My letter of the 17th and 18th instant gave you the progress of the States General to the 17th, when the Tiers had declared the illegality of all the existing taxes, and their discontinuance from the end of their present session. The next day being a jour de fête, could furnish no indication of the impression that vote was likely to make on the Government. On the 19th, a Council was held at Marly, in the afternoon. It was there proposed that the King should interpose by a declaration of his sentiments in a seance royale. The declaration prepared by M. Necker, while it censured, in general, the proceedings both of the Nobles and Commons, announced the King's views, such as substantially to coincide with the Commons. It was agreed to in Council, as also that the seance royale should be held on the 22d, and the meetings till then be suspended. While the Council was engaged in this deliberation at Marly, the Chamber of the Clergy was in debate, whether they should accept the invitation of the Tiers to unite with them in the common chamber. On the first question, to unite simply and unconditionally, it was decided in the negative by a very small majority. As it was known, however, that some members who had voted in the negative would be for the affirmative, with some modifications, the question was put with these modifications, and it was determined, by a majority of eleven members, that their body should join the Tiers.
These proceedings of the Clergy were unknown to the Council at Marly, and those of the Council were kept secret from every body. The next morning (the 20th) the members repaired to the House, as usual, found the doors shut and guarded, and a proclamation posted up for holding a seance royale on the 22d, and a suspension of their meetings till then. They presumed, in the first moment, that their dissolution was decided, and repaired to another place, where they proceeded to business. They there bound themselves to each other by an oath never to separate of their own accord till they had settled a Constitution for the nation on a solid basis, and, if separated by force, that they would reassemble in some other place. It was intimated to them, however, that day, privately, that the proceedings of the seance royale would be favorable to them. The next day they met in a church, and were joined by a majority of the Clergy. The heads of the aristocracy saw that all was lost without some violent exertion. The King was still at Marly. Nobody was permitted to approach him but their friends. He was assailed by lies in all shapes. He was made to believe that the Commons were going to absolve the army from their oath of fidelity to him, and to raise their pay.... They procured a committee to be held, consisting of the King and his ministers, to which Monsieur and the Count d'Artois should be admitted. At this committee the latter attacked M. Necker personally, arraigned his plans, and proposed one which some of his engines had put into his hands. M. Necker, whose characteristic is the want of firmness, was browbeaten and intimidated, and the King shaken.
He determined that the two plans should be deliberated on the next day, and the seance royale put off a day longer. This encouraged a fiercer attack on M. Necker the next day; his plan was totally dislocated, and that of the Count d'Artois inserted into it. Himself and Monsieur de Montmorin offered their resignation, which was refused; the Count d'Artois saying to M. Necker, "No, Sir, you must be kept as the hostage; we hold you responsible for all the ill which shall happen." This change of plan was immediately whispered without doors. The nobility were in triumph, the people in consternation. When the King passed, the next day, through the lane they formed from the Château to the Hôtel des Etats (about half a mile), there was a dead silence. He was about an hour in the House delivering his speech and declaration, copies of which I inclose you. On his coming out, a feeble cry of "Vive le Roi" was raised by some children, but the people remained silent and sullen. When the Duke of Orleans followed, however, their applauses were excessive. This must have been sensible to the King. He had ordered, in the close of his speech, that the members should follow him, and resume their deliberations the next day. The Noblesse followed him, and so did the Clergy, except about thirty, who, with the Tiers, remained in the room and entered into deliberation. They protested against what the King had done, adhered to all their former proceedings, and resolved the inviolability of their own persons. An officer came twice to order them out of the room, in the King's name, but they refused to obey.
In the afternoon, the people, uneasy, began to assemble in great numbers in the courts and vicinities of the palace. The Queen was alarmed, and sent for M. Necker. He was conducted amidst the shouts and acclamations of the multitude, who filled all the apartments of the palace. He was a few minutes only with the Queen, and about three-quarters of an hour with the King. Not a word has transpired of what passed at these interviews. The King was just going to ride out. He passed through the crowd to his carriage, and into it, without being in the least noticed. As M. Necker followed him, universal acclamations were raised of "Vive Monsieur Necker, vive le sauveur de la France opprimée." He was conducted back to his house with the same demonstrations of affection and anxiety.... These circumstances must wound the heart of the King, desirous as he is to possess the affections of his subjects....
June 25th.—Just returned from Versailles, I am enabled to continue my narration. On the 24th nothing remarkable passed, except an attack by the mob of Versailles on the Archbishop of Paris, who had been one of the instigators of the court to the proceedings of the seance royale. They threw mud and stones at his carriage, broke the windows of it, and he in a fright promised to join the Tiers.
I have before mentioned to you the ferment into which the proceedings at the seance royale of the 23d had thrown the people. The soldiery also were affected by it. It began in the French Guards, extended to those of every other denomination (except the Swiss), and even to the bodyguards of the King. They began to quit their barracks, to assemble in squads, to declare they would defend the life of the King, but would not cut the throats of their fellow-citizens. They were treated and caressed by the people, carried in triumph through the streets, called themselves the soldiers of the nation, and left no doubt on which side they would be in case of a rupture.
In his Memoir Jefferson writes, in allusion to the spirit among the soldiery above noticed:
Extract from Memoir.
The operation of this medicine at Versailles was as sudden as it was powerful. The alarm there was so complete, that in the afternoon of the 27th the King wrote, with his own hand, letters to the Presidents of the Clergy and Nobles, engaging them immediately to join the Tiers. These two bodies were debating and hesitating, when notes from the Count d'Artois decided their compliance. They went in a body, and took their seats with the Tiers, and thus rendered the union of the orders in one Chamber complete.... But the quiet of their march was soon disturbed by information that troops, and particularly the foreign troops, were advancing on Paris from various quarters. The King had probably been advised to this, on the pretext of preserving peace in Paris. But his advisers were believed to have other things in contemplation. The Marshal de Broglio was appointed to their command—a high-flying aristocrat, cool, and capable of every thing. Some of the French Guards were soon arrested under other pretexts, but really on account of their dispositions in favor of the national cause. The people of Paris forced their prison, liberated them, and sent a deputation to the Assembly to solicit a pardon. The Assembly recommended peace and order to the people of Paris, the prisoners to the King, and asked from him the removal of the troops. His answer was negative and dry, saying they might remove themselves, if they pleased, to Noyons or Soissons. In the mean time, these troops, to the number of twenty or thirty thousand, had arrived, and were posted in and between Paris and Versailles. The bridges and passes were guarded. At three o'clock in the afternoon of the 11th of July, the Count de la Luzerne was sent to notify M. Necker of his dismission, and to enjoin him to retire instantly, without saying a word of it to any body. He went home, dined, and proposed to his wife a visit to a friend, but went in fact to his country-house at St. Ouen, and at midnight set out for Brussels. This was not known till the next day (the 12th), when the whole ministry was changed, except Villederril, of the domestic department, and Barenton, Garde des Sceaux....
The news of this change began to be known at Paris about one or two o'clock. In the afternoon a body of about one hundred German cavalry were advanced and drawn up in the Place Louis XV., and about two hundred Swiss posted at a little distance in their rear. This drew people to the spot, who thus accidentally found themselves in front of the troops, merely at first as spectators; but, as their numbers increased, their indignation rose. They retired a few steps, and posted themselves on and behind large piles of stones, large and small, collected in that place for a bridge, which was to be built adjacent to it. In this position, happening to be in my carriage on a visit, I passed through the lane they had formed without interruption. But the moment after I had passed the people attacked the cavalry with stones. They charged, but the advantageous position of the people, and the showers of stones, obliged the horses to retire and quit the field altogether, leaving one of their number on the ground, and the Swiss in their rear not moving to their aid. This was the signal for universal insurrection, and this body of cavalry, to avoid being massacred, retired towards Versailles.
After describing the events of the 13th and 14th, and of the imperfect report of them which reached the King, he says:
But at night the Duke de Liancourt forced his way into the King's bed-chamber, and obliged him to hear a full and animated detail of the disasters of the day in Paris. He went to bed fearfully impressed.
After alluding to the demolition of the Bastile, he says:
The alarm at Versailles increased. The foreign troops were ordered off instantly. Every minister resigned. The King confirmed Bailly as Prévôt des Marchands, wrote to M. Necker to recall him, sent his letter open to the Assembly, to be forwarded by them, and invited them to go with him to Paris the next day, to satisfy the city of his dispositions. [Then comes a list of the Court favorites who fled that night.] The King came to Paris, leaving the Queen in consternation for his return. Omitting the less important figures of the procession, the King's carriage was in the centre; on each side of it, the Assembly, in two ranks, afoot; at their head the Marquis de Lafayette, as commander-in-chief, on horseback, and Bourgeois guards before and behind. About sixty thousand citizens, of all forms and conditions, armed with the conquests of the Bastile and Invalides, as far as they would go, the rest with pistols, swords, pikes, pruning-hooks, scythes, etc., lined all the streets through which the procession passed, and with the crowds of the people in the streets, doors, and windows, saluted them everywhere with the cries of "Vive la nation," but not a single "Vive le roi" was heard. The King stopped at the Hôtel de Ville. There M. Bailly presented, and put into his hat, the popular cockade, and addressed him. The King being unprepared, and unable to answer, Bailly went to him, gathered some scraps of sentences, and made out an answer, which he delivered to the audience as from the King. On their return, the popular cries were, "Vive le roi et la nation!" He was conducted by a garde Bourgeoise to his palace at Versailles, and thus concluded such an "amende honorable" as no sovereign ever made, and no people ever received.