If Louis was unable to forecast the future, so too was the great mass of his subjects. Amongst the throng of deputies who met together at Versailles, there was but one, the Marquis of Mirabeau, who comprehended the real meaning of the revolution, and foresaw with accuracy the course which events would take. This remarkable man was endowed by nature with enormous energy, mental and physical. While still a youth, he had left his mark for good or for ill wherever he went. He had incurred debts, fought duels, kept order amongst hungry peasants, eating, drinking, and working with them, obtained the good-will of men prejudiced against him, and won the hearts of women. His father, according to the fashion of the time, supported paternal authority by obtaining lettres de cachet from the government, ordering the imprisonment of his son. Mirabeau was imprisoned, now in one fortress, now in another, for months at a time. In early manhood, at the age of twenty-eight, he entered the donjon of Vincennes, a state fortress, where he inhabited a dark, barely-furnished room, and had converse with none but his gaoler. His offences against social order had not been light, for he had deserted his own wife for the wife of another man. But in his vices Mirabeau was but a type of the generation to which he belonged, and the real ground of his imprisonment lay elsewhere. Books and paper were as a favour allowed him. ‘Without books,’ he wrote, ‘I should be dead or mad.’ He read and wrote for fifteen hours out of the twenty-four. After a confinement of more than three years, the quarrel between him and his father was patched up. In 1780 he was released, broken in health, harassed by debts, and blackened in fame, but possessed of a large store of knowledge, a ready pen, a fluent tongue, and a genius for statesmanship which no man in France could rival. Genius was, however, no ground for advancement. A man who had sufficiently powerful interest at court might rise to the highest dignities in Church or State, whatever his incapacity, or whatever the stains on his past life. Mirabeau had no interest at court, while by Louis and his councillors talent was distrusted, and the one statesman that France possessed occupied the position of an unscrupulous adventurer, seeking by whatever means came first to hand to force his way into the ministry. It was no matter of surprise that so signal a victim of arbitrary government should prove an inveterate enemy to the existing order. But Mirabeau did not, through resentment for personal injuries, desire to weaken or degrade the royal authority. He possessed too strong a capacity for the exercise of power. He saw, moreover, too directly into the heart of the situation. He comprehended what no man but himself comprehended at that time, that the real aim of the French people was the sweeping away of all class distinctions, and that the monarchy might be immensely strong if only the King could be brought to adopt new principles of government, in accordance with the democratic spirit of the age. Had he been at the head of affairs he would at once have summoned the States-General and led the way in opening the attack upon the privileged orders. Excluded from all share in the government, he revenged himself by attacking it on every side. The proposition was made to him that he should employ his pen to destroy the popularity of the Parliaments. ‘I will never,’ was his reply, ‘make war upon the Parliaments except in presence of the nation.’ The hesitating and shuffling policy of the ministers; their vain attempts to effect reform through the royal power alone; their efforts to avoid or defer the meeting of the States; and, finally, their refusal, after being driven to call the nation to their aid, to declare for a single chamber, excited his scorn and indignation. He had not only the clear perception that in order to maintain the monarchy the first thing to be done was to crush the privileged orders; he had also the clear perception that the second thing, if indeed it was not of equal importance, was the organisation of government, and that this was impracticable so long as distrust existed between the crown and the nation. When the elections were held, rejected by his own order, he took his seat as representative of the Third Estate of Aix. At Versailles he was the mark of all observers. The wildness of his youth, his long imprisonment, his quarrels with his father, his lawsuits with his wife, his writings, and his eloquence, had given him notoriety throughout France. With the meeting of the States Mirabeau knew that the opportunity had come of making his power felt. ‘At last,’ he said, ‘we shall have men judged by the value of their brains.’
Title of National Assembly adopted by the Third Estate.
The inevitable consequence of the King’s refusal to declare himself against the privileged orders at once ensued. Disputes arose between the deputies as to the form that the legislature should take. There was a small minority of nobles for union, and a large minority of clergy, composed almost entirely of parish priests, who had to choose between alliance with the Third Estate and dependence on their ecclesiastical superiors. The questions at stake were too vital for compromise to be possible, and thus, while the people impatiently awaited redress of grievances, the Third Estate refused to proceed to business until they were joined by the other two. Political excitement grew greater amongst the middle classes, irritation and discontent amongst the lower. The winter had been one of the coldest and longest on record. The price of bread was rising, and misery, which sufferers expected to vanish on the first meeting of the Estates, was on the increase. It had always been a difficult matter to prevent rioting at Paris in times of political excitement or of scarcity, and now both causes combined to create disorder. In the Faubourg St. Antoine and other poor quarters of the city existed a population including great numbers of ruffians, beggars, and destitute workmen, of whom many were strangers from the country, largely brought to Paris by hope of finding bread or labour, and whose passions might readily be worked on with dangerous effect; while pamphleteers and street orators, without sense of responsibility, and full of passionate desire to assure the triumph of the Third Estate, did not measure their words in seeking to rouse popular indignation against the upper orders. Deputies distinguished as opponents of union were mobbed and hustled at Versailles, and their names held up to execration in Paris. The attitude of the capital gave strength to the deputies of the Third Estate, who finally cut the knot by adopting the title of National Assembly, inviting nobles and clergy to join them, and declaring their purpose of proceeding to business without those who refused to do so (June 17).
Royal sitting of June 23.
The assumption of this title was held an act of usurpation by the opponents of union. Court nobles and ecclesiastics appealed to the King to maintain the authority of his crown by interfering in support of their rights. The deputies of the Third Estate had, it was said, grasped at sovereign power to which they had no claim. As yet there had been no direct collision between the Crown and the deputies of the Third Estate. The long inefficiency of the King had, indeed, destroyed belief in the royal power as an instrument of government. Men believed in themselves, and they believed in the nation. They demanded liberty for individuals, and they demanded that the nation should govern itself. Yet, however democratic were the theories that prevailed, the great body of the French people was deeply attached to monarchy as a form of government, and thoroughly loyal to the person of the King. If desire for the establishment of a democratic constitution was intensely strong, there appeared no other means in the first place of destroying the upper orders; in the second, of preventing their resurrection. Had Louis taken the side of the nation, he might, as Mirabeau foresaw, have exercised immense influence over the course of affairs. If he refused, nominal sovereignty would be left to him, but men would be careful that he should have no real power in his hands. Louis was honestly prepared to cede constitutional rights to the country, which should set limits to the royal authority, and secure the persons and properties of his subjects against arbitrary usage. But he would not, so far as he could prevent it, suffer the abolition of class distinctions, or allow the real governing power to pass from himself and his council to the representatives of the nation. Thus, although the deputies of the Third Estate sought to conceal the fact from themselves, they had to contend against the Crown as well as against the nobility. Louis, in alarm for his authority, now thought to maintain it by openly taking the part of nobles and clergy. Marie Antoinette, less patient than her husband, witnessed with extreme resentment and indignation the conduct of the Third Estate. To excited courtiers it seemed as easy a matter for the King to impose his will on the representatives of the nation as it had been for his predecessors in times past to impose theirs on the Parliament of Paris. It was determined that the King should hold a royal sitting or séance, and declare his intentions to the assembled Estates. Meanwhile the deputies of the Third Estate were excluded from their hall on pretext that preparations had to be made for the reception of the King. Fully expecting a dissolution, they repaired to a neighbouring tennis court, where with one voice and hands raised to the sky they swore an oath never to separate before they had established constitutional government. There was a dense crowd outside. All approaches to the court were blocked, and the one deputy who refused to take the oath was with difficulty saved from outrage (June 20). The cause of the upper orders was now weakened by desertions from their ranks. A large number of curés as well as a few nobles joined the deputies of the Third Estate. This in itself, had Louis been well advised, might have warned him against the course that he proposed to take. On June 23 he came in state to the hall, where the whole body of deputies was by his injunction assembled. There, by the mouths of his ministers, he told them that they were to meet as three separate orders. With his consent first obtained, they might form one assembly for the discussion of matters of common interest; from which, however, all the burning questions of the day, ecclesiastical, social, and constitutional, were expressly excepted. Necker, who disapproved the arbitrary form in which the royal will was signified, saved his popularity by refusing to be present on the occasion. Before retiring, Louis ordered all to disperse and assemble next day in their separate chambers. In case of disobedience he would undertake by himself to secure the happiness of his subjects. ‘Seul,’ he said, ‘je ferai le bien de mes peuples.’ After he had gone, most of the nobility and the upper clergy left the hall; but the deputies of the Third Estate as well as many curés kept their seats. The Master of the Ceremonies, De Brézé, asked Bailly, the President, whether he had heard the orders of the King. ‘Yes, sir, we have heard the orders put in the King’s mouth,’ retorted Mirabeau, in words repeated and applauded throughout France, ‘and let me inform you that if your business is to turn us out, you had better ask orders to employ force, for we shall only quit our seats at the bayonet’s point.’ Before dispersing the recalcitrants declared their persons inviolable for all that they said or did as deputies.
Union of the three orders.
After this defiance of the royal authority, the Queen and the court would gladly have obtained the dissolution of the States. Difficulties, however, stood in the way. The financial embarrassments of the Government were still unrelieved. Further, it was clearly impossible for the King to cause his commands to be obeyed, unless he was prepared to appeal to military force, and the consequences of so doing were exceedingly doubtful. Class distinctions prevailed in the army as in other institutions of the old system. The officers, who were all noble, lived in luxury, largely on perquisites made at the men’s expense. The men, cheated of their pay, badly fed, and subjected to a harsh discipline, bitterly resented their wrongs, and despised and hated their officers. If an attempt were made to use intimidation there was great probability that resistance would be offered, that Paris would rise, and that the troops would refuse to fire on the insurgents. Louis was never willing to take decided action, and, for the time, the deputies of the Third Estate were left in enjoyment of victory. The King himself requested the nobles and ecclesiastics, who still kept aloof, to abandon further struggle, and thus after a delay of seven weeks the three Estates were finally constituted as one assembly.
Excitement in Paris.
The evil consequences of that delay were already but too plainly apparent. Since the meeting of the Estates agitation in Paris had spread from day to day. The Government, unable to use arbitrary and violent means of obtaining order, could no longer effectively perform its duties, because no trust was reposed in it. Political liberty threatened to degenerate rapidly into anarchy. No moral restraints existed amongst a people for centuries unaccustomed to self-government. There was no political organisation, and no standard of political morality. There were no recognised leaders weighted with a sense of responsibility, nor journals with a character to maintain. Appeals were made to the lowest passions, rumours and libels circulated without question of their truth or justice. The fiercer and more bitter his language, the more sure was the orator or journalist to gain a hearing and exert influence.
In the garden, surrounded by book and coffee shops, which was attached to the Palais Royal, a palace belonging to the Duke of Orleans—who, although distantly related to the King, had taken the popular side—agitators, mounted on chairs and tables, discoursed to excited throngs on the sovereignty of the people, and denounced the opponents of a single chamber to popular wrath. Here neither police officers nor supporters of the claims of nobles and clergy could enter except at peril of violent and brutal usage. This licence was the more dangerous because the hard times made the people more ready for the commission of criminal actions. Nevertheless, the tradesmen, merchants, and other persons in the middle class of life, who under ordinary circumstances are the first to feel the effects of mob violence, regarded the designs of the court as far more dangerous than the oratory of the Palais Royal. For while the court demanded the maintenance of class distinctions, the demagogues of the Palais Royal demanded their abolition, guaranteed by the establishment of a free and democratic constitution.