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

by Carlton J. H. Hayes

THE END OF THE OLD RÉGIME: THE NATIONAL CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY, 1789-1791

[Sidenote: Achievements of the National Assembly, 1789-1791]

By the transformation of the Estates-General into the National Constituent Assembly, France had become to all intents and purposes a limited monarchy, in which supreme authority was vested in the nation's elected representatives. From October, 1789, to September, 1791, this Assembly was in session in Paris, endeavoring to bring order out of chaos and to fashion a new France out of the old that was dying of exhaustion and decrepitude. Enormous was the task, but even greater were the achievements. Although the work of the Assembly during the period was influenced in no slight degree by the Parisian populace, nevertheless it was attended by comparative peace and security. And the work done was by far the most vital and most lasting of the whole revolutionary era.

Leaving out of consideration for the time the frightened royal family, the startled noblemen and clergy, the determined peasantry, and the excited townsfolk, and not adhering too closely to chronological order, let us center our attention upon the National Assembly and review its major acts during those momentous years, 1789-1791.

[Sidenote: 1. Legal Destruction of Feudalism and Serfdom]

The first great work of the Assembly was the legal destruction of feudalism and serfdom—a long step in the direction of social equality. We have already noticed how in July while the Assembly was still at Versailles, the royal officers in the country districts had ceased to rule and how the peasants had destroyed many châteaux amid scenes of unexpected violence. News of the rioting and disorder came to the Assembly from every province and filled its members with the liveliest apprehension. A long report, submitted by a special investigating committee on 4 August, 1789, gave such harrowing details of the popular uprising that every one was convinced that something should be done at once.

[Sidenote: "The August Days">[

While the Assembly was debating a declaration which might calm revolt, one of the nobles—a relative of Lafayette—arose in his place and stated that if the peasants had attacked the property and privileges of the upper classes, it was because such property and privileges represented unjust inequality, that the fault lay there, and that the remedy was not to repress the peasants but to suppress inequality. It was immediately moved and carried that the Assembly should proclaim equality of taxation for all classes and the suppression of feudal and servile dues. Then followed a scene almost unprecedented in history. Noble vied with noble, and clergyman with clergyman, in renouncing the vested rights of the "old régime." The game laws were repudiated. The manorial courts were suppressed. Serfdom was abolished. Tithes and all sorts of ecclesiastical privilege were sacrificed. The sale of offices was discontinued. In fact, all special privileges, whether of classes, of cities, or of provinces, were swept away in one consuming burst of enthusiasm. The holocaust lasted throughout the night of the fourth of August. Within a week the various independent measures had been consolidated into an impressive decree "abolishing the feudal system," and this decree received in November the royal assent. What many reforming ministers had vainly labored for years partially to accomplish was now done, at least in theory, by the National Assembly in a few days. The so-called "August Days" promised to dissolve the ancient society of France.

It has been customary to refer these vast social changes to the enthusiasm, magnanimity, and self-sacrifice of the privileged orders. That there was enthusiasm is unquestionable. But it may be doubted whether the nobles and clergy were so much magnanimous as terrorized. For the first time, they were genuinely frightened by the peasants, and it is possible that the true measure of their "magnanimity" was their alarm. Then, too, if one is to sacrifice, he must have something to sacrifice. At most, the nobles had only legal claims to surrender, for the peasants had already taken forcible possession of nearly everything which the decree accorded them. In fact the decree of the Assembly constituted merely a legal and uniform recognition of accomplished facts.

The nobles may have thought, moreover, that liberal acquiescence in the first demands of the peasantry would save themselves from further demands. At any rate, they zealously set to work in the Assembly to modify what had been done, to secure financial or other indemnity, [Footnote: The general effect of the series of decrees of the Assembly from 5 to 11 August, 1789, was to impose some kind of financial redemption for many of the feudal dues. It was only in July, 1793, almost four years after the "August Days," that all feudal dues and rights were legally abolished without redemption or compensation.] and to prevent the enactment of additional social legislation. Outside the Assembly few nobles took kindly to the loss of privilege and property: the overwhelming majority protested and tried to stir up civil war, and, when such attempts failed, they left France and enrolled themselves among their country's enemies.

It is not necessary for us to know precisely who were responsible for the "August Days." The fact remains that the "decree abolishing the feudal system" represented the most important achievement of the whole French Revolution. Henceforth, those who profited by the decree were loyal friends of the Revolution, while the losers were its bitter opponents.

[Sidenote: 2. The Declaration of the Rights of Man]

The second great work of the Assembly was the guarantee of individual rights and liberties. The old society and government of France were disappearing. On what basis should the new be erected? Great Britain had its Magna Carta and its Bill of Rights; America had its Declaration of Independence. France was now given a "Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen." This document, which reflected the spirit of Rousseau's philosophy and incorporated some of the British and American provisions, became the platform of the French Revolution and tremendously influenced political thought in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. A few of its most striking sentences are as follows: "Men are born and remain free and equal in rights." The rights of man are "liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression." "Law is the expression of the general will. Every citizen has a right to participate personally, or through his representative, in its formation. It must be the same for all." "No person shall be accused, arrested, or imprisoned except in the cases and according to the forms prescribed by law." Religious toleration, freedom of speech, and liberty of the press are affirmed. The people are to control the finances, and to the people all officials of the state are responsible. Finally, the influence of the propertied classes, which were overwhelmingly represented in the Assembly, showed itself in the concluding section of the Declaration: "Since private property is an inviolable and sacred right, no one shall be deprived thereof except where public necessity, legally determined, shall clearly demand it, and then only on condition that the owner shall have been previously and equitably indemnified."

[Sidenote: 3. Reform of Local Administration]

The next great undertaking of the National Assembly was the establishment of a new and uniform administrative system in France. The ancient and confusing "provinces," "governments," "intendancies," "pays d'état" "pays d'élection" "parlements," and "bailliages" were swept away. The country was divided anew into eighty- three departments, approximately uniform in size and population, and named after natural features, such as rivers or mountains. Each department was subdivided into districts, cantons. and communes,— divisions which have endured in France to the present time. The heads of the local government were no longer to be appointed by the crown but elected by the people, and extensive powers were granted to elective local councils. Provision was made for a new system of law courts throughout the country, and the judges, like the administrative officials, were to be elected by popular vote. Projects were likewise put forward to unify and simplify the great variety and mass of laws which prevailed in different parts of France, but this work was not brought to completion until the time of Napoleon Bonaparte.

[Sidenote: 4. Financial Regulation. 5. Secularization of Church
Property, the Assignats]

Another grave matter which concerned the National Assembly was the regulation of the public finances. It will be recalled that financial confusion was the royal reason for summoning the Estates-General. And in the early days of the Assembly, the confusion became chaos: it was impossible to enforce the payment of direct taxes; indirect taxes were destroyed by legislative decree; and bankers could not be induced to make new loans. Therefore, it was to heroic measures that the Assembly resorted to save the state from bankruptcy. To provide funds, a heavy blow was struck at one of the chief props of the "old régime"—the Catholic Church. The Church, as we have seen, owned at least a fifth of the soil of France, and it was now resolved to seize these rich church lands, and to utilize them as security for the issue of paper money— the assignats. As partial indemnity for the wholesale confiscation, the state was to undertake the payment of fixed salaries to the clergy. Thus by a single stroke the financial pressure was relieved, the Church was deprived of an important source of its strength, and the clergy were made dependent on the new order. Of course, as often happens in similar cases, the issue of paper money was so increased that in time it exceeded the security and brought fresh troubles to the state, but for the moment the worst dangers were tided over.

[Sidenote: 6. Other Legislation against the Catholic Church]

The ecclesiastical policies and acts of the National Assembly were perhaps the least efficacious and the most fateful achievements of the Revolution. Yet it would be difficult to perceive how they could have been less radical than they were. The Church appeared to be indissolubly linked with the fortunes of old absolutist France; the clergy comprised a particularly privileged class; and the leaders and great majority of the Assembly were filled with the skeptical, Deistic, and anti-Christian philosophy of the time. In November, 1789, the church property was confiscated. In February, 1790, the monasteries and other religious houses were suppressed. In April, absolute religious toleration was proclaimed. In August, 1790, the "Civil Constitution of the Clergy" was promulgated, by which the bishops and priests, reduced in numbers, were made a civil body: they were to be elected by the people, paid by the state, and separated from the sovereign control of the pope. In December, the Assembly forced the reluctant king to sign a decree compelling all the clergy to take a solemn oath of allegiance to the "Civil Constitution."

[Sidenote: Catholic Opposition to the Revolution]

The pope, who had already protested against the seizure of church property and the expulsion of the monks, now condemned the "Civil Constitution" and forbade Catholics to take the oath of allegiance. Thus, the issue was squarely joined. Such as took the oath were excommunicated by the pope, such as refused compliance were deprived of their salaries and threatened with imprisonment. Up to this time, the bulk of the lower clergy, poor themselves and in immediate contact with the suffering of the peasants, had undoubtedly sympathized with the course of the Revolution, but henceforth their convictions and their consciences came into conflict with devotion to their country. They followed their conscience and either incited the peasants, over whom they exercised considerable influence, to oppose further revolution, or emigrated [Footnote: The clergy who would not take the oath were called the "non-juring" clergy. Those who left France, together with the noble emigrants, were called "émigrés.">[ from France to swell the number of those who, dissatisfied with the course of events in their own country, would seek the first opportunity to undo the work of the Assembly. The Catholic Church, as well as the hereditary nobility, became an unwearied opponent of the French Revolution.

[Sidenote: 7. The Constitution of 1791]

Amid all these sweeping reforms and changes, the National Constituent Assembly was making steady progress in drafting a written constitution which would clearly define the agencies of government, and their respective powers, the new limited monarchy. This constitution was completed in 1791 and signed by the king—he could do nothing else—and at once went into full effect. It was the first written constitution of any importance that any European country had had, and was preceded only slightly in point of time by that of the United States. [Footnote: The present American constitution was drafted in 1787 and went into effect in 1789, the year that the Estates-General assembled.]

The Constitution of 1791, as it was called, provided, like the American constitution, for the "separation of powers," that is, that the law- making, law-enforcing, and law-interpreting functions of government should be kept quite distinct as the legislative, executive, and judicial departments, and should each spring, in last analysis, from the will of the people. This idea had been elaborated by Montesquieu, and deeply affected the constitution-making of the eighteenth century both in France and in the United States.

[Sidenote: Legislative Provisions]

The legislative authority was vested in one chamber, styled the "Legislative Assembly," the members of which were chosen by means of a complicated system of indirect election. [Footnote: That is to say, the people would vote for electors, and the electors for the members of the Assembly.] The distrust with which the bourgeois framers of the constitution regarded the lower classes was shown not only in this check upon direct election but also in the requirements that the privilege of voting should be exercised exclusively by "active" citizens, that is, by citizens who paid taxes, and that the right to hold office should be restricted to property-holders.

[Sidenote: Weakness of the King under the Constitution]

Nominally the executive authority resided in the hereditary king. In this respect, most of the French reformers thought they were imitating the British government, but as a matter of fact they made the kingship not even ornamental. True, they accorded to the king the right to postpone for a time the execution of an act of the legislature—the so- called "suspensive veto"—but they deprived him of all control over local government, over the army and navy, and over the clergy. Even his ministers were not to sit in the Assembly. Tremendous had been the decline of royal power in France during those two years, 1789-1791.

[Sidenote: Summary of the Work of the National Assembly]

This may conclude our brief summary of the work of the National Constituent Assembly. If we review it as a whole, we are impressed by the immense destruction which it effected. No other body of legislators has ever demolished so much in the same brief period. The old form of government, the old territorial divisions, the old financial system, the old judicial and legal regulations, the old ecclesiastical arrangements, and, most significant of all, the old condition of holding land—serfdom and feudalism—all were shattered. Yet all this destruction was not a mad whim of the moment. It had been preparing slowly and painfully for many generations. It was foreshadowed by the mass of well-considered complaints in the cahiers. It was achieved not only by the decrees of the Assembly, but by the forceful expression of the popular will.