A Political and Social History of Modern Europe Part 52

[Sidenote: Radical Propaganda]

From Paris the radical movement radiated in all directions. Pamphlets and newspapers were spread broadcast. The Jacobin club established a regular correspondence with branch clubs or kindred societies which sprang up in other French towns. The radicals were everywhere inspired by the same zeal and aided by a splendid organization.

[Sidenote: Radical Leaders]

Of the chief radical leaders, it may be convenient at this point to introduce three--Marat, Danton, and Robespierre. All belonged to the bourgeoisie by birth and training, but by conviction they became the mouthpieces of the proletariat. All played important roles in subsequent scenes of the Revolution.

[Sidenote: Marat]

Marat (_c_. 1742-1793), had he never become interested in politics and conspicuous in the Revolution, might have been remembered in history as a scientist and a man of letters. He had been a physician, and for skill in his profession, as well as for contributions to the science of physics, he had received an honorary degree from St. Andrews University in Scotland, and for a time he was in the service of the count of Artois. The convocation of the Estates-General turned his attention to public affairs. In repeated and vigorous pamphlets he combated the idea then prevalent in France that his countrymen should adopt a const.i.tution similar to that of Great Britain. During several years' sojourn in Great Britain he had observed that that country was being ruled by an oligarchy which, while using the forms of liberty and pretending to represent the country, was in reality using its power for the promotion of its own narrow cla.s.s interests. He made up his mind that real reform must benefit all the people alike and that it could be secured only by direct popular action. This was the simple message that filled the pages of the _Ami du peuple_--the _Friend of the People_--a newspaper which he edited from 1789 to 1792. With fierce invective he a.s.sailed the court, the clergy, the n.o.bles, even the bourgeois a.s.sembly. Attached to no party and with no detailed policies, he sacrificed almost everything to his single mission. No poverty, misery, or persecution could keep him quiet. Forced even to hide in cellars and sewers, where he contracted a loathsome skin disease, he persevered in his frenzied appeals to the Parisian populace to take matters into their own hands. By 1792 Marat was a man feared and hated by the authorities but loved and venerated by the ma.s.ses of the capital. [Footnote: Marat was a.s.sa.s.sinated on 13 July, 1793, by Charlotte Corday, a young woman who was fanatically attached to the Girondist faction.]

[Sidenote: Danton]

No less radical but far more statesmanlike was Danton (1759-1794), who has been called "a sort of middle-cla.s.s Mirabeau." The son of a farmer, he had studied law, had purchased a position as advocate of the Royal Council, and, before the outbreak of the Revolution, had acquired a reputation not only as a brilliant young lawyer, but also as a man of liberal tastes, fond of books, and happy in his domestic life. Like Mirabeau, he was a person of powerful physique and of stentorian voice, a skilled debater and a convincing orator; unlike Mirabeau, he himself remained calm and self-possessed while arousing his audiences to the highest pitch of enthusiasm. Like Mirabeau, too, he was not so primarily interested in the welfare of his own social cla.s.s as in that of the cla.s.s below him: what the n.o.bleman Mirabeau was to the bourgeoisie, the bourgeois Danton was to the Parisian proletariat.

Brought to the fore, through the favor of Mirabeau, in the early days of the Revolution, Danton at once showed himself a strong advocate of real democracy. In 1790, in conjunction with Marat and Camille Desmoulins, he founded the Cordelier Club, the activities of which he directed throughout 1791 and 1792 against the royal family and the whole cause of monarchy. An influential member of the commune of Paris, he was largely instrumental in crystallizing public opinion in favor of republicanism, Danton was rough and courageous, but neither venal nor bloodthirsty.

[Sidenote: Robespierre]

Less practical than Danton and further removed from the proletariat than Marat, Maximilien Robespierre (1758-1794) nevertheless combined such qualities as made him the most prominent exponent of democracy and republicanism. Descended from a middle-cla.s.s family of Irish extraction, Robespierre had been a cla.s.smate of Camille Desmoulins in the law school of the University of Paris, and had practiced law with some success in his native town of Arras. He was appointed a criminal judge, but soon resigned that post because he could not endure to inflict the death penalty. In his immediate circle he acquired a reputation as a writer, speaker, and something of a dandy. Elected to the Third Estate in 1789, he took his place with the extreme radicals in that body--the "thirty voices," as Mirabeau contemptuously called them. Robespierre had read Rousseau from cover to cover and believed in the philosopher's doctrines with all his heart so that he would have gone to death for them. In the belief that they eventually would succeed and regenerate France and all mankind, he was ready to work with unwearied patience. The paucity of his followers in the National a.s.sembly and the overpowering personality of Mirabeau prevented him from exercising much influence in framing the new const.i.tution, and he gradually turned for support to the people of Paris. He was already a member of the Jacobin Club, which, by the withdrawal of its more conservative members in 1791, came then under his leadership.

Thenceforth the Jacobin Club was a most effective instrument for establishing social democracy (although it was not committed to republicanism until August, 1792), and Robespierre was its oracle.

Robespierre was never a demagogue in the present sense of the word: he was always emphatically a gentleman and a man of culture, sincere and truthful. Although he labored strenuously for the "rights" of the proletariat, he never catered to their tastes; to the last day of his life he retained the knee-breeches and silk stockings of the old society and wore his hair powdered.

We are now in a position to understand why the const.i.tutional monarchy floundered. It had no great leaders to strengthen it and to conduct it through the narrow strait. It was bound to strike the rocks of reaction on one side or those of radicalism on the other. Against such fearless and determined a.s.sailants as Robespierre, Danton, and Marat, it was helpless.

[Sidenote: Difficulties Confronting the Legislative a.s.sembly, 1791]

The new government came into being with the first meeting of the Legislative a.s.sembly on 1 October, 1791. Immediately its troubles began. The members of the Legislative a.s.sembly were wholly inexperienced in parliamentary procedure, for an unfortunate self- denying ordinance [Footnote: Proposed by Robespierre.] of the retiring Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly had prohibited any of its members from accepting election to the new body. The Legislative a.s.sembly contained deputies of fundamentally diverse views who quarreled long though eloquently among themselves. Moreover, it speedily came into conflict with the king, who vainly endeavored to use his const.i.tutional right of suspensive veto in order to check its activities. Combined with these problems was the popular agitation and excitement: a peasant revolt in La Vendee, the angry threats of emigre n.o.bles and non-juring clergy across the eastern frontier, the loud tumults of the proletariat of Paris and of other large cities as well.

[Sidenote: Foreign Hostility to the French Revolution]

The difficulties of the limited monarchy were further complicated by an embarra.s.sing foreign situation. It will be borne in mind that all important European states still adhered rigidly to the social inst.i.tutions of the "old regime" and, with the exception of Great Britain, to divine-right monarchy. Outside of France there appeared as yet no such thing as "public opinion," certainly no sign among the lower cla.s.ses of any opinion favorable to revolution. In Great Britain alone was there a const.i.tutional monarchy, and in the early days of the French Revolution, so long as British statesmen could flatter themselves that their neighbors across the Channel were striving to imitate their political system, these same public men sympathized with the course of events. But when it became evident that the Revolution was going further, that it aimed at a great social leveling, that it was a movement of the ma.s.ses in behalf of the lowest cla.s.ses in the community, then even British criticism a.s.sailed it. At the close of 1790 Edmund Burke published his _Reflections on the Revolution in France_, a bitter arraignment of the newer tendencies and a rhetorical panegyric of conservatism. Although Burke's sensational work was speedily and logically answered by several forceful thinkers, including the brilliant Thomas Paine, nevertheless it long held its place as the cla.s.sical expression of official Britain's horror of social equality and of "mob violence." The book was likewise received with such approval by the monarchs of continental Europe, who interpreted it as a telling defense of their position, that Catherine of Russia personally complimented the author and the puppet king of Poland sent him a flamboyant glorification and a gold medal.

Thenceforth the monarchs, as well as the n.o.bles and clergy, of Europe saw in the French Revolution only a menace to their political and social privileges: were it communicated to the lower cla.s.ses, the Revolution might work the same havoc throughout the length and breadth of Europe that it was working in France. The "benevolent despots" had sincere desires to labor for the welfare of the people; they shuddered at the thought of what the people themselves would do in laboring for their own welfare.

[Sidenote: The Holy Roman Emperor the Champion of Opposition to the Revolution]

Of the monarchs of Europe, several had special reasons for viewing the progress of the Revolution with misgiving. The Bourbons of Spain and of the Two Sicilies were united by blood and family compacts with the ruling dynasty of France: any belittling of the latter's power was bound to affect disastrously the domestic position and foreign policy of the former. Then, too, the French queen, Marie Antoinette, was an Austrian Habsburg. Her family interests were in measure at stake. In the Austrian dominions, the visionary and unpractical Joseph II had died in 1790 and had been succeeded by another brother of Marie Antoinette, the gifted though unemotional Emperor Leopold II. Leopold skillfully extricated himself from the embarra.s.sments at home and abroad bequeathed him by his predecessor and then turned his attention to French affairs. He was in receipt of constant and now frantic appeals from his sister to aid Louis XVI against the revolutionaries.

He knew that the Austrian Netherlands, whose rebellion he had suppressed with difficulty, were saturated with the doctrines of the Revolution and that many of their inhabitants would welcome annexation to France. As chief of the Holy Roman Empire, he must keep revolutionary agitation out of the Germanies and protect the border provinces against French aggression. All these factors served to make the Emperor Leopold the foremost champion of the "old regime" in Europe and incidentally of the royal cause in France.

[Sidenote: Declaration of Pilinitz, August, 1791]

Now it so happened that the emperor found a curious ally in Prussia.

The death of Frederick the Great in 1786 had called to the throne of that country a distinctly inferior sort of potentate, Frederick William II (1786-1797), who combined with a nature at once sensual and pleasure-loving a remarkable religious zeal. He neglected the splendid military machine which Frederick William I and Frederick the Great had constructed with infinite patience and thoroughness. He lavished great wealth upon art as well as upon favorites and mistresses. He tired the nation with an excessive Protestant orthodoxy. And in foreign affairs he reversed the far-sighted policy of his predecessor by allying himself with Austria and reducing Prussia to a secondary place among the German states. In August, 1791, Frederick William II joined with the Emperor Leopold in issuing the public Declaration of Pilinitz, to the effect that the two rulers considered the restoration of order and of monarchy in France an object of "common interest to all sovereigns of Europe." The declaration was hardly more than pompous bl.u.s.ter, for the armies of the German allies were not as yet ready for war, but its solemn expression of an intention on the part of foreign despots to interfere in the internal affairs of France aroused the most bitter feeling among Frenchmen who were patriotic as well as revolutionary.

[Sidenote: French Politics Under the Limited Monarchy Favorable to Foreign War]

The prospect of war with the bl.u.s.tering monarchs of Austria and Prussia was quite welcome to several important factions in France. Marie Antoinette and her court clique gradually came to the conclusion that their reactionary cause would be abetted by war. If the allies won, absolutism would be restored in France by force of arms. If the French won, it would redound to the prestige of the royal family and enable them by const.i.tutional means to recover their authority. Then, too, the const.i.tutionalists, the bourgeois party which was led by Lafayette and which loyally supported the settlement of 1791, worked for war.

Military success would consolidate the French people and confirm the const.i.tution, and Lafayette aspired to win personal glory as the omnipotent commander. Finally, the overwhelming majority of radicals cried for war: to them it seemed as if the liberal monarchy would be completely discomfited by it and that out of it would emerge a republic in France and the general triumph of democratic principles in Europe.

Why not stir up all the European peoples against their monarchs? The cause of France should be the cause of Europe. France should be the missionary of the new dispensation.

[Sidenote: Political Parties in the Legislative a.s.sembly]

The Legislative a.s.sembly, on which depended in last instance the solution of all these vital problems, domestic and foreign, represented several diverse shades of political opinion. Of the seven hundred members, four hundred admitted no special leadership but voted independently on every question according to individual preference or fear, while the others were divided between the camp of _Feuillants_ and that of _Jacobins_. The Feuillants were the const.i.tutionalists, inclined, while in general consistently championing the settlement of 1791, to strengthen the royal power,--they were the conservatives of the a.s.sembly. The Jacobins, on the other hand, deriving their common name from the famous club in Paris, were the radicals: many of them secretly cherished republican sentiments, and all of them desired a further diminution of the const.i.tutional powers of Louis XVI. The Jacobins, however, were divided into two groups on the question of how the royal power should be reduced. The larger number, whose most conspicuous members came from the department of the Gironde and were, therefore, collectively designated as Girondists, entertained the idea that the existing government should be clearly proved futile before proceeding to the next stage in the Revolution: they clamored for foreign war as the most effective means of disgracing the existing monarchy. The smaller number of Jacobins, drawn largely from Paris, desired to take no chances on the outcome of war but advocated the radical reformation of monarchical inst.i.tutions by direct and immediate popular action: subsequently this small group was dubbed the Mountain [Footnote: This name did not come into general use until 1793.] from the high seats its members later occupied in the Convention: they represented the general views of such men as Marat, Danton, and Robespierre.

[Sidenote: The Girondists]

Of the various parties or groups in the Legislative a.s.sembly, the best organized was the Girondist. Its members, recruited chiefly from the provinces, were young, enthusiastic, and filled with n.o.ble, if somewhat unpractical, ideas borrowed from the ancient republics of Greece and Rome. They were cultured, eloquent, and patriotic. In Brissot (1754- 1793), a Parisian lawyer, they had an admirable leader and organizer.

In Vergniaud (1753-1793), they had a polished and convincing orator. In Condorcet (1743-1794), they had a brilliant scholar and philosopher. In Dumouriez (1739-1823), they possessed a military genius of the first order. And in the refined home of the brilliant Madame Roland (1754- 1793), they had a charming center for political discussion.

In internal affairs the Legislative a.s.sembly accomplished next to nothing. Everything was subordinated to the question of foreign war. In that, Feuillants and Girondists found themselves in strange agreement.

Only Marat and Robespierre raised their voices against a policy whose pursuit they dreaded would raise a military dictator. Marat expressed his alarms in the _Friend of the People:_ "What afflicts the friends of liberty is that we have more to fear from success than from defeat .. .the danger is lest one of our generals be crowned with victory and lest ... he lead his victorious army against the capital to secure the triumph of the Despot." But the counsels of extreme radicals were unavailing.

[Sidenote: Declaration of War against Austria and Prussia, April, 1792]

In the excitement the Girondists obtained control of the government and demanded of the emperor that the Austrian troops be withdrawn from the frontier and that the emigres be expelled from his territories. As no action was taken by the emperor, the Girondist ministers prevailed upon Louis XVI to declare war on 20 April, 1792. Lafayette a.s.sumed supreme command, and the French prepared for the struggle. Although Leopold had just died, his policy was followed by his son and successor, the Emperor Francis II. Francis and Frederick William II of Prussia speedily collected an army of 80,000 men at Coblenz with which to invade France. The campaign of 1792 was the first stage in a vast conflict which was destined to rage throughout Europe for twenty-three years. It was the beginning of the contest between the forces of revolution and those of reaction.

Enthusiasm was with the French. They felt they were fighting for a cause--the cause of liberty, equality, and nationalism. Men put on red liberty caps, and such as possessed no firearms equipped themselves with pikes and hastened to the front. Troops coming up from Ma.r.s.eilles sang in Paris a new hymn of freedom which Rouget de Lisle had just composed at Stra.s.sburg for the French soldiers,--the inspiring Ma.r.s.eillaise that was to become the national anthem of France. But enthusiasm was about the only a.s.set that the French possessed. Their armies were ill-organized and ill-disciplined. Provisions were scarce, arms were inferior, and fortified places in poor repair. Lafayette had greater ambition than ability.

[Sidenote: Early French Reverses]

[Sidenote: Equivocal Position of the Royal Family]

The war opened, therefore, with a series of French reverses. An attempted invasion of the Austrian Netherlands ended in dismal failure.

On the eastern frontier the allied armies under the duke of Brunswick experienced little difficulty in opening up a line of march to Paris.

Intense grew the excitement in the French capital. The reverses gave color to the suspicion that the royal family were betraying military plans to the enemy. A big demonstration took place on 20 June: a crowd of market women, artisans, coal heavers, and hod carriers pushed through the royal residence, jostling and threatening the king and queen: no violence was done but the temper of the Parisian proletariat was quite evident. But Louis and Marie Antoinette simply would not learn their lesson. Despite repeated and solemn a.s.surances to the contrary, they were really in constant secret communication with the invading forces. The king was beseeching aid from foreign rulers in order to crush his own people; the queen was supplying the generals of the allies with the French plans of campaign. Limited monarchy failed in the stress of war.

ESTABLISHMENT OF THE FIRST FRENCH REPUBLIC: THE NATIONAL CONVENTION, 1792-1795

[Sidenote: Proclamation of the Duke of Brunswick, 25 July, 1792]

[Sidenote: The French Reply: the Insurrection of 9-10 August, 1792]

On 25 July, 1792, the duke of Brunswick (1735-1806), the pig-headed commander-in-chief of the allied armies, issued a proclamation to the French people. He declared it his purpose "to put an end to the anarchy in the interior of France, to check the attacks upon the throne and the altar, to reestablish the legal power, to restore to the king the security and liberty of which he is now deprived and to place him in a position to exercise once more the legitimate authority which belongs to him." The bold duke went on to declare that French soldiers who might be captured "shall be treated as enemies and punished as rebels to their king and as disturbers of the public peace," and that, if the slightest harm befell any member of the royal family, his Austrian and Prussian troops would "inflict an ever-memorable vengeance by delivering over the city of Paris to military execution and complete destruction, and the rebels guilty of such outrages to the punishment that they merit." This foolish and insolent manifesto sealed the fate of the French monarchy. It was the clearest proof that French royalty and foreign armies were in formal alliance not only to prevent the further development of the Revolution but also to undo what had already been done. And all patriotically minded Frenchmen, whether hitherto they had sympathized with the course of events or not, now grew furious at the threats of foreigners to interfere in the internal affairs of their country. The French reply to the duke of Brunswick was the insurrection of 9-10 August, 1792.

[Sidenote: Suspension of the King and Fall of Limited Monarchy]

On those days the proletariat of Paris revolted against the liberal monarchy. They supplanted the bourgeois commune with a radically revolutionary commune, in which Danton became the leading figure. They invaded the royal palace, ma.s.sacred the Swiss Guards, and obliged the king and his family to flee for their lives to the a.s.sembly. On 10 August, a remnant of terror-stricken deputies voted to suspend the king from his office and to authorize the immediate election by universal manhood suffrage of a National Convention that would prepare a new const.i.tution for France.

[Sidenote: Anarchy in France]

From the suspension of the king on 10 August to the a.s.sembling of the National Convention on 21 September, France was practically anarchical.

The royal family was incarcerated in the gloomy prison of the Temple.

The regular governmental agents were paralyzed. Lafayette protested against the insurrection at Paris and surrendered himself to the allies.

Still the allies advanced into France. Fear deepened into panic.

Supreme control fell into the hands of the revolutionary commune: Danton became virtual dictator. His policy was simple. The one path of safety left open to the radicals was to strike terror into the hearts of their domestic and foreign foes. "In my opinion," said Danton, "the way to stop the enemy is to terrify the royalists. Audacity, more audacity, and always greater audacity!" The news of the investment of Verdun by the allies, published at Paris on 2 September, was the signal for the beginning of a wholesale ma.s.sacre of royalists in the French capital. For five long days unfortunate royalists were taken from the prisons and handed over by a self-const.i.tuted judicial body to the tender mercies of a band of hired cutthroats. Slight discrimination was made of rank, s.e.x, or age. Men, women, and children, n.o.bles and magistrates, priests and bishops,--all who were suspected of royalist sympathy were butchered. The number of victims of these September ma.s.sacres has been variously estimated from 2000 to 10,000.

Meanwhile Danton was infusing new life and new spirit into the French armies. Dumouriez replaced Lafayette in supreme command. And on 20 September the allies received their first check at Valmy.

[Sidenote: Valmy: the First Military Success of the Revolutionaries]

[Sidenote: Proclamation of the First French Republic]