The same healing overture, as it would have been called in the civil dissensions of England, was brought before the Assembly, [July 9,] and recommended by the constitutional Bishop of Lyons, the Abbé L'Amourette. This good-natured orator affected to see, in the divisions which rent the Assembly to pieces, only the result of an unfortunate error—a mutual misunderstanding of each other's meaning. "You," he said to the Republican members, "are afraid of an undue attachment to aristocracy; you dread the introduction of the English system of two Chambers into the Constitution. You of the right hand, on the contrary, misconstrue your peaceful and ill-understood brethren, so far as to suppose them capable of renouncing monarchy, as established by the Constitution. What then remains to extinguish these fatal divisions, but for each party to disown the designs falsely imputed to them, and for the Assembly united to swear anew their devotion to the Constitution, as it has been bequeathed to us by the Constituent Assembly!"
This speech, wonderful as it may seem, had the effect of magic. The deputies of every faction, Royalist, Constitutionalist, Girondist, Jacobin, and Orleanist, rushed into each other's arms, and mixed tears with the solemn oaths by which they renounced the innovations supposed to be imputed to them. The King was sent for to enjoy this spectacle of concord, so strangely and so unexpectedly renewed. But the feeling, though strong,—and it might be with many overpowering for the moment,—was but like oil spilt on the raging sea, or rather like a shot fired across the waves of a torrent, which, though it counteracts them by its momentary impulse, cannot for a second alter their course. The factions, like Le Sage's demons, detested each other the more for having been compelled to embrace, and from the name and country of the benevolent bishop, the scene was long called, in ridicule, "Le Baiser d'Amourette," and "La réconciliation Normande."[225]
The next public ceremony showed how little party spirit had been abated by this singular scene. The King's acceptance of the Constitution was repeated in the Champ de Mars before the Federates, or deputies sent up to represent the various departments of France; and the figure made by the King during that pageant, formed a striking and melancholy parallel with his actual condition in the state. With hair powdered and dressed, with clothes embroidered in the ancient court-fashion, surrounded and crowded unceremoniously by men of the lowest rank, and in the most wretched garbs, he seemed something belonging to a former age, but which in the present has lost its fashion and value. He was conducted to the Champ de Mars under a strong guard, and by a circuitous route, to avoid the insults of the multitude, who dedicated their applauses to the Girondist Mayor of Paris, exclaiming "Pétion or death!" When he ascended the altar to go through the ceremonial of the day, all were struck with the resemblance to a victim led to sacrifice, and the Queen so much so, that she exclaimed, and nearly fainted. A few children alone called, "Vive le Roi!" This was the last time Louis was seen in public until he mounted the scaffold.[226]
The departure of La Fayette renewed the courage of the Girondists, and they proposed a decree of impeachment against him in the Assembly [Aug. 8]; but the spirit which the general's presence had awakened was not yet extinguished, and his friends in the Assembly undertook his defence with a degree of unexpected courage, which alarmed their antagonists.[227] Nor could their fears be termed groundless. The constitutional general might march his army upon Paris, or he might make some accommodation with the foreign invaders, and receive assistance from them to accomplish such a purpose. It seemed to the Girondists, that no time was to be lost. They determined not to trust to the Jacobins, to whose want of resolution they seem to have ascribed the failure of the insurrection on the 20th of June. They resolved upon occasion of the next effort, to employ some part of that departmental force, which was now approaching Paris in straggling bodies, under the name of Federates. The affiliated clubs had faithfully obeyed the mandates of the parent society of the Jacobins, by procuring that the most stanch and exalted Revolutionists should be sent on this service. These men, or the greater part of them, chose to visit Paris, rather than to pass straight to their rendezvous at Soissons. As they believed themselves the armed representatives of the country, they behaved with all the insolence which the consciousness of bearing arms gives to those who are unaccustomed to discipline. They walked in large bodies in the garden of the Tuileries, and when any persons of the royal family appeared, they insulted the ladies with obscene language and indecent songs, the men with the most hideous threats. The Girondists resolved to frame a force, which might be called their own, out of such formidable materials.
BARBAROUX.
Barbaroux, one of the most enthusiastic admirers of the Revolution, a youth, like the Séide of Voltaire's tragedy,[228] filled with the most devoted enthusiasm for a cause of which he never suspected the truth, offered to bring up a battalion of Federates from his native city of Marseilles, men, as he describes them, who knew how to die, and who, as it proved, understood at least as well how to kill. In raking up the disgusting history of mean and bloody-minded demagogues it is impossible not to dwell on the contrast afforded by the generous and self-devoted character of Barbaroux, who, young, handsome,[229] generous, noble-minded, and disinterested, sacrificed his family happiness, his fortune, and finally his life, to an enthusiastic though mistaken zeal for the liberty of his country. He had become from the commencement of the Revolution one of its greatest champions at Marseilles, where it had been forwarded and opposed by all the fervour of faction, influenced by the southern sun. He had admired the extravagant writings of Marat and Robespierre; but when he came to know them personally, he was disgusted with their low sentiments and savage dispositions, and went to worship Freedom amongst the Girondists, where her shrine was served by the fair and accomplished Citoyenne Roland.
The Marseillois, besides the advantage of this enthusiastic leader, marched to the air of the finest hymn to which liberty or the Revolution had yet given birth. They appeared in Paris, where it had been agreed between the Jacobins and the Girondists, that the strangers should be welcomed by the fraternity of the suburbs, and whatever other force the factions could command. Thus united, they were to march to secure the municipality, occupy the bridges and principal posts of the city with detached parties, while the main body should proceed to form an encampment in the garden of the Tuileries, where the conspirators had no doubt they should find themselves sufficiently powerful to exact the King's resignation, or declare his forfeiture.
This plan failed through the cowardice of Santerre, the chief leader of the insurgents of the suburbs, who had engaged to meet the Marseillois with forty thousand men. Very few of the promised auxiliaries appeared; but the undismayed Marseillois, though only about five hundred in number, marched through the city to the terror of the inhabitants, their keen black eyes seeming to seek out aristocratic victims, and their songs partaking of the wild Moorish character that lingers in the south of France, denouncing vengeance on kings, priests, and nobles.[230]
In the Tuileries, the Federates fixed a quarrel on some grenadiers of the national guard, who were attached to the Constitution, and giving instant way to their habitual impetuosity, attacked, defeated, and dispersed them. In the riot, Espremenil, who had headed the opposition to the will of the King in Parliament, which led the way to the Convocation of Estates, and who had been once the idol of the people, but now had become the object of their hate, was cut down and about to be massacred. "Assist me," he called out to Pétion, who had come to the scene of confusion,—"I am Espremenil—once as you are now, the minion of the people's love." Pétion, not unmoved, it is to be supposed, at the terms of the appeal, hastened to rescue him. Not long afterwards both suffered by the guillotine,[231] which was the bloody conclusion of so many popular favourites. The riot was complained of by the Constitutional party, but as usual it was explained by a declaration on the part of ready witnesses, that the forty civic soldiers had insulted and attacked the five hundred Marseillois, and therefore brought the disaster upon themselves.
DUKE OF BRUNSWICK'S MANIFESTO.