V.—Their means of action.
Dispersion of the Feuillants' club.—Pressure of the
tribunes on the Assembly.—Street mobs.
Thus, for the second time, the pretended freedom fighters seek power by boldly employing force.—They begin by suppressing the meetings of the Feuillants club.[2232] The customary riot is instigated against these, whereupon ensue tumult, violent outcries and scuffles; mayor Pétion complains of his position "between opinion and law," and lets things take their course; finally, the Feuillants are obliged to evacuate their place of meeting.—Inside the Assembly they are abandoned to the insolence of the galleries. In vain do they get exasperated and protest. Ducastel, referring to the decree of the Constituent Assembly, which forbids any manifestation of approbation or disapprobation, is greeted with murmurs. He insists on the decree being read at the opening of each session, and "the murmurs begin again."[2233] "Is it not scandalous," says Vaublanc, "that the nation's representatives speaking from the tribune are subject to hootings like those bestowed upon an actor on the stage!" whereupon the galleries give him three rounds more. "Will posterity believe," says Quatremère, "that acts concerning the honor, the lives, and the fortunes of citizens should be subject, like games in the arena, to the applause and hisses of the spectators!" "Come to the point!" shout the galleries. "If ever," resumes Quatremère, "the most important of judicial acts (an act of capital indictment) can be exposed to this scandalous prostitution of applause and menaces..." "The murmurs break out afresh."—Every time that a sanguinary or incendiary measure is to be carried, the most furious and prolonged clamor stops the utterance of its opponents: "Down with the speaker! Send the reporter of that bill to prison! Down! Down! Sometimes only about twenty of the deputies will applaud or hoot with the galleries, and sometimes it is the entire Assembly which is insulted. Fists are thrust in the president's face. All that now remains is "to call down the galleries on the floor to pass decrees," which proposition is ironically made by one of the "Right."[2234]
Great, however, as this usurpation may be, the minority, in order to suppress the majority, accommodate themselves to it, the Jacobins in the chamber making common cause with the Jacobins in the galleries. The disturbers should not be put out; "it would be excluding from our deliberations," says Grangeneuve, "that which belongs essentially to the people." On one of the deputies demanding measures to enforce silence, "Torné demands that the proposition be referred to the Portugal inquisition." Choudieu "declares that it can only emanate from deputies who forget that respect which is due to the people, their sovereign judge."[2235] "The action of the galleries," says Lecointe-Puyraiveaux, "is an outburst of patriotism." Finally, this same Choudieu, twisting and turning all rights about with incomparable audacity, wishes to confer legislative privileges on the audience, and demands a decree against the deputies who, guilty of popular lèse-majesté, presume to complain of those who insult them.—Another piece of oppressive machinery, still more energetic, operates outside on the approaches to the Assembly. Like their predecessors of the Constituent Assembly, the members of the "Right" "cannot leave the building without encountering the threats and imprecations of enraged crowds. Cries of 'to the lantern!' greet the ears of Dumolard, Vaublanc, Raucourd, and Lacretelle as often as those of the Abbé Maury and Montlosier."[2236] After having hurled abuse at the president, Mathieu Dumas, they insult his wife who has been recognized in a reserved gallery.[2237] In the Tuileries, crowds are always standing there listening to the brawlers who denounce suspected deputies by name, and woe to any among them who takes that path on his way to the chamber! A broadside of insults greets him as he passes along. If the deputy happens to be a farmer, they exclaim: "Look at that queer old aristocrat—an old peasant dog that used to watch cows!" One day Hua, on going up the steps of the Tuileries terrace, is seized by the hair by an old vixen who bids him "Bow your head to your sovereigns, the people, you bastard of a deputy!" On the 20th of June one of the patriots, who is crossing the Assembly room, whispers in his ear, "You scamp of a deputy, you'll never die but by my hand!" Another time, having defended the juge-de-paix Larivière, there awaits him at the door, in the middle of the night, "a set of blackguards, who crowd around him and thrust their fists and cudgels in his face;" happily, his friends Dumas and Daverhoult, two military officers, foreseeing the danger, present their pistols and set him free "although with some difficulty."—As the 10th of August draws near there is more open aggression. Vaublanc, for having defended Lafayette, just misses being cut to pieces three times on leaving the Assembly; sixty of the deputies are treated in the same fashion, being struck, covered with mud, and threatened with death if they dare go back.[2238]—With such allies a minority is very strong. Thanks to its two agencies of constraint it will detach the votes it needs from the majority and, either through terror or craft, secure the passage of all the decrees it needs.
VI.—Parliamentary maneuvers.
Abuses of urgency.—Vote on the principle.—Call by name.
—Intimidation of the "Center."—Opponents inactive.—The
majority finally disposed of.
Sometimes it succeeds surreptitiously by rushing them through. As "there is no order of the day circulated beforehand, and, in any event, none which anybody is obliged to adhere to,"[2239] the Assembly is captured by surprise. "The first knave amongst the 'Left,' (which expression, says Hua, I do not strike out, because there were many among those gentlemen), brought up a ready-made resolution, prepared the evening before by a clique. We were not prepared for it and demanded that it should be referred to a committee. Instead of doing this, however, the resolution was declared urgent, and, whether we would or not, discussion had to take place forthwith."[2240]—"There were other tactics equally perfidious, which Thuriot, especially, made use of. This great rascal got up and proposed, not the draft of a law, but what he called a principle; for instance, a decree should be passed confiscating the property of the émigrés,.. or that unsworn priests should be subject to special surveillance.[2241]... In reply, he was told that his principle was the core of a law, the very law itself; so let it be debated by referring it to a committee to make a report on it.—Not at all—the matter is urgent; a committee might fix the articles as it pleases; they are worthless if the principle is not common sense." Through this expeditious method discussion is stifled. The Jacobins purposely prevent the Assembly from giving the matter any consideration. They count on its bewilderment. In the name of reason, they discard reason as far as they can, and hasten a vote because their decrees do not stand up to analysis.—At other times, and especially on grand occasions, they compel a vote. In general, votes are given by the members either sitting down or standing up, and, for the four hundred deputies of the "Center," subject to the scolding of the exasperated galleries, it is a tolerably hard trial. "Part of them do not arise, or they rise with the 'Left'."[2242] If the "Right" happens to have a majority, "this is contested in bad faith and a call of the house is demanded." Now, "the calls of the house, through an intolerable abuse, are always published; the Jacobins declaring that it is well for the people to know their friends from their enemies." The meaning of this is that this list of the opposition will soon serve as a list of the outlaws, on which the timid are not disposed to inscribe themselves. The result is an immediate defection in the heavy battalions of the "Centre"; "this is a positive fact," says Hua, "of which we were all witnesses; we always lost a hundred votes on the call of the house."—Towards the end they give up, and protest no more, except by staying away: on the 14th of June, when the abolishment of the whole system of feudal credit was being dealt with, only the extreme left was attending; the rest of the "Assembly hall was nearly empty"; out of 497 deputies in attendance, 200 had left the session.[2243] Encouraged for a moment by the appearance of some possible protection, they twice exonerate General Lafayette, behind whom they see an army,[2244] and brave the despots of the Assembly, the clubs, and the streets. But, for lack of a military chief and base, the visible majority is twice obliged to yield, to keep silent, and fly or retreat under the dictatorship of the victorious faction, which has strained and forced the legislative machine until it has become disjointed and broken down.[2245]