on which it has thrown the
chaff necessarily burns up the wheat.—Both are in fact bound up together
in the same sheaf. If the noble formerly brought men under subjection by
the sword, it is also by the sword that he formerly acquired possession of
the soil. If the subjection of persons is invalid on account of the original
stain of violence, the usurpation of the soil is invalid for the same reason.
And if the sanction and guarantee of the State could not justify the first act

of brigandage, they could not justify the second; and, since the rights which
are derived from unjust sovereignty are abolished without indemnity, the
rights which are derived from unjust proprietorship should be likewise
abolished without compensation.——The Assembly, with remarkable
imprudence, had declared in the preamble to its law that "it abolished the
feudal system entirely," and, whatever its ulterior reservations might be, the
fiat has gone forth. The forty thousand sovereign municipalities to which
the text of the decree is read pay attention only to the first article, and the
village attorney, imbued with the rights of man, easily proves to these
assemblies of debtors that they owe nothing to their creditors. There must
be no exceptions nor distinctions: no more annual rents, field-rents, dues on
produce, nor contingent rents, nor lord's dues and fines, or fifths.2222 If
these have been maintained by the Assembly, it is owing to
misunderstanding, timidity, inconsistency, and on all sides, in the rural
districts, the grumbling of disappointed greed or of unsatisfied necessities is
heard:2223
"You thought that you were destroying feudalism, while your redemption
laws have done just the contrary. . . . Are you not aware that what was
called a Seigneur was simply an unpunished usurper? . . . That detestable
decree of 1790 is the ruin of lease-holders. It has thrown the villages into a
state of consternation. The nobles reap all the advantage of it. . . Never will
redemption be possible. Redemption of unreal claims! Redemption of dues
that are detestable!"
In vain the Assembly insists, specifies and explains by examples and by
detailed instructions the mode of procedure and the conditions of
redemption. Neither the procedure nor its conditions are practicable. It has
made no provisions for facilitating the agreement of parties and the
satisfaction of feudal liens, no special arbitrators, nor bank for loans, nor
system of annuities. And worse still, instead of clearing the road it has
barred it by legal arrangements. The lease-holder is not to redeem his
annual rent without at the same time compounding for the contingent rent:
he is not allowed on his own to redeem his quota since he is tied up in
solidarity with the other partners. Should his hoard be a small one, so much
the worse for him. Not being able to redeem the whole, he is not allowed to
redeem a part. Not having the money with which to relieve himself from
both ground-rents and lord's dues he cannot relieve himself from ground-
rents. Not having the money to liquidate the debt in full of those who are

bound along with him-self, he remains a captive in his ancient chains by
virtue of the new law which announces to him his freedom.
In the face of these unexpected trammels the peasant becomes furious:
His fixed idea, from the outbreak of the Revolution, is that he no longer
owes anything to anybody, and, among the speeches, decrees,
proclamations, and instructions which rumor brings to his ears, he
comprehends but one phrase, and is determined to comprehend no other,
and that is, that henceforth his obligations are removed. He does not swerve
from this, and since the law hinders, instead of aiding him, he will break the
law. In fact, after the 4th of August, 1789, feudal dues cease to be collected.
The claims which are maintained are not enforced any more than those
which are suppressed. Whole communities come and give notice to the lord
of the manor that they will not pay any more rent. Others, with sword in
hand, compel him to give them acquittances. Others again, to be more
secure, break open his safe, and throw his title-deeds into the fire.2224
Public force is nowhere strong enough to protect him in his legal rights.
Officers dare not serve writs, the courts dare not give judgment,
administrative bodies dare not decree in his favor. He is despoiled through
the connivance, the neglect, or the impotence of all the authorities which
ought to defend him. He is abandoned to the peasants who fell his forests,
under the pretext that they formerly belonged to the commune; who take
possession of his mill, his wine-press, and his oven, under the pretext that
territorial privileges are suppressed.2225 Most of the gentry of the provinces
are ruined, without any resource, and have not even their daily bread; for
their income consisted in seignorial rights, and in rents derived from their
real property, which they had let on perpetual leases, and now, in
accordance with the law, one-half of this income ceases to be paid, while
the other half ceases to be paid in spite of the law. One hundred and twenty-
three millions of revenue, representing two thousand millions and a half of
capital in the money of that time, double, at least, that of the present day,
thus passes as a gift, or through the toleration of the National Assembly,
from the hands of creditors into those of their debtors. To this must be
added an equal sum for revenue and capital arising from the tithes which
are suppressed without compensation, and by the same stroke.—This is the
commencement of the great revolutionary operation, that is to say, of the
universal bankruptcy which, directly or indirectly, is to destroy all contracts,
and abolish all debts in France. Violations of property, especially of private

property, cannot be made with impunity. The Assembly desired to lop off
only the feudal branch; but, in admitting that the State can annul, without
compensation, the obligations which it has guaranteed, it put the ax to the
root of the tree, and other rougher hands are already driving it in up to the
haft.
Nothing now remains to the noble but his title, his territorial name, and
his armorial bearings, which are innocent distinctions, since they no longer
confer any jurisdiction or pre-eminence upon him, and which, as the law
ceases to protect him, the first comer may borrow with impunity. Not only,
moreover, do they do no harm, but they are even worthy of respect. With
many of the nobles the title of the estate covers the family name, the former
alone being made use of. If one were substituted for the other, the public
would have difficulty in discovering M. de Mirabeau, Lafayette, and M. de
Moutmorency, under the new names Riquetti, M. Mottié, and M. Bouchard.
Besides, it would be wrong to the bearer of it, to whom the abolished title is
a legitimate possession, often precious, it being a certificate of quality and
descent, an authentic personal distinction of which he cannot be deprived
without losing his position, rank, and worth, in the human world around
him.—The Assembly, however, with a popular principle at stake, gives no
heed to public utility, nor to the rights of individuals. The feudal system
being abolished, all that remains of it must be got rid of. A decree is passed
that "hereditary nobility is offensive to reason and to true liberty;" that,
where it exists, "there is no political equality."2226 Every French citizen is
forbidden to assume or retain the titles of prince, duke, count, marquis,
chevalier, and the like, and to bear any other than the "true name of his
family;" he is prohibited from making his servants wear liveries, and from
having coats-of-arms on his house or on his carriage. In case of any
infraction of this law a penalty is inflicted upon him equal to six times the
sum of his personal taxes; he is to be struck off the register of citizens, and
declared incapable of holding any civil or military office. There is the same
punishment if to any contract or acquittance he affixes his accustomed
signature; if; through habit or inadvertence, he adds the title of his estate to
his family name—if; with a view to recognition, and to render his identity
certain, he merely mentions that he once bore the former name. Any notary
or public officer who shall write, or allow to be written, in any document
the word ci-devant (formerly) is to be suspended from his functions. Not
only are old names thus abolished, but an effort is made to efface all

remembrance of them. In a little while, the childish law will become a
murderous one. It will be but a little while and, according to the terms of
this same decree, a military veteran of seventy-seven years, a loyal servant
of the Republic, and a brigadier-general under the Convention, will be
arrested on returning to his native village, because he has mechanically
signed the register of the revolutionary committee as Montperreux instead
of Vannod, and, for this infraction, he will be guillotined along with his
brother and his sister-in-law.2227
Once on this road, it is impossible to stop; for the principles which are
proclaimed go beyond the decrees which are passed, and a bad law
introduces a worse. The Constituent Assembly2228 had supposed that annual
dues, like ground-rents, and contingent dues, like feudal duties (lods et
rentes), were the price of an ancient concession of land, and, consequently,
the proof to the contrary is to be thrown upon the tenant. The Legislative
Assembly is about to assume that these same rentals are the result of an old
feudal usurpation, and that, consequently, the proof to the contrary must rest
with the proprietor. His rights cannot be established by possession from
time immemorial, nor by innumerable and regular acquittances; he must
produce the act of enfeoffment which is many centuries old, the lease which
has never, perhaps, been written out, the primitive title already rare in
1720,2229 and since stolen or burnt in the recent jacqueries: otherwise he is
despoiled without indemnity. All feudal claims are swept away by this act
without exception and without compensation.
In a similar manner, the Constituent Assembly, setting common law aside
in relation to inheritances ab intestato, had deprived all eldest sons and
males of any advantages.2230 The Convention, suppressing the freedom of
testamentary bequest, prohibits the father from disposing of more than one-
tenth of his possessions; and again, going back to the past, it makes its
decrees retrospective: every will opened after the 14th of July, 1789, is
declared invalid if not in conformity with this decree; every succession
from the 14th of June, 1789, which is administered after the same date, is
re-divided if the division has not been equal; every donation which has been
made among the heirs after the same date is void. Not only is the feudal
family destroyed in this way, but it must never be reformed. The
aristocracy, being once declared a venomous plant, it is not sufficient to
prime it away, but it must be extirpated, not only dug up by the root, but its
seed must be crushed out.—A malignant prejudice is aroused against it, and

this grows from day to day. The stings of self-conceit, the disappointments
of ambition, and envious sentiments have prepared the way. Its hard, dry
kernel consists of the abstract idea of equality. All around revolutionary
fervor has caused blood to flow, has embittered tempers, intensified
sensibilities, and created a painful abscess which daily irritation renders still
more painful. Through steadily brooding over a purely speculative
preference this has become a fixed idea, and is becoming a murderous one.
It is a strange passion, one wholly of the brains, nourished by magniloquent
phrases, but the more destructive, because phantoms are created out of
words, and against phantoms no reasoning nor actual facts can prevail. This
or that shopkeeper who, up to this time, had always formed his idea of
nobles from his impressions of the members of the Parliament of his town
or of the gentry of his canton, now pictures them according to the
declamations of the club and the invectives of the newspapers. The
imaginary figure, in his mind, has gradually absorbed the living figure: he
no longer sees the calm and engaging countenance, but a grinning and
distorted mask. Kindliness or indifference is replaced by animosity and
distrust; they are overthrown tyrants, ancient evil-doers, And enemies of the
public; he is satisfied beforehand and without further investigation that they
are hatching plots. If they avoid being caught, it is owing to their address
and perfidy, and they are only the more dangerous the more inoffensive
they appear. Their sub-mission is merely a feint, their resignation hypocrisy,
their favorable disposition, treachery. Against these conspirators who
cannot be touched the law is inadequate; let us stretch it in practice, and as
they wince at equality let us try to make them bow beneath the yoke.
In fact, illegal persecution precedes legal prosecution; the privileged
person who, by the late decrees, seems merely to be brought within the pale
of the common law, is, in fact; driven outside of it. The King, disarmed, is
no longer able to protect him; the partial Assembly repels his complaints;
the committee of inquiry regards him as a culprit when he is simply
oppressed. His income, his property, his repose, his freedom, his home, his
life, that of his wife and of his children, are in the hands of an
administration elected by the crowd, directed by clubs, and threatened or
violated by the mob. He is debarred from the elections. The newspapers
denounce him. He undergoes domiciliary visits. In hundreds of places his
chateau is sacked; the assassins and incendiaries who depart from it with
their hands full and steeped in blood are not prosecuted, or are shielded by

an amnesty:2231 it is established by innumerable precedents that he may be
run down with impunity. To prevent him from defending himself,
companies of the National Guard come and seize his arms: he must become
a prey, and an easy prey, like game kept back in its enclosure for an
approaching hunt.—In vain he abstains from provocation and reduces
himself to the standing of a private individual. In vain does he patiently
endure numerous provocations and resist only extreme violence. I have read
many hundreds of investigations in the original manuscripts, and almost
always I have admired the humanity of the nobles, their forbearance, their
horror of bloodshed. Not only are a great many of them men of courage and
all men of honor, but also, educated in the philosophy of the eighteenth
century, they are mild, sensitive, and deeds of violence are repugnant to
them. Military officers especially are exemplary, their great defect being
their weakness: rather than fire on the crowd they surrender the forts under
their command, and allow themselves to be insulted and stoned by the
people. For two years,2232 "exposed to a thousand outrages, to defamation,
to daily peril, persecuted by clubs and misguided soldiers," disobeyed,
menaced, put under arrest by their own men, they remain at their post to
prevent the ranks from being broken up; "with stoic perseverance they put
up with contempt of their authority that they may preserve its semblance,
their courage is of that rarest kind which consists in remaining at the post of
duty, impassive beneath both affronts and blows.—Through a wrong of the
greatest magnitude, an entire class which have no share in the favors of the
Court, and which suffered as many injuries as any of the common
plebeians, is confounded with the titled parasites who besiege the
antechambers of Versailles. Twenty-five thousand families, "the nursery of
the army and the fleet," the elite of the agricultural proprietors, also many
gentlemen who look after and turn to account the little estates on which
they live, and "who have not left their homes a year in their lives," become
the pariahs of their canton.2233 After 1789, they begin to feel that their
position is no longer tenable.2234
" It is absolutely in opposition to the rights of man," says another letter
from Franche-Comté, "to find one's self in perpetual fear of having one's
throat cut by scoundrels who are daily confounding liberty with license."
"I never knew anything so wearying," says another letter from
Champagne, "as this anxiety about property and security. Never was there a
better reason for it. A moment suffices to let loose an intractable population

which thinks that it may do what it pleases, and which is carefully sustained
in that error."
"After the sacrifices that we have made," says a letter from Burgundy,
"we could not expect such treatment. I thought that our property would be
the last violated because the people owed us some return for staying at
home in the country to expend among them the few resources that remain to
us. . . (Now), I beg the Assembly to repeal the decree on emigration;
otherwise it may be said that people are purposely kept here to be
assassinated. . . In case it should refuse to do us this justice, I should be
quite as willing to have it decree an act of proscription against us, for we
should not then be lulled to sleep by the protection of laws which are
doubtless very wise, but which are not respected anywhere."
" It is not our privileges," say several others, "it is not our nobility that we
regret; but how is the persecution to which we are abandoned to be
supported? There is no safety for us, for our property, or for our families.
Wretches who are our debtors, the small farmers who rob us of our
incomes, daily threaten us with the torch and the lamp post. We do not
enjoy one hour of repose; not a night that we are certain to pass through
without trouble. Our persons are given up to the vilest outrages, our
dwellings to an inquisition of armed tyrants; we are robbed of our rentals
with impunity, and our property is openly attacked. We, being now the only
people to pay imposts, are unfairly taxed; in various places our entire
incomes would not suffice to pay the quota which crushes us. We can make
no complaint without incurring the risk of being massacred. The tribunals
and the administrative bodies, the tools of the multitude, daily sacrifice us
to its attacks. Even the Government seems afraid of compromising itself by
claiming the protection of the laws on our behalf. It is sufficient to be
pointed out as an aristocrat to be without any security. If our peasants, in
general, have shown more honesty, consideration, and attachment toward
us, every bourgeois of importance, the wild members of clubs, the vilest of
men who sully a uniform, consider themselves privileged to insult us, and
these wretches go unpunished and are protected! Even our religion is not
free. One of our number has had his house sacked for having shown
hospitality to an old curé of eighty belonging to his parish who refused to
take the oath. Such is our fate. We are not so base as to endure it. Our right
to resist oppression is not due to a decree of the National Assembly, but to
natural law. We are going to leave, and to die if necessary. But to live under

such a revolting anarchy! Should it not be broken up we shall never set foot
in France again!"
The operation is successful. The Assembly, through its decrees and
institutions, through the laws it enacts and the violence which it tolerates,
has uprooted the aristocracy and cast it out of the country. The nobles, now
the reverse of privileged, cannot remain in a country where, while
respecting the law, they are really beyond its pale. Those who first
emigrated on the 15th of July, 1789, along with the Prince de Condé,
received at their houses the evening before they left a list of the proscribed
on which their names appeared, and a reward was promised to whoever
would bring their heads to the cellar of the Palais-Royal—Others, in larger
numbers, left after the occurrences of the 6th of October.—During the last
months of the Constituent Assembly,2235
"the emigration goes on in companies composed of men of every
condition. . . . Twelve hundred gentlemen have left Poitou alone; Auvergne,
Limousin, and ten other provinces have been equally depopulated of their
landowners. There are towns in which nobody remains but common
workmen, a club, and the crowd of devouring office-holders created by the
Constitution. All the nobles in Brittany have left, and the emigration has
begun in Normandy, and is going on in the frontier provinces.
"More than two-thirds of the army will be without officers." On being
called upon to take the new oath in which the King's name is purposely
omitted, "six thousand officers send in their resignation."
The example gradually becomes contagious; they are men of the sword,
and their honor is at stake. Many of them join the princes at Coblentz, and
subsequently do battle against France in the belief that they are contending
only against their executioners.
The treatment of the nobles by the Assembly is the same as the treatment
of the Protestants by Louis XIV.2236 In both cases the oppressed are a
superior class of men. In both cases France has been made uninhabitable for
them. In both cases they are reduced to exile, and they are punished because
they exiled them selves. In both cases it ended in a confiscation of their
property, and in the penalty of death to all who should harbor them. In both
cases, by dint of persecution, they are driven to revolt. The insurrection of
La Vendée corresponds with the insurrection of the Cévennes; and the
emigrants, like the refugees of former times, will be found under the flags

of Prussia and of England. One hundred thousand Frenchmen driven out at
the end of the seventeenth century, and one hundred thousand driven out at
the end of the eighteenth century! Mark how an intolerant democracy
completes the work of an intolerant monarchy. The moral aristocracy was
mowed down in the name of uniformity; the social aristocracy is mowed
down in the name of equality. For the second time, an absolute principle,
and with the same effect, buries its blade in the heart of a living society.
The success is complete. One of the deputies of the Legislative
Assembly, early in its session, on being informed of the great increase in
emigration, joyfully exclaims,
"SO MUCH THE BETTER; FRANCE IS BEING PURGED!"
She is, in truth, being depleted of one-half of her best blood.

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

There remained the corporate, ecclesiastic, and lay bodies, and, notably,
the oldest, most opulent, and most considerable of all the regular and
secular clergy.—Grave abuses existed here also, for, the institution being
founded on ancient requirements, had not accommodated itself to new
necessities.2237 There were too many episcopal sees, and these were
arranged according to the Christian distribution of the population in the
fourth century; a revenue still more badly apportioned—bishops and abbés
with one hundred thousand livres a year, leading the lives of amiable idlers,
while curés, overburdened with work, have but seven hundred; in one
monastery nineteen monks instead of eighty, and in another four instead of
fifty;2238 a number of monasteries reduced to three or to two inhabitants,
and even to one; almost all the congregations of men going to decay, and
many of them dying out for lack of novices;2239 a general lukewarmness
among the members, great laxity in many establishments, and with scandals
in some of them; scarcely one-third taking an interest in their calling, while
the remaining two-thirds wish to go back to the world,2240—it is evident
from all this that the primitive inspiration has been diverted or has cooled;
that the endowment only partially fulfills its ends; that one-half of its
resources are employed in the wrong way or remain sterile; in short, that
there is a need of reformation in the body.—That this ought to be effected
with the co-operation of the State and even under its direction is not less

certain. For a corporation is not an individual like other individuals, and, in
order that it may acquire or possess the privileges of an ordinary citizen,
something supplementary must be added, some fiction, some expedient of
the law. If the law is disposed to overlook the fact that a corporation is not a
natural personage, if it gives to it a civil personality, if it declares it to be
capable of inheriting, of acquiring and of selling, if it becomes a protected
and respected proprietor, this is due to the favors of the State which places
its tribunal and gendarmes at its service, and which, in exchange for this
service, justly imposes conditions on it, and, among others, that of being
useful and remaining useful, or at least that of never becoming harmful.
Such was the rule under the Ancient Régime, and especially since the
Government has for the last quarter of a century gradually and efficaciously
worked out a reform. Not only, in 1749, had it prohibited the Church from
accepting land, either by donation, by testament, or in exchange, without
royal letters-patent registered in Parliament; not only in 1764 had it
abolished the order of Jesuits, closed their colleges and sold their
possessions, but also, since 1766, a permanent commission, formed by the
King's order and instructed by him, had lopped off all the dying and dead
branches of the ecclesiastical tree.2241 There was a revision of the primitive
Constitutions; a prohibition to every institution to have more than two
monasteries at Paris and more than one in other towns; a postponement of
the age for taking vows—that of sixteen being no longer permitted—to
twenty-one for men and eighteen for women; an obligatory minimum of
monks and nuns for each establishment, which varies from fifteen to nine
according to circumstances; if this is not kept up there follows a
suppression or prohibition to receive novices: owing to these measures,
rigorously executed, at the end of twelve years "the Grammontins, the
Servites, the Celestins, the ancient order of Saint-Bénédict, that of the Holy
Ghost of Montpellier, and those of Sainte-Brigitte, Sainte-Croix-de-la-
Bretonnerie, Saint-Ruff, and Saint-Antoine,"—in short, nine complete
congregations had disappeared. At the end of twenty years three hundred
and eighty-six establishments had been suppressed, the number of monks
and nuns had diminished one-third, the larger portion of possessions which
had escheated were usefully applied, and the congregations of men lacked
novices and complained that they could not fill up their ranks. If the monks
were still found to be too numerous, too wealthy, and too indolent, it was
merely necessary to keep on in this way; before the end of the century,

merely by the application of the edict, the institution would be brought
back, without brutality or injustice, within the scope of the development,
the limitations of fortune, and the class of functions acceptable to a modern
State.
But, because these ecclesiastical bodies stood in need of reform it does
not follow that it was necessary to destroy them, nor, in general, that
independent institutions are detrimental to a nation. Organized purposely
for a public service, and possessing, nearly or remotely under the
supervision of the State, the faculty of self-administration, these bodies are
valuable organs and not malign tumors.
In the first place, through their institution, a great public benefit is
secured without any cost to the government—worship, scientific research,
primary or higher education, help for the poor, care of the sick—all set apart
and sheltered from the cuts which public financial difficulties might make
necessary, and supported by the private generosity which, finding a ready
receptacle at hand, gathers together, century after century, its thousands of
scattered springs: as an example, note the wealth, stability, and usefulness
of the English and German universities.
In the second place, their institution furnishes an obstacle to the
omnipotence of the State; their walls provide a protection against the
leveling standardization of absolute monarchy or of pure democracy. A man
can here freely develop himself without donning the livery of either courtier
or demagogue, he can acquire wealth, consideration and authority, without
being indebted to the caprices of either royal or popular favor; he can stand
firm against established or prevailing opinions sheltered by associates
bound by their esprit de corps. Such, at the present day (1885), is the
situation of a professor at Oxford, Göttingen, and Harvard Such, under the
Ancient Régime, were a bishop, a member of the French Parliaments, and
even a plain attorney. What can be worse than universal bureaucracy,
producing a mechanical and servile uniformity! Those who serve the public
need not all be Government clerks; in countries where an aristocracy has
perished, bodies of this kind are their last place of refuge.
In the third place, through such institutions, distinct original societies
may come to be inside the great commonplace world. Here special
personalities may find the only existence that suits them. If devout or
laborious, not only do these afford an outlet for the deeper needs of

conscience, of the imagination, of activity, and of discipline, but also they
serve as dikes which restrain and direct them in a channel which will lead to
the creation of a masterpiece of infinite value. In this way thousands of men
and women fulfill at small cost, voluntarily and gratis, and with great effect,
the least attractive and more repulsive social needs, thus performing in
human society the role which, inside the ant-hill, we see assigned to the
sexless worker-ant.2242
Thus, at bottom, the institution was really good, and if it had to be
cauterized it was merely essential to remove the inert or corrupted parts and
preserve the healthy and sound parts.—Now, if we take only the monastic
bodies, there were more than one-half of these entitled to respect. I omit
those monks, one-third of whom remained zealous and exemplary-the
Benedictines, who continue the "Gallia Christiana," with others who, at
sixty years of age, labor in rooms without a fire; the Trappists, who
cultivate the ground with their own hands, and the innumerable monasteries
which serve as educational seminaries, bureaus of charity, hospices for
shelter, and of which all the villages in their neighborhood demand the
conservation by the National Assembly.2243 I have to mention the nuns,
thirty-seven thousand in fifteen hundred convents. Here, except in the
twenty-five chapters of canonesses, which are a semi-worldly rendezvous
for poor young girls of noble birth, fervor, frugality, and usefulness are
almost everywhere incontestable. One of the members of the Ecclesiastical
Committee admits in the Assembly tribunal that, in all their letters and
addresses, the nuns ask to be allowed to remain in their cloisters; their
entreaties, in fact, are as earnest as they are affecting.2244 One Community
writes,
"We should prefer the sacrifice of our lives to that of our calling . . . .
This is not the voice of some among our sisters, but of all. The National
Assembly has established the claims of liberty-would it prevent the exercise
of these by the only disinterested beings who ardently desire to be useful,
and have renounced society solely to be of greater service to it?"
"The little contact we have with the world," writes another "is the reason
why our contentment is so little known. But it is not the less real and
substantial. We know of no distinctions, no privileges amongst ourselves;
our misfortunes and our property are in common. One in heart and one in
soul. . . we protest before the nation, in the face of heaven and of earth, that

it is not in the power of any being to shake our fidelity to our vows, which
vows we renew with still more ardor than when we first pronounced
them."2245
Many of the communities have no means of subsistence other than the
work of their own hands and the small dowries the nuns have brought with
them on entering the convent. So great, however is their frugality and
economy, that the total expenditure of each nun does not surpass 250 livres
a year. The Annonciades of Saint-Amour say,
"We, thirty-three nuns, both choristers and those of the white veil, live on
4,400 livres net income, without being a charge to our families or to the
public. . . If we were living in society, our expenses would be three times as
much;" and, not content with providing for themselves, they give in charity.
Among these communities several hundreds are educational
establishments; a very great number give gratuitous primary instruction.—
Now, in 1789, there are no other schools for girls, and were these to be
suppressed, every avenue of instruction and culture would be closed to one
of the two sexes, forming one-half of the French population. Fourteen
thousand sisters of charity, distributed among four hundred and twenty
convents, look after the hospitals, attend upon the sick, serve the infirm,
bring up foundlings, provide for orphans, lying-in women, and repentant
prostitutes. The "Visitation" is an asylum for "those who are not favored by
nature,"—and, in those days, there were many more of the disfigured than
at present, since out of every eight deaths one was caused by the smallpox.
Widows are received here, as well as girls without means and without
protection, persons "worn out with the agitation of the world," those who
are too feeble to support the battle of life, those who withdraw from it
wounded or invalid, and "the rules of the order, not very strict, are not
beyond the health or strength of the most frail and delicate." Some
ingenious device of charity thus applies to each moral or social sore, with
skill and care, the proper and proportionate dressing. And finally, far from
falling off, nearly all these communities are in a flourishing state, and whilst
among the establishments for men there are only nine, on the average, to
each, in those for women there is an average of twenty-four. Here, at Saint-
Flour, is one which is bringing up fifty boarders; another, at Beaulieu,
instructs one hundred; another, in Franche-Comté, has charge of eight
hundred abandoned children.2246—Evidently, in the presence of such

institutions one must pause, however little one may care for justice and the
public interest; and, moreover, because it is useless to act rigorously against
them the legislator crushes them in vain, for they spring up again of their
own accord; they are in the blood of every Catholic nation. In France,
instead of thirty-seven thousand nuns, at the present day (1866) there are
eighty-six thousand-that is to say, forty-five in every ten thousand women
instead of twenty-eight.2247
In any case, if the State deprives them of their property, along with that
of other ecclesiastical bodies, it is not the State that ought to claim the spoil.
—The State is not their heir, and their land, furniture, and rentals are in their
very nature devoted to a special purpose, although they have no designated
proprietor. This treasure, which consists of the accumulations of fourteen
centuries, has been formed, increased, and preserved, in view of a certain
object. The millions of generous, repentant, or devout souls who have made
a gift of it, or have managed it, did so with a certain intention. It was their
desire to ensure education, beneficence, and religion, and nothing else.
Their legitimate intentions should not be frustrated: the dead have rights in
society as well as the living, for it is the dead who have made the society
which the living enjoy, and we receive their heritage only on the condition
of executing their testamentary act.—Should this be of ancient date, it is
undoubtedly necessary to make a liberal interpretation of it; to supplement
its scanty provisions, and to take new circumstances into consideration. The
requirements for which it provided have often disappeared; for instance,
after the destruction of the Barbary pirates, there were no more Christians to
be ransomed; and only by transferring an endowment can it be perpetuated.
—But if, in the original institution, several accessory and special clauses
have become antiquated, there remains the one important, general intention,
which manifestly continues imperative and permanent, that of providing for
a distinct service, either of charity, of worship, or of instruction. Let the
administrators be changed, if necessary, also the apportionment of the
legacy bequeathed, but do not divert any of it to services of an alien
character; it is inapplicable to any but that purpose or to others strictly
analogous. The four milliards of investment in real property, the two
hundred millions of ecclesiastical income, form for it an express and special
endowment. This is not a pile of gold abandoned on the highway, which the
exchequer can appropriate or assign to those who live by the roadside.
Authentic titles to it exist, which, declaring its origin, fix its destination, and

your business is simply to see that it reaches its destination. Such was the
principle under the ancient régime, in spite of grave abuses, and under
forced exactions. When the ecclesiastical commission suppressed an
ecclesiastical order, it was not for the purpose of making its possessions
over to the public treasury, but to apply these to seminaries, schools, and
hospitals. In 1789, the revenues of Saint-Denis supported Saint-Cyr; those
of Saint Germain went to the Economats, and the Government, although
absolute and needy, was sufficiently honest to adjust that confiscation was
robbery. The greater our power, the greater the obligation to be just, and
honesty always proves in the end to be the best policy.—It is, therefore,
both just and useful that the Church, as in England and in America, that
superior education, as in England and in Germany, that special instruction,
as in America, and that diverse endowments for public assistance and
utility, should be unreservedly secured in the maintenance of their heritage.
The State, as testamentary executor of this inheritance, strangely abuses its
mandate when it pockets the bequest in order to choke the deficit of its own
treasury, risking it in bad speculations, and swallowing it up in its own
bankruptcy, until of this vast treasure, which has been heaped up for
generations for the benefit of children, the infirm, the sick and the poor, not
enough is left to pay the salary of a school-mistress, the wages of a parish
nurse, or for a bowl of broth in a hospital.2248
The Assembly remains deaf to all these arguments, and that which makes
its refuse to listen is not financial distress.—The Archbishop of Aix, M. de
Boisjelin, offered, in the name of the clergy, to liquidate at once the debt of
three hundred millions, which was urgent, by a mortgage-loan of four
hundred millions on the ecclesiastical property, which was a very good
expedient; for at this time the credit of the clergy is the only substantial one.
It generally borrows at less than five per cent., and more money has always
been offered to it than it wanted, whilst the State borrows at ten per cent.,
and, at this moment, there are no lenders.—But, to our new revolutionary
statesmen, the cost-benefit of a service is of much less consequence than the
application of a principle. In conformity with the Social Contract they
establish the maxim that in the State there is no need of corporate bodies:
they acknowledge nothing but, on the one hand, the State, the depositary of
all public powers, and, on the other hand, a myriad of solitary individuals.
Special associations, specific groups, collateral corporations are not wanted,
even to fulfill functions which the State is incapable of fulfilling. "As soon

as one enters a corporation," says and orator, "one must love it as one loves
a family;"2249 whereas the affections and obedience are all to be
monopolized by the State. Moreover, on entering into an order a man
receives special aid and comfort from it, and whatever distinguishes one
man from another, is opposed to civil equality. Hence, if men are to remain
equal and become citizens they must be deprived of every rallying point
that might compete with that of the State, and give to some an advantage
over others. All natural or acquired ties, consequently, which bound men
together through geographical position, through climate, history, pursuits,
and trade, are sundered. The old provinces, the old provincial governments,
the old municipal administrations, parliaments, guilds and masterships, all
are suppressed. The groups which spring up most naturally, those which
arise through a community of interests, are all dispersed, and the broadest,
most express, and most positive interdictions are promulgated against their
revival under any pretext whatever.2250 France is cut up into geometrical
sections like a chess-board, and, within these improvised limits, which are
destined for a long time to remain artificial, nothing is allowed to subsist
but isolated individuals in juxtaposition. There is no desire to spare
organized bodies where the cohesion is great, and least of all that of the
clergy. "Special associations," says Mirabeau,2251 "in the community at
large, break up the unity of its principles and destroy the equilibrium of its
forces. Large political bodies in a State are dangerous through the strength
which results from their coalition and the resistance which is born out of
their interests." ii—That of the clergy, besides, is inherently bad,2252
because "its system is in constant antagonism to the rights of man." An
institution in which a vow of obedience is necessary is "incompatible" with
the constitution. Congregations "subject to independent chiefs are out of the
social pale and incompatible with public spirit." As to the right of society
over these, and also over the Church, this is not doubtful. "Corporate bodies
exist only through society, and, in destroying them, society merely takes
back the life she has imparted to them." "They are simply instruments
fabricated by the law.2253 What does the workman do when the tool he
works with no longer suits him? He breaks or alters it."—This primary
sophism being admitted the conclusion is plain. Since corporate bodies are
abolished they no longer exist, and since they no longer exist, they cannot
again become proprietors.

"Your aim was to destroy ecclesiastical orders,2254 because their
destruction was essential to the safety of the State. If the clergy preserve
their property, the clerical order is not destroyed: you necessarily leave it
the right of assembling; you sanction its independence." In no case must
ecclesiastics hold possessions. "If they are proprietors they are independent,
and if they are independent they will associate this independence with the
exercise of their functions." The clergy, cost what it will, must be in the
hands of the State, as simple functionaries and supported by its subsidies. It
would be too dangerous for a nation, "to admit in its bosom as proprietors a
large body of men to whom so many sources of credit already give so great
power. As religion is the property of all, its ministers, through this fact
alone, should be in the pay of the nation;" they are essentially "officers of
morality and instruction," and "salaried" like judges and professors. Let us
fetch them back to this condition of things, which is the only one
compatible with the rights of man, and ordain that "the clergy, as well as all
corporations and bodies with power of inheritance, are now, and shall be for
ever incapable of holding any personal or landed estate."2255
Who, now, is the legitimate heir of all these vacated possessions?
Through another sophism, the State, at once judge and party in the cause,
assigns them to the State:
"The founders presented them to the Church, that is to say, to the
nation."2256 "Since the nation has permitted their possession by the clergy,
she may re-demand that which is possessed only through her authorization."
"The principle must be maintained that every nation is solely and veritably
proprietor of the possessions of its clergy."
This principle, it must be noted, as it is laid down, involves the
destruction of ecclesiastical and lay corporations, along with the
confiscation of all their possessions, and soon we shall see appearing on the
horizon the final and complete decree2257 by which the Legislative
Assembly,
"considering that a State truly free should not suffer any corporation
within its bosom, not even those which, devoted to public instruction,
deserve well of the country," not even those "which are solely devoted to
the service of the hospitals-and the relief of the sick," suppresses all
congregations, all associations of men or of women, lay or ecclesiastical, all
endowments for pious, charitable, and missionary purposes, all houses of

education, all seminaries and colleges, and those of the Sorbonne and
Navarre. Add to these the last sweep of the broom: under the Legislative
Assembly the division of all communal property, except woods: under the
Convention, the abolition of all literary societies, academies of science and
of literature, the confiscation of all their property, their libraries, museums,
and botanical gardens; the confiscation of all communal possessions not
previously divided; and the confiscation of all the property of hospitals and
other philanthropic establishments.2258—The abstract principle, proclaimed
by the Constituent Assembly, reveals, by degrees, its exterminating virtues.
France now, owing to it, contains nothing but dispersed, powerless,
ephemeral individuals, and confronting them, the State, the sole, the only
permanent body that has devoured all the others, a veritable Colossus, alone
erect in the midst of these insignificant dwarfs.
Substituted for the others, it is henceforth to perform their duties, and
spend the money well which they have expended badly.—In the first place,
it abolishes tithes, not gradually and by means of a process of redemption,
as in England, but at one stroke, and with no indemnity, on the ground that
the tax, being an abusive, illegitimate impost, a private tax levied by
individuals in cowl and cassock on others in smock frocks, is a vexatious
usurpation, and resembles the feudal dues. It is a radical operation, and in
conformity with principle. Unfortunately, the puerility of the thing is so
gross as to defeat its own object. In effect, since the days of Charlemagne,
all the estates in the country which have been sold and resold over and over
again have always paid tithes, and have never been purchased except with
this charge upon them, which amounts to about one-seventh of the net
revenue of the country. Take off this tax and one-seventh is added to the
income of the proprietor, and, consequently, a seventh to his capital. A
present is made to him of one hundred francs if his land is worth seven
hundred-francs, and of one thousand if it is worth seven thousand, of ten
thousand if it is worth seventy thousand, and of one hundred thousand if it
is worth seven hundred thousand. Some people gain six hundred thousand
francs by this act, and thirty thousand francs in Income.2259 Through this
gratuitous and unexpected gift, one hundred and twenty-three millions of
revenue, and two milliards and a half of capital, is divided among the
holders of real estate in France, and in a manner so ingenious that the rich
receive the most. Such is the effect of abstract principles. To afford a relief
of thirty millions a year to the peasants in wooden shoes, an assembly of

democrats adds thirty millions a year to the revenue of wealthy bourgeois
and thirty millions a year to opulent nobles. The first part of this operation
moreover, is but another burden to the State; for, in taking off the load from
the holders of real property, it has encumbered itself, the State henceforth,
without pocketing a penny, being obliged to defray the expenses of worship
in their place.—As to the second part of the operation, which consists in the
confiscation of four milliards of real estate, it proves, after all, to be
ruinous, although promising to be lucrative. It makes the same impression
on our statesmen that the inheritance of a great estate makes on a needy and
fanciful upstart. Regarding it as a bottomless well of gold, he draws upon it
without stint and strives to realize all his fancies; as he can afford to pay for
it all, he is free to smash it all. It is thus that the Assembly suppresses and
compensates magisterial offices to the amount of four hundred and fifty
millions; financial securities and obligations to the amount of three hundred
and twenty-one millions; the household charges of the King, Queen, and
princes, fifty-two millions; military services and encumbrances, thirty-five
millions; enfeoffed tithes, one hundred millions, and so on.2260 "In the
month of May, 1789," says Necker, "the re-establishment of order in the
finances were mere child's-play." At the end of a year, by dint of involving
itself in debt, by increasing its expenses, and by abolishing or abandoning
its income, the State lives now on the paper-currency it issues, eats up its
capital, and rapidly marches onward to bankruptcy. Never was such a vast
inheritance so quickly reduced to nothing, and to less than nothing.
Meanwhile, we can demonstrate, from the first few months, what use the
administrators will be able to make of it, and the manner in which they will
endow the service to which it binds them.—No portion of this confiscated
property is reserved for the maintenance of public worship, or to keep up
the hospitals, asylums, and schools. Not only do all obligations and all
productive real property find their way into the great national crucible to be
converted into assignats2261, but a number of special buildings, all monastic
real estate and a portion of the ecclesiastical real estate, diverted from its
natural course, becomes swallowed up in the same gulf. At Besançon,2262
three churches out of eight, with their land and treasure, the funds of the
chapter, all the money of the monastic churches, the sacred vessels, shrines,
crosses, reliquaries, votive offerings, ivories, statues, pictures, tapestry,
sacerdotal dresses and ornaments, plate, jewels and precious furniture,
libraries, railings, bells, masterpieces of art and of piety, all are broken up

and melted in the Mint, or sold by auction for almost nothing. This is the
way in which the intentions of the founders and donors are carried out.—
How are so many communities, which are deprived of their rentals, to
support their schools, hospices, and asylums? Even after the decree2263
which, exceptionally and provisionally, orders the whole of their revenue to
be accounted for to them, will it be paid over now that it is collected by a
local administration whose coffers are always empty, and whose intentions
are almost always hostile? Every establishment for benevolent and
educational purposes is evidently sinking, now that the special streams
which nourished them run into and are lost in the dry bed of the public
treasury.2264 Already, in 1790, there are no funds with which to pay the
monks and nuns their small pensions for their maintenance. In Franche-
Comté the Capuchins of Baume have no bread, and, to live, they are
obliged to re-sell, with the consent of the district, a portion of the stores of
their monastery which had been confiscated. The Ursuline nuns of Ornans
live on the means furnished them by private individuals in order to keep up
the only school which the town possesses. The Bernardine nuns of
Pontarlier are reduced to the lowest stage of want: "We are satisfied," the
district reports, "that they have nothing to put into their mouths. We have to
contribute something every day amongst ourselves to keep them from
starving."2265 Only too thankful are they when the local administration
gives them something to eat, or allows others to give them something. In
many places it strives to famish them, or takes delight in annoying them. In
March, 1791, the department of Doubs, in spite of the entreaties of the
district, reduces the pension of the Visitant nuns to one hundred and one
livres for the choristers, and fifty for the lay-sisters. Two months before
this, the municipality of Besançon, putting its own interpretation on the
decree which allowed nuns to dress as they pleased, enjoins them all,
including even the sisters of charity, to abandon their old costume, which
few among them had the means of replacing.—Helplessness, indifference,
or malevolence, such are the various dispositions which are encountered
among the new authorities whose duty it is to support and protect them. To
let loose persecution there is now only needed a decree which puts the civil
power in conflict with religious convictions. That decree is promulgated,
and, on the 12th of July, 1790, the Assembly establishes the civil
constitution of the clergy.

Notwithstanding the confiscation of ecclesiastical property, and the
dispersion of the monastic communities, the main body of the ecclesiastical
corps remains intact: seventy thousand priests ranged under the bishops,
with the Pope in the center as the commander-in-chief. There is no
corporation more solid, more incompatible, or more attacked. For, against it
are opposed implacable hatreds and fixed opinions: the Gallicanism of the
jurists who, from St. Louis downwards, are the adversaries of ecclesiastical
power; the doctrine of the Jansenists who, since Louis XIII., desire to bring
back the Church to its primitive form; and the theory of the philosophers
who, for sixty years, have considered Christianity as a mistake and
Catholicism as a scourge. At the very least the institution of a clergy in
Catholicism is condemned, and they think that they are moderate if they
respect the rest.
"WE MIGHT CHANGE THE RELIGION,"
say the deputies in the tribune.2266 Now, the decree affects neither dogma
nor worship; it is confined to a revision of matters of discipline, and on this
particular domain which is claimed for the civil power, it is pretended that
demolition and re-construction may be effected at discretion without the
concurrence of the ecclesiastical power.
Here there is an abuse of power, for an ecclesiastical as well as civil
society has the right to choose its own form, its own hierarchy, its own
government.—On this point, every argument that can be advanced in favor
of the former can be repeated in favor of the latter, and the moment one
becomes legitimate the other becomes legitimate also. The justification for
a civil or of a religious community or society may be the performance of a
long series of services which, for centuries, it has rendered to its members,
the zeal and success with which it discharges its functions, the feelings of
gratitude they entertain for it, the importance they attribute to its offices, the
need they have of it, and their attachment to it, the conviction imprinted in
their minds that without it they would be deprived of a benefit upon which
they set more store than upon any other. This benefit, in a civil society, is
the security of persons and property. In the religious society it is the eternal
salvation of the soul. iii In all other particulars the resemblance is complete,
and the titles of the Church are as good as those of the State. Hence, if it be
just for one to be sovereign and free on its own domain, it is just for the
other to be equally sovereign and free, If the Church encroaches when it

assumes to regulate the constitution of the State, then the State also
encroaches when it pretends to regulate the constitution of the Church. If
the former claims the respect of the latter on its domain, the latter must
show equal respect for the former on its ground. The boundary-line between
the two territories is, undoubtedly, not clearly defined and frequent contests
arise between the two. Sometimes these may be forestalled or terminated by
each shutting itself up within a wall of separation, and by their remaining as
much as possible indifferent to each other, as is the case in America. At
another, they may, by a carefully considered contract,2267 each accord to the
other specific rights on the intermediate zone, and both exercise their
divided authority on that zone, which is the case in France. In both cases,
however, the two powers, like the two societies, must remain distinct. It is
necessary for each of them that the other should be an equal, and not a
subordinate to which it prescribes conditions. Whatever the civil system
may be, whether monarchical or republican, oligarchic or democratic, the
Church abuses its credit when it condemns or attacks it. Whatever may be
the ecclesiastical system, whether papal, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, or
congregational, the State abuses its strength when, without the assent of the
faithful, it abolishes their systems or imposes a new one upon them. Not
only does it violate right, but its violence, most frequently, is fruitless. It
may strike as it will, the root of the tree is beyond its reach, and, in the
unjust war which it wages against an institution as vital as itself, it often
ends in getting the worst of it.
Unfortunately, the Assembly, in this as in other matters, being
preoccupied with principles, fails to look at practical facts; and, aiming to
remove only the dead bark, it injures the living trunk.—For many centuries,
and especially since the Council of Trent, the vigorous element of
Catholicism is much less religion itself than the Church. Theology has
retired into the background, while discipline has come to the front.
Believers who, according to Church law, are required to regard spiritual
authority as dogma, in fact attach their faith to the spiritual authority much
more than to the dogma.—
Catholic Faith insists, in relation to discipline as well as to dogma, that if
one rejects the decision of the Roman Church one ceases to be a Catholic;
that the constitution of the Church is monarchical, that the ordaining of
priests and bishops is made from above so that without communion with the
Pope, its supreme head, one is schismatic and that no schismatic priest

legitimately can perform a holy service, and that no true faithful may attend
his service or receive his blessings without committing a sin.—It is a fact
that the faithful, apart from a few Jansenists, are neither theologians nor
canonists; that they read neither prayers nor scriptures, and if they accept
the creed, it is in a lump, without investigation, confiding in the hand which
presents it; that their obedient conscience is in the keeping of this pastoral
guide; that the Church of the third century is of little consequence to them;
and that, as far as the true form of the actual Church goes, the doctor whose
advice they follow is not St. Cyprian, of whom they know nothing, but their
visible bishop and their living curé. Put these two premises together and the
conclusion is self-evident: it is clear that they will not believe that they are
baptized, absolved, or married except by this curé authorized by this bishop.
Let others be put in their places whom they condemn, and you suppress
worship, sacraments, and the most precious functions of spiritual life to
twenty-four millions of French people, to all the peasantry, all the children,
and to almost all the women; you stir up in rebellion against you the two
greatest forces which move the mind, conscience and habit.—And observe
the result of this. You not only convert the State into a policeman in the
service of heresy, but also, through this fruitless and tyrannous attempt of
Gallican Jansenism, you bring into permanent discredit Gallican maxims
and Jansenist doctrines. You cut away the last two roots by which a liberal
sentiment still vegetated in orthodox Catholicism. You throw the clergy
back on Rome; you attach them to the Pope from whom you wish to
separate them, and deprive them of the national character which you wish to
impose on them. They were French, and you render them Ultramontane.2268
They excited ill-will and envy, and you render them sympathetic and
popular. They were a divided body, and you give them unanimity. They
were a straggling militia, scattered about under several independent
authorities, and rooted to the soil through the possession of the ground;
thanks to you, they are to become a regular, manageable army, emancipated
from every local attachment, organized under one head, and always
prepared to take the field at the word of command. Compare the authority
of a bishop in his diocese in 1789 with that of a bishop sixty years later. In
1789, the Archbishop of Besançon, out of fifteen hundred offices and
benefices, had the patronage of one hundred, In ninety-three incumbencies
the selections were made by the metropolitan chapter; in eighteen it was
made by the chapter of the Madeleine; in seventy parishes by the noble

founder or benefactor. One abbé had thirteen incumbencies at his disposal,
another thirty-four, another thirty-five, a prior nine, an abbess twenty; five
communes directly nominated their own pastor, while abbeys, priories and
canonries were in the hands of the King.2269 At the present day (1880) in a
diocese the bishop appoints all the curés or officiating priests, and may
deprive nine out of ten of them; in the diocese above named, from 1850 to
1860, scarcely one lay functionary was nominated without the consent or
intervention of the cardinal-archbishop.2270 To comprehend the spirit,
discipline, and influence of our contemporary clergy, go back to the source
of it, and you will find it in the decree of the Constituent Assembly. A
natural organization cannot be broken up with impunity; it forms anew,
adapting itself to circumstances, and closes up its ranks in proportion to its
danger.
But even if, according to the maxims of the Assembly, faith and worship
are free, as far as the sovereign State is concerned, the churches are
subjects.—For these are societies, administrations, and hierarchies, and no
society, administration, or hierarchy may exist in the State without entering
into its—departments under the title of subordinate, delegate, or employee.
A priest is now essentially a salaried officer like the rest, a functionary2271
presiding over matters pertaining to worship and morality. If the State is
disposed to change the number, the mode of nomination, the duties and the
posts of its engineers, it is not bound to assemble its engineers and ask their
permission, least of all that of a foreign engineer established at Rome. If it
wishes to change the condition of "its ecclesiastical officers," its right to do
so is the same, and therefore unquestioned. There is no need of asking
anybody's consent in the exercise of this right, and it allows no interference
between it and its clerks. The Assembly refuses to call a Gallican council; it
refuses to negotiate with the Pope, and, on its own authority alone, it recasts
the whole Constitution of the Church. Henceforth this branch of the public
administration is to be organized on the model of the others.—In the first
place2272 the diocese is to be in extent and limits the same as the French
department; consequently, all ecclesiastical districts are marked out anew,
and forty-eight episcopal sees disappear.—In the second place, the
appointed bishop is forbidden "to refer to the Pope to obtain any
confirmation whatever." All he can do is to write to him "in testimony of the
unity of faith and of the communion which he is to maintain with him." The
bishop is thus no longer installed by his canonical chief, and the Church of

France becomes schismatic.—In the third place, the metropolitan or bishop
is forbidden to exact from the new bishops or curés "any oath other than
that they profess the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman religion." Assisted by
his council he may examine them on their doctrine and morals, and refuse
them canonical installation, but in this case his reasons must be given in
writing, and he signed by himself and his council. His authority, in other
respects, does not extend beyond this for it is the civil tribunal which
decides between contending parties. Thus is the catholic hierarchy broken
up; the ecclesiastical superior has his hands tied; if he still delegates
sacerdotal functions it is only as a matter of form. Between the curé and the
bishop subordination ceases to exist just as it has ceased to exist between
the bishop and the Pope, and the Church of France becomes Presbyterian.—
The people now, in effect, choose their own ministers, as they do in the
Presbyterian church; the bishop is appointed by the electors of the
department, the cure by the district electors, and, what is an extraordinary
aggravation, these need not be of his communion. It is of no consequence
whether the electoral Assembly contains, as at Nîmes, Montauban,
Strasbourg, and Metz, a notable proportion of Calvinists, Lutherans, and
Jews, or whether its majority, furnished by the club, is notoriously hostile to
Catholicism, and even to Christianity itself. The bishop and the curé must
be chosen by the electoral body; the Holy Ghost dwells with it, and with the
civil tribunals, and these may install its elect in spite of any resistance.—To
complete the dependence of the clergy, every bishop is forbidden to absent
himself more than fifteen days without permission from the department;
every curé the same length of time without the permission of the district,
even to attend upon a dying father or to undergo the operation of lithotomy.
In default of this permission his salary is suspended: as a functionary under
salary, he owes all his time to his bureau, and if he desires a leave of
absence he must ask for it from his chiefs in the Hôtel-de-Ville.2273—He
must assent to all these innovations, not only with passive obedience, but by
a solemn oath. All old or new ecclesiastics, archbishops, bishops, curés,
vicars, preachers, hospital and prison chaplains, superiors and directors of
seminaries, professors of seminaries and colleges, are to state in writing that
they are ready to take this oath: moreover, they must take it publicly, in
church, "in the presence of the general council, the commune, and the
faithful," and promise "to maintain with all their power" a schismatic and
Presbyterian Church.—For there can be no doubt about the sense and

bearing of the prescribed oath. It was all very well to incorporate it with a
broader one, that of maintaining the Constitution. But the Constitution of
the clergy is too clearly comprised in the general Constitution, like a
chapter in a book, and to sign the book is to sign the chapter. Besides, in the
formula to which the ecclesiastics in the Assembly are obliged to swear in
the tribune, the chapter is precisely indicated, and no exception or
reservation is allowed.2274 The Bishop of Clermont, with all those who have
accepted the Constitution in full, save the decrees affecting spiritual
matters, are silenced. Where the spiritual begins and where it ends the
Assembly knows better than they, for it has defined this, and it imposes its
definition on canonist and theologian; it is, in its turn, the Pope, and all
consciences must bow to its decision. Let them take the "oath, pure and
simple," or if they do not they are 'refractory." The fiat goes forth, and the
effect of it is immense, for, along with the clergy, the law reaches to
laymen. On the one hand, all the ecclesiastics who refuse the oath are
dismissed. If they continue "to interfere with public functions which they
have personally or corporately exercised" they "shall be prosecuted as
disturbers of the peace, and condemned as rebels against the law," deprived
of all rights as active citizens, and declared incompetent to hold any public
office. This is the penalty already inflicted on the nonjuring bishop who
persists in considering himself a bishop, who ordains priests and who issues
a pastoral letter. Such is soon to be the penalty inflicted on the nonjuring
curé who presumes to hear confession or officiate at a mass.2275 On the
other hand, all citizens who refuse to take the prescribed oath, all electors,
municipal officers, judges and administrative agents, shall lose their right of
suffrage, have their functions revoked, and be declared incompetent for all
public duties.2276 The result is that scrupulous Catholics are excluded from
every administrative post, from all elections, and especially from
ecclesiastical elections; from which it follows that, the stronger one's faith
the less one's share in the choice of a priest.2277—What an admirable law,
that which, under the pretext of doing away with ecclesiastical abuses,
places the faithful, lay or clerical, outside the pale of the law!
This soon becomes apparent. One hundred and thirty four archbishops,
bishops, and coadjutors refuse to take the oath; there are only four of them
who do so, three of whom, MM. de Talleyrand, de Jarente, and de Brienne,
are unbelievers and notorious for their licentiousness; the others are
influenced by their consciences, above all, by their esprit de corps and a

point of honor. Most of the curés rally around this staff of officers. In the
diocese of Besançon,2278 out of fourteen hundred priests, three hundred take
the oath, a thousand refuse it, and eighty retract. In the department of
Doubs, only four consent to swear. In the department of Lozère, there are
only "ten out of two hundred and fifty." It is stated positively," writes the
best informed of all observers that everywhere in France two-thirds of the
ecclesiastics have refused the oath, or have only taken it with the same
reservations as the Bishop of Clermont."
Thus, out of seventy thousand priests, forty-six thousand are turned out
of office, and the majority of their parishioners are on their side. This is
apparent in the absence of electors convoked to replace them: at Bordeaux
only four hundred and fifty came to the poll out of nine hundred, while
elsewhere the summons brings together only "a third or a quarter" In many
places there are no candidates, or those elected decline to accept. They are
obliged, in order to supply their places, to hunt up unfrocked monks of a
questionable character. There are two parties, after this, in each parish; two
faiths, two systems of worship, and permanent discord. Even when the new
and the old curés are accommodating, their situations bring them into
conflict. To the former the latter are "intruders." To the latter the former are
"refractories." By virtue of his being a guardian of souls, the former cannot
dispense with telling his parishioners that the intruder is excommunicated,
that his sacraments are null or sacrilegious, and that it is a sin to attend his
mass. By virtue of his being a public functionary, the latter does not fail to
write to the authorities that the "refractory" entraps the faithful, excites their
consciences, saps the Constitution, and that he ought to be put down by
force. In other words, the former draws everybody away from the latter,
while the latter sends the gendarmes against the former, and persecution
begins.—In a strange reversal, it is the majority which undergoes
persecution, and the minority which carries it out. The mass of the
constitutional curé is, everywhere, deserted.2279 In La Vendée there are ten
or twelve present in the church out of five or six hundred parishioners; on
Sundays and holidays whole villages and market-towns travel from one to
two leagues off to attend the orthodox mass, the villagers declaring that "if
the old curé can only be restored to them, they will gladly pay a double
tax." In Alsace, "nine tenths, at least, of the Catholics refuse to recognize
the legally sworn priests." The same spectacle presents itself in Franche-
Comté, Artois, and in ten of the other provinces.—Finally, as in a chemical

composition, the analysis is complete. Those who believe, or who recover
their belief, are ranged around the old curé; all who, through conviction or
tradition, hold to the sacraments, all who, through faith or habit, wish or
feel a need to attend the mass. The auditors of the new curé consist of
unbelievers, deists, the indifferent members of the clubs and of the
administration, who resort to the church as to the Hôtel-de-ville or to a
popular meeting, not through religious but through political zeal, and who
support the "intruder" in order to sustain the Constitution. All this does not
secure to him very fervent followers, but it provides him with very zealous
defenders; and, in default of the faith which they do not possess, they give
the force which is at their disposal. All means are proper against an
intractable bishop or curé; not only the law which they aggravate through
their forced interpretation of it and through their arbitrary verdicts, but also
the riots which they stir up by their instigation and which they sanction by
their toleration.2280 He is driven out of his parish, consigned to the county
town, and kept in a safe place. The Directory of Aisne denounces him as a
disturber of the public peace, and forbids him, under severe penalties, from
administering the sacraments. The municipality of Cahors shuts up
particular churches and orders the nonjuring ecclesiastics to leave the town
in twenty-four hours. The electoral corps of Lot denounces them publicly as
"ferocious brutes," incendiaries, and provokers of civil war. The Directory
of the Bas-Rhin banishes them to Strasbourg or to fifteen leagues from the
frontier. At Saint-Leon the bishop is forced to fly. At Auch the archbishop is
imprisoned; at Lyons M. de Boisboissel, grand vicar, is confined in Pierre-
Encize, for having preserved an archiepiscopal mandate in his house;
brutality is everywhere the minister of intolerance. A certain cure of Aisne
who, in 1789, had fed two thousand poor, having presumed to read from his
pulpit a pastoral charge concerning the observance of Lent, the mayor
seizes him by the collar and prevents him from going to the altar; "two of
the National Yeomanry" draw their sabers on him, and forthwith lead him
away bareheaded, not allowing him to return to his house, and drive him to
a distance of two leagues by beat of drum and under escort. At Paris, in the
church of Saint-Eustache, the curé is greeted with outcries, a pistol is
pointed at his head, he is seized by the hair, struck with fists, and only
reaches the sacristy through the intervention of the National Guard. In the
church of the Théatins, rented by the orthodox with all legal formality, a
furious band disperses the priests and their assistants, upsets the altar and

profanes the sacred vessels. A placard, posted up by the department, calls
upon the people to respect the law, "I saw it," says an eye-witness, "torn
down amidst imprecations against the department, the priests, and the
devout. One of the chief haranguers, standing on the steps terminated his
speech by stating that schism ought to be stopped at any cost, that no
worship but his should be allowed, that women should be whipped and
priests knocked on the head." And, in fact, "a young lady accompanied by
her mother is whipped on the steps of the church." Elsewhere nuns are the
sufferers, even the sisters of Saint-Vincent de Paul; and, from April, 1793,
onward; the same outrages on modesty and against life are propagated from
town to town. At Dijon, rods are nailed fast to the gates of all the convents;
at Montpellier, two or three hundred ruffians, armed with large iron—bound
sticks, murder the men and outrage the women.—Nothing remains but to
put the gangsters under the shelter of an amnesty, which is done by the
Constituent Assembly, and to legally sanction the animosity of local
administrations, which is done by the Legislative Assembly.2281 Henceforth
the nonjuring ecclesiastics are deprived of their sustenance; they are
declared "suspected of revolt against the law and of evil intentions against
the country."—Thus, says a contemporary Protestant, "on the strength of
these suspicions and these intentions, a Directory, to which the law
interdicts judicial functions, may arbitrarily drive out of his house the
minister of a God of peace and charity, grown gray in the shadow of the
altar" Thus, "everywhere, where disturbances occur on account of religious
opinions, and whether these troubles are due to the frantic scourgers of the
virtuous sisters of charity or to the ruffians armed with cow-hides who, at
Nîmes and Montpellier, outrage all the laws of decorum and of liberty for
six whole months, the non-juring priests are to be punished with
banishment. Torn from their families whose means of living they share,
they are sent away to wander on the highways, abandoned to public pity or
ferocity the moment any scoundrel chooses to excite a disturbance that he
can impute to them."—Thus we see approaching the revolt of the peasantry,
the insurrections of Nîmes, Franche-Comté, la Vendée and Brittany,
emigration, transportation; imprisonment, the guillotine or drowning for
two thirds of the clergy of France, and likewise for myriads of the loyal, for
husbandmen, artisans, day-laborers, seamstresses, and servants, and the
humblest among the lower class of the people. This is what the laws of the
Constituent Assembly are leading to.—In the institution of the clergy, as in

that of the nobles and the King, it demolished a solid wall in order to dig
through it an open door, and it is nothing strange if the whole structure
tumbles down on the heads of its inmates. The true course was to respect, to
reform, to utilize rank and corporations: all that the Assembly thought of
was the abolition of these in the name of abstract equality and of national
sovereignty. In order to abolish these it executed, tolerated, or initiated all
the attacks on persons and on property. Those it is about to commit are the
inevitable result of those which it has already committed; for, through its
Constitution, bad is changed to worse, and the social edifice, already half in
ruins through the clumsy havoc that is effected in it, will fall in completely
under the weight of the incongruous or extravagant constructions which it
proceeds to extemporize.

2201 (return)
[ Cf. "The Ancient Régime," books I. and V.]
2202 (return)
[ Perhaps we are here at the core of why all regimes end up
becoming corrupt, inefficient and sick; their leaders take
their privileges for granted and become more and more
inattentive to the work which must be done if the people are
to be kept at work and possible adversaries kept under
control. (SR.)]
2203 (return)
[ A special tax paid the king by a plebeian owning a fief.
(TR)]
2204 (return)
[ The right to an income from trust funds. (SR.)]
2205 (return)
[ Arthur Young, I. 209, 223. "If the communes steadily
refuse what is now offered to them, they put immense and
certain benefits to the chance of fortune, to that hazard
which may make posterity curse instead of bless their
memories as real patriots who had nothing in view but the
happiness of their country."]
2206 (return)
[ According to valuations by the Constituent Assembly, the
tax on real estate ought to bring 240,000,000 francs, and
provide one-fifth of the net revenue of France, estimated at
1,200,000,000. Additionally, the personal tax on movable
property, which replaced the capitation, ought to bring
60,000,000. Total for direct taxation, 300,000,000, or one-
fourth—that is to say, twenty-five per cent, of the net
revenue.—If the direct taxation had been maintained up to
the rate of the ancient régime (190,000,000, according to

Necker's report in May, 1689), this impost would only have
provided one-sixth of the net revenue, or sixteen percent.]
2207 (return)
[ Dumont, 267. (The words of Mirabeau three months before
his death:) "Ah, my friend, how right we were at the start
when we wanted to prevent the commons from declaring
themselves the National Assembly! That was the source of
the evil. They wanted to rule the King, instead of ruling
through him."]
2208 (return)
[ Gouverneur Morris, April 29, 1789 (on the principles of
the future constitution), "One generation at least will be
required to render the public familiar with them."]
2209 (return)
[ Cf. "The Ancient Régime," book II, ch. III.]
2210 (return)
[ French women did not obtain the right to vote until 1946.
(SR.)]
2211 (return)
[ According to Voltaire ("L'Homme aux Quarante Écus"), the
average duration of human life was only twenty-three years.]
2212 (return)
[ Mercure, July 6, 1790. According to the report of Camus
(sitting of July 2nd), the official total of pensions amounted
to thirty-two millions; but if we add the gratuities and
allowances out of the various treasuries, the actual total was
fifty-six millions.]
2213 (return)
[ I note that today in 1998, 100 years after Taine's death,
Denmark, my country, has had total democracy, that is
universal suffrage for women and men of 18 years of age for
a considerable time, and a witty author has noted that the
first rule of our unwritten constitution is that "thou shalt not
think that thou art important". I have noted, however, that
when a Dane praises Denmark and the Danes even in the
most excessive manner, then he is not considered as a
chauvinist but admired as being a man of truth. In spite of
the process of 'democratization' even socialist chieftains
seem to favor and protect their own children, send them to
good private schools and later abroad to study and help them
to find favorable employment in the party or with the public
services. A new élite is thus continuously created by the
ruling political and administrative upper class. (SR.).]
2214 (return)
[ "The Ancient Régime," p.388, and the following pages.—
"Le Duc de Broglie," by M. Goizot, p. 11. (Last words of
Prince Victor de Broglie, and the opinions of M.
d'Argenson.)]

2215 (return)
[ De Ferrières, I. p.2.]
2216 (return)
[ Moniteur, sitting of September 7, 1790, I. 431-437.
Speeches, of MM. de Sillery, de Lanjuinais, Thouret, de
Lameth, and Rabaut-Saint-Etienne. Barnave wrote in 1791:
"It was necessary to be content with one single chamber; the
instinct of equality required it. A second Chamber would
have been the refuge of the aristocrats."]
2217 (return)
[ Lenin should later create an elite, an aristocracy which,
under his leadership was to become the Communist party.
Lenin could not have imagined or at least would not have
been concerned that the leadership of this party would fall
into the hands of tyrants later, under the pressure of age and
corruption, to be replaced by the KGB and later the FSB.
(SR.)]
2218 (return)
[ "De Bouillé," p. 50: "All the old noble families, save two
or three hundred, were ruined."]
2219 (return)
[ Cf. Doniol, "La Révolution et la Féodalité."]
2220 (return)
[ Moniteur, sitting of August 6, 1789. Speech of Duport:
"Whatever is unjust cannot last. Similarly, no compensation
for these unjust rights can be maintained." Sitting of
February 27, 1790. M. Populus: "As slavery could not spring
from a legitimate contract, because liberty cannot be
alienated, you have abolished without indemnity hereditary
property in persons." Instructions and decree of June 15-19,
1791: "The National Assembly has recognized in the most
emphatic manner that a man never could become the
proprietor of another man, and consequently, that the rights
which one had assumed to have over the person of the other,
could not become the property of the former." Cf. the
diverse reports of Merlin to the Committee of Feudality and
the National Assembly.]
2221 (return)
[ Duvergier, "Collection des Lois et Décrets." Laws of the 4-
11 August, 1789; March 15-28, 1790; May 3-9, 1790; June
15-19, 1791.]
2222 (return)
[ Agrier percières—terms denoting taxes paid in the shape of
shares of produce. Those which follow: lods, rentes, quint,
requint belong to the taxes levied on real property. 22Tr.]
2223 (return)
[ Doniol ("Noveaux cahiers de 1790"). Complaints of the
copy-holders of Rouergues and of Quercy, pp. 97-105.]

2224 (return)
[ See further on, book III. ch. II. § 4 and also ch. III.]
2225 (return)
[ Moniteur, sitting of March 2, 1790. Speech by Merlin:
"The peasants have been made to believe that the annulation
of the banalities (the obligation to use the public mill, wine-
press, and oven, which belonged to the noble) carried along
with it the loss to the noble of all these; the peasants
regarding themselves as proprietors of them."]
2226 (return)
[ Moniteur; sitting of June 9, 1790. Speech of M. Charles de
Lameth—Duvergier (laws of June 19-23 1790; September
27 and October 16, 1791).]
2227 (return)
[ Sauzay, V. 400—410.]
2228 (return)
[ Duvergier, laws of June 15-19, 1791; of June 18—July 6,
1792; of August 25-28, 1792.]
2229 (return)
[ "Institution du Droit Français," par Argou, I.103. (He wrote
under the Regency.) "The origin of most of the feoffs is so
ancient that, if the seigneurs were obliged to produce the
titles of the original concession to obtain their rents, there
would scarcely be one able to produce them. This deficiency
is made up by common law."]
2230 (return)
[ Duvergier (laws of April 8-15, 1791; March 7-11; October
26, 1791; January 6-10, 1794).—Mirabeau had already
proposed to reduce the disposable portion to one-tenth.]
2231 (return)
[ See farther on, book III, ch. III.]
2232 (return)
[ Mercure, September 10, 1791. Article by Mallet du Pan.—
Ibid. October 15, 1791.]
2233 (return)
[ Should Hitler or Lenin have read and understood the
consequences of these events they would have deduced that
given the command from official sources or recognized
leaders ordinary people all over the world could easily be
tempted to attack any group, being it Jews, Protestants,
Hindus or foreigners. (SR.)]
2234 (return)
[ "Archives Nationales," II. 784. Letters of M. de Langeron,
October 16 and 18, 1789.—Albert Babeau, "Histoire de
Troyes," letters addressed to the Chevalier de Poterats, July,
1790.—"Archives Nationales," papers of the Committee on
Reports, bundle 4, letter of M. le Belin-Chatellenot to the to

the President of the National Assembly, July 1, 1791.—
Mercure, October 15, 1791. Article by Mallet du Pan: "Such
is literally the language of these emigrants; I do not add a
word."—Ibid. May 15, 1790. Letter of the Baron de Bois
d'Aizy, April 29,1790, demanding a decree of protection fur
the nobles. "We shall know (then) whether we are outlawed
or are of any account in the rights of man written out with so
much blood, or whether, finally, no other option is left to us
but that of carrying to distant skies the remains of our
property and our wretched existence."]
2235 (return)
[ Mercure, October 15, 1791, and September 10, 1791. Read
the admirable letter of the Chevalier de Mesgrigny,
appointed colonel during the suspension of the King, and
refusing his new rank.]
2236 (return)
[ Cf. the "Mémoires" of M. de Boustaquet, a Norman
gentleman.]
2237 (return)
[ Cf. "The Ancient Régime," books I. and II.]
2238 (return)
[ Boivin—Champeaux, "Notice Historique sur la Révolution
dans le Département de L'Eure," the register of grievances.
In 1788, at Rouen, there was not a single profession made by
men. In the monastery of the Deux-Amants the chapter
convoked in 1789 consisted of two monks.—"Archives
Nationales," papers of the ecclesiastic committee, passim.]
2239 (return)
[ "Apologie de l'État Religieux" (1775), with statistics. Since
1768 the decline is "frightful." "It is easy to foresee that in
ten or twelve years most of the regular bodies will be
absolutely extinct, or reduced to a state of feebleness akin to
death."]
2240 (return)
[ Sanzay, I. 224 (November, 1790). At Besançon, out of 266
monks, "79 only showed any loyalty to their engagements or
any affection for their calling." Others preferred to abandon
it, especially all the Dominicans but five, all but one of the
bare footed Carmelites, and all the Grand Carmelites. The
same disposition is apparent throughout the department, as,
for instance, with the Benedictines of Cluny except one, all
the Minimes but three, all the Capuchins but five, the
Bernandins, Dominicans, and Augustins, all preferring to
leave.—Montalembert, "Les Moines d'Occident,"
introduction, pp. 105-164. Letter of a Benedictine of Saint-
Germain-des-Prés to a Benedictine of Vannes. "Of all the
members of your congregation which come here to lodge, I
have scarcely found one capable of edifying us. You may
probably say the same of those who came to you from our

place."—Cf. in the "Mémoires" of Merlin de Thionville the
description of the Chartreuse of Val St. Pierre.]
2241 (return)
[ Ch. Guerin, "Revue des Questions Historiques" (July 1,
1875; April 1, 1876).—Abbé Guettée, "Histoire de l'Eglise
de France," XII, 128. ("Minutes of the meeting of
l'Assemblée du Clergé," in 1780.)—"Archives nationales,"
official reports and memorandums of the States-General in
1789. The most obnoxious proceeding to the chiefs of the
order is the postponement of the age at which vows may be
taken, it being, in their view, the ruin of their institutions.
—"The Ancient Régime," p. 403.]
2242 (return)
[ In order for a modern uninstructed non-believing reader to
understand the motivation which moved thousands of self-
less sisters and brothers to do their useful and kind work
read St. Matthew chapter 25, verses 31 to 46 where Jesus
predicts how he will sit in judgment on mankind and
separate the sheep from the goats. (SR.)]
2243 (return)
[ "The Ancient Régime," P.33—Cf. Guerin "The monastery
of the Trois-Rois, in the north of Franche-Comté, founded
four villages collected from foreign colonists. It is the only
center of charity and civilization in a radius of three leagues.
It took care of two hundred of the sick in a recent epidemic;
it lodges the troops which pass from Alsace into Franche-
Comté, and in the late hailstorm it supplied the whole
neighborhood with food."]
2244 (return)
[ Moniteur, sitting of February 13,1790. (Speech of the Abbé
de Montesquiou).—Archives Nationales," papers of the
Ecclesiastical Committee, DXIX. 6, Visitation de Limoges,
DXIX. 25, Annonciades de Saint-Denis; ibid. Annonciades
de Saint Amour, Ursulines d'Auch, de Beaulieu,
d'Eymoutier, de la Ciotat, de Pont Saint-Esprit, Hospitalières
d'Ernée, de Laval; Sainte Claire de Laval, de Marseilles, etc.
"]
2245 (return)
[ Sauzay, I. 247. Out of three hundred and seventy-seven
nuns at Doubs, three hundred and fifty-eight preferred to
remain as they were, especially at Pontarlier, all the
Bernardines, Annonciades, and Ursulines; at Besançon, all
the Carmelites, the Visitandines, the Annonciades, the
Clarisses, the Sisters of Refuge, the Nuns of the Saint-Esprit
and, save one, all the Benedictine Nuns.]
2246 (return)
[ "Archives Nationales." Papers of the Ecclesiastical
Committee, passim.—Suzay, I. 51.—Statistics of France for
1866.]

2247 (return)
[ In 1993 this number has once more fallen, and continues to
fall, to 55 900. "Quid", 1996 page 623. (SR.)]
2248 (return)
[ Felix Rocquain, "La France aprés le 18 Brumaire."
(Reports of the Councillors of State dispatched on this
service, passim).]
2249 (return)
[ Moniteur, October 24, 1789. (Speech of Dupont de
Nemours.) All these speeches, often more fully reported and
with various renderings, may be found in "Les Archives
Parlementaires," 1st series, vols. VIII. and IX.]
2250 (return)
[ Duvergier, decree of June 14-17, 1791. "The annihilation
of every corporation of citizens of any one condition or
profession being on of the foundation-stones of the French
constitution, it is forbidden to re-establish these de-facto
under any pretext or form whatever. Citizens of a like
condition or profession, such as contractors, shopkeepers,
workmen of all classes, and associates in any art whatever
shall not, on assembling together, appoint either president, or
secretaries, or syndics, discuss or pass resolutions, or frame
any regulations in relation to their assumed common
interests."]
2251 (return)
[ Moniteur, sitting of November 2nd, 1789.]
2252 (return)
[ Moniteur, sitting of February 12, 1790. Speeches of Dally
d'Agier and Barnave.]
2253 (return)
[ Moniteur, sitting of August 10, 1789. Speech by Garat;
February 12, 1790, speech by Pétion; October 30, 1789,
speech by Thouret.]
2254 (return)
[ Moniteur, sitting of November 2, 1789. Speech by
Chapelier; October 24, 1789, speech by Garat; October 30,
1789, speech by Mirabeau, and the sitting of August 10,
1789.]
2255 (return)
[ Moniteur, sitting of October 23, 1789. Speech by Thouret.]