The Legislative Assembly was, in its composition and its character, of a caste greatly inferior to that which it succeeded. The flower of the talents of France had naturally centred in the National Assembly, and, by an absurd regulation, its members were incapacitated from being re-elected; which necessarily occasioned their situation being in many instances supplied by persons of inferior attainments. Then the destinies of the first Assembly had been fulfilled in a more lofty manner. They were often wrong, often absurd, often arrogant and presumptuous, but never mean or servile. They respected the liberty of debate, and even amidst the bitterest political discussions, defended the persons of their colleagues, however much opposed to them in sentiment, and maintained their constitutional inviolability. They had also the great advantage of being, as it were, free born. They were indeed placed in captivity by their removal to Paris, but their courage was not abated; nor did they make any concessions of a personal kind to the ruffians, by whom they were at times personally ill-used.
But the second, or Legislative Assembly, had, on the contrary been captive from the moment of their first convocation. They had never met but in Paris, and were inured to the habit of patient submission to the tribunes and the refuse of the city, who repeatedly broke into their hall, and issued their mandates in the form of petitions. On two memorable occasions, they showed too distinctly, that considerations of personal safety could overpower their sense of public duty. Two-thirds of the representatives joined in acquitting La Fayette, and declared, by doing so, that they abhorred the insurrection of the 20th of June; yet, when that of the 10th of August had completed what was before attempted in vain upon the occasion preceding, the Assembly unanimously voted the deposition of the monarch, and committed him to prison. Secondly, they remained silent and inactive during all the horrors of September, and suffered the executive power to be wrenched out of their hands by the Commune of Paris, and used before their eyes for the destruction of many thousands of Frenchmen whom they represented.
It must be, however, remembered, that the Legislative Assembly were oppressed by difficulties and dangers the most dreadful that can threaten a government;—the bloody discord of contending factions, the arms of foreigners menacing the frontier, and civil war breaking out in the provinces. In addition to these sources of peril and dismay, there were three divided parties within the Assembly itself; while a rival power, equally formidable from its audacity and its crimes, had erected itself in predominating authority, like that of the maires du palais over the feeble monarchs of the Merovingian dynasty.
CHAPTER XI.
Election of Representatives for the National Convention—Jacobins are very active—Right hand Party—Left hand side—Neutral Members—The Girondists are in possession of the ostensible Power—They denounce the Jacobin Chiefs, but in an irregular and feeble manner—Marat, Robespierre, and Danton, supported by the Commune and Populace of Paris—France declared a Republic—Duke of Brunswick's Campaign—Neglects the French Emigrants—Is tardy in his Operations—Occupies the poorest part of Champagne—His Army becomes sickly—Prospects of a Battle—Dumouriez's Army recruited with Carmagnoles—The Duke resolves to Retreat—Thoughts on the consequences of that measure—The Retreat disastrous—The Emigrants disbanded in a great measure—Reflections on their Fate—The Prince of Condé's Army.
NATIONAL CONVENTION.
It was, of course, the object of each party to obtain the greatest possible majority in the National Convention now to be assembled, for arranging upon some new footing the government of France, and for replacing that Constitution to which faith had been so repeatedly sworn.
The Jacobins made the most energetic exertions. They not only wrote missives through their two thousand affiliated societies, but sent three hundred commissaries, or delegates, to superintend the elections in the different towns and departments; to exhort their comrades not only to be firm, but to be enterprising; and to seize with strong hand the same power over the public force, which the mother society possessed in Paris. The advice was poured into willing ears; for it implied the sacred right of insurrection, with the concomitant privileges of pillage and slaughter.