 The Preface of the Story of the French Revolution. The Story of the French Revolution by Ernest Belfort-Bachs. The following sketch of the course of the French Revolution was originally published during 1889 in serial form in Justice, the weekly organ of the Social Democratic Federation. It has been revised, corrected and in some parts added to for the present reissue. It needs scarcely be said that it in no way pretends to be a complete history of the great political, social and intellectual movement it describes. The present volume is designed primarily as a guide to those who, not having the time to study larger works on the subject, yet wish during these centennial years to have in a small compass a connected description of the main events of the French Revolution, more especially from the point of view of modern socialism. It is undeniable that there are many Englishmen who would indignantly repudiate any aspersions on their education for whom the French Revolution means little more than the destruction of one institution called the Bastille, the erection of another institution called the Guillotine and the establishment of the Napoleonic Empire on the ruins of both. They have no idea of the complex forces, economical, speculative and political, which manifested themselves in the succession of crises, scarcely indeed of the existence of the crises themselves, which took place between the assembling of the state general in 1789 and the suppression of the Bebeuf conspiracy in 1796. For such as these and for many others to whom the above remarks will not altogether apply, a condensed statement of the facts of the French Revolution cannot but be desirable, and although there exist summaries galore, the writer ventures to think that the present little work differs from them in two respects. Firstly, in the point of view from which the revolution is viewed, and secondly, in the endeavor to throw the principal events into as strong relief as possible by the omission of all detail which is unessential to the understanding of them. Brevity has also been a distinct aim and for this, as for the former reason, much that is in itself interesting has been left out. The foregoing especially applies to biographical details respecting the chief actors. These have been uniformly omitted throughout as tending to expand the sketch indefinitely and to draw off attention from its main purpose. The circumstances of the time and the events made the personalities what they were, and there is not one of them who in so far as public life is concerned, can be regarded otherwise than as the embodiment of some more or less widespread contemporary tendency. The actors therefore merely cross the stage in connection with the principal events in which they play the role. Yet, though they may have suddenly become especially prominent, it must be understood that in almost all cases they were already familiar to the population of Paris and in many cases of the whole of France as club orators, parliamentary politicians, or as journalists. It is not too much to say that in the French Revolution journalism first became a power in the world's history. Those who seek further details both of the revolution itself and of the life of its leading figures may be referred to the larger histories. The admirable history of Mr. Morse Stephen now in progress represents by far the best work that has been yet done in English, both as regards exhaustiveness and impartiality in connection with the subject. Mr. Stephen's excellent articles in the ninth edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica may also be consulted with Profit. The French literature of the subject would of course fail libraries. Works such as Bougels, Meras, Habanelles, and Écalces Cloutes are monuments of industry and research. In spite of the efforts of French scholars, however, there is much room left for original investigation. The British Museum alone contains, I believe, upwards of 100,000 newspapers, pamphlets, manifestos, and other documents many of them has yet unarranged and uncatalogued. The amount of material in Paris and in France generally, which has not yet been worked, is probably incalculable. A fence has been given in some quarters at the view taken of Robespierre in the following pages. The writer can only say that he cannot regard the mere negative qualification that Robespierre has been, in general, attacked by the reaction in conjunction with other leaders as of itself entitling him to the esteem of modern Democrats or socialists in the teeth of the undeniable facts of the case. The treacherous surrender of the Dantonistes, the judicial murder of the Hebertistes, the law of prairieale, are these things not written in history? The fact is, Robespierre was a petit bourgeois, a Philistine to the backbone who desired a republic of petit bourgeois virtues with himself at the head and was prepared to wade through a sea of blood for the accomplishment of his end. Napoleon had a truer sense of the case than other reactionists when, as is reported, he was inclined to hail Robespierre as an unsuccessful predecessor in the work of restoring order and saving society in the interest, of course, of the middle classes. With these few words of preface, the volume is left to the consideration of the reader in the hope that it may afford him at least some light on the general bearings of the history of the French Revolution. Preface to the American Edition The French Revolution is an inexhaustible quarry. Many works have been written upon it, many more will be written, and save it is to predict that something of value will be brought out in all. For all that, what has been brought out is ample to justify the popular sentiment that the subject is one of deep and lasting importance. But it is not merely in a general sense that the story of the French Revolution has permanent interest to the American reader. It is interesting to him in a special sense. Especially if the American reader be a student, he will find the story of the French Revolution to be of invaluable aid to his understanding and appreciating those features of the story of the American Revolution without the understanding and appreciation of which the flavor of the American Revolution is lost, and many of the lessons of both are very materially forfeited. Same causes lead to same results. Here is a maxim as true as it is exposed to grave error. Causes run imperceptibly into results, and the reaction of results upon causes is so subtle that the two are often confused. Moreover, it is as important as it is often difficult to separate causes from accompaniments and properly group them. These are the pitfalls into which the superficial reader falls, and due to which the lessons of history are mainly lost to him. The story of the French Revolution furnishes an instance, and the instance is brought out all the clearer by comparison with the story of the American Revolution. The French Revolution, like the American, was the revolution of the bourgeois or oncoming capitalist class. And yet we find that, on the one hand, the identity of the cause is lost to many who wholly unequipped with the key to the understanding of history and blinded by the accompaniments of each consider them wholly distinct phenomena. While, on the other hand, others, somewhat but insufficiently equipped with the historical key, detect the identity of the cause, but relapse into barren dogmatism through their incapacity to distinguish between accompaniments. To the one and the other, the full significance of the history of the French Revolution is lost, and along with that is lost the pregnant features of the American Revolution. Numerous are the passages in Belfall-Bags's History of the French Revolution that furnish in hand the material with which to contrast the difference in accompaniments between the French and the American Revolution. Read with a night to them his contribution to the store of history is of great value to the philosophy of history. Material interests determine man's viewpoint. But material interests are in their turn determined by no one circumstance. The material interests that fretted against feudal restraints gave general direction to the revolt of the French bourgeois and thereby caused its direction to fall within that quarter of the compass into which the American Revolution fell. But the exact point of the compass touched by each depended upon secondary material conditions. With the French Revolution a sufficiently defined proletarian class simultaneously mounted the historic stage. None such made or could make its appearance in the instance of the American Revolution. To this secondary material fact touching France and quite clearly brought out by Mr. Bags is traceable a feature of the Revolution in France which imparts to that historic occurrence a physiognomy not shared by its American forerunner and when properly appreciated elucidates both. The utterances of the great figures in the French Revolution of its great apostles bear for this reason interesting comparison with their American kindreds. Both sets bourgeois both sets accordingly resting on the private ownership of the means of production did nevertheless present very different aspects. With the former who living in a densely populated country with natural opportunities already preempted the declarations concerning the rights of man or liberty equality fraternity. With the latter who finding themselves in an immense country barely populated and natural opportunities accessible to all their utterances included the whole human race. In the domain of sociology no less than in that of biology comparative anatomy is priceless. A careful reading of Mr. Bags story of the French Revolution for the very reason that it is synoptical will not only enrich the mind on the event that it describes but it will suggest home studies that enlarge the mind. Daniel de Leon. New York October 1st 1902. End of preface. Chapters 1 through 4 of the story of the French Revolution by Ernest Belfort Bags. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 1. The Literary Prologue The cardinal idea of the French Revolution was the political emancipation of the middle class. The feudal hierarchy of the Middle Ages consisted in France as in other countries of three main social divisions or estates as they were termed. One the superior territorial clergy. Two the nobles and three the smaller landholders the free tenants and the citizens of the independent townships. The mere serf or villain holding by servile tenure or common laborer was like the slave of antiquity unclassified. The possession or non-servile tenure of land was the condition of freedom. This third estate was the germ of our middle class. The great problem of the French Revolution then was to obtain the independence and domination of the third estate. It is expressed in the words of its representative the Abbe C.A.S. What are we of the third estate? Nothing. What would we be? Everything. But although the political supremacy of the middle class was the central idea and the one which it realized thereby effectually refuting a certain order of politicians that declares violent revolutions to be necessarily abortive, there were issues raised and not merely raised but carried for the time being which went far beyond this. But the flood tide of the revolution did not represent the permanent gain of progress. The waters receded from the ground touched at the height of the crisis, leaving the enfranchisement of the bourgeoisie as the one achievement permanently affected. Foremost among the precursors of this mighty change was the Genevieve's thinker Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1712-1778. This remarkable personality may be termed the Messiah of the Revolutionary Crisis. His writings were quoted and read as a new gospel by Well-Nia, the prominent leaders of the time. Rousseau's doctrines were contained in an early essay on civilization, in his Émile, a treatise on education and in the social contract his chief work. In his first essay, Rousseau maintained the superiority of the savage over the civilized state and the whole of his subsequent teaching centered in deprecation of the hollowness and artificiality of society and in an inculcation of the imperative need of a return as far as might be to a state of nature and all our relations. This he especially applies to education in his Émile in which he sketches the training of a hypothetical child. The social contract, his greatest work, contains a discussion of the first principles of social and political order. It is to this work the magic formulas which served as watchwords during the Revolution, formulas such as liberty, equality and fraternity, divine right of insurrection, the term citizen, employed as a style of address and many other things are traceable. The title of the work was suggested by Locke's or rather Hobbes' supposition of a primitive contract having been entered into between governor and governed, which was set up in opposition to that of the divine right of kings. This idea Rousseau accepts in basis but denies the unconditional nature of the contract affirmed by the originators of the theory. No original distinction existed between rulers and ruled. Any contract of the kind obtained was merely a political convenience strictly subject to conditions. Governors were merely the delegates or mandatories of the people. The form of government was to Rousseau more or less a minor matter. Although a democracy had the most advantages, yet it was quite possible for the mandates of the people to be adequately carried out by a special body of men in aristocracy or even by one man, a king. But every form of government was bound to recognize the will of the people as sovereign in all things. The classicism of the French Revolution is also largely represented in Rousseau. The Roman constitution is invariably the source of his illustrations and the model to be copied or amended. As regards toleration, Rousseau would allow the civil power the right of suppressing views which were deemed contrary to good citizenship. Like the Romans he would tolerate all religions equally that did not menace the state. There is probably no single book that has produced such stupendous results within a few years if at all as Rousseau's social contract. It is the textbook of the French Revolution. Every ordinance, every law, every draft of constitution bears the mark of its influence. Although more logical in the working out of the theory than its founders, it is needless to say that Rousseau's own views are singularly barren and unhistorical as every theory must be that deals only with the political side of things. One may admire his loathing at the artificiality of the world around him at the organized hypocrisy called religion and morality. But in his date was impossible to uncover its historical roots and hence to modern ears his diatribes lose much of their effect. The influence of the second of the important precursors of the French Revolution, François-Marie Arouet de Voltaire, 1694 to 1778, was much more indirect than that of Rousseau. Voltaire's influence was almost purely negative. By his wit he scorched up all the reverence remaining in the minds of men for the forms of the old outworn feudal Catholic organization. Though there was a great amount of a droid self-seeking in Voltaire's character, it is as impossible to deny that there was also much that was genuine and truly noble in his indignation at cruelty and his detestation of Christian hypocrisy as that it produced a far-reaching effect on the events that followed. Voltaire, although personally a Frenchman of Frenchman, breathed the spirit of a conscious cosmopolitanism and contempt for nationality in his writings which for the first time in history became a popular creed during the Revolution and was expressed in the famous appeal of 1793. But in this, as in other respects, Voltaire was not alone. He partly created and partly reflected the prevalent tone of the French Salon culture of the eighteenth century. This, if we care to do so, we might trace back in its main features to the revival of learning, to the courts of the Medici's. However it may be well to remind our readers in passing of the truth that individual genius merely means the special faculty of expressing that so-called spirit of the age to which that of preceding ages has led up and that Voltaire and Rousseau merely achieved the results they did by reason of their capacity for reproducing in words the shapeless thoughts of millions. To this, in the case of Voltaire, must be added a special width of intellectual sympathy which took in an unusually large number of different subjects. Besides Rousseau and Voltaire, we must not omit to mention the brilliant group of contemporary workers and thinkers headed by Diderot and D'Alembert who built up that monument of laborious industry, the great French encyclopedia. Immense difficulties attended the publication of this important work, notwithstanding that care was taken to exclude any expressions of overt contempt or hostility towards current prejudices. Again, we must not forget the materialist atheists, central among whom was Beren Dullbach, the anonymous author of the celebrated System of Nature, a book which, though crude according to modern notions, did good work in its day. Work which a treatise of more intrinsic philosophical value probably would not have achieved. It is noteworthy that most of the other prominent names among the pre-revolutionary writers, including Rousseau and Voltaire, are those of ardent deists. The name of Montesquieu 1689-1755, whose Esprit de Loire was a textbook of juridical philosophy for the revolution, must also not be omitted from the list of its literary precursors. All these men contributed their share in preparing the mental foundation for the great upheaval which followed. It is strange, however, that not one of them lived to see the practical issue of his labors. Rousseau, the most directly powerful of them, died eleven years before the taking of the Bastille and Voltaire the same year. Diderot lived till 1784. Don Anvers died the previous year. Mirabeau, a lone of all who had prepared the great crisis, lived to see its beginning. But even he succumbed in 1791, a year and a half before the actual fall of the monarchy. View of these men saw more than a free-thinking aristocracy and literary class. Of the movement below, they erect little, scarcely perhaps, that there was such a movement. For although from the beginning of the century, notably throughout the reign of Louis XV, there was ever and anon the consciousness of a change as imminent, and although twice in 1734 and in 1771 the old system seemed on that point of breaking down in revolution, yet still it survived, and for ought men could tell, was destined to continue to survive many more such shocks. The throne therefore, doubtless to many, seemed as secure, religion as popular as ever, the same throne and the same religion which in a few years were destined to be involved in so mighty an overthrow. Chapter 2 The Economic Prelude in the Provinces Ten years of bad harvests aggravated by an effete industrial, fiscal and political system culminated with the summer of 1788. A great drought was succeeded by a violent hailstorm which dealt destruction all round. The harvest was worse than ever before. All kinds of agricultural crops failed miserably all over France, not alone wheat and grain generally, but vines, chestnuts, olives. In short, all the natural products of consumption and exportation. Even what was gathered in was so spoiled as to be almost unfit for use. From every province of France came the monotonous tale of ruin, famine, starvation. Even the comparatively well-to-do peasant farmer could obtain nothing but barley bread of a bad quality, and water, while the less well off had to put up with bread made from dried hay or moistened shaft, which we are told caused the death of many children. The Englishman, Arthur Young, who was travelling through France this year, wherever he went heard nothing but the story of the distress of the people and the dearness of bread. Such bread as is to be obtained taste of mold and often produces dysentery and other diseases. The larger towns present the same condition as though they had undergone the extremities of a long siege. In some places the whole store of corn and barley has the strength of pew to a faction and is full of maggots. To add to the horrors of the situation upon the hot and dry summer followed a winter of unparalleled severity. The new year of 1789 opened with the sun frozen over from Paris to Haver. No such weather had been experienced since 1709. As the spring advanced the misery increased. The industrial crisis became acute in the towns, thousands of workmen were thrown out of employment owing to the introduction of recently invented machinery from England, which was beginning to supersede hand labour in some trades. The riots and local disturbances which had for many years past been taking place sporadically in various districts, now became daily more frequent, so much so that from March onwards the whole peasantry of France may be said to have been in a state of open insurrection, three hundred separate risings in the provinces being counted for the four months preceding the taking of the Bastille. In 1787 the minister Le Menis de Brienne had created nineteen new provincial assemblies. Below the arrondissement or district assembly which had been instituted some years before now came the assembly of the parish. In each of these primary assemblies of the parish, the arrondissement and even of the province, the people, farmers, etc., sat side by side with the local dignitaries, a fact which as may be imagined considerably tended to obliterate the ancient feudal awe. In November 1787 the king announced his intention of convoking the state's general. On the fifth of July 1788 the various local bodies were called upon to draw up cahiers or statements of their grievances for a presentment before the king and state general in which a double representation of the third estate was conceded. These cahiers form a mass of the most interesting material illustrative of the condition of France just before the revolution and have not even yet been fully investigated. The king, said the proclamation, desires that from the extremities of his kingdom and the least known of its habitations each may feel assurance in bringing before him his views and grievances, and this and other similar expressions were interpreted by the peasantry in the natural sense that the king was really desirous of rescuing them from starvation. It accordingly emboldened them to take the matter into their own hands. In January the cahiers were drawn up which meant that the people had now for the first time formulated their ills. Discussion in the assemblies had excited them. The state's general was going to look to their wrongs, it was true, but the state's general did not meet till May and meanwhile they were starving. One thing was clear, they must have bread. Accordingly in defiance of local authorities and guardians of the peace bands ranging up to three or four hundred and more formed themselves all over France, seized and plundered grainries, religious houses, stores of all kinds, entered public buildings in the name of the people destroying all legal documents, justly regarded as the instruments of their servitude which they could lay their hands on, proclaimed the local dues and taxes abolished, summarily put to death all those who interfered with them in the name of law and order, and emboldened by success finally took to the burning of the chateau and the indiscriminate destruction and appropriation of the houses and property of the wealthy. That the numbers of these bands were augmented not only by their workmen out of employment in Paris, Rouaix, etc., but also by professional thieves was only to be expected. The local authorities were hopelessly inadequate to cope with the insurgents and central authority in Paris seemed paralyzed. Ordinarily readers of the history of the revolution are apt to forget in following the course of events in the metropolis that they were only an enlarged picture of what was going on in hundreds of towns and villages throughout the provinces. Both before and after the famous 14th of July in most of the provinces of France all constituted authority was at an end. No one dares disobey the mandates of the popular insurgents. It would be impossible and tedious if it were possible to enumerate all the circumstances of even the principal revolts. The manner was pretty much the same in all and the following account of an insurrection at Strasbourg may serve to illustrate it. Five or six hundred peasants, artisans, unemployed, tramps, and others seized the occasion of a public holiday to attack the Hotel de Ville, the assembled magistrates escaping precipitately by back doors. The windows disappear under a volley of stones, the doors are broken in with crowbars and the crowd enters like a torrent. Immediately the account states there was a rain of shutters, window sashes, chairs, tables, sofas, books, papers, etc. The public archives are thrown to the winds, the neighbouring streets being covered with them. Deeds, charters, etc. perish in the flames. In the cellars tons containing valuable wines are forced the marauders after drinking their fill allowing them to run until there is a pond formed five feet deep in which several people are drowned. Others, loaded with booty, run off with it under the eyes of the soldiers who rather encourage the proceedings than otherwise. For three whole days the city is given over to the mob. All the houses belonging to persons of local distinction are sacked from cellar to attic. The revolt spreads instantly throughout the neighbouring country. Note 1. 10. Origine. Tom 1. Pages 81 to 82. Return to text. A few weeks before the opening of the state's general, a great riot occurred in Paris in the Faux-Bours-Saint-Altoine, the workman's quarter, attended by much bloodshed and loss of life. Paris, we are told, had for months passed, begun to fill with desperate, hungry and ragged strangers drawn thither by poverty from the uttermost ends of France. In some districts the leaders pretend to be acting under the orders of the king. The result is everywhere at least one thing. The enforcement of a maximum in the price of bread and the abolition of taxes. Atrocities, of course, occur here and there. A lawyer is half-roasted to make him surrender a charter supposed to be in his possession. A lord is tortured to death. An ecclesiastic torn in pieces. Thus have threatened ruin and starvation, to which the financial extravagances of the court have been the occasion of giving articulate expression and the remedy for which is offered to those who can read in the social contract of Rousseau become the immediate cause of the French Revolution. The same imminent bankruptcy of the kingdom occasioned by the extravagance of the court, which led to the convocation of the state general, that also indirectly to the founding of that main spring of the revolution, the Gécot-Bain-Club. The dispute between the court and the local legal councils called parliaments led to the crippling of their powers by the king and this again to remonstrant deputations from the aggrieved provincial towns. One set of these remonstrants, hailing from Rennes in Brittany, formed themselves into a club called the Breton Club for the ventilation of their grievances using the old convent of Saint-Jacques in the Rue Saint-Honoré for their meetings. The original scope of the society soon became enlarged and the name changed from that of Breton Club to Gécot-Bain-Club after their meeting place. Such was the origin of the vast club organization which exercised such a stupendous influence not only in Paris but in France during the following years. Chapter 3 The Opening in Paris On the 5th of May, 1789, the royal town of Versailles was gay, gay with decorations, with music, vocal and instrumental, with epaulettes, étiquettes, fair women and fair costumes. It was the opening of the state's general, called together for the first time since 1614 as a last resource to rescue the realm from dissolution and impending bankruptcy, and also the definitive opening of the French Revolution. At midday might have been seen the feudal procession entering the Church of St. Louis. After the king and royal family, the clergy occupied the first place, the superior clergy, attired in purple robe and long sleeves, the less superior in cassock, cloak and square bonnet. Next came the nobles, habited in black with silver-faced vest, lace cravat and plumed hat, while bringing up the rear followed the humble Ciarita, the representatives of the middle class, the merchants, the farmers and the small landowners, dressed also in black, but adorned with merely a short cloak and plain hat. With this memorable procession the constitution of the Middle Ages was more abundant for over two centuries, spasmodically gassed its last breath. The business of the state's general did not pass off as gaily as the opening ceremony. Conflict between the orders followed immediately on points of procedure, with the result that the Third Estate constituted itself the National Assembly of France, refusing to admit the other orders to its deliberations except on a basis of equality. The king manifested his displeasure by closing the door of the Hall of the States against them. The assembly answered by the celebrated oath it took outside in the Tennis Court of Versailles, 20th June, by which it pledged itself not to separate until it had given France a constitution. The assembly triumphed over the court two days after its oath, in as much as it regained possession of its Hall, openly defied the king in person, abolished the independence of the clergy and noblesse, formally confirmed its decrees of the previous day which the king had quashed with its deliberations. Thus the curtain rose on the first act of the revolutionary drama. Meanwhile the new popular ferment, occasioned by the events at Versailles, had taken complete possession of the capital and was rapidly spreading into the provinces. Some weeks later early in July, Necaire, the Minister of Finance beloved by the middle class, was dismissed from office. Necaire it should be observed was one of the less bad of the scoundrels called finance ministers who have been malversating the national funds in succession for years past. By comparison he appeared almost virtuous and the populace whose charity and admiration are always boundless toward official personages when not quite so bad as one would expect had converted him into an object of adoration. A procession for the purpose of protesting against the minister's dismissal was dispersed by force of arms and two persons killed. Necaire was soon in an uproar. The Palais Royale, the great place of public assembly and political discussion was packed with over 10,000 persons. On the table which served for a tribune stood a young man of fine features and gentlemean who was haranguing the crowd. It was Camille de Moulay, the popular journalist. Citizens, said he, there is not a moment to lose. The removal of Necaire is the toxin for a Saint Bartholomew of patriots. This evening all the Swiss and German battalions are coming from the Champ de Mars to slaughter us. There remains but one resource let us rush to arms. So saying he placed in his hat a sprig of a tree, green being the emblem of hope. The example was followed till the chestnut trees of Paris were denuded. At the same time the tricolor flag was first adopted as the banner of the popular party. The crowd proceeded through the streets bearing in triumph the busts of Necaire and Philippe Galité, the king's cousin but not his friend. Its numerical strength increasing with every yard traversed till its course was arrested on the Port Royale by a detachment of the Royal German Cavalry. The latter was driven back by showers of stones and the concourse swept onwards as far as the Place de Luikens. Here a formidable street fight took place, the people being opposed by a squadron of dragoons. The regulars of the king after encountering a vigorous resistance at length routed the insurgent Parisians but the victory was more fatal to the cause they represented than any defeat could have been. The dispersed multitude carried the indignant cry to arms from end to end of Paris. The regiment of French guards quartered in Paris mutinied and put to flight the mercenary foreign troops intended to overaw them. The whole night along the toxin rang out from the Hotel de Ville where a committee of prominent citizens was sitting to organize a search for arms. The morning of the 12th of July saw Paris in full revolt. The toxins of all the churches were peeling. Drums were beating along all the main streets. Excited crowds collecting in every opening space. An influx of the disinherited class trooped in at all the gates of Paris. Gunsmith shops were ransacked. On all sides a mad search for weapons was the order of the day. The committee at the Hotel de Ville in response to the important demands for arms could only reply that they had none. The civic authorities next appealed to, tempered and evasively promised assistance. Houses were sacked. Carriages seized. In the confusion there were naturally not wanting ruffians who sought to make use of the state of things prevailing for purposes of mere plunder. Such excesses were peremptorily put down with the cry, death to the thieves. The equipages and other property of the aristocrats, when seized by the people, were always either destroyed or carried to a central station at the Place de Greve. In the afternoon the provot of the merchants, a dignitary of the effete medieval hierarchy corresponding to the modern mayor, announced the speedy arrival of the muskets and ammunition so eagerly clamored in the streets. A citizen militia was formed under the name of the Parisian Guard numbering 48,000 men. Cockades of red, blue and green were everywhere distributed, but the hours passed on and no muskets arrived. A panic seized the city that the mercenary troops were about to march on Paris during the ensuing night. At last chests purporting to contain ammunition did appear were eagerly torn open and broken pieces of wood. The committee men and the provot of the merchants alike narrowly escaped with their lives, but the provot, pleading that he had been himself deceived, tried to divert the attention of the people by sending them on a futile expedition to Châture. The committee finally hit upon the device of arming the citizens with planks in default of firearms and accordingly ordered 50,000 to be forged. As a measure of protection against thieves and murderers the city was illuminated throughout the night. Chapter 4 The Bastille Next morning the 14th early the word was passed among the populace to the Évalide the military hospital. There at least arms must be forthcoming and sure enough the people were rewarded for their courage in braving the troops assembled in the chante-masse and forcing their way into the great military depot. Twenty-eight thousand muskets besides cannon, sabers and spears were carried off in triumph. Meanwhile the alarm had been given that the royal regiments posted at Saint-Denis were on the way to the capital and above all that the cannon of the Bastille itself was pointed toward the boulevard Saint-Ottoine. The attention of Paris was at once directed to the former point which really commanded the most populace districts of the city. The whole morning there was but one cry to the Bastille. The Bastille was the great emblem of the king's authority. In the Middle Ages it had been the royal stronghold against the turbulent feudal barons. But though the French nobility had long ceased to be turbulent barons and had become obsequious courtiers the Bastille remained nevertheless the great visible embodiment of the at present long centralized authority of the king of France. The capture of the Bastille would therefore be the greatest blow that the king's prestige could possibly suffer. Add to this that although no longer employed for its original purpose the Bastille had become specially obnoxious owing to its use as a place for arbitrary imprisonment under the infamous Lettre du Cachet. Armed crowds assembled then at this place from all quarters till the great fortress seemed confronted by the whole city in arms. Negotiations took place with the governor de l'ONNÉ but the people persistently shouted The die was cast by the destruction of the great bridge which was battered down by blows from hatchets it is said by two men only. The concourse poured in the second drawbridge was attacked and vigorously defended by the small garrison. Numbers of the assailants fell, killed and wounded. The siege continued over four hours when the French guard who as we have seen had already sided with the revolution arrived with cannon. The garrison seeing the case hopeless themselves urged the governor to surrender but old de l'ONNÉ preferred blowing the place up and burying himself amidst the ruins his companions alone prevented him from carrying out this design. The soldiers thereupon surrendered on condition that their lives should be spared. The leaders of the people who were in the forefront and had given their word to this effect did their utmost to protect the garrison from the indignation of the crowd among the thousands that thronged in there were probably few who knew anything of what had taken place. As a consequence de l'ONNÉ and some of the Swiss garrison fell victims to the popular fury. Meanwhile the Hôtel de Ville was in trepidation. Above all the provo of the merchants Plessel trembled less he should be made to suffer for his treachery. These fears were not allayed when shouts of victory, liberty issuing from thousands of throats and years of the inmates and grew louder minute by minute. It was the conquerors of the Bastille carrying their heroes in triumph to the municipal headquarters. Presently there entered the great hall an enthusiastic but disorderly ragged and bloodstained crowd promiscuously armed with pikes, muskets, hatchets and well-nigh every other conceivable weapon. Above the heads of the crowd one held the keys of the Bastille another the regulations of the prison, a third the caller of the governor. A general amnesty for all the defenders captured was agreed to after much opposition. But the provost of the merchants did not get off so easily. On the corpse of de l'ONNÉ a letter had been found in which Plessel had stated that he was amusing the Parisians with cockades and promises and that if the fortress could only hold out till nightfall relief should come. A court was to have been improvised to judge him, but on the way thither he was laid dead by a pistol shot from one of the crowd. The excitement of the day's action over precautions to avert designs against the capital on the part of the court were redoubled. Everywhere barricades were raised, paving stones torn up, pikes forged. The whole population was all night long at work in the streets. How well grounded were the fears of the Parisians would have been evident to anyone behind the scenes at Versailles where the Prime Minister had just promised the king to restore the royal authority in three days, this very night having been fixed for the expedition and wine and presents distributed among the royal troops in anticipation. The assembly, which was sitting en permanence, was about to send one more deputation to the king. It had already sent two, when he appeared in person in its midst. On being informed during the night of the events that had taken place by the grand master of the wardrobe he exclaimed, it is a revolt. No, Sire, replied the grand master, it is a revolution. On the king's subsequent protestations of affection for his subjects and his statement that he had just been given orders for the withdrawal of the foreign troops from Paris and Versailles that he confided his person to the representatives of the nation alone, etc., the assembly gave way to transports of joy, rose en masse and escorted him to the palace. The news spread rapidly. A revulsion of feeling took place all round from terror to elation, from hatred to gratitude. The general jubilation was increased by the restoration of Necae, the entry of Louis XVI into Paris and his acceptance of the tricolor caucade. Thus ended the preparatory period of the revolution. It is needless to say the moral effect of the popular victory throughout France was immense, every town becoming henceforth a revolutionary center in the sense of possessing a definite revolutionary organization. There are one or two useful hits to be learned from this old and oft repeated story of the fall of the Bastille. The first is of the eminent utility of popular force if only applied at the right moment. Beforehand it would have seemed preposterous that an undisciplined mob could take a fortress and paralyze the efforts of a reaction possessed of a trained army. Yet so it was. Another point to note is the untrustworthiness of men who belong to the class which makes the revolution and who even profess to represent it when their personal interests and position are bound up with the maintenance of the existing order. Le Sel, a man of the Third Estate its leading dignitary in the city of Paris was yet the man who was the least anxious to see the feudal hierarchy overthrown. And why? Because he played a part in it. The Third Estate had been incorporated into the medieval system. He was its representative as one of the feudal orders. Its position was subordinate indeed but now that it was growing in importance its leading men had much more to gain by clinging to the skirts of the noblesse and aiding them in frustrating that complete revolution which the rank and file of the class were seeking then in assisting the accomplishment of this revolution which could only mean the effacement of their own personal position. History repeats itself. Trade unions have won for themselves recognition and patronage in the middle class world today. Their leaders in a similar way do not exhibit any special desire for a change which, though it would mean the liberation and triumph of the class they represent, would at the same time render trade unions a thing of the past no less than the lord mayors and cabinet ministers who stroke the backs of the parliamentary elect of trades unions. No, verily this is not a nice prospect for the trade union leaders. End of chapters 1 through 4 chapters 5 through 8 of the story of the French Revolution by Ernest Belford-Bachs. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 5 The Constitution Mongers The Constitution was now in full train. The revolution up to the latter point was officially recognized. There was no harking back for anyone. Foulon and Berthier, two administrators of the first rank under the old regime, had been publicly hanged at la lanterne and quartered by the people. The first stratum of revolutionists was to the fore. Mirabeau, Lafayette and Bayille are the central figures of the Constituent Assembly. Dupas, Barnab and LaMette its extreme men. In 1449 to 1791 one of the pre-revolutionary writers was the leader of the moderate party in the assembly. His stupendous powers of oratory made him a useful ally and a dangerous foe. This the court was not slow in discovering and accordingly Mirabeau was soon won over by bribes to do his best to frustrate every popular measure in the assembly while all the time professing devotion to the cause of liberty and the people. When this failed the popular courtor did not disdain to resort to actual plotting. The Marquis de Lafayette, 1757 to 1834 of American independence notoriety another member of the noblesse who had adopted previously to the revolution the quasi-advanced views then fashionable with his class was the military representative of the moderate party in his capacity of commandant of the National Guard besides the henchmen of Mirabeau in the assembly. Bayille, 1736 to 1793 who was elected mayor of Paris the day after the taking of the best e also co-agitated in the work of moderating the revolution alike in his official capacity and in the assembly as to the extreme men they really represented but the most moderate form of constitutional monarchy the situation of parties may be estimated by the fact that Belnave advocated a suspensory veto on the part of the king while Mirabeau strenuously supported the absolute veto and be it remembered at such a time the right of vetoing obnoxious measures would have been no mere matter of form it appears then that even the most advanced parliamentarians of the day were not prepared to go beyond the present Prussian constitution nevertheless circumstances early forced upon this timid and comparatively reactionary assembly some drastic political measures first and foremost on the memorable night of the 4th of August the abolition of all seniorial rights and privileges at a later stage after the assembly had removed to Paris a little judicious coercion from the tribunes or peoples galleries which were tenanted by advanced revolutionists there is no doubt exercise a salutary influence on several occasions the members knew well enough that their lives were in the hands of the Paris populace and those of their wives and children besides their property at the mercy of the populace of the rural districts the assembly's first important performance after the fall of the best was the declaration of the rights of man in imitation of the Americans after the successful termination of the war of independence the declaration of the rights of man contains a series of articles laying down the principles of political equality most of them are unexceptionable and even trite but it is significant that number 17 affirms categorically the absolute sacredness of private property the question which arose was immediately subsequent to this on the constitution of the chamber and its relations to the king need not detain us it is sufficient to state that while the assembly was amusing itself discussing suspensory veto or absolute veto the court, vis, queen and company at Versailles were meditating the transference of the king to Metz where the mercenary german troops were stationed and once communication with the french noblesse who had immigrated and the reactionary foreign powers was easy to declare Paris and the assembly rebels and march upon the city with the view of restoring the absolute monarchy these machinations at Versailles are interesting as having given the direction to the first great demonstration of the proletariat of Paris during the revolution I say the direction as the proximate cause was the now rising popular journalist Marat had given some days before in his Emmy du peuple when discussing the scarcity of bread the revolt broke out in this way a woman beating a drum patrolled the streets crying bread, bread she was soon surrounded by larger numbers of women who repaired to the hôtel de ville demanding bread and arms at the same time raising the cry to Versailles which was taken up by the populace generally with the suddenness characteristic of Parisian outbreaks the national guard and the french guard eventually joined in with such persistence and unanimity that Lafayette after some hours of expostulation was compelled to place himself at their head the troops having begun to march without him the unexpected appearance of a concourse headed by women and backed by a large armed force naturally through the queen and court into a state of amazement and admiration in the Shakespearean sense the household troops at once surrounded the palace the women however expressed feasible intentions and through their spokeswoman laid their grievances before the king and the assembly describing the direness of the famine prevailing meanwhile in the courtyard of the palace which was filled with a motley crowd a quarrel arose an officer of the king's troops having struck a national guard this was the signal for an immediate conflict between the two armed bodies the people and the nationals were furious and the collision must have resulted in more bloodshed than it did had it not been for the darkness of the night and the prudent order given the royal soldiers to cease from firing and to retreat the disturbance was eventually quelled the crowds melting away gradually as the night advanced the royal family retired to rest at two o'clock Lafayette who had remained up all night in vain endeavored to snatch repose for an hour after five a.m. before six some members of the previous evening's crowd who had remained at Versailles insulted one of the bodyguard to do upon them wounding one of their number the sleepless hero of two worlds so called from his American adventures was soon upon the scene he found considerable remnants of yesterday's gathering furiously forcing their way into the palace the assailants were temporarily dispersed but soon reassembled clamoring for the king the king eventually appeared upon the balcony promising in reply to the popular demands that he would go to Paris with his family the queen the head and front of all the recent offending next stepped on the balcony in the company of the arch courtier Lafayette who with a profound obeisance kissed the hand of the woman who had been plotting the massacre of that very people for whom this hypocritical charlatan had been all along professing zeal and devotion but the humiliation of the Parisians was not yet ended Lafayette retiring reappeared with one of the obnoxious bodyguard and placing the tricolor upon his breast embraced him at each of these points the assembled crowd duly cheered the royal family then set out for Paris and the tuileries became henceforth their permanent residence Chapter 6 The New Constitution after the events we have just described which occurred on the 5th and 6th of October 1789 the course of the revolution was for some considerable time peaceful and parliamentary the assembly till then at Versailles soon followed the court to Paris its migration seemed the signal for a vigorous application of the pickaxe to the old feudal system by this hitherto moderate body the chief bulwark attacked was the property and independent organization of the church prior to this however the assembly had reconstituted the map of France by abolishing the old division into provinces substituting for it the present one into departments the provinces had in the middle ages formed de facto independent states the division into departments placed the whole realm under one central administration and included the entire reorganization of the judicial system there were 83 departments formed which were divided into districts and these into cantons the department had its administrative council and executive directory as had also the district and electoral subdivision the commune or township was confided to a general council and a municipality which were subordinated to the departmental council all elections were indirect and the whole scheme in this respect seemed carefully arranged to exclude as far as possible the working classes and peasantry from any effective voice in legislation the nationalization of the church lands and property generally was precipitated by the old trouble the exhausted state of the treasury Nikah had devised every conceivable plan for raising the wind and failed when the last named project was suggested as a means of at least temporarily satisfying the exigencies of the situation it would be tiresome in a sketch like the present to describe in detail the stages by which the assembly arrived at the final result the issue of its deliberations to wit the decree expropriating the church was carried on the 2nd of December and thenceforth the churchmen as a body became the determined enemies of the new regime at first the clergy seemed more inclined than the noblesse to compromise matters in the hope of retaining their wealth but now that the die was cast they were implacable the difficulties attending the sale of the ecclesiastical property however were too great to admit of its realization in time for the pressing needs of the exchequer hence the issue of assignant the noblesse having a forced currency based on the value of the expropriated lands this which meant the adoption of a system of paper money on a vast scale staved off the imminent financial ruin all these measures were very interesting and showed a laudable activity on the part of the body politic but they did not affect the crowds to be seen daily at the baker's shops ever and anon breaking out into tumult the working classes of Paris had gone to their side simply bread and Lafayette had given them the royal family any further grumbling was obviously to be suppressed with drastic measures accordingly martial law was proclaimed and the municipality empowered to forcibly disperse any assembly of people having once summoned them to retire Lafayette was there to put this regulation into effect at the first opportunity but it did not come yet the clubs were now beginning to play a leading part in influencing public opinion the principle were those of the Jacobin and the Cordelier a third club was instituted subsequently by Lafayette called the Fayon and representing constitutional principles the Jacobin's club destined hereafter to become the great unofficial expression of the revolution counted by few prominent adherents in the assembly though Bernab and the LaMetz were among its members and it was occasionally patronized by several of the constitution makers including Mirabeau himself one cadaverous figure also a deputy was always at the Jacobin's his dress and speeches alike carefully prepared by name Maximilien Robespierre by profession advocate a native of Arras the club of the Cordelier was composed of an advanced section of the Jacobin among its constant attendance might have been seen the stalwart yeoman Danton and the short thick set sharp feature journalist Marat but neither the clubs nor their rising orators at this time exercised more than an indirect influence on the course of events though they energetically debated every question as it arose meanwhile in spite of the occasional disturbances and panics as to the king plotting his flight affairs moved along with comparative smoothness towards the completion of the constitution the consummation of the middle class political order preparations for celebrating the anniversary of the fall of the Bastille with due solemnity went on apace a national confederation was to be held in the Shanta mouse on this occasion in honor of the constitution the advanced members of the noblesse not to be behind in patriotism proposed in view of the national fate the abolition of titles armorial bearings and the feudal insignia generally the proposition was enthusiastically carried by the assembly its result was naturally to rouse the keenest indignation among the nobles outside and to give further edge to the organized movement of the aristocratic emigration on the 14th of july 1790 the population of Paris not withstanding bad weather were to be seen streaming from all sides in holiday attire amid a blaze of tricolor banners hanging cockades to the shanta mouse where a gigantic altar had been erected in the center of a vast artificial amphitheater the royal family the assembly and the municipality were grouped around this altar before which the then popular bishop avautin tallyran subsequently the famous diplomatist and wit performed mass and high pontifical robes assisted by 400 clergy and white surpluses la faillette first ascended the altar and in the name of the national guards of the whole realm took the civic oath of fidelity to the nation the law and the king this was followed by a salvos of artillery and prolonged shouts of vive la nation vive le roi the president of the assembly and all the deputies the department councils etc next took the same oath but the grand item of the day's program was reached when Louis the 16th himself rose to swear as king of France to maintain the constitution decreed by the assembly this part of the performance terminated as usual on great occasions with the appearance of the queen holding the homage and admiration of the assembled multitude who responded in one long and continuous acclamation chance of thanksgiving and exalted jubilation generally close the day's proceedings such was the inauguration of the first French constitution but despite the new and glorious liberty crowds of hungry Parisians continued to be daily turned away from the baker's shops chapter 7 a constitution on its beam ends all state functionaries military civic and ecclesiastical were now compelled to take the oath of allegiance to the new order of things this led to a revolt on the part of the majority of the nobles and ecclesiastics whose indignation was already roused to boiling point by the loss respectively of their privileges and revenues numbers of aristocratic officers left the army and the country to join their brethren across the sea others such as bouyé gave in with the view of gaining over the army for the counter revolution the regular army at this time was almost entirely officered by aristocrats a fact which gave rise to numerous revolts a mutiny of three regiments at noncy was only quelled after much bloodshed by bouyé most of the clergy refused either to take the oath of allegiance or to leave their benefits except by force the majority of the bishops with the pope at their head the new constitution in subordinating the ecclesiastical to the civil power was declared to involve an encroachment on ecclesiastical privilege the pope refusing to consecrate bishops in place of those deposed for non-compliance and proclaiming the creation of all ecclesiastics nominated according to civil forms to be null and void the ejection of non-conforming priests continued notwithstanding their successors being instituted by the bishops of OTAN and LIDA who had unreservedly accepted the constitution the opposite party retaliated by excommunicating all who acknowledged the intruders as they termed them thus began civil war between the revolution and the church the clergy themselves prepared the soil of the popular mind for the reception and germination of the teachings of the pre-revolutionary writers which until now had been chiefly confined to the leisure and cultivated classes by forcing it to the logical dilemma of friendship with the revolution and enmity with Christianity or friendship with Christianity and enmity with the revolution as regards the immigrant aristocrats their object was to foment the hatred of the foreign powers against the revolution and to cement a coalition to affect its forcible overthrow by the invasion of the country for well-nigh three years these intrigues with the foreigners were going on with the connivance of the court until the fall of the monarchy precipitated war to the knife with the powers in the shape of the campaign known as the revolutionary war to understand the position of affairs it is necessary to remember that since the collapse of feudalism as a living political order with its quarrels between the titular king and his more or less nominally vassal barons power had been concentrated more and more in royal hands while nationalities had become definitely fixed the result was that the mainly internal politics of the feudal period had from the sixteenth century onwards been giving place to external politics in which the sovereigns of Europe having ceased to fear the rivalry of nobles within their jurisdiction discovered causes of quarrel with their brother sovereigns without usually in the hope of gaining territory the french revolution marks the opening for the continent at least of the modern period of the struggle of sovereigns not with their nobles or with each other but with peoples that is backed by the proletariat this struggle began in England more than a hundred years earlier than on the continent but practically subsided again with the revolution of 1689 the three principal European powers were at this time England, France and Austria Prussia was still a rising monarchy and the great muscovite empire loomed in the background the petty German princelots might be reckoned upon to side with one or other of the greater powers and circumstances the death of Mirabeau in April 1791 having removed all hope of making a successful stroke on behalf of royalism in the assembly the court turned its attention to military plotting with increased energy on the other hand the king felt some misgivings at being re-established exclusively by the aid of foreign bayonets more especially as his cousin the Count d'Artois was the leader in the movement and if it were successful might possibly obtain more than a new share of influence in the resuscitated realm these considerations led the court to turn a favourable ear to general Bouillier whose plan was to conquer the revolution by means of the troops already at hand in the service of the king the army was to be moved to the frontier the royal family were then to escape into its midst after which war was to be declared against the assembly and the troops to march on the capital this arrangement was affected up to the point of the king's flight on June 1791 almost without a hitch Bouillier with his army was ready and waiting for the royal party when poor Louis was accidentally recognised at Valenne and brought back a prisoner to Paris the indignation of the populace knew no bounds the royal courtage re-entered Paris in the midst of sullen and angry crowds for the first time serious talk of a republic was heard Bernab and the Lameds became the leaders of the constitutional party in the assembly now that Mirabeau was dead but it was with difficulty that the constitutionalist could reinstate the king after his voluntary and treacherous abdication they were only successful in their efforts after having thrown as a sop to Cerberus the condition that if he retracted his oath to the constitution if he should place himself at the head of an army or permit others to do so he should lose his inviolability and be considered and treated as an ordinary citizen but opinion outside of the assembly was far from satisfied the leaders of the Jacobin club which was now the centre of a federation of similar clubs throughout the country among whom were confounded in one cause Brissaud, Petion, Robespierre, Danton Marat, etc men of the advanced middle class and men of the people combined to rouse the nation against this decree insisting on the abdication of Louis and denying the competency of the assembly they drew up a petition in which they appealed from the assembly the sovereignty of the people this petition was taken to the shant mass and laid upon the altar of the country thousands came to sign it the assemblage being dispersed by Lafayette returned subsequently in greater numbers than before next time the common daunt of the national guard came accompanied by Bayee the mayor the red flag, the then symbol of martial law was unfurled the summons to disperse proclaimed after which Lafayette gave the order to fire a murderous charge followed in which hundreds were killed and wounded but notwithstanding that the republicans were cowed for the time being the court's psychophant and his accomplices in the work of the constitution were well nigh played out though the old farce at first to be gone through the king once more accepted the constitution and the terms of his reinstatement in possession of his functions in addition he made a touching and heart-stirring speech to the assembly and was received by members of demonstrations of affection etc. the constituent assembly which had been made up of the abortive states general then formally proclaimed itself dissolved its members magnanimously renouncing the right of re-election Chapter 8 The Legislative Assembly the new legislative assembly as it was called to distinguish it from the first or constituent assembly commenced its sittings on the 1st of October 1791 without the coalition of Europe against the revolution was complete England was united with Prussia and Austria while the petty German states eagerly joined in their conspiracy to suppress the French nation the famous treaty of pilnitz was the expression of the determination and temper of the powers great and small within the fabric of the constitutional monarchy was standing indeed but as Carlisle expresses it was an inverted pyramid which may topple over any moment friction began at once between the king and assembly on questions of reciprocal etiquette but the speech from the throne was well received the dominant party in this assembly was that of the Girondiste or party of compromise of which more and on the buffer so to speak between the constitutionalists proper now in the minority and the popular and avowedly republican party whose leaders in the clubs Robespierre Zordon, Marat etc were gaining an influence every day almost the first act of the new assembly was the issue of a decree ordering the immigrants to return on penalty of death and confiscation of goods this order the king peremptorily vetoed the same fate befell another order of the assembly by which refractory priests should lose their pay and be placed under surveillance his action in these matters in view of the imminent invasion by the leaders and the peasant revolt in the Vendee in favor of royalism which was led by the clergy were fatal to him and to the constitutionalists who supported him the constitutional ministry fell and a Girondet ministry was appointed in its place with Roland one of the principal Girondet leaders and the husband of the celebrated Madame Roland as minister of the interior and Dumourier as minister of foreign affairs the first act of the new ministry was to take the bull by the horns and to declare war with Austria a measure popular on various sides for different reasons and approved of by the court in the hope of the defeat of the French forces and the invasion of the country this declaration of war was made on the 20th of April 1792 three columns proceeded to the frontier but the projected action on the offensive was a fiasco a panic seizing the troops on the approach of the enemy thence forward the French assumed such was the beginning of the revolutionary war the news of the disaster led to bitter recriminations on the part of the popular party against the Girondet the Girondet in their turn threw the blame on the constitutionalists and their commanders Lafayette Dylan etc. while the generals themselves threw it on Dumourier the Jacobin openly accused of the moderate parties of treachery and connivance with the government suspicion and distrust were universal it was now that Marat issued his memorable placards calling for the heads of traitors meanwhile to appease the people the ministry instituted a permanent camp of 20,000 men in the neighborhood of Paris in spite of the vehement opposition of the constitutionalists and agreed to the introduction into the new national guard of promiscuously selected companies armed with pikes the weapons which had played such a prominent part at an earlier stage of the revolution the assembly which declared itself sitting in permanence added to these resolutions when ordering the abolition of the king's bodyguard this last decree Louis at once refused to ratify and on being remonstrated with by Roland dismissed all the Girondet ministers and appointed obscure members of the constitutionalist party in their stead at the same time he set a secret messenger to negotiate with the foreign coalition for his deliverance the Girondet finding themselves thus left out in the cold joined the Jacobins who were now the advanced guard of the revolution and whose organization was rapidly becoming a rival to the assembly and by this means were able to pose as martyrs in the cause of liberty the only hope of the party actually in power, i.e. the now discredited constitutionalists lay in Lafayette's army Lafayette seeing the situation played out his last card and published a manifesto openly defying and threatening the Jacobins the Jacobins replied to this was the insurrection of the 20th of June 1792 when a concourse numbering some 8000 people left the Faux-Bours Saint-Antoine for the hall of the assembly the orator who represented the crowd spoke in menacing terms saying that the people were ready to employ all their powers in resistance to oppression he proceeded to state that grave complaint was found with the conduct of the war into which the people demanded an immediate investigation but the heaviest grievance of all was the dismissal of the patriot ministers the assembly replied that the memorial of the people should be taken into consideration and meanwhile as usual in such cases exhorted them to respect the law by this time the multitude numbered some 30,000 men women and children including many national guards several sprinkling of pikes, flags and revolutionary emblems among them this motley concourse poured into the sacred precincts of the assembly singing saillirah and shouting long live the people long live the sans-cudote on leaving the assembly the cry was to the palace of the tuileries where the crowd swept through the open gates into the apartments and corridors and were proceeding to demolish the doors with blows when Louis himself appeared accompanied by only a few attendants the multitude still pressing in he took a station in the recess of a window there he remained seated on a chair placed on a table and protected from the pressure of the crowd by a cordon of national guards to the cries of the people for his sanction to the decrees he replied as the royalist historians assure us with intense dignity this is neither the manner for it to be demanded of me nor the moment the result of his refusal might have been awkward for him had he not had the presence of mind to take advantage of an incident which occurred just at that moment a red Phrygian cap the symbol of the people and of liberty was presented by one of the crowd on the point of a pike this he took and placed it on his head after which he drank off a tankard of wine also offered to him an act which was greeted with tumultous applause at last Pétion there arrived with several prominent Girondes deputies and quietly dispersed the gathering thus the silly Phrygian populace were once again cajoled out of their demands by a senseless piece of buffoonery but it was the last time the constitutionalists were enraged at the outrage offered to the person of the king and to the law Lafayette left the army and suddenly appeared at the bar of the assembly demanding the impeachment of the instigators of the movement of the 20th July and the suppression of the popular clubs but the Jacobin had by this time got the upper hand and could defy the champion of middle class law and order Lafayette narrowly escaped arrest for deserting his army and had ignominiously to slink back the whole force of the populace was with the Girondes and the Jacobin things were fast hurrying to a crisis end of chapters 5 6, 7 and 8 chapters 9, 10 and 11 of the story of the French Revolution by Ernest Belfort-Bachs this LibriVox recording is in the public domain chapter 9 the 10th of August shortly after the event last described the assembly felt itself compelled in the face of the open connivance of the court with the enemy to solemnly declare the country in danger all citizens capable of bearing arms were called upon to enroll themselves in the National Guard which was placed on a footing of active service on the 14th of July the best tea anniversary the mayor Pétion was the hero of the day Pétion or death being the popular watchword all battalions of the National Guard showing signs of attachment to constitutionalism instantly became objects of popular resentment the hatred of the constitutionalists was daily growing at length the popular party obtained the disbandment of the companies of Grenadier and Chasseur the main support of the official middle class in the National Guard together with the closing of the Fayans Club the rendezvous of the constitutionalist party events further helped the popular cause on the 25th of July the Duke of Brunswick published his manifesto in the name of the Emperor and the King of Prussia in which he declared that the allied sovereigns had taken up arms to put an end to anarchy in France threatening all the towns which dared to resist with total destruction the members of the assembly itself with the rigors of martial law etc the act of coalition which was at this time confined to Prussia, Austria, the German princetums and the principality of Turin had formed the plan of marching concentrically upon Paris from three different points the Moselle, the Rhine and the Netherlands it was on the day of the movement the Danish division from Koblenz under the command of the Duke of Brunswick that this famous manifesto was issued the following day, July 26 a contingent of 600 Marseillais sent for by the Girondiste Barbarou who was a native of Marseille entered Paris ostensibly on their way to the cap at Soissons a contingent rendered immortal by the hymn they sang as they marched along the well-known strains Allons enfants de la patrie Le jour de gloire est arrivé having been heard for the first time in the streets of Paris on that occasion the advent of the Marseillais though it did not as was anticipated result in an immediate outbreak did nevertheless stir Paris to its foundations the sections or wards into which the city was divided became daily more important in demanding the dethronement of the king a petition to this effect was drawn up by the municipality and the sections and presented to the assembly by Pétion on the 3rd of August the impeachment of Lafayette was next demanded on the 8th but after a warm discussion was rejected by a considerable majority this acquittal of Lafayette now regarded by the people as the personification of treachery and reaction destroyed the last vestige of popular confidence in the assembly the following day one of the sections sent to notify the legislature that if the decree of dethronement were not voted before nightfall or alarm bell should be sounded the général or rallying drum beaten and open insurrection proclaimed a determination which was transmitted to the 48 sections of the city and approved with only one dissentant it was not voted and the same evening the Jacobin proceeded in a body to the Faux-Bours Saint-Antoine and there organized the attack on the Tuileries which it was decided should take place the next day measures pregnant with import for the future of the revolution were determined at this meeting among others the dismissal of the Girondiste Mayor Pétion who had already begun to inspire deep distressed the annulment of the departmental assemblies and replacement of the old municipal council by revolutionary commune at midnight the Tuoc Saint-Pierre the general beat the sections assembled and the newly nominated commune took possession of the Hotel de Ville on the other side the loyal battalions of the National Guard were marched to the palace which was now filled with hired Swiss guards and Chevalier de Cour and the assembly hastily called together on hearing that Pétion was detained at the Tuileries the moribund legislature at once ordered his release and restored him to his functions but he no sooner entered the Hotel de Ville than he was placed under regard of 300 men by order of the new commune poor Pétion between two fires the commune then sent for the commander of the National Guard, Manda who was at the Tuileries with the royal battalions aforesaid Manda, not knowing of the creation of the new commune, unconsciously obeyed the summons but turned pale on discovering new faces where he had expected to find the old municipal councillors he was accused of having authorized the troops to defend the palace against the sovereign people was ordered to the prison of the Abayee but was assassinated on the steps of the Hotel de Ville as he was being conveyed thither Saint Air was then nominated commander-in-chief in his stead meanwhile not a few nationals at the palace in spite of their loyalty to the constitution winced at finding themselves in the same galley with aristocrat adventurers avowed enemies of the revolution in any form or shape and with mercenary foreign soldiers their leader gone a division broke out as Louis found when he came to review them for while the cry Vive le roi was responded to by some, Vive la nation was responded to by more but what was most ominous was the arrival of two fresh battalions armed with pikes as well as guns who after jeeringly greeting the king with shouts of Vive la nation down with the veto down with the traitor took up position at the Port Royale and pointed their cannons straight at the palace it was evident the loyalty of these battalions was more than a doubtful quantity it was now early morning and the insurgents were advancing in columns of various strength from different points the procurator syndic roderer met them as they were converging upon the palace and suggested they're sending a deputation to the king this was peremptorily refused he then addressed himself to the national guard reading out the articles which enjoined them to suppress revolt but the response was so feeble that the procurator fled in all haste back to the tuileries to urge the royal family to leave its quarters and place itself in the midst of the assembly out of harm's reach Marie Antoinette rejected the advice in right melodramatic style talked very tall about being nail to the walls of the palace and presented a pistol to Louis with the words Now, Sire, is the moment to show your courage the procurator evidently thought Mark heroic sale timed and sternly remonstrated Louis himself seemed to share this opinion or at least was not prepared to show his courage just then and moved to go to the assembly Marie Antoinette followed with the royal youth and thus what bid fair to be a dramatic situation came to an ignominious ending meanwhile the insurgents surrounded the palace the defensive which was left to the Swiss guard who though they fought with the valor worthy of a better cause were ultimately overwhelmed by numbers and exterminated the palace taken shouts of victory resounded from far and near the assembly trembled expecting every minute the hall to be forced in vain it issued a proclamation conjuring the people to respect magistrates law and justice at length the new commune presented itself claiming the recognition of its powers the dethronement of the king and the convocation of a national convention by universal suffrage deputation after deputation followed the same prayer or rather with the same peremptory order the assembly over odd on the motion of the gerundist verniu passed a resolution in pursuance of the demands that is suspending the king dismissing the constitutionalist ministers and ordering the convocation of a national convention the person of Louis after remaining three days in the charge of the assembly was handed over to the commune by whose order he was conveyed as a state prisoner to the temple thus ended the 10th of august 1792 the critical struggle is henceforth not as here to for between the middle class and the nobles or the king but between the middle class and the proletariat chapter 10 the first Paris commune and the september massacres with the 10th of august and the overthrow of the monarchy the first part of the french revolution may be considered as complete the middle class insurrection proper had done its work the importance of that work from certain points of view can hardly be overrated in a word it had abolished not indeed feudalism in its true sense for that had long since ceased to exist but the corrupt remains of feudalism and the monarchical despotism it left behind it the beginning of 89 found France cut up into provinces each in many respects an independent state possessing separate customs separate laws and in some cases a separate jurisdiction the end of 89 even and still more 92 found it for good or evil a united nationality the power of the clergy and no bless was completely broken judicial torture and breaking on the wheel were absolutely done away with Madame Roland has described the dying cries of the victims of justice who after having been mangled by the latter hideous engine were left exposed on the marketplace so long as it shall please God to prolong their lives all this then was abolished and in addition the goods of the clergy and of the emigrant nobility were declared confiscated the interesting point as yet unsolved was who should get this precious heritage the nationalized lands houses and movable possessions of the recalcitrant first and second estates to avoid interrupting the narrative we shall devote a chapter to the elucidation of this point later on we come now to what we may term the great title wave of the revolution for the time being it swept all before it but it receded as quickly as it came the period of the ascendancy of the proletariat lasted from the 10th of August 1792 to the 27th of July 1794 thus in all nearly two years the political revolution suddenly became transformed into a revolution one of whose objects at least was greater social and economical as distinguished from political equality and as suddenly ceased to be so the course of the progress and retrogression of this movement we shall trace in the following chapters the new revolutionary municipality or commune of Paris was now for the time being the most powerful executive body in all France it dictated the action even of the assembly the establishment of an extraordinary tribunal had been proposed the assembly hesitated to agree to it whereupon it received a message from the commune that if such a tribunal were not forthwith constituted an insurrection should be organized the following night which should overwhelm the elect of France the assembly yielded under the pressure and a court was formed which condemned a few persons but was soon after abolished by the commune as inadequate at the head of the latter body Marat, Panis, Colo der Bois, Bilo Varene, Talien, etc. but the most prominent man of all was for the moment Danton who was untiring in organizing the sections as the different wars of the city were called and who from having been the chief agent in the events of the 10th had acquired almost the position of dictator meanwhile the invading army of the Prussians had crossed the frontier while the French frontier troops at Sedan deserted by Lafayette were disorganized and without a commander on the 24th of August the citadel of L'Oui capitulated and by the 30th the enemy were bombarding the town of Verdeu in a few days the road to Paris would lie open before them consternation prevailed in the capital at the news in a conference between the ministry and the recently formed committee of general defense Danton boldly urged as against a policy of waiting or of open attack that one of terrorism should be adopted to first intimidate the reactionary population of the city and through them that of the whole country the 10th of August said he has divided France into two parties the latter which it is useless to disemble constitutes the minority in the state is the only one on which you can depend when it comes to the combat the timid and irresolute ministry hesitated Danton betook himself to the commune his project was accepted and indeed to fight the majority the misciliary visits were made during the night and so large a number of suspected persons arrested that their prisons were failed to overflowing a vast number of citizens were enrolled on the chanteau mouse and dispatched to the frontier on the 1st of September about two o'clock the next day Sunday the great bell or toxin was sounded the call drum or general was beaten along the thoroughfares the famous massacres were at hand Danton and presenting himself before the assembly to detail the measures that had been taken without its consent for the safety of the country gave utterance to his celebrated moe il faut de l'audace, de l'audace et toujours de l'audace we must have boldness, boldness and always boldness the previous night all the gates of the city had been closed by order of the municipality so that no one could leave or enter to the clanging of the toxin and the role of the general was now added the firing of alarm cannon herewith began the summary executions as they would have been called had they been done in the interest of established order by men in uniform or massacres as they have been termed since they were affected in the interest of revolution by men in bonnerouge and carmagnol costume the matter originated with the destruction of 30 priests who were being conducted to the abbey the prisons about seven in number were then visited in succession by a band of some 300 men entrance was demanded by an improvised court which once inside with the prison registers opened before them began to adjudicate the prisoners were severally called by name their cases decided in a few minutes after which they were successively removed nominally to another prison or to be released no sooner however had they reached the gate than they were met by a forest of pikes and sabers those that were deemed innocent of reasonable practices and were enlarged with the cry of vive la nation long lived the nation were received with embracings and acclimation but woe betide those who were conducted to the entrance in silence upon them the pikes and sabers at once fell in some cases veritably hewing them in pieces the princesse de l'emball the friend and made of honor to Marie at one et had just gone to bed when the crowd arrived at the abaye where she was imprisoned on being informed she was about to be removed she wanted to arrange her dress she said at which the bystanders hinted that from the distance she would have to go it was scarcely worthwhile to waste much time on the toilette arrived at the gate her head was struck off and her body stripped and disemboweled eh sang culotte subsequently boasted of having cooked and eaten one of the breasts of the princess Carlisle goes into an ecstatic frenzy over mademoiselle de l'emball she was beautiful she was good he exclaims volume 3 chapter 4 in a style suggestive of an irish wake oh worthy of worship thou king descended god descended etc he pathetically talks about her fair hind head meaning to imply I suppose that she had a long thin neck but in as much as there is no physiological reason for supposing that a long thin neck involves greater suffering to the possessor in the process of decapitation than a short thick one the point of the remark is not obvious be this as it may the princesses head with others was paraded on a pike through the streets and under the windows of the topler where the queen was confined these summary executions are massacres according as we choose to call them outside the prisons continued at intervals from the Sunday afternoon to the Thursday evening probably about 1200 persons in all perished all contemporary writers agree in depicting the graphic horror of the scene as the bloodstained crowd swept along the streets from prison to prison there is no doubt that the principal actors in these events were either under the orders or were at least in communication with the commune but the precise nature of the connection has not been and possibly now never will be known that those concerned were no mere wanton or mercenary ruffians but fanatics possessed by a frenzy of despair is amply proved by several incidents which are admitted even by royalist writers their enthusiasm at the discovery of a patriot in one whom they believe to have been a plotter as is the case of Monsieur de Sompreuil and their refusal of money from such their evident desire to avoid by any accident the death of an innocent person shows the executioners to have been at least genuinely disinterested there has never in all history been more excuse for the shedding of blood than there was in Paris at the beginning of September 1792 foreign troops were marching on the capital to destroy the revolution and all favourable to it the city itself was honeycombed with royalist plotters who almost openly expressed their joy at the prospect of an approaching restoration and the extermination of the popular leaders the so-called massacres were strictly a measure of self-defense and as such were justified by the result which was an award to strike terror into the reaction and to stimulate the revolution throughout France and yet there are bourgeois who pretend to view this strictly defensive act of a populace driven to desperation with shuddering horror while regarding as necessary or at most mildly disapproving the wanton and cold-blooded massacres of the Versailles soldiers after the commune in 1871 such verily is class blindness as in all great crises in history so in the French Revolution an active minority had to fight and terrorize the stalled mass of reaction and indifference which alas is always in the majority chapter 11 the national convention while these events were going on in Paris du Maurier the successor of Lafayette the commander-in-chief of the French army was in the east organizing the resistance to the invasion the Aldeum was taken by the Prussians almost without resistance but the new commander who whatever else he may have been was a man of military genius saw at a glance the strategical situation and in opposition to the council of war decided to lose no time in occupying the passes of the mountainous district of the Algon he circumvented the enemy by forced marches and they soon found the road to Paris barred by precipitous rocks and well guarded passes the Prussians notwithstanding forced one of the more feebly defended of the positions and were on the point of surrounding the French army when du Maurier by a dexterous retreat succeeded in evading them till the arrival of his reinforcements meanwhile the weather helped the defenders heavy rains converted the bad roads into rivers of mud knee-deep and it was not until the 20th of the month that the main body of the invaders reached the heights of Valmy where general Kellerman was in command and which they attempted to storm the result decided the fate of the invasion the Prussians and Austrians were completely defeated to the cry of and retired in disorder up to this time the fortunes of war had been unremittingly adverse to the French but the turning point had come hence forward the revolutionary army which from this moment assumed the offensive went forth for some time conquering and to conquer the present sketch not being a history of the revolutionary war but of the revolution itself I shall in future only allude to the military situation insofar as it affects the course of internal affairs the moribund legislative assembly lingered on during the election of the convention the first political body chosen by direct universal and equal suffrage which did not open its deliberations till the 21st of the month after the usual preliminaries it formally abolished royalty and proclaimed the republic its next measure was to declare the new era to date from the current year as the first year of the French republic these measures were carried by acclamation but the convention almost immediately became the prey of internal dissension this most remarkable of legislative bodies embraced every state of opinion and almost all the men of any prominence in public life Robespierre, Danton, Marat, Desmoulins, David, Roland, Barbarous, Ciaiès, Barrère, etc. we're all now to the fore with many others such as Talien, Collaudier-bois, Biovarene, Barras, etc. either too less known to fame but shortly to come into unmistakable prominence one feature of the convention is especially remarkable it embodied the first conscious recognition of the principle of internationalism the German atheist internationalist and humanitarian Anacasi's Clutes and the English free thinker and republican Thomas Spain were among its members priestly of Birmingham the great chemist had also been elected but declined to sit in order at once to accentuate the international conception of the revolution and to create a diversion in the rear of the relating armies the convention issued a manifesto on November 19 inviting all peoples to rise against their oppressors and assuring them of the sympathy and, when possible of the active support of the French Republic the two great parties in the convention were the Girondistes and the Montanistes the Girondistes were the party of orderly progress sweetness and light the men who dreaded all violent i.e. energetic measures the men, however well-intentioned they may be and even apart from their ultimate objects must always in the long run become the tools of reaction from their timidity and hesitancy the Girondistes desired a doctrinaire republic led by the professional middle classes the lawyers and literateurs their main strength lay in the provinces the name being derived from the department of the Gironde when some of their chief men came among the leaders of the Girondistes party may be mentioned some of them had been in spite of their generally mild attitude active in preparing the 10th of August it was, as we have seen Barbarou, who sent to his native town for the merseillais and directed this remarkable body of men on the day of the insurrection the other leading party in the convention were the mountainists they were termed because they sat on the benches at the top of the left comprising the leaders of Paris and largely identical in policy with the commune many of whose members sat in both the municipal and the legislative bodies Robespierre, Danton, Merin are the Parisian members, that is the most advanced revolutionary leaders belonged to the mountain which had its strength in the 48 sections and in the Faubour or outlying suburbs in which the populace of Paris found voice the mountainists advocated uncompromising revolutionary principles besides aiming to some extent at economic equality a vigorous policy and a strong centralization in opposition to the gérondistes who favored strictly middle class republicanism a timid and vacillating policy and federalization or local autonomy the struggle between the mountain and géronde was in part a struggle for supremacy between Paris and the departments besides the mountainists and the gérondistes proper i.e. those who represented any definite principles at all who both together constituted a minority in the convention notwithstanding that they dictated its character and policy there was the actual majority which was called the plain its members being sometimes designated in ridicule frogs of the marsh like most majorities the plain was an incoate mass of floating indifferentism and muddleheadedness with more or less reactionary instincts naturally inclined it to the side of the gérondistes as the moderate party but whose first concern being self-preservation was open to outside pressure from the armed sections of Paris and the Foubourg as we shall presently see these men of the plain or frogs of the marsh included many persons of ability who subsequently came to the front under the directorate after all danger of popular insurrection was at an end war was declared within the convention before many days were over by the gérond on the ostensible pretext of the september massacres which they accused the partisans of the mountain of having instigated the individuals attacked were Robespierre and Marat it was the turn of Robespierre first he was accused of aspiring to the dictatorship and the whole force of gérondiste eloquence was brought to bear upon the lean and cadaverous ex-advocate of Arras though without result the charges could be formulated against him it is significant nevertheless that before Robespierre had attained any supreme prominence he should have excited feelings of such keen personal animosity as a matter of fact D'Anton had had far more directly to do with the so called massacres than Robespierre it was Marat's turn next Marat whose single mindedness and absolute self-sacrifice are almost unique in history to be physically an unattractive personality he suffered from an unpleasant skin malady which as it happens was not syphilis as many writers have hinted but seems to have been of the nature of the sheep disease known as the scabies it was very possibly contracted and without doubt considerably aggravated through semi-starvation and the stellar life he was compelled to lead during the early part of the revolution Marat then was denounced in the convention by the gérondais and when he arose to defend himself he was for a moment basely deserted even by his colleagues of the mountain I have a great many enemies in this assembly he said as he rose to reply to his accusers all all shouted the convention as one man however Marat proceeded amidst uproar and howls to exculpate himself till in the end the simple earnestness of his eloquence prevailed and he sat down amid a storm of applause but the gérondais though disconfident for the time did not lose sight of their design to destroy Marat in the midst of these recriminations and internal squabbles the mountain succeeded in getting the unity of the republic decreed a heavy blow to the federalist gérondais end of chapters 9, 10 and 11