But the agitators are already in permanent session. The Palais-Royal is an open-air club where, all day and even far into the night, one excites the other and urges on the crowd to blows. In this enclosure, protected by the privileges of the House of Orleans, the police dare not enter. Speech is free, and the public who avail themselves of this freedom seem purposely chosen to abuse it.—The public and the place are adapted to each other.[1218] The Palais-Royal, the center of prostitution, of play, of idleness, and of pamphlets, attracts the whole of that uprooted population which floats about in a great city, and which, without occupation or home, lives only for curiosity or for pleasure—the frequenters of the coffee-houses, the runners for gambling halls, adventurers, and social outcasts, the runaway children or forlorn hopefuls of literature, arts, and the bar, attorneys' clerks, students of the institutions of higher learning, the curious, loungers, strangers, and the occupants of furnished lodgings, these amounting, it is said, to forty thousand in Paris. They fill the garden and the galleries; "one would hardly find here one of what were called the "Six Bodies,"[1219] a bourgeois settled down and occupied with his own affairs, a man whom business and family cares render serious and influential. There is no place here for industrious and orderly bees; it is the rendezvous of political and literary drones. They flock into it from every quarter of Paris, and the tumultuous, buzzing swarm covers the ground like an overturned hive. "Ten thousand people," writes Arthur Young,[1220] "have been all this day in the Palais-Royal;" the press is so great that an apple thrown from a balcony on the moving floor of heads would not reach the ground. The condition of these heads may be imagined; they are emptier of ballast than any in France, the most inflated with speculative ideas, the most excitable and the most excited. In this pell-mell of improvised politicians no one knows who is speaking; nobody is responsible for what he says. Each is there as in the theater, unknown among the unknown, requiring sensational impressions and strong emotions, a prey to the contagion of the passions around him, borne along in the whirl of sounding phrases, of ready-made news, growing rumors, and other exaggerations by which fanatics keep outdoing each other. There are shouting, tears, applause, stamping and clapping, as at the performance of a tragedy; one or another individual becomes so inflamed and hoarse that he dies on the spot with fever and exhaustion. In vain has Arthur Young been accustomed to the tumult of political liberty; he is dumb-founded at what he sees.[1221] According to him, the excitement is "incredible. . . . We think sometimes that Debrett's or Stockdale's shops at London are crowded; but they are mere deserts compared to Desenne's and some others here, in which one can scarcely squeeze from the door to the counter. . . . Every hour produces its pamphlet; 13 came out to-day, 16 yesterday, and 92 last week. 95% of these productions are in favor of liberty;" and by liberty is meant the extinction of privileges, numerical sovereignty, the application of the Contrat-Social, "The Republic", and even more besides, a universal leveling, permanent anarchy, and even the jacquerie. Camille Desmoulins, one of the orators, commonly there, announces it and urges it in precise terms:
"Now that the animal is in the trap, let him be battered to death... Never will the victors have a richer prey. Forty thousand palaces, mansions, and châteaux, two-fifth of the property of France, will be the recompense of valor. Those who pretend to be the conquerors will be conquered in turn. The nation shall be purged."
Here, in advance, is the program of the Reign of Terror.
Now all this is not only read, but declaimed, amplified, and turned to practical account. In front of the coffee-houses "those who have stentorian lungs relieve each other every evening."[1222] "They get up on a chair or a table, they read the strongest articles on current affairs, . . . the eagerness with which they are heard, and the thunder of applause they receive for every sentiment of more than common hardiness or violence against the present Government, cannot easily be imagined." "Three days ago a child of four years, well taught and intelligent, was promenaded around the garden, in broad daylight, at least twenty times, borne on the shoulders of a street porter, crying out, 'Verdict of the French people: Polignac exiled one hundred leagues from Paris; Condé the same; Conti the same; Artois the same; the Queen,—I dare not write it.'" A hall made of boards in the middle of the Palais-Royal is always full, especially of young men, who carry on their deliberations in parliamentary fashion: in the evening the president invites the spectators to come forward and sign motions passed during the day, and of which the originals are placed in the Café Foy.[1223] They count on their fingers the enemies of the country; "and first two Royal Highnesses (Monsieur and the Count d'Artois), three Most Serene Highnesses (the Prince de Condé, Duc de Bourbon, and the Prince de Conti), one favorite (Madame de Polignac), MM. de Vandreuil, de la Trémoille, du Châtelet, de Villedeuil, de Barentin, de la Galaisière, Vidaud de la Tour, Berthier, Foulon, and also M. Linguet." Placards are posted demanding the pillory on the Pont-Neuf for the Abbeé Maury. One speaker proposes "to burn the house of M. d'Espréménil, his wife, children and furniture, and himself: this is passed unanimously."—No opposition is tolerated. One of those present having manifested some horror at such sanguinary motions, "is seized by the collar, obliged to kneel down, to make an apology, and to kiss the ground. The punishment inflicted on children is given to him; he is ducked repeatedly in one of the fountain-basins, after which they him over to the mob, who roll him in the mud." On the following day an ecclesiastic is trodden under foot, and flung from hand to hand. A few days after, on the 22nd of June, there are two similar events. The sovereign mob exercises all the functions of sovereign authority, with those of the legislator those of the judge, and those of the judge with those of the executioner.—Its idols are sacred; if any one fails to show them respect he is guilty of lése-majesté, and at once punished. In the first week of July, an abbé who speaks ill of Necker is flogged; a woman who insults the bust of Necker is stripped by the fishwomen, and beaten until she is covered with blood. War is declared against suspicious uniforms. "On the appearance of a hussar," writes Desmoulins, "they shout, 'There goes Punch!' and the stone-cutters fling stones at him. Last night two officers of the hussars, MM. de Sombreuil and de Polignac, came to the Palais-Royal. . . chairs were flung at them, and they would have been knocked down if they had not run away. The day before yesterday they seized a spy of the police and gave him a ducking in the fountain. They ran him down like a stag, hustled him, pelted him with stones, struck him with canes, forced one of his eyes out of its socket, and finally, in spite of his entreaties and cries for mercy, plunged him a second time in the fountain. His torments lasted from noon until half-past five o'clock, and he had about ten thousand executioners."—Consider the effect of such a focal center at a time like this. A new power has sprung up alongside the legal powers, a legislature of the highways and public squares, anonymous, irresponsible, without restraint. It is driven onward by coffeehouse theories, by strong emotions and the vehemence of mountebanks, while the bare arms which have just accomplished the work of destruction in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, form its bodyguard and ministerial cabinet.
V.—Popular mobs become a political force.
Pressure on the Assembly.—Defection of the soldiery.
This is the dictatorship of a mob, and its proceedings, conforming to its nature, consist in acts of violence, wherever it finds resistance, it strikes.—The people of Versailles, in the streets and at the doors of the Assembly, daily "come and insult those whom they call aristocrats."[1224] On Monday, June 22nd, "d'Espréménil barely escapes being knocked down; the Abbé Maury. . . owes his escape to the strength of a curé, who takes him up in his arms and tosses him into the carriage of the Archbishop of Arles." On the 23rd, "the Archbishop of Paris and the Keeper of the Seals are hooted, railed at, scoffed at, and derided, until they almost sink with shame and rage." So formidable is the tempest of rage with which they are greeted, that Passeret, the King's secretary, who accompanies the minister, dies of the excitement that very day. On the 24th, the Bishop of Beauvais is almost knocked down by a stone striking him on the head. On the 25th, the Archbishop of Paris is saved only by the speed of his horses, the multitude pursuing him and pelting him with stones. His mansion is besieged, the windows are all shattered, and, notwithstanding the intervention of the French Guards, the peril is so great that he is obliged to promise that he will join the deputies of the Third-Estate. This is the way in which the rude hand of the people effects a reunion of the Orders. It bears as heavily on its own representatives as on its adversaries. "Although our hall was closed to the public," says Bailly, "there were always more than six hundred spectators."[1225] These were not respectful and silent, but active and noisy, mingling with the deputies, raising their hands to vote in all cases, taking part in the deliberations, by their applause and hisses: a collateral Assembly which often imposes its own will on the other. They take note of and put down the names of their opponents, transmit them to the chair-bearers in attendance at the entrance of the hall, and from them to the mob waiting for the departure of the deputies, these names are from now considered as the names of public enemies.[1226] Lists are made out and printed, and, at the Palais-Royal in the evening, they become the lists of the proscribed.—It is under this brutal pressure that many decrees are passed, and, amongst them, that by which the commons declare themselves the National Assembly and assume supreme power. The night before, Malouet had proposed to ascertain, by a preliminary vote, on which side the majority was. In an instant all those against had gathered around him to the number of three hundred. "Upon which a mans springs out from the galleries, falls upon him and takes him by the collar exclaiming, 'Hold your tongue, you false citizen!'" Malouet is released and the guard comes forward, "but terror has spread through the hall, threats are uttered against opponents, and the next day we were only ninety." Moreover, the lists of their names had been circulated; some of them, deputies from Paris, went to see Bailly that very evening. One amongst them, "a very honest man and good patriot," had been told that his house was to be set on fire. Now his wife had just given birth to a child, and the slightest tumult before the house would have been fatal. Such arguments are decisive. Consequently, three days afterwards, at the Tennis-court, but one deputy, Martin d'Auch, dares to write the word "opposing" after his name. Insulted by many of colleagues, "at once denounced to the people who had collected at the entrance of the building, he is obliged to escape by a side door to avoid being cut to pieces," and, for several days, to keep away from the meetings.[1227]—Owing to this intervention of the galleries the radical minority, numbering about thirty,[1228] lead the majority, and they do not allow them to free themselves.—On the 28th of May, Malouet, having demanded a secret session to discuss the conciliatory measures which the King had proposed, the galleries hoot at him, and a deputy, M. Bourche, addresses him in very plain terms. "You must know, sir, that we are deliberating here in the presence of our masters, and that we must account to them for our opinions." This is the doctrine of the Contrat-Social. Through timidity, fear of the Court and of the privileged class, through optimism and faith in human nature, through enthusiasm and the necessity of adhering to previous actions, the deputies, who are novices, provincial, and given up to theories, neither dare nor know how to escape from the tyranny of the prevailing dogma.—Henceforth it becomes the law. All the Assemblies, the Constituent, the Legislative, the Convention,[1229] submit to it entirely. The public in the galleries is the admitted representatives of the people, under the same title, and even under a higher title, than the deputies. Now, this public is that of the Palais-Royal, consisting of strangers, idlers, lovers of novelties, Paris romancers, leaders of the coffee-houses, the future pillars of the clubs, in short, the wild enthusiasts among the middle-class, just as the crowd which threatens doors and throws stones is recruited from among the wild enthusiasts of the lowest class. Thus by an involuntary selection, the faction which constitutes itself a public power is composed of nothing but violent minds and violent hands. Spontaneously and without previous concert dangerous fanatics are joined with dangerous brutes, and in the increasing discord between the legal authorities this is the illegal league which is certain to overthrow all.
When a commanding general sits in council with his staff-officers and his counselors, and discusses the plan of a campaign, the chief public interest is that discipline should remain intact, and that intruders, soldiers, or menials, should not throw the weight of their turbulence and thoughtlessness into the scales which have to be cautiously and firmly held by their chiefs. This was the express demand of the Government;[1230] but the demand was not regarded; and against the persistent usurpation of the multitude nothing is left to it but the employment of force. But force itself is slipping from its hands, while growing disobedience, like a contagion, after having gained the people is spreading among the troops.—From the 23rd of June,[1231] two companies of the French Guards refused to do duty. Confined to their barracks, they on the 27th break out, and henceforth "they are seen every evening entering the Palais-Royal, marching in double file." They know the place well; it is the general rendezvous of the abandoned women whose lovers and parasites they are.[1232] "The patriots all gather around them, treat them to ice cream and wine, and debauch them in the face of their officers."—To this, moreover, must be added the fact that their colonel, M. du Châtelet, has long been odious to them, that he has fatigued them with forced drills, worried them and diminished the number of their sergeants; that he suppressed the school for the education of the children of their musicians; that he uses the stick in punishing the men, and picks quarrels with them about their appearance, their board, and their clothing. This regiment is lost to discipline: a secret society has been formed in it, and the soldiers have pledged themselves to their ensigns not to act against the National Assembly. Thus the confederation between them and the Palais-Royal is established.—On the 30th of June, eleven of their leaders, taken off to the Abbaye, write to claim their assistance. A young man mounts a chair in front of the Café Foy and reads their letter aloud; a band sets out on the instant, forces the gate with a sledge-hammer and iron bars, brings back the prisoners in triumph, gives them a feast in the garden and mounts guard around them to prevent their being re-taken.—When disorders of this kind go unpunished, order cannot be maintained; in fact, on the morning of the 14th of July, five out of six battalions had deserted.—As to the other corps, they are no better and are also seduced. "Yesterday," Desmoulins writes, "the artillery regiment followed the example of the French Guards, overpowering the sentinels and coming over to mingle with the patriots in the Palais-Royal. . .. We see nothing but the rabble attaching themselves to soldiers whom they chance to encounter. 'Allons, Vive le Tiers-Etat!' and they lead them off to a tavern to drink the health of the Commons." Dragoons tell the officers who are marching them to Versailles: "We obey you, but you may tell the ministers on our arrival that if we are ordered to use the least violence against our fellow-citizens, the first shot shall be for you." At the Invalides twenty men, ordered to remove the cocks and ramrods from the guns stored in a threatened arsenal, devote six hours to rendering twenty guns useless; their object is to keep them intact for plunder and for the arming of the people.
In short, the largest portion of the army has deserted. However kind a superior officer might be, the fact of his being a superior officer secures for him the treatment of an enemy. The governor, "M. de Sombreuil, against whom these people could utter no reproach," will soon see his artillerists point their guns at his apartment, and will just escape being hung on the iron-railings by their own hands. Thus the force which is brought forward to suppress insurrection only serves to furnish it with recruits. And even worse, for the display of arms that was relied on to restrain the mob, furnished the instigation to rebellion.