370

DEATH OF MIRABEAU.

[CHAP. LIII. oath was also refused by the great majority of the curés and vicars, amounting, it is said, to 50,000. Hence arose the distinction of prêtres sermentés and insermentés, or sworn and non-juring priests. The brief of Pius VI., forbidding the oath, was burnt at the Palais Royal, as well as a manikin representing the Pope himself in his pontificals. Many of the deprived ecclesiastics refused to vacate their functions, declared their successors intruders, and the sacraments they administered null, and excommunicated all who recognized and obeyed them.1

The death of Mirabeau, April 2nd, 1791, deprived the Court of a partisan in the Assembly, though it may well be doubted whether his exertions could have saved the Monarchy. He fell a victim to his profligate habits, assisted probably by the violent exertions he had recently made in the Assembly, in a question concerning the private interests of his friend, the Count de la Marck. He displayed his sensualism in his last moments, by desiring the attendants to remove all the apparatus of a sick chamber, to bring perfumes and flowers, to dress his hair, to let him hear the harmonious strains of music. His treachery was not yet publicly known, and his death was honoured with all the marks of public mourning. The theatres were closed and all the usual entertainments forbidden. He was honoured with a sumptuous funeral at the public expense, to which, says a contemporary historian, nothing but grief was wanting. In fact, to most of the members of the Assembly, eclipsed by his splendid talents, and overawed by his reckless audacity, his death was a relief. His remains were carried to the Pantheon, but were afterwards cast out to make room for those of Marat. After Mirabeau's death, Duport, Barnave, and Lameth reigned supreme in the Assembly, and Robespierre became more prominent.*

3

The King, as we have said, had now begun to fix his hopes on foreign intervention. The injuries inflicted by the decrees of the Assembly on August 4th, 1789, on several Princes of the Empire, through their possessions in Alsace, Franche Comté, and Lorraine, might afford a pretext for a rupture between the German Confederation and France. The Palatine House of Deux Ponts, the Houses of Würtemberg, Darmstadt, Baden, Salm Salm, and others had

'Barruel, Hist. du Clergé pendant la Révol. t. i. p. 61 sq.; Ferrières, Mém. t. ii. liv. viii.; Bertrand de Moleville, Annales, &c. t. iii. ch. 35.

2 On returning to La Marck's house, he exclaimed, throwing himself on a sofa,

"Votre cause est gagné, et moi je suis mort." See Correspondance entre Mirabeau et La Marck, t. iii. p. 92 sq.

3 Toulongeon, t. i. p. 274.

Mémoires de Mirabeau, t. viii. liv. x.; Lacretelle, Hist. de France, t. viii. p. 234.

CHAP. LIII.]

FOREIGN INTERVENTION.

371

possessions and lordships in those provinces; and were secured in the enjoyment of their rights and privileges by the treaties which placed the provinces under the sovereignty of France. The German prelates, injured by the civil constitution of the clergy, were among the first to complain. By this act the Elector of Mentz was deprived of his metropolitan rights over the bishoprics of Strasburg and Spires; the Elector of Trèves of those over Metz, Toul, Verdun, Nanci, and St. Diez. The Bishops of Strasburg and Bâle lost their diocesan rights in Alsace.1 Some of these princes and nobles had called upon the Emperor and the German body in January, 1790, for protection against the arbitrary acts of the National Assembly. This appeal had been favourably entertained, both by the Emperor Joseph II. and by the King of Prussia; and though the Assembly offered suitable indemnities, they were haughtily refused. On the other hand, the Assembly having annulled seignorial rights and privileges throughout the French dominions, could not consistently make exceptions. The Emperor, besides the alarm which he felt in common with other absolute Sovereigns at the French revolutionary propaganda, could not forget that the Queen of France was his sister; and he was also swayed by his Minister, Prince Kaunitz, whose grand stroke of policy-an intimate alliance between Austria and the House of Bourbon-was altogether incompatible with the French Revolution. The Spanish and Italian Bourbons were naturally inclined to support their relative, Louis XVI. In October, 1790, Louis had written to request the King of Spain not to attend to any act done in his name, unless confirmed by letters from himself." The King of Sardinia, connected by intermarriages with the French Bourbons, had also family interests to maintain. Catharine II. of Russia had witnessed, with humiliation and alarm, the fruits of the philosophy which she had patronized, and was opposed to the new order of things in France. The King of Prussia, governed by the counsels of Hertzberg, the inveterate enemy of Austria, though disposed to assist the French King, had at first insisted on the condition that Louis should break with Austria, and conclude an intimate alliance with the House of Brandenburg," a proposition which was, of course, rejected. But, in April, 1791, Hertzberg retired from the Ministry, leaving the field open to Bischofswerder, the friend of Austria, and the policy which had inspired

4

1 Garden, Traités, t. v. p. 152 sq. 2 Homme d'état, t. i. p. 78.

3 Ibid. p. 98 sq.

4 Bischofswerder, and his brother mystics, or illuminati, exercised a great influence over the weak-minded Frederick

372

CONFERENCE AT MANTUA.

[CHAP. LIII. the Convention of Reichenbach once more prevailed. Thus all the materials existed for an extensive coalition against French democracy.

In this posture of affairs the Count d'Artois, accompanied by Calonne, who served him as a sort of Minister, and by the Count de Durfort, who had been despatched from the French Court, had a conference with the Emperor, now Leopold II., at Mantua, in May, 1791, in which it was agreed that, by the following July, Austria should march 35,000 men towards the frontiers of Flanders, the German Circles 15,000 towards Alsace; the Swiss 15,000 towards the Lyonnais; the King of Sardinia, 15,000 towards Dauphiné; while Spain was to hold 20,000 in readiness in Catalonia. This agreement, for there was not, as some writers have supposed, any formal treaty, was drawn up by Calonne, and amended with the Emperor's own hand. But the large force to be thus assembled was intended only as a threatening demonstration, and hostilities were not to be actually commenced without the sanction of a congress. The flight attempted a few weeks after by Louis XVI. was not at all connected with this conference. Such a project was, indeed, mentioned at Mantua, but it was discouraged by the Emperor, as well as by the Count d'Artois and Calonne. The King's situation was become intolerably irksome. He was, to all intents and purposes, a prisoner at Paris. A trip, which he wished to make to St. Cloud during the Easter of 1791, was denounced at the Jacobin Club as a pretext for flight; and when he attempted to leave the Tuileries, April 18th, the tocsin was rung, his carriage was surrounded by the mob, and he was compelled to return to the Palace. On the following day Louis appeared in the Assembly, pointed out how important it was, on constitutional grounds, that his actions should be free; reiterated his assurances of attachment to public liberty and the new Constitution, and insisted on his journey to St. Cloud. But the President was silent on this head, though the Assembly received the King with respect.2

A few days after thus protesting against the restraint to which he was subjected, the leaders of the Revolution, who appear to have suspected his negotiations abroad, exacted that he should address a circular to his ambassadors at foreign Courts, in which he entirely approved the Revolution, assumed the title of "Re

William II. by their pretensions to supernatural power. They pretended to evoke Jesus Christ and Moses, to show the shadow of Cæsar upon the wall, &c. Ségur, Tableau Politique, &c. t. i. p. 82.

1 Homme d'état, t. i. p. 110 sq.; Bertrand de Moleville, Annales, t. iv. ch. 11; Lacretelle, t. viii. p. 239 sqq.

• Moniteur, Séance du 19ème Arri,

1791.

CHAP. LIII.]

FLIGHT TO VARENNES.

373

storer of French liberty," and utterly repudiated the notion that he was not free and master of his actions.' The Powers to whom the note was addressed, knew, however, perfectly well that he did not love the Constitution; and, indeed, he immediately despatched secret agents to Cologne and Brussels with letters for the King of Prussia and for Maria Christina, governess of the Austrian Netherlands, in which he notified that any sanction he might give to the decrees of the Assembly was to be reputed null; that his pretended approval of the Constitution was to be interpreted in an opposite sense, and that the more strongly he should seem to adhere to it, the more he should desire to be liberated from the captivity in which he was held."

Louis soon after resolved on his unfortunate flight to the army of the Marquis de Bouillé at Montmédy. He appears to have been urged to it by the Baron de Breteuil, in concert with the Count de Mercy, at Brussels, who falsely alleged that it was the Emperor's wish.3 Marie Antoinette, as well as De Bouillé, strongly opposed the project, but at last reluctantly yielded to the King's representations.*

5

Our limits will not permit us to enter into the interesting details of the flight to Varennes. Suffice it to say, that having, after some hairbreadth escapes, succeeded in quitting Paris in a travelling berlin, June 20th, they reached St. Menehould in safety. But here the King was recognized by Drouet, the son of the postmaster, who, mounting his horse, pursued the Royal fugitives to Varennes, raised an alarm, and caused them to be captured when they already thought themselves out of danger. In consequence of their being rather later than was expected, the military preparations which had been made for their protection entirely failed. The news of the King's flight filled Paris with consternation. When the news of his arrest arrived, the Assembly despatched Barnave, Latour-Maubourg, and Pétion to conduct him and his family back to Paris. In discharging this office, Pétion, who appears to have been a solemn coxcomb, dis

The Circular, dated April 23rd, 1791, is in the Hist. Parl. t. ix.

2 Homme d'état, t. i. p. 106 sqq.

3 Ibid. t. i. p. 115.

4 Weber, Mém. t. ii. ch. iv. Mém. de Bouillé, ch. x. sq.

p.

315 $49.

5 One of the most authentic accounts of it will be found in Weber's Mémoires, t. ii. ch. iv., drawn up by M. de Fontanges, Archbishop of Toulouse, from information furnished by the Queen herself. The English reader will find an interest

ing narrative of it in Croker's Essays on the French Revolution, Essay iii.

6 Pétion wrote an account of the journey back, which was found among his papers, and has been published by M. Mortimer Terneau, in his Hist. de la Terreur, t. i. note 5. Pétion is here condemned by his own mouth. Among other things he is vain and insolent enough to imagine that the princess Elizabeth had fallen in love with him during this miserable journey.

374

THE KING'S RETURN.

[CHAP. LIII. played a vulgar brutality, combined with insufferable conceit; while Barnave, touched by the affliction and bearing of the Royal fugitives, won their confidence and regard by his considerate attention. Notices had been posted up in Paris that those who applauded the King should be horsewhipped, and that those who insulted him should be hanged; hence he was received on entering the capital with a dead silence. The streets, however, were traversed without accident to the Tuileries, but as the Royal party were alighting, a rush was made upon them by some ruffians, and they were with difficulty saved from injury. The King's brother, the Count of Provence, who had fled at the same time by a different route, escaped safely to Brussels.

This time the King's intention to fly could not be denied; he had, indeed, himself proclaimed it by sending to the Assembly a manifest, in which he explained his reasons for it, declared that he did not intend to quit the Kingdom, expressed his desire to restore liberty and establish a Constitution, but annulled all that he had done during the last two years. Amongst many wellfounded complaints, he condescended to allude to his poverty, although he had a civil list of twenty-five millions; and of the inconvenience of the Tuileries, where, he said, he had not the comforts of a private person in easy circumstances. In judging the conduct of the Assembly at this crisis, we must consider the feelings with which the idea of the King's flight inspired the whole French nation. His intrigues with D'Artois and the Emigrants were more than suspected, and it was thought that he would introduce a vast foreign army and restore the ancient régime by force and bloodshed. The leaders of the clubs trembled for their necks; the artisans foresaw the loss of the State wages; the peasantry dreaded the restoration of feudalism; the burghers pictured to themselves the return of the insolent noblesse; the army beheld, in prospectu, a return to low pay and the whip, and commissions monopolized by the nobles; the purchasers of ecclesiastical property saw their new acquisitions slipping from their grasp; while even disinterested patriots revolted at the idea of seeing France trampled on by foreign Powers, and stripped, perhaps, of some of her provinces.3 The King, after his return, was

1 That Barnave, however, as commonly related, was induced to change his politics during this journey, by the compassion which he felt for the Queen, is only a little piece of biographical effect. He had been going over several months

before. Lettres de Montmorin, ap. Von Sybel, Revolutionszeit, B. i. S. 238, Anm. (vol. i. p. 301, Eng. tr.).

2 Hist. Parl. t. x. p. 269; cf. Michelet, t. iii. p. 19.

3 Von Sybel, i. 306 (Eng. tr.).