Morning dawned on a demented city ; wild bands still paraded the streets, and were only prevented by good citizens, who mingled with them, from committing horrible excesses. One horde, however, succeeded in breaking into the convent of Saint-Lazare, “ the asylum of religion and humanity,” where, disregarding the entreaties of a white-haired priest who threw himself on his knees and begged them to spare the sacred precincts, they proceeded to pillage and destroy the library, laboratory, and pictures, and finally descending to the cellars broke open the casks of wine, gorging themselves with http://yamaguchy.netfirms.com/webster/frenchrev/fr_rev_02.html (25 of 66)5.4.2006 10:39:45
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the contents. Next day no less than thirty unfortunate wretches, both men and women, were carried dead or dying from the scene.
The news of this senseless outrage burst on Paris “ like a clap of thunder ” ; terrified tradesmen shut their shops, and good citizens once more barricaded themselves behind closed shutters. “ To the cries of fear,” say the Two Friends of Liberty, “ are added the tumultuous cries of several lawless bands, bold-eyed, and ready to dare and do anything, who rove through the streets and public places, and in whose hands the weapons they carry seem even more dangerous than those of the enemies ( i.e. the King’s troops !).
The moment was the more perilous since all the springs of public administration were broken, and Paris seemed abandoned to the mercy of whoever chose to make him self master.”[47] On the 13th of July the worst fears of the people were thus not caused by the
King’s troops but by the brigands, and further, the removal of all lawful authority added immensely to the panic.
When at ten o’clock of this dreadful morning the tocsin of the Hôtel de Ville rang out again it was, therefore, in no sense a signal of revolution, but a summons to all good citizens to take up arms in defence of their lives, their wives and children, and their property. [48] In this moment of real and immediate peril the imaginary menace of the
King’s troops was forgotten, and men of all classes, rich men, nobles, bourgeois and working-men alike, hastened to the Hôtel de Ville to demand arms for their defence.
Inevitably, however, a number of brigands and emissaries of the Palais Royal, who already that morning had burst into the Hôtel de Ville and carried off by force 360 guns, now mingled with the lawabiding citizens, and threw the authorities into a frightful predicament. They wished to arm the milice bourgeoise, yet not to reinforce the brigands. Bézenval, appealed to later in the day, flatly refused, declaring he could give up no arms without an order from the King ; [49] Flesselles, the provost-marshal, adopted
less courageous tactics and attempted to put the people off with fair words, temporizing as a father might do with a sick and fretful child that asked for a razor as a plaything : “ My friends, I am your father, you will be satisfied,” he told the frenzied multitude, and sent them in all directions to seek arms where none were to be found. For this he has been bitterly condemned by historians, yet what was the unfortunate Flesselles to do ?
An officer in charge of an arsenal suddenly confronted with a heterogeneous crowd of civilians clamouring for firearms, and threatened with death if he gives a direct refusal, must possess a very ready wit if he can hold his own diplomatically. Yet so far was Flesselles from wishing to thwart the good citizens of the milice bourgeoise, that he sent to Versailles for an order authorizing their equipment.
Versailles meanwhile was ill-informed of the progress of events in Paris. The http://yamaguchy.netfirms.com/webster/frenchrev/fr_rev_02.html (26 of 66)5.4.2006 10:39:45
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Assembly, persisting in its assertion that the tumult was caused solely by the presence of the troops, continued to send deputations to the King demanding their removal from the environs of Paris, whilst the King, seeing in the troubles of the capital only the work of the brigands,[50] held this to be no moment for the withdrawal of armed force, and
repeated his former statement that the troops were necessary for the defence of the citizens. Whilst heartily approving the formation of the milice bourgeoise,[51] he did not
consider this body of armed civilians sufficient to cope with the situation unsupported by regular troops, and therefore insisted on keeping the troops within reach of the city ready to come to the rescue if required. At the same time he replied to Flesselles’ message with an order authorizing the organization and equipment of 12,000 men for the milice bourgeoise, and naming the officers he desired to command these patriotic legions. “ What amazes us,” remarks M. Louis Madelin, “ is that this correspondence between Flesselles and the Court should have appeared next day, even to calm minds, as ‘ an unfortunate connivance sufficient to justify the massacre of the magistrate by the people.’ ”[52]
Before the King’s reply to Flesselles had reached the capital, however, the citizens had already formed the milice bourgeoise, and instead of 12,000 men enrolled 40,000, which they later increased to 48,000. These patriotic civilians at first showed themselves perfectly capable of maintaining order. All contemporaries, whether Royalist or revolutionary, speak of the admirable way in which the milice bourgeoise dealt with the situation. “ The magistrates assembled at the Hôtel de Ville, and the inhabitants of the several districts,” writes Dr. Rigby, “ were called together in the churches to deliberate upon the measures proper to be taken… . It was resolved that a certain number of the more respectable inhabitants should be enrolled and immediately take arms, that the magistrates should sit permanently at the Hôtel de Ville, and that committees, also permanent, should be formed in every district of Paris to convey intelligence to the magistrates and receive instructions from them. This important and most necessary resolution was executed with wonderful promptitude and unexampled good management.”
By the evening of the 13th order was, therefore, once more restored throughout the greater part of the city, but unfortunately the ringleaders were as usual left unimpeded to continue the work of insurrection. A few obscure wretches, mere tools of the conspirators, were hanged, having been handed over to justice by the men who had set them in motion, and who now proceeded to work up a fresh agitation at the Palais Royal and other revolutionary centres of the city. Once more the menace of the troops served as a pretext for inflaming the minds of the people, and the fact that throughout the day these same troops had remained completely inactive, had allowed the citizens to arm http://yamaguchy.netfirms.com/webster/frenchrev/fr_rev_02.html (27 of 66)5.4.2006 10:39:45
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without resistance and were even now preparing to withdraw from the neighbourhood of Paris, did not prevent this absurd alarm from gaining ground.
Amongst the most energetic of the panic-mongers on this day was a new recruit to the Orléaniste conspiracy, a young lawyer of peculiarly frightful appearance named Georges Jacques Danton, whose eloquence consisted in a form of noisy badinage that rendered him immensely popular at street corners. His massive head and somewhat Kalmuck features lent themselves singularly well to the violence of his oratory, as, now chaffing, now thundering, he kept his audience in good humour—that pleasure-loving Parisian audience that he, essentially the man of pleasure, understood so well.
Another lawyer, Lavaux, entering the convent of the Cordeliers, the centre of one of the new districts of Paris, found a mob orator in frenzied tones calling the citizens to arms in order to resist an army of 30,000 men who were preparing to march on Paris and massacre the inhabitants. Lavaux was surprised to recognize in this panic-monger his old colleague, Danton, and, never doubting his sincerity, took advantage of the orator pausing for breath to assure him that these fears were unfounded—he himself, Lavaux, had just returned from Versailles, where all was quiet. “ You do not understand,” Danton answered ; “ the sovereign people have risen against despotism. Be one of us.
The throne is overturned and your employment is gone. Think it well over.” [53]
There was in Danton a certain frankness that disarmed criticism ; he made no secret of the fact that in the Revolution he saw less the fulfilment of any political aspirations than the opportunity for pleasure and profit.[54] “ Young man,” he said later on at the Cordeliers to Royer Collard, “ come and bellow with us ; when you have made your fortune you can then follow whichever party suits you best.” [55]
That Danton was definitely financed by the Duc d’Orléans was not only the belief of his political adversaries but the general opinion of Paris. When in August 1790 he sought election as a “ notable ” of the Constitutional Commune of Paris, he was reported to be “ a paid and perfidious agent of the Duc d’Orléans,” and rejected for his venality by forty-two out of forty-eight sections of Paris. [56] Even M. Louis Madelin, who admires
Danton, is unable to clear him from this charge : “ The most generally received opinion was that the Duc d’Orléans supported Danton. If we admit that he was paid, it is there, I think, that we must seek the principal payer.” And he adds this sentence that in a word sums up Danton’s political creed : “ Danton was all his life an Orléaniste.”[57] After such an admission it is idle to accredit Danton with either patriotism or disinterestedness ; that any man who loved his country could sincerely believe he was working for its good in attempting to replace the honest and benevolent Louis XVI. by the corrupt and despotic Duc d’Orléans is inconceivable. The popular conception of http://yamaguchy.netfirms.com/webster/frenchrev/fr_rev_02.html (28 of 66)5.4.2006 10:39:45
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Danton as a patriot burning with zeal for liberty and the Republic is therefore based on a fallacy ; Danton was neither a democrat nor a Republican, but a paid agitator of the party who would have instituted a far worse despotism than France had ever before endured.
Already on this 13th of July a triumph had been secured by the conspirators ; the green cockade was discarded as representing the colours of the Comte d’Artois, and red, white, and blue, the livery of the Duc d’Orléans, substituted as the emblem of liberty. The fact that these were also the colours of the town of Paris was a fortunate coincidence that served to veil the manœuvre. [58]
Throughout the night that followed the leaders of the conspiracy were at work organizing the insurrection of the morrow. A plan of attack on the Bastille had already been drawn up, [59] it only remained now to set the people in motion. This was to be
effected by circulating the news early in the morning that the troops were advancing on the city and that the citizens were to be bombarded from within by the cannons of the Bastille. The members of the “ committee of electors ” at the Hôtel de Ville were now denounced as traitors to the country,[60] and the death of Flesselles was ordained.[61] A further list of proscriptions included the Comte d’Artois, the Prince de Condé, the Maréchal de Broglie, the Prince de Lambesc, the Baron de Bézenval, Foullon and Berthier,[62] and the people were to be made to carry out these vengeances of the
demagogues by the same means that had been employed in the case of Réveillon, that is to say, by affixing to each victim a calumny calculated to rouse the fury of the mob.
Thus Broglie, Bézenval, and Lambesc, whose real crime in the eyes of the demagogues was to have ensured the safe transit of supplies into Paris, were to be accused of plotting with “ the Court ” to massacre the citizens ; Foullon, for whose condemnation we have already seen the reason, was to be declared to have said that “ if the people had no bread, they could eat hay ” ; his son-in-law, Berthier, whose untiring energy in combating the famine had seriously obstructed the designs of the conspirators, was to be denounced to the people as “ a monopolizer of grain,” and in the case of Flesselles, whose sole crime was loyalty to the King, a forged note was prepared in order to inflame the minds of the populace. For the murder of the Comte d’Artois no pretext was needed ; the principal, perhaps the only truly reactionary member of the Royal family, he was already too unpopular to require calumniating, and a placard offering a reward for his head was boldly affixed at the street corners.[63]
It will be seen, therefore, that the motives that inspired the demagogues were totally different from those acted on by the people, and this fact explains the confused and frequently abortive nature of the succeeding revolutionary tumults. The leaders had http://yamaguchy.netfirms.com/webster/frenchrev/fr_rev_02.html (29 of 66)5.4.2006 10:39:45
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planned that the mob should do one thing, and the mob, not being in the secret, did another, hence the apparently inexplicable and pointless crimes that took place.
Amongst these, we shall see, was the massacre of the garrison at the Bastille, which had not been ordained by the Palais Royal.