History of the Girondists Part 25

Sieyes, the mystic oracle of the Revolution, who seemed to carry it on his pensive front, and brood over it in silence; the Duc de Lauzun, pa.s.sing from the confidence of Trianon to the consultations of the Palais Royal; Laclos, a young officer of artillery, author of an obscene romance, capable at need of elevating romantic intrigue to a political conspiracy; Sillery, soured against his order, at enmity with the court, an ambitious malcontent, awaiting nothing but what the future might bring forth; and others more obscure, but not less active, and serving as unknown guides for descending from the _salons_ of a prince into the depths of the people: some the head, others the arms, of the duke's ambition, attended these meetings. Perhaps they might be ignorant of the aim, but they placed themselves on the declivity, and allowed Fortune to do as she pleased. Fortune was a revolution. The wonderful, that marvel of the ma.s.ses, which is to the imagination what calculation is to reason, was not wanting to the Orleans party. Prophecies, those popular presentiments of destiny, domestic prodigies, admitted by the interested credulity of numerous clients of this house, announced the throne shortly to one of these princes. These rumours were rife amongst the people, from themselves, or the skilful insinuations of the partisans of the house of Orleans. In the convocation of States-General, the duke had not hesitated to p.r.o.nounce in favour of the most popular reforms. The instructions which he had drawn up for the electors of his dominions were the work of the abbe Sieyes. The prince himself intrigued for the name and style of _Citoyen_. Elected deputy of the n.o.blesse of Paris at Crespy and at Villars-Cotterets, he selected Crespy, because the electors of this bailiwick were the more patriotic. At the procession of the States-General he left his own place vacant amongst the princes, and walked in the midst of the deputies. This abdication of his dignity near the throne to a.s.sume the dignity of a citizen, procured him the applauses of the nation.

VI.

Public favour towards him was such that had he been a Duc de Guise, and Louis XVI. a Henry III., the States-General would have finished, as did those of Blois, by an a.s.sa.s.sination or usurpation. Uniting with the _tiers etat_, to obtain equality and the friendship of the nation against the n.o.bility, he took the oath of the Tennis Court. He took his place behind Mirabeau, to disobey the king. Nominated president by the National a.s.sembly, he refused this honour in order to remain a citizen.

The day on which the dismissal of Necker betrayed the hostile projects of the court, and when the people of Paris named its leaders and defenders by acclamation, the name of the Duc d'Orleans was the first uttered. France took in the gardens of the palace the colours of his livery for a c.o.c.kade. At the voice of Camille Desmoulins, who uttered the cry of alarm in the Palais Royal, the populace gathered, Legendre and Freron led them; they placed the bust of the Duc d'Orleans beside that of Necker, covered them with black c.r.a.pe, and promenaded them, bareheaded themselves, in the presence of the silent citizens. Blood flowed; the dead body of one of the citizens who carried the busts, killed by the mob, serving as a standard to the people. The Duc d'Orleans was thus mixed up from his palace--his name and his image--with the first struggle and first murder of liberty. This was enough to make it believed that his hand moved all the threads of events. Whether from lack of boldness or ambition, he never a.s.sumed the appearance of the part which public opinion a.s.signed to him. He did not then appear to push things beyond the conquest of a const.i.tution for his country, and the character of a great patriot for himself. He respected or despised the throne. One or other of these feelings gave him importance in the eyes of history. All the world was of his party except himself.

Impartial men did honour to his moderation, the revolutionists imputed shame to his character. Mirabeau, who was seeking a pretender to personify the revolt, had had secret interviews with the Duc d'Orleans; had tested his ambition, to judge if it aspired to the throne. He had left him dissatisfied; he had even betrayed his dissatisfaction by angry phrases. Mirabeau required a conspirator; he had only found a patriot.

What he despised in the Duc d'Orleans was not the meditation of a crime, but the refusal to be his accomplice. He had not antic.i.p.ated such scruples; he revenged himself by terming this carelessness about the throne the cowardice of an ambitious man.

La Fayette instinctively hated in the Duc d'Orleans an influential rival. He accused the prince of fomenting troubles which he felt himself powerless to repress. It was a.s.serted that the Duc d'Orleans and Mirabeau had been seen mingled with groups of men and women, and pointing to the chateau. Mirabeau defended himself by a smile of contempt. The Duc d'Orleans proved his innocence in a more serious manner. An a.s.sa.s.sination which should kill the king or queen would still leave the monarchy, the laws of the kingdom, and the princes inheritors of the throne. He could not mount to it except over the dead bodies of five persons placed by nature between himself and his ambition. These steps of crime could only have incurred the execrations of the nation, and must have even wearied the a.s.sa.s.sins themselves. Besides, he proved by numerous and undeniable witnesses that he had not gone to Versailles either on the 4th or 5th of October. Quitting Versailles on the 3rd, after the sitting of the National a.s.sembly, he had returned to Paris. He had pa.s.sed the day of the 4th in his palace and gardens at Mousseaux. On the 5th, he again was at Mousseaux; his cabriolet having broken down on the boulevard, he had gone on foot by the Champs Elysees. He had pa.s.sed the day at Pa.s.sy with his children and Madame de Genlis. He had supped at Mousseaux with some intimate friends, and slept again in Paris. It was not until the 6th, in the morning, that, informed of the events of the previous evening, he had gone to Versailles, and that his carriage had been stopped at the bridge of Sevres, by the mob carrying the bleeding heads of the king's guard.[17] If this was not the conduct of a prince of the blood, who flies to the succour of his king and places himself at the foot of the throne, between the threatened sovereign and the people, neither was it that of an audacious usurper who tempts revolt by occasion, and at least presents to the people a completed crime.

The conduct of this prince was but that of one who looks to a contingent reversion: either that he would not receive the crown except by a fatality of events, and without thrusting forth his hand to fortune, or that he had more indifference than ambition for supreme power, or that he would not place his royalty as a check upon the way of liberty; that he sincerely desired a republic, and that the t.i.tle of first citizen of a free nation appeared to him greater than that of king.

VII.

However, a short time after the days of the 5th and 6th October, La Fayette desired to break off the intimacy between the Duc d'Orleans and Mirabeau. He resolved at all risks to compel the prince to remove from the scene, and by an exercise of moral restraint or the fear of a state prosecution, to absent himself and go to London. He made the king and queen enter into his plans, by alarming them as to the prince's intrigues, and designating him as a compet.i.tor for the throne. La Fayette said one day to the queen, that this prince was the only man upon whom the suspicion of so lofty an ambition could fall. "Sir,"

replied the queen, with a look of incredulity, "is it necessary then to be a prince in order to pretend to the throne?" "At least, madam,"

replied the general, "I only know the Duc d'Orleans who aspires to it."

La Fayette presumed too much on the prince's ambition.

VIII.

Mirabeau, discouraged at the hesitations and scruples of the Duc d'Orleans, and finding him above or below crime, cast him off like a despised accomplice of ambition, and tried to ally himself with La Fayette, who, possessed of the armed force, and who saw in Mirabeau the whole of the moral force, smiled at the idea of a duumvirate, which could a.s.sume to themselves empire. There were secret interviews at Paris and at Pa.s.sy between these two rivals. La Fayette rejecting every idea of an usurpation profitable to the prince, declared to Mirabeau that he must renounce every conceived plot against the queen if he would come to an understanding with him. "Well, general," replied Mirabeau, "since you will have it so, let her live! A humbled queen may be fit for something, but a queen with her throat cut is only good as the subject of a bad tragedy!" This atrocious remark, which treated the bloodshed of a woman as a jest, was subsequently known by the queen, who however forgave Mirabeau, and did not allow it to interfere with her _liaisons_ with the great orator. But the cold-blooded infamy must have found its way to her heart as an ominous warning of what she might fear hereafter.

La Fayette, sure of the consent of the king and queen, supported by the feelings of the national guard, who were growing weary of factions and the factious, ventured to a.s.sume quietly towards the prince the tone of a dictator, and to p.r.o.nounce against him an arbitrary exile under the appearance of a mission freely accepted. He sent to request of the Duc d'Orleans a meeting at the Marquise de Coigny's, a n.o.ble intelligent lady attached to La Fayette, and in whose _salon_ the Duc d'Orleans occasionally met him. After a conversation, heard by the walls alone, but the result of which showed its tenor, and which Mirabeau, to whom it was communicated, termed _very imperious on the one side, and very resigned on the other_, it was agreed that the Duc d'Orleans should forthwith set out for London. The friends of the prince induced him to change his resolution that same night, and he sent La Fayette a note to this effect. La Fayette requested another interview, in which he called upon him to keep his word, enjoined him to depart in twenty-four hours, and then conducted him to the king. There the prince accepted the feigned mission, and promised to leave nothing neglected to expose in England the plots of the conspirators of the kingdom. "You are more interested than any one," said La Fayette in the king's presence, "for no one is more compromised than yourself." Mirabeau, cognisant of this oppression of La Fayette and the court over the mind of the Duc d'Orleans, offered his services to the duke, and tempted him with the last offers of supreme power. The subject of his address to the a.s.sembly was already prepared: he intended to denounce, as a conspiracy of despotism, this _coup d'etat_ against one citizen, in which the liberty of all citizens was attempted. "This violation of the inviolability of the representatives of the nation in the palpable exile of a prince of the blood; he was to point out La Fayette, making use of the royal hand to strike the rivals of his popularity, and to cover his own insolent dictatorship under the venerated sanction of the chief of the nation and the head of the family." Mirabeau had no doubt of the resentment of the a.s.sembly against so odious an attempt, and promised the friends of the Duc d'Orleans one of those returns of opinion which raise a man to a higher elevation than that from which he has fallen. This language, backed by the entreaties of Laclos, Sillery, Lauzun, a second time shook the prince's resolution. He saw now disgrace in this voluntary exile, where at first he had only seen magnanimity. At the break of day he wrote that he declined the mission. La Fayette then sent for him to the minister for foreign affairs. There the prince, again overcome, wrote to the a.s.sembly a letter, which destroyed beforehand all the denunciation of Mirabeau. "My enemies pretend," said the duke to La Fayette, "that you boast of having against me proofs of my share in the attempts of the 5th of October." "They are rather my enemies who say so," replied La Fayette: "if I had proofs against you I should already have arrested you. I have none, but I am seeking for them." The Duc d'Orleans went.

Nine months had pa.s.sed away since his return. The Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly had left, without any other defence than anarchy, the const.i.tution it had so lately voted. Disorder prevailed throughout the kingdom: the first acts of the Legislative a.s.sembly announced the hesitation of a people which halts on a declivity, but is doomed to descend to the very bottom.

IX.

The Girondists, at the first step going a-head of the Barnaves and Lameths, showed a disposition to push France, all unprepared, into a republic. The Duc d'Orleans, whose long residence in England had allowed him to reflect at a distance from the attractions of events and factions, felt his Bourbon blood rise within him. He did not cease to be a patriot, but he understood that the safety of the country on the brink of a war was not in the destruction of the executive power.

Unquestionably pity for the king and queen awakened in a heart in which hatred had not stifled every generous feeling. He felt himself too much avenged by the days of 5th and 6th October, by the humiliation of the king before the a.s.sembly, by the daily insults of the populace under the windows of Marie Antoinette, and by the fearful nights of this family, whose palace was but a prison; and perhaps also he feared for himself the ingrat.i.tude of revolutions.

He had gone to England on compulsion, and had remained there under the idea, which was perfectly just, that his name might be used as a pretext for agitation in Paris. Laclos had gone to him in London from time to time to try again to tempt the exile's ambition, and make him ashamed of a deference for La Fayette, which France took to be cowardice. The prince's pride was roused at this, and he threatened to return; but the representations of M. de la Luzerne, minister of France in England, those of M. de Boinville, one of La Fayette's aides-de-camp, and his own reflections, had prevailed over the incitements of Laclos. Proof of this is found in a note of M. de la Luzerne's, found in an iron chest amongst the king's secret papers. "I attest," says M. de la Luzerne, "that I have presented to M. the Duc d'Orleans, M. de Boinville, aide-de-camp of M. de La Fayette, that M. de Boinville declared to the Duc d'Orleans that they were very uneasy as to the troubles which might at this moment be excited in Paris by malcontents, who would not scruple to make use of his name to disturb the capital, and perhaps the kingdom; and he was urged on these grounds to protract the time of his departure. The Duc d'Orleans, unwilling in any way to afford plea or pretext for any disturbance of public tranquillity, consented to delay his return."

X.

He at last left England, and on his return made several fruitless attempts to be again employed in the navy. Whilst his mind was thus wavering, he received the intelligence, through M. Bertrand de Molleville, that the king had nominated him to the rank of admiral. The Duc d'Orleans went to thank the minister, and added that, "He was rejoiced at the honour the king conferred on him, as it would give him an opportunity of communicating to the king his real sentiments, which had been odiously calumniated. I am very unfortunate," continued he; "my name has been involved in all the crimes imputed to me, and I have been deemed guilty, because I disdained to justify myself; but time will show whether my conduct belies my words."

The air of frankness and good faith, and the significant tone with which the Duc d'Orleans uttered these words, struck the minister, who until then had been greatly prejudiced against his innocence. He inquired if his royal highness would consent to repeat these expressions to the king, as they would rejoice his majesty, and he feared that they might lose some of their force if repeated by himself. The duke eagerly embraced the idea of seeing the king, if the king would receive him, and expressed his intention of presenting himself at the chateau the next day. The king, informed of this by his minister, awaited the prince, and had a long and private conference with him.

A confidential doc.u.ment, written with the prince's own hand, and drawn up in order to justify his memory in the eyes of his children and his friends, informs us of what pa.s.sed at this interview. "The ultra-democrats," said the Duc d'Orleans, "deemed that I wished to make France a republic; the ambitious, that I wished, by my popularity, to force the king to resign the administration of the kingdom into my hands; lastly, the virtuous and patriotic had the illusion of their own virtue concerning me, for they deemed that I sacrificed myself entirely to the public good. The one party deemed me worse than I was; the others, better. I have merely followed my nature, and that impelled me, above all, to liberty. I fancied I saw her image in the parliaments, which at least possessed her tone and forms, and I embraced this phantom of representative freedom. Thrice did I sacrifice myself for those parliaments; twice from a conviction on my part; the third, not to belie what I had previously done. I had been in England; I had there seen true liberty, and I doubted not that the States-General, and France also, wished to obtain freedom. Scarcely had I foreseen that France would possess citizens, than I wished to be one of these citizens myself, and I made unhesitatingly the sacrifice of all the rank and privileges that separated me from the nation: they cost me nothing; I aspired to be a deputy--I was one. I sided with the _tiers etat_, not from factious feeling, but from justice. In my opinion, it was impossible to prevent the completion of the Revolution, although some persons around the king thought otherwise. The troops were a.s.sembled, and surrounded the National a.s.sembly. Paris imagined it was threatened, and rose _en ma.s.se_; the Gardes Francaises, who lived amongst the people, followed the stream, and the report was circulated that I had bribed this regiment with my gold. I will frankly declare my opinion: if the Gardes Francaises had acted differently, I should in that case have deemed they had been bought over; for their hostility against the people of Paris would have been unnatural. My bust was earned with that of M. Necker on the 14th of July. Why? because this minister, on whom every public hope reposed, was the idol of the nation, and because my name was amongst the list of those deputies of the a.s.sembly, who, it was said, were to have been arrested by the troops summoned to Versailles. Amidst all these events, so favourable to a factious man, what was my behaviour? I withdrew from the eyes of the people: I did not flatter their excesses, but retired to my house at Mousseaux, where I pa.s.sed the night; and the next morning I went, unattended, to the National a.s.sembly at Versailles.

At the fortunate moment when the king resolved to cast himself into the arms of the a.s.sembly, I refused to form one of the deputation of members despatched to Paris to announce these tidings to the capital, for I feared lest some of the homages which the city owed to the king alone might be paid to me. And such was again my conduct on the days of October; I again absented myself, not to add fresh fuel to the excitement of the people; and I only reappeared when calm again prevailed. I was met at Sevres by the bands of straggling a.s.sa.s.sins, who bore back the bleeding heads of the king's guards: these men stopped my carriage, and fired on the postilion. Thus I, who was the pretended leader of these men, narrowly escaped being their victim, and owed my safety to a body of the national guard, who escorted me to Versailles; and as I went to wait on the king I repressed the last murmurs of the people in the Cour des Ministres I signed the decree which declared the a.s.sembly inseparable from the person of the king. It was at this time that M. de La Fayette called on me, and informed me of the king's desire that I should quit Paris, in order to afford no pretext for popular tumult. Convinced now, that the Revolution was accomplished, and only fearing the troubles with which attempts might be made to fetter its onward progress, I unhesitatingly obeyed, only demanding the consent of the National a.s.sembly to my departure; this they granted, and I left Paris. The inhabitants of Boulogne, who had been worked upon by an intrigue which may be laid to my charge, but to which I was a stranger, since I would not yield to it, wished forcibly to detain me, and opposed my embarkation. I confess I was much touched, but I did not yield to this violent manifestation of public favour, and I myself persuaded them to return to their allegiance. Advantage has been taken of this voyage and my absence to impute to me, without refutation on my part, the most odious crimes. It was I who wished to force the king to fly with the Dauphin from Versailles,--but Versailles is not France; the king would have found his army and the nation when once he left this town, and the only result of my ambition would be civil war, and, a military dictatorship given to the king. But the Count de Provence was alive; he was the natural heir to the throne thus abandoned. He was popular; he had, like myself, joined the commons,--thus I should only have laboured for him. But the Count d'Artois was in safety in another country, his children were secure from my pretended murders, they were nearer the throne than myself. What a series of follies, absurdities, or useless crimes! The French nation, amidst the Revolution, have neither changed their character nor their sentiments. I fully believe that the Count d'Artois, whom I have myself loved, will prove this. I believe that by drawing nearer to a monarch whom he loves, and by whom he is loved, and to a people to whose love his brilliant qualities give him so great a right, he will, when these troubles have ceased, enjoy this portion of his inheritance, the love which the most sensible and affectionate of nations has vowed to the descendants of HENRI IV."

XI.

These excuses, mingled doubtless with expressions of repentance and tears, and heightened by those att.i.tudes and gestures, more eloquent than words, that add so much pathos to solemn explanations, convinced the heart if not the mind of the king; and he forgave--he excused, and he trusted. "I am of your opinion," said he to his minister, yet a prey to the emotion of this scene, "that the Duc d'Orleans really regrets his past errors, and that he will do all in his power to repair the evil he has done, and in which perhaps he has not had so great a share as we believed."

The prince left the king's apartments reconciled with himself, and more than ever resolved to withdraw himself from the factious party. It had cost him but little to sacrifice his ambition, for he had none; and his popularity of her own accord had quitted him for other men of inferior rank and station than his own, and he could only hope to find security and an honourable refuge at the foot of the throne, to which he was alike guided by inclination and duty. Louis XVI. as a man had far more influence over him than as a king, but the adulation and resentment of the court ruined all.

The Sunday following this reconciliation, the Duc d'Orleans presented himself at the Tuileries to pay his respects to the king and queen. It was the day and hour of the _grandes receptions_, and crowds of courtiers thronged the courts, the staircases, the corridors, some hoping that fortune might yet be propitious; others, come from the provinces to the court of their unfortunate master, drawn thither by the double tie of misfortune and fidelity. At the sight of the Duc d'Orleans, whose reconciliation with the king had not as yet transpired, astonishment and horror appeared on every face, and an indignant murmur followed the announcement of his name. The crowd opened and shrank from him, as though his touch was odious to them. In vain did he seek one glance of respect or welcome amongst all these gloomy visages. As be approached the king's chamber, the courtiers and guards barred his entrance by turning their backs, and crowding together as if by accident, repulsed him: he entered the apartments of the queen, where the royal family's dinner was prepared. "Look to the dishes," cried voices, as though some public and well-known poisoner had been seen to enter. The indignant prince turned alternately pale and red, and imagined that these insults were offered him, at the instigation of the queen, and the order of the king. As he descended the stairs to quit the palace, fresh cries and outrages followed him; some even spat on his coat and head. A poignard stab would have been far less painful to bear than these withering marks of hatred and contempt. He had entered the palace appeased, he quitted it implacable; he felt that his only refuge against the court was in the last ranks of democracy, and he enrolled himself resolutely in them to find safety or vengeance.

The king and queen, who were soon informed of these insults, of which, however, they were utterly innocent, took no steps to make any reparation for them; possibly they were secretly flattered by the wrath of their adherents, and the humiliation of their enemy. The queen was too prodigal of her favour, and too hasty in her displeasure; the king did not want kindness, but grace; one word, such as Henri IV. knew so well how to employ, would have punished these insulters, and have brought the prince to his feet, yet he knew not how to say it; resentment brooded over her wrongs in silence, and destiny took its course.

XII.

The Duc d'Orleans severed himself on that day from the Girondists, to whom he was alone held by Petion and Brissot, and pa.s.sed over to the side of the Jacobins; he opened his palace to Danton and Barrere, and no longer followed any but the extreme party, which he adopted without hesitation in silence, even to the republic, to regicide, to death.

XIII.

However, the alarm with which the preparations of the emperor inspired the people, and the mischief excited by the speeches of the Girondists against the court and the ministers, agitated the capital more and more every day. At each fresh communication from M. de Lessart, minister of foreign affairs, the party of the Gironde raised a fresh cry of war and treason. Fauchet denounced the minister. Brissot exclaimed, "The mask has fallen,--our enemy is now known,--it is the emperor. The princes, who hold possessions in Alsace, whose cause he affects to espouse, are but the pretexts of his hate; and the _emigres_ themselves are but his instruments. Let us despise these _emigres_: it is the duty of the high national court to execute justice on these mendicant princes. The electors of the empire are not worthy of your anger; fear causes them beforehand to prostrate themselves at your feet--a free people does not crush a fallen foe: strike at the head--this head is the emperor."

He communicated his own ardour to the a.s.sembly; but Brissot, although a skilful politician, and the able counsellor of his party, did not possess that sonorous oratory that elevates an opinion to the level of the voice of a nation. Vergniaud alone was gifted with a soul, in which was combined all the pa.s.sion and eloquence of a party: by meditating on the annals of the past, he elevated his mind to scenes that pa.s.sed then a.n.a.logous to those in which he was an actor, and communicated an importance and solemnity to every word. "Our revolution," said he at the same sitting, "has spread alarm amongst every throne, for it has given an example of the destruction of the despotism that sustains them. Kings hate our const.i.tution because it renders men free, and because they would reign over slaves. This hate has been manifested on the part of the emperor by all the measures he has adopted, to disturb us or to strengthen our enemies, and encourage those Frenchmen who have rebelled against the laws of their country. We must not believe that this hate has ceased to exist, but it must cease to work. The genius of Liberty watches over our frontiers, which are less defended by our troops and our national guards than by the enthusiasm of freedom. Liberty, since its birth, has been the object of a shameful and secret war, waged against it even in its very cradle. What is this war? Three armies of reptiles and venomous insects breed and creep in your own breast: one is composed of paid libellists and hired calumniators, who strive to arm the two powers against each other by inspiring them with mutual distrust; the other army, equally dangerous, is composed of seditious priests, who feel that their G.o.d is forsaking them, and that their power is crumbling away with their _prestige_, and who, to retain their empire, term vengeance religion, and crime virtue. The third is composed of greedy speculators and financiers, who can grow rich only on our ruin: national prosperity would be destruction to their egotistical speculations; and our death would be their life. They are like those beasts of prey, who wait the issue of the battle that they may batten and feast on the corpses of the slain. (Loud applause.)

"They know that the expenses of your preparations for defence are numerous; and they reckon upon the failure of the credit of the treasury, and the scarcity of specie; they reckon upon the weariness of those citizens who have abandoned their wives, their babes, to hasten to the frontiers, and who will abandon them, whilst millions, distributed at home, will arouse insurrections, in which the people, armed by madness, will themselves destroy their rights, whilst they imagine they are defending them; then the emperor will advance at the head of a powerful army to rivet your fetters. Such is the war that they make on you, and that they seek to make. (Loud applause.)

"The people has sworn to maintain the const.i.tution, because in that lies its honour and its liberty; but if you suffer it to remain in a state of troubled immobility, that weakens its force and exhausts all our resources, will not the day of this exhaustion be the last of the const.i.tution? The state in which we are kept is one of annihilation that may lead us to disgrace or to death. (Applause.) To arms, citizens! to arms, freemen! defend your liberty! a.s.sure the hope of that liberty to the whole human race, or you will not deserve even pity in your misfortunes. (Applause.) We have no other allies than the eternal justice, whose rights we defend: but is it forbidden us to seek others, and to interest those powers who, like ourselves are threatened by the rupture of the equilibrium in Europe? No, doubtless, let us declare to the emperor, that from this moment all treaties are broken. (Vehement applause.) The emperor has himself violated them; and if he does not attack us, it is because he is not yet prepared; but he is unmasked; felicitate yourselves upon this. The eyes of Europe are fixed upon you, show them what is really the National a.s.sembly of France. If you display the dignity that befits the representatives of a great nation, you will gain esteem, applause, and a.s.sistance. If you evince weakness, if you do not avail yourselves of the occasion offered you by Providence, of freeing yourselves from a situation that fetters you, dread the degradation that is prepared for you by the hatred of Europe, of France, of your own time and of posterity. (Applause.) Do more; demand that your flag be respected beyond the Rhine; demand that the _emigres_ be dispersed. I might demand that they be given up to the country they insult, and to punishment. But no. If they have been greedy for our blood, let us not show ourselves greedy for theirs; their crime is having wished to destroy their country; let them be vagrants and wanderers on the face of the earth, and let their punishment be never to find a country. (Applause.) If the emperor delays to answer your demands, let all delay be deemed a refusal, and every refusal on his part to explain, a declaration of war. Attack whilst you yet may. If, in the Saxon wars, Frederic had temporised, the king of Prussia would at this moment be marquis of Brandenbourg, instead of disputing with Austria the balance of power in Germany which has escaped from your grasp.

"Up to this period you have only adopted half measures and I may well apply to you the language which Demosthenes addressed to the Athenians, under similar circ.u.mstances: 'You act towards the Macedonians,' said he, 'like the barbarians, who combat in our games, towards their adversaries; when they are struck on the arm they raise their hand to their arm; if struck on the head, they raise their hand to their head; they never dream of defending themselves when they are wounded, nor of parrying the blows dealt them. Does Philip take up arms, you do the same; does he lay them down, you also lay down yours. If he attack one of your allies, you immediately despatch a numerous army to the a.s.sistance of your ally. If he attack a city, you despatch a numerous army to the relief of the city. Does he again lay down his arms, you do the same, without thinking of any means of forestalling his ambition; and placing yourself beyond the reach of his attacks. Thus you are at the orders of your enemy, and he it is who commands your army.'

"And I, I tell you the same of the _emigres_. Do you hear that they are at Coblentz,--the citizens hasten to combat them; are they a.s.sembled on the banks of the Rhine,--two _corps d'armee_ are despatched thither; do foreign powers afford them shelter,--you propose to attack them; do you learn, on the contrary, that they have withdrawn to the north of Germany,--you lay down your arms; do they again offend you,--your indignation is again aroused; do they make you specious promises,--you are again appeased. Thus, it is the _emigres_ and the cabinets that support them--who are your leaders, and who dispose of your counsels, your treasures, and your armies. (Applause.) It is for you to consider whether this humiliating part be worthy of a great nation. A thought flashes across my mind, and with that I will terminate. It appears to me, that the manes of past generations arise, to conjure you, in the name of all the evils that slavery has inflicted on them, to preserve from it future generations, whose destinies are in your hands; fulfil this prayer, and be for the future a second providence. a.s.sociate yourself with the eternal justice that protects the people. By meriting the t.i.tle of benefactors of your country, you will also merit that of benefactors of the human race."

Loud and prolonged applause succeeded the different emotions that had been excited by this speech in every heart; for Vergniaud, following the example of the ancient orators, instead of suffering his eloquence to grow cold in political combinations, heated it at the flame of his daring genius. The people comprehends only that which it feels; its sole orators are those who excite it, and emotion is the conviction of the populace. Vergniaud felt this, and knew how to communicate it. The knowledge that they laboured for universal good, and the prospect of the grat.i.tude of future ages shed a halo--a n.o.ble pride around France, and of sanct.i.ty around liberty. It was one of the characteristics of this orator, that he almost invariably elevated the Revolution to the dignity of an apostleship, that he extended his humanity to all mankind, and that he only impa.s.sioned and worked upon the people by his virtues; such words produced an effect over all the empire, against which neither the king nor his ministers could strive.

XIV.

Moreover, as has been shown, Vergniaud and his party had friends in the council. M. de Narbonne and the Girondists met and concerted their plans at Madame de Stael's, whose _salon_, in which some warlike measure was always being discussed, was called the camp of the Revolution: the Abbe Fauchet, the denouncer of M. de Lessart, here imbibed fresh ardour for the overthrow of this minister. M. de Lessart, by weakening as much as possible the threats of the court of Vienna and the anger of the a.s.sembly, sought to gain time for better and wiser resolutions. His loyal attachment to Louis XVI., and his wise and prudent foresight, showed him that war would not restore, but shake the throne; and in this shock of Europe and France, the king would inevitably be crushed. The attachment of M. de Lessart to his master supplied the place of genius; he was the only obstacle in the path of the three parties who wished for war; it was necessary, at all risks, to remove him. He might have shielded himself by withdrawing from the contest, or by yielding to the impatience of the a.s.sembly. But, though fully aware of the terrible responsibility that rested on him, and that this responsibility was death, he braved all, to afford the king a few days more for negotiation.--These days were numbered.

BOOK XII.

I.

Leopold, a pacific and philosophic prince, who had he not been an emperor, would have been a revolutionist, had sought by every means in his power to adjourn the concussion between the two principles; he only demanded from France such concessions as would enable him to repress the ardour of Prussia, Germany, and Russia. The prince de Kaunitz, his minister, continually wrote to M. de Lessart in this strain; and the private communications which the king received from his amba.s.sador at the court of Vienna, the Marquis de Noailles, breathed the same spirit of conciliation. Leopold only desired that guarantees should be given to the monarchical powers for the establishment of order in France, and that the const.i.tution should be vigorously enforced by the executive power. But the last sittings of the a.s.sembly, the armaments of M. de Narbonne, the accusations of Brissot, the fiery speeches of Vergniaud, and the applause he had gained, began to weary his patience; and the desire for war, so long repressed, now, in spite of himself, took possession of him. "The French wish for war," said he one day; "they shall have it--they shall see that the peaceful Leopold can be warlike when the interest of his people demands it."

The cabinet councils at Vienna became more frequent, in presence of the emperor. Russia had just concluded peace with the Ottoman empire, and was thus enabled to turn her eyes to France; Sweden fanned the flame of all the princes; Prussia yielded to the advice of Leopold; England observed, but pledged herself to nothing, for the struggle on the Continent would increase her importance. The armaments were decided upon, and on the 7th of February, 1792, the definitive treaty of alliance between Austria and Prussia was signed at Berlin. "Now," wrote Leopold to Frederic William, "it is France who menaces--who arms--who provokes: Europe must arm."

The party in favour of war in Germany triumphed. "It is very fortunate for you," said the elector of Mayence to the Marquis de Bouille, "that the French were the aggressors; but for that we should never have had a war." War was resolved upon in the councils, yet Leopold still hoped. In an official note, which the prince de Kaunitz transmitted to the Marquis de Noailles, for the king, Leopold yet showed himself willing to be reconciled. M. de Lessart replied confidentially to these last overtures, in a despatch which he had the honesty to communicate to the diplomatic committee of the a.s.sembly, composed of Girondists. In this reply the minister palliated the charges made against the a.s.sembly by the emperor, and seemed rather to excuse France than justify. He acknowledged that there were some disturbances in the kingdom, some excesses in the clubs, some licence in the press; but he attributed these disorders to the excitement produced by the movements of the _emigres_, and the inexperience of a people who essay their const.i.tution and wound themselves with it.