The French Revolution 1789-1795

by Bertha Meriton Gardiner

Risings in the provinces.

While political strife was raging at Paris, in the provinces the people, impatient for relief, were taking upon themselves the work of redressing their wrongs. Since the meeting of the States riots had broken out by scores over the face of the country. Taxes were refused, barriers for the collection of custom and excise duties burnt, the collectors driven off, markets pillaged, municipal officers forced at peril of their lives to fix a price for corn and bread. The news of the great insurrection of July 14 gave courage to agitators, and added fuel to the flame. In Paris, street mobs, goaded by hunger, were not easily restrained from hanging objects of suspicion on the nearest lamp-post. Foulon, an officer of the Government, accused truly or falsely of having said that the people if hungry might eat grass, was savagely murdered. His son-in-law, Berthier, suffered a like fate. Many other persons escaped but narrowly with their lives. Nevertheless, owing to the exertions of the new municipality and the national guard, life and property were more secure in the capital than in many provinces. Risings accompanied by pillage and murder took place in Strasbourg, Rouen, Besançon, Lyons, and other provincial towns. In the east, through Alsace, Franche-Comté, Lorraine, Burgundy and Dauphiny, the rural population sought to settle the question of feudal services by burning together the residences and the title-deeds of the seigneurs. In the Maconnais and Beaujolais, bands of peasants sacked and burned seventy-two country-houses in a fortnight. A panic spread through the country on the report that brigands, instigated by the enemies of the revolution, were on the march to destroy the crops. A general cry was raised for arms; the example set by Paris was followed; the middle classes combined to restore order; provisional municipalities were established and national guards instituted. The order obtained, however, was still most precarious. Municipal officers were in constant danger of falling victims to mob violence, while in country districts national guards often made common cause with the rioters.

Thus the result of the insurrection of July 14, and of the risings in the provinces, was the utter disorganisation of all the old machinery of government. Royal officers where they remained could not exercise authority. The army was in mutiny; the people were armed. New popular authorities had, as it were, of themselves sprung up over the face of the country, and the National Assembly, in place of the royal council, became the centre of government, so far as any government existed.

Decrees of August 4.

The Assembly was far more disquieted by the risings in the provinces than by the insurrection of July 14. The fall of the Bastille assured political power to the middle classes. This burning of country-houses and the refusal to pay taxes and feudal dues struck at all alike, and sapped the base on which the whole framework of society rested. As yet, in the south-west and centre, where feudal dues were less burdensome, riots were isolated and bloodshed rare, but there was every probability that the movement, if unchecked, would spread over the whole country. The injustice of the existing order, by which provinces, towns, and individuals were privileged without regard to public utility, the injury inflicted on agriculture by feudal dues, and the oppressive nature of many rights exercised by seigneurs had been demonstrated over and over again, and were admitted on all sides. In an evening sitting on August 4, the Assembly laid the axe to the root of the old order by adopting decrees based on the principles of unity of State institutions, equality before the law, and individual liberty. There was no province, town, class, or corporation whose special interests these decrees did not touch. They were in part the work of design, in part of the enthusiasm of the moment. No voices were raised in opposition. Nobles, bishops, curés, representatives of towns and provinces, vied with one another in proposing the abolition of privileges and rights which stood in the way of the common good. The decrees declared the feudal order destroyed, deprived seigneurs of the exclusive right of hunting and of keeping rabbits and pigeons, and abolished serfdom and servile dues off-hand; abolished also all special privileges belonging to provinces, towns, and corporations, and laid open to all citizens, without regard to birth, civil, military, and ecclesiastical preferment; and, finally, abolished tithes paid to the Church, and made promise of ecclesiastical reform in the future.

These decrees were not practical laws, but little more than an enunciation of general principles in accordance with which reform was afterwards to be effected. Thus the mass of feudal dues had still to be rendered until compensation had been given to the proprietors; the old taxes were to be paid until a new system of taxation based on principles of equality had been introduced. This hasty legislation could not, therefore, allay discontent, but excited a stronger reluctance on the part of the people to endure burdens, the injustice of which the National Assembly itself publicly proclaimed.

Composition of the Assembly.

The Assembly, on which rested the task of founding a new order amid the ruins of the old, was without political experience or recognised principles of action. It contained about 290 representatives of the nobility, of whom 140 were provincial noblemen, 20 judges in the upper courts, and 125 belonged to the court aristocracy. The clergy had returned 200 curés and only 100 bishops, abbés, and other dignitaries. A few more than 600 deputies represented the Third Estate, of whom 4 were ecclesiastics and 15 noblemen. The great majority were men independent of the Government. The profession by far the most largely represented was the law. There were 360 judges, barristers, and law officers of various kinds. The chamber was fitted up like a theatre, with a semi-circle of seats facing the president’s chair, beneath which was a tribune whence all set speeches were made.

The Reactionary Right.

Four main lines of opinion divided the Assembly roughly into four sections. The majority of nobles and the upper clergy sat together on the president’s right hand, forming the right side of the Assembly. Their standpoint was reactionary, in favour of the privileged orders. The fusion of the three orders having been accomplished against their will and in defiance of the royal authority, they regarded the Assembly’s work as resting on no justifiable foundation, and looked forward to reversing it on the first occasion. Here an officer, Cazalès, eloquently and loyally defended monarchical principles of government; the Abbé Maury, with vehemence and ability, the cause of the upper clergy; and D’Espréménil, a judge in the Parliament of Paris, the institutions of the old order.