These consultations, held at Adrien Duport's, the friend of Barnave and the oracle of the party, only served to embarrass the mind of the king with another element of hesitation. La Fayette and his friends also added their imperious counsel. La Fayette could not believe that he was supplanted. The national guard, which yet remained attached to him, still credited his omnipotence,—all these men and all these parties lent M. de Narbonne secret support. A courtier in the eyes of the court, an aristocrat in the eyes of the nobility, a soldier in the eyes of the army, one of the people in the eyes of the people, irresistible in the eyes of the women, he was the minister of public hope. The Girondists alone had an arrière-pensée in their apparent favour towards him. They elevated him to make his fall the more conspicuous: M. de Narbonne was to them but the hand which prepared the way for their advent.
IV.
Scarcely had he taken his place in the cabinet, than this young minister displayed all the activity, frankness, and grace of his character in the discussion of affairs, and his intercourse with the Assembly. He employed the system of confidence, and surprised the Assembly by his abandon, and these austere and suspicious men, who had hitherto seen nothing but deceit in the language of ministers, now yielded to the charm of his speeches. He addressed them, not in the official and cold language of diplomacy, but in the open and cordial tone of a patriot. He brought the dignity of his office to the tribune; he generously assumed all responsibility, and he professed the most cherished principles of the people with a sincerity that precluded the possibility of suspicion. He openly disclosed his projects, and the energy of his mind communicated itself to those men who were the most difficult to be won over. The nation too saw with delight an aristocrate so well adapt himself to their costume, their principles, and their passions. The ardour of his patriotism did not suffer the impulse, that confounded in him the king and the people, to slacken; and in the course of his short administration he did wonders of activity. He visited and put in a state of defence all the fortified places; raised an army, harangued the troops; arrested the emigration of the nobility, in the name of the common danger; nominated the generals, and summoned La Fayette, Rochambeau, and Luckner. A patriotic sentiment, of which he was the soul, pervaded France; by rendering the throne the centre of the national defence, he rendered the king again popular for a short time, and in the enthusiasm felt for their country, all parties became reconciled. His eloquence was rapid, brilliant, and sonorous as the clash and din of arms. This expansion of his heart was a part of his character; he bared his breast to the eyes of his adversaries, and by this confidence won them to his side.
The first day of his appointment to office, instead of announcing his nomination by a letter to the president, as was customary with the other ministers, he proceeded to the Assembly, and mounted the tribune. "I come to offer you," said he, "the profoundest respect for the authority with which the people have invested you; from attachment for the constitution, to which I have sworn; a courageous love for liberty and equality—yes, for equality, which has no longer any opponents, but which should nevertheless possess no less energetic supporters." Two days afterwards he gained the entire confidence of the Assembly, when speaking of the responsibility of the ministers. "I accept," cried he, "the definition of the situation of ministers just made, that tells us responsibility is death. Spare no threats, no dangers. Load us with personal fetters, but afford us the means of aiding the constitution to progress. For my own part, I embrace this opportunity of entreating the members of this Assembly to inform me of every thing which they deem useful to the welfare of the nation, during my administration. Our interests, our enemies are the same; and it is not the letter of the constitution only that we should seek to enforce, but the spirit; we must not seek merely to acquit ourselves, but to succeed. You will see that the minister is convinced that there is no hope for liberty unless it proceed through you and from you: cease then for awhile to mistrust us, condemn us afterwards if we have merited it; but first give us with confidence the means of serving you."
Such words as these touched even the most prejudiced, and it was unanimously voted that the speech should be printed, and sent to all the departments. In order to cement the reconciliation of the king and the nation, M. de Narbonne went to the committees of the Assembly, communicated to them his plans, discussed his measures, and won over all to his resolutions. This government in common was the spirit of the constitution; the other ministers saw in this the abasement of the executive power and an abdication of royalty, whilst M. de Narbonne saw in it the sole means of winning back public feeling to the king. Opinion had dethroned the royalty; it was to opinion that he looked to strengthen it, and therefore he made himself the minister of public opinion.
At the moment when the emperor sent to the king a communication threatening the frontiers, and the king personally informed the Assembly of the energetic measures he had adopted, M. de Narbonne, re-entering the Assembly after the king's departure, mounted the tribune. "I am on the eve of quitting Paris," said he, "in order to visit our frontiers; not that I believe the mistrust felt by the soldiers for their officers has any foundation, but because I hope to dissipate them by addressing all in the name of their king and their country. I will say to the officers, that ancient prejudices and an affection for their king carried to an excess for a time, may have excused their conduct, but that the word treason is unknown amongst nations of honourable men. To the soldiers, your officers who remain at the head of the army are bound by their oath and their honour to the Revolution. The safety of the state depends on the discipline of the army. I confide my post to the minister of foreign affairs, and such is my confidence, such should be the confidence of the nation in his patriotism, that I take on myself the responsibility of all the orders that he may give in my name." M. de Narbonne displayed on this occasion as much skill as magnanimity; he felt that he had sufficient credit with the nation to cover the unpopularity of his colleague, M. de Lessart, already denounced by the Girondists, and thus placed himself between them and their victim. The Assembly was carried away by his enthusiasm; he obtained 20,000,000 of francs for the preparations for war, and the grade of marshal of France for the aged Luckner. The press and the clubs themselves applauded him, for the general eagerness for war swept away all before it, even the resentments of faction.
One man alone of the Jacobins resisted the influence of this enthusiasm: this man was Robespierre. Up to this time Robespierre had been merely a discusser of ideas, a subaltern agitator, indefatigable and intrepid, but eclipsed by other and greater names. From this day he became a statesman; he felt his own mental strength; he based this strength on a principle, and alone and unaided ventured to cope with the truth. He devoted himself without regarding even the number of his adversaries, and by exercising he doubled his force.
All the cabinets of the princes threatened by the Revolution still debated the question of peace or war. It was discussed alike in the councils of Louis XVI., in the meetings of parties in the Assembly, at the Jacobins, and in the public journals. The moment was decisive, for it was evident that the negotiation between the emperor Leopold and France on the subject of the reception of emigrants in the states dependent on the empire was fast drawing to a close, and that before long the emperor would have given satisfaction to France by dispersing these bodies of emigrés, or that France would declare war against him, and by this declaration draw on herself the hostilities of all her enemies at the same time. France thus would defy them all.
We have already seen that the Statesmen, and Revolutionists, Constitutionalists, and Girondists, Aristocrats, and Jacobins, were all in favour of war. War was, in the eyes of all, an appeal to destiny, and the impatient spirit of France wished that it would pronounce at once, either by victory or defeat. Victory seemed to France the sole issue by which she could extricate herself from her difficulties at home, and even defeat did not terrify her. She believed in the necessity of war, and defied even death. Robespierre thought otherwise, and it is for that reason that he was Robespierre.
He clearly comprehended two things; the first, that war was a gratuitous crime against the people; the second, that a war, even though successful, would ruin the cause of democracy. Robespierre looked on the Revolution as the rigorous application of the principles of philosophy to society. A passionate and devoted pupil of Jean Jacques Rousseau, the Contrat Social was his gospel; war, made with the blood of the people, was in the eyes of this philosopher—what it must ever be in the eyes of the wise—wholesale slaughter to gratify the ambition of a few, glorious only when it is defensive. Robespierre did not consider France placed in such a position as to render it absolutely necessary for her safety that the human vein should be opened, whence would flow such torrents of blood. Embued with a firm conviction of the omnipotence of the new ideas on which he nourished faith and fanaticism within a heart closed against intrigue, he did not fear that a few fugitive princes, destitute of credit, and some thousand aristocratic emigrés, would impose laws or conditions on a nation whose first struggle for liberty had shaken the throne, the nobility, and the clergy. Neither did he think that the disunited and wavering powers of Europe would venture to declare war against a nation that proclaimed peace so long as we did not attack them. But should the European cabinets be sufficiently mad to attempt this new crusade against human reason, then Robespierre fully believed they would be defeated, for he knew that there lies invincible force in, the justice of a cause—that right doubles the energy of a nation, that despair often supplies the want of weapons, and that God and men were for the people.