Only reflect for a moment how entirely its legal and premeditated proclamation would have altered the course of events. The 10th of August would not have taken place—the perfidy and tyranny of the commune of Paris—the massacre of the guards—the assault on the palace—the flight of the king to the Assembly—the outrages heaped on him there—and his imprisonment in the temple—would have never occurred.
The republic would not have killed a king, a queen, an innocent babe, and a virtuous princess; it would not have had the massacres of September, those St. Bartholomews of the people—that have left an indelible stain on the whole robes of liberty. It would not have been baptized in the blood of three hundred thousand human beings—it would not have armed the revolutionary tribunal with the axe of the people, with which it immolated a generation to make way for an idea,—it would not have had the 31st of May. The Girondists arriving at the supreme power, unsullied by crime, would have possessed more force with which to combat the demagogues; and the republic calmly and deliberately instituted, would have intimidated Europe far more than an émeute legitimised by bloodshed and assassination. War might have been avoided, or, if it was inevitable, have been more unanimous and more triumphant; our generals would not have been massacred by their soldiers amidst cries of treason. The spirit of the people would have combated with us, and the horror of our days of August, September, and January would not have alienated from our standards the nations attracted thither by our doctrines. Thus a single change in the origin of the republic changed the fate of the Revolution.
XVI.
But if this rigorous resolution was yet repugnant to the feelings of France, and if the Assembly had feared they had given birth to a republic prematurely, the third course was yet open, to proclaim the temporary cessation of royalty during ten years, and govern in a republican form in its name until the constitution was firmly and securely established. This course would have saved all the respect due to royalty; the life of the king—the life of the royal family—the rights of the people—the purity of the Revolution—it was at once firm and calm, efficacious and legitimate. It was such a dictatorship as the people had instinctively figured in the critical times of their existence. But instead of a short, fugitive, disturbed, and ambitious dictatorship of one man, it was the dictatorship of the nation, governing itself through its National Assembly. The nation might have respectfully laid by royalty during ten years, in order itself to carry out a work above the power of the king. This accomplished, resentment extinguished, habits formed, the laws in operation, the frontiers protected, the clergy secularised, the aristocracy humbled, the dictatorship could terminate. The king or his dynasty could ascend without danger a throne from which all danger was now averted. This veritable republic would have thus resumed the name of a constitutional monarchy, without changing any thing, and the statue of royalty would have been replaced on its pedestal when the base had been consolidated. Such would have been the consulate of the people, far superior to that consulate of a man who was to finish by ravaging Europe, and by the double usurpation of a throne and a revolution.
Or, if at the expiration of this national dictatorship, the nation, well governed and guided, found it dangerous or useless to re-establish the throne, what prevented it from saying, I now assume as a definitive government that which I assumed as a dictatorship: I proclaim the French republic as the only government befitting the excitement and energy of a regenerative epoch; for the republic is a dictatorship perpetuated and constituted by the people. What avails a throne? I remain erect: it is the attitude of a people in travail!
In a word, the Constituent Assembly, whose light illumined the globe—whose audacity in two years transformed an empire, had but one fault, that of coming to a close. It should have perpetuated itself: it abdicated. A nation that abdicates after a reign of two years, and on heaps of ruins, bequeaths the sceptre to anarchy. The king could reign no longer, the nation would not. Thus faction reigned, and the Revolution perished; not because it had gone too far, but because it had not been sufficiently bold. So true is it that the timidity of nations is not less disastrous than the weakness of kings; and that a people who knows not how to seize and guard all that which pertains to it, falls at once into tyranny and anarchy. The Assembly dared to do every thing save to reign: the reign of the Revolution was nought but a republic: and the Assembly left this name to factions, and this form to terror. Such was its fault—it expiated it: and the expiation is not yet ended for France.
BOOK VIII.
I.
Whilst the king, isolated at the summit of the constitution, sought support, sometimes by hazardous negotiations with foreigners, sometimes by rash attempts at corruption in the capital, a body, some Girondists and other Jacobins, but as yet confounded under the common denomination of patriots, began to unite and form the nucleus of a great republican idea: they were Pétion, Robespierre, Brissot, Buzot, Vergniaud, Guadet, Gensonné, Carra, Louvet, Ducos, Fonfrède, Duperret, Sillery-Genlis, and many others, whose names have scarcely emerged from obscurity. The home of a young woman, daughter of an engraver of the Quai des Orfévres, was the meeting place of this union. It was there that the two great parties of the Gironde and the Montagne assembled, united, separated, and after having acquired power, and overturned the monarchy in company, tore the bosom of their country with their dissensions, and destroyed liberty whilst they destroyed each other. It was neither ambition, nor fortune, nor celebrity which had successively attracted these men to this woman's residence, then without credit, name, or comforts: it was conformity of opinion; it was that devoted worship which chosen spirits like to render in secret as in public to a new truth which promises happiness to mankind; it was the invisible attraction of a common faith, that communion of the first neophytes in the religion of philosophy, where the necessity for souls to unite before they associate by deeds, is felt. So long as the thoughts common to political men have not reached that point where they become fruitful, and are organised by contact, nothing is accomplished. Revolutions are ideas, and it is this communion which creates parties.