In June, 1791, and during the five following months, the class of active citizens[2101] are convoked to elect their representatives, which, as we know, according to the law, are of every kind and degree. In the first place, there are 40,000 members of electoral colleges of the second degree and 745 deputies. Next, there are one-half of the administrators of 83 departments, one-half of the administrators of 544 districts, one-half of the administrators of 41,000 communes, and finally, in each municipality, the mayor and syndic-attorney. Then in each department they have to elect the president of the criminal court and the prosecuting-attorney, and, throughout France, officers of the National Guard; in short, almost the entire body of the agents and depositories of legal authority. The garrison of the public citadel is to be renewed, which is the second and even the third time since 1789.—At each time the Jacobins have crept into the place, in small bands, but this time they enter in large bodies. Pétion becomes mayor of Paris, Manual, syndic-attorney, and Danton the deputy of Manuel. Robespierre is elected prosecuting-attorney in criminal cases. The very first week,[2102] 136 new deputies enter their names on the club's register. In the Assembly the party numbers about 250 members. On passing all the posts of the fortress in review, we may estimate the besiegers as occupying one-third of them, and perhaps more. Their siege for two years has been carried on with unerring instinct, the extraordinary spectacle presenting itself of an entire nation legally overcome by a troop of insurgents.[2103]
I.—Their siege operations.
Means used by them to discourage the majority of electors
and conservative candidates.—Frequency of elections.—
Obligation to take the oath.
First of all, they clear the ground, and through the decrees forced out of the Constituent Assembly, they keep most of the majority away from the polls.—On the one hand, under the pretext of better ensuring popular sovereignty, the elections are so multiplied, and held so near together, as to demand of each active citizen one-sixth of his time; such an exaction is very great for hard-working people who have a trade or any occupation,[2104] which is the case with the great mass; at all events, with the useful and sane portion of the population. Accordingly, as we have seen, it stays away from the polls, leaving the field open to idlers or fanatics.[2105]—On the other hand, by virtue of the constitution, the civic oath, which includes the ecclesiastical oath, is imposed on all electors, for, if any one takes the former and reserves the latter, his vote is thrown out: in November, in the Doubs, the municipal elections of thirty-three communes are invalidated solely on this pretext.[2106] Not only forty thousand ecclesiastics are thus rendered unsworn (insermentés), but again, all scrupulous Catholics lose the right of suffrage, these being by far the most numerous in Artois, Doubs and the Jura, in the Lower and Upper Rhine district,[2107] in the two Sévres and la Vendée, in the Lower Loire, Morbihan, Finisterre and Côtes du Nord, in Lozère and Ardèche, without mentioning the southern departments.[2108] Thus, aided by the law which they have rendered impracticable, the Jacobins, on the one hand, are rid of all sensible voters in advance, counting by millions; and, on the other, aided by a law which they have rendered intolerant, they are rid of the Catholic vote which counts by hundreds of thousands. On entering the electoral lists, consequently, thanks to this double exclusion, they find themselves confronted by only the smallest number of electors.
II.—Annoyances and dangers of public elections.
The constituents excluded from the Legislative body.
Operations must now be commenced against these, and a first expedient consists in depriving them of their candidates. The obligation of taking the oath has already partly provided for this, in Lozère all the officials send in their resignations rather than take the oath;[2109] here are men who will not be candidates at the coming elections, for nobody covets a place which he was forced to abandon; in general, the suppression of all party candidatures is effected in no other way than by making the post of a magistrate distasteful.—The Jacobins have successfully adhered to this principle by promoting and taking the lead in innumerable riots against the King, the officials and the clerks, against nobles, ecclesiastics, corn-dealers and land-owners, against every species of public authority whatever its origin. Everywhere the authorities are constrained to tolerate or excuse murders, pillage and arson, or, at the very least, insurrections and disobedience. For two years a mayor runs the risk of being hung on proclaiming martial law; a captain is not sure of his men on marching to protect a tax levy; a judge on the bench is threatened if he condemns the marauders who devastate the national forests. The magistrate, whose duty it is to see that the law is respected, is constantly obliged to strain the law, or allow it to be strained; if refractory, a summary blow dealt by the local Jacobins forces his legal authority to yield to their illegal dictate, so that he has to resign himself to being either their accomplice or their puppet. Such a rôle is intolerable to a man of feeling or conscience. Hence, in 1790 and 1791, nearly all the prominent and reputable men who, in 1789, had seats in the Hôtels-de-villes, or held command in the National Guard, all country-gentlemen, chevaliers of St. Louis, old parliamentarians, the upper bourgeoisie and large landed-proprietors, retire into private life and renounce public functions which are no longer tenable. Instead of offering themselves to public suffrage they avoid it, and the party of order, far from electing the magistracy, no longer even finds candidates for it.
Through an excess of precaution, its natural leaders have been legally disqualified, the principal offices, especially those of deputy and minister, being interdicted beforehand to the influential men in whom we find the little common sense gained by the French people during the past two years.-In the month of June, 1779, even after the irreconcilables had parted company with the "Right," there still remained in the Assembly about 700 members who, adhering to the constitution but determined to repress disorder, would have formed a sensible legislature had they been re-elected. All of these, except a very small group of revolutionaries, had learned something by experience, and, in the last days of their session, two serious events, the king's flight and the riot in the Champ de Mars, had made them acquainted with the defects of their machinery. With this executive instrument in their hands for three months, they see that it is racked, that things are tottering, and that they themselves are being run over by fanatics and the crowd. They accordingly attempt to put on a drag, and several even think of retracing their steps.[2110] They cut loose from the Jacobins; of the three or four hundred deputies on the club list in the Rue St. Honoré[2111] but seven remain; the rest form at the Feuillants a distinct opposition club, and at their head are the first founders, Duport, the two Lameths, Barnave, the authors of the constitution, all the fathers of the new régime.[2112] In the last decree of the Constituent Assembly they loudly condemn the usurpations of popular associations, and not only interdict to these all meddling in administrative or political matters, but likewise any collective petition or deputation.[2113]—Here may the friends of order find candidates whose chances are good, for, during two years and more, each in his own district is the most conspicuous, the best accredited, and the most influential man there; he stands well with his electors on account of the popularity of the constitution he has made, and it is very probable that his name would rally to it a majority of votes.-The Jacobins, however, have foreseen this danger: Four months earlier,[2114] with the aid of the Court, which never missed an opportunity to ruin itself and everything else,[2115] they made the most of the grudges of the conservatives and the weariness of the Assembly. Tired and disgusted, in a fit of mistaken selflessness, the Assembly, through enthusiasm and taken by surprise, passes an act declaring all its members ineligible for election to the next Assembly dismissing in advance the leaders of the gentlemen's party.