[197] "It is an indisputable fact that the murder of Foulon and Berthier was not looked upon by the majority of the people of Paris with horror and disgust. So unpopular were these two men that their death was viewed as an act of justice, only irregular in its execution. Frenchmen were still accustomed to witness the odious punishment of torture and the wheel; and society may hence learn a lesson that the sight of cruel executions tends to destroy the feelings of humanity."—France and its Revolutions, by George Long, Esq., p. 47.
[198] "The people and the militia did actually throng around La Fayette, and promised the utmost obedience in future. On this condition he resumed the command; and subsequently he had the satisfaction of preventing many disturbances by his own energy and the zeal of the troops."—Thiers, vol. i., p. 76.
[199] "You would have prevented," said Kerengal, "the burning of the chateau, if you had been more prompt in declaring that the terrible arms which they contain, and which for ages have tormented the people, were to be destroyed. Let these arms, the title-deeds, which insult not only modesty but even humanity, which humiliate the human species by requiring men to be yoked to a wagon like beasts of labor, which compel men to pass the night in beating the ponds to prevent the frogs from disturbing the sleep of their voluptuous lords, let them be brought here. Which of us would not make an expiatory pile of these infamous parchments? You can never restore quiet to the people until they are redeemed from the destruction of feudalism."
[200] "That night, which an enemy of the Revolution designated at the time the Saint Bartholomew of property, was only the Saint Bartholomew of abuses."—Miguet, p. 54.
FORMING THE CONSTITUTION.
Arming of the Peasants.—Destruction of Feudal Charters.—Sermon of the Abbé Fauchet.—Three Classes in the Assembly.—Declaration of Rights.—The Three Assemblies.—The Power of the Press.—Efforts of William Pitt to sustain the Nobles.—Questions on the Constitution.—Two Chambers in one?—The Veto.—Famine in the City.—The King's Plate melted.—The Tax of a Quarter of each one's Income.—Statement of Jefferson.
An utterly exhausted treasury compelled Louis XVI. and the court of France to call together the States-General. The deputies of the people, triumphing over the privileged classes, resolved themselves into a National Assembly, and then proceeded to the formation of a constitution which should limit the hitherto despotic powers of the crown. Though there were a few individuals of the nobles and of the higher clergy who cordially espoused the popular cause, the great mass of the privileged class clung firmly together in desperate endeavors to regain their iniquitous power. Many of these were now emigrants, scattered throughout Europe, and imploring the interference of foreign courts in their behalf. The old royalist army, some two hundred thousand strong, amply equipped and admirably disciplined, still retained its organization, and was still under its old officers, the nobles; but the rank and file of this army were from the people, and their sympathies were with the popular cause.
The nobles were now prepared for the most atrocious act of treason. They wished to surrender the naval arsenals of France to the English fleet, so that England, in possession of the great magazines of war, could throw any number of soldiers into the kingdom unresisted, while the Prussians and Austrians, headed by the emigrant noblesse, should invade France from the east. The English government, however, which subsequently became an accomplice in the conspiracy of the French nobles, by accepting the surrender of Toulon, was not yet prepared to take the bold step of invading France simply to rivet the chains of despotism upon the French people.