CHAP. LIV.] INSURRECTIONARY PREPARATIONS. 395 infection, by a measure adapted to the genius of the nation; a reply which must have sounded very like a reproof to the allied Governments.1 The Duke of Brunswick arrived at Coblenz, July 3rd, in the environs of which place the troops under his command wère assembling. The emigrant Princes now retired to Bingen. The Emperor and the King of Prussia had a conference at Mentz, July 19th and two following days. The allied Sovereigns exhibited a bitter jealousy of each other, and a selfish anxiety as to what territories they should get by way of compensation. The Emperor's army in the Netherlands was commanded by the Duke of Saxe Teschen. From this 15,000 men were to be detached to cover the right of the Prussian advance and join them near Longwy; while another Austrian army of 20,000 men under Prince Hohenlohe, was to be directed between the Rhine and Moselle to cover the Prussian left, menace Landau, and lay siege to Thionville. A third Austrian corps d'armée, under Prince Esterhazy, assembled in the Breisgau, and with 5,000 emigrants under the Prince of Condé, menaced the French frontiers from Switzerland to Phillipsbourg. The French armies were inferior in number to those of the allies; that of Lafayette could hardly be relied on, and, to add to the danger, symptoms of insurrection had manifested themselves in La Vendée and other provinces. Yet when the decree that the country was in danger was proclaimed, July 22nd, in the principal places of Paris, amid the roll of drums and the booming of cannon, thousands rushed to enrol themselves as volunteers in the tents and booths erected for that purpose. Amidst these hostile preparations the fate of both the King and Monarchy was drawing to a crisis. The federal troops, instead of proceeding to Soissons after the fête, had remained at Paris; and on July 17th they sent a deputation to read to the Assembly an address drawn up by Robespierre, in which the suspension of the King's executive power, the impeachment of Lafayette, the discharge of military commanders nominated by the King, the dismissal and punishment of the departmental directors, &c., were imperiously demanded. Meanwhile the Girondists, threatened on one side by the Court and Lafayette, and on the other by the more violent Jacobins, were endeavouring to work on the King's fears, and reduce him to the dilemma either of throwing himself into their hands, or being crushed by 1 Garden, Traités, t. v. p. 207 sqq. Blanc, Hist. de la Révol. t. vi. p. 486. 396 THREATENING ADDRESS TO THE KING. [CHAP. LIV. Robespierre and the Republican party. Vergniaud, Guadet, and Gensonné found means to send a letter to Louis XVI. through his valet de chambre, Thierry, in which they told him that a terrible insurrection was preparing; that his abdication, or something still more dreadful, would be the result, and recommended, but without effect, as a means to avert the catastrophe, that Roland, Servan, and Clavière should be immediately reinstated in the Ministry. A threatening address to the King, got up in the secret conclaves of the Gironde, was also read in the Assembly, July 26th. It concluded thus: "You can still, Sire, save the country, and with it your Crown; dare then to will it. Let the name of your Ministers, let the sight of the men who surround you, appeal to the public confidence." But the address was greeted with tumultuous disapprobation by the people in the tribunes,' Measures had now been taken to organize an insurrection. A central bureau of correspondence among the forty-eight sections had been established at the Hôtel de Ville, July 17th, at which commissaries from the various sections appeared every day; and thus a rapid communication was established among them all. These commissaries ultimately formed, on the day of the insurrection, the revolutionary Commune, which ejected the legitimate General Council of the Municipality. Already some affairs had occurred which foreshadowed the coming event. The Marseillese had got up a quarrel with some grenadiers of the National Guard, in which blood had been spilt. This affair increased the agitation among the respectable classes, and filled every bosom with hatred or fear. The National Guards of the more aristocratic quarters of Paris were burning to put an end to the Revolution, and a band of courageous gentlemen had offered their services in defence of the Palace. The 20th of June had been the day of the Gironde; the 10th of August, for which, after some postponements, the second insurrection was ultimately fixed, was to achieve the triumph of the Montagne, or ultra-democrats. Most of the leading Girondists, Brissot, Vergniaud, Condorcet, Isnard, Lasource, and others, opposed the movement; Brissot and Isnard even talked of sending Robespierre before the Court at Orleans, which would have been equivalent to bringing him to the scaffold;3 Pétion and Ræderer, 1 Ræderer, Chronique de 50 jours, ap. Croker, Essays on the French Revol. p. 212; L. Blanc, Hist. de la Révol. Fr. t. vii. p. 4. 2 M. Terneau, La Terreur, t. ii. p. 138. 3 L. Blanc, t. vii. p. 20. CHAP. LIV.] DUKE OF BRUNSWICK'S MANIFESTO. 397 though with fear and doubt, ultimately lent their aid to the insurrection. But the men who had incited it, and were to reap its fruits, kept themselves in the background. Neither Robespierre nor Danton, though each after his manner was urging on the movement, took part in the secret insurrectional committee at the Jacobins, which consisted for the most part of obscure persons. Danton, whose character, if more corrupt,' was at least more open than Robespierre's, made no secret of his hopes of profit and advantage from the event. The views of the sly and egotistical Robespierre were more designing and ambitious. He sounded Barbaroux on the subject of procuring for him a dictatorship by means of the Marseillese; but Barbaroux flatly refused.' Marat was afraid to abide the outbreak which his atrocious writings had so much contributed to produce; and feeling himself insecure in his cellar, he besought Barbaroux to conduct him to Marseilles in the disguise of a jockey.3 While Paris was thus on the eve of an insurrection, the bitter feeling which prevailed against the Court was increased tenfold by a highly injudicious manifesto, published by the Duke of Brunswick, July 25th, on breaking up from Coblenz to invade the French frontier. In this paper it was declared: That the object of the Coalition was to put an end to anarchy in France, and to restore Louis XVI. to his legitimate authority; that if the King was not immediately restored to perfect liberty, or if the respect and inviolability due to him and the Royal family were infringed, the Assembly, the Department, the Municipality, and other public bodies would be made responsible with their heads; that if the Palace was insulted or forced, and any violence offered to the King or his family, Paris would be abandoned to military execution and total destruction. But-what was felt as more insulting than all this-if the Parisians promptly obeyed these orders, then the allied Princes engaged to obtain from Louis XVI. a pardon for their faults and errors. By a second declaration, dated July 27th, the Duke threatened that if the King or any member of the Royal family should be carried off from Paris, the road through which they had He had already touched 30,000 livres, the money of the Court. See Corr, entre Mirabeau et le Comte de la Marck, t. iii. p. 82; Mémoires de Lafayette, ap. L. Blanc, t. v. p. 378, t. vii. p. 27 and 96. 2 Mémoires de Barbaroux, ch. v. p. 62 sqq. We see no reason for doubting this statement, with M. L. Blanc (t. vii. p. 30), merely because it agrees not with Robes 398 THE KING'S ABDICATION DEMANDED. [CHAP. LIV. been conducted should be marked by a continued series of exemplary punishments." The tone of this manifest was not at all in accordance with the suggestion of Mallet du Pan. It had been drawn up by the Marquis de Limon, according to the views of Calonne, and had obtained the approbation of the allied Sovereigns, though the Duke of Brunswick himself disapproved of it. The passage respecting the destruction of Paris is even said to have been inserted after it had received the Duke's signature. At all events, the manifest should not have been published till the allied armies were nearer to Paris, and, after issuing it, the march of the troops on that capital should have been precipitated. We do not, however, believe that this manifesto caused the overthrow of the French Monarchy; that was already determined on; but by wounding the national pride of the French, it strengthened the impending insurrection, and also roused them to a more vigorous defence against the invasion. A little after Monsieur, the King's brother, and other emigrant Princes, published at Trèves (August 8th), a declaration of their motives and intentions. Their army, of about 12,000 men, was to keep in the rear of the Prussians, and follow their line of operations.3 The accession of the Court of Turin to the Coalition, July 25th, which offered to furnish 40,000 men,* must also have tended to irritate the French. 5 The Duke of Brunswick's manifesto was officially communicated to the Assembly, August 3rd; when the King thought proper to assure the Chamber in a letter, that he would never compound the glory and interests of the nation, never receive the law at the hands of foreigners or a party; that he would maintain the national independence with his last breath. Such professions were, to say the least, very uncandid, when he was negotiating with the enemies of France. On the same day, Pétion, at the head of a deputation from the Commune, appeared at the bar of the Assembly, denounced the crimes of Louis XVI., his sanguinary projects against Paris, and demanded his abdication. The petition which he presented to this purport had been approved by all the Sections of Paris except one. The insurrection would have taken place immediately, but Santerre, the leader of the Faubourg St. Antoine, and the devoted servant of Robespierre, was not yet prepared. 1 The manifest will be found in the Hist. Parl. t. xvi. and in L. Blanc, Hist. de la Révol. ch. viii. App. 2 Mém. et Corr, de Mallet du Pan, t. i. p. 316 sqq. 3 Homme d'état, t. i. p. 434 sq. • Garden, Traités, t. v. p. 180. 5 Ap. Smyth, vol. ii. p. 327. 6 Hist. Parl. t. xvi. p. 315 sqq. CHAP. LIV.] PREPARATIONS FOR DEFENCE. 399 The King was informed almost hourly of the state of the preparations for the attack on the Tuileries. The anxiety that reigned in the Palace may be easily conceived. Extensive means of defence were adopted, and the King and Queen were not altogether without hopes that it might be successful. Royalty had not yet lost all its supporters. There was in the Assembly a large, but timid party, the friends of order; and the accusation of Lafayette, proposed by Brissot, had been rejected by a majority of almost two to one. But the members who had voted the rejection were hissed and maltreated on leaving the House. The Palace of the Tuileries was at that time much more defensible than it is at present. The Place du Carrousel was covered with small streets; the court of the Palace was enclosed with a wall instead of a railing, and not open, as at present, but divided by ranges of small buildings. Mandat, whose turn it was to command the National Guard, a man of courage, and who had been an officer in the regular army, was a zealous Constitutionalist, and several battalions of that force were also ardently attached to the Throne. Mandat's arrangements were judicious. Twelve guns were planted round the Palace, others on the Pont Neuf, to prevent the junction of the men of the Faubourg St. Marceau with those of the Faubourg St. Antoine; a force was stationed to observe the Hôtel de Ville, with instructions to let the mob pass from the Faubourg St. Antoine, and then to attack them in the The most effective force, however, was the Swiss Guard, about 950 men. rear. None of the leading Jacobins took any active part in the execution of the attack. Even Barbaroux and his friends Rebecqui and Pierre Baille excused themselves from leading their compatriots, the Marseillese, on the ground that they were the official representatives of the town of Marseilles.' On this eventful day the destinies of France were left in the hands of the Commissaries of the Sections, all of them obscure persons, though a few, as Billaud Varennes, Hébert, Bourdon de l'Oise, and two or three more, afterwards became noted in the annals of the Revolution. These men proceeded to the Hôtel de Ville on the night of August 9th, formed themselves into a new Commune, and expelled the existing legitimate Council; retaining of the previous magistrates only Pétion, Manuel, and Danton, and the sixteen Administrators. One of the first acts of the insurrectionary Commune was to send for Mandat. On entering the Council Hall he was astonished to 1 Mém. de Barbaroux, p. 66 sq.; Terneau, t. ii. p. 307 note. |