[257] Michelet's French Revolution, p. 415.
FLIGHT OF THE KING.
Riot at Nancy.—Prosecution of Mirabeau.—Issue of Assignats.—Mirabeau's Interview with the Queen.—Four political Parties.—Bishops refuse to take the Oath to the Constitution.—Character of the Emigrants.—The King's Aunts attempt to leave France.—Debates upon Emigration.—Embarrassment of the Assembly.—Death of Mirabeau.—His Funeral.—The King prevented from visiting St. Cloud.—Duplicity of the King.—Conference of the Allies.—Their Plan of Invasion.—Measures for the Escape of the King.—The Flight.
The grand gala days, in the Field of Mars, celebrating the formation of the Constitution, soon passed. The twenty thousand delegates, having been fêted even to satiety, returned to their homes; the Constituent Assembly resumed its labors.[258] The cares and toils of life again pressed heavily upon the tax-exhausted and impoverished millions of France.
The Belgians, in imitation of France, had commenced a struggle for freedom. The King of France permitted Austria to send her troops across the French territory into Belgium to crush the patriots. Many of the most influential of the opponents of the Revolution were still leaving France and uniting with the armed emigrants on the frontiers. England, Austria, Sardinia, and Prussia were manifestly forming an alliance to punish the French patriots, and to restore the tyranny of the execrable old régime. The court, emboldened by these proceedings, were boasting of the swift destruction which was to overwhelm the advocates of reform, and commenced a prosecution of Mirabeau, the Duke of Orleans, and others of the popular party, for instigating the movement of the 5th and 6th of October, when the royal family were taken from Versailles to Paris. These movements created much alarm, and even the royal troops at Metz and Nancy, who were mostly composed of Swiss and Germans, fraternized with the populace.
A new issue of eight hundred millions of bonds or assignats was decreed, which quite abundantly replenished the treasury. There was never a paper currency created upon so valuable a pledge, or sustained by security more ample and undoubted. The assignats represented the whole public domain, and could at any time be exchanged for the most valuable landed property. Still, Talleyrand with singular precision predicted the confusion which eventually resulted from these issues.
In the majestic march of events, Necker had for some time been passing into oblivion. The king had been forced to recall him. Hated by the court, neglected by the Assembly, forgotten by the people, he soon found his situation insupportable, and, sending in his resignation, retired to Switzerland, from which safe retreat he watched the terrific gatherings of the revolutionary storm.