History of the Girondists Part 10

II.

The period of the elections was the signal for a still more obstinate attack from the public press. The papers were insufficient: men sold pamphlets in the streets, and the "_Journaux affiches_" were invented, which were placarded against the walls of Paris, and around which groups of people were constantly collected. Wandering orators, inspired or hired by the different parties, took their stand there and commented aloud on these impa.s.sioned productions:--Loustalot, in the _Revolutions de Paris_, founded by Prudhomme, and continued alternately by Chaumette and Fabre d'Eglantine; Marat, in the _Publiciste_ and the _Ami du Peuple_; Brissot, in the _Patriote Francaise_; Gorsas, in the _Courier de Versailles_; Condorcet, in the _Chronique de Paris_, Cerutti, in the _Feuille Villageoise_; Camille Desmoulins, in the _Discours de la Lanterne_, and the _Revolutions de Brabant_; Freron, in the _Orateur du Peuple_; Hebert and Manuel, in the _Pere d.u.c.h.esne_; Carra, in the _Annales Patriotiques;_ Fleydel, in the _Observateur_; Laclos, in the _Journal des Jacobins_; Fauchet, in the _Bouche de Fer_; Royon, in the _Ami du Roi_; Champcenetz-Rivarol, in the _Actes des Apotres_; Suleau and Andre Chenier, in several _royaliste_ or _moderee_ papers,--excited and disputed dominion over the minds of the people. It was the ancient tribune transported to the dwelling of each citizen, and adapting its language to the comprehension of all men, even the most illiterate.

Anger, suspicion, hatred, envy, fanaticism, credulity, invective, thirst of blood, sudden panics, madness and reflection, treason and fidelity, eloquence and folly, had each their organ in this concert of every pa.s.sion and feeling in which the city revelled each night. All toil was at an end; the only labour in their eyes was to watch the throne, to frustrate the real or fancied plots of the aristocracy, and to save their country. The hoa.r.s.e bawling of the vendors of the public journals, the patriotic chaunts of the Jacobins as they quitted their clubs, the tumultuous a.s.semblies, the convocations to the patriotic ceremonies, fallacious fears as to the failure of provisions--kept the population of the city and faubourgs in a perpetual state of excitement, which suffered no one to remain inactive; indifference would have been considered treason; and it was necessary to feign enthusiasm in order to be in accordance with public opinion. Each fresh event quickened this feverish excitement, which the press constantly instilled into the veins of the people. Its language already bordered on delirium, and borrowed from the population even their proverbs, their love of trifles, their obscenity, their brutality, and even their oaths, with which the articles were interlarded, as though to impress more forcibly its hatred on the ear of its foes. Danton, Hebert, and Marat were the first to adopt this tone, these gestures, and these exclamations of the populace, as though to flatter them by imitating their vices. Robespierre never condescended to this, and never sought to obtain ascendency over the people by pandering to their brutality, but by appealing to their reason; and the fanatical tone of his speeches possessed at least that decency that attends great ideas--he ruled by respect, and scorned to captivate them by familiarity. The more he gained the confidence of the lower cla.s.ses, the more did he affect the philosophical tone and austere demeanour of the statesman. It was plainly perceptible in his most radical propositions, that however he might wish to renew social order he would not corrupt its elements, and that his eyes to emanc.i.p.ate the people was not to degrade them.

III.

It was at this period that the a.s.sembly ordered the removal of Voltaire's remains to the Pantheon: philosophy thus avenged itself on the anathemas that had been thundered forth, even against the ashes of the great innovator. The body of Voltaire, on his death, in Paris, A.D. 1778, had been furtively removed by his nephew at night, and interred in the church of the abbey of Sellieres in Champagne; and when the nation sold this abbey, the cities of Troyes and Romilly mutually contended for the honour of possessing the bones of the greatest man of the age. The city of Paris, where he had breathed his last, now claimed its privilege as the capital of France, and addressed a pet.i.tion to the National a.s.sembly, praying that Voltaire's body might be brought back to Paris and interred in the Pantheon, that cathedral of philosophy. The a.s.sembly eagerly hailed the idea of this homage, that traced liberty back to its original source. "The people owe their freedom to him," said Regnault de Saint Jean d'Angely; "for by enlightening them, he gave them power; nations are enthralled by ignorance alone, and when the torch of reason displays to them the ignominy of bearing these chains, they blush to wear them, and snap them asunder."

On the 11th of July, the departmental and munic.i.p.al authorities went in state to the barrier of Charenton, to receive the mortal remains of Voltaire, which were placed on the ancient site of the Bastille, like a conqueror on his trophies; his coffin was exposed to public gaze, and a pedestal was formed for it of stones torn from the foundations of this ancient stronghold of tyranny; and thus Voltaire when dead triumphed over those stones which had triumphed over and confined him when living.

On one of the blocks was the inscription, "_Receive on this spot, where despotism once fettered thee, the honours decreed to thee by thy country_."

IV.

The next day, when the rays of a brilliant sun had dissipated the mists of the night, an immense concourse of people followed the car that bore Voltaire to the Pantheon. This car was drawn by twelve white horses, harnessed four abreast; their manes plaited with flowers and golden ta.s.sels, and the reins held by men dressed in antique costumes, like those depicted on the medals of ancient triumphs. On the car was a funeral couch, extended on which was a statue of the philosopher, crowned with a wreath. The National a.s.sembly, the departmental and munic.i.p.al bodies, the const.i.tuted authorities, the magistrates, and the army, surrounded, preceded, and followed the sarcophagus. The boulevards, the streets, the public places, the windows, the roofs of houses, even the trees, were crowded with spectators; and the suppressed murmurs of vanquished intolerance could not restrain this feeling of enthusiasm. Every eye was riveted on the car; for the new school of ideas felt that it was the proof of their victory that was pa.s.sing before them, and that philosophy remained mistress of the field of battle.

The details of this ceremony were magnificent; and in spite of its profane and theatrical trappings, the features of every man that followed the car wore the expression of joy, arising from an intellectual triumph. A large body of cavalry, who seemed to have now offered their arms at the shrine of intelligence, opened the march. Then followed the m.u.f.fled drums, to whose notes were added the roar of the artillery that formed a part of the cortege. The scholars of the colleges of Paris, the patriotic societies, the battalions of the national guard, the workmen of the different public journals, the persons employed to demolish the foundations of the Bastille, some bearing a portable press, which struck off different inscriptions in honour of Voltaire, as the procession moved on; others carrying the chains, the collars and bolts, and bullets found in the dungeons and a.r.s.enals of the state prisons; and lastly, busts of Voltaire, Rousseau, and Mirabeau, marched between the troops and the populace. On a litter was displayed the _proces-verbal_ of the electors of '89, that _Hegyra_ of the insurrection. On another stand, the citizens of the Faubourg Saint Antoine exhibited a plan in relief of the Bastille, the flag of the donjon, and a young girl, in the costume of an Amazon, who had fought at the siege of this fortress. Here and there, pikes surmounted with the Phrygian cap of liberty arose above the crowd, and on one of them was a scroll bearing the inscription, "_From this steel sprung Liberty!_"

All the actors and actresses of the theatres of Paris followed the statue of him who for sixty years had inspired them; the t.i.tles of his princ.i.p.al works were inscribed on the sides of a pyramid that represented his immortality. His statue, formed of gold and crowned with laurel, was borne on the shoulders of citizens, wearing the costumes of the nations and the times whose manners and customs he had depicted; and the seventy volumes of his works were contained in a casket, also of gold. The members of the learned bodies, and of the princ.i.p.al academies of the kingdom surrounded this ark of philosophy. Numerous bands of music, some marching with the troops, others stationed along the road of the procession, saluted the car as it pa.s.sed with loud bursts of harmony, and filled the air with the enthusiastic strains of liberty.

The procession stopped before the princ.i.p.al theatres, a hymn was sung in honour of his genius, and the car then resumed its march. On their arrival at the quai that bears his name, the car stopped before the house of M. de Villette, where Voltaire had breathed his last, and where his heart was preserved. Evergreen shrubs, garlands of leaves, and wreaths of roses decorated the front of the house, which bore the inscription, "_His fame is every where, and his heart is here_." Young girls dressed in white, and wreaths of flowers on their heads, covered the steps of an amphitheatre erected before the house. Madame de Villette, to whom Voltaire had been a second father, in all the splendour of her beauty, and the pathos of her tears, advanced and placed the n.o.blest of all his wreaths, the wreath of filial affection, on the head of the great philosopher.

At this moment the crowd burst into one of the hymns of the poet Chenier, who, up to his death, most of all men cherished the memory of Voltaire. Madame de Villette and the young girls of the amphitheatre descended into the street, now strewed with flowers, and walked before the car. The Theatre Francais, then situated in the Faubourg St.

Germain, had erected a triumphal arch on its peristyle. On each pillar a medallion was fixed, bearing in letters of gilt bronze the t.i.tle of the princ.i.p.al dramas of the poet; on the pedestal of the statue erected before the door of the theatre was written, "_He wrote Irene at eighty-three years; at seventeen he wrote OEdipus_."

The immense procession did not arrive at the Pantheon until ten o'clock at night, for the day had not been sufficiently long for this triumph.

The coffin of Voltaire was deposited between those of Descartes and Mirabeau,--the spot predestined for this intermediary genius between philosophy and policy, between the design and the execution. This apotheosis of modern philosophy, amidst the great events that agitated the public mind, was a convincing proof that the Revolution comprehended its own aim, and that it sought to be the inauguration of those two principles represented by these cold ashes--Intelligence and Liberty. It was intelligence that triumphantly entered the city of Louis XIV. over the ruins of the prejudices of birth. It was philosophy taking possession of the city and the temple of Sainte Genevieve. The remains of two schools, of two ages, and two creeds were about to strive for the mastery even in the tomb. Philosophy who, up to this hour, had timidly shrunk from the contest, now revealed her latest inspiration--that of transferring the veneration of the age from one great man to another.

V.

Voltaire, the sceptical genius of France in modern ages, combined, in himself, the double pa.s.sion of this people at such a period--the pa.s.sion of destruction, and the desire of innovation, hatred of prejudices, and love of knowledge: he was destined to be the standard-bearer of destruction; his genius, although not the most elevated, yet the most comprehensive in France, has. .h.i.therto been only judged by fanatics or his enemies. Impiety deified his very vices; superst.i.tion anathematised his very virtues; in a word, despotism, when it again seized on the reins of government in France, felt that to reinstate tyranny it would be necessary first to unseat Voltaire from his high position in the national opinion. Napoleon, during fifteen years, paid writers who degrade, vilify, and deny the genius of Voltaire; he hated his name, as _might_ must ever hate _intellect_; and so long as men yet cherished the memory of Voltaire, so long he felt his position was not secure, for tyranny stands as much in need of prejudice to sustain it as falsehood of uncertainty and darkness; the restored church could no longer suffer his glory to shine with so great a l.u.s.tre; she had the right to hate Voltaire, not to deny his genius.

If we judge of men by what they have _done_, then Voltaire is incontestably the greatest writer of modern Europe. No one has caused, through the powerful influence of his genius alone, and the perseverance of his will, so great a commotion in the minds of men; his pen aroused a world, and has shaken a far mightier empire than that of Charlemagne, the European empire of a theocracy. His genius was not _force_ but _light_. Heaven had destined him not to destroy but to illuminate, and wherever he trod light followed him, for reason (which is _light_) had destined him to be first her poet, then her apostle, and lastly her idol.

VI.

Voltaire was born a plebeian in an obscure street of old Paris.[5]

Whilst Louis XIV. and Bossuet reigned in all the pomp of absolute power and Catholicism at Versailles, the child of the people, the Moses of incredulity, grew up amidst them: the secrets of destiny seem thus to sport with men, and are alone suspected when they have exploded. The throne and the altar had attained their culminating point in France. The Duc d'Orleans, as regent, governed during an interregnum,--one vice in the room of another, weakness instead of pride. This life was easy and agreeable, and corruption avenged itself for the monacal austerity of the last years of Madame de Maintenon and Letellier. Voltaire, alike precocious by audacity as by talent, began already to sport with those weapons of the mind of which he was destined, after years, to make so terrible a use. The regent, all unsuspicious of danger, suffered him to continue, and repressed, for form's sake alone, some of the most audacious of his outbreaks, at which he laughed even whilst he punished them. The incredulity of the age took its rise in debauchery and not in examination, and the independence of thought was rather a _libertinage_ of manners, than a conclusion arising from reflection. There was vice in irreligion, and of this Voltaire always savoured. His mission began by a contempt and derision of holy things, which, even though doomed to destruction, should be touched with respect. From thence arose that mockery, that irony, that cynicism too often on the lips, and in the heart, of the apostle of reason; his visit to England gave a.s.surance and gravity to his incredulity, for in France he had only known libertines, in London he knew philosophers; he became pa.s.sionately attached to eternal reason, as we are all eager after what is new, and he felt the enthusiasm of the discovery. In so active a nature as the French, this enthusiasm and this hatred could not remain in mere speculation as in the mind of a native of the north. Scarcely was he himself persuaded, than he wished in his turn to persuade others; his whole life became a multiplied action, tending to one end, the abolition of theocracy, and the establishment of religious toleration and liberty. He toiled at this with all the powers with which G.o.d had gifted him; he even employed falsehood (_ruse_), aspersion, cynicism, and immorality: he used even those arms that respect for G.o.d and man denies to the wise; he employed his virtue, his honour, his renown, to aid in this overthrow; and his apostleship of reason had too often the appearance of a profanation of piety; he ravaged the temple instead of protecting it.

From the day when he resolved upon this war against Christianity he sought for allies also opposed to it. His intimacy with the king of Prussia, Frederic II., had this sole inducement. He desired the support of thrones against the priesthood. Frederic, who partook of his philosophy, and pushed it still further, even to atheism and the contempt of mankind, was the Dionysius of this modern Plato. Louis XV., whose interest it was to keep up a good understanding with Prussia, dared not to show his anger against a man whom the king considered as his friend. Voltaire, thus protected by a sceptre, redoubled his audacity. He put thrones on one side, whilst he affected to make their interests mutual with his own, by pretending to emanc.i.p.ate them from the domination of Rome. He handed over to kings the civil liberty of the people, provided that they would aid him in acquiring the liberty of consciences. He even affected--perhaps he felt--respect for the absolute power of kings. He pushed that respect so far as even to worship their weaknesses. He palliated the infamous vices of the great Frederic, and brought philosophy on its knees before the mistresses of Louis XV. Like the courtezan of Thebes, who built one of the pyramids of Egypt from the fruits of her debaucheries, Voltaire did not blush at any prost.i.tution of genius, provided that the wages of his servility enabled him to purchase enemies against Christ. He enrolled them by millions throughout Europe, and especially in France. Kings were reminded of the middle ages, and of the thrones outraged by the popes. They did not see, without umbrage and secret hate, the clergy as powerful as themselves with the people, and who under the name of cardinals, almoners, bishops or confessors, spied, or dictated its creeds even to courts themselves.

The parliaments, that civil clergy, a body redoubtable to sovereigns themselves, detested the ma.s.s of the clergy, although they protected its faith and its decrees. The n.o.bility, warlike, corrupted, and ignorant, leaned entirely to the unbelief which freed it from all morality.

Finally, the _bourgeoisie_, well-informed or learned, prefaced the emanc.i.p.ation of the third estate by the insurrection of the new condition of ideas.

Such were the elements of the revolution in religious matters. Voltaire laid hold of them, at the precise moment, with that _coup d'oeil_ of strong instinct which sees clearer than genius itself. To an age young, fickle, and unreflecting, he did not present reason under the form of an austere philosophy, but beneath the guise of a facile freedom of ideas and a scoffing irony. He would not have succeeded in making his age think, he did succeed in making it smile. He never attacked it in front, nor with his face uncovered, in order that he might not set the laws in array against him; and to avoid the fate of Servetius, he, the modern aesop, attacked under imaginary names the tyranny which he wished to destroy. He concealed his hate in history, the drama, light poetry, romance, and even in jests. His genius was a perpetual allusion, comprehending all his age, but impossible to be seized on by his enemies. He struck, but his hand was concealed. Yet the struggle of a man against a priesthood, an individual against an inst.i.tution, a life against eighteen centuries, was by no means dest.i.tute of courage.

VII.

There is an incalculable power of conviction and devotion of idea, in the daring of one against all. To brave at once, with no other power than individual reason, with no other support than conscience, human consideration, that cowardice of the mind, masked under respect for error; to dare the hatred of earth and the anathema of heaven, is the heroism of the writer. Voltaire was not a martyr in his body, but he consented to be one in his name, and devoted it during his life and after his death. He condemned his own ashes to be thrown to the winds, and not to have either an asylum or a tomb. He resigned himself even to lengthened exile in exchange for the liberty of a free combat. He isolated himself voluntarily from men, in order that their too close contact might not interfere with his thoughts.

At eighty years of age, feeble, and feeling his death nearly approaching, he several times made his preparations hastily, in order to go and struggle still, and die at a distance from the roof of his old age. The unwearied activity of his mind was never checked for a moment.

He carried his gaiety even to genius, and under that pleasantry of his whole life we may perceive a grave power of perseverance and conviction. Such was the character of this great man. The enlightened serenity of his mind concealed the depth of its workings: under the joke and laugh his constancy of purpose was hardly sufficiently recognised.

He suffered all with a laugh, and was willing to endure all, even in absence from his native land, in his lost friendships, in his refused fame, in his blighted name, in his memory accursed. He took all--bore all--for the sake of the triumph of the independence of human reason.

Devotion does not change its worth in changing its cause, and this was his virtue in the eyes of posterity. He was not the truth, but he was its precursor, and walked in advance of it.

One thing was wanting to him--the love of a G.o.d. He saw him in mind, and he detested those phantoms which ages of darkness had taken for him, and adored in his stead. He rent away with rage those clouds which prevent the divine idea from beaming purely on mankind; but his weakness was rather hatred against error, than faith in the Divinity. The sentiment of religion, that sublime _resume_ of human thought; that reason, which, enlightened by enthusiasm, mounts to G.o.d as a flame, and unites itself with him in the unity of the creation with the Creator, of the ray with the focus--this, Voltaire never felt in his soul. Thence sprung the results of his philosophy; it created neither morals, nor worship, nor charity; it only decomposed--destroyed. Negative, cold, corrosive, sneering, it operated like poison--it froze--it killed--it never gave life. Thus, it never produced--even against the errors it a.s.sailed, which were but the human alloy of a divine idea--the whole effect it should have elicited. It made sceptics, instead of believers. The theocratic reaction was prompt and universal, as it ought to have been.

Impiety clears the soul of its consecrated errors, but does not fill the heart of man. Impiety alone will never ruin a human worship: a faith destroyed must be replaced by a faith. It is not given to irreligion to destroy a religion on earth. There is but a religion more enlightened which can really triumph over a religion fallen into contempt, by replacing it. The earth cannot remain without an altar, and G.o.d alone is strong enough against G.o.d.

VIII.

It was on the 5th of August, 1791, the first anniversary of the famous night of the 4th of August, 1790, when feudality crumbled to atoms, that the National a.s.sembly commenced the revision of the const.i.tution. It was a solemn and imposing act, was this comprehensive _coup d'oeil_ cast by legislators at the end of their career, over the ruins they had scattered, and the foundations they had laid in their course. But how different at this moment was the disposition of their mind from what they felt in commencing this mighty work! They had begun it with an enthusiasm of the ideal, they now contemplated it with the misgivings and the sadness of reality. The National a.s.sembly was opened amidst the acclamations of a people unanimous in their hopes, and was about to close amidst the clamorous recriminations of all parties.

The king was captive, the princes emigrants, the clergy at feud, the n.o.bility in flight, the people seditious; Necker's popularity had vanished, Mirabeau was dead, Maury silenced, Cazales, Lally, Mounier had deserted from their work. Two years had carried off more men and things than a generation removes in ordinary times. The great voices of '89, inspired with philosophy and vast hopes, no longer resounded beneath those vaults. The foremost ranks had fallen. The men of second order were now to contend in their stead. Intimidated, discouraged, repentant, they had neither the spirit to yield to the impulse of the people nor the power to resist it. Barnave had recovered his virtue in his sensibility; but virtue which comes late is like the experience which follows the act, and only enables us to measure the extent of our errors. In revolutions there is no repentance--there is only expiation.

Barnave, who might have saved the monarchy, had he only united with Mirabeau, was just commencing his expiatory sentence. Robespierre was to Barnave what Barnave had been to Mirabeau; but Robespierre, more powerful than Barnave, instead of acting on the impulse of a pa.s.sion as fluctuating as jealousy, acted under the influence of a fixed idea, and an unalterable theory. Robespierre had the whole people at his back.

IX.

From the opening of the sittings Barnave attempted to consolidate around the const.i.tution the opinions so fiercely shaken by Robespierre and his friends. He did it with a caution which bespoke but too well the weakness of his position, notwithstanding the boldness of his language.

"The labours of your committee of the const.i.tution are a.s.sailed," he said. "There exist against our work but two kinds of opposition. Those who, up to the present time, have constantly shown themselves inimical to the Revolution--the enemies of equality, who hate our const.i.tution because it is the condemnation of their aristocracy. Yet there is another cla.s.s hostile also, and I will divide it into two distinct species. One of these is the men who, in the opinion of their own conscience, give the preference to another government which they disguise more or less in their language, and seek to deprive our monarchical government of all the strength which can r.e.t.a.r.d the advent of a republic. I declare that these persons I shall not attack.

Whosoever has a pure political opinion has a right to communicate it; but we have another cla.s.s of foes. They are the foes of all government.

If this cla.s.s betrays its opposition, it is not because it prefers the republic to the monarchy, democracy to aristocracy, it is because all that concentrates the political machine, all that is order, all that places in his right position the honest man and the rogue, the candid man and the calumniator, is contrary and hateful to its system." (Long and loud applause from the majority on the left.) "Yes, gentlemen,"

continued Barnave, "such is the party which has the most strongly opposed our labours. They have sought fresh sources of revolution because the revolution as defined by us escaped them. These are the men who, changing the name of things, by uttering sentiments apparently patriotic, in the stead of sentiments of honour, probity, purity--by sitting even in the most august places with a mask of virtue, have believed that they would impose upon public opinion, and have coalesced with certain writers. (The plaudits here redoubled, and all eyes were turned towards Robespierre and Brissot.) If we desire to see our const.i.tution carried out, if you desire that the nation, after having owed to you its hopes of liberty,--for as yet it is but hope (Murmurs of dissent),--shall owe to you reality, prosperity, happiness, peace, let us endeavour to simplify it, by giving to the government--by which I mean all the powers established by this const.i.tution--the amount of simultaneous strength requisite to move the social machine, and to preserve to the nation the liberty you have conferred upon it. If the welfare of your country is dear to you, take care what you are about to do. Above all, let us discard injurious mistrust, which can serve none but our enemies, when they would believe that this national a.s.sembly, this constant majority, at once bold and sagacious, which has so much cast upon it since the king's departure, is ready to disappear before the divisions so skilfully fomented by perfidious imputations. (Loud cheering.) You will see renewed, do not doubt this, the disorders, the convulsions of which you are weary, and to which the completion of the Revolution ought also to be a completion. You will see renewed without hopes, projects, temptations which we openly brave because we feel our strength and are united--because we know that so long as we are united they will not be attempted; and if extravagant ideas should dare to try them it would always result in their shame. But the attempts would succeed, and on the success of them they might, with some semblance rely, if we were once divided amongst ourselves, not knowing in whom we might believe. We suspect each other of different plans when we have but the same idea--of contrary feelings, when every one of us has in his heart the testimony of his colleagues' purity, during two years of labour performed together--during consecutive proofs of courage--during sacrifices which nothing can compensate but the approving voice of conscience."

Here Barnave's voice was lost in the applauses of the majority, and the a.s.sembly electrified, seemed for the moment unanimous in its monarchical feeling.

X.

At the sitting of the 25th of August, the a.s.sembly discussed the article of the const.i.tution which declared that the members of the royal family could not exercise the rights of citizens. The Duc d'Orleans ascended the tribune to protest against this article, and declared, in the midst of applauses and murmurs, that if it were adopted, there remained to him the right of choosing between the t.i.tle of a French citizen and his eventual right to the throne; and that, in that case, he should renounce the throne. Sillery, the friend and confidant of this prince, spoke after him, and combated with much eloquence the conclusions of the committee. This discourse, full of allusions to the position of the duc d'Orleans, impossible to be misunderstood, was the only act of direct ambition attempted by the Orleans party. Sillery began by boldly replying to Barnave:--"Let me be allowed," he exclaimed, "to lament over the deplorable abuse which some orators make of their talents. What strange language! It is attempted to make you believe that you have here men of faction and anarchy--enemies of order, as if order could only exist by satisfying the ambition of certain individuals! It is proposed to you to grant to all individuals of the royal family the t.i.tle of prince, and to deprive them of the rights of a citizen? What incoherence, and what ingrat.i.tude! You declare the t.i.tle of French citizen to be the most admirable of t.i.tles, and you propose to exchange it for the t.i.tle of prince, which you have suppressed, as contrary to equality! Have not the relatives of the king, who still remain in Paris, constantly displayed the purest patriotism? What services have they not rendered to the public cause by their example and their sacrifices! Have they not themselves abjured all their t.i.tles for one only--that of citizen? and yet you propose to despoil them of it! When you suppressed the t.i.tle of prince, what happened? The fugitive princes formed a league against the country; the others ranged themselves with you. If to-day the t.i.tle of prince is re-established, we concede to the enemies of our country all they covet; we deprive the patriotic relatives of the king of all they esteem! I see the triumph and the recompence on the side of the conspiring princes; I see the punishment of all sacrifices on the side of the popular princes. It is said to be dangerous to admit the members of the royal family into the legislative body. This hypothesis would then be established, that every individual of the royal family must be for the future a corrupt courtier or factious partisan! However, is it not possible to suppose that there are patriots amongst them? Is it those you would thus brand? You condemn the relatives of a king to hate the const.i.tution and conspire against a form of government which does not leave them the choice between the character of courtiers or that of conspirators. See, on the other hand, what may accrue if the love of country inspire them! Cast your eyes on one of the branches of that race, whom it is proposed to you to exile. Scarcely out of his childhood, he had the happiness of saving the life of three citizens, at the peril of his own. The city of Vendome decreed to him a civic crown.

Unhappy child! is that indeed the last which thy race shall obtain?"

The applause which constantly interrupted, and for a long time followed this discourse, after the orator had concluded, proved that the idea of a revolutionary dynasty already tempted some imaginations, and that if there existed no faction of Orleans, at least it was not without a leader. Robespierre, who no less detested a dynastic faction than the monarchy itself, saw with terror this symptom of a new power which appeared in the distant horizon. "I remark," he replied, "that there is too much reference to individuals, and not enough to the national interest. It is not true that we seek to degrade the relations of the king: there is no design to place them beneath other citizens--we wish to separate them from the people by an honourable distinction. What is the use of seeking t.i.tles for them? The relatives of the king will be simply the relatives of the king. The splendour of the throne is not derived from such vain denominations of rank. We cannot declare with impunity that there exists in France any particular family above another: it would be a n.o.bility by itself. This family would remain in the midst of us, like the indestructible root of that n.o.bility which we have destroyed--it would be the germ of a new aristocracy." Violent murmurs hailed these remarks of Robespierre. He was obliged to break off and apologise. "I see," he said in conclusion, "that we are no longer allowed to utter here, without reproach, opinions which our adversaries amongst the first have maintained in this a.s.sembly."

XI.

The whole difficulty of the situation was in the question whether or not, that const.i.tution once completed, the nation would recognise in the const.i.tution the right to revise and alter itself. It was on this occasion that Malouet, although abandoned by his party and hopeless, endeavoured, single-handed, the restoration of the royal authority. His discourse, worthy of the genius of Mirabeau, was a bill of terrible accusation against the excesses of the people, and the inconsistencies of the a.s.sembly. Its moderation heightened its effect--the man of integrity was seen beneath the orator, and the statesman in the legislator. Something of the serene and stoical soul of Cato breathed in his words; but political eloquence is rather in the people who listen, than in the man who speaks. The voice is nothing without the reverberation that multiplies its echo. Malouet, deserted by his party, left by Barnave who listened with dismay, only spoke from his conscience; he fought no longer for victory, he only struggled for principle. Thus did he speak.--

"It is proposed to you to determine the epoch, and the conditions of the use of a new const.i.tuent power; it is proposed to you to undergo twenty-five years of disorder and anarchy before you have the right to amend. Remark, in the first place, under what circ.u.mstances it is proposed to you to impose silence on the appeals of the nation as to the new laws; it is when you have not as yet heard the opinion of those whose instincts and pa.s.sions these new laws favour, when all contending pa.s.sions are subdued by terror or by force; it is when France is no longer expounded but through the organ of her clubs. When it has been a question of suspending the exercise of the royal authority itself, what has been the language addressed to you from this tribune? You have been told '_we should have begun the Revolution from thence; but we were not aware of our strength_.' Thus it only remains for your successors to measure their strength in order to attempt fresh enterprises. Such, in effect, is the danger of making a violent revolution and a free const.i.tution march side by side. The one is only produced in tumultuous periods, and by pa.s.sions and weapons, the other is only established by amicable arrangements between old interests and new. (Laughter, murmurs, and 'that is the point.') We do not count voices, we do not discuss opinions, to make a revolution. A revolution is a storm during which we must furl our sails, or we sink. But after the tempest, those who have been beaten by it, as well as those who have not suffered, enjoy in common the serenity of the sky. All becomes calm, and the horizon is cleared. Thus after a revolution, the const.i.tution, if it be good, rallies all its citizens. There should not be one man in the kingdom who incurs danger of his life in expressing his free views of the const.i.tution. Without this security there is no free will, no expression of opinion, no liberty; there will be only a predominant power, a tyranny popular or otherwise, until you have separated the const.i.tution from the workings of the revolution. Behold all these principles of justice, morality, and liberty which you have laid down, hailed with joy, and oaths renewed, but violated immediately with unprecedented audacity and rage. It is at a moment when the holiest or the freest of const.i.tutions has been proclaimed that the most infamous attempts against liberty, against property,--nay, what do I say?--against humanity and conscience, are multiplied and perpetuated! Does not this contrast alarm you? I will tell you wherefore. Yourselves deceived as to the mechanism of political society, you have sought its regeneration without reflecting on its dissolution; you have considered as an obstacle to your plans the discontent of some, and as a means the enthusiasm of others. Only desirous to overcome obstacles you have overturned principles, and taught the people to brave every thing. You have taken the pa.s.sions of the people for auxiliaries. It is to raise an edifice by sapping the foundations. I repeat to you then, there is no free and durable const.i.tution out of despotism but that which terminates a revolution, and which is proposed, accepted, and executed, by forms, calm, free, and totally different from the forms of the Revolution. All we do, all we seek for with excitement before we reach this point of repose, whether we obey the people or are obeyed by them; whether we would flatter, deceive, or serve them, is but the work of folly,--madness. I demand, therefore, that the const.i.tution be peaceably and freely accepted by the majority of the nation and by the king.

(Violent murmurs.) I know we call the national will, all that we know of proposed addresses, of a.s.sent, of oaths, agitations, menaces, and violence. (Loud expressions of angry dissent.) Yes, we must close the Revolution by beginning to destroy every tendency to violate it. Your committees of inquiry, laws respecting emigrants, persecutions of priests, despotic imprisonments, criminal proceedings against persons accused without proofs, the fanaticism and domination of clubs; but this is not all, licence has gone to such unbounded extent,--the dregs of the nation ferment so tumultuously:--(Loud burst of indignation.) Do we then pretend to be the first nation which has no dregs? The fearful insubordination of troops, religious disturbances, the discontents of the colonies, which already sound so ominously in our ports,--if the Revolution does not stop here and give place to the const.i.tution;--if order be not re-established at once, and on all points, the shattered state will be long agitated by the convulsions of anarchy. Do you remember the history of the Greeks, where a first revolution not terminated produced so many others during a period of only half a century? Do you remember that Europe has her eyes fixed on your weakness and agitations, and whilst she will respect you if you are free within the limits of order, she will surely profit by your disorders if you only know how to weaken yourself and alarm her by your anarchy?"

Malouet demanded, therefore, that the const.i.tution should be submitted to the judgment of the people, and to the free acceptance of the king.

XII.