So far as Chartres was concerned they had their immediate and lasting effect in a decree of the National Assembly, dated January 15, 1790, which constituted our town Capital of the Department of Eure-et-Loir and gave it a departmental administration. The bishopric was preserved, and only a court of appeal was wanting. The assembly of citizens, some 1500 in number, met and elected the members of the new municipal body, which included a mayor, eleven municipal officers, twenty-four notables, and a procureur de la commune.
Besides drawing up a new Constitution, the Constituent Assembly had been busy promulgating a series of decrees, of which some, such as those bringing in a new financial system, proved inoperative, and others, such as that concerning seigneurial dues, were concerned with abolishing what had already ceased to exist. But their decrees concerning the Church had some effect, and that bad. In the first place, the whole property of the Church was confiscated and tithes were abolished. In the second place, under the civil constitution of the clergy, all beneficed clergy were, it was decided, to be beneficed by the State (July 12, 1790). Thirdly, all beneficed clergy were required to submit themselves to free election at the hands of laymen, and to undertake the discharge of their holy office only after swearing a solemn oath to obey the rules of the new Constitution. This decree was an immense blunder. It was offensive in the extreme to every good Roman Catholic, to whom the spectacle of a purely lay power interfering in questions of ecclesiastical discipline was unbearable.
The Pope intervened and forbade the bishops to take an oath which involved the renunciation of all Papal claims. The greater number of bishops and clergy obeyed the Papal order, and were supported by the majority of the lower orders in whom the love of the Church was still quite strong and deeply rooted. At Chartres, M. de Lubessac refused to take the oath, and the assembly of departmental electors met and appointed in his place Nicolas Boisnet, a doctor of theology and vicar of the parish of S. Michel. He was a worthy man who for forty years had offered an example of all the Christian virtues, and he only accepted the See of the civic episcopate on the express condition that he would render it to him who had abandoned it when he should see fit to come and take it again.
Meantime the revenues of the Church had been sequestrated, and the Chapter, yielding to force, had passed out of existence. It was after this fashion that religion, like the monarchy, was provided with a Constitution.
The Girondin Clubs had taken possession of Chartres as of the other towns. They soon had their way, and France was at war with Prussia and Austria. That war was entered into without any very definite plan or enthusiasm by the Allies, who expected a mere parade march to Paris and an opportunity of aggrandisement for themselves. But France, thinking that the victory of the Allies would mean the restoration of the old régime, took the war very seriously from the beginning. A voluntary movement of unequalled size and enthusiasm took place in the spring of 1792. Eure-et-Loir furnished several battalions of volunteers, and Chartres gave to France, as captain of their first battalion, the young and chivalrous Marceau. The vigour of this resistance surprised the Allies, who in the face of it would have been at a loss to know what to do if they had arrived at Paris. Instead of exerting themselves, therefore, they fell back upon the frontier. But their advance had proved fatal to Louis, who must have hoped for their success. As they advanced the panic in Paris had increased. The crisis came with the 10th of August, on which day a big mob rising, clearly engineered by the Girondins, drove the King to seek safety in the Assembly, whence he passed to spend his last sad hours in the Temple prison, and finally to meet death on the scaffold. Meanwhile, the Girondin leaders dictated three decrees to the Chamber. The King was suspended from his functions, the new Commune of Paris was recognised, and it was decided to summon an extraordinary National Convention, a single Chamber with powers to do what it pleased, elected by universal suffrage. To that celebrated Assembly Chartres contributed some very notable deputies. The upheaval of public opinion in the town is indicated by its representatives, for among them was Jérôme Pétion, Mayor of Paris in 1792 and President of the Convention, and Brissot de Warville. These men were Girondins, and when the party split in two they remained Girondins and suffered death in the following year at the hands of the extreme section, the Jacobins. As a Girondin town Chartres, then, was typical of the provincial towns of France. For while as to political theory Girondins and Jacobins were agreed in aiming at an ideally democratic Republic extremely decentralised, on the practical question of ways and means they differed. The Girondins insisted, in spite of the war, on carrying out their decentralising projects at once, but the Jacobins recognised that if Paris was to be defended at all in the ensuing campaign of ‘93, a strong central government, a dictatorship in fact, was absolutely necessary. The soul of the Jacobin party was Danton, the one man neither fanatic nor fool, and he saw not only the necessity for improvising a strong central government, but also how it could be done. It could be done by means of the organisation supplied by the political clubs scattered through France, and by terrorising the majority. For the numbers of the Jacobins were always small, but the audacity of their measures produced the illusion of power. Paris was cowed, the Girondin party crushed by force, and the Jacobin conquest of France, after the suppression of the risings in the Girondin provincial towns, for a while complete.
The Reign of Terror had begun and lasted till July 1794. It lasted, in other words, till the Jacobin party had done that side of its work, which was thoroughly national and popular, and, thanks to its conduct of the war, under Carnot, the danger on the frontier had ceased. Then the Jacobin Government fell at once. It was because they were doing their work with regard to the war, and no one else could do it, that France tolerated the policy of brigandage and butchery by which they governed;—for this reason, and because those most likely to resist were away at the frontier, and also through fear. For the Jacobins were an organised party, and the rest were a chaotic mass of individuals. Therefore they slew not less than thirty thousand men and women of all classes. A minority that had begun to rule by terror, they could not go back. They felt the weakness of their position, and went on increasing the pressure, themselves almost mad with terror. Individual zeal was required to make up for their lack of numbers. A scrutiny was held of their own members, and those who showed a lack of energy were expelled and guillotined. They executed also that they might confiscate, and thus provide the sinews of war. And an official theory, stated by the chiefs and formulated by Robespierre, was not lacking to justify their
