Lectures on the French Revolution

by Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton Acton

The reproach falls not only on those who carried the various measures, but also on the minority that opposed them. Mounier encouraged the suspicion and jealousy of Ministers by separating them from the Assembly, and denying to the king, that is to them, the prerogative of proposing laws. He attributed to the absolute veto an importance which it does not possess; and he frustrated all chance of a Second Chamber by allowing it to be known that he would have liked to make it hereditary. This was too much for men who had just rejoiced over the fall of the aristocracy. In order to exclude the intervention of the king in favour of a suspensive veto, he accepted the argument that the Constitution was in the hands of the Assembly alone. When Lewis raised a just objection to the decrees of August 4, this argument was turned against him, and the Crown suffered a serious repulse.

The intellectual error of the Democrats vanishes before the moral error of the Conservatives. They refused a Second Chamber because they feared that it would be used as a reward for those among them to whose defection they partly owed their defeat. And as they did not wish the Constitution to be firmly established, they would not vote for measures likely to save it. The revolutionists were able to count on their aid against the Liberals.

The watchword came from the Palace, and the shame of their policy recoils upon the king. Late in September one of his nobles told him that he was weary of what he saw, and was going to his own country. "Yes," said the king, taking him aside; "things are going badly, and nothing can improve our position but the excess of evil." On this account Royer Collard, the famous Doctrinaire, said, in later times, that all parties in the Revolution were honest, except the Conservatives.

From the end of August the Paris agitators, who managed the mob in the interest of a dynastic change directed a sustained pressure against Versailles. Thouret, one of the foremost lawyers in the Assembly, who was elected President on August 1, refused the honour. He had been warned of his unpopularity, and gave way to threats. Yielding to the current which, as Mirabeau said, submerges those who resist it, he went over to the other side, and soon became one of their leaders. The experience of this considerable man is an instance of the change that set in, and that was frequent among men without individual conviction or the strength of character that belongs to it.

The downward tendency was so clearly manifest, the lesson taught by successful violence against the king and the aristocracy was so resolutely applied to the Assembly, that very serious politicians sought the means of arresting the movement. Volney, who was no orator, but who was the most eminent of the deputies in the department of letters, made the attempt on September 18. He proposed that there should be new elections for a parliament that should not consist of heterogeneous ingredients, but in which class interests should be disregarded and unknown. He moved that it should represent equality. They reminded him of the oath not to separate until France was a constitutional State, and the protest was ineffectual. But in intellectual France there was no man more perfectly identified with the reigning philosophy than the man who uttered this cry of alarm.

On October 2 the first chapters of the Constitution were ready for the royal assent. They consisted of the Rights of Man, and of the fundamental measures adopted in the course of September. Mounier, the new President, carried to the king the articles by which his cause had been brought to its fall. Lewis undertook to send his reply; and from Mounier came no urging word. They both fancied that delay was possible, and might yet serve. The tide had flowed so slowly in May, that they could not perceive the torrent of October. On the day of that audience of the most liberal of all the royalists, the respite before them was measured by hours.

All through September, at Paris, Lafayette at the head of the forces of order, and the forces of tumult controlled by the Palais Royal had watched each other, waiting for a deadly fight. There were frequent threats of marching on Versailles, followed by reassuring messages from the General that he had appeased the storm. As it grew louder, he made himself more and more the arbiter of the State. The Government, resenting this protectorate, judged that the danger of attack ought to be averted, not by the dubious fidelity and the more dubious capacity of the commander of the National Guard, but by the direct resources of the Crown. They summoned the Flanders regiment, which was reputed loyal, and on October 1 it marched in, a thousand strong. The officers, on their arrival, were invited by their comrades at Versailles to a festive supper in the theatre. The men were admitted, and made to drink the health of the king; and in the midst of a scene of passionate enthusiasm the king and queen appeared. The demonstration that ensued meant more than the cold and decent respect with which men regard a functionary holding delegated and not irrevocable powers. It was easy to catch the note of personal devotion and loyalty and the religion of the Cavalier, in the cries of these armed and excited royalists. The managers at Paris had their opportunity, and resolved at once to execute the plot they had long meditated.

Whilst the Executive, which alone upheld the division of powers and the principle of freedom, was daily losing ground at the hands of its enemies, of its friends, and at its own, a gleam of hope visited the forlorn precincts of the Court. Necker had informed the Assembly that he could not obtain a loan, and he asked for a very large increase of direct taxation. He was heard with impatience, and Mirabeau, who spoke for him, made no impression. On September 26 he made another effort, and gained the supreme triumph of his career. In a speech that was evidently unprepared, he drew an appalling picture of the coming bankruptcy; and as he ended with the words "These dangers are before you, and you deliberate!" the Assembly, convulsed with emotion, passed the vote unanimously, and Necker was saved. None knew that there could be such power in man.

In the eighteen months of life that remained to him, Mirabeau underwent many vicissitudes of influence and favour; but he was able, in an emergency, to dominate parties. From that day the Court knew what he was, and what he could do; and they knew how his imperious spirit longed to serve the royal cause, and we shall presently see who it was that attempted to flatter and to win him when it was too late, and who had repelled him when it might yet have been time.