The King and Queen had for some time been preparing for flight, though the day of departure had been from various causes delayed. Servants who could not be trusted had to be dismissed, and clothes and other articles forwarded to the frontier ready for use. On the night of June 20 the King, disguised as a valet, his sister, the Princess Elizabeth, the Queen, the two children, and their governess, left the Tuileries unobserved, and were driven in a hackney-carriage a short distance outside Paris. Here they found ready waiting them a large new travelling coach, built for the occasion, and three soldiers of the bodyguard, dressed in yellow liveries, and prepared to act as couriers. The destination of the royal party was Montmédy, close to the Luxemburg frontier; and the Marquis of Bouillé, who commanded in that quarter, had undertaken to station detachments of troops to guard the way at all the chief towns and villages after Chalons. It was already two o’clock at night when the coach left Paris behind. The driver urged on his horses at a quick pace, some eight miles an hour, and about five o’clock in the afternoon the travellers reached Chalons-sur-Marne. At this point the most dangerous part of the journey seemed over. At the next post-house, Pont Sommevesle, Louis expected to see the first detachment of Bouillé’s troops. On his arrival, a little after six, he was, however, disappointed. Bouillé had, indeed, with considerable skill, ordered the passage of troops so that detachments should be present at all the principal places on the road along which the royal party was travelling; but unfortunately at each station those in command lacked either zeal or capacity, or both. Because the coach was three or four hours behind the time expected, the troops had already withdrawn from Pont Sommevesle. At St. Menehould, Louis, who incautiously put his head out of window, was recognised by the master of the post, Drouet, who observed his likeness to the image of the King on the assignats. Though not stopped, the coach was pursued by Drouet and others, whilst the troops present in the town suffered themselves to be disarmed. About midnight the coach safely reached Varennes, a little town divided in two by the river Aire. While the bodyguards were vainly seeking in the darkness a relay of horses, which was waiting on the farther side of the bridge, Drouet and his companions rode into the town, roused the mayor, and with whatever waggons and barrels came first to hand, blocked the road over the bridge. The coach was stopped, and the travellers compelled to alight and enter a house belonging to a grocer, the procureur of the commune. This was close to the bridge, beyond which were sixty hussars in their barracks. Their officers, in place of calling them out on the first alarm, rode off to seek instructions of Bouillé, who was miles away, at Stenay. Fifty or sixty more troops arrived shortly afterwards, and during the night it was still possible to disperse the opposers with a charge, and force a way through the barricade. The officers, unwilling to do it on their own responsibility, sought commands of Louis, who refused to take any decisive action. The Queen, nearly on her knees, implored the wife of the procureur, Madame Sauce, to let them proceed on their way. The woman expressed sympathy for her, but said that she too had a husband and children to care for. Meanwhile barricades were being strengthened, the alarm-bells were ringing through all the countryside, and by the morning the town was crowded with national guards, with whom the troops were drinking. The return journey was therefore begun, and five days after their departure the fugitives re-entered the Tuileries as prisoners (June 25).
Split between constitutionalists and ultra-democrats.
When Louis’s flight was first reported, intense alarm prevailed at Paris. It was expected that civil war, already organised, was on the point of breaking out, and that the emigrants were about to cross the frontier. The King’s capture brought a sense of relief, but did not tend to lessen the difficulties of the situation. In justification of his departure, Louis had left behind him a document, in which he criticised the constitution from an unfavourable point of view, and called in question all that had been done since October 1789. Thus by act and word he had made known, without disguise, his intention not to rule in accordance with the constitution, and henceforth it was impossible that the country should have confidence in him. Ultra-democrats with one voice wisely pronounced his protest and flight a virtual abdication. Some, slow to take a decided part, amongst whom Robespierre was prominent, or desirous of putting the Duke of Orleans forward, demanded Louis’s deposition and a regency; others, as Brissot, Desmoulins, and Danton, more sanguine and more outspoken, called for the establishment of a republic. The Cordeliers, under Danton’s guidance, covered the walls with placards in favour of a republic. The Jacobins, following Robespierre, stopped short of this, and asked only for the deposition of Louis. Closing their eyes, however, to the undoubted fact of the King’s insincerity, the deputies of the left and centre rallied together to support the tottering throne. They were aware that the republican party was but a small minority. Lafayette and Barnave, as well as other deputies, held themselves pledged in honour to Louis to maintain his throne. In case of deposition, there was increased danger of involving France in foreign war. Neither a change of succession nor a regency appeared desirable. The King’s brothers were emigrants, the Duke of Orleans a tool in the hands of Parisian demagogues. Above all, there was fear that the deposition of Louis would tend to undermine the constitution itself, and give increased influence to the advocates of pure democracy. Under the influence of such motives, the Assembly determined to restore the executive power to Louis, should he accept the constitution when presented to him as a completed whole. The republican party attempted a demonstration against this decision. On Sunday, July 17, a large gathering of persons assembled in the Champ de Mars, where a petition was signed asking the Assembly to reconsider its decrees. The meeting itself was not illegal, and in character perfectly peaceful. It was possible, however, that within twenty-four hours the petition would be brought before the Assembly supported by an armed and threatening mob. Urged on by the monarchists, the municipal officers, accompanied by Lafayette and the national guard, marched to the place of assemblage. Before the Riot Act was read or dispersion possible, some companies fired, in irritation, into the throng, killing and maiming several persons, men, women, and children. General flight followed, and the petition was no more heard of.
Attempt to revise the Constitution.
This event, known in the annals of the revolution as the massacre of the Champ de Mars, caused complete severance between the men who were bent on maintaining the constitution and the ultra-democratic party. A schism took place in the Jacobins. The constitutionalists founded a new club, the Feuillants, so called because it met in a convent formerly belonging to monks of that name, while the ultra-democrats remained in undisputed possession of the Jacobins. Amongst the constitutionalists or Feuillants were Lafayette, Barnave, the Lameths, and all the most prominent men of the centre and left. Could they have done their work over again, they would have introduced material changes in the constitution, with the double object of making it more acceptable to the King, and enabling the ministry to exercise control over the administrative bodies. Their main fear was that, after the dissolution of the existing Assembly, new men would come into power who, having had no hand in framing the constitution, would not have the same interest as themselves in sustaining it. According to a constitutional law, those who had been deputies could neither enter the ministry nor hold any government appointment for a certain number of years; while a special law forbade the election of men who had been members of the present constituent Assembly to the ensuing Legislature. Robespierre had proposed this latter law in April 1791, and to obtain its adoption had appealed to the deputies to give proof of disinterestedness. When the constitutional laws were adopted in a body, ready for final presentation to Louis, some few amendments were made, but the attempt of the constitutionalists to obtain the repeal of these important disqualifications failed. The right voted with Robespierre and Pétion, rejoicing over the falling out of their opponents.
Work of the Assembly.
Louis, when the constitution was presented to him, undertook to govern in accordance with it, and the deputies then dispersed to give place to their successors (September 30). Called upon to effect in the course of a few months changes which could only be accomplished without convulsions in the course of years, whatever their errors, they had rendered France many and great services. By their legal reforms alone they did away with an untold amount of mental and physical suffering. By their economical and financial reforms they paved the way for a new era in agriculture and industrialism. If, under passion and prejudice, they had on occasions wantonly increased the number and fury of opponents, yet much that they had been called on to do remained still undone, and when they closed the sittings there was small prospect that the tide of revolution would stop at the limit which they had drawn. They had found neither time nor opportunity to establish any general system of poor relief or any national system of education. By their decrees dealing with proprietary rights they had struck at the root of the old law, but the work of promulgating a new code they left to those who came after them. With the fiefs had fallen the law of primogeniture, but liberty of devise had been left in the main unrestricted, though in default of a will all relations equal in blood inherited equally. This principle of equal division was not a speculative invention of the revolution, but as regards land held by certain tenures, it had already existed in some parts of France. The finances of the state had been restored only on paper. All the expenses of government were regulated and the civil list fixed. Four main branches of the revenue, tobacco and salt monopolies, excise duties, and duties on wine had been abolished. The yearly expenditure, including the expenses of the Established Church, was estimated at 27,900,000l., of which 21,350,000l. had to be raised by taxation. In place of the taille a tax of 13,125,000l., rated by local boards, was imposed on lands and buildings. Taxes of 2,625,000l. were imposed on personal property. The remaining 6,000,000l. were to be raised by various forms of indirect taxation, custom duties, stamp taxes, and trade patents. The debt, however, during these two and a half years of revolution had been greatly augmented, and the deficit increased. The holders of the abolished offices had been liberally indemnified, and the reforms effected in all departments cost the nation no less than 61,200,000l., swelling the state debt to more than 87,500,000l. Meanwhile the people had refused to pay the old taxes long before their abolition by the Assembly, and it was now only with difficulty that some portion of the new was collected. Not only to pay state creditors, but also to cover the expenses of government, resort had been had to new issues of assignats, and in the spring of 1791 the paper money fell in value about ten per cent. Metal money became scarce, being sent out of the kingdom or kept in reserve. To supply the circulation, assignats of a few shillings value had been created, and thus their fall in value affected all classes. In September 1791 there were in circulation assignats to the value of about 48,125,000l.
Plans of the Queen.
Marie Antoinette and Louis had no other aim in accepting the constitution than to deceive the nation until foreign powers were ready to act in their behalf. After her return from Varennes the Queen repeatedly urged on her brother, the Emperor Leopold, to effect the meeting of a European congress for the settlement of French affairs. This congress was to have at its disposition an army; but the Queen wished that war should be avoided. Her expectation was that the country, under terror of invasion, would gladly accept the mediation of the King, and consent to a remodelling of the constitution according to his wishes. She sought to separate the cause of the crown alike from the cause of emigrants and of constitutionalists. She recalled with bitterness the opposition of the nobles to the government before 1789, and deeply resented their subsequent flight as a base desertion of the royal cause. Their present conduct stood in the way of the accomplishment of her own plans and heightened her feelings of resentment. They refused to accept as sincere the King’s acceptance of the constitution; they excited the country by threats of invasion and vengeance; and, by representing themselves as defenders of the monarchy, brought on Louis suspicion of being their accomplice. ‘The cowards,’ she indignantly wrote, ‘first to abandon us, and then to require that we should think only of them and their interests!’ To alliance with the constitutionalists Marie Antoinette was as averse as to alliance with the emigrants. Even were they willing and able to make some modifications in the constitution, to rule on their terms was to rule under their tutorship. Accordingly, while pretending to be acting with them, she looked forward with impatience to the day when she might with safety show her hand and prove them her tools and dupes.
State of Europe.