It was the period when all their friends arrived. Pétion had just been elected maire, and was creating a republic in the commune. Robespierre, excluded from the Legislative Assembly by the law which forbade the re-election of the members of the Constituent Assembly, found a tribune in the Jacobins. Brissot assumed Buzot's place in the new Assembly, and his reputation, as a public writer and statesman, brought around him and his doctrines the young Girondists, who had arrived from their department, with the ardour of their age, and the impulse of a second revolutionary tide. They cast themselves, on their arrival, into the places which Robespierre, Buzot, Laclos, Danton, and Brissot had marked out for them.
Roland, the friend of all these men, but in the back ground, and concealed in their shadow, had one of those peculiar reputations, the more potent over opinion, as it made but little display: it was spoken of as though an antique virtue, beneath the simple appearance of a rustic: he was the Siéyès of his party. Beneath his taciturnity his deep thought was assured, and in his mystery the oracle was accredited. The brilliancy and genius of his wife attracted all eyes towards him: his very mediocrity, the only power that has the virtue of neutralising envy, was of service to him. As no one feared him, every body thrust him forward—Pétion as a cover for himself—Robespierre to undermine him—Brissot to put his own villanous reputation under the shelter of proverbial probity—Buzot, Vergniaud, Louvet, Gensonné, and the Girondists, from respect for his science, and the attraction towards Madame Roland; even the Court, from confidence in his honesty and contempt for his influence. This man advanced to power without any effort on his own part, borne onwards by the favour of a party, by the prestige which the unknown has over opinion, by the disdain of his opponents and the genius of his wife.
II.
The king had for some time hoped that the wrath of the Revolution would be softened down by its triumph. Those violent acts, those stormy oscillations between insolence and repentance, which had marked the inauguration of the Assembly, had painfully undeceived him. His astonished ministry already trembled before so much audacity, and in the council avowed their incompetency. The king was desirous of retaining men who had given him such proofs of devotion to his person. Some of them, confidants or accomplices, served the king and queen, either by keeping up communications with the emigrants or by their intrigues in the interior.
M. de Montmorin, an able man, but unequal to the difficulties of the crisis, had retired. The two principal men of the ministry were M. de Lessart for Foreign Affairs; M. Bertrand de Molleville in the Marine Department. M. de Lessart, placed by his position between the armed emigrants, the impatient Assembly, undecided Europe, and the inculpated king, could not fail to fall under his own good intentions. His plan was to avoid war in his own country by temporising and negotiations—to suspend the hostile demonstration of foreign power: to present to the intimidated Assembly the king, as sole arbiter and negotiator of peace between his people and the foreigner; and he trusted thus to adjourn the final collisions between the Assembly and the throne, and to re-establish the regular authority of the king by preserving peace. The personal arrangements of the emperor Leopold aided him in his plans; he had only to contend against the fatality which urges men and things to their dénouement. The Girondists, and Brissot especially, overwhelmed him with accusations, inasmuch as he was the man who could most retard their triumph. By sacrificing him they could sacrifice a whole system: their press and their harangues pointed him out to the fury of the people;—the partisans of war marked him down as their victim. He was no traitor—but with them to negotiate was to betray. The king, who knew he was irreproachable and confided all his plans to him, refused to sacrifice him to his enemies, and thus accumulated resentments against the minister. As to M. de Molleville, he was a secret enemy of the constitution. He advised the king to play the hypocrite, acting in the letter, and thus to destroy the spirit, of the law,—advancing by subterranean ways to a violent catastrophe,—when, according to him the monarchical cause must come out victorious. Confiding in the power of intrigue more than in the influence of opinion, seeking everywhere traitors to the popular cause, paying spies, bargaining for consciences, believing in no one's incorruptibility, keeping up secret intelligence with the most violent demagogues, paying in hard money for the most incendiary propositions under the idea of making the Revolution unpopular from its very excesses, and filling the tribunes of the Assembly with his agents in order to choke down with their hootings, or render effective by their applause, the discourses of certain orators, and thus to feign in the tribunes a false people and a false opinion; men of small means in great matters presuming that it is possible to deceive a nation as if it were an individual. The king, to whom he was devoted, liked him as the depositary of his troubles, the confidant of his relations with foreign powers, and the skilful mediator of his negotiation with all parties. M. de Molleville thus kept himself in well-managed balance between his favour with the king, and his intrigues with the revolutionary party He spoke the language of the constitution well—he had the secret of many consciences bought and paid for.
It was between these two men that the king, in order to comply with popular opinion, called M. de Narbonne to the ministry of war. Madame de Stäel and the constitutional party sought the aid of the Girondists. Condorcet, was the mediator between the two parties. Madame de Condorcet, an exceedingly lovely woman, united with Madame de Stäel in enthusiasm for the young minister. The one lent him the brilliancy of her genius, the other the influence of her beauty. These two females appeared to fuse their feelings in one common devotion for the man honoured by their preference. Rivalry was sacrificed at the shrine of ambition.
III.
The point of union of the Girondist party with the constitutional party, in that combination of which M. de Narbonne's elevation was the guarantee, was the thirst of both parties for war. The constitutional party desired it, in order to divert internal anarchy, and dispel those fermentations of agitation which threatened the throne. The Girondist party desired it in order to push men's minds to extremities. It hoped that the dangers of the country would give it strength enough to shake the throne and produce the republican regime.
It was under these auspices that M. de Narbonne took office. He also was desirous of war; not to overthrow the throne in whose shadow he was born, but to dazzle and shake the nation, to hazard fortune by desperate casts, and to replace at the head of the people under the arms of the high military aristocracy of the country, La Fayette, Biron, Rochambeau, the Lameths, Dillon, Custines, and himself. If victory favoured the French flag, the victorious army, under constituent chiefs, would control the Jacobins, strengthen the reformed monarchy, and maintain the establishment of the two chambers; if France was destined to reverses, unquestionably the throne and aristocracy must fall, but better to fall nobly in a national contest of France against her enemies, than to tremble perpetually and to perish at last in a riot by the pikes of the Jacobins. This was the adventurous and chivalrous policy which pleased the young men by its heroism, and the women by its prestige. It betokened the high courage of France. M. de Narbonne personified it in the council. His colleagues, MM. de Lessart and Bertrand de Molleville, saw in him the total overthrow of all their plans. The king, as usual, was all indecision; one step forward and one backwards; surprised by the event in his hesitation, and thus unable to resist a shock, or himself to give any impulse.
Beside these official councillors, certain constituents not in the Assembly, especially the Lameths, Duport, and Barnave, were consulted by the king. Barnave had remained in Paris some months after the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly. He redeemed by sincere devotion to the monarchy the blows he had previously dealt upon it. He had measured with an eye of judgment, the rapid declivity down which the love of popular favour had impelled him. Like Mirabeau, he wished to pause when it was too late. Henceforth, remaining on the brink of events, he was besieged with terror and remorse. If his intrepid heart did not tremble for himself, the sympathy he experienced for the queen and royal family urged him to give the king advice which had but one fault,—it was impossible now to follow it.