360 THE ASSEMBLY AT PARIS. [CHAP. LIII. despatched to Paris early in the morning. The way was lined by the inhabitants of the surrounding villages, who came out to gaze upon the strange and melancholy spectacle. From the encumbered state of the roads the procession moved only at a foot-pace, and was often compelled to stop; when those furies in the shape of women would dance round the Royal carriage like cannibals before a feast of human flesh. "We shall not die of hunger,” they exclaimed, "for here is the baker, his wife, and the little apprentice!" The King was accompanied by two bishops of his council, who, as the carriage entered the capital, were saluted with cries of "All the bishops to the lamp!" Thus were the Royal family conducted to the Tuileries, which had not been inhabited for a century, and contained no proper accommodation for its new inmates. The events of October 6th may be said to have decided the fate of the French Monarchy. The King was now virtually a prisoner and a hostage in the hands of the Parisian rabble and its leaders. The Assembly, which soon followed the King to Paris, lost its independence at the same time. It met at first in the apartments of the archevêché, on an island of the Seine, between the faubourgs St. Antoine and St. Marceau, the most disturbed districts of Paris; but early in November it was transferred to the manége of the Tuileries, a large building running parallel with the terrace of the Feuillants, the site of which now forms part of the Rue de Rivoli. No distinction of seats was now observed; nobles, priests, and commons all sat pêle-mêle together. It was plain that there could be no longer any hope of a stable Constitutional Monarchy; and several moderate men withdrew from the Assembly, as Mounier, then its president, Lally Tollendal, and others. The Duke of Orleans, suspected of being the author of the insurrection, was dismissed to London on pretence of a political mission. He arrived in that capital towards the end of October, and was received, both by Court and people, with marked contempt. He was frightened into accepting this mission by the threats of Lafayette. Mirabeau was furious at his departure, and exclaimed, with a vulgar epithet, that he was a poor wretch, and deserved not the trouble that had been taken for him. The Duke returned to France in the summer of 1790, but from this time forward he had lost his popularity. Mém. de Lafay tte, ap. Louis Blanc, Hist. de la Rév. t. iii. 2 Ferrières, Mém. t. i. liv. iv. p. 336 849. Tableau hist. de la Révol. par le Comte d'Escherny, t. i. p. 237. CHAP. LIII.] THE JACOBIN CLUB. 361 At this period the reign of the Palais Royal was supplanted by that of the Jacobins. The JACOBIN CLUB was one of the most portentous features of the Revolution, or rather it may be said to have ultimately become the Revolution itself. It originated at Versailles soon after the meeting of the States-General, and was at first called the Club des Bretons, from its having been founded by the forty deputies of Bretagne, who met together to concert their attacks upon the Ministry. It was soon joined by the deputies of Dauphiné and Franche Comté, and gradually by others; as the Abbé Sieyès, the two Lameths, Adrien Duport, the Duke D'Aiguillon, M. de Noailles, and others. When the Assembly was transferred to Paris, the Breton Club hired a large apartment in the Rue St. Honoré, belonging to the preaching Dominican Friars, who were commonly called Jacobins because their principal house was in the Rue St. Jacques; and hence the same name was vulgarly given to the club, though they called themselves "the Friends of the Constitution." After a little time, persons who were not deputies were admitted; the debates. were thrown open to the public; and as no other qualifications were required for membership than a blind submission to the leaders, and a subscription of twenty-four livres a year, it soon numbered 1,200 members, including several foreigners. There was a bureau for the president, a tribune, and stalls round the sides of the chamber. The club held its sittings thrice a week, at seven o'clock in the evening; the order of the day in the Assembly was often debated over night by the Jacobins, and opinions in a certain measure dictated to the deputies. The club disseminated and enforced its principles by means of its Journal and Almanacks, its hired mob, orators, singers, applauders and hissers in the tribunes of the Assembly. For this last purpose soldiers who had been drummed out of their regiments were principally selected; and in 1790 they consisted of between 700 and 800 men, under the command of a certain Chevalier de St. Louis, to whom they swore implicit obedience. The Jacobins planted affiliated societies in the provinces, which gradually increased to the enormous number of 2,400. At first the club consisted of well-educated and distinguished persons; 400 of them belonged to the Assembly, and may be said to have been the masters of it. The young Duke de Chartres, son of the Duke of Orleans, and afterwards King Louis Philippe, was an active member of the club. By degrees it grew more and more democratic, and became at last a sort of revolutionary Inquisition, and a legion of public 362 JOURNALISM. [CHAP. LIII. accusers. It was known abroad by the name of the Propaganda, and was a terror to all Europe.' In the spring of 1790 several members of the club who did not approve its growing violence, as Sieyes, Talleyrand, Lafayette, Ræderer, Bailly, Dupont de Nemours, and others, established what they called the Club of 1789, with the view of upholding the original principles of the Revolution. They hired for 24,000 livres a splendid apartment in the Palais Royal, in the house afterwards known as the Trois Frères Provençaux, where they dined at a louis d'or a head, after groaning in the Assembly over the miseries of the people. Mirabeau and a few other members continued also to belong to the Jacobins. A certain number of literary men were admitted, among whom may be mentioned Condorcet, Chamfort, and Marmontel. This club also had its journal, of which Condorcet was the editor." Journalism was also one of the most potent engines of the Revolution. A flood of journals began to be published contemporaneously with, or soon after, the opening of the States-General, as Mirabeau's Courrier de Provence, Gorsas' Courrier de Versailles, Brissot's Patriote Français, Barère's Point du jour, &c. The Révolutions de Paris, published in the name of the printer, Prudhomme, but edited by Loustalot, the most popular of all the journals, circulated sometimes 200,000 copies. At a rather later period appeared Marat's atrocious and bloodthirsty Ami du peuple, Camille Desmoulin's Courrier de Brabant, the wittiest, and Fréron's Orateur du peuple, the most violent of all the journals, and ultimately Hébert's Père Duchesne, perhaps the most infamous of all. For the most part, the whole stock of knowledge of these journalists had been picked up from Voltaire, Rousseau, and the authors of the Encyclopédie; but their ignorance was combined with the most ridiculous vanity. Camille Desmoulins openly proclaimed that he had struck out a new branch of commerce-a manufacture of revolutions. Marat seems to have derived his influence chiefly from his atrocious cynicism and bloodthirstiness; for his ability was small, though he had the most unbounded conceit of his own powers." He was born at Boudri, near Neufchâtel, in Switzerland, in 1743. As a 3 Ferrières, Mém. t. ii. p. 117 sqq.; Bertrand de Moleville, Mém. t. ii. ch. xxxii.; Toulongeon, t. i. p. 278; Michelet, t. ii. p. 298 sqq. 2 Barère, Mém. t. i. p. 293; Ferrières, Mém. t. ii. Michelet, t. i. p. 252 sq. Révol. de France, ap. Granier de Cassagnac, t. iii. p. 403. 5 Thus, in one of the numbers of his Ami du peuple, he says: "Je crois avoir épuisé toutes les combinaisons de l'esprit humain, sur la morale, la philosophie, et la politique."-Ap. Michelet, Hist. de ia Révol. t. ii. p. 386. CHAP. LIII.] MARAT. 363 child he displayed a sort of precocious talent combined with a morose perversity; and in manhood the same disposition was shown by his attacks upon everybody who had gained a reputation. Thus he attempted to upset the philosophy of Newton and disputed his theory of optics, which he appears not to have comprehended, as well as Franklin's theory of electricity; and in a book which he published in reply to Helvetius, he spoke with the greatest contempt of Locke, Condillac, Malebranche, and Voltaire. His own writings abound with commonplace, which he abandons only to become absurd. He spent some time in England, during part of which he seems to have been employed as an usher at Warrington. In 1775 he published, at Edinburgh, a work in English, entitled the Chains of Slavery, which indicated. his future course. On his return from England he obtained the place of veterinary surgeon in the stables of the Count d'Artois, which he abandoned on the breaking out of the Revolution to become an editor. The bitterness of his literary failures seems to have excited the natural spleen, envy, and malignity of his temper to an excess bordering upon madness. Cowardly as well as cruel, while he hid himself in garrets and cellars, he filled his journal with personal attacks and denunciations, and recommended not only murder but torture, as the cutting off of thumbs, burying alive, &c.1 After the removal of the King to Paris the political atmosphere became somewhat calmer, though disturbances sometimes broke out on the old subject of the supply of bread. The populace seemed astonished that the presence of the King had not rendered that article more abundant; and about a fortnight after his arrival, they put to death a baker named François, on the charge of being a forestaller, and paraded his head through the city. But justice, this time, did not altogether sleep. Martial law was proclaimed; and a market-porter, who had taken part in the outrage, was executed, to the great disgust of the populace, who exclaimed: "What liberty have we? Shall we not then be permitted to hang anybody?" 2 The Assembly was divided into various committees of war, marine, jurisprudence, &c., of which the committee charged with drawing up the Constitution was alone permanent. Its members were Mirabeau, Target, Duport, Chapelier, Desmeuniers, Talleyrand, Barnave, Lameth, and Sieyès. The Abbé Sieyès, whose 'Michelet, Hist. de la Revol. t. iii. p. 119. 364 ABOLITION OF TITHES. [CHAP. LIII. studious and taciturn habits, and abrupt, sententious way of speaking had procured for him a reputation for wisdom which he scarcely deserved, was one of the most active members of the committee. It was he who presented the project for dividing France into eighty-three departments. The question of the revenue, the real cause for summoning the States-General, seemed almost neglected. Necker had attempted to negotiate two loans, but they failed; partly because the Assembly reduced the proposed interest too low, and partly from a want of confidence on the part of capitalists. Necker now proposed an extraordinary contribution of a fourth of all incomes, or an income-tax of twenty-five per cent., for one year. He accompanied the project with an earnest appeal to all good citizens to contribute to the necessities of the State. This appeal was cheerfully responded to by people of all ranks. The members of the Assembly deposited at the door their silver shoe-buckles; the King and Queen sent their plate to the Mint; Necker himself placed bank notes for 100,000 francs on the President's bureau; labouring men offered half their earnings, the women their rings and trinkets; even the very children parted with their playthings. Such expedients, however, could afford only a temporary and precarious relief. In this extremity the property of the Church offered a vast and tempting resource. Such property, it was argued, could be seized, or rather resumed, without injustice; it had been erected only for a national purpose, and the State might appropriate it if that purpose could be fulfilled in another way. The decree for the abolition of tithes had already passed among the offerings made on August 4th, in spite of the arguments of the Abbé Sieyes, who pointed out that tithes, as a charge upon land, had been allowed for in its purchase, and that to abolish them unconditionally was to make a present to the landed proprietors of an annual rent of 120,000,000 francs, or near 5,000,0001. sterling. Yet Mirabeau, and the greater part of the Assembly, either could not, or would not, understand this simple question of arithmetic; while Sieyes, who was the real democrat, by preventing the rich from being favoured at the expense of the poor, who would have to contribute to the new tax proposed for the maintenance of the clergy, lost much of his popularity by reminding the Assembly of common sense and common justice.' Well might he exclaim: "They want to be free, and know not how to be just!" At the same time, Buzot, afterwards a member of the Gironde, had pro 'L. Blanc, Hist. de la Révol. t. iii. p. 16 sqq. |