The Evolution of an Empire: A Brief Historical Sketch of France Part 5

CHAPTER XI.

Louis XV. was dead, and two children, with the light-heartedness of youth and inexperience, stepped upon the throne which was to be a scaffold--Louis XVI., only twenty, and Marie Antoinette, his wife, nineteen. He, amiable, kind, full of generous intentions; she, beautiful, simple, child-like and lovely. Instead of a debauched old King with depraved surroundings, here were a Prince and Princess out of a fairy-tale. The air was filled with indefinite promise of a new era for mankind to be inaugurated by this amiable young king, whose kindness of heart shone forth in his first speech, "We will have no more loans, no credit, no fresh burdens on the people;" then, leaving his ministers to devise ways of paying the enormous salaries of officials out of an empty treasury, and to arrange the financial details of his benevolent scheme of government, he proceeded with his gay and brilliant young wife to Rheims, there to be crowned with a magnificence undreamed of by Louis XIV.

In the midst of these rejoicings over the new reign, and of speculative dreams of universal freedom, there was wafted across the Atlantic news of a handful of patriots arrayed against the tyranny of the British Crown. Here were the theories of the new philosophy translated into the reality of actual experience. "No taxation without representation," "No privileged cla.s.s," "No government without the consent of the governed." Was this not an embodiment of their dreams?

Nor did it detract from the interest in the conflict that England--England, the hated rival of France, was defied by an indignant people of her own race. There was not a young n.o.ble in the land who would not have rushed if he could to the defence of the outraged colonies.

The King, half doubting, and vaguely fearing, was swept into the current, and the armies and the courage of the Americans were splendidly reinforced by generous, enthusiastic France.

Why should the simple-hearted Louis see what no one else seemed to see: that victory or failure were alike full of peril for France? If the colonies were conquered, France would feel the vengeance of England; if they were freed and self-governing, the principle of Monarchy had a staggering blow.

In the mean time, as the American Revolution moved on toward success, there was talk in the cabin as well as the _chateau_ of the "rights of man." In shops and barns, as well as in clubs and drawing-rooms, there was a glimmering of the coming day.

"What is true upon one continent is true upon another," say they. "If it is cowardly to submit to tyranny in America, what is it in France?"

"If Englishmen may revolt against oppression, why may not Frenchmen?"

"No government without the consent of the governed, eh? When has our consent been asked, the consent of twenty-five million people? Are we sheep, that we have let a few thousands govern us for a thousand years, _without_ our consent?"

Poverty and hunger gave force and urgency to these questions. The people began to clamor more boldly for the good time which had been promised by the kind-hearted King. The murmur swelled to an ominous roar. Thousands were at his very palace gates, telling him in no unmistakable terms that they were tired of smooth words and fair promises. What they wanted was a new const.i.tution and--bread.

Poor Louis! the one could be made with pen and paper; but by what miracle could he produce the other? How gladly would he have given them anything. But what could he do? There was not enough money to pay the salaries of his officials, nor for his gay young Queen's fetes and b.a.l.l.s! The old way would have been to impose new taxes. But how could he tax a people crying at his gates for bread? He made more promises which he could not keep; yielded, one after another, concessions of authority and dignity; then vacillated, and tried to return over the slippery path, only to be dragged on again by an irresistible fate.

When Louis XVI. convoked the States-General, he made his last concession to the demands of his subjects.

That almost-forgotten body had not been seen since Richelieu effaced all the auxiliary functions of government. n.o.bles, ecclesiastics, and _tiers etat_ (or commons) found themselves face to face once more. The handsome contemptuous n.o.bles, the princely ecclesiastics were unchanged--but there was a new expression in the pale faces of the commons. There was a look of calm defiance as they met the disdainful gaze of the aristocrats across the gulf of two centuries.

The two superior bodies absolutely refused to sit in the same room with the commons. They might under the same roof, but in the same room--never.

No outburst met this insult. With marvellous self-control and dignity, and with an ominous calm, the commons const.i.tuted themselves into the "National a.s.sembly."

Aristocratic France had committed its concluding act of arrogance and folly. And when poor distracted Louis gave impotent order for the a.s.sembly to disperse, he committed suicide. Louis the man lived on to be slain by the people three years later, but Louis the King died at that moment.

When the a.s.sembly defied his authority and continued to solemnly act as if he had not spoken, the power had pa.s.sed to the people. They were sovereign.

Paris was in wild excitement; and a rumor that troops were marching upon the a.s.sembly to disperse it converted excitement into madness.

The populace marched toward the Bastille, and in another hour the heads of the Governor and his officials were being carried on pikes through the streets of Paris.

The horrible drama had opened, and events developed with the swiftness of a falling avalanche. Louis might have followed his fleeing n.o.bles.

But always vacillating, and "letting I dare not wait upon I would," the opportunity was lost. He and his family were prisoners in the "Temple," while an awful travesty upon a court of justice was sending out death-warrants for his friends and adherents faster than the guillotine could devour them.

More and more furious swept the torrent, gathering to itself all that was vile and outcast. Where were the pale-faced, determined patriots who sat in the "National a.s.sembly"? Some of them riding with Dukes and Marquises to the guillotine. Was this the equality they expected when they cried "Down with the Aristocrats"?

Did they think they could guide the whirlwind after raising it? As well whisper to the cyclone to level only the tall trees, or to the conflagration to burn only the temples and palaces.

With restraining agencies removed, religion, government, King, all swept away, that hideous brood born of vice, poverty, hatred, and despair came out from dark hiding-places; and what had commenced as a patriotic revolt had become a wild orgie of bloodthirsty demons, led by three master-demons, Robespierre, Marat, and Danton, vying with each other in ferocity.

Then we see that simple girl thinking by one supreme act of heroism and sacrifice, like Joan of Arc, to save her country. Foolish child! Did she think to slay the monster devouring Paris by cutting off one of his heads? The death of Marat only added to the fury of the tempest; and the falling of Charlotte Corday's head was not more noticed than the falling of a leaf in the forest.

On the 21st of January, 1793, Louis XVI. embraced for the last time his adored wife and children; then, with every possible indignity, was strapped to a plank and shoved under the guillotine.

The kindest-hearted, most inoffensive gentleman in Europe had expiated the crimes of his ancestors.

A few months later, Marie Antoinette, daughter of the proud Empress Maria Theresa, and child of the Caesars, was borne along the same road.

And how bravely she met her awful fate! We forget her follies, her reckless grasping after pleasures, in view of her horrible sufferings and in admiration of her courage as she rides to her death; sitting in that hideous tumbril, head erect, pale, proud, defiant, as if upon a throne.

With the death of the King and Queen the madness had reached its height, and a revulsion of feeling set in. There was a surfeit of blood, and an awakening sense of horror, which turned upon the instigators. Danton fell, and finally, when amid cries of "Death to the tyrant!" Robespierre was dragged wounded and shivering to the fate he had brought upon so many thousands, the drama which had opened at the Bastille was fittingly closed.

The great battle for human liberty had been fought and won. Religious freedom and political freedom were identical in principle. The right of the human conscience proclaimed by Luther in 1517 had in 1793 only expanded into the large conception of all the inherent rights of the _individual_.

It had taken centuries for English persistence to accomplish what France, with such appalling violence, had done in as many years. It had been a furious outburst of pent-up force; but the work had been thorough. Not a germ of tyranny remained. The incrustations of a thousand years were not alone broken, but pulverized; the privileged cla.s.ses were swept away, and their vast estates, two-thirds of the territory of France, ready to be distributed among the rightful owners of the soil, those who by toil and industry could win them. France was as new as if she had no history. There was ample opportunity for her people now. What would they do with it?

CHAPTER XII.

It is strange to read that the armies went on fighting battles automatically, even while there was no central head to direct them.

While the ghastly scenes were enacting in Paris, and while Josephine de Beauharnais was at the Conciergerie listening with blanched face to the call of her husband's name on the death roll for the day, a young lieutenant of artillery, only twenty-four years old, was at Toulon, winning his first military honors. He would have been thought a strange prophet who had said that in less than ten years the young Corsican lieutenant would be Emperor, and the prisoner at the Conciergerie Empress of the French! Nor did M. de Beauharnais, as he rode to execution, dream that forty-five years later his grandson would over the same stones be borne to his coronation.

In the anarchy which prevailed after the Revolution, the young hero of Toulon was called upon to quell a riot in Paris. The people realized they had met a master. For twenty-five years from that day, the history of France, and indeed of Europe, was that of one man, Napoleon Bonaparte. Commander-in-chief of the Army, then First Consul of the Republic, then Emperor--the steps in his ascent were as rapid and as bewildering as the movements in one of his own campaigns. France, groping about helplessly among the wreckage of the past, believed what she most desired was _liberty_ and _self-government_.

This Italian, who was a French citizen even only by merest accident, knew her better than she did herself, and that what she really wanted was a fresh mantle of glory to cover her humiliation, and--a master.

Leading a broken, unpaid, half-clothed army into Italy, he electrified France and all Europe. Before the world had really found out who he was, and whence he had come, he had conquered all of Northern Italy, part of Austria and Belgium, had created a Cisalpine Republic out of the fragments, and was making treaties and dictating terms to kings and princes.

France, discredited and almost disgraced among the monarchies of Europe, found herself suddenly feared and glorious. Napoleon had captured the most imaginative and military people in Europe. The rest of the way was easy. Prudent, discreet, knowing when to wait, and when to come down like an avalanche, this marvellous man held France in his hands, and placed Europe under his feet.

The people which had exerted such superhuman effort for freedom were held by a hand more despotic than Richelieu's, more destructive to popular freedom than that of Louis XIV.; and the more absolute his rule, the more overpowering his authority, the better pleased they seemed to be.

But, was there not equal opportunity for every man in the Empire?

Every soldier's knapsack, might it not hold a Marshal's baton? Was not the Emperor himself a living ill.u.s.tration of what a man from the people might become? And then what did it mean to Frenchmen to be suddenly lifted to dazzling ascendancy in Europe? Who would not willingly serve a master who could bring Hapsburg, Hohenzollern, Romanoff, Bourbon, crouching at his feet--who could tear down states, and set them up, and if an extra throne were needed for a retainer, could carve a new state from territory of friend and foe alike, and place a diadem upon every head in his domestic or military household? It was the most stupendous display of personal power ever beheld, England alone standing upright in his presence, and in the end accomplishing his ruin.

When Austria with a reluctant shudder bestowed her princess upon the invincible parvenu, and when France with regretful pity saw the adored Josephine set aside for that disdainful royal maiden, Marie Louise, at that moment Napoleon pa.s.sed the meridian of his greatness.

It had taken just fifteen years to make the most astonishing and dazzling chapter in French history; and then came "Moscow" and "Elba,"

to be quickly followed by "Waterloo" and "St. Helena." And then for France--most incomprehensible of all--a return to the Bourbons! It had required the greatest tragedy of modern times to get rid of them, and here they were again, Louis XVIII. and Charles X., as overbearing and as arrogant as if their brother's head had not dropped into a basket in 1793. When somebody said of the Bourbons "they learn nothing and forget nothing," he was inaccurate. They had certainly forgotten the French Revolution.

But death removed the first, and popular sentiment the second, of these relics of an obsolete past. And a new experiment was tried. This time it was the son of _Philippe Egalite_, that wickedest of all the regicides, who came smiling and bowing before the people as a popular sovereign, who would beneficently rule under a liberal const.i.tution.

Whatever his father had been, Louis Philippe was far from being a wicked man. Whether teaching school in Switzerland, or giving French lessons in America, or wearing the kingly crown in France, he was the kindest hearted, most inoffensive of gentlemen.

When in the pre-revolutionary days we read of France making war, it means that the King, or his minister, with more or less deference to the will of a few thousand n.o.bles, did so. They are the France referred to. The real France was not consulted and had nothing to do with it, unless it were to fill the ranks with fathers, sons, and husbands, and then pay the taxes imposed to support them. But times were changed. Under a const.i.tutional monarchy, the King does not govern; he reigns. Louis Philippe was King of the French,--not of France. He was chosen by the people as their ornamental figurehead.

But what if he ceased to be ornamental? What was the use of a King who in eighteen years had added not a single ray of glory to the national name, but who was using his high position to increase his enormous private fortune, and incessantly begging an impoverished country for benefits and emoluments for five sons?

An excellent father, truly, though a short-sighted one. His power had no roots. The cutting from the Orleans tree had never taken hold upon the soil, and toppled over at the sound of Lamartine's voice proclaiming a Republic from the balcony of the "Hotel de Ville."

When invited to step down from his royal throne, he did so on the instant. Never did King succ.u.mb with such alacrity, and never did retiring royalty look less imposing, than when Louis Philippe was in hiding at Havre under the name of "William Smith," waiting for safe convoy to England, without having struck one blow in defence of his throne.

But three terrible words had floated into the open windows of the Tuileries. With the echoes of 1792 still sounding in his ears, "Liberty," "Fraternity," and "Equality," shouted in the streets of Paris, had not a pleasant sound!