Let us consider this general dissolution on the spot, and take up a case in detail. On the 18th of January 1790, the new municipal authorities of Marseilles enter upon their duties. As is generally the case, the majority of the electors have had nothing to do with the balloting. The mayor, Martin, having been elected by only an eighth of the active citizens.[3127] If, however, the dominant minority is a small one, it is resolute and not inclined to stop at trifles. "Scarcely is it organized,"[3128] when it sends deputies to the King to have him withdraw his troops from Marseilles. The King, always weak and accommodating, finally consents; and, the orders to march being prepared, the municipality is duly advised of them. But the municipality will tolerate no delay, and immediately "draws up, prints, and issues a denunciation to the National Assembly" against the commandant and the two ministers who, according to it, are guilty of having forged or suppressed the King's orders. In the meantime it equips and fortifies itself as for a combat. At its first establishment the municipality broke up the bourgeois guard, which was too great a lover of order, and organized a National Guard, in which those who have no property are soon to be admitted. "Daily additions are made to its military apparatus;[3129] entrenchments and barricades at the Hôtel-de-Ville, are increasing, the artillery is increased; the town is filled with the excitement of a military camp in the immediate presence of an enemy." Thus, in possession of force, it makes use of it, and in the first place against justice.—A popular insurrection had been suppressed in the month of August 1789, and the three principal leaders, Rebecqui, Pascal, and Granet, had been imprisoned in the Chateau d'If. They are the friends of the municipal authorities, and they must be set free. At the demand of this body the affair is taken out of the hands of the grand-prévôt and put into those of the sénéchaussée, the former, meanwhile, together with his councilors, undergoing punishment for having performed their duty. The municipality, on its own authority, forbids them from further exercise of their functions. They are publicly denounced, "threatened with poniards, the scaffold, and every species of assassination." [3130] No printer dares publish their defense, for fear of "municipal annoyances." It is not long before the royal procureur and a councillor are reduced to seeking refuge in Fort Saint-Jean, while the grand-prévôt after having resisted a little longer, leaves Marseilles in order to save his life. As to the three imprisoned men, the municipal authorities visit them in a body and demand their provisional release. One of them having made his escape, they refuse to give the commandant the order for his re-arrest. The other two triumphantly leave the chateau on the 11th of April, escorted by eight hundred National Guards. They go, for form's sake, to the prisons of the sénéchaussée but the next day are set at liberty, and further prosecution ceases. As an offset to this, M. d'Ambert, colonel in the Royal Marine, guilty of expressing himself too warmly against the National Guard, although acquitted by the tribunal before which he was brought, can be set at liberty only in secret and under the protection of two thousand soldiers. The populace want to burn the house of the criminal lieutenant that dared absolve him. The magistrate himself is in danger, and is forced to take refuge in the house of the military commander.[3131] Meanwhile, printed and written papers, insulting libels by the municipal body and the club, the seditious or violent discussions of the district assemblies, and a lot of pamphlets, are freely distributed among the people and the soldiers: the latter are purposely stirred up in advance against their chiefs.—In vain are the officers mild, conciliatory, and cautious. In vain does the commander-in-chief depart with a portion of the troops. The object now is to dislodge the regiment occupying the three forts. The club sets the ball in motion, and, forcibly or otherwise, the will of the people must be carried out. On the 29th of April, two actors, supported by fifty volunteers, surprise a sentinel and get possession of Notre-Dame de la Garde. On the same day, six thousand National Guards invest the forts of Saint-Jean and Saint-Nicolas. The municipal authorities, summoned to respect the fortresses, reply by demanding the opening of the gates to the National Guard, that it may do duty jointly with the soldiers. The commandants hesitate, refer to the law, and demand time to consult their superiors. A second requisition, more urgent, is made; the commandants are held responsible for the disturbances they provoke by their refusal. If they resist they are declared promoters of civil war.[3132] They accordingly yield and sign a capitulation. One among them, the Chevalier de Beausset, major in Fort Saint-Jean, is opposed to this, and refuses his signature. On the following day he is seized as he is about to enter the Hôtel-de-Ville, and massacred, his head being borne about on the end of a pike, while the band of assassins, the soldiers, and the rabble dance about and shout over his remains.—" It is a sad accident," writes the municipality.[3133] How does it happen that, "after having thus far merited and obtained all praise, a Beausset, whom we were unable to protect against the decrees of Providence, should sully our laurels? Having had nothing to do with this tragic affair, it is not for us to prosecute the authors of it." Moreover, he was "culpable. . .. rebellious, condemned by public opinion, and Providence itself seems to have abandoned him to the irrevocable decrees of its vengeance."—As to the taking of the forts, nothing is more legitimate. "These places were in the hands of the enemies of the State, while now they are in the hands of the defenders of the Constitution of the empire. Woe to whoever would take them from us again, to convert them into a focus of counter-revolution "—M. de Miran, commandant of the province, has, it is true, made a demand for them. But, "is it not somewhat pitiable to see the requisition of a Sieur de Miran, made in the name of the King he betrays, to surrender to his Majesty's troops places which, henceforth in our hands, guarantee public security to the nation, to the law, and to the King?" In vain does the King, at the request of the National Assembly,[3134] order the municipality to restore the forts to the commandants, and to make the National Guards leave them. The municipal authorities become indignant, and resist. According to them the wrong is all on the side of the commandant and the ministers. It is the commandants who, "with the threatening equipment of their citadels, their stores of provisions and of artillery, are disturbers of the public peace. What does the minister mean by driving the national troops out of the forts, in order to entrust their guardianship to foreign troops? His object is apparent in this plan. . . . he wants to kindle civil war."—"All the misfortunes of Marseilles originate in the secret under-standing existing between the ministers and the enemies of the State." The municipal corps is at last obliged to evacuate the forts, but it is determined not to give them up. The day following that on which it receives the decree of the National Assembly, it conceives the design of demolishing them. On the 17th of May, two hundred laborers, paid in advance, begin the work of destruction. To save appearances the municipal body betakes itself at eleven o'clock in the morning to the different localities, and orders them to stop. But, on its departure, the laborers keep on; and, at six o'clock in the evening, a resolution is passed that, "to prevent the entire demolition of the citadel, it is deemed advisable to authorize only that of the part overlooking the town." On the 18th of May the Jacobin club, at once agent, accomplice, and councilor of the municipal body, compels private individuals to contribute something towards defraying the expenses of the demolition. It "sends round to every house, and to the syndics of all corporations, exacting their quotas, and making all citizens subscribe a document by which they appear to sanction the action of the municipal body, and to express their thanks to it. People had to sign it, pay, and keep silent. Woe to any one that refused!" On the 20th of May the municipal body presumes to write to the Assembly, that "this threatening citadel, this odious monument of a stupendous despotism, is about to disappear." To justify its disobedience, it takes occasion to remark, "that the love of country is the most powerful and most enduring of an empire's ramparts." On the 28th of May it secures the performance in two theaters of a piece representing the capture of the forts of Marseilles, for the benefit of the men engaged in their demolition. Meanwhile, it has summoned the Paris Jacobins to its support; it has proposed to invite the Lyons federation and all the municipalities of the kingdom to denounce the minister. It has forced M. de Miran, threatened with death and watched by a party in ambush on the road, to quit Aix, and then demands his recall.[3135] Only on the 6th of June does it decide, at the express command of the National Assembly, to suspend the almost completed demolition.—Authorities to which obedience is due could not be treated more insolently. The end, however, is attained; there is no longer a citadel, and the troops have departed; the regiment commanded by Ernest alone remains, to be tampered with, insulted, and then sent off. It is ordered to Aix, and the National Guard of Marseilles will go there to disarm and disband it. Henceforth the municipal body has full sway. It "observes only those laws which suit it, makes others to its own liking, and, in short, governs in the most despotic and arbitrary manner."[3136] And not only at Marseilles, but throughout the department where, under no authority but its own, it undertakes armed expeditions and makes raids and sudden attacks.
III.—Independent Assemblies.
Why they took the initiative.—The people in council.
—Powerlessness of the municipalities.—the violence to which
they are subject.—Aix in 1790.—Government disobeyed and
perverted everywhere.
Were it but possible for the dissolution to stop here! But each commune is far from being a tranquil little state under the rule of a body of respected magistrates. The same causes which render municipalities rebellious against the central authority render individuals rebellious against local authority. They also feel that they are in danger and want to provide for their own safety. They also, in virtue of the Constitution and of circumstances, believe themselves appointed to save the country. They also consider themselves qualified to judge for themselves on all points and entitled to carry out their judgments with their own hands. The shopkeeper, workman or peasant, at once elector and National Guard, furnished with his vote and a musket, suddenly becomes the equal and master of his superiors; instead of obeying, he commands, while all who see him again after some years' absence, find that "in his demeanor and manner all is changed." "There was great agitation everywhere,"[3137] says M. de Ségur; "I noticed groups of men talking earnestly in the streets and on the squares. The sound of the drum struck my ear in the villages, while I was astonished at the great number of armed men I encountered in the little towns. On interrogating various persons among the lower classes they would reply with a proud look and in a bold and confident tone. I observed everywhere the effect of those sentiments of equality and liberty which had then become such violent passions."—Thus exalted in their own eyes they believed themselves qualified to take the lead in everything, not only in local affairs, but also in general matters. France is to be governed by them; by virtue of the Constitution they arrogate to themselves the right, and, by dint of ignorance, attribute to themselves the capacity, to govern it. A torrent of new, shapeless, and disproportionate ideas have taken possession of their brains in the space of a few months. Vast interests about which they have never thought, have to be considered. Government, royalty, the church, creeds, foreign powers, internal and external dangers, what is occurring at Paris and at Coblentz, the insurrection in the Low Countries, the acts of the cabinets of London, Vienna, Madrid, Berlin; and, of all this, they inform themselves as they best can. An officer,[3138] who traverses France at this time, narrates that at the post-stations they made him wait for horses until he had "given them details. The peasants stopped my carriage in the middle of the road and overwhelmed me with questions. At Autun, I was obliged, in spite of the cold, to talk out of a window opening upon the square and tell what I knew about the Assembly."—These on-dits are all changed and amplified in passing from mouth to mouth. They finally become circumstantial stories adapted to the caliber of the minds they pass into and to the dominant passion that propagates them. Trace the effect of these fables in the house of a peasant or fish-woman in an outlying village or a populous suburb, on brutish or almost brutal minds, especially when they are lively, heated, and over-excited—the effect is tremendous. For, in minds of this stamp, belief is at once converted into action, and into rude and destructive action. It is an acquired self-control, reflection, and culture which interposes between belief and action the solicitude for social interests, the observance of forms and respect for the law. These restraints are all wanting in the new sovereign. He does not know how to stop and will not suffer himself to be stopped. Why so many delays when the peril is urgent? What is the use of observing formalities when the safety of the people is at stake? What is there sacred in the law when it protects public enemies? What is more pernicious than passive deference and patient waiting under timid or blind officials? What can be more just than to do one's self justice at once and on the spot?—Precipitation and passion, in their eyes, are both duties and merits. One day "the militia of Lorient decide upon marching to Versailles and to Paris without considering how they are to get over the ground or what they will do on their arrival."[3139] Were the central government within reach they would lay their hands on it. In default of this they substitute themselves for it on their own territory, and exercise its functions with a full conviction of right, principally those of gendarme, judge, and executioner.
During the month of October, 1789, at Paris, after the assassination of the baker François, the leading murderer, who is a porter at the grain depot, declares "that he wanted to avenge the nation." It is quite probable that this declaration is sincere. In his mind, assassination is one of the forms of patriotism, and it does not take long for his way of thinking to become prevalent. In ordinary times, social and political ideas slumber in uncultured minds in the shape of vague antipathies, restrained aspirations, and fleeting desires. Behold them aroused—energetic, imperious, stubborn, and unbridled. Objection or opposition is not to be tolerated; dissent, with them, is a sure sign of treachery.—Apropos of the nonjuring priests,[3140] five hundred and twenty-seven of the National Guards of Arras write, "that no one could doubt their iniquity without being suspected of being their accomplices. . . . Should the whole town combine and express a contrary opinion, it would simply show that it is filled with enemies of the Constitution;" and forthwith, in spite of the law and the remonstrances of the authorities, they insist on the closing of the churches. At Boulogne-sur-Mer, an English vessel having shipped a quantity of poultry, game, and eggs, "the National Guards, of their own authority," go on board and remove the cargo. On the strength of this, the accommodating municipal body approves of the act, declares the cargo confiscated, orders it to be sold, and awards one-half of the proceeds to the National Guards and the other half to charitable purposes. The concession is a vain one, for the National Guards consider that one-half is too little, "insult and threaten the municipal officers," and immediately proceed to divide the booty in kind, each one going home with a share of stolen hams and chickens.[3141] The magistrates must necessarily keep quiet with the guns of those they govern pointed at them.—Sometimes, and it is generally the case, they are timid, and do not try to resist. At Douai,[3142] the municipal officers, on being summoned three times to proclaim martial law, refuse, and end by avowing that they dare not unfold the red flag: "Were we to take this course we should all be sacrificed on the spot." Neither the troops nor the National Guards, in fact, are to be relied on. In this universal state of apathy the field is open to savages, and a dealer in wheat is hung.—Sometimes the administrative corps tries to resist, but in the end it has to succumb to violence. "For more than six hours," writes one of the members of the district of Etampes,[3143] "we were closed in by bayonets leveled at us and with pistols at our breasts; and they were obliged to sign a dismissal of the troops which had arrived to protect the market. At present "we are all away from Etampes; there is no longer a district or a municipality;" almost all have handed in their resignations, or are to return for that purpose.—Sometimes, and this is the rarest case,[3144] the officials do their duty to the end, and perish. In this same town, six months later, Simoneau, the mayor, having refused to cut down the price of wheat, is beaten with iron-pointed sticks, and his corpse is riddled with balls by the murderers.—Municipal bodies must take heed how they undertake to stem the torrent; the slightest opposition will soon be at the expense of their lives. In Touraine,[3145] "as the publication of the tax-rolls takes place, riots break out against the municipal authorities; they are forced to surrender the rolls they have drawn up, and their papers are torn up." And still more, "they kill, they assassinate the municipal authorities." In that large commune men and women "beat and kick them with their fists and sabots. . . . The mayor is laid up after it, and the procureur of the commune died between nine and ten o'clock in the morning. Véteau, a municipal officer, received the last sacrament this morning;" the rest have fled, being constantly threatened with death and incendiarism. They do not, consequently, return, and "no one now will take the office of either mayor or administrator."—The outrages which the municipalities thus commit against their superiors are committed against themselves. The National Guards, the mob, the controlling faction, arrogating to themselves in the commune the same violent sovereignty which the commune pretends to exercise against the State.
I should never finish if I undertook to enumerate the outbreaks in which the magistrates are constrained to tolerate or to sanction popular usurpations, to shut up churches, to drive off or imprison priests, to suppress octrois, tax grain, and allow clerks; bakers, corn-dealers, ecclesiastics, nobles, and officers to be hung, beaten to death, or to have their throats cut. Ninety-four thick files of records in the national archives are filled with these acts of violence, and do not contain two-thirds of them. It is worth while to take in detail one case more, a special one, and one that is authentic, which serves as a specimen, and which presents a foreshortened image of France during one tranquil year. At Aix, in the month of December, 1790,[3146] in Opposition to the two Jacobin clubs, a club had been organized, had complied with all the formalities, and, like the "Club des Monarchiens" at Paris, claimed the same right of meeting as the others. But here, as at Paris, the Jacobins recognize no rights but for themselves alone, and refuse to admit their adversaries to the privileges of the law. Moreover, alarming rumors are circulated. A person who has arrived from Nice states that he had "heard that there were twenty thousand men between Turin and Nice, under the pay of the emigrants, and that at Nice a neuvaine[3147] was held in Saint François-de-Paule to pray God to enlighten the French." A counter-revolution is certainly under way. Some of the aristocrats have stated "with an air of triumph, that the National Guard and municipalities are a mere toy, and that this sort of thing will not last long." One of the leading members of the new club, M. de Guiraitiand, an old officer of seventy-eight years, makes speeches in public against the National Assembly, tries to enlist artisans in his party, "affects to wear a white button on his hat fastened by pins with their points jutting out," and, as it is stated, he has given to several mercers a large order for white cockades. In reality, on examination, not one is found in any shop, and all the dealers in ribbons, on being interrogated, reply that they know of no transaction of that description. But this simply proves that the culprit is a clever dissimulator, and the more dangerous because he is eager to save the country.—On the 12th of December, at four o'clock in the afternoon, the two Jacobin clubs fraternise, and pass in long procession before the place of meeting, "where some of the members, a few officers of the Lyons regiment and other individuals, are quietly engaged at play or seeing others play." The crowd hoot, but they remain quiet. The procession passes by again, and they hoot and shout, "Down with the aristocrats to the lamp post with them!" Two or three of the officers standing on the threshold of the door become irritated, and one of them, drawing his sword, threatens to strike a young man if he keeps on. Upon this the crowd cries out, "Guard! Help! An assassin!" and rushes at the officer, who withdraws into the house, exclaiming, "To arms!" His comrades, sword in hand, descend in order to defend the door; M. de Guiramand fires two pistol shots and receives a stab in the thigh. A shower of stones smashes in the windows, and the door is on the point of being burst open when several of the members of the club save themselves by taking to the roof. About a dozen others, most of them officers, form in line, penetrate the crowd with uplifted swords, strike and get struck, and escape, five of them being wounded. The municipality orders the doors and windows of the club-house to be walled up, sends the Lyons regiment away, decrees the arrest of seven officers and of M. de Guiramand, and all this in a few hours, with no other testimony than that of the conquerors.
But these prompt, vigorous and partial measures are not sufficient for the Jacobin club; other conspirators must be seized, and it is the club which designates them and goes to take them.—Three months before this, M. Pascalis, an advocate, on addressing along with some of his professional brethren the dissolved parliament, deplored the blindness of the people, "exalted by prerogatives of which they knew not the danger." A man who dared talk in this way is evidently a traitor.—There is another, M. Morellet de la Roquette, who refused to join the proscribed club. His former vassals, however, had been obliged to bring an action against him to make him accept the redemption of his feudal dues; also, six years before this, his carriage, passing along the public promenade, had run over a child; he likewise is an enemy of the people. While the municipal officers are deliberating, "a few members of the club" get together and decide that M. Pascalis and M. de la Roquette must be arrested. At eleven o'clock at night eighty trustworthy National Guards, led by the president of the club, travel a league off to seize them in their beds and lodge them in the town prison.—Zeal of this kind excites some uneasiness, and if the municipality tolerates the arrests, it is because it is desirous of preventing murder. Consequently, on the following day, December 13th, it sends to Marseilles for four hundred men of the Swiss Guard commanded by Ernest, and four hundred National Guards, adding to these the National Guard of Aix, and orders this company to protect the prison against any violence. But, along with the Marseilles National Guards, there came a lot of armed people who are volunteers of disorder. On the afternoon of the 13th the first mob strives to force the prison, and the next day, fresh squads congregate around it demanding the head of M. Pascalis. The members of the club head the riot with "a crowd of unknown men from outside the town, who give orders and carry them out." During the night the populace of Aix are tampered with, and the dikes all give way at the same moment. At the first clamors the National Guard on duty on the public promenade disband and disperse, while, as there is no signal for the assemblage of the others, notwithstanding the regulations, the general alarm is not sounded. "The largest portion of the National Guard draws off so as not to appear to authorize by its presence outrages which it has not been ordered to prevent. Peaceable Citizens are in great consternation;" each one takes to flight or shuts himself up in his house, the streets being deserted and silent. Meanwhile the prison gates are shattered with axes. The procureur-syndic of the department, who requests the commandant of the Swiss regiment to protect the prisoners, is seized, borne off, and runs the risk of losing his life. Three municipal officers in their scarves, who arrive on the ground, dare not give the order required by the commandant. At this decisive moment, when it is necessary to shed blood and kill a number of men, they obviously fear to take the responsibility; their reply is, "We have no orders to give."—An extraordinary spectacle now presents itself in this barrack courtyard surrounding the prison. On the side of the law stand eight hundred armed men, four hundred of the "Swiss" and four hundred of the National Guard of Marseilles. They are drawn up in battle array, with guns to their shoulders, with special orders repeated the evening before at three different times by the municipal district and departmental authorities and they have the sympathies of all honest people and of most of the National Guard. But the legal indispensable phrase does not pass the lips of those who by virtue of the Constitution should utter it, and a small group of convicts are found to be sovereign.—The three municipal officers are seized in their turn under the eyes of their own soldiers who remain motionless, and "with bayonets at their breasts they sign, under constraint, the order to give up M. Pascalis to the people." M. de la Roquette is likewise surrendered. "The only portion of the National Guard of Aix which was visible," that is to say, the Jacobin minority, form a circle around the gate of the prison and organize themselves into a council of war. And there they stand; at once "accusers, witnesses, judges, and executioners." A captain conducts the two victims to the public promenade where they are hung. Very soon after this old M. de Guiramand, whom the National Guard of his village have brought a prisoner to Aix, is hung in the same manner.
There is no prosecution of the assassins. The new tribunal, frightened or forestalled, has for some time back ranged itself on the popular side; its writs, consequently, are served on the oppressed, against the members of the assaulted dub. Writs of arrest, summonses to attend court, searches, seizures of correspondence, and other proceedings, rain down upon them. Three hundred witnesses are examined. Some of the arrested officers are "loaded with chains and thrust into dungeons." Henceforth the club rules, and "makes everybody tremble."[3148] "From the 23rd to the 27th of December, more than ten thousand passports are delivered at Aix." "If the emigrations continue," write the commissioners, "there will be no one left at Aix but workmen without work and with no resources. Whole streets are uninhabited. . . . . As long as such crimes can be permitted with impunity fear will drive out of this town every one who has the means of living elsewhere."—Many come back after the arrival of the commissioners, hoping to obtain justice and security through them. But, "if a prosecution is not ordered, we shall scarcely have departed from Aix when three or four hundred families will abandon it. . . . And what man in his senses would dare guarantee that each village will not soon have some one hung in it?. . . Country valets arrest their masters. . . . The expectation of impunity leads the inhabitants of villages to commit all sorts of depredations in the forests, which is very harmful in a region where woods are very scarce. They set up the most absurd and most unjust pretensions against rich proprietors, and the fatal rope is ever the interpreter and the signal of their will." There is no refuge against these outrages. "The department, the districts, the municipalities, administer only in conformity with the multiplied petitions of the club." In the sight of all, and on one solemn day, a crushing defeat has demonstrated the weakness of the government officials; and, bowed beneath the yoke of their new masters, they preserve their legal authority only on the condition that it remains at the service of the victorious party.