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

by Carlton J. H. Hayes

THE LIMITED MONARCHY IN OPERATION: THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY (1791-1792) AND THE OUTBREAK OF FOREIGN WAR

[Sidenote: Brief Duration of Limited Monarchy in France, 1791-1792]

Great public rejoicing welcomed the formal inauguration of the limited monarchy in 1791. Many believed that a new era of Peace and prosperity was dawning for France. Yet the extravagant hopes which were widely entertained for the success of the new régime were doomed to speedy and bitter disappointment. The new government encountered all manner of difficulties, the country rapidly grew more radical in sentiment and action, and within a single year the limited monarchy gave way to a republic. The establishment of the republic was the second great phase of the Revolution. Why it was possible and even inevitable may be gathered from a survey of political conditions in France during 1792,— at once the year of trial for limited monarchy and the year of transition to the republic.

[Sidenote: Sources of Opposition to the Limited Monarchy]

By no means did all Frenchmen accept cheerfully and contentedly the work of the National Constituent Assembly. Of the numerous dissenters, some thought it went too far and some thought it did not go far enough. The former may be styled "reactionaries" and the latter "radicals."

[Sidenote: Reactionaries]
[Sidenote: 1. The Émigrés]

The reactionaries embraced the bulk of the formerly privileged nobility and the non-juring clergy. The nobles had left France in large numbers as soon as the first signs of violence appeared—about the time of the fall of the Bastille and the peasant uprisings in the provinces. Many of the clergy had similarly departed from their homes when the anticlerical measures of the Assembly rendered it no longer possible for them to follow the dictates of conscience. These reactionary exiles, or émigrés as they were termed, collected in force along the northern and eastern frontier, especially at Coblenz on the Rhine. They possessed an influential leader in the king's own brother, the count of Artois, and they maintained a perpetual agitation, by means of newspapers, pamphlets, and intrigues, against the new régime. They were anxious to regain their privileges and property, and to restore everything, as far as possible, to precisely the same position it had occupied prior to 1789.

[Sidenote: 2. The Court]
[Sidenote: The Flight to Varennes]

Nor were the reactionaries devoid of support within France. It was believed that the royal family, now carefully watched in Paris, sympathized with their efforts. So long as Mirabeau, the ablest leader in the National Assembly, was alive, he had never ceased urging the king to accept the reforms of the Revolution and to give no countenance to agitation beyond the frontiers. In case the king should find his position in Paris intolerable, he had been advised by Mirabeau to withdraw into western or southern France and gather the loyal nation about him. But unfortunately, Mirabeau, worn out by dissipation and cares, died prematurely in April, 1791. Only two months later the royal family attempted to follow the course against which they had been warned. Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, in an effort to rid themselves of the spying vigilance of the Parisians, disguised themselves, fled from the capital, and made straight for the eastern frontier, apparently to join the émigrés. At Varennes, near the border, the royal fugitives were recognized and turned back to Paris, which henceforth became for them rather a prison than a capital. Although Louis subsequently swore a solemn oath to uphold the constitution, his personal popularity vanished with his ill-starred flight, and his wife —the hated "Austrian woman"—was suspected with good reason of being in secret correspondence with the émigrés as well as with foreign governments. Marie Antoinette was more detested than ever. The king's oldest brother, the count of Provence, was more successful than the king in the flight of June, 1791: he eluded detection and joined the count of Artois at Coblenz.

[Sidenote: 3. Conservative and Catholic Peasants.]

Had the reactionaries been restricted entirely to émigrés and the royal family, it is hardly possible that they would have been so troublesome as they were. They were able, however, to secure considerable popular support in France. A small group in the Assembly shared their views and proposed the most extravagant measures in order to embarrass the work of that body. Conservative clubs existed among the upper and well-to-do classes in the larger cities. And in certain districts of western France, especially in Brittany, Poitou (La Vendée), and Anjou, the peasants developed hostility to the course of the Revolution: their extraordinary devotion to Catholicism placed them under the influence of the non-juring clergy, and their class feeling against townspeople induced them to believe that the Revolution, carried forward by the bourgeoisie, was essentially in the interests of the bourgeoisie. Riots occurred in La Vendée throughout 1791 and 1792 with increasing frequency until at length the district blazed into open rebellion against the radicals.

[Sidenote: Radicals]
[Sidenote: 1. The Bourgeois Leaders]
[Sidenote: 2. The Proletarians]

More dangerous to the political settlement of 1791 than the opposition of the reactionaries was that of the radicals—those Frenchmen who thought that the Revolution had not gone far enough. The real explanation of the radical movement lies in the conflict of interest between the poor working people of the towns and the middle class, or bourgeoisie. The latter, as has been repeatedly emphasized, possessed the brains, the money, and the education: it was they who had been overwhelmingly represented in the National Assembly. The former were degraded, poverty-stricken, and ignorant, but they constituted the bulk of the population in the cities, notably in Paris, and they were both conscious of their sorry condition and desperately determined to improve it. These so-called "proletarians," though hardly directly represented in the Assembly, nevertheless fondly expected the greatest benefits from the work of that body. For a while the bourgeoisie and the proletariat coöperated: the former carried reforms through the Assembly, the latter defended by armed violence the freedom of the Assembly; both participated in the capture of the Bastille, in the establishment of the commune, and in the transfer of the seat of government from Versailles to Paris. So long as they faced a serious common danger from the court and privileged orders, they worked in harmony.

[Sidenote: Conflict of Interests Between Bourgeoisie and Proletariat]

But as soon as the Revolution had run its first stage and had succeeded in reducing the royal power and in abolishing many special privileges of the nobles and clergy, a sharp cleavage became evident between the former allies—between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The bourgeoisie, to whom was due the enactment of the reforms of the National Constituent Assembly, profited by those reforms far more than any other class in the community. Their trade and industry were stimulated by the removal of the ancient royal and feudal restrictions. Their increased wealth enabled them to buy up the estates of the outlawed émigrés and the confiscated lands of the Church. They secured an effective control of all branches of government, local and central. Of course, the peasantry also benefited to no slight extent, but their benefits were certainly less impressive than those of the bourgeoisie. Of all classes in France, the urban proletariat seemed to have gained the least: to be sure they were guaranteed by paper documents certain theoretical "rights and liberties," but what had been done for their material well-being? They had obtained no property. They had experienced no greater ease in earning their daily bread. And in 1791 they seemed as far from realizing their hopes of betterment as they had been in 1789, for the bourgeois constitution-makers had provided that only taxpayers could vote and only property-owners could hold office. The proletariat, thereby cut off from all direct share in the conduct of government, could not fail to be convinced that in the first phase of the Revolution they had merely exchanged one set of masters for another, that at the expense of the nobles and clergy they had exalted the bourgeoisie, and that they themselves were still downtrodden and oppressed. Radical changes in the constitution and radical social legislation in their own behalf became the policies of the proletariat; violence would be used as a means to an end, if other means failed.

Not all of the bourgeoisie were thoroughly devoted to the settlement of 1791. Most of them doubtless were. But a thoughtful and conspicuous minority allied themselves with the proletariat. Probably in many instances it was for the selfish motive of personal ambition that this or that middle-class individual prated much about his love for "the people" and shed tears over their wretchedness and made all manner of election promises to them. But, on the other hand, there were sincere and altruistic bourgeois who had been converted to the extreme democratic doctrines of Rousseau and who were deeply touched by the misery of the lowest classes. It was under the leadership of such men that the proletariat grew ever more radical until they sought by force to establish democracy in France.

[Sidenote: Center of Radicalism in Paris]

The radical movement centered in Paris, where now lived the royal family and where the legislature met. With the object of intimidating the former and controlling the latter, the agitation made rapid headway during 1791 and 1792. It was conducted by means of inflammatory newspapers, coarse pamphlets, and bitter speeches. It appealed to both the popular reason and the popular emotions. It was backed up and rendered efficient by the organization of revolutionary "clubs."

[Sidenote: The Clubs]
[Sidenote: Cordeliers and Jacobins]

These clubs were interesting centers of political and social agitation. Their origin was traceable to the "eating clubs" which had been formed at Versailles by various deputies who desired to take their meals together, but the idea progressed so far that by 1791 nearly every café in Paris aspired to be a meeting place for politicians and "patriots." Although some of the clubs were strictly constitutional, and even, in a few instances, professedly reactionary, nevertheless the greater number and the most influential were radical. Such were the Cordelier and Jacobin clubs. The former, organized as a "society of the friends of the rights of man and of the citizen," was very radical from its inception and enrolled in its membership the foremost revolutionaries of Paris. The latter, starting out as a "society of the friends of the constitution," counted among its early members such men as Mirabeau, Sieyès, and Lafayette, but subsequently under the leadership of Robespierre, transformed itself into an organization quite as radical as the Cordeliers. It is an interesting tact that both these radical clubs derived their popular names from monasteries, in whose confiscated buildings they customarily met.

[Sidenote: Radical Propaganda]

From Paris the radical movement radiated in all directions. Pamphlets and newspapers were spread broadcast. The Jacobin club established a regular correspondence with branch clubs or kindred societies which sprang up in other French towns. The radicals were everywhere inspired by the same zeal and aided by a splendid organization.

[Sidenote: Radical Leaders]

Of the chief radical leaders, it may be convenient at this point to introduce three—Marat, Danton, and Robespierre. All belonged to the bourgeoisie by birth and training, but by conviction they became the mouthpieces of the proletariat. All played important rôles in subsequent scenes of the Revolution.

[Sidenote: Marat]

Marat (c. 1742-1793), had he never become interested in politics and conspicuous in the Revolution, might have been remembered in history as a scientist and a man of letters. He had been a physician, and for skill in his profession, as well as for contributions to the science of physics, he had received an honorary degree from St. Andrews University in Scotland, and for a time he was in the service of the count of Artois. The convocation of the Estates-General turned his attention to public affairs. In repeated and vigorous pamphlets he combated the idea then prevalent in France that his countrymen should adopt a constitution similar to that of Great Britain. During several years' sojourn in Great Britain he had observed that that country was being ruled by an oligarchy which, while using the forms of liberty and pretending to represent the country, was in reality using its power for the promotion of its own narrow class interests. He made up his mind that real reform must benefit all the people alike and that it could be secured only by direct popular action. This was the simple message that filled the pages of the Ami du peuple—the Friend of the People—a newspaper which he edited from 1789 to 1792. With fierce invective he assailed the court, the clergy, the nobles, even the bourgeois Assembly. Attached to no party and with no detailed policies, he sacrificed almost everything to his single mission. No poverty, misery, or persecution could keep him quiet. Forced even to hide in cellars and sewers, where he contracted a loathsome skin disease, he persevered in his frenzied appeals to the Parisian populace to take matters into their own hands. By 1792 Marat was a man feared and hated by the authorities but loved and venerated by the masses of the capital. [Footnote: Marat was assassinated on 13 July, 1793, by Charlotte Corday, a young woman who was fanatically attached to the Girondist faction.]

[Sidenote: Danton]

No less radical but far more statesmanlike was Danton (1759-1794), who has been called "a sort of middle-class Mirabeau." The son of a farmer, he had studied law, had purchased a position as advocate of the Royal Council, and, before the outbreak of the Revolution, had acquired a reputation not only as a brilliant young lawyer, but also as a man of liberal tastes, fond of books, and happy in his domestic life. Like Mirabeau, he was a person of powerful physique and of stentorian voice, a skilled debater and a convincing orator; unlike Mirabeau, he himself remained calm and self-possessed while arousing his audiences to the highest pitch of enthusiasm. Like Mirabeau, too, he was not so primarily interested in the welfare of his own social class as in that of the class below him: what the nobleman Mirabeau was to the bourgeoisie, the bourgeois Danton was to the Parisian proletariat. Brought to the fore, through the favor of Mirabeau, in the early days of the Revolution, Danton at once showed himself a strong advocate of real democracy. In 1790, in conjunction with Marat and Camille Desmoulins, he founded the Cordelier Club, the activities of which he directed throughout 1791 and 1792 against the royal family and the whole cause of monarchy. An influential member of the commune of Paris, he was largely instrumental in crystallizing public opinion in favor of republicanism, Danton was rough and courageous, but neither venal nor bloodthirsty.

[Sidenote: Robespierre]

Less practical than Danton and further removed from the proletariat than Marat, Maximilien Robespierre (1758-1794) nevertheless combined such qualities as made him the most prominent exponent of democracy and republicanism. Descended from a middle-class family of Irish extraction, Robespierre had been a classmate of Camille Desmoulins in the law school of the University of Paris, and had practiced law with some success in his native town of Arras. He was appointed a criminal judge, but soon resigned that post because he could not endure to inflict the death penalty. In his immediate circle he acquired a reputation as a writer, speaker, and something of a dandy. Elected to the Third Estate in 1789, he took his place with the extreme radicals in that body—the "thirty voices," as Mirabeau contemptuously called them. Robespierre had read Rousseau from cover to cover and believed in the philosopher's doctrines with all his heart so that he would have gone to death for them. In the belief that they eventually would succeed and regenerate France and all mankind, he was ready to work with unwearied patience. The paucity of his followers in the National Assembly and the overpowering personality of Mirabeau prevented him from exercising much influence in framing the new constitution, and he gradually turned for support to the people of Paris. He was already a member of the Jacobin Club, which, by the withdrawal of its more conservative members in 1791, came then under his leadership. Thenceforth the Jacobin Club was a most effective instrument for establishing social democracy (although it was not committed to republicanism until August, 1792), and Robespierre was its oracle. Robespierre was never a demagogue in the present sense of the word: he was always emphatically a gentleman and a man of culture, sincere and truthful. Although he labored strenuously for the "rights" of the proletariat, he never catered to their tastes; to the last day of his life he retained the knee-breeches and silk stockings of the old society and wore his hair powdered.

We are now in a position to understand why the constitutional monarchy floundered. It had no great leaders to strengthen it and to conduct it through the narrow strait. It was bound to strike the rocks of reaction on one side or those of radicalism on the other. Against such fearless and determined assailants as Robespierre, Danton, and Marat, it was helpless.

[Sidenote: Difficulties Confronting the Legislative Assembly, 1791]

The new government came into being with the first meeting of the Legislative Assembly on 1 October, 1791. Immediately its troubles began. The members of the Legislative Assembly were wholly inexperienced in parliamentary procedure, for an unfortunate self- denying ordinance [Footnote: Proposed by Robespierre.] of the retiring Constituent Assembly had prohibited any of its members from accepting election to the new body. The Legislative Assembly contained deputies of fundamentally diverse views who quarreled long though eloquently among themselves. Moreover, it speedily came into conflict with the king, who vainly endeavored to use his constitutional right of suspensive veto in order to check its activities. Combined with these problems was the popular agitation and excitement: a peasant revolt in La Vendée, the angry threats of émigré nobles and non-juring clergy across the eastern frontier, the loud tumults of the proletariat of Paris and of other large cities as well.

[Sidenote: Foreign Hostility to the French Revolution]

The difficulties of the limited monarchy were further complicated by an embarrassing foreign situation. It will be borne in mind that all important European states still adhered rigidly to the social institutions of the "old régime" and, with the exception of Great Britain, to divine-right monarchy. Outside of France there appeared as yet no such thing as "public opinion," certainly no sign among the lower classes of any opinion favorable to revolution. In Great Britain alone was there a constitutional monarchy, and in the early days of the French Revolution, so long as British statesmen could flatter themselves that their neighbors across the Channel were striving to imitate their political system, these same public men sympathized with the course of events. But when it became evident that the Revolution was going further, that it aimed at a great social leveling, that it was a movement of the masses in behalf of the lowest classes in the community, then even British criticism assailed it. At the close of 1790 Edmund Burke published his Reflections on the Revolution in France, a bitter arraignment of the newer tendencies and a rhetorical panegyric of conservatism. Although Burke's sensational work was speedily and logically answered by several forceful thinkers, including the brilliant Thomas Paine, nevertheless it long held its place as the classical expression of official Britain's horror of social equality and of "mob violence." The book was likewise received with such approval by the monarchs of continental Europe, who interpreted it as a telling defense of their position, that Catherine of Russia personally complimented the author and the puppet king of Poland sent him a flamboyant glorification and a gold medal. Thenceforth the monarchs, as well as the nobles and clergy, of Europe saw in the French Revolution only a menace to their political and social privileges: were it communicated to the lower classes, the Revolution might work the same havoc throughout the length and breadth of Europe that it was working in France. The "benevolent despots" had sincere desires to labor for the welfare of the people; they shuddered at the thought of what the people themselves would do in laboring for their own welfare.

[Sidenote: The Holy Roman Emperor the Champion of Opposition to the
Revolution]

Of the monarchs of Europe, several had special reasons for viewing the progress of the Revolution with misgiving. The Bourbons of Spain and of the Two Sicilies were united by blood and family compacts with the ruling dynasty of France: any belittling of the latter's power was bound to affect disastrously the domestic position and foreign policy of the former. Then, too, the French queen, Marie Antoinette, was an Austrian Habsburg. Her family interests were in measure at stake. In the Austrian dominions, the visionary and unpractical Joseph II had died in 1790 and had been succeeded by another brother of Marie Antoinette, the gifted though unemotional Emperor Leopold II. Leopold skillfully extricated himself from the embarrassments at home and abroad bequeathed him by his predecessor and then turned his attention to French affairs. He was in receipt of constant and now frantic appeals from his sister to aid Louis XVI against the revolutionaries. He knew that the Austrian Netherlands, whose rebellion he had suppressed with difficulty, were saturated with the doctrines of the Revolution and that many of their inhabitants would welcome annexation to France. As chief of the Holy Roman Empire, he must keep revolutionary agitation out of the Germanies and protect the border provinces against French aggression. All these factors served to make the Emperor Leopold the foremost champion of the "old regime" in Europe and incidentally of the royal cause in France.

[Sidenote: Declaration of Pilinitz, August, 1791]

Now it so happened that the emperor found a curious ally in Prussia. The death of Frederick the Great in 1786 had called to the throne of that country a distinctly inferior sort of potentate, Frederick William II (1786-1797), who combined with a nature at once sensual and pleasure-loving a remarkable religious zeal. He neglected the splendid military machine which Frederick William I and Frederick the Great had constructed with infinite patience and thoroughness. He lavished great wealth upon art as well as upon favorites and mistresses. He tired the nation with an excessive Protestant orthodoxy. And in foreign affairs he reversed the far-sighted policy of his predecessor by allying himself with Austria and reducing Prussia to a secondary place among the German states. In August, 1791, Frederick William II joined with the Emperor Leopold in issuing the public Declaration of Pilinitz, to the effect that the two rulers considered the restoration of order and of monarchy in France an object of "common interest to all sovereigns of Europe." The declaration was hardly more than pompous bluster, for the armies of the German allies were not as yet ready for war, but its solemn expression of an intention on the part of foreign despots to interfere in the internal affairs of France aroused the most bitter feeling among Frenchmen who were patriotic as well as revolutionary.

[Sidenote: French Politics Under the Limited Monarchy Favorable to
Foreign War]

The prospect of war with the blustering monarchs of Austria and Prussia was quite welcome to several important factions in France. Marie Antoinette and her court clique gradually came to the conclusion that their reactionary cause would be abetted by war. If the allies won, absolutism would be restored in France by force of arms. If the French won, it would redound to the prestige of the royal family and enable them by constitutional means to recover their authority. Then, too, the constitutionalists, the bourgeois party which was led by Lafayette and which loyally supported the settlement of 1791, worked for war. Military success would consolidate the French people and confirm the constitution, and Lafayette aspired to win personal glory as the omnipotent commander. Finally, the overwhelming majority of radicals cried for war: to them it seemed as if the liberal monarchy would be completely discomfited by it and that out of it would emerge a republic in France and the general triumph of democratic principles in Europe. Why not stir up all the European peoples against their monarchs? The cause of France should be the cause of Europe. France should be the missionary of the new dispensation.

[Sidenote: Political Parties in the Legislative Assembly]

The Legislative Assembly, on which depended in last instance the solution of all these vital problems, domestic and foreign, represented several diverse shades of political opinion. Of the seven hundred members, four hundred admitted no special leadership but voted independently on every question according to individual preference or fear, while the others were divided between the camp of Feuillants and that of Jacobins. The Feuillants were the constitutionalists, inclined, while in general consistently championing the settlement of 1791, to strengthen the royal power,—they were the conservatives of the Assembly. The Jacobins, on the other hand, deriving their common name from the famous club in Paris, were the radicals: many of them secretly cherished republican sentiments, and all of them desired a further diminution of the constitutional powers of Louis XVI. The Jacobins, however, were divided into two groups on the question of how the royal power should be reduced. The larger number, whose most conspicuous members came from the department of the Gironde and were, therefore, collectively designated as Girondists, entertained the idea that the existing government should be clearly proved futile before proceeding to the next stage in the Revolution: they clamored for foreign war as the most effective means of disgracing the existing monarchy. The smaller number of Jacobins, drawn largely from Paris, desired to take no chances on the outcome of war but advocated the radical reformation of monarchical institutions by direct and immediate popular action: subsequently this small group was dubbed the Mountain [Footnote: This name did not come into general use until 1793.] from the high seats its members later occupied in the Convention: they represented the general views of such men as Marat, Danton, and Robespierre.

[Sidenote: The Girondists]

Of the various parties or groups in the Legislative Assembly, the best organized was the Girondist. Its members, recruited chiefly from the provinces, were young, enthusiastic, and filled with noble, if somewhat unpractical, ideas borrowed from the ancient republics of Greece and Rome. They were cultured, eloquent, and patriotic. In Brissot (1754- 1793), a Parisian lawyer, they had an admirable leader and organizer. In Vergniaud (1753-1793), they had a polished and convincing orator. In Condorcet (1743-1794), they had a brilliant scholar and philosopher. In Dumouriez (1739-1823), they possessed a military genius of the first order. And in the refined home of the brilliant Madame Roland (1754- 1793), they had a charming center for political discussion.

In internal affairs the Legislative Assembly accomplished next to nothing. Everything was subordinated to the question of foreign war. In that, Feuillants and Girondists found themselves in strange agreement. Only Marat and Robespierre raised their voices against a policy whose pursuit they dreaded would raise a military dictator. Marat expressed his alarms in the Friend of the People: "What afflicts the friends of liberty is that we have more to fear from success than from defeat .. .the danger is lest one of our generals be crowned with victory and lest … he lead his victorious army against the capital to secure the triumph of the Despot." But the counsels of extreme radicals were unavailing.

[Sidenote: Declaration of War against Austria and Prussia, April, 1792]

In the excitement the Girondists obtained control of the government and demanded of the emperor that the Austrian troops be withdrawn from the frontier and that the émigrés be expelled from his territories. As no action was taken by the emperor, the Girondist ministers prevailed upon Louis XVI to declare war on 20 April, 1792. Lafayette assumed supreme command, and the French prepared for the struggle. Although Leopold had just died, his policy was followed by his son and successor, the Emperor Francis II. Francis and Frederick William II of Prussia speedily collected an army of 80,000 men at Coblenz with which to invade France. The campaign of 1792 was the first stage in a vast conflict which was destined to rage throughout Europe for twenty-three years. It was the beginning of the contest between the forces of revolution and those of reaction.

Enthusiasm was with the French. They felt they were fighting for a cause—the cause of liberty, equality, and nationalism. Men put on red liberty caps, and such as possessed no firearms equipped themselves with pikes and hastened to the front. Troops coming up from Marseilles sang in Paris a new hymn of freedom which Rouget de Lisle had just composed at Strassburg for the French soldiers,—the inspiring Marseillaise that was to become the national anthem of France. But enthusiasm was about the only asset that the French possessed. Their armies were ill-organized and ill-disciplined. Provisions were scarce, arms were inferior, and fortified places in poor repair. Lafayette had greater ambition than ability.

[Sidenote: Early French Reverses]
[Sidenote: Equivocal Position of the Royal Family]

The war opened, therefore, with a series of French reverses. An attempted invasion of the Austrian Netherlands ended in dismal failure. On the eastern frontier the allied armies under the duke of Brunswick experienced little difficulty in opening up a line of march to Paris. Intense grew the excitement in the French capital. The reverses gave color to the suspicion that the royal family were betraying military plans to the enemy. A big demonstration took place on 20 June: a crowd of market women, artisans, coal heavers, and hod carriers pushed through the royal residence, jostling and threatening the king and queen: no violence was done but the temper of the Parisian proletariat was quite evident. But Louis and Marie Antoinette simply would not learn their lesson. Despite repeated and solemn assurances to the contrary, they were really in constant secret communication with the invading forces. The king was beseeching aid from foreign rulers in order to crush his own people; the queen was supplying the generals of the allies with the French plans of campaign. Limited monarchy failed in the stress of war.

ESTABLISHMENT OF THE FIRST FRENCH REPUBLIC: THE NATIONAL CONVENTION, 1792-1795

[Sidenote: Proclamation of the Duke of Brunswick, 25 July, 1792]
[Sidenote: The French Reply: the Insurrection of 9-10 August, 1792]

On 25 July, 1792, the duke of Brunswick (1735-1806), the pig-headed commander-in-chief of the allied armies, issued a proclamation to the French people. He declared it his purpose "to put an end to the anarchy in the interior of France, to check the attacks upon the throne and the altar, to reëstablish the legal power, to restore to the king the security and liberty of which he is now deprived and to place him in a position to exercise once more the legitimate authority which belongs to him." The bold duke went on to declare that French soldiers who might be captured "shall be treated as enemies and punished as rebels to their king and as disturbers of the public peace," and that, if the slightest harm befell any member of the royal family, his Austrian and Prussian troops would "inflict an ever-memorable vengeance by delivering over the city of Paris to military execution and complete destruction, and the rebels guilty of such outrages to the punishment that they merit." This foolish and insolent manifesto sealed the fate of the French monarchy. It was the clearest proof that French royalty and foreign armies were in formal alliance not only to prevent the further development of the Revolution but also to undo what had already been done. And all patriotically minded Frenchmen, whether hitherto they had sympathized with the course of events or not, now grew furious at the threats of foreigners to interfere in the internal affairs of their country. The French reply to the duke of Brunswick was the insurrection of 9-10 August, 1792.

[Sidenote: Suspension of the King and Fall of Limited Monarchy]

On those days the proletariat of Paris revolted against the liberal monarchy. They supplanted the bourgeois commune with a radically revolutionary commune, in which Danton became the leading figure. They invaded the royal palace, massacred the Swiss Guards, and obliged the king and his family to flee for their lives to the Assembly. On 10 August, a remnant of terror-stricken deputies voted to suspend the king from his office and to authorize the immediate election by universal manhood suffrage of a National Convention that would prepare a new constitution for France.

[Sidenote: Anarchy in France]

From the suspension of the king on 10 August to the assembling of the National Convention on 21 September, France was practically anarchical. The royal family was incarcerated in the gloomy prison of the Temple. The regular governmental agents were paralyzed. Lafayette protested against the insurrection at Paris and surrendered himself to the allies.

Still the allies advanced into France. Fear deepened into panic. Supreme control fell into the hands of the revolutionary commune: Danton became virtual dictator. His policy was simple. The one path of safety left open to the radicals was to strike terror into the hearts of their domestic and foreign foes. "In my opinion," said Danton, "the way to stop the enemy is to terrify the royalists. Audacity, more audacity, and always greater audacity!" The news of the investment of Verdun by the allies, published at Paris on 2 September, was the signal for the beginning of a wholesale massacre of royalists in the French capital. For five long days unfortunate royalists were taken from the prisons and handed over by a self-constituted judicial body to the tender mercies of a band of hired cutthroats. Slight discrimination was made of rank, sex, or age. Men, women, and children, nobles and magistrates, priests and bishops,—all who were suspected of royalist sympathy were butchered. The number of victims of these September massacres has been variously estimated from 2000 to 10,000.

Meanwhile Danton was infusing new life and new spirit into the French armies. Dumouriez replaced Lafayette in supreme command. And on 20 September the allies received their first check at Valmy.

[Sidenote: Valmy: the First Military Success of the Revolutionaries]
[Sidenote: Proclamation of the First French Republic]

The very day on which news reached Paris that it was saved and that Brunswick was in retreat, the National Convention met. Amid the wildest enthusiasm, it unanimously decreed "that royalty is abolished in France." Then it was resolved to date from 22 September, 1792, Year 1 of the Republic. A decree of perpetual banishment was enacted against the émigrés and it was soon determined to bring the king to trial before the Convention.

[Sidenote: The National Convention 1792-1795]

The National Convention remained in session for three years (1792- 1795), and its work constituted the second great phase of the Revolution. This work was essentially twofold: (1) It secured a series of great victories in the foreign war, thereby rendering permanent the remarkable social reforms of the first period of the Revolution, that between 1789 and 1791; and (2) it constructed a republican form of government, based on the principle of democracy.

[Sidenote: Problems Confronting the National Convention]

Perhaps no legislative body in history has been called upon to solve such knotty problems as those which confronted the National Convention at the opening of its sessions. At that time it was necessary (1) to decide what should be done with the deposed and imprisoned king; (2) to organize the national defense and turn back foreign invasion; (3) to suppress insurrection within France; (4) to provide a strong government for the country; (5) to complete and consolidate the social reforms of the earlier stage of the Revolution; and (6) to frame a new constitution and to establish permanent republican institutions. With all these questions the Convention coped with infinite industry and much success. And in the few following pages, we shall review them in the order indicated, although it should be borne in mind that most of them were considered by the Convention simultaneously.

[Sidenote: Personnel of the National Convention]
[Sidenote: The Girondists]
[Sidenote: The Mountainists]
[Sidenote: The Plain]

Before taking up the work of the Convention, a word should be said about the personnel of that body. The elections had been in theory by almost universal suffrage, but in practice indifference or intimidation reduced the actual voters to about a tenth of the total electorate. The result was the return of an overwhelming majority of radicals, who, while agreeing on the fundamental republican doctrines, nevertheless differed about details. On the right of the Convention sat nearly two hundred Girondists, including Brissot, Vergniaud, Condorcet, and the interesting Thomas Paine. These men represented largely the well-to-do bourgeoisie who were more radical in thought than in deed, who ardently desired a democratic republic, but who at the same time distrusted Paris and the proletariat. In the raised seats on the opposite side of the Convention sat nearly one hundred members of the Mountain, now exclusively designated as Jacobins—extreme radicals in thought, word, and deed—disciples of Rousseau—counting among their number Danton, Robespierre, Carnot, and St. Just. Between the two factions of Mountainists and Girondists sat the Plain, as it was called, the real majority of the house, which had no policies or convictions of its own, but voted usually according to the dictates of expediency. Our tactful, trimming Abbé Sieyès belonged to the Plain. At the very outset the Plain was likely to go with the Girondists, but as time went on and the Parisian populace clamored more and more loudly against any one who opposed the action of their allies, the Mountainists, it gradually saw fit to transfer its affections to the Left.

[Sidenote: Trial and Execution of King Louis XVI, 1793]

The first serious question which faced the Convention was the disposition of the king. The discovery of an iron chest containing accounts of expenditures for bribing members of the National Constituent Assembly, coupled with the all but confirmed suspicion of Louis' double dealings with France and with foreign foes,[Footnote: After the execution of the king, actual letters were discovered which Louis had dispatched to his fellow monarchs, urging their assistance. A typical extract is given in Robinson and Beard, Readings in Modern European History, Vol. I, pp. 287-288.] sealed the doom of that miserably weak monarch. He was brought to trial before the Convention in December, 1792, and condemned to death by a vote of 387 to 334. With the majority voted the king's own cousin, the duke of Orleans, an enthusiastic radical who had assumed the name of Citizen Philippe Égalité (Equality). On 21 January, 1793, Louis XVI was beheaded near the overthrown statue of his voluptuous predecessor Louis XV in the Place de la Révolution (now called the Place de la Concorde). The unruffled dignity with which he met death was the finest act of his reign.

[Sidenote: Military Successes]

Meanwhile the tide of Austrian and Prussian invasion had been rolling away from France. After Valmy, Dumouriez had pursued the retreating foreigners across the Rhine and had carried the war into the Austrian Netherlands, where a large party regarded the French as deliverers. Dumouriez entered Brussels without serious resistance, and was speedily master of the whole country. It seemed as though the French would have an easy task in delivering the peoples of Europe from their old régime.

[Sidenote: France the Champion of the Revolution]

Emboldened by the ease with which its armies were overrunning the neighboring states, the National Convention proposed to propagate liberty and reform throughout Europe and in December, 1792, issued the following significant decree: "The French nation declares that it will treat as enemies every people who, refusing liberty and equality or renouncing them, may wish to maintain, recall, or treat with a prince and the privileged classes; on the other hand, it engages not to subscribe to any treaty and not to lay down its arms until the sovereignty and independence of the people whose territory the troops of the republic shall have entered shall be established, and until the people shall have adopted the principles of equality and founded a free and democratic government."

[Sidenote: Foreign Fears]

In thus throwing down the gauntlet to all the monarchs of Europe and in putting the issue clearly between democracy and the old régime, the French revolutionaries took a dangerous step. Although a large number of the neighboring peoples undoubtedly sympathized with the aims and achievements of the Revolution, the rulers and privileged classes in more distant countries, such as Russia, Austria, Prussia, and even Spain and Great Britain, were still deeply intrenched in the patriotism and unquestioning loyalty of their people.

[Sidenote: The "First Coalition" against France]

Then, too, the execution of Louis XVI in January, 1793, increased the bitterness of the approaching grave struggle. A royalist reaction in France itself precipitated civil war in La Vendée. Dumouriez, the ablest general of the day, in disgust deserted to the Austrians. And at this very time, a formidable coalition of frightened and revengeful monarchs was formed to overthrow the French Republic. To Austria and Prussia, already in the field, were added Great Britain, Holland, Spain, and Sardinia.

[Sidenote: Military Endeavours of the Revolutionaries]

Once more France was placed on the defensive. Once more the allies occupied Belgium and the Rhine provinces, and took the roads toward Paris. The situation in the spring of 1793 appeared as critical as that in the preceding summer. But as the event proved, the republic was a far more effective government than the liberal monarchy, Revolutionary France now went gladly to war, singing the Marseillaise and displaying the banners of "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity." Bourgeois citizens, whose social and financial gains in the earlier stage of the Revolution would be threatened by the triumph of the foreign forces, now gave money and brains to the national defense. Artisans and peasants, who had won something and hoped to win more from the success of the Revolution, now laid down their lives for the cause. Heroism and devotion to a great ideal inspired the raw recruits that were rushed to the front.

[Sidenote: Carnot]

But it was not enthusiasm alone that saved France. It was the splendid organization of that enthusiasm by an efficient central government at Paris. In Carnot (1753-1823) the National Convention possessed a military and administrative genius of the first order. Of honorable and upright character, fearless, patriotic, and practical, Carnot plunged into the work of organizing the republican armies. His labors were incessant. He prepared the plans of campaign and the reports that were submitted to the Convention. He raised volunteers and drafted militia, drilled them, and hurried them to the frontiers. With the aid of Robert Lindet (1749-1825), the able finance minister, he found means of feeding, clothing, and arming the host of soldiers. He personally visited the armies and by word and precept infused them with energy and determination. For the first time in modern history a nation was truly in arms.

[Sidenote: The New Generals]

The work of Carnot was supplemented by the labors of the "deputies on mission," radical members of the Convention who were detailed to watch the generalship and movements of the various French armies, endowed with power to send any suspected or unsuccessful commander to the guillotine and charged with keeping the central government constantly informed of military affairs. Gradually, a new group of brilliant young republican generals appeared, among whom the steadfast Moreau (1763- 1813), the stern Pichegru (1761-1804), and the gallant Jourdan (1762- 1833) stood preeminent.

[Sidenote: French Successes]
[Sidenote: Break-up of the First Coalition, 1795]

In this way France met the monster coalition which would have staggered a Louis XIV. The country was cleared of foreign enemies. The war was pressed in the Netherlands, along the Rhine, in Savoy, and across the Pyrenees. So successful were the French that Carnot's popular title of "organizer of defense" was justly magnified to that of "organizer of victory." Of course it is impossible in our limited survey to do justice to these wonderful campaigns of 1794 and 1795. It will suffice to point out that when the National Convention finally adjourned in 1795, the First Coalition was in reality dissolved. The pitiful Charles IV of Spain humbled himself to contract a close alliance with the republic which had put his Bourbon cousin to death. By the separate treaty of Basel (1795), Prussia gave France a free hand on the left bank of the Rhine and turned her attention to securing compensation at the expense of Poland, William V, the Orange stadholder of Holland, was deposed and his country transformed into the Batavian Republic, allied with France. French troops were in full possession of the Austrian Netherlands and all other territories up to the Rhine. The life-long ambition of Louis XIV appeared to have been realized by the new France in two brief years. Only Great Britain, Austria, and Sardinia remained in arms against the republic.

[Sidenote: Suppression of Domestic Insurrection]

The foreign successes of the republic seem all the more wonderful when it is remembered that at the same time serious revolts had to be suppressed within France. Opposition to Carnot's drafting of soldiers was utilized by reactionary agitators to stir up an insurrection of the peasants in La Vendée in order to restore the monarchy and to reëstablish the Roman Catholic Church. Provincial and bourgeois dislike of the radicalism of the Parisian proletariat caused riots and outbreaks in such important and widely separated cities as Lyons, Marseilles, and Bordeaux. With the same devotion and thoroughness that had characterized their foreign policy, but with greater sternness, the officials of the National Convention stamped out all these riots and insurrections. By 1795 all France, except only the émigrés and secret conspirators, had more or less graciously accepted the republic.

The true explanation of these marvelous achievements, whether at home or abroad, lies in the strong central government which the National Convention established and in the policy of terrorism which that government pursued.

[Sidenote: Rule Of The Committee Of Public Safety]

In the spring of 1793 the National Convention intrusted the supreme executive authority of France to a special committee, composed of nine (later twelve) of its members, who were styled the Committee of Public Safety. This small body, which included such Jacobin leaders as Carnot, Robespierre, and St. Just, acting secretly, directed the ministers of state, appointed the local officials, and undertook the administration of the whole country. Manifold were the duties it was called upon to discharge. Among other problems, it must conduct the foreign relations, supervise the armies, and secure the active support of the French people. Diligently and effectively did it apply itself to its various activities.

[Sidenote: The "Terror" A Political Expedient]

Terrorism has been the word usually employed to describe the internal policy of the Committee of Public Safety, and the "Reign of Terror," the period of the Committee's chief work, from the summer of 1793 to that of 1794. So sensational and so sanguinary was the period that many writers have been prone to make it the very center of the Revolution and to picture "liberty, equality, and fraternity" as submerged in a veritable sea of blood. As a matter of fact, however, the Reign of Terror was but an incident, though obviously an inevitable incident, in a great Revolution. Nor may the French people be justly accused of a peculiarly bloodthirsty disposition. Given the same circumstances, it is doubtful whether similar scenes would not have been enacted at Vienna, Berlin, Madrid, or even London. It must be remembered that great principles and far-reaching reforms were endangered by a host of foreign and domestic enemies. It seemed to the republican leaders that the occasion demanded complete unanimity in France. A divided nation could not triumph over united Europe. The only way in which France could present a united front to the world was by striking terror into the hearts of the opponents of the new régime. And terror involved bloodshed.

The chief allies of the Committee of Public Safety in conducting terrorism were the Committee of General Security and the Revolutionary Tribunal. The former was given police power in order to maintain order throughout the country. The latter was charged with trying and condemning any person suspected of disloyalty to the republic. Both were responsible to the Committee of Public Safety. A decree of the Convention, called the Law of Suspects, proclaimed as liable to arbitrary arrest every person who was of noble birth, or had held office before the Revolution, or had any relation with an émigré, or could not produce a signed certificate of citizenship.

With such instruments of despotism France became revolutionary by strokes of the guillotine. [Footnote: The guillotine, which is still used in France, consists of two upright posts between which a heavy knife rises and falls. The criminal is stretched upon a board and then pushed between the posts. The knife falls and instantly beheads him. The device was invented by a certain philanthropic Dr. Guillotine, who wished to substitute in capital punishment an instrument sure to produce instant death in the place of the bungling process of beheading with an ax. (Mathews.)] It is estimated that about 2500 persons were executed at Paris during the Reign of Terror. Among others Marie Antoinette, Philippe Égalité, and Madame Roland suffered death.

The Terror spread to the provinces. Local tribunals were everywhere established to search out and condemn suspected persons. The city of Lyons, which ventured to resist the revolutionary government, was partially demolished and hundreds of its citizens were put to death. At Nantes, where echoes of the Vendée insurrection were long heard, the brutal Jacobin deputy Carrier loaded unhappy victims on old hulks which were towed out into the Loire and sunk. The total number of those who perished in the provinces is unknown, but it may have reached ten thousand.

When the total loss of life by means of revolutionary tribunals is calculated, it will certainly be found to bear slight comparison with the enormous sacrifice of life which any one of the numerous great wars of the nineteenth century has entailed. The chief wonder about the Reign of Terror is that its champions and supporters, who had so much at stake, did not do worse things.

[Sidenote: Factions among the Revolutionaries]

A more calamitous phase of the Terror than the slaughter of royalists and reactionaries was the wretched quarreling among various factions of the radicals and the destruction. of one for the benefit of another. Thus, the efforts of the Girondists to stay the execution of the king and to appeal to the provinces against the violence in Paris, coupled with the treason of Dumouriez, seemed to the Parisian proletariat to mark the alliance of the Girondists with the reactionaries. Accordingly, the workingmen of Paris, under the leadership of Marat, revolted on 31 May, 1793, and two days later obliged the Convention to expel twenty-nine Girondist members. Of these, the chief, including Brissot and Vergniaud, were brought to the guillotine in October, 1793. Next, the leaders of the commune of Paris, who had gone to such extreme lengths as to suppress the Christian churches in that city and to proclaim atheism, were dispatched in March, 1794, by a coalition of the followers of Danton and Robespierre. Then in April, when Danton at length wearied of the Terror and counseled moderation, that redoubtable genius, together with his friend, Camille Desmoulins, was guillotined. Finally, Robespierre himself, after enjoying a brief dictatorship, during which time he vainly endeavored to put in practice the theories of Rousseau, was sent, in company with St. Just, to the guillotine by direction of the National Convention in July, 1794. This meant the beginning of reaction.

[Sidenote: End of the Terror: Thermidorian Reaction, 1794]

The death of Robespierre ended the Reign of Terror. The purpose of the Terror, however, was already achieved. The Revolution was preserved in France, and France was preserved in Europe. The Thermidorian Reaction, as the end of the Terror is called, left the National Convention free to resume its task of devising a permanent republican constitution for the country. A few subsequent attempts were made, now by reactionaries, now by extreme radicals, to interfere with the work, but they were suppressed with comparative ease. The last uprising of the Parisian populace which threatened the Convention was effectually quelled (October, 1795) by a "whiff of grape-shot" discharged at the command of a young and obscure major of artillery, Napoleon Bonaparte by name.

[Sidenote: Reforms of the National Convention, 1792-1795]

In the midst of foreign war and internal dissension, even in the midst of the Terror, the National Convention found time to further the social reforms of the earlier stage of the Revolution. Just as the bourgeois Constituent Assembly destroyed the inequalities arising from the privileges of the "old régime," so the popular Convention sought to put an end to the inequalities arising from wealth. Under its new leaders, the Revolution assumed for a time a distinctly socialistic character. The property of the émigrés was confiscated for the benefit of the state. A maximum price for grain was set by law. Large estates were broken up and offered for sale to poorer citizens in lots of two or three acres, to be paid for in small annual installments. All ground rents were abolished without compensation to the owners. "The rich," said Marat, "have so long sucked out the marrow of the people that they are now visited with a crushing retribution."

Some of the reforms of the Convention went to absurd lengths. In the popular passion for equality, every one was to be called "Citizen" rather than "Monsieur." The official record of the expense of Marie Antoinette's funeral was the simple entry, "Five francs for a coffin for the widow of Citizen Capet." Ornate clothing disappeared with titles of nobility, and the silk stockings and knee breeches (culottes), which had distinguished the privileged classes and the gentlemen, were universally supplanted by the long trousers which had hitherto been worn only by the lowest class of workingmen (sans- culottes). To do away with the remembrance of historic Christianity, the year was divided anew into twelve months, each containing three weeks of ten days (décades), every tenth day (décadi) being for rest, and the five or six days left over at the end of the year, called sans-culottides, were national holidays; the names of the months were changed, and the revolutionary calendar made to date from the establishment of the republic, 22 September, 1792.

Many of the reforms had long been urgently needed and proved to be of permanent value. Such was the establishment of a convenient and uniform system of weights and measures, based on decimal reckoning, the so- called metric system, which has come to be accepted by almost all civilized nations save the English-speaking peoples. Such, too, was the elaborate system of state education which the philosopher Condorcet [Footnote: Marquis de Condorcet (1743-1794).] prepared and which, though more pressing questions compelled its postponement, became the basis on which the modern scheme of free public instruction has been built up in France. Such, moreover, was the separation of Church and state, effected in September, 1794, the establishment in the following year of liberty of worship, and the restoration of the churches to Christian worship on condition that the clergymen submitted to the laws of the state. Such, finally, was the project of preparing a single comprehensive code of law for the whole country. Although the legal code was not completed until the dictatorship of Napoleon Bonaparte, nevertheless the Convention made a beginning and incorporated in it a fundamental principle of inheritance that has marked modern France—the principle that no person may will his property to one direct heir to the exclusion of others but that all children must inherit almost equally. Moreover, the practice of imprisoning men for debt was abolished, negro slavery was ended, and woman's claim on property was protected in common with man's. Finally the new republican constitution was permeated with ideas of political democracy.

[Sidenote: Eventual Bourgeois Control Of The National Convention]

After the downfall of Robespierre (Thermidorian Reaction), the National Convention ceased to press reforms in behalf of the proletariat and came more and more under the influence of the moderate well-to-do bourgeoisie. The law against suspects was repealed and the grain laws were amended. The Revolutionary Tribunal was suppressed and the name of the Place de la Révolution was changed to the Place de la Concorde. The death in prison of the young and only son of Louis XVI in 1795 was a severe blow to the hopes of the royalists. By 1795 France seemed definitively committed to a republican form of government, which, however, would not be extremely radical but only moderate, being now founded on the bourgeoisie rather than on the proletariat.