Choiseul was not equal to the difficult part he had to perform. He set out for his post on the Monday afternoon, carrying with him a marshal"s baton, which had belonged to his uncle, and the queen"s hairdresser, Leonard. For Thursday was the solemn festival of Corpus Christi, when a military ma.s.s would be celebrated in the camp, and, in the presence of the a.s.sembled army, Bouille was to be made a marshal of France. The queen could not be allowed to appear at such a function without the artist"s help, and he was hurried away, much against his will, without a word of explanation. The king"s sister learned the same day what was before her. There had been an idea of sending her on with the children, or with the Countess of Provence. The Princess, who was eminently good, and not always gracious, did not enjoy the confidence of the queen. She was one of those who regarded concession as surrender of principle, and in the rift between the Princes and Marie Antoinette she was not on the side of compromise. Provence came to supper, and the brothers met for the last time. That night their ways parted, leading the one to the guillotine, and the other to the throne which had been raised by Napoleon above every throne on earth.
The Count and Countess of Provence both started at the same time as the rest, and reached Belgium in safety.
Fersen, directing matters with skill and forethought, made one mistake. Two attendants on the royal children were taken, in a hired carriage, to Claye, the second stage on the eastern road; and it was their driver who made known, on his return, which way the fugitives had taken.
When everybody was in bed, and the lights were out, the royal family went out by a door that was not in use, and got into a hackney coach.
The last to come was the queen, who had been frightened by meeting Lafayette. Afterwards she asked him whether he had recognised her. He replied that if he had met her not once but thrice, he could never have recognised her, after what she had told him the day before; for she had said that they were not going away. Bailly, who was at home, ill, had taken alarm at the persistent rumours of departure, and urged Lafayette to redouble his precautions. After a last inspection the general a.s.sured the mayor that Gouvion was on guard, and not a mouse could escape. The journalists, Marat and Freron, had also been warned.
Freron went to the Tuileries late at night, and satisfied himself that all was quiet. n.o.body took notice of a coachman, chatting and taking snuff with a comrade, or guessed that it was the colonel of Royal Swedes, who in that hour built himself an everlasting name. It was twelve when the queen arrived; and the man, who had made her heart beat in happier years, mounted the box and drove away into the darkness. Their secret was known, and their movements had been observed by watchful eyes. The keeper of the wardrobe was intimate with General Gouvion. She had warned him in good time, and had given notice to persons about the queen that she knew what was going on. The alarm was given at two in the morning, but that she might not be compromised it was given by devious ways. A traveller from Ma.r.s.eilles was roused at his lodgings by a friendly voice. He refused to get up, and went to sleep again. Some hours later the visitor returned, and prevailed with the sleeper. He came from the palace, and reported that the king was gone. They took the news to one of the deputies, who hastened to Lafayette, while the man from the palace disappeared.
Lafayette, as soon as he was dressed, conferred with the mayor and with the president of the a.s.sembly, Beauharnais, the first husband of the Empress Josephine, and they persuaded him that nothing could avert civil war but the capture of the king. Thereupon Lafayette wrote an order declaring that Lewis had been carried off, and calling on all good citizens to bring him back. He believed that too much time had been lost; but nothing less than this, which was a warrant for arrest, would have appeased the rage of the people at his lack of vigilance.
He despatched his officers, chiefly towards Lille. One of them, Romeuf, whom he directed to follow the road to Valenciennes, was stopped by the mob, and brought before the a.s.sembly. There he received a new commission, with authority to make the king a prisoner. As he rode out, after so much delay, he learned that the fugitives had been seen on the road to Meaux, and that they had twelve hours" start.
There is much in these transactions that is strangely suspicious.
Lafayette did not make up his mind that there was anything to be done until others pressed him. He sent off all his men by the wrong roads, while Baillon, the emissary of the Commune, struck the track at once.
He told Romeuf that it was too late, so that his heavy day"s ride was only a formality. Romeuf, who was the son of one of his tenants, got into many difficulties, and did not give his horse the spur until the news was four hours old. At Varennes he avowed that he had never meant to overtake them, and the king"s officers believed him. Gouvion, second in command of the guard, knew by which door the royal party meant to leave, and he a.s.sured the a.s.sembly that he had kept watch over it, with several officers, all night. Lewis had even authorised Mme. de Tourzel to bring Gouvion with her, if she met him on her way to the carriage. Burke afterwards accused Lafayette of having allowed the departure, that he might profit by the arrest. Less impa.s.sioned critics have doubted whether the companion of Washington was preparing a regency, or deemed that the surest road to a republic is by a vacant throne.
The coach that was waiting beyond the gates had been ordered for a Russian lady, Madame de Korff, who was Fersen"s fervent accomplice.
She supplied not only the carriage, but 12,000 in money, and a pa.s.sport. As she required another for her own family, the Russian minister applied to Bailly. The mayor refused, and he was obliged to ask Montmorin, pretending that the pa.s.sport he had just given had been burnt by mistake. The numbers and description tallied, but the destination was Frankfort. As the travellers quitted the Frankfort road at Clermont, the last stage before Varennes, this was a transparent blunder. Half an hour had been lost, but the first stage, Bondy, was reached at half-past one. Here Fersen, who had sat by his coachman, flourishing the whip, got down, and the family he had striven so hard to save pa.s.sed out of his protection. He wished to take them all the way, and had asked Gustavus for leave to travel in the uniform of the Swedish Guard. But Lewis would not allow him to remain, and underrated the value of such an escort. Fersen took the north road, and reached Belgium without difficulty. In the following winter he was again at the Tuileries. As a political adviser he was unfortunate, for he was one of those concerned in the Brunswick proclamation which cost the king his crown.
The travellers pursued their way without molestation to Chalons, and there, as they were about to meet their faithful soldiery, they fancied that the danger was over. In reality the mischief was already done, and by their own fault their fate was sealed. As they were sure to be pursued, safety depended on celerity. The point of peril was Varennes, for a good horseman at full speed might ride 146 miles in less than thirteen hours, and would arrive there about nine at night, if he started at the first alarm. It was calculated that the royal family, at 7-1/2 miles an hour, would reach Varennes between 8 and 9.
The margin was so narrow that there was no time to lose. The king thought it sufficient to reach Bouille"s outposts before he could be overtaken, and they would be met a stage beyond Chalons. To secure the meeting it was necessary to keep time. The hours were exactly determined; and as the agreement was not observed, the troopers were useless. Before Chalons four hours had been lost--not by accident, as the royalist legend tells, for Valory the outrider testifies that it took but a few minutes to repair. Bouille knew the ign.o.ble cause of his own ruin and of so much sorrow, but never revealed it. When he came to England he misled questioners, and he exacted an oath from his son that he would keep the miserable secret for half a century. The younger Bouille was true to his word. In 1841 he confided to a friend that the story whispered at the time was true, and that the king stopped a couple of hours at etoges, over an early dinner at the house of Chanilly, an officer of his household, whose name appears in his will. When people saw what came of it, there was a generous conspiracy of concealment, which bewildered posterity, until Bouille"s tale was told.
At Pont de Somme-Vesle, 8 or 9 miles beyond Chalons, Choiseul was in command. His men had been badly received at St. Menehould, and their presence perturbed the country people. n.o.body believed the pretence that so many hors.e.m.e.n were required to protect the pa.s.sage of treasure, and they began to suspect that the treasure was the queen herself, flying to Austria. Choiseul took alarm; for if the king arrived in the midst of sedition, the worst might be expected. He had been positively instructed that the king would pa.s.s at half-past two.
Fersen had said that he might rely on it, and there was to be a courier riding an hour ahead. When three o"clock came, without any sign of king or courier, Choiseul resolved to move away, hoping that his departure would allay the ferment and secure safe pa.s.sage. He sent Leonard forward, with instructions to the officers in command at St.
Menehould, Clermont, and Varennes, that all seemed to be over for the day, and that he was starting to join Bouille; and after some further watching, he withdrew with all his men. For this Bouille afterwards demanded that he should be tried by court-martial.
It had been settled that if the king did not appear at Bondy by half-past two in the morning, the courier who had preceded him was to push on, and warn the officers that there was no more to be done. As no courier made his appearance in the afternoon, it was certain that the fugitives had got out of Paris, where the danger lay. If Choiseul found it necessary to move his men, he was to leave a staff officer, Goguelat, to wait the king"s coming, and to be his guide. But Choiseul took Goguelat with him, leaving no guide; and instead of keeping on the high road, to block it at a farther point, he went off into byways, and never reappeared until all was over at Varennes. His error is flagrant, but it was due to the more tragic folly of his master.
Not long after he had abandoned his post the king arrived, and pa.s.sed unhindered. Again he changed horses without resistance at the next post-town, which was St. Menehould, and went on to Clermont en Argonne. Some of the bystanders thought they had recognised him under his disguise, and the loudest of them was Drouet, who, as postmaster, had just had a quarrel with one of the officers, and was in the dangerous mood of a man who has his temper to recover. The town council a.s.sembled, and on hearing the grounds of his suspicion, commissioned him to follow the travellers and stop their flight. They did not doubt that Lewis was about to throw himself into the arms of Austria. It was not his first intention, for he hoped to make a stand at Montmedy; but the prospect of effective action on French soil had diminished.
Bouille"s command was narrowed. He could not trust his men; and Leopold did not stir. The basis of the scheme had crumbled. Whether within the frontier or beyond it, success implied an Austrian invasion. Bouille"s plan, from its inception, had no other meaning; and it was executed under conditions which placed Lewis more completely in the hands of the calculating emperor. It became more and more apparent that his destination was not the camp of Montmedy, but the abbey of Orval in Luxemburg. The men of St. Menehould who resolved to prevent his escape acted on vague suspicion, but we cannot say that, as Frenchmen, they acted wrongly. They had no certainty, and no authority; but while they deliberated a pursuing horseman rode into the town, bringing what they wanted. An officer of the National Guard, Baillon, had got away from Paris early in the day, with orders from Bailly and Lafayette, and took the right road. He was delayed for two hours by an encounter with M. de Briges, one of the king"s men, whom he succeeded in arresting. To save time he sent forward a fresh rider, on a fresh horse, to stop the fugitives; and this messenger from Chalons brought the news to St. Menehould, not long after the coach had rolled away.
When Drouet started on the ride that made his fortune, he knew that it was the king, and that Paris did not mean him to escape. An hour had been lost, and he met his postboys returning from Clermont. From them he learnt that the courier had given the word Varennes, and not Verdun. By a short cut, through the woods, he arrived just in time.
Meantime St. Menehould was seething; the commanding officer was put under arrest, and his troops were prevented from mounting. One man, Lagache, warned by the daughter of his host that the treasure for the army chest had evaporated and the truth was out, sprung on his horse and opened a way through the crowd with a pistol in each hand.
Drouet told the story to the National a.s.sembly more to his own advantage, claiming to have recognised the queen whom he had seen at Paris, and the king by his likeness on an _a.s.signat_. On a later day he declined all direct responsibility, and said that he followed the coach in consequence of orders forwarded from Chalons, not on his own initiative or conjecture. When he gave the second version he was a prisoner among the Austrians, and the questioner before whom he stood was Fersen. At such a moment even a man of Drouet"s fort.i.tude might well have stretched a point in the endeavour to cast off odium.
Therefore the account recorded by Fersen has not supplanted the popular tradition. But it is confirmed by Romeuf, who says, distinctly, that the postmaster of St. Menehould was warned by the message sent on by Baillon. Romeuf"s testimony, contained in the protocols of the a.s.sembly, where I have seen it, was omitted in the _Moniteur_, in order that nothing might deface the legend of the incautious traveller, the treacherous banknote, and the vigilant provincial patriot, who was the idol of the hour as the man who had preserved his country from invasion and civil war.
Clermont, like the other post towns, was agitated by the presence of cavalry; and after the king had pursued his journey, the authorities despatched a messenger to rouse Varennes. Pa.s.sing the royal party at full speed, he shouted something which they did not understand, but which made them think that they were detected. He was superseded by the superior energy and capacity of Drouet, and plays no part in the adventure. There was an officer at Clermont who knew his business; but his men deserted him, and he reached Varennes alone. At Varennes the two men in the secret, Bouille"s younger son and Raigecourt, were with the horses, at the farther end of the town, over the bridge, keeping no look-out. They relied on Goguelat, on Choiseul, on d"Andouins who commanded at St. Menehould, on Damas at Clermont, and above all on the promised courier, who was to ride an hour ahead to warn them in time.
But they expected no warning that night. If there was any watchfulness in them, it was put to sleep by Leonard, who had gone through an hour before with Choiseul"s fatal letter. The king was arrested a few hundred yards from their inn, and they were aware of nothing. When they heard, they galloped away on the road to Stenay, where they knew that the general was keeping anxious vigil. Drouet pa.s.sed the carriage near the entrance of the town, where the couriers were wrangling with the postilions and looking about in the dark for the relays. With the help of half a dozen men who were finishing their wine at the inn, he barricaded the bridge.
There the king"s pa.s.sport betrayed him, for it was made out for Frankfort, and Varennes was not on the road to Frankfort. The party were therefore detained and had to spend the night at the house of Sauce, munic.i.p.al officer and grocer, while the drums beat, the tocsin rang, the town was roused with the cry of fire, and messengers were sent to bring in national guards from the country round. At first Sauce beguiled the king over a bottle of wine, and then introduced a travelled fellow-townsman who identified him. A scene of emotion followed, and loyal citizens pressed their sovereign in their arms.
They talked of escorting him to Montmedy, a hundred strong, and Lewis, ready to believe them, declared he would be content with fifty. As night wore on, a number of officers collected: Choiseul and Goguelat, after their long ride from Pont de Somme-Vesle; the Count de Damas from Clermont; and at last Deslon, a captain of the German horse that Bouille chiefly trusted. Choiseul"s men, and some of those quartered at Varennes, were faithful, and it was thought possible to clear the street. Urged by the queen, Damas wished to attempt it, and long after he a.s.sured an English friend that he regretted that he did not lead the charge, in defiance of the king"s optimism, and of his reluctance to be saved by the sword. He said to Deslon in German, "Mount and attack!" But Deslon saw that it was too late. Goguelat threatened to cut his way out, and was unhorsed by a pistol shot.
Drouet was master of the situation. It was he who managed the hesitating soldiers and the hesitating townsmen. At five in the morning Romeuf and Baillon arrived, with Lafayette"s order, and the decree of the sovereign a.s.sembly. There was no more illusion then about pursuing the journey, and all the king"s hope was that he might gain time for Bouille to deliver him. Bouille was at Stenay, twenty miles off. He spent the night watching the road, with his arm through his horse"s bridle. Long after every possible allowance for delay, his son came up with the tidings of Varennes. The trumpets roused the Royal Germans, but their colonel was hostile, and precious hours were lost. Bouille gave all his money to his men, told them what manner of expedition they were on, told them that their king was a prisoner, and led them to the rescue. It was past nine when he reached the height that looks down on the valley of the Aire. The horses were tired, the bridge was barricaded, the fords were unknown. All was quiet at Varennes, and the king was already miles away on the road to Clermont.
It was the end of a bright dream, and of a career which had been noted for unvarying success.
As the unhappy man, who had so narrowly missed the prize, turned his horse"s head in the direction of exile, he said to his son, "Do you still praise my good fortune?" That evening he rode across the frontier with a group of officers, and his men fired on him as he pa.s.sed. He issued an angry declaration, and composed a defence of his conduct, saying that n.o.body had remained at his post except himself.
But he knew that king and const.i.tution were lost because he was not on the spot, and had posted inexperienced men where his own presence was needed. He could not recover his balance, and became as unwise and violent as the rest. The _emigres_ did not trust him, and a.s.signed him no active part in the invasion of the following year. His fame stood high among the English who had fought him in the West Indies, and Pitt offered him the command in San Domingo, which the Duke of Portland obliged him to relinquish.
Lewis XVI. was brought back to Paris by an insolent and ferocious crowd, and looked back with grat.i.tude to the equivocal civilities of Sauce. The journey occupied four days, during which the queen"s hair turned grey. Three deputies, sent by the a.s.sembly, met the dolorous procession half way, and took charge of the royal family. The king at once a.s.sured them that he had intended to remain at Montmedy, and there to revise the Const.i.tution. "With those words," said Barnave, "we shall save the monarchy." Latour Maubourg refused his turn in the royal carriage, on the plea that his legs were too long for comfort, and advised the king to employ the time in domesticating his companions. The advice partly succeeded, for Barnave was made a friend. Nothing could be made of Petion, who states in his narrative that the princess fell in love with him. General Dumas a.s.sumed command, and, by posting cavalry on one of the bridges, managed to bring the horses to a trot, and left the crowd behind.
When they came to the forest of Bondy, the Hounslow Heath of France, a band of ruffians from the capital made a determined attack, and were with difficulty beaten off. At last, Lefebvre, the future Marshal Duke of Dantzick, met them with a company of grenadiers. As there was danger in the narrow streets of Paris, Lafayette took them round through the Champs Elysees. Word had been pa.s.sed that not a sign of hatred or of honour should be given, and a horseman rode in front, commanding silence. The order was sullenly obeyed. The day before this funereal scene the Prussian envoy wrote home that the king might be spared, from motives of policy, but that nothing could save the queen.
They had reached the terrace of the Tuileries when there was a rush and a struggle, in which Dumas lost his hat and his belt and his scabbard, and nearly had his clothes torn from his back. A group of deputies came to his a.s.sistance, and no blood was shed. A carriage came after, with Drouet conspicuous on high and triumphant. He received a grant of 1200, and was elected to the Convention in the following year. Taken prisoner by the Prussians, he impressed Goethe by his coolness in adversity. The Austrians took him at the siege of Maubeuge, and he was exchanged for the king"s daughter. In the communistic conspiracy of Babeuf he nearly lost his life, and for a time he lived in a cavern, underground. Napoleon gave him the Legion of Honour, made him subprefect of St. Menehould, and was his guest when he visited Valmy. In the Hundred Days Drouet was again a deputy, and then vanished from sight and changed his name. When he died, in 1824, his neighbours learned with surprise that they had lived with the sinister contriver of the tremendous tragedy.
XIII
THE FEUILLANTS AND THE WAR
Tuesday, June 21, the day on which the departure of the king became known, was the greatest day in the history of the a.s.sembly. The deputies were so quick to meet the dangers of the situation, they were so calm, their measures were so comprehensive, that they at once restored public confidence. By the middle of the day the tumult in the streets was appeased, and the amba.s.sadors were astonished at the tranquillity of Paris. They wrote home that all parties put aside their quarrels, and combined in a sincere endeavour to save the State.
That was the appearance of things on the surface and for the moment.
But the Right took no share in acts which they deemed a usurpation of powers calculated to supersede monarchy, and to make the crisis serve as the transition to a Republic. To the number of almost 300 they signed a protest, declaring that they would take no further part in the deliberations. Their leader, Cazales, went away to Coblenz, and was coldly received as a man who had yielded too much to parliamentary opinions, whose services had been unavailing, and who repented too late.
The king"s flight, while it broke up the Conservative party, called the Republican party into existence. For Lewis had left behind him a manifesto, meditated during many months, urging the defects of the Const.i.tution, and denouncing all that had been effected since he had suffered violence at Versailles. Many others besides Lewis were aware of the defects, and desired their amendment. But the renunciation of so much that he had sanctioned, so much that he had solemnly and repeatedly approved, exposed him to the reproach of duplicity and falsehood. He not only underwent the ignominy of capture and exposure; he was regarded henceforth as a detected perjurer. If the king could never be trusted again, the prospects of monarchy were hopeless. The Orleans party offered no subst.i.tute, for their candidate was discredited. Men began to say that it was better that what was inevitable should be recognised at once than that it should be established later on by violence, after a struggle in which more than monarchy would be imperilled, and which would bring to the front the most inhuman of the populace. To us, who know what the next year was to bring, the force and genuineness of the argument is apparent; but it failed to impress the National a.s.sembly. Scarcely thirty members shared those opinions, and neither Barere nor Robespierre was among them. The stronghold of the new movement was the Club of the Cordeliers. The great body of the const.i.tutional party remained true to the cause, and drew closer together. Lameth and Lafayette appeared at the Jacobins arm in arm; and when the general was attacked for negligence in guarding the Tuileries, Barnave effectually defended him. This was the origin of the Feuillants, the last organisation for the maintenance of monarchy. They were resolved to save the Const.i.tution by amending it in the direction of a strengthened executive, and for their purpose it was necessary to restore the king.
If his flight had succeeded, it was proposed to open negotiations with him, for he would have it in his power to plunge France into foreign and domestic war. He was more formidable on the frontier than in the capital. Malouet, the most sensible and the most respected of the royalists, was to have been sent to treat, in the name of the a.s.sembly, that, by moderating counsels, bloodshed might be averted, and the essentials of the Revolution a.s.sured. But, on the second evening, a tired horseman drew rein at the entrance, and the joyous uproar outside informed the deputies before he could dismount that he came with news of the king. He was the Varennes doctor, and he had been sent at daybreak to learn what the town was to do with its prisoners.
The king, ceasing to be a danger, became an embarra.s.sment. He could not at once be replaced on the throne. Without prejudging the future, it was resolved that he be detained at the Tuileries until the Const.i.tution, completed and revised, was submitted to him for his free a.s.sent. Thus, for ten weeks, he was suspended. The a.s.sembly governed and legislated, without reference to his sanction; and the interregnum was so prolonged that the monarchy could never recover. When, in September, Lewis resumed his royal function, he was no longer an integral element in the State, but an innovation and an experiment. On the day when, standing uncovered before the legislators, he promised fidelity to their Const.i.tution, it seemed natural to them, in the presence of tarnished and diminished majesty, to sit down and put their hats on. The triumvirs, who had foiled Mirabeau, began immediately after his death to sustain the royal cause in secret.
Montmorin called on Lameth before he was up, and began the negotiation. Barnave frequented the house of Montmorin, but took care always to come accompanied, in order to prevent a bribe. His two days"
journey in the royal company confirmed him in his design. Having reduced the prerogative when it was excessive, they revived it when it had become too weak, and the king could no longer inspire alarm. They undertook to devise props for the damaged throne. "If not Lewis XVI.,"
said Lafayette, "then Lewis XVII." "If not this king," said Sieyes, "find us another." This was the predominant feeling.
When an attack was made on the king at the Jacobins, all the deputies present, excepting six, seceded in a body, and founded a new club at the Feuillants. On July 15, in a speech which was considered the finest heard in France since Mirabeau, Barnave carried an overwhelming vote in favour of monarchy. He said that the revolutionary movement could go no farther without carrying away property. He dreaded the government of the poor over the rich; for Barnave"s political philosophy consisted in middle-cla.s.s sovereignty--government by that kind of property which depends on constant labour, integrity, foresight, and self-denial, excluding poverty and opulence. Defeated at the Jacobins and in the a.s.sembly, the republicans prepared a demonstration on the Champ de Mars, where a pet.i.tion was signed for the dethronement of the king. The a.s.sembly, fearing a renewal of the scenes at Versailles, commissioned Bailly and Lafayette to disperse the meeting. On July 17 a collision ensued, shots were fired, and several pet.i.tioners were killed. The Jacobins, for the moment, were crushed. Robespierre, Marat, even Danton, effaced themselves, and expected that the Feuillants would follow up their victory. It seemed impossible that men who had the resolution to shoot down their masters, the people of Paris, and were able to give the law, should be so weak in spirit, or so short of sight, as to throw away their advantage, and resume a contest on equal terms with conquered and injured adversaries.
The Feuillants were thenceforward predominant and held their ground until the Girondins overthrew them on March 18. It was the rule at their club to admit none but active citizens, paying taxes and possessing the franchise. The ma.s.ses were thus given over to the Jacobins. By their energy at the Champ de Mars, July 17, Lafayette and his new friends had aroused the resentment of a vindictive party; and when they took no advantage of the terror they inspired, the terror departed, and the resentment remained. It was agreed that Malouet should move amendments to the Const.i.tution. The Feuillants were to oppose, and then to play into his hands. But Malouet was deserted by his friends, the agreement was not carried out, and the revision failed in the a.s.sembly. The Committees proposed that the famous decree of November 7, by which no deputy could accept office, should be revoked. The exclusion was maintained, but ministers were allowed to appear and answer for their departments. No other important amendment was carried, and no serious attempt was made to adjust and harmonise the clauses voted during two hurried years. Various reforms were vainly brought forward; and they indicate, as well as the sudden understanding between Malouet and Barnave, that the deputies had little faith in the work they had accomplished. They were tired of it.
They were no longer on the crest of the wave, and their power had pa.s.sed to the clubs and to the press. They were about to disappear. By an unholy alliance between Robespierre and Cazales the members of the National a.s.sembly were ineligible to the Legislature that was to follow. None of those who drew up the Const.i.tution were to have a share in applying it. The actual rulers of France were condemned to political extinction. Therefore the power which the Feuillants acquired by their very dexterous management of the situation produced by the king"s flight could not last; their radical opponents had time on their side, and they had logic.
Lewis, after his degradation, was an impossible king. And the republicans had a future majority in reserve, whenever the excluded cla.s.s was restored to the right of voting which it had enjoyed in 1789 before equality was a fundamental law, and which the Rights of Man enabled them to claim. And now the incident of Varennes supplied the enemies of the throne with a new argument. The wretched incompetence of Lewis had become evident to all, and to the queen herself. She did not hesitate to take his place, and when people spoke of the Court, it was the queen they meant. The flight, and the policy that led to it, and that was renewed by the failure, was the policy of relying on foreign aid, especially that of the emperor. The queen was the connecting link, and the chief negotiator. And the object she pursued was to constrain the French people, by means of the emperor"s influence on the Powers, either by the humiliating parade of power at a congress, or by invasion. That is what she was believed to be contriving, and the sense of national independence was added to the motive of political liberty to make the Court unpopular. People denounced the Austrian cabal, and the queen as its centre. It was believed that she wished to govern not only through the royal authority restored, but through the royal authority restored by foreign oppressors. The Revolution was confronted with Europe. It had begun its work by insurrection, and it had to complete its work by war. The beginning of European complications was the flight to Varennes.
Early in September the Const.i.tution was presented to Lewis XVI. The gates were thrown open. The guards who were his gaolers were withdrawn. He was ostensibly a free man. If he decided to accept, his acceptance would be voluntary. The Emperor, Kaunitz, Malesherbes, advised him to accept. Malouet preferred, as usual, a judicious middle course. Burke was for refusal. He said that a.s.sent meant destruction, and he thought afterwards that he was right, for the king a.s.sented and was destroyed. Burke was not listened to. He had become the adviser of Coblenz, and great as his claims were upon the grat.i.tude of both king and queen, he was counted in the ranks of their enemies. Mercy, who transmitted his letter, still extant in the archives of France, begged that it might not influence the decision. After ten days of leisurely reflection, but without real hesitation, for everything had been arranged with Lameth and Barnave, the leaders of the majority, Lewis gave his sanction to the Const.i.tution of 1791, which was to last until 1792, and the National a.s.sembly was dissolved. Political delinquents, including the accomplices of Varennes, received an amnesty.
By right of the immense change they made in the world, by their energy and sincerity, their fidelity to reason and their resistance to custom, their superiority to the sordid craving for increase of national power, their idealism and their ambition to declare the eternal law, the States-General of 1789 are the most memorable of all political a.s.semblies. They cleared away the history of France, and with 2500 decrees they laid down the plan of a new world for men who were reared in the old. Their inst.i.tutions perished, but their influence has endured; and the problem of their history is to explain why so genuine a striving for the highest of earthly goods so deplorably failed. The errors that ruined their enterprise may be reduced to one. Having put the nation in the place of the Crown, they invested it with the same unlicensed power, raising no security and no remedy against oppression from below, a.s.suming, or believing, that a government truly representing the people could do no wrong. They acted as if authority, duly const.i.tuted, requires no check, and as if no barriers are needed against the nation. The notion common among them, that liberty consists in a good civil code, a notion shared by so famous a Liberal as Madame de Stael, explains the facility with which so many revolutionists went over to the Empire. But the dreadful convulsion that ensued had a cause for which they were not responsible. In the violent contradiction between the new order of things in France and the inorganic world around it, conflict was irrepressible. Between French principles and European practice there could be neither conciliation nor confidence. Each was a constant menace to the other, and the explosion of enmity could only be restrained by unusual wisdom and policy.
The dissolution of the Whig party in England indicates what might be expected in the continental monarchies where there were no Whigs. We shall presently see that it was upon this rock, in the nature of things, that the Revolution went to pieces. The wisest of the statesmen who saw the evil days, Royer Collard, affirmed long after that all parties in the Revolution were honest, except the Royalists.
He meant that the Right alone did wrong with premeditation and design.
In the surprising revulsion that followed the return from Varennes, and developed the Feuillants, it was in the power of the Conservatives to give life to const.i.tutional monarchy. That was the moment of their defection. They would have given much to save an absolute king: they deliberately abandoned the const.i.tutional king to his fate.
The 1150 men who had been the first choice of France now pa.s.s out of our sight. The 720 deputies of the Legislative a.s.sembly were new and generally obscure names. n.o.bles, clergy, conservatives did not reappear, and their place was taken by the Feuillants, who, in the former a.s.sembly, would have belonged to the Left. The centre of gravity shifted far in the revolutionary direction. The Const.i.tution was made. The discussion of principles was over, and the dispute was not for doctrines but for power. The speakers have not the same originality or force; they are not inventors in political science; they are not the pioneers of mankind. In literary faculty, if not in political, they surpa.s.s their predecessors, and are remembered for their eloquence if not for statecraft.
Reinhard, a German traveller who fell in with a group of the new deputies on their way to Paris, fell under their charm, and resolved to cast his lot with a country about to be governed by such men.
Whilst he rose to be an amba.s.sador and minister of foreign affairs, his friends were cut off in their prime, for they were the deputies who came from Bordeaux, and gave the name of their department to the party of the Gironde. By their parliamentary talents they quickly obtained the lead of the new a.s.sembly; and as they had few ideas and no tactics, they allowed Sieyes to direct their course.
Robespierre, through the Jacobin Club, which now recovered much of the ground it had lost in July, became the manager of the Extreme Left, which gradually separated from Brissot and the Girondins. The ministry was in the hands of the Feuillants, who were guided by Lameth, while Barnave was the secret adviser of the queen. She followed his counsels with aversion and distrust, looking upon him as an enemy, and longing to throw off the mask, and show him how he had been deceived. As she could not understand how the same men who had depressed monarchy desired to sustain it, she played a double and ign.o.ble part. The tactics of the Feuillant advisers brought a revival of popular feeling in favour of the Court, which seemed inconceivable at the epoch of the arrest. King and queen were applauded in the streets, and at the theatre the cry "Long live the king!" silenced the cry "Long live the nation!" This was in October 1791, before the Legislative a.s.sembly had divided into parties, or found a policy.
When the a.s.sembly summoned the _emigres_ to return by the month of January, the king fully agreed with the policy though not with the penalty. But when a Commission reported on the temper of the clergy, and described the mischief that was brewing in the provinces between the priests of the two sections, and severe measures of repression were decreed against nonjurors, he interposed a veto. The First a.s.sembly had disendowed the clergy, leaving them a pension. The Second, regarding them as agitators, resolved to proceed against them as against the _emigres_. Lewis, in resisting persecution, was supported by the Feuillants. But the a.s.sembly was not Feuillant, and the veto began its estrangement from the king. A new minister was imposed on him. The Count Narbonne de Lara was the most brilliant figure in the _n.o.blesse_ of France, and he lived to captivate and dazzle Napoleon. Talleyrand, who thought the situation under the Const.i.tution desperate, put forward his friend; and Madame de Stael, the queen of const.i.tutional society, obtained for him the ministry of war. The appointment of Narbonne was a blow struck at the Feuillants, who still desired to reform the inst.i.tutions, and who were resolute in favour of peace. At the same time, Lafayette laid down his command of the National Guard, and stood as a candidate to succeed Bailly in the office of mayor. But Lafayette had ordered the capture of the royal family, and could not be forgiven. The queen obtained the election of Petion instead of Lafayette; and behind Petion was Danton. What the Feuillants lost was added to the Girondins, not yet distinct from the Jacobins; and as the Feuillants were for two chambers, for peace, and for an executive independent of the single a.s.sembly and vetoing its decrees, the policy of its opponents was to bring the king into subjection to the Legislature, to put down the discontented clergy, and to make the emigration a cause for war.
The new minister, Narbonne, was accepted as a war minister, while his Feuillant colleague at the Foreign Office, Delessart, was obstinately pacific. On December 14 Lewis came down to the Legislature, and announced that he would insist that the _emigres_ should receive no encouragement beyond the frontier. It was the first act of hostility and defiance, and it showed that the king was parting with his Feuillant friends. But Delessart spoilt the effect by keeping back the note to the emperor for ten days, and communicating it then with precautions.