Revolutionary Europe, 1789-1815

by H. Morse Stephens

The Session of 4th August.

On 4th August a deputy named Salomon read a report on these occurrences to the National Assembly, or as it is generally called from the Constitution it framed, the Constituent Assembly. His report was followed by a curious scene, which marked the transition from feudal to modern France. The scene was opened by the sacrifice by some of the young liberal noblemen of their feudal rights. Privileges of all sorts, privileges of class, of town and of province were solemnly abandoned. Feudal customs and all relics of feudalism were condemned and declared to be abolished. Even tithes were swept away, in spite of a protest from Sieyès, and the ‘orgie,’ as Mirabeau termed it, closed with a decree that a monument should be erected to Louis XVI., ‘the restorer of French liberty.’

The Declaration of the Rights of Man.

The Suspensive Veto.

But it was not possible to restore peace and prosperity to France by the abolition of the relics of feudalism. Destruction of former anomalies and of a crumbling system of government would inevitably lead to anarchy, unless accompanied by the construction of a new scheme of central and local administration. It was here that the Constituent Assembly failed. The deputies were quick to destroy but slow to construct. For two months they wasted time instead of hastening to draw up a new constitution for France. They first wrangled over the wording of a Declaration of the Rights of Man, which they resolved to compile in imitation of the founders of the American Republic. They then debated lengthily whether the future representative assembly of France should consist of one or two chambers, and whether the King should have power to veto its acts. The first question was decided in favour of a single chamber, more because the English Constitution sanctioned two chambers, and the deputies feared to be thought imitators, than for any logical reason. And the debate on the second question terminated in the grant to the King of a suspensive veto for six months, in spite of the eloquence of Mirabeau, who saw that a monarchical constitution, which gave the King no more power than the President of the United States of America, would prove unworkable, because it would divorce responsibility from real authority, leaving the former to the King and the latter to the Legislature.

The march of the Women to Versailles. 5th October.

The King brought to Paris. 6th October.

During the two months occupied by these debates the situation had again become critical. Necker’s only idea to relieve the financial situation was to propose loans, which the Assembly granted, but which he could not succeed in raising. The King was again being acted upon by the Court party, which advocated the use of force and the dissolution of the Assembly, and this party was encouraged by the Queen and by the King’s sister, Madame Elizabeth. He was also urged to leave the neighbourhood of Paris and to establish himself in some provincial town, where the populace could be more easily restrained by the regular troops. He would not heartily agree to either of these courses, but weakly consented once more to concentrate troops round his person. Everything advised at Versailles was soon known in Paris. The journalists, who had since the capture of the Bastille sprung up in the capital to advocate the views of the popular party, and of whom the ablest were Loustalot, editor of the Révolutions de Paris, and Marat, editor of the Ami du Peuple, kept warning the people of Paris against treason on the part of the King, and prophesying dire consequences if he were allowed to leave the neighbourhood or to concentrate troops. Their words did not fall on unheeding ears. The working classes feared a siege of Paris again as they had done in July, and looked on the King’s presence in Paris as the only means to keep down the price of necessaries. The thinking bourgeois, whether liberal deputies in the Assembly or national guards in Paris, feared a sudden forced dissolution of the Assembly, and not only the loss of the advantages they had gained but punishment for the part they had played. Both these elements were perceptible in the movement which followed. The description given in the popular journals of a banquet at Versailles, honoured by the presence of the royal family, at which the national cockade had been trampled underfoot, on 1st October, roused the people of Paris to a frenzy of wrath and fear. On 5th October a crowd of women collected in Paris, declaring that they were starving, and were led to Versailles by Maillard, one of the conquerors of the Bastille, followed by a mob. The representatives of the women interviewed the King, and the mob prepared to spend the night outside the palace walls. Late at night they were followed by a powerful detachment of the National Guard of Paris, under the command of Lafayette, who protested that he came to save the King. Nevertheless, owing to bad management, some of the mob broke into the palace before daybreak on the morning of 6th October and murdered two of the royal bodyguards. Lafayette came to the rescue and demanded that the King and royal family should come to Paris and take up their residence at the Tuileries. The King, horrified by the events of the morning, and obliged to obey Lafayette, consented, and the royal family, accompanied by the mob, and escorted by the National Guard, at once proceeded to the capital. This second victory of the Parisians was not less important than the first: on 14th July the people of Paris had terrified the King into abandoning the idea of dissolving the National Assembly by force; on 6th October they brought him amongst them, so that if he again conceived the idea, he would be unable to execute it.

Effect in Europe.

The capture of the Bastille caused the most profound astonishment in Europe. Where the people possessed some amount of political liberty, as in the United States of America and in England, it appealed to the imagination, and the French were regarded as the conquerors of their freedom. In the neighbourhood of France, in the Rhenish principalities, in Belgium, and above all in Liège, it caused a general sense of discontent and even riots. The despotic monarchs of Europe and their principal ministers did not pay so much attention to the capture of the Bastille as did the inhabitants of free countries; they did not for one moment believe that the National Assembly would be allowed to alter the old constitution of France, and looked upon the whole of the popular movement with a favourable eye as likely to weaken France and prevent her from interfering in the affairs of the Continent. They took care, however, to suppress all similar risings in their own states. The King of Sardinia and the Elector of Mayence were especially severe; the Emperor’s General d’Alton was more than severe in Belgium; and the King of Prussia sent General Schlieffen with a strong force to restore the authority of the Bishop of Liège. This attitude of the continental monarchs was encouraged by the first French émigrés, who loudly declared that the success of the Assembly was due to the culpable weakness of Louis XVI.