A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1.

by Carlton J. H. Hayes

THE END OF ABSOLUTISM IN FRANCE, 1789

[Sidenote: France on the Eve of the Revolution]

When the story opens, France is still the absolute, divine-right monarchy which Louis XIV had perfected and Louis XV had exploited. The social classes are still in the time-honored position which has been described in Chapter XIII. But all is not well with the "old régime." In the country districts the taxes are distressingly burdensome. In the cities there is scarcity of food side by side with starvation wages. Among the bourgeoisie are envy of the upper classes, an appreciation of the critical philosophy of the day, and a sincere admiration of what seem to be happier political and social conditions across the Channel in Great Britain. The public debt of France is enormous, and a large part of the national income must, therefore, be applied to the payment of interest: even the courtiers of Louis XVI find their pensions and favors and sinecures somewhat reduced. When the privileged classes begin to feel the pinch of hard times, it is certain that the finances are in sore straits.

[Sidenote: Financial Embarrassment]

In fact, all the great general causes of the French Revolution, which may be inferred from the two preceding chapters, may be narrowed down to the financial embarrassment of the government of Louis XVI. The king and his ministers had already had recourse to every expedient consistent with the maintenance of the "old regime" save one, and that one—the convocation of the Estates-General—was now to be tried. It might be that the representatives of the three chief classes of the realm would be able to offer suggestions to the court, whereby the finances could be improved and at the same time the divine-right monarchy and the divinely ordained social distinctions would be unimpaired.

[Sidenote: Convocation of the Estates-General]

With this idea of simple reform in mind, Louis XVI in 1788 summoned the Estates-General to meet at Versailles the following May. The Estates- General were certainly not a revolutionary body. Though for a hundred and seventy-five years the French monarchs had been able to do without them, they were in theory still a legitimate part of the old-time government. Summoned by King Philip the Fair in 1302, they had been thenceforth convoked at irregular intervals until 1614. Their organization had been in three separate bodies, representing by election the three estates of the realm—clergy, nobility, and commoners (Third Estate). Each estate voted as a unit, and two out of the three estates were sufficient to carry a measure. It usually happened that the clergy and nobility joined forces to outvote the commoners. The powers of the Estates-General had always been advisory rather than legislative, and the kings had frequently ignored or violated the enactments of the assembly. In its powers as well as in its organization, the Estates-General differed essentially from the Parliament of England. By the Estates-General the ultimate supremacy of the royal authority had never been seriously questioned.

[Sidenote: Election of the Estates-General]

The elections to the Estates-General were held in accordance with ancient usage throughout France in the winter of 1788-1789. Also, in accordance with custom, the electors were invited by the king to prepare reports on the condition of the locality with which they were familiar and to indicate what abuses, if any, existed, and what remedies, in their opinion, were advisable.

[Sidenote: The Cahiers]

By the time the elections were complete, it was apparent that the majority of the French people desired and expected a greater measure of reform than their sovereign had anticipated. The reports and lists of grievances that had been drafted in every part of the country were astounding. To be sure, these documents, called cahiers, were not revolutionary in wording: with wonderful uniformity they expressed loyalty to the monarchy and fidelity to the king: in not a single one out of the thousand cahiers was there a threat of violent change. But in spirit the cahiers were eloquent. All of them reflected the idea which philosophy had made popular that reason demanded fundamental, thoroughgoing reforms in government and society. Those of the Third Estate were particularly insistent upon the social inequalities and abuses long associated with the "old régime." It was clear that if the elected representatives of the Third Estate carried out the instructions of their constituents, the voting of additional taxes to the government would be delayed until a thorough investigation had been made and many grievances had been redressed.

[Sidenote: The Third Estate]

On the whole, it was probable that the elected representatives of the Third Estate would heed the cahiers. They were educated and brainy men. Two-thirds of them were lawyers or judges; many, also, were scholars; only ten could possibly be considered as belonging to the lower classes. A goodly number admired the governmental system of Great Britain, in which the royal power had been reduced; the class interests of all of them were directly opposed to the prevailing policies of the French monarchy. The Third Estate was too intelligent to follow blindly or unhesitatingly the dictates of the court.

In the earliest history of the Estates-General, the Third Estate had been of comparatively slight importance either in society or in politics, and Philip the Fair had proclaimed that the duty of its members was "to hear, receive, approve, and perform what should be commanded of them by the king." But between the fourteenth and eighteenth centuries the relative social importance of the bourgeoisie had enormously increased. The class was more numerous, wealthier, more enlightened, and more experienced in the conduct of business. It became clearer with the lapse of time that it, more than nobility or clergy, deserved the right of representing the bulk of the nation. This right Louis XVI had seemed in part to recognize by providing that the number of elected representatives of the Third Estate should equal the combined numbers of those of the First and Second Estates. The commoners naturally drew the deduction from the royal concession that they were to exercise paramount political influence in the Estates- General of 1789.

The Third Estate, as elected in the winter of 1788-1789, was fortunate in possessing two very capable leaders, Mirabeau and Sieyès, both of whom belonged by office or birth to the upper classes, but who had gladly accepted election as deputies of the unprivileged classes. With two such leaders, it was extremely doubtful whether the Third Estate would tamely submit to playing an inferior role in future.

[Sidenote: Mirabeau]

Mirabeau (1749-1791) was the son of a bluff but good-hearted old marquis who was not very successful in bringing up his family. Young Mirabeau had been so immoral and unruly that his father had repeatedly obtained lettres de cachet from the king in order that prison bars might keep him out of mischief. Released many times only to fall into new excesses, Mirabeau found at last in the French Revolution an opportunity for expressing his sincere belief in constitutional government and an outlet for his almost superhuman energy. From the convocation of the Estates-General to his death in 1791, he was one of the most prominent men in France. His gigantic physique, half-broken by disease and imprisonment, his shaggy eyebrows, his heavy head, gave him an impressive, though sinister, appearance. And for quickness in perceiving at once a problem and its solution, as well as for gifts of reverberating oratory, he was unsurpassed.

[Sidenote: Sieyès]

Of less force but greater tact was the priest, Sieyès (1748-1836), whose lack of devotion to Christianity and the clerical calling was matched by a zealous regard for the skeptical and critical philosophy of the day and for the practical arts of politics and diplomacy. It was a pamphlet of Sieyès that, on the eve of the assembling of the Estates- General, furnished the Third Estate with its platform and program. "What is the Third Estate?" asks Sieyès. "It is everything," he replies. "What has it been hitherto in the political order? Nothing! What does it desire? To be something!"

[Sidenote: Meeting of the Estates-General (May, 1789)]
[Sidenote: Constitutional Question Involved in the Organization of the
Estates-General]

The position of the Third Estate was still officially undefined when the Estates-General assembled at Versailles in May, 1789. The king received his advisers with pompous ceremony and a colorless speech, but it was soon obvious that he and the court intended that their business should be purely financial and that their organization should be in accordance with ancient usage; the three estates would thus vote "by order," that is, as three distinct bodies, so that the doubled membership of the Third Estate would have but one vote to the privileged orders' two. With this view the great majority of the nobles and a large part of the clergy, especially the higher clergy, were in full sympathy. On their side the commoners began to argue that the Estates-General should organize itself as a single body, in which each member should have one vote, such voting "by head" marking the establishment of true representation in France, and that the assembly should forthwith concern itself with a general reformation of the entire government. With the commoners' argument a few of the liberal nobles, headed by Lafayette, and a considerable group of the clergy, particularly the curates, agreed; and it was backed up by the undoubted sentiment of the nation. Bad harvests in 1788 had been followed by an unusually severe winter. The peasantry was in an extremely wretched plight, and the cities, notably Paris, suffered from a shortage of food. The increase of popular distress, like a black cloud before a storm, gave menacing support to the demands of the commoners.

[Sidenote: The King Defied by the Third Estate]
[Sidenote: The "Oath of the Tennis Court," 20 June, 1789]

Over the constitutional question, fraught as it was with the most significant consequences to politics and society, the parties wrangled for a month. The king, unwilling to offend any one, shilly-shallied. But the uncompromising attitude of the privileged orders and the indecision of the leaders of the court at length forced the issue. On 17 June, 1789, the Third Estate solemnly proclaimed itself a National Assembly. Three days later, when the deputies of the Third Estate came to the hall which had been set apart in the palace of Versailles for their use, they found its doors shut and guarded by troops and a notice to the effect that it was undergoing repairs. Apparently the king was at last preparing to intervene in the contest himself. Then the commoners precipitated a veritable revolution. Led by Mirabeau and Sieyès, they proceeded to a great public building in the vicinity, which was variously used as a riding-hall or a tennis court. There, amidst intense excitement, with upstretched hands, they took an oath as members of the "National Assembly" that they would not separate until they had drawn up a constitution for France. The "Oath of the Tennis Court" was the true beginning of the French Revolution. Without royal sanction, in fact against the express commands of the king, the ancient feudal Estates-General had been transformed, by simple proclamation of the nation's representatives, into a National Assembly, charged with the duty of establishing constitutional government in France. The "Oath of the Tennis Court" was the declaration of the end of absolute divine- right monarchy and of the beginning of a limited monarchy based on the popular will.

What would the king do under these circumstances? He might overwhelm the rebellious commoners by force of arms. But that would not solve his financial problems, nor could he expect the French nation to endure it. It would likely lead to a ruinous civil war. The only recourse left open to him was a game of bluff. He ignored the "Oath of the Tennis Court," and with majestic mien commanded the estates to sit separately and vote "by order." But the commoners were not to be bluffed. Now joined by a large number of clergy and a few nobles, they openly defied the royal authority. In the ringing words of Mirabeau, they expressed their rebellion: "We are here by the will of the people and we will not leave our places except at the point of the bayonet." The weak-kneed, well-intentioned Louis XVI promptly acquiesced. Exactly one week after the scene in the tennis court, he reversed his earlier decrees and directed the estates to sit together and vote "by head."

[Sidenote: Transformation of the Estates-General into the National
Constituent Assembly]

By 1 July, 1789, the first stage in the Revolution was completed. The nobles and clergy were meeting with the commoners. The Estates-General had become the National Constituent Assembly. As yet, however, two important questions remained unanswered. In the first place, how would the Assembly be assured of National freedom from the intrigues and armed force of the court? In the second place, what direction would the reforms of the Assembly take?

[Sidenote: The Court Prepares to Use Force against the Assembly]

The answer to the first question was speedily evoked by the court itself. As early as 1 July, a gradual movement of royal troops from the garrisons along the eastern frontier toward Paris and Versailles made it apparent that the king contemplated awing the National Assembly into a more deferential mood. The Assembly, in dignified tone, requested the removal of the troops. The king responded by a peremptory refusal and by the dismissal of Necker [Footnote: Necker had been restored to his office as director-general of finances in 1788] the popular finance- minister. Then it was that Paris came to the rescue of the Assembly.

[Sidenote: Popular Uprising at Paris in Behalf of the Assembly]
[Sidenote: The Destruction of the Bastille, 14 July, 1789]

The Parisian populace, goaded by real want, felt instinctively that its own cause and that of the National Assembly were identical. Fired by an eloquent harangue of a brilliant journalist, Camille Desmoulins (1760- 1794) by name, they rushed to arms. For three days there was wild disorder in the city. Shops were looted, royal officers were expelled, business was at a standstill. On the third day—14 July, 1789—the mob surged out to the east end of Paris, where stood the frowning royal fortress and prison of the Bastille. Although since the accession of Louis XVI the Bastille no longer harbored political offenders, nevertheless it was still regarded as a symbol of Bourbon despotism, a grim threat against the liberties of Paris. The people would now take it and would appropriate its arms and ammunition for use in defense of the National Assembly. The garrison of the Bastille was small and disheartened, provisions were short, and the royal governor was irresolute. Within a few hours the mob was in possession of the Bastille, and some of the Swiss mercenaries who constituted its garrison had been slaughtered.

[Sidenote: Revolution in the Government of Paris: the Commune]

The fall of the Bastille was the first serious act of violence in the course of the Revolution. It was an unmistakable sign that the people were with the Assembly rather than with the king. It put force behind the Assembly's decrees. Not only that, but it rendered Paris practically independent of royal control, for, during the period of disorder, prominent citizens had taken it upon themselves to organize their own government and their own army. The new local government—the "commune," as it was called—was made up of those elected representatives of the various sections or wards of Paris who had chosen the city's delegates to the Estates-General. It was itself a revolution in city government: it substituted popularly elected officials in place of royal agents and representatives of the outworn gilds. And the authority of the commune was sustained by a popularly enrolled militia, styled the National Guard, which soon numbered 48,000 champions of the new cause.

[Sidenote: Temporary Acquiescence of the King]

The fall of the Bastille was such a clear sign that even Louis XVI did not fail to perceive its meaning. He instantly withdrew the royal troops and recalled Necker. He recognized the new government of Paris and confirmed the appointment of the liberal Lafayette to command the National Guard. He visited Paris in person, praised what he could not prevent, and put on a red-white-and-blue cockade—combining the red and blue of the capital city with the white of the Bourbons—the new national tricolor of France. Frenchmen still celebrate the fourteenth of July, the anniversary of the fall of the Bastille, as the independence day of the French nation.

[Sidenote: Renewed Intrigues of the Royal Family against the Assembly]

For a while it seemed as though reform might now go forward without further interruption. The freedom of the Assembly had been affirmed and upheld. Paris had settled down once more into comparative repose. The king had apparently learned his lesson. But the victory of the reformers had been gained too easily. Louis XVI might take solemn oaths and wear strange cockades, but he remained in character essentially weak. His very virtues—good intentions, love of wife, loyalty to friends—were continually abused. The queen was bitterly opposed to the reforming policies of the National Assembly and actively resented any diminution of royal authority. Her clique of court friends and favorites disliked the decrease of pensions and amusements to which they had long been accustomed. Court and queen made common cause in appealing to the good qualities of Louis XVI. What was the weak king to do under the circumstances? He was to fall completely under the domination of his entourage.

[Sidenote: Demonstrations of the Parisian Women at Versailles, October, 1789]

The result was renewed intrigues to employ force against the obstreperous deputies and their allies, the populace of Paris. This time it was planned to bring royal troops from the garrisons in Flanders. And on the night of 1 October, 1789, a supper was given by the officers of the bodyguard at Versailles in honor of the arriving soldiers. Toasts were drunk liberally and royalist songs were sung. News of the "orgy," as it was termed, spread like wildfire in Paris, where hunger and suffering were more prevalent than ever. That city was starving while Versailles was feasting. The presence of additional troops at Versailles, it was believed, would not only put an end to the independence of the Assembly but would continue the starvation of Paris. More excited grew the Parisians.

On 5 October was presented a strange and uncouth spectacle. A long line of the poorest women of Paris, including some men dressed as women, riotous with fear and hunger and rage, armed with sticks and clubs, screaming "Bread! bread! bread!" were straggling along the twelve miles of highway from Paris to Versailles. They were going to demand bread of the king. Lafayette and his National Guardsmen, who had been unable or unwilling to allay the excitement in Paris, marched at a respectful distance behind the women out to Versailles.

By the time Lafayette reached the royal palace, the women were surrounding it, howling and cursing, and demanding bread or blood; only the fixed bayonets of the troops from Flanders had prevented them from invading the building, and even these regular soldiers were weakening. Lafayette at once became the man of the hour. He sent the soldiers back to the barracks and with his own force undertook the difficult task of guarding the property and lives of the royal family and of feeding and housing the women for the night. Despite his precautions, it was a wild night. There was continued tumult in the streets and, at one time, shortly before dawn, a gang of rioters actually broke into the palace and groped about in search of the queen's apartments. Just in the nick of time the hated Marie Antoinette hurried to safer quarters, although several of her personal bodyguard were killed in the mêlée.

When the morning of 6 October had come, Lafayette addressed the crowd, promising them that they should be provided for, and, at the critical moment, there appeared at his side on the balcony of the palace the royal family—the king, the little prince, the little princess, and the queen—all wearing red-white-and-blue cockades. A hush fell upon the mob. The respected general leaned over and gallantly kissed the hand of Marie Antoinette. A great shout of joy went up. Apparently even the queen had joined the Revolution. The Parisians were happy, and arrangements were made for the return journey.

[Sidenote: Forcible Removal of the Court and Assembly from Versailles to Paris]

The procession of 6 October from Versailles to Paris was more curious and more significant than that of the preceding day in the opposite direction. There were still the women and the National Guardsmen and Lafayette on his white horse and a host of people of the slums, but this time in the midst of the throng was a great lumbering coach, in which rode Louis and his wife and children, for Paris now insisted that the court should no longer possess the freedom of Versailles in which to plot unwatched against the rights of the French people. All along the procession reechoed the shout, "We have the baker and the baker's wife and the little cook-boy—now we shall have bread." And so the court of Louis XVI left forever the proud, imposing palace of Versailles, and came to humbler lodgings [Footnote: In the palace of the Tuileries.] in the city of Paris.

Paris had again saved the National Assembly from royal intimidation, and the Assembly promptly acknowledged the debt by following the king to that city. After October, 1789, not reactionary Versailles but radical Paris was at once the scene and the impulse of the Revolution.

The "Fall of the Bastille" and the "March of the Women to Versailles" were the two picturesque events which assured the independence of the National Assembly from the armed force and intrigue of the court. Meanwhile, the answer to the other question which we propounded above, "What direction would the reforms of the Assembly take?" had been supplied by the people at large.

[Sidenote: Disintegration of the Old Régime throughout France]
[Sidenote: Peasant Reprisals against the Nobility]

Ever since the assembling of the Estates-General, ordinary administration of the country had been at a standstill. The people, expecting great changes, refused to pay the customary taxes and imposts, and the king, for fear of the National Assembly and of a popular uprising, hesitated to compel tax collection by force of arms. The local officials did not know whether they were to obey the Assembly or the king. In fact, the Assembly was for a time so busy with constitutional questions that it neglected to provide for local government, and the king was always timorous. So, during the summer of 1789, the institutions of the "old régime" disappeared throughout France, one after another, because there was no popular desire to maintain them and no competent authority to enforce them. The insurrection in Paris and the fall of the Bastille was the signal in July for similar action elsewhere: other cities and towns substituted new elective officers for the ancient royal or gild agents and organized National Guards of their own. At the same time the direct action of the people spread to the country districts. In most provinces the oppressed peasants formed bands which stormed and burned the châteaux of the hated nobles, taking particular pains to destroy feudal or servile title-deeds. Monasteries were often ransacked and pillaged. A few of the unlucky lords were murdered, and many others were driven into the towns or across the frontier. Amid the universal confusion, the old system of local government completely collapsed. The intendants and governors quitted their posts. The ancient courts of justice, whether feudal or royal, ceased to act. The summer of 1789 really ended French absolutism, and the transfer of the central government from Versailles to Paris in October merely confirmed an accomplished fact.

[Sidenote: The Revolution Social as well as Political]

Whatever had been hitherto the reforming policies of the National Assembly, the deputies henceforth faced facts rather than theories. Radical social readjustments were now to be effected along with purely governmental and administrative changes. The Revolution was to be social as well as political.