History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814

by M. Mignet

FROM THE 6TH OF OCTOBER, 1789, TO THE DEATH OF MIRABEAU, APRIL, 1791

The period which forms the subject of this chapter was less remarkable for events than for the gradually decided separation of parties. In proportion as changes were introduced into the state and the laws, those whose interests or opinions they injured declared themselves against them. The revolution had had as enemies, from the beginning of the states-general, the court; from the union of orders and the abolition of privileges, the nobility; from the establishment of a single assembly and the rejection of the two chambers, the ministry and the partisans of the English form of government. It had, moreover, against it since the departmental organization, the provinces; since the decree respecting the property and civil constitution of the clergy, the whole ecclesiastical body; since the introduction of the new military laws, all the officers of the army. It might seem that the assembly ought not to have effected so many changes at once, so as to have avoided making so many enemies; but its general plans, its necessities, and the very plots of its adversaries, required all these innovations.

After the 5th and 6th of October, the assembly emigrated as the court had done after the 14th of July. Mounier and Lally-Tollendal deserted it, despairing of liberty from the moment their views ceased to be followed. Too absolute in their plans, they wanted the people, after having delivered the assembly on the 14th of July, suddenly to cease acting, which was displaying an entire ignorance of the impetus of revolutions. When the people have once been made use of, it is difficult to disband them, and the most prudent course is not to contest, but to regulate intervention. Lally-Tollendal renounced his title of Frenchman, and returned to England, the land of his ancestors. Mounier repaired to Dauphiné, his native province, which he endeavoured to excite to a revolt against the assembly. It was inconsistent to complain of an insurrection, and yet to provoke one, especially when it was to the profit of another party, for his was too weak to maintain itself against the ancient régime and the revolution. Notwithstanding his influence in Dauphiné, whose former movements he had directed, Mounier was unable to establish there a centre of permanent resistance, but the assembly was thereby warned to destroy the ancient provincial organisation, which might become the frame- work of a civil war.

After the 5th and 6th of October, the national representatives followed the king to the capital, which their common presence had contributed greatly to tranquillise. The people were satisfied with possessing the king, the causes which had excited their ebullition had ceased. The duke of Orleans, who, rightly or wrongly, was considered the contriver of the insurrection, had just been sent away; he had accepted a mission to England; Lafayette was resolved to maintain order; the national guard, animated by a better spirit, acquired every day habits of discipline and obedience; the corporation, getting over the confusion of its first establishment, began to have authority. There remained but one cause of disturbance—the scarcity of provisions. Notwithstanding the zeal and foresight of the committee entrusted with the task of providing supplies, daily assemblages of the people threatened the public tranquillity. The people, so easily deceived when suffering, killed a baker called François, who was unjustly accused as a monopolist. On the 21st of October a martial law was proclaimed, authorizing the corporation to employ force to disperse the mob, after having summoned the citizens to retire. Power was vested in a class interested in maintaining order; the districts and the national guard were obedient to the assembly. Submission to the law was the prevailing passion of that epoch. The deputies on their side only aspired at completing the constitution and effecting the re-organisation of the state. They had the more reason for hastening their task, as the enemies of the assembly made use of what remained of the ancient régime, to occasion it embarrassment. Accordingly, it replied to each of their endeavours by a decree, which, changing the ancient order of things, deprived them of one of their means of attack.

It began by dividing the kingdom more equally and regularly. The provinces, which had witnessed with regret the loss of their privileges, formed small states, the extent of which was too vast, and the administration too independent. It was essential to reduce their size, change their names, and subject them to the same government. On the 22nd of December, the assembly adopted in this respect the project conceived by Sieyès, and presented by Thouret in the name of the committee, which occupied itself constantly on this subject for two months.

France was divided into eighty-three departments, nearly equal in extent and population; the departments were subdivided into districts and cantons. Their administration received a uniform and hierarchical form. The department had an administrative council composed of thirty-six members, and an executive directory composed of five members: as the names indicate, the functions of the one were to decide, and of the other to act. The district was organised in the same way; although on a smaller scale, it had a council and a directory, fewer in number, and subordinate to the superior directory and council. The canton composed of five or six parishes, was an electoral not an administrative division; the active citizens, and to be considered such it was necessary to pay taxes amounting to three days' earnings, united in the canton to nominate their deputies and magistrates. Everything in the new plan was subject to election, but this had several degrees. It appeared imprudent to confide to the multitude the choice of its delegates, and illegal to exclude them from it; this difficult question was avoided by the double election. The active citizens of the canton named electors intrusted with nominating the members of the national assembly, the administrators of the department, those of the district, and the judges of tribunals; a criminal court was established in each department, a civil court in each district, and a police-court in each canton.

Such was the institution of the department. It remained to regulate that of the corporation: the administration of this was confided to a general council and a municipality, composed of members whose numbers were proportioned to the population of the towns. The municipal officers were named immediately by the people, and could alone authorize the employment of the armed force. The corporation formed the first step of the association, the kingdom formed the last; the department was intermediate between the corporation and the state, between universal interests and purely local interests.

The execution of this plan, which organized the sovereignty of the people, which enabled all citizens to concur in the election of their magistrates, and entrusted them with their own administration, and distributed them into a machinery which, by permitting the whole state to move, preserved a correspondence between its parts, and prevented their isolation, excited the discontent of some provinces. The states of Languedoc and Brittany protested against the new division of the kingdom, and on their side the parliaments of Metz, Rouen, Bordeaux, and Toulouse rose against the operations of the assembly which suppressed the Chambres de Vacations, abolished the orders, and declared the commissions of the states incompetent. The partisans of the ancient régime employed every means to disturb its progress; the nobility excited the provinces, the parliaments took resolutions, the clergy issued mandates, and writers took advantage of the liberty of the press to attack the revolution. Its two principal enemies were the nobles and the bishops. Parliament, having no root in the nation, only formed a magistracy, whose attacks were prevented by destroying the magistracy itself, whereas the nobility and the clergy had means of action which survived the influence of the body. The misfortunes of these two classes were caused by themselves. After harassing the revolution in the assembly, they afterwards attacked it with open force— the clergy, by internal insurrections—the nobility, by arming Europe against it. They had great expectations from anarchy, which, it is true, caused France many evils, but which was far from rendering their own position better. Let us now see how the hostilities of the clergy were brought on; for this purpose we must go back a little.

The revolution had commenced with the finances, and had not yet been able to put an end to the embarrassments by which it was caused. More important objects had occupied the attention of the assembly. Summoned, no longer to defray the expenses of administration, but to constitute the state, it had suspended its legislative discussions, from time to time, in order to satisfy the more pressing necessities of the treasury. Necker had proposed provisional means, which had been adopted in confidence, and almost without discussion. Despite this zeal, he did not without displeasure see the finances considered as subordinate to the constitution, and the ministry to the assembly. A first loan of thirty millions (1,200,000l.), voted the 9th of August, had not succeeded; a subsequent loan of eighty millions (3,200,000l.), voted the 27th of the same month, had been insufficient. Duties were reduced or abolished, and they yielded scarcely anything, owing to the difficulty of collecting them. It became useless to have recourse to public confidence, which refused its aid; and in September, Necker had proposed, as the only means, an extraordinary contribution of a fourth of the revenue, to be paid at once. Each citizen was to fix his proportion himself, making use of that simple form of oath, which well expressed these first days of honour and patriotism:—"I declare with truth."

Mirabeau now caused Necker to be invested with a complete financial dictatorship. He spoke of the urgent wants of the state, of the labours of the assembly which did not permit it to discuss the plan of the minister, and which at the same time prevented its examining any other; of Necker's skill, which ensured the success of his own measure; and urged the assembly to leave with him the responsibility of its success, by confidently adopting it. As some did not approve of the views of the minister, and others suspected the intentions of Mirabeau with respect to him, he closed his speech, one of the most eloquent he ever delivered, by displaying bankruptcy impending, and exclaiming, "Vote this extraordinary subsidy, and may it prove sufficient! Vote it; for if you have doubts respecting the means, you have none respecting the want, and our inability to supply it. Vote it, for the public circumstances will not bear delay, and we shall be accountable for all postponement. Beware of asking for time; misfortune never grants it. Gentlemen, on the occasion of a ridiculous motion at the Palais Royal, an absurd incursion, which had never had any importance, save in feeble imaginations, or the minds of men of ill designs and bad faith, you once heard these words, 'Catiline is at the gates of Rome, and yet they deliberate!' And yet there were around us neither Catiline, nor perils, nor factions, nor Rome. But now bankruptcy, hideous bankruptcy, is there; it threatens to consume you, your properties, your honour, and yet you deliberate!" Mirabeau had carried away the assembly by his oratory; and the patriotic contribution was voted with unanimous applause.