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So ended the Revolution of July, and what had it brought to the people ? To the immense majority, unaffected as we have seen by lettres de cachet, the destruction of the Bastille meant no more than the destruction of the Tower of London would mean to-day to the inhabitants of Whitechapel. Indeed, certain amongst them shrewdly recognized that in attacking it they were fighting for a cause that was not their own. The Abbé Rudemare, walking amongst the ruins of the Bastille the day after the siege, came upon a workman engaged in the task of demolition who brusquely accosted him with the words : “ Mon chevalier, vous ne direz pas que c’est pour nous que nous travaillons ; c’est bien pour vous, car nous autres, nous ne tâtions pas de la Bastille on nous f … à Bicêtre. N’y a-t-il rien pour boire à votre santé ? ”[108]
The people had indeed admirably served the design of the conspirators, taking on themselves all the risks and facing all the dangers of revolt, whilst the men who had worked them up to violence remained discreetly in the background. Now, in all the great outbreaks of the Revolution we shall find that the mechanism was threefold, consisting of, firstly, the Instigators ; secondly, the Agitators, and thirdly, the Instruments ; and of these three classes only the last two incurred any danger. Thus at the siege of the Bastille the mob and its leaders alone took part in the battle, whilst the Instigators prudently effaced themselves. For the rôle of the Instigators was not to lead insurrection but only to provoke it, and having laid the mine to retreat into safety the moment it produced the desired explosion. So throughout the whole course of the Revolution we shall never find Danton figuring in the tumults he had helped to prepare ; he was, therefore, not present at the siege of the Bastille, but he visited it next day when all danger was over ;[109] St. Huruge also kept away, but he was at Versailles the day
after shaking his fist at the Queen’s windows and uttering furious invectives against the royal family ; [110] Santerre contented himself with sending his dray-horses to represent
him in the fray ;[111] whilst Camille Desmoulins, the hero of the 12th of July, who first
called the people to arms, was careful to postpone his arrival on the scene until after the capitulation.
The women of the Orléaniste conspiracy proved more courageous : Théroigne was in the thick of the fight and received a sword of honour from the leaders ; Mme. de Genlis watched the siege from the windows of Beaumarchais’ house, opposite the gate of the Bastille, with the Ducs de Chârtres and Montpensier—the sons of the Duc d’Orléans—at her side.
The duke himself behaved with his usual pusillanimity ; instead of going to the King and boldly requesting to be made lieutenant-general of the kingdom, as the conspirators had planned, he presented himself timorously at Versailles and asked permission to go to http://yamaguchy.netfirms.com/webster/frenchrev/fr_rev_02.html (56 of 66)5.4.2006 10:39:45
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England “ in the event of affairs becoming more distressing than they were at present.” The King looked at him coldly, shrugged his shoulders, and made no reply.
But though the Orléanistes had failed to bring off their great coup of putting the Duc d’Orléans at the head of affairs, they had nevertheless accomplished a great deal. The destruction of the Bastille by force and not by the King’s decree had proved a powerful blow to the royal authority, but the most important result of the outbreak from the point of view of both the revolutionary factions was the effect produced on the public mind.
The people before the Revolution of July, says Marmontel, “ were not sufficiently accustomed to crime, and in order to inure them to it they must be practised in it.” The Parisians, always eager for spectacles and enchanted by novelty of any kind, had now been initiated into a new form of entertainment—the fashion of carrying heads on pikes and of hoisting victims to the lantern ; and though it would be unjust to accuse the mass of the true people—the lawabiding and industrious citizens—of sympathy with these atrocities, it is undeniable that from this date the populace of Paris—the idlers, wastrels, and drunken inhabitants of the city—acquired a taste for bloodshed that made them the ready tools of their criminal leaders. So, although, as we shall see, the crimes that followed were invariably instigated, if not performed, by professional revolutionaries, we shall find henceforth a steady deterioration in the mind of the populace, and even in the mass of the true people a growing indifference to bloodshed and submission to violence, that five years later made the Reign of Terror possible. Thus the Revolution of July, whilst serving the cause of the Orléaniste conspiracy, had likewise paved the way for Anarchy.
In England the news of the siege of the Bastille was received with mingled feelings. All true lovers of humanity rejoiced at an event that at the time they believed to herald the dawn of liberty, though many Englishmen, like Arthur Young[112] and Wordsworth,
lived to realize their error. Burke, more far-seeing, wondered whether to blame or applaud ; thrilled by the struggle for freedom he shuddered nevertheless at the outbreak of “ Parisian ferocity,” and dreaded its recurrence in the future. But to the Whigs and the revolutionaries of England this triumph of the Orléaniste conspiracy was a matter for the heartiest congratulation. “ How much the greatest event it is that ever happened in the world and how much the best ! ” wrote Fox to Fitzpatrick. To the Duc d’Orléans, whose despicable conduct had sickened even his supporters in France, Fox thought fit to send his warm compliments : “ Tell him and Lauzun (the Duc de Biron) that all my prepossessions against French connections for this country will be altered if this Revolution has the consequences I expect.” The anniversary of the “ fall ” of the Bastille was celebrated the following year by the Revolution Society at the tavern of “ The Crown and Anchor,” where more than 600 members, presided over by Lord http://yamaguchy.netfirms.com/webster/frenchrev/fr_rev_02.html (57 of 66)5.4.2006 10:39:45
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Stanhope, drank to the liberty of the world, and Dr. Price demanded the inauguration of a “ league of peace.”
But whilst the Subversives of this country gave way to rejoicing, the Government of England resolutely refrained from any expressions of satisfaction at the blow to the monarchy of France ; out of respect to Louis XVI. the playhouses of London were prohibited from representing the siege of the Bastille on the stage.
The conduct of England provided, indeed, a marked contrast to that of Prussia. “ All the symptoms of anarchy in France,” writes Sorel, “ all the signs of discredit in the French state, are seized upon abroad eagerly by the Prussian agents and commented on in Berlin with acrimonious satisfaction. Hertzberg, whilst priding himself on his ‘ enlightened views,’ shows himself on this occasion as good a Prussian as the favourites of his master. This is because the crisis serves his intrigues and he hopes to profit by it. ‘ The prestige of royalty is annihilated in France,’ he writes to the King on the 5th of July ; ‘
the troops have refused to serve. Louis has declared the Séance Royale null and void ; [113] this is a scene after the manner of Charles I. Here is a situation of which the
governments should take advantage.’ ” That the English Government should not seize this opportunity to attack the rival to her naval supremacy is inconceivable to the mind of the good Prussian. “ The 14th of July overwhelms him (Hertzberg) with joy… . He hails it after his fashion as a day of deliverance. ‘ This is the good moment,’ declares Hertzberg ; ‘ the French monarchy is overthrown, the Austrian alliance is annihilated, this is the good moment, and also the last opportunity presented to your Majesty to give to his monarchy the highest degree of stability.’ ” [114]
Von der Goltz, still faithful to the precepts of his former master, showed himself as enthusiastic as Hertzberg ; he, too, sees in the 14th of July the final defeat of the Queen he had so long sought to defame in the eyes of the French nation, and is equally unable to understand the attitude of the British ambassador, Lord Dorset, who allows his personal feelings of gratitude and affection for the royal family of France to override the satisfaction he might be expected to experience at the unique opportunity offered to his country. The Comte de Salmour, minister for Saxony, had filled his post more ably. “ The Saxon Minister,” Von Goltz writes to the King of Prussia on July 24, “ though principally frequenting the society of the Queen, on account of his uncle, the Baron de Bézenval, nevertheless, I must do him the justice to admit, continues to behave very well to me ( i.e. assists Von der Goltz in his schemes against the Court ?). The ambassador for England, owing to his personal attachment to the Queen and the Comte d’Artois, is as distressed by all that has happened as if the blow had fallen on the King, his master.
In truth it must go to his heart, but would it not be well if he distinguished better between his personal affections and the interests of his post ? ” [115] Frederick William, http://yamaguchy.netfirms.com/webster/frenchrev/fr_rev_02.html (58 of 66)5.4.2006 10:39:45
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delighted at the zeal of his ambassador, thereupon wrote to order Von der Goltz to get into touch with the revolutionary leaders in the National Assembly and to continue his campaign against the Queen. Von der Goltz, obedient to these commands, stirred up further hatred for Marie Antoinette, “ intrigued against the Court of Vienna, and thanks to his equivocal relations with the revolutionaries paralysed the measures of the French ministry.”[116] By the Prussians, therefore, the fall of the Bastille is regarded as the triumph of Prussia over Austria. The Government of Berlin, says Sorel, “ sees that which it dared not hope for by the happiest fortune, that which all the diplomacy of Frederick had so often vainly attempted to secure—the Austrian alliance dissolved, the credit of the Queen lost for ever ; influence acquired by the partisans of Prussia, and in consequence all avenues opened to Prussian ambition.”[117]
1. Bézenval, who was in command of the Swiss Guards, exactly corroborates this statement : “ All the spies of the police agreed in saying that the insurrection was caused by strange men who, in order to increase their numbers, took by force those they met on their way ; they had even sent three times to the Faubourg Saint-Marceau to raise recruits without being able to persuade any one to join them. These spies added that they saw men inciting the tumult and even distributing money.”
2. Montjoie, Conjuration de d’Orléans, i. 275.
3. See, for example, the letter from the English ambassador in Paris, the Duke of Dorset to the Duke of Leeds, April 30, 1789 : “ The Duc d’Orléans has experienced repeated marks of popular favour lately, and particularly on Tuesday last. As he was returning through the Faubourg Saint-Antoine the people frequently called out ‘ Vive la maison d’Orléans !’ ” Madame de la Tour du Pin, who drove through the Faubourg during the riot with some of the Palais Royal party, relates that “ the sight of the livery of Orléans … stirred the enthusiasm of this riff-raff .
They stopped us a moment cailing out, ‘ Long live our father, long live our King Orléans !’ ” ( Journal d’une Femme de Cinquante Ans, i. 177).
4. Mémoires de Marmontel, iv. 82.
5. Montjoie, Conjuration de d’Orléans, i. 210, 211, confirmed by Maton la Varenne, Histoire Particulière, etc.
6. Mémoires de Sénart, edit. De Lescure, p. 27.
7. Gouverneur Morris well described this faction under the name of the “ Enragés ” : “ These are the most numerous, and are of that class which in America is known by the name of pettifogging lawyers, together with a host of curates and many of those who, in all revolutions, throng to the standard of change because they are not well ” [ sic] ( Diary and Letters of Gouverneur Morris, i. 277).
8. Souvenirs sur Mirabeau, by Étienne Dumont, p. 44.
9. See the evidence of Arthur Young, an eyewitness of these scenes : “ The spectators in the galleries are allowed to interfere in the debates by clapping their hands, and other noisy expressions of approbation : this is grossly indecent ; for if they are permitted to express approbation, they are, by parity of reason, allowed expressions of dissent, and they may hiss as well as clap, which it is said they have sometimes done : this would be to overrule the debate and influence the deliberations . Another circumstance is the want of order among themselves ; more than once to-day there were more than a hundred members on their legs at a time,” etc. ( Travels in France, p.165) .
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Lord Dorset in a letter to the Duke of Leeds on June 4, 1789, confirms this description : “ I am told that the most extravagant and disrespectful language against Government has been held, and that upon all such occasions the greatest approbation is expressed by the audience, by clapping of hands and other demonstrations of satisfaction : in short, the encouragement is such as to have led some of the speakers on to say things little short of treason . The Nobility, as may be supposed, are roughly treated in these debates, and their conduct does not escape being represented in the most odious light possible . The Clergy and Nobility hold their meetings in separate chambers, and neither of them admit strangers to be present at their deliberations ” ( Dispatches from Paris, ii. 207).
10. The Séance Royale was announced for Monday, June 22, and the hall was closed on Saturday the 20th . As the Assembly did not sit on Sundays this meant the Séance of Saturday only would be missed.
11. At the request Necker the Séance Royal was afterwards postponed till Tuesday the 23rd.
12. La France Libre
13. Montjoie, Conjuration de d’Orléans, i. 221 ; Philippe d’Orléans Égalité, by Auguste Ducoin, p. 50.
14. Théroigne de Méricourt, by Marcellin Pellet, p, 10.
15. Marmontel, iv. 137 ; Dispatches from Paris, letter from Lord Dorset, dated July 9, 1789.
16. Montjoie, Conjuration de d’Orléans, ii. 19 ; Mémoires de Bézenval, ii. 396.
17. Dispatches from Paris, ii. 237, letter from Lord Dorset.
18. Moniteur for Jan. 4, Feb. 4, and March 3, 1790.
19. For example, La Révolution, by M. Louis Madelin, p. 62, “ It will be understood that under these circumstances the ministry advanced troops on Paris . The least reactionary government would have been forced to do this .” 20. Appel au Tribunal de l’Opinion Publique, par Mounier, 1790.
21. Ibid.
22. Le Roman d’un Royaliste, par Costa de Beauregard.
23. Mémoires de Lafayette, ii. 53.
24. Biographie Michaud, article on Foullon ; Histoire de la Révolution Française, by Poujoulat, p. 121, quoting contemporary documents.
25. Ibid.
26. Mémoires de Mme. Campan, p. 242 ;&nbs; Histoire du Règne de Louis XVI, by Joseph Droz, p. 311. This story of Mme. Campan’s is confirmed by a contemporary manuscript in the possession of Berthier’s descendants. See La Conspiration Revolutionnaire de 1789, by Gustave Bord, p. 195. D’Espremesnil had already given the King the same advice a few weeks earlier, for just after the “ Serment du Jeu de Paume ” he had requested an audience with the King, and urged him not only to arrest but to hang the Due d’Orléans and his accomplices, to dissolve the Assembly, and to follow out his plan of himself granting to the people the reforms they asked for in the cahiers ( Mémoires Secrets d’Allonville, ii. 155). Strangely enough the Duke’s mistress, Mrs. Elliott, was of the same opinion with regard to the treatment that should have been meted out to the royal conspirator : “ Had he (the King), when the nobles went over to the Tiers État, caused the unfortunate Duke of Orléans, and about twenty others, to be arrested and executed, Europe would have been saved from the calamities it has since suffered ; and I should now dare to regret my poor friend the Duke ” ( Journal of Mrs. Elliott, p. 57).
27. Procédure du Châtelet, déposition du comte Virieu.
28. Souvenirs sur Mirabeau, by Étienne Dumont, p. 208.
29. “ Courrier de Provence, lettre 19,” Mémoires de Bailly, i. 332.
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30. Montjoie, Histoire de la Révolution de France, chap xli ; Evidence of M. Périn, Procédure du Châtelet, ii. 113.
31. Montjoie, Histoire de la Révolution de France, chap. xl.
32. Montjoie, Conjuration de d’Orléans, i. 296 ; Mémoires de Ferriéres, i. 52.
33. Fragment de l’Histoire Secrète, p. 8, April 1793.
34. Moniteur, ii. 33.
35. Crimes de la Révolution, by Prudhomme, iii. 111
36. Crimes de la Révolution, by Prudhomme, iii. 112.
37. Mém. de Ferriéres, and statement by Clermont Tonnerre at the Procédure du Châtelet. See also Souvenirs de Mme. Vigée le Brun, p. 129.
38. Montjoie, ii. 48, confirmed by Pépin himself, witness cxxiv. at the Procédure du Châtelet. According to these two witnesses this encounter took place in the Place Louis XV.; according to Bailly (i. 327) and to Flammermont, La Journée du 14 Juillet (CLXXVII.), in the Place Vendôme.
39. Deux Amis, i. 276. Even this authority admits that the people were the aggressors.
40. Taine, La Révolution, i. 62.
41. “ The sanguinary Lambesc and his blindly ferocious troop were singularly debonair ; ten accounts testify to it .
Although they were stoned by the people in ambush behind the stone-heaps they contented themselves with advancing without charging…. That only one old man was knocked over and that so much was made of this in the popular camp indicates better than all the contemporary accounts how mild was the ‘repression’ ” (Madelin, p.
63) . “ It was the crowd that began the attack ; the troops fired into the air…. All the details of the affair prove that the patience and the humanity of the officers was extreme ” (Taine, La Révolution, i. 62) . See also La Journée du 14 Juillet, by Jules Flammermont, p. clxxviii
42. Deux Amis de la Liberté, i. 117.
43. Order given ro Bézenval on July 12, 1789 . See the Moniteur, iii. 33.
44. Bailly, i. 337.
45. Note that even the Two Friends of Liberty admit these to have been “ hired brigands ” ( Deux Amis, i. 283), though they carefully refrain from mentioning who hired them. Are we to believe again this time that it was the Court ?
46. Histoire du Régne de Louis XVI, by Joseph Droz, p. 292.
47. Deux Amis de la Liberté, i. 284.
48. M. Louis Madelin has emphatically refuted the error perpetuated by historians on this point. The milice bourgeoise, he explains, had been formed “ not at all—as a hundred years ago so many historians and a crowd of their readers believed—against the Court but against the brigands… .” Thus since the 25th of June the Hôtel de Ville had been preparing for the coming danger, and the message carried by its bell must not be misinterpreted. “ This bell of the Hôtel de Ville had until the last few years a very definite significance for the historians of the Revolution—it called the great city against the Government of Versailles. The more recent researches, and those least to be suspected of retrospective anti-revolutionism, convey to us a different sound. The city called for help, desperately, because in the night the bandits, that for three weeks had been dreaded, were invading it, pillaging the shops, robbing the passers-by. Far from wishing to destroy the Bastille, the bourgeois of the Hôtel de Ville—Liberals of yesterday-would rather have built twenty more to enclose the beasts of prey that infested the disorganized city ” (Madelin, pp. 62, 64). Yet even “ recent researches ” were not needed to prove this fact, since the oldest authority of all, the Deux Amis, had clearly stated it.
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49. Bézenval suspected the good faith of certain of these deputies : “ Although the orators of these deputies had prepared their speeches skilfully, it was easy to see they had been prompted, and that they were asking for arms for the purpose of attacking us rather than to defend themselves ” (Mémoires de Bézenval, ii. 369).
50. Bailly, i. 340.
51. Ibid. 367 ; Rivarol, p. 45.
52. Madelin, p. 65.
53. Danton, by Louis Madelin, p. 19.
54. See, amongst many contemporary testimonies, the article on Danton by Beaulieu in the Biographie Michaud : “ This man had not, like many others, embraced the Revolution as a philosophical speculation ; his views were less elevated. More attached to sensual pleasures, he belonged to that class of intriguers who lend themselves to great upheavals in order to make their fortunes ; sometimes indeed he made no mystery of his projects in this respect.” 55. Essais de Beaulieu, iii. 192.
56. Études et Leçons sur la Révolution Française, by Aulard, iv. 134.
57. Danton, by Louis Madelin, p. 48.
58. Historians of all parties have endeavoured to deny this Orléaniste origin of the tricolore, but contemporary evidence is strongly in favour of these colours being chosen as those of the duke. Thus Ferrières ( Mem. i. 119) : “ The revolutionaries adopted the cockade made of white, blue and red, it was the livery of the due d’Orléans.” Beaulieu ( Essais, i. 522) : “ Blue, red and white, which are said to be the colours of the town of Paris, but belong just as much to the due d’Orléans.” Lord Dorset ( Dispatches from Paris, ii. 243) : “ Red and white in honour of the due d’Orléans.” Lafayette ( Mem. iii. 66) speaks of “ the strange coincidence that the colours of the town should happen also to be those of the duke.” Most convincing of all is the statement of Mrs. Elliott, the duke’s mistress, whose sole aim was to exonerate the duke of all complicity in the revolutionary movement ( Journal, p. 33) : “The mob obliged everybody to wear a green cockade for two days, but afterwards they took red, white and blue, the Orléans livery.” Moreover, Camille Desmoulins later on admitted the same : “When patriots needed a rallying sign, could they have done better than to choose the colours of the one who first called us to liberty ? ” ( Révolutions de France et de Brabant, iv. 439).
59. This important point, which entirely refutes the idea of the march on the Bastille as a spontaneous movement of the people, is admitted even by revolutionary authorities, by Deux Amis, i. 313, note : “ It is certain that the taking of the Bastille was planned, and that the day before plans of attack had been drawn up.” Also Dussaulx, De l’Insurrection parisienne et de la Prise de la Bastille, p. 44 : “ The taking of the Bastille had been planned. M. le Marquis de la Salle certified to me that the day before he had received for this purpose a plan of attack.” 60. Marmontel, iv. 180 ; Dussaulx, p. 206. (edition Monin).
61. Marmontel, iv. 199 ; Bailly, i. 381, 382.
62. Histoire du Règne de Louis XVI, by Joseph Droz, p. 293 ; Histoire de la Révolution, by Montjoie.
63. Essais de Beaulieu, i. 522.
64. Montjoie, Histoire de la Révolution, p. 87 ; Marmontel, iv. 182. See also Deux Amis de la Liberté, ii. 297 : “ The regiments encamped in the Champs Élysées had retired during the darkness, but their real motive and the place of their retreat was unknown. An attack was expected every moment ; nothing was talked of but the troops that were to come and make an assault on the capital.” Historians have almost invariably misrepresented this point, confounding the panic caused by the brigands on the 13th with that caused by the troops on the 14th.
65. Visitors were admitted on a permit to the Bastille. “ M. Howard could, therefore, have obtained admittance like any one else—he had taken no steps to obtain permission to enter and was sent away, so he was only able to speak http://yamaguchy.netfirms.com/webster/frenchrev/fr_rev_02.html (62 of 66)5.4.2006 10:39:45
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of the facts he had collected on the subject ” ( Bastille déwilée, 2ième Livraison (1789), p. 13).
66. Deux Amis, i. 395.
67. De l’Inquisition Française ou Histoire de la Bastille, 1724.
68. “ This resolution (to attack the Bastille) appeared sudden and unexpected amongst the people, but it was premeditated in the councils of the Revolutionary leaders ” (Marmontel, iv. 187).
“ There is every reason to conclude, by the false reports and alarms that were circulated everywhere, that it was desired to keep up, to increase the agitation, agitation, and lead to the siege of the Bastille ” (Bailly, i. 375).
69. “ They went to the Bastille, but only to get arms and munitions ” (Dussaulx, p. 211, edition Monin).
70. Précis exacte du Cousin Jacques.
71. Deux Amis, i. 306.
72. La Journée du 14 Juillet, by Jules Flammermont, p. lxviii.
73. Ibid. p. lxix.
74. “ If cannons were perceived on the battlements it was because they were habitually used for firing salutes on fête-days : since the far-off Fronde no balls had been fired from them. The Faubourg saw them every morning, but such was the popular excitement that this morning they seemed to assume a threatening aspect ” (Madelin, p. 66).
75. “ On the provocation of the Governor himself the officers and soldiers swore that they would not fire and would not make use of their arms unless they were attacked ” ( Bastille dévoilée, ii. 91).
76. La Journée du 14 Juillet, p. cxcviii.
77. “ The Bastille, ill defended, was taken by a few soldiers and a troop of wretches, mostly Germans and also provincials. The Parisians—those eternal idlers ( ces éternels badauds)—appeared at the fortress, but curiosity alone brought them there to visit the dark dungeons of which the mere idea froze them with terror ” (Marat, Ami du Peuple, No. 530).
78. Bastille dévoilée, ii. 92 ; Deux Amis, i. 317. The citizens of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine gave their names as Davanne and Demain, but M. Flammermont (p. ccv, note) and M. Victor Fournel, Les Hommes du 14 Juillet, p.
216, accept the former statement.
79. Even the Two Friends of Liberty admit this : “ Two men … get up on to the roof of the guard-house in spite of the cries and threats of the garrison of the fortress.” See also Bastille dévoilée, ii. 93 ; Marmontel, iv. 191. M.
Flammermont’s assertion that they acted under the fire of the garrison is therefore contrary not only to evidence, but to probability, for, considering the slow rate at which they must have progressed, they would have proved an easy target had the garrison chosen to fire.
80. “ This pretended treachery of De Launay, which was immediately noised all over Paris … is disproved not only by the accounts of the besieged but of the besiegers themselves, and is rejected to-day by all historians ” (Funck Brentano, Legendes et Archives de la Bastille, p. 256). M. Flammermont admits with regard to this accusation : “ All that is false.” Even M. Louis Blanc with a rare impulse of fairness absolves De Launay from this charge : “ Such was the confusion that the greater number (of the crowd) were not aware under what intrepid effort the chains of the first bridge had been broken ; they believed that the Governor himself had given the order to let it down in order to entice the multitude and more easily to make carnage amongst them… . De Launay was capable of having given the order to fire but not of having committed the perfidious atrocity imputed to him, and justice demands that his memory should be openly cleared of it ” ( Histoire de la Revolution, ii. 381). In spite of all this evidence the story of De Launay’s treachery is persistently repeated by nearly every English writer.
81. Deux Amis, i. 325.
82. “ Récit des Assiégés,” Deux Amis, i. 321 ; Bastille dévoilée, ii. 97.
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83. The legend was repeated at the time by a great number of writers, including even Lord Dorset, who was not present at the siege, and whose account is inaccurate in nearly every point. It is refuted, however, not only by Montjoie, Beaulieu, and Marmontel, but by the principal revolutionary authorities— Bastille dévoilée (ii. 99) ; Dussaulx, p. 219 (edition Monin) : “ In order to have the right on all these points, to accuse the Governor and his garrison of perfidy one would have to be very certain that they saw and recognized the signals of the deputies, and if they did indeed perceive them it must be admitted that it was impossible for them to cease action whilst the fire of the besiegers continued, and whilst they were being shot at not only from the foot of the fortress but from the tops of the neighbouring houses.” Beaulieu explains the situation by stating that a part of the garrison—that is to say the Invalides—were on the side of the people, and that it was they who signed to them to advance, whilst the rest—the Swiss—were for holding out, and it was they who fired. This is the view taken by Louis Blanc (ii. 385), who also in this instance denies De Launay’s treachery. “ No historian any longer admits this legend,” says M.
Louis Madelin.
84. Bastille dévoilée, ii. 127, 128. See also account by De Flue in Revue Retrospective.
85. Montjoie, Hist. de la Révolution, xlv. 11o ; Deux Amis, i. 327.
86. Bastille dévoilée, ii. 101 note, 12,; Deux Amis, i. 326 ; Montjoie, Histoire de la Révolution de France, xlv.
112 ; Marmontel, iv. 193.
87. Bastille dévoilée, ii. 126 ; Montjoie, ibid. xlv. 112.
88. See also Bastille dévoilée, ii. 121: “The garrison, so to speak, made no resistance.” Georget, one of the besieging gunners, expressed the same opinion.
89. “ The Swiss exhorted the Governor to resist, but the staff and the non-commissioned officers strongly urged him to surrender the fortress ” ( Deux Amis, ii. 333).
90. “ An Invalide came to open the door situated behind the drawbridge and asked what they wanted. ‘ That the Bastille should be surrendered,’ they replied. Then he let them in ” ( Deux Amis, i. 337). “ I was very much surprised … to see four Invalides approach the door, open them, and let down the bridges ” ( Relation de de Flue, Flammermont, ccxxxv.).
91. “ Récit de Pitra,” La Journée du 14 Juillet, p. 48 ; Montjoie, Hist. de la Révolution, xlv. 115.
92. Marmontel, iv. 194. “ The ones who entered first approach the vanquished with humanity, throw their arms round the necks of the staff officers as a sign of peace and reconciliation, and take possession of the fortress as surrendered by capitulation ” ( Deux Amis, i. 338).
93. Charles de Jean de Manville, half-brother to the Comtesse de Sabran, a mauvais sujet who had been imprisoned in the Bastille for forging a will.
94. Bastille dévoilée, ii. 110 ; Hist. de la Révolulion, par Montjoie.
95. Bailly, i. 385.
96. So little commotion did the siege of the Bastille cause in Paris that Dr. Rigby, unaware that anything unusual was going on, went off early in the afternoon to visit the gardens of Monceaux. “ I doubt not that it (the attack on the Bastille) had begun a considerable time and even been completed before it was known to many thousands of the inhabitants as well as to ourselves.”
97. Malouet, i. 325 ; Montjoie, Conjuration de d’Orléans, ii. 87. On this point Montjoie shows great fairness, for he does not attribute to the Orléanistes crimes that were not of their devising. It is evident that he had definite grounds for his accusations.
98. Von Sybel, in his History of the French Revolution, i. 81 (Eng. trans.), says of the death of Foullon : “ This crime was not the result of an outbreak of popular fury, it had cost the revolutionary leaders large sums of money, http://yamaguchy.netfirms.com/webster/frenchrev/fr_rev_02.html (64 of 66)5.4.2006 10:39:45
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for which thousands of assassins were to be had. In Mirabeau’s correspondence the following statement occurs : ‘
Foullon’s death cost hundreds of thousands of francs, the murder of the baker François only a few thousands.’ ” 99. La Prise de la Bastille, by Gustave Bord, p. 33.
100. Note that even the Two Friends of Liberty admit that the death of Berthier was engineered : “ It seems that the people, without knowing it, were the blind instruments of the vengeance of the intendant’s private enemies or of the cruel prudence of his accomplices. Electors noticed from the windows of the Hôtel de Ville several people scattered about the square who seemed to be the leading spirits of the different groups and to direct their movements ” ( Deux Amis, ii. 73).
101. Bastille dévoilée, ii. 21, 39, 82.
102. “ Paris again worked on by its perfidious agitators ” (Marmontel, iv. 214). See also Ferrières, i. 154 ; Montjoie, Conjuration de d’Orléans, ii. 73 ; Deux Amis, ii. 32.
103. Montjoie, Conjuration de d’Orléans, ii. 77 ; Souvenirs d’un Page (le Comte d’Hézecques), p. 300.
104. Deux Amis, ii. 42 ; Montjoie, Conjuration de d’Orléans, ii. 77.
105. Montjoie, Conjuration de d’Orléans, ii. 81.
106. Marmontel, iv. 24.
107. Montjoie, Conjuration de d’Orléans, ii. 82 ; Essais de Beaulieu, i.; Bailly, ii. 61.
108. “ Journal d’un prêtre parisien, 1789-1792,” published in Documents pour servir à l’histoire de la Révolution de France, by Charles d’Héricault and Gustave Bord, i. 165.
109. Danton, by Louis Madelin.
110. Mémoires de Mme. Campan, p. 235.
111. Le Marquis de Saint-Huruge, par Henri Furgeot, p. 202.
112. It is perhaps not generally known that Arthur Young, who has been falsely quoted as the panegyrist of the French Revolution on account of his earlier works, Travels in France, 1789, and On the Revolution in France, 1792, entirely recanted from his former opinions, and in 1793 wrote a denunciation of the Revolution no less vehement than that of Burke. This pamphlet, entitled The Example of France, a Warning to Britain, has been very carefully ignored by democratic writers in this country. Lord Morley, in his essay on Burke (English Men of Letters, p. 162), accounts for it by describing Young as becoming “ panic-stricken.” There is, however, I believe, a simple explanation of Young’s complete volte-face on the subject of the Revolution. His earlier work was written in France under the influence of the set in French society that he frequented, and this set we shall find on examination to have been entirely Orléaniste—hence his exaggerated strictures on the Old Régime. With the best portion of the “ noblesse,” and even with the “ royalist democrats,” he was unacquainted, and the disgust he expresses at the cynical behaviour of certain nobles at a dinner-party he attended is readily explained by the fact that the party consisted of the Due d’Orléans and his supporters (see entry for June 22, 1789). It was from these sources, therefore, that Young gleaned his earlier opinions on the state of France, and which a fuller knowledge of facts and not “ panic ” led him to relinquish.
113. This was, of course, absolutely untrue.
114. L’Europe et la Révolution Française, ii. 25.
115. Flammermont, La Journée du 14 Juillet, and Rapport sur les Correspondances des Agents Diplomatiques, etc., p. 128.
116. Sorel, L’Europe et la Révolution Française, ii. 69 ; Flammermont, Rapport sur les Correspondances des Agents Diplomatiques, etc., p. 127.
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117. Sorel, L’Europe et la Révolution Française, ii. 25.
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The French Revolution
Nesta Webster