THE WORK OF REFORM

It is a common device of pro-revolutionary writers to represent the National Assembly (into which the States-General were transformed on June 17) as divided into two opposing camps formed by revolutionary leaders who desired reforms and by reactionaries who opposed them. According to this theory the delay in framing the Constitution was caused merely by the recalcitrance of the noblesse and clergy in relinquishing their privileges. But if we study the reports of the debates that took place in the Assembly we shall find that the real obstructionists were the revolutionary deputies. For in the Assembly, as in the city of Paris, two of the great conspiracies had their representatives—the Orléanistes led by Mirabeau and including Barnave and the two Lameths, also the duke himself and his boon companions the Due de Biron and the Marquis de Sillery, and the Subversives who consisted in a herd of quarrelsome nonentities, of which Robespierre was the typical representative.[7] These two revolutionary factions, far from representing democracy, were concerned solely in furthering their own designs. For since not a single cahier had expressed dissatisfaction either with the reigning dynasty or with the monarchy, the faction that wished to replace Louis XVI. by the Due d’Orléans and the faction that wished to destroy the monarchy were both equally opposed to the people’s wishes. The election of these members as representatives of the people had therefore been secured on false pretences, and their attitude from the outset was necessarily one of duplicity and imposture. Unable to avow their real policy lest they should be disowned by their constituents, they adopted a method which effectually delayed the work of reform—that of diverting attention from http://yamaguchy.netfirms.com/webster/frenchrev/fr_rev_02.html (6 of 66)5.4.2006 10:39:44

 

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the real issues at stake by perpetual quibbles over matters of no importance.

It was against these revolutionary obstructionists far more than against the reactionary portion of the noblesse that the true reformers had to contend. Now the party which advocated true reform was represented by several very able and enlightened men—Jean Joseph Mounier, a magistrate from Dauphine, noted for his integrity and love of justice, Pierre Victor Malouet, the Comte de Virieu, the Comte de Lally Tollendal, and the Comte de Clermont Tonnerre. This party, known as that of the “Royalist democrats ” and later as the “ Constitutionals,” represented in reality the cause of true democracy, and their royalism resulted solely from the fact that in the person of Louis XVI. they saw, as did the people, the surest guarantee of liberty and justice. “ The majority of the people,” says Bouille, “ were attached to this party, as also all the municipalities of the kingdom and the Gardes Nationales. The plan of the leaders was to establish a democratic monarchy that they called ‘ a royal democracy.’ ” If we refer again to the cahiers we shall find that this policy was exactly in accord with the unanimous desires of the nation, and we shall then recognize the fundamental error of regarding the Revolution as the movement for reform carried to excess. Reform and revolution were two totally distinct movements, and not only distinct but directly opposed to each other.

Since, in all assemblies, those who make the most noise are those that most readily obtain a hearing, the Tiers État allowed itself to be dominated by the two contentious factions, and the voice of reform was drowned by floods of futile verbiage. So, although revolutionary writers depict the people of France at this crisis as on the verge of starvation and “ groaning under oppressions,” we have only to consult the Moniteur to find that during the first four weeks after the opening of the States-General not one word was spoken in the hall of the Tiers État on the subject of the famine or the sufferings of the People. When at last after a month it was suggested, not by the Tiers État but by the clergy, that the Assembly should turn its attention to the question of the people’s bread, the proposal was received with a howl of execration by the revolutionary factions. “ It was just like the clergy ! ” to try by these means to divert attention from the union of the orders ! “ The clergy should be denounced as seditious ! ” Robespierre in a violent diatribe demanded why the clergy, if they were so concerned for the people’s welfare, did not sell all they possessed to supply their needs. [8] The speech was as senseless as it

was unjust ; the liberality of the clergy in the matter of relieving distress had been unbounded, and, as everybody knew, the famine was not caused by lack of funds but by the difficulty of obtaining and circulating grain. But this was the point of all others on which the revolutionary factions were the most anxious to avoid inquiry, and their complicity with the monopolizers is evident from the debates that took place on the subject of monopoly. Now, if ever, was their opportunity for publicly denouncing the “ http://yamaguchy.netfirms.com/webster/frenchrev/fr_rev_02.html (7 of 66)5.4.2006 10:39:44

 

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aristocrats ” they accused of cornering the grain, but far from substantiating these charges their policy was invariably to suppress all discussion of the question. Thus, as M. Louis Blanc in a rare fit of candour admits, “ the sacred question of feeding the people was lost to sight,” and “ the Assembly in a way passed over social misery and the hunger of the people to other subjects.” These subjects were, of course, inevitably party quarrels in general, and the “ Union of the Orders ” in particular.

This is not the place to discuss the vexed question of a single chamber ; much was to be said for it, much against it. The true democrats of the Assembly undoubtedly desired it on the ground that no reforms could be effected if the noblesse and clergy were enabled to obstruct them. Arthur Young considered this unreasonable. “Among such men, the common idea is that anything tending towards a separate order, like our House of Lords, is absolutely inconsistent with liberty ; all which seems perfectly wild and unfounded.” Whether the union of the three orders was advisable or not, one thing is certain—that the revolutionary factions did everything in their power to prevent it taking place by their aggressive attitude towards the nobility and clergy. But the great objection to the union of the three orders lay in the fact that the Tiers État insisted on admitting strangers indiscriminately to their debates, with the result that the most frightful confusion prevailed, and that the deputies, instead of expressing their real convictions, were tempted to talk to the galleries in order to win popularity. “ Learn, sir,” said the deputy Bouche to Malouet in a speech on May 28, “ that we are debating here in the presence of our masters ! ”

The revolutionary leaders took care to ensure support from the galleries, and a great part of the audience was their own claque, composed of Paris idlers and ruffians in their pay, whom they sent for to intimidate their adversaries, and who, before long, not content with applauding sedition, expressed their disapproval by boos and hisses. What assembly, however democratic, could continue to debate under such conditions ? [9]

So great was the confusion into which the revolutionary factions succeeded in throwing the Assembly that Louis XVI. finally resolved to intervene, and announced his intention of holding a Séance Royale. For this purpose it was necessary to make use of the hall of the Tiers État, the “ Salle des Menus Plaisirs,” which, being the largest of the three, was the only one capable of containing the deputies of all three orders, and had therefore been used for the meeting of the States-General. Accordingly the Tiers were informed that the hall must be closed to debates for two days only,[10] and in order to avert ill-feeling the halls of the noblesse and clergy were closed likewise. The announcement was received without a murmur by the “ privileged orders,” but the Tiers, furious at the royal edict, repaired to the “ tennis court ” close by and held an indignation meeting, http://yamaguchy.netfirms.com/webster/frenchrev/fr_rev_02.html (8 of 66)5.4.2006 10:39:44

 

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where, at the instigation of Mounier—who afterwards bitterly repented his action—they swore not to separate until they had framed the Constitution.

Regardless of this act of open insubordination Louis XVI. appeared at the Seance Royale on June 23[11] and announced his intentions to the Assembly. In dignified yet touching

words he besought the representatives of the people to carry on the work of reform he had inaugurated ; he reminded them that the States-General had been assembled for nearly two months, yet had not been able to agree on the preliminaries of their work ; he appealed to their love for their country, to their traditions as Frenchmen, to cease from dissensions and work together for the common good. “ I owe it to myself to put an end to these disastrous differences ; it is with this resolution that I have gathered you around me as the father of all my subjects, as the defender of the laws of my kingdom.” Since it was essential, without further delay, to meet the demands of the people, the King proceeded to enumerate the reforms that, acting on the royal prerogative, he proposed to introduce. These were, above all, the equality of taxation and abolition of the pecuniary privileges of the noblesse and clergy ; further, the total abolition of the taille, of corvées, francs-fiefs, lettres de cachet, mainmorte, and personal charges, greater liberty of the press, the mitigation or even the abolition of the gabelle, and the restriction of capitaineries or gamelaws.

Thus of his own accord the King had redressed the principal grievances of the Old Régime ; he refused, however, to abolish all the feudal rights of the noblesse and clergy, which he held not to be his to do away with. This sacrifice was therefore left to the two orders to make themselves, and they made it voluntarily six weeks later. The King’s speech ended with these significant words :

“ You have heard, messieurs, the result of my inclinations and my views … and if by a fatality far from my thoughts you abandon me in so great an enterprise, alone I will accomplish the welfare of my people, alone I shall consider myself as their true representative ; and knowing your cahiers, knowing the perfect accord that exists between the general wishes of the nation and my benevolent intentions … I shall walk towards the goal with all the courage and firmness that it inspires in me.” What could this mean ? One thing only. Those two ominous phrases had made the King’s intentions clear—“ alone I will accomplish the welfare of my people, alone I shall consider myself as their true representative.” In other words, the King intimated that if the Tiers État did not cease its quarrels and “get to business,” he would dissolve the States-General and carry out the work of reform himself.

What wonder that the King’s discourse was received in gloomy silence by the Tiers ?

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and Subversives alike feared for those fortunes they had hoped to build on public confusion ? What wonder that Mirabeau, seeing the ministry he coveted vanishing into space, rose in wrath to utter his famous “ apostrophe ” ? The King had left the hall, and De Brézé, the master of ceremonies, declared the sitting ended, when Mirabeau, who exactly a week before in supporting the royal veto had stated, “ I could imagine nothing more terrible than the sovereign aristocracy of 600 persons who to-morrow might declare themselves immovable,” now insolently defied the King’s order with the words, “ We will only leave our places by the force of the bayonet ! ”

So ended this sitting that might have laid the foundations of French liberty for ever. The thing that the revolutionary factions dreaded more than any other threatened to occur—the regeneration of the kingdom was to be accomplished peacefully and the monarchy established on a free and constitutional basis. If any further proof were needed that the work of the revolutionary factions was actively opposed to the work of reform, it is to be found in this one undeniable fact that, throughout the whole Revolution until the fall of the monarchy, every concession made by the King to the desires of the People, every step in the work of the reform, was the signal for a fresh outbreak of revolutionary fury.

Accordingly the immense reforms of the Seance Royale, far from bringing a peaceful settlement of the crisis, were followed by renewed scenes of violence. Two days later the Archbishop of Paris, beloved by all the true people for his benevolence and the uprightness of his life, was attacked by a band of hired rioters as he was leaving the Assembly, and only escaped with his life owing to the speed of his horses and the courage and presence of mind of his coachman.

The fact that four days after the Séance Royale the noblesse and clergy, in obedience to the King’s command, settled the burning question of a single chamber by joining the Tiers État, did nothing to allay the fermentation the revolutionaries had succeeded in creating. If, as the Tiers État had declared, the refusal of the noblesse to concede this point had been the only obstacle to the work of reform, why did this work not proceed now that the obstacle had been removed ? On the contrary, the Tiers, once they had the noblesse and clergy at their mercy, showed themselves more aggressive than ever and in no way disposed to discuss peaceably the regeneration of the kingdom. True, a “ committee of subsistences ” was formed for dealing with the question of the famine, but as it consisted almost entirely of Orléanistes, including the Duc d’Orléans himself, nothing was done to relieve the distress of the people, and the famine continued its ravages.

 

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