History of the Girondists, Volume I / Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution

by Alphonse de Lamartine

III.

These decrees humiliated the king, spread consternation amongst the constitutional party, and agitated the people. All had hoped that harmony would be established between the powers, and yet this understanding was destroyed at the outset, and the constitution tottered at its first step. This deprivation of the titles of royalty seemed a greater humiliation than the deprivation of the absolute power. Had we alone kept our king to expose him to the insults and derision of the people's representatives? how will a nation that does not respect its hereditary chief, respect its elected representatives? and is it by such outrages that liberty hopes to render herself acceptable to the throne? Or, is it by infusing similar feelings of resentment in the breast of the king, that he will be induced to protect the constitution, and to aid the maintenance of the rights of the people? If the executive power be a necessary reality, we must respect it, even in the king; if it be but a shadow, still should we respect and honour it. The ministerial council assembled, and the king declared that he was not forced by the new constitution to expose the monarchical dignity represented in his person to the outrages of the Assembly, and that he would order the ministers to preside at the opening of the legislative body.

This rumour created a reaction in Paris in favour of the king. The Assembly, as yet undecided, felt the blow; and that the popularity it sought was fast disappearing. "What has been the result of the decree of yesterday?" said the deputy Vosgien, at the opening of the sitting of the 6th of October. "Fresh hopes for the enemies of the public welfare, agitation of the people, depreciation of our credit, general disquietude. Let us pay to the hereditary representative of the people the respect that is his due. Do not let him believe that he is destined to be the mockery and the plaything of each fresh legislation; it is time for the constitution to cast anchor, and fix itself with firmness and stability."

Vergniaud, the hitherto unknown orator of the Gironde, displayed in his opening speech that audacious yet undecided character that was the type of his policy. His speeches were uncertain as his mind; he spoke in favour of one party, and voted for the other. "We all appear to agree," said he, "that if this decree concerns our internal regulations, it should be instantly put into execution; and it is evident to me that the decree does concern our internal regulations, for there can be no connection of authority between the legislative body and the king. It is merely a question of those marks of respect which are demanded to be shown to the royal dignity. I know not why the titles of Sire and Majesty, which recall feudality, should be restored; for the king ought to glory in the title of King of the French. I ask you, whether the king demanded a decree to regulate the etiquette of his household when he received your deputation? However, to speak my opinion without reserve, I think that if the king, as a mark of respect to the Assembly, rises and uncovers his head, the Assembly, as a mark of respect to the king, should imitate his example."

Hérault de Séchelles demanded the repeal of the decree, and Champion, deputy of the Jura, reproached his colleagues for employing their meetings in such puerile debates. "I do not fear that the people will worship a gilded chair," said he, "but I dread a struggle between the two powers. You will not permit that the words sire and majesty be used, you will not even permit us to applaud the king; as if it were possible to forbid the people from manifesting their gratitude when the king has merited it. Do not let us dishonour ourselves, gentlemen, by a culpable ingratitude towards the National Assembly, who has retained these marks of respect for the king. The founders of liberty were not slaves; and previous to fixing the prerogatives of royalty, they established the rights of the people. It is the nation that is honoured in the person of its hereditary representative. It is the nation who, after having created royalty, has invested it with a splendour that remounts to the source from whence it sprung, and gives it a double lustre."

Ducastel, the president of the deputation sent to the king, spoke on the same side, but having inadvertently used the expression sovereign, in speaking of the king, and that the legislative power was vested in the Assembly and the king, this blasphemy and involuntary heresy raised a terrible storm in the chamber. Every word of this nature seemed to them to threaten a counter-revolution; for they were still so near despotism, that they feared at each step again to fall into its toils. The people was a slave, freed but yesterday, and who still trembled at the clank of his chains. However, the offensive decree was repealed, and this retraction was rapturously hailed by the royalists and the national guard. The constitutionalists saw in it the augury of renewed harmony between the ruling powers of the state; the king saw in it the triumph of a fidelity that had been deadened, but which blazed forth again on the least appearance of outrage to his person.

They were all deceived: it was but a movement of generosity, succeeding one of brutality; the hesitation of a nation that dares not, at one stroke, destroy the idol before which it has so long bowed the knee.

The royalists, however, attacked this return to moderation in their journals. "See," they cried, "how contemptible is this revolution—how conscious of its own weakness! This feeling of its own feebleness is a defeat already anticipated; see in two days how often it has given itself the lie. The authority that concedes is lost unless it possess the art of masking its retreat, of retreating by slow and imperceptible steps, and of causing its laws to be rather forgotten than repealed. Obedience arises from two causes, respect and fear. And both have been alike snapped asunder by the sudden and violent retrograde movement of the Assembly; for how can we respect or dread that power that trembles at its own audacity? The Assembly has abdicated by not completing that which it had dared to commence: the revolution that does not advance, retreats; and the king has conquered without striking a blow."

On their side the revolutionary party assembled that evening at the Jacobins, deplored their defeat, accused every one, and mutually recriminated on each other. "See," said their orators, "what underhand work has been accomplished in one night; what a triumph of corruption and fraud! The members of the former Assembly have mixed with the new members in the chamber, and have infused into the ears of their successors those concessions that have ruined them. After the sitting of that evening they mingled with the groups in the Palais Royal, spread alarm around, hinted of a second flight of the king, prognosticated trouble and anarchy, and made the people of Paris, who prefer their own private interests to the public weal, fear the utter destruction of confidence and the depression of the public credit. Can this venal race resist such arguments?"

All the real feelings of Paris were infused the next day into the attitude and discourses of the Assembly. "At the opening of the sitting," says a Jacobin, "I took my place amongst the deputies who were discussing the best means to obtain the repeal of the decree. I remarked that the decree having been carried the previous evening almost unanimously, it appeared impracticable to reckon upon so sudden and so scandalous a change of opinion. 'We are sure of the majority,' was their reply. I quitted my seat and took another, where precisely the same conversation passed. I then took refuge in that part of the chamber that had been so long the sanctuary of patriotism: there I heard the same arguments, the same apostacy. All had been purchased in the course of the night, and the best proof that this work of corruption had been accomplished before the deliberation is, that all the orators who spoke against the decree had their speeches ready written. Whence arises this surprise of the patriots? Because the well-intentioned members of the Assembly do not know each other; they have not met or reckoned their numbers here. It is true that you have opened your doors to receive them: they have entered this room to examine your countenance and ascertain your forces; but they are not as yet associated and knit together; nor have they acquired, by frequent visits here, and by listening to your discourses, that confidence and patriotism that form the great and good citizen."