"We have no difficulty nowadays in comprehending," says M. Geffroy very justly, "what pure patriotism there was in that young army of 1792, which represented new France. But this army, formed in independence of the old regiments, was none the less, in the eyes of the Queen, a veritable army of sedition. She thought of it as composed of the victors of the Bastille, those whom Mirabeau styled the greatest scoundrels of Paris; the very rabble who came to Versailles on the 6th of October. She believed they could be crushed by the first attack at the frontier, and that France and Paris would be rid of them." The following reflection by M. Geffroy is very judicious: "Marie Antoinette committed a double error, but honest men who had not the same overpowering motives as she, have committed it likewise. I do not allude merely to those Frenchmen who, after April 20, remained in the ranks of the Emigration, and who, apparently, did not suppose themselves to be betraying the true interests of their country. But look at M. de Bouillé. He even accepted a command in the foreign army under Gustavus III. And yet M. de Bouillé is an honest man who knows France and loves her ardently. Observe, in his Memoirs, his involuntary pride in our success, and how he shrugs his shoulders at the bluster of the Prussian officers."
It is not yet well understood what vigor, enthusiasm, and martial ardor animated that brave national army, which, according to the foreigners, was but a band of rioters, but which was suddenly to appear on the battle-field as a people of heroes. Honor took refuge in the camps. It was there that men whom the Jacobin Club enraged, and who had no consolation for their patriotic grief but the virile emotions of combat, went to fight and die. Why did not Louis XVI. call to mind that he was the commander-in-chief of the army? Ah! had he been a soldier, had he been accustomed to wear a uniform, to command, and, above all, to speak to his troops, how quickly he would have come to the end of his difficulties! Count de Vaublanc had good reason to say: "Anything can be done with Frenchmen if one knows how to animate and impress them with vehement ardor; otherwise, nothing need be expected.... Never did a prince merit better the eternal rewards promised by religion to the true Christian; and yet his example should forever teach kings that their conduct must be totally different from his. Lacking the courage which acts, the most virtuous king cannot achieve his own safety." Why did not Louis XVI. go amongst his soldiers? Victory would have given him a sceptre and a crown. While he still retained his sword, why did he leave it in the scabbard? Why did he not remember that it might launch thunderbolts?
On the contrary, Louis XVI. hesitates, fumbles, temporizes. Count de Vaublanc says again: "This wretched time proves thoroughly that finesse is the most detestable means of conducting great affairs. Nothing but finesse was opposed to the impetuous attacks of the Jacobins. All was dissimulation; conversations, writings, measures; authority acted only by crooked ways. With a thousand means of safety, people were lost because they pushed prudence to excess, and extreme prudence always degenerates into despicable means. I was in every great crisis of the Revolution, and I have always seen the same faults produce the same misfortunes. It is the same thing in revolution as in war; no matter how prudent a general may be, he must take some risk. Otherwise it would be impossible to gain a single battle."
Ah! how true and how striking is that great saying of Bossuet: "When God wills to overthrow empires, all is feeble and irregular in their designs." Undecided and fickle, Louis XVI. does not even know whether to desire the success or the failure of the Austrian army. He has no plan, no steadiness of purpose. The secret mission he gives to Mallet du Pan is a fresh proof of the irresolution of his character and his policy. What is it he asks? To have the Powers declare that they are making war against an anti-social faction, and not the French nation; that they are undertaking the defence of legitimate governments and of peoples against anarchy; that they will treat only with the King; that they shall demand perfect liberty for him; that they convoke a congress to which the émigrés may be admitted as complainants, and where the general scheme of claims and reclamations shall be negotiated under the auspices and the guarantee of the great courts of Europe. Hesitating between Austria and his own kingdom, the unhappy monarch attempts to continue that equivocal system, that see-saw policy in which he has succeeded so ill, and which constrains him to dissimulation, that last resource of the feeble. Sent to Germany with instructions written by Louis XVI., with his own hand, Mallet du Pan recommends the sovereigns to be cautious in advancing into France, to observe the greatest prudence in dealing with the inhabitants of the invaded provinces, and to precede their arrival by a manifesto in which they declare conciliatory and pacific intentions. It follows that official ministers of the King did not possess his confidence and were not the interpreters of his mind. A sort of occult and mysterious government existed, with a diplomacy, secret funds, and agents abroad and at home. Such a system, lacking all grandeur and sincerity, could accomplish nothing but catastrophes.
Meanwhile, the war had begun under the most painful conditions. The invasion of Belgium, arranged for the end of April, failed miserably. Near Mons, Biron's troops took to flight, threatening to fire on their officers, and crying: "We are betrayed!" At Lille, General Theobald Dillon was massacred by his own soldiers. Such news caused indescribable emotion in Paris. Popular mistrust and irritation reached their height. The different parties hurled reproaches and accusations in each other's face. The Girondins, finding the National Guard too conservative, demanded pikes for the men of the faubourgs who had no guns. The sans-culottes enlisted. The army of assassins was organized. The only thing left to do before giving the signal for a riot was to obtain from the King a last concession,—the disbanding of his guard.
XIII.
THE DISBANDING OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL GUARD.
Louis XVI. had still some defenders, some heroes resolved to shed the last drop of their blood for their King. Hence it was necessary to remove them from his person. What means of doing so could be found? Calumny. Fable on fable was spread among an always credulous public, imaginary conspiracies invented, and the wretched monarch constrained to deprive himself of his last resource, in order to deliver him, weak and disarmed, into the hands of his enemies.