The distrust which the Assembly felt for the actual ministers led it to undertake the business of government as well as the business of reform. There were committees for all the chief departments of state, a committee for the Executive committees of the Assembly. army, a committee for the navy, another for diplomacy, another for finance. These committees sometimes asked the ministers for information, but rarely took their advice. Even Necker found the Assembly heedless of his counsels. The condition of the treasury became worse day by day. The yield of the indirect taxes fell off through the interruption of business, and the direct taxes were in large measure withheld, for want of an authority to enforce payment. With some trouble Necker induced the Assembly to sanction first a loan of 30,000,000 livres and then a loan of 80,000,000 livres. The public having shown no eagerness to subscribe, Necker proposed that every man should be invited to make a patriotic contribution of one-fourth of his income. This expedient also failed. On the 10th Confiscation of church property. of October 1789 Talleyrand, bishop of Autun, proposed that the Assembly should take possession of the lands of the church. In November the Assembly enacted that they should be at the disposal of the nation, which would provide for the maintenance of the clergy. Since the church lands were supposed to occupy one-fifth of France, the Assembly thought that it had found an inexhaustible source of public wealth. On the security of the church lands it based a paper currency (the famous assignats). In December it ordered an issue to the amount of 400,000,000 livres. As the revenue still declined and the reforms enacted by the Assembly involved The assignats. a heavy outlay, it recurred again and again to this expedient. Before its dissolution the Assembly had authorized the creation of 1,800,000,000 livres of assignats and the depreciation of its paper had begun. Finding that he had lost all credit with the Assembly, Necker resigned office and left France in September 1790.
Even the committees of the Assembly had far less power than the new municipal authorities throughout France. They really governed so far as there was any government. Often full of public spirit, they lacked experience and Power of the municipalities and popular clubs. in a time of peculiar difficulty had no guide save their own discretion. They opened letters, arrested suspects, controlled the trade in corn, and sent their National Guards on such errands as they thought proper. The political clubs which sprang up all over the country often presumed to act as though they were public authorities (see [Jacobins]). The revolutionary journalists, Desmoulins in his Révolutions de France et de Brabant, Loustallot in his Révolutions de Paris, Marat in his Ami du peuple, continued to feed the fire of discord. Amid this anarchy it became a practice for the National Guards of different districts to form federations, that is, to meet and swear loyalty to each other and obedience to the laws made by the National Assembly. At the suggestion of the municipality of Paris the Assembly decreed a general federation of all France, to be held on the anniversary of the fall of the Bastille. The ceremony took place in the Champ de Mars (July 14, 1790) in presence of the king, the queen, the Assembly, and an enormous concourse of spectators. It was attended by deputations from the National Guards in every part of the kingdom, from the regular regiments, and from the crews of the fleet. Talleyrand celebrated Mass, and Lafayette was the first to swear fidelity to the Assembly and the nation. In this gathering the provincial deputations caught the revolutionary fever of Paris. Still graver was the effect upon the regular army. It had been disaffected since the outbreak of the Revolution. The rank and file complained of their food, their lodging and their pay. The non-commissioned officers, often intelligent Disaffection in the army. and hard-working, were embittered by the refusal of promotion. The officers, almost all nobles, rarely showed much concern for their men, and were often mere courtiers and triflers. After the festival of the federation the soldiers were drawn into the political clubs, and named regimental committees to defend their interests. Not content with asking for redress of grievances, they sometimes seized the regimental chest or imprisoned their officers. In August a formidable outbreak at Nancy was only quelled with much loss of life. Desertion became more frequent than ever, and the officers, finding their position unbearable, began to emigrate. Similar causes produced an even worse effect upon the navy.
By its rough handling of the church the Assembly brought fresh trouble upon France. The suppression of tithe and the confiscation of church lands had reduced the clergy to live on whatever stipend the legislature might think fit Civil constitution of the clergy. to give them. A law of February 1790 suppressed the religious orders not engaged in education or in works of charity, and forbade the introduction of new ones. Monastic vows were deprived of legal force and a pension was granted to the religious who were cast upon the world. These measures aroused no serious discontent; but the so-called civil constitution of the clergy went much further. Old ecclesiastical divisions were set aside. Henceforth the diocese was to be conterminous with the department, and the parish with the commune. The electors of the commune were to choose the curé, the electors of the department the bishop. Every curé was to receive at least 1200 livres (about £50) a year. Relatively modest stipends were assigned to bishops and archbishops. French citizens were forbidden to acknowledge any ecclesiastical jurisdiction outside the kingdom. The Assembly not only adopted this constitution but decreed that all beneficed ecclesiastics should swear to its observance. As the constitution implicitly abrogated the papal authority and entrusted the choice of bishops and curés to electors who often were not Catholics, most of the clergy declined to swear and lost their preferments. Their places were filled by election. Thenceforwards the clergy were divided into hostile factions, the Constitutionals and the Nonjurors. As the generality of Frenchmen at that time were orthodox although not zealous Catholics, the Nonjurors carried with them a large part of the laity. The Assembly was misled by its Jansenist, Protestant and Free-thinking members, natural enemies of an established church which had persecuted them to the best of its power.
In colonial affairs the Assembly acted with the same imprudence. Eager to set an example of suppressing slavery, it took measures which prepared a terrible negro insurrection in St Domingo. With regard to foreign relations The Assembly, the colonies, and foreign powers. the Assembly showed itself well-meaning but indiscreet. It protested in good faith that it desired no conquests and aimed only at peace. Yet it laid down maxims which involved the utmost danger of war. It held that no treaty could be binding without the national consent. As this consent had not been given to any existing treaty, they were all liable to be revised by the French government without consulting the other parties. Thus the Assembly treated the Family Compact as null and void. Similarly, when it abolished feudal tenures in France, it ignored the fact that the rights of certain German princes over lands in Alsace were guaranteed by the treaties of Westphalia. It offered them compensation in money, and when this was declined, took no heed of their protests. Again, in the papal territory of Avignon a large number of the inhabitants declared for union with France. The Assembly could hardly be restrained by Mirabeau from acting upon their vote and annexing Avignon. Some time after his death it was annexed. The other states of Europe did not admit the doctrines of the Assembly, but peace was not broken. Foreign statesmen who flattered themselves that France was sinking into anarchy and therefore into decay were content to follow their respective ambitions without the dread of French interference.
Deprived of authority and in fact a prisoner, Louis had for many months acquiesced in the decrees of the Assembly however distasteful. But the civil constitution of the clergy wounded him in his conscience as well as in his pride. Attempt of Louis XVI. to escape from Paris. From the autumn of 1790 onwards he began to scheme for his liberation. Himself incapable of strenuous effort, he was spurred on by Marie Antoinette, who keenly felt her own degradation and the curtailment of that royal prerogative which her son would one day inherit. The king and queen failed to measure the forces which had caused the Revolution. They ascribed all their misfortunes to the work of a malignant faction, and believed that, if they could escape from Paris, a display of force by friendly powers would enable them to restore the supremacy of the crown. But no foreign ruler, not even the emperor Leopold II., gave the king or queen any encouragement. Whatever secrecy they might observe, the adherents of the Revolution divined their wish to escape. When Louis tried to leave the Tuileries for St Cloud at Easter 1791, in order to enjoy the ministrations of a nonjuring priest, the National Guards of Paris would not let him budge. Mirabeau, who had always dissuaded the king from seeking foreign help, died on the 2nd of April. Finally the king and queen resolved to fly to the army of the East, which the marquis de Bouillé had in some measure kept under discipline. Sheltered by him they could await foreign succour or a reaction at home. On the evening of the 20th of June they escaped from the Tuileries. Louis left behind him a declaration complaining of the treatment which he had received and revoking his assent to all measures which had been laid before him while under restraint. On the following day the royal party was captured at Varennes and sent back to Paris. The king’s eldest brother, the count of Provence, who had laid his plans much better, made his escape to Brussels and joined the émigrés.
It was no longer possible to pretend that the Revolution had been made with the free consent of the king. Some Republicans called for his deposition. Afraid to take a course which involved danger both at home and abroad, the Assembly decreed that Louis should be suspended from his office. The club of the Cordeliers (q.v.), led by Danton, demanded not only his deposition but his trial. A petition to that effect having been exposed for signature on the altar in the Champ de Mars, a disturbance ensued and the National Guard fired on the crowd, killing a few and wounding many. This incident afterwards became known as the massacre of the Champ de Mars. On the other hand, the leaders of the Left, Barnave and the Lameths, felt that they had weakened the executive power too much. They would gladly have come to an understanding with the king and revised the constitution so as to strengthen his prerogative. They failed in both objects. Louis and still more Marie Antoinette regarded them with incurable distrust. The Constitutional Act without any material change was voted on the 3rd of September. On the 14th Louis swore to the Constitution, thus regaining his nominal sovereignty. The National Assembly was dissolved on the 30th. Upon Robespierre’s motion it had decreed that none of its members should be capable of sitting in the next legislature.
If we view the work of the National Assembly as a whole, we are struck by the immense demolition which it effected. No other legislature has ever destroyed so much in the same time. The old form of government, the old Review of the work of the National Assembly. territorial divisions, the old fiscal system, the old judicature, the old army and navy, the old relations of Church and State, the old law relating to property in land, all were shattered. Such a destruction could not have been effected without the support of popular opinion. Most of what the Assembly did had been suggested in the cahiers, and many of its decrees were anticipated by actual revolt. In its constructive work many sound maxims were embodied. It asserted the principles of civil equality and freedom of conscience, it reformed the criminal law, and laid down a just scheme of taxation. Not intelligence and public spirit but political wisdom was lacking to the National Assembly. Its members did not suspect how limited is the usefulness of general propositions in practical life. Nor did they perceive that new ideas can be applied only by degrees in an old world. The Constitution of 1791 was impracticable and did not last a year. The civil constitution of the clergy was wholly mischievous. In the attempt to govern, the Assembly failed altogether. It left behind an empty treasury, an undisciplined army and navy, a people debauched by safe and successful riot.
At the elections of 1791 the party which desired to carry the Revolution further had a success out of all keeping with its numbers. This was due partly to a weariness of politics which had come over the majority of French citizens, The Legislative Assembly. partly to downright intimidation exercised by the Jacobin Club and by its affiliated societies throughout the kingdom. The Legislative Assembly met on the 1st of October. It consisted of 745 members. Few were nobles, very few were clergymen, and the great body was drawn from the middle class. The members were generally young, and, since none had sat in the previous Assembly, they were wholly without experience. The Right consisted of the Feuillants (q.v.). They numbered about 160, and among them were some able men, such as Matthieu Dumas and Bigot de Préamenau, but they were guided chiefly by persons outside the House, because incapable of re-election, Barnave, Duport and the Lameths. The Left consisted of the Jacobins, a term which still included the party afterwards known as the Girondins or Girondists (q.v.)—so termed because several of their leaders came from the region of the Gironde in southern France. They numbered about 330. Among the extreme Left sat Cambon, Couthon, Merlin de Thionville. The Girondins could claim the most brilliant orators, Vergniaud, Guadet, Isnard. Inferior to these men in talent, Brissot de Warville, a restless pamphleteer, exerted more influence over the party which has sometimes gone by his name. The Left as a whole was republican, although it did not care to say so. Strong in numbers, it was reinforced by the disorderly elements in Paris and throughout France. The remainder of the House, about 250 deputies, scarcely belonged to any definite party, but voted oftenest with the Left, as the Left was the most powerful.
The Left had three objects of enmity: first, the king, the queen and the royal family; secondly, the émigrés; and thirdly, the clergy. The king could not like the new constitution, although, if left to himself, indolence and good nature The court and the émigrés. might have rendered him passive. The queen throughout had only one thought, to shake off the impotence and humiliation of the crown; and for this end she still clung to the hope of foreign succour and corresponded with Vienna. Those émigrés who had assembled in arms on the territories of the electors of Mainz and Treves (Trier) and in the Austrian Netherlands had put themselves in the position of public enemies. Their chiefs were the king’s brothers, who affected to consider Louis as a captive and his acts as therefore invalid. The count of Provence gave himself the airs of a regent and surrounded himself with a ministry. The émigrés were not, however, dangerous. They were only a few thousand strong; they had no competent leader and no money; they were unwelcome to the rulers whose hospitality they abused. The nonjuring clergy, although harassed by the local authorities, kept the respect and confidence of most Catholics. No acts of disloyalty were proved against them, and commissioners of the National Assembly reported to its successor that their flocks only desired to be let alone. But the anti-clerical bias of the Legislative Assembly was too strong for such a policy.
The king’s ministers, named by him and excluded from the Assembly, were mostly persons of little mark. Montmorin gave up the portfolio of foreign affairs on the 31st of October and was succeeded by De Lessart. Cahier de Gerville was minister of the interior; Tarbé, minister of finance; and Bertrand de Molleville, minister of marine. But the only minister who influenced the course of affairs was the comte de Narbonne, minister of war.