The Life Of Thomas Paine Volume I Part 25

There is no lack of personal cordiality in this letter, but one may recognize in its ingenious vagueness, in its omission of any acknowledgment of the dedication of Paine's book, that he mistrusts the European revolution and its American allies.

CHAPTER XXI. FOUNDING THE EUROPEAN REPUBLIC

It has already been mentioned that John Adams had been proclaimed in France the author of "Common Sense."* The true author was now known, but, as the anti-monarchal parts of his work were expurgated, Paine, in turn, was supposed to be a kind of John Adams--a revolutionary royalist.

This misunderstanding was personally distasteful, but it had the important compensation of enabling Paine to come before Europe with a work adapted to its conditions, essentially different from those of America to which "Common Sense" was addressed in 1776. It was a matter of indifference to him whether the individual executive was called "King "or "President." He objected to the thing, not the name, but as republican superst.i.tion had insisted on it in America there was little doubt that France would follow the example. Under these circ.u.mstances Paine made up his mind that the republican principle would not be lost by the harmonizing policy of preserving the nominal and ornamental king while abolishing his sovereignty. The erection of a tremendous presidential power in the United States might well suggest to so staunch a supporter of ministerial government that this substance might be secured under a show of royalty. Dr. Robinet considers it a remarkable "prophecy" that Paine should have written in 1787 of an approaching alliance of "the Majesty of the Sovereign with the Majesty of the Nation" in France. This was opposed to the theories of Jefferson, but it was the scheme of Mirabeau, the hope of Lafayette, and had not the throne been rotten this prudent policy might have succeeded. It was with an eye to France as well as to England that Paine, in his reply to Burke, had so carefully distinguished between executive sovereignty subject to law and personal monarchy.

* "When I arrived in France, the French naturally had a great many questions to settle. The first was whether I was the famous Adams, 'Ah, le fameux Adams.' In order to speculate a little upon this subject, the pamphlet 'Common Sense' had been printed in the 'Affaires de l'Angle-terre et de l'Amerique,' and expressly ascribed to Mr. Adams, 'the celebrated member of Congress.' It must be further known that although the pamphlet 'Common Sense' was received in France and in all Europe with rapture, yet there were certain parts of it that they did not dare to publish in France. The reasons of this any man may guess. 'Common Sense' undertakes to prove that monarchy is unlawful by the Old Testament They therefore gave the substance of it, as they said; and paying many compliments to Mr. Adams, his sense and rich imagination, they were obliged to ascribe some parts of it to republican zeal. When I arrived at Bordeaux all that I could say or do would not convince anybody but that I was the fameux Adams. 'C'est un homme calibre. Votre nom est bien connu ici.'"--"Works of John Adams," vol. iii., p. 189. This was in 1779, and when Adams entered on his official duties at Paris the honors thrust upon him at Bordeaux became burdensome.

When the last proof of his book was revised Paine sped to Paris, and placed it in the hand of his friend M. Lanthenas for translation.

Mirabeau was on his death-bed, and Paine witnessed that historic procession, four miles long, which bore the orator to his shrine.

Witnessed it with relief, perhaps, for he is ominously silent concerning Mirabeau. With others he strained his eyes to see the Coming Man; with others he sees formidable Danton glaring at Lafayette; and presently sees advancing softly between them the sentimental, philanthropic--Robespierre.

It was a happy hour for Paine when, on a day in May, he saw Robespierre rise in the National a.s.sembly to propose abolition of the death penalty. How sweet this echo of the old "testimonies" of Thetford Quaker meetings. "Capital punishment," cries Robespierre, "is but a base a.s.sa.s.sination--punishing one crime by another, murder with murder. Since judges are not infallible they have no right to p.r.o.nounce irreparable sentences." He is seconded by the jurist Duport, who says impressively: "Let us at least make revolutionary scenes as little tragic as possible!

Let us render man honorable to man!" Marat, right man for the role, answered with the barbaric demand "blood for blood," and prevailed. But Paine was won over to Robespierre by this humane enthusiasm. The day was to come when he must confront Robespierre with a memory of this scene.

That Robespierre would supersede Lafayette Paine could little imagine.

The King was in the charge of the great friend of America, and never had country a fairer prospect than France in those beautiful spring days.

But the royal family fled. In the early morning of June 21st Lafayette burst into Paine's bedroom, before he was up, and cried: "The birds are flown!" "It is well," said Paine; "I hope there will be no attempt to recall them." Hastily dressing, he rushed out into the street, and found the people in uproar. They were clamoring as if some great loss had befallen them. At the Hotel deVille Lafayette was menaced by the crowd, which accused him of having a.s.sisted the King's flight, and could only answer them: "What are you complaining of? Each of you saves twenty sous tax by suppression of the Civil List." Paine encounters his friend Thomas Christie. "You see," he said, "the absurdity of monarchical governments; here will be a whole nation disturbed by the folly of one man."*

* The letter of Christie (Priestley's nephew), written June 22d, appeared in the London Morning Chronicle, June 29th.

Here was Marat's opportunity. His journal, _L'Ami du Peuple_, clamored for a dictator, and for the head of Lafayette. Against him rose young Bonneville, who, in _La Bouche de Fer_ wrote: "No more kings! No dictator! a.s.semble the People in the face of the sun; proclaim that the Law alone shall be sovereign,--the Law, the Law alone, and made for all!"

Bonneville's words in his journal about that time were apt to be translations from the works of his friend Paine, with whom his life was afterwards so closely interwoven. The little group of men who had studied Paine, ardent republicans, beheld a nation suddenly become frantic to recover a king who could not be of the slightest value to any party in the state. The miserable man had left a letter denouncing all the liberal measures he had signed since October, 1789, which sealed his doom as a monarch. The appalling fact was revealed that the most powerful revolutionists--Robespierre and Marat especially--had never considered a Republic, and did not know what it was.

On June 25th, Paine was a heavy-hearted spectator of the return of the arrested king. He had personal realization that day of the folly of a people in bringing back a king who had relieved them of his presence. He had omitted to decorate his hat with a c.o.c.kade, and the mob fell on him with cries of "Aristocrat! a la lanterne!" After some rough handling he was rescued by a Frenchman who spoke English, and explained the accidental character of the offence. Poor Paine's Quaker training had not included the importance of badges, else the incident had revealed to him that even the popular rage against Louis was superst.i.tious homage to a c.o.c.kade. Never did friend of the people have severer proofs that they are generally wrong. In America, while writing as with his heart's blood the first plea for its independence, he was "shadowed" as a British spy; and in France he narrowly escapes the aristocrat's lantern, at the very moment when he was founding the first republican society, and writing its declaration.

This "Societe Republicaine," as yet of five members, inaugurated itself on July 1st, by placarding Paris with its manifesto, which was even nailed on the door of the National a.s.sembly.

"Brethren and fellow citizens:

"The serene tranquillity, the mutual confidence which prevailed amongst us, during the time of the late King's escape, the indifference with which we beheld him return, are unequivocal proofs that the absence of a King is more desirable than his presence, and that he is not only a political superfluity, but a grievous burden, pressing hard on the whole nation.

"Let us not be imposed upon by sophisms; all that concerns this is reduced to four points.

"He has abdicated the throne in having fled from his post. Abdication and desertion are not characterized by the length of absence; but by the single act of flight. In the present instance, the act is everything, and the time nothing.

"The nation can never give back its confidence to a man who false to his trust, perjured to his oath, conspires a clandestine flight, obtains a fraudulent pa.s.sport, conceals a King of France under the disguise of a valet, directs his course towards a frontier covered with traitors and deserters, and evidently meditates a return into our country, with a force capable of imposing his own despotic laws.

"Whether ought his flight to be considered as his own act, or the act of those who fled with him? Was it a spontaneous resolution of his own, or was it inspired into him by others? The alternative is immaterial; whether fool or hypocrite, idiot or traitor, he has proved himself equally unworthy of the important functions that had been delegated to him.

"In every sense that the question can be considered, the reciprocal obligation which subsisted between us is dissolved. He holds no longer any authority. We owe him no longer obedience. We see in him no more than an indifferent person; we can regard him only as Louis Capet.

"The history of France presents little else than a long series of public calamity, which takes its source from the vices of the Kings; we have been the wretched victims that have never ceased to suffer either for them or by them. The catalogue of their oppressions was complete, but to complete the sum of their crimes, treason yet was wanting. Now the only vacancy is filled up, the dreadful list is full; the system is exhausted; there are no remaining errors for them to commit, their reign is consequently at an end.

"What kind of office must that be in a government which requires neither experience nor ability to execute? that may be abandoned to the desperate chance of birth, that may be filled with an idiot, a madman, a tyrant, with equal effect as by the good, the virtuous, and the wise? An office of this nature is a mere nonent.i.ty: it is a place of show, not of use. Let France then, arrived at the age of reason, no longer be deluded by the sound of words, and let her deliberately examine, if a King, however insignificant and contemptible in himself, may not at the same time be extremely dangerous.

"The thirty millions which it costs to support a King in the eclat of stupid brutal luxury, presents us with an easy method of reducing taxes, which reduction would at once release the people, and stop the progress of political corruption. The grandeur of nations consists, not, as Kings pretend, in the splendor of thrones, but in a conspicuous sense of their own dignity, and in a just disdain of those barbarous follies and crimes, which, under the sanction of royalty have hitherto desolated Europe.

"As to the personal safety of Louis Capet, it is so much the more confirmed, as France will not stoop to degrade herself by a spirit of revenge against a wretch who has dishonored himself. In defending a just and glorious cause, it is not possible to degrade it, and the universal tranquillity which prevails is an undeniable proof, that a free people know how to respect themselves."

Malouet, a leading royalist member, tore down the handbill, and, having ascertained its author, demanded the prosecution of Thomas Paine and Achille Duchatelet. He was vehemently supported by Martineau, deputy of Paris, and for a time there was a tremendous agitation. The majority, not prepared to commit themselves to anything at all.

* "How great is a calm, couchant people! On the morrow men will say to one another, 'We have no king, yet we slept sound enough.' On the morrow Achille Duchatelet, and Thomas Paine, the rebellious needleman, shall have the walls of Paris profusely plastered with their placard, announcing that there must be a republic."--Carlyle.

Dumont ("Recollections of Mirabeau") gives a particular account of this paper, which Duchatelet wished him to translate. "Paine and he, the one an American, the other a young thoughtless member of the French n.o.bility, put themselves forward to change the whole system of government in France." Lafayette had been sounded, but said it would take twenty years to bring freedom to maturity in France. "But some of the seed thrown out by the audacious hand of Paine began to bud forth in the minds of many leading individuals." (E. g. Condorcet, Brissot, Petion, Claviere.) voted the order of the day, affecting, says Henri Martin, a disdain that hid embarra.s.sment and inquietude.

This doc.u.ment, destined to reappear in a farther crisis, and the royalist rage, raised Paine's Republican Club to vast importance. Even the Jacobins, who had formally declined to sanction republicanism, were troubled by the discovery of a society more radical than themselves. It was only some years later that it was made known (by Paine) that this formidable a.s.sociation consisted of five members, and it is still doubtful who these were. Certainly Paine, Achille Duchatelet, and Condorcet; probably also Brissot, and Nicolas Bonneville. In order to avail itself of this tide of fame, the Societe Republicaine started a journal,--_The Republican._* The time was not ripe, however; only one copy appeared; that, however, contained a letter by Paine, written in June, which excited considerable flutter. To the reader of to-day it is mainly interesting as showing Paine's perception that the French required instruction in the alphabet of republicanism; but, amid its studied moderation, there was a paragraph which the situation rendered pregnant:

* "Le Republicain; on le defenseur du gouvernement Representatif; par une Societe des Republicans. A Paris.

July 1791. No. 1."

"Whenever the French Const.i.tution shall be rendered conformable to its declaration of rights, we shall then be enabled to give to France, and with justice, the appellation of a _Civic Empire_; for its government will be the empire of laws, founded on the great republican principles of _elective representation_ and the rights of man. But monarchy and hereditary succession are incompatible with the _basis_ of its Const.i.tution."

Now this was the very const.i.tution which Paine, in his answer to Burke, had made comparatively presentable; to this day it survives in human memory mainly through indulgent citations in "The Rights of Man." Those angels who, in the celestial war, tried to keep friendly with both sides, had human counterparts in France, their const.i.tutional oracle being the Abbe Sieves. He had entered warmly into the Revolution, invented the name "National a.s.sembly," opposed the veto power, supported the Declaration of Rights. But he had a superst.i.tious faith in individual executive, which, as an opportunist, he proposed to vest in the reigning house. This cla.s.s of "survivals" in the const.i.tution were the work of Sieyes, who was the brain of the Jacobins, now led by Robespierre, and with him ignoring republicanism for no better reason than that their t.i.tle was "Societe des Amis de la Const.i.tution."* Sieyes petted his const.i.tution maternally, perhaps because n.o.body else loved it, and bristled at Paine's criticism. He wrote a letter to the _Moniteur_, a.s.serting that there was more liberty under a monarchy than under a republic He announced his intention of maintaining monarchical executive against the new party started into life by the King's flight.

In the same journal (July 8th,) Paine accepts the challenge "with pleasure."** Paine himself was something of an opportunist; as in America he had favored reconciliation with George III. up to the Lexington ma.s.sacre, so had he desired a _modus vivendi_ with Louis XVI.

up to his flight.* But now he unfurls the anti-monarchical flag.

* The club, founded in 1789, was called "Jacobin," because they met in the hall of the Dominicans, who had been called Jacobins from the street St. Jacques in which they were first established, anno 1219.

** It was probably this letter that Gouverneur Morris alludes to in his "Diary," when, writing of a Fourth of July dinner given by Mr. Short (U. S. Charge d'Affaires), he mentions the presence of Paine, "inflated to the eyes and big with a letter of Revolutions."

*** In this spirit was written Part I. of "The Rights of Man" whose translation by M. Lanthenas, with new preface, appeared in May. Sieyes agreed that "hereditaryship" was theoretically wrong, "but," he said, "refer to the histories of all elective monarchies and princ.i.p.alities: is there one in which the elective mode is not worse than the hereditary succession?" For notes on this incident see Professor F. A.

Aulard's important work, "Les Orateurs de l'a.s.semblee Const.i.tuante," p. 411. Also Henri Martin's "Histoire de France," i., p. 193.

"I am not the personal enemy of Kings. Quite the contrary. No man wishes more heartily than myself to see them all in the happy and honorable state of private individuals; but I am the avowed, open, and intrepid enemy of what is called monarchy; and I am such by principles which nothing can either alter or corrupt--by my attachment to humanity; by the anxiety which I feel within myself for the dignity and honor of the human race; by the disgust which I experience when I observe men directed by children and governed by brutes; by the horror which all the evils that monarchy has spread over the earth excite within my breast; and by those sentiments which make me shudder at the calamities, the exactions, the wars, and the ma.s.sacres with which monarchy has crushed mankind: in short, it is against all the h.e.l.l of monarchy that I have declared war."

In reply Sieyes used the terms "monarchy" and "republic" in unusual senses. He defines "republic" as a government in which the executive power is lodged in more than one person, "monarchy" as one where it is entrusted to one only. He a.s.serted that while he was in this sense a monarchist Paine was a "polycrat." In a republic all action must finally lodge in an executive council deciding by majority, and nominated by the people or the National a.s.sembly. Sieyes did not, however, care to enter the lists. "My letter does not announce that I have leisure to enter into a controversy with republican _polycrats_."

Paine now set out for London. He travelled with Lord Daer and Etienne Dumont, Mirabeau's secretary. Dumont had a pique against Paine, whose republican manifesto had upset a literary scheme of his,--to evoke Mirabeau from the tomb and make him explain to the National a.s.sembly that the King's flight was a court plot, that they should free Louis XVI. from aristocratic captivity, and support him. But on reading the Paine placard, "I determined," says Dumont, "for fear of evil consequences to myself, to make Mirabeau return to his tomb."* Dumont protests that Paine was fully convinced that the world would be benefited if all other books were burned except "The Rights of Man,"

and no doubt the republican apostle had a sublime faith in the sacred character of his "testimonies" against kings. Without attempting to determine whether this was the self-reliance of humility or egoism, it may be safely affirmed that it was that which made Paine's strokes so effective.

* "Souvenirs sur Mirabeau." Par Etienne Dumont.

It may also be remarked again that Paine showed a prudence with which he has not been credited. Thus, there is little doubt that this return to London was in pursuance of an invitation to attend a celebration of the second anniversary of the fall of the Bastille. He arrived at the White Bear, Piccadilly, the day before (July 13th), but on finding that there was much excitement about his republican manifesto in France he concluded that his presence at the meeting might connect it with movements across the Channel, and did not attend. Equal prudence was not, however, displayed by his opponents, who induced the landlord of the Crown and Anchor to close his doors against the advertised meeting.

This effort to prevent the free a.s.semblage of Englishmen, and for the humane purpose of celebrating the destruction of a prison whose horrors had excited popular indignation, caused general anger. After due consideration it was deemed opportune for those who sympathized with the movement in France to issue a manifesto on the subject. It was written by Paine, and adopted by a meeting held at the Thatched House Tavern, August 20th, being signed by John Home Tooke, as Chairman. This "Address and Declaration of the Friends of Universal Peace and Liberty," though preceded by the vigorous "Declaration of the Volunteers of Belfast,"

quoted in its second paragraph, was the earliest warning England received that the revolution was now its grim guest.

"Friends and Fellow Citizens: At a moment like the present, when wilful misrepresentations are industriously spread by partizans of arbitrary power and the advocates of pa.s.sive obedience and court government, we think it inc.u.mbent upon us to declare to the world our principles, and the motives of our conduct.

"We rejoice at the glorious event of the French revolution. If it be asked, 'What is the French revolution to us?' we answer as has already been answered in another place, 'It is much--much to us as men; much to us as Englishmen. As men, we rejoice in the freedom of twenty-five millions of men.

"We rejoice in the prospect which such a magnificent example opens to the world.'