Part 9

Soon afterward Lafayette presented to the Assembly what he called his “Declaration of Rights,” which was based on Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence of the United States. This occasioned long discussion, for the nobles thought its terms were revolutionary in the extreme while many of the third estate considered that it did not go nearly far enough. And all the time the King continued his policy of trying to overawe the Assembly, and finally appointed the Marshal de Broglie commander of the troops that were gathering in Paris and Versailles, planning to bring the third estate to its senses and show the mob in Paris who was the real ruler of France.

Events followed rapidly. July eleventh the King dismissed Necker and the ministers who had been trying to bring order out of confusion. The Assembly, fearing that the King would next dissolve their meetings, declared itself in permanent session, and elected Lafayette its vice-president. The royal court, blind as usual, paid no attention to the storm the King’s course was rousing, and a grand ball was held at the palace on the evening of July thirteenth. Next day, as if in answer to rulers who could dance while the people starved, the mob in Paris stormed the prison of the Bastille and captured that stronghold of royal tyranny.

The storm had broken at last. The Duke de la Rochefoucauld-Liancourt hurried to Versailles, entered the King’s chamber, and told him the news. “Why,” exclaimed Louis XVI., “this is a revolt!”

“No, sire,” answered the Duke, “it is a revolution!”

Next morning the Marshal de Broglie, who found that instead of a competent army, he had only a few disorganized troops at his command, resigned. The King, seeing his army melting away, decided that his only chance of restoring order lay in making friends with the Assembly, and appeared before it, begging it to aid him, and promising to recall the dismissed ministers.

The Assembly, delighted at this evidence of its power, agreed to aid the King, and sent Lafayette, with fifty other deputies, to see what could be done to quiet the people in Paris. They found the city in the wildest confusion. Shops were closed, barricades blocked the streets, and gangs of ruffians were fighting everywhere. The deputies brought some order, Lafayette made a speech to the people at the Hôtel de Ville, and told them that the Assembly was glad that they had won liberty. Then it was decided that a mayor must be chosen to govern Paris and a National Guard formed to preserve order. Moreau de Saint Méry, who was presiding, pointed to the bust of Lafayette that the State of Virginia had sent to the city of Paris. His gesture was understood and Lafayette was immediately chosen to command the National Guard. Bailly was by a like unanimous vote elected mayor.

So, at thirty-two, Lafayette gave up his seat in the National Assembly and became Commander of the National Guard.

The deputies, on their return to Versailles, told their fellow-members that the only way in which confidence could be restored in the crown was for the King personally to visit Paris. This Louis XVI. agreed to do on July seventeenth. In the meantime Lafayette had collected the nucleus of a guard, had restored some sort of order, and made arrangements to receive the King. When Louis arrived at the city gates he was met by the mayor, Bailly, who handed him the keys of Paris, saying, “They are the same keys that were presented to Henry IV. He had reconquered his people; now it is the people who have reconquered their king.”

The King was escorted to the Hôtel de Ville through a double line of National Guards. There he was given the new national cockade, which he fixed in his hat. Afterward speeches were made and then King Louis rode back to Versailles. He was still the sovereign in name, but his real power was gone, shorn from him by the obstinacy of his nobles and himself.

Lafayette had no easy task in keeping order in Paris. His Guards obeyed his commands, but many of the mob, having tasted revolt, continued on a wild course, and they were now joined by many of the worst element from the provinces. Two innocent men were murdered in spite, and Lafayette could do nothing to prevent it. Disgusted at the trend of events he soon resigned his office of Commander, but since no one else appeared able to fill it he finally consented to resume it.

Meantime the Assembly was uprooting the old feudal laws and doing away with almost all forms of taxation. Their object was to tear down, not to build up; and the result was that in a very short time people throughout France were making their own laws in every city and village and paying no attention to the needs of the nation.

As autumn approached the population of Paris became restless. The Assembly at Versailles was not sufficiently under the people’s thumb, the lower classes especially were eager to get both Assembly and King and Queen in their power. A reception given by Louis to the National Guards at Versailles roused great indignation. The court, so the people said, was as frivolous and extravagant as ever, and was trying to win the Guards over to its side. The excitement reached its climax when, on October fifth, Maillard, a leader of the mob, called on the people of Paris to march to Versailles. At once the cry “To Versailles!” echoed through the city, and men and women flocked to answer the cry.

Lafayette heard of the plan and sent couriers to Versailles to warn the King and the Assembly of what was in the air. All day he tried his best to quiet the people and induce them to give up the march. He forbade the National Guards to leave their posts, and at first they obeyed him. But presently deputation after deputation came to him. “General,” said one of his men, “we do not think you a traitor; but we think the government betrays you. It is time that this end. We cannot turn our bayonets against women crying to us for bread. The people are miserable; the source of the mischief is at Versailles; we must go seek the King and bring him to Paris.”

That was the view of the Guards, and it grew more and more positive. Armed crowds were leaving the city, dragging cannon, and at last the Guards surrounded their commander and declared their intention to march and to take him with them. So finally Lafayette set out for Versailles, preceded and followed by an immense rabble of men and women.

Meantime the couriers sent by Lafayette to Versailles had reported the news of the march of the mob. The Assembly could think of nothing that would pacify the people, and contented itself with sending messengers to the King, who happened to be hunting in the Versailles forests. Louis returned to his palace to find his body-guards, the Swiss and the Flanders Regiment, drawn up in the courtyards as though to withstand a siege.

In the middle of the afternoon the first crowd of women, led by Maillard beating his drum, arrived at Versailles. Some marched to the Assembly and shouted to the deputies to pass laws at once that should lower the price of bread. Others paraded through the streets, and still others went to the palace to see the King, who received them very kindly and tried to assure them that he entirely agreed with all their wishes.

But the royal family had taken alarm and wanted to fly from the palace. Their carriages were ordered out, and the body-guards placed in readiness to serve as escort. This plan became known, however, and when the carriages drove out from the great stables some of the National Guards themselves seized the horses’ heads and turned them back.

The National Assembly itself was in an uproar. The President, Mounier, left the chamber to see the King, and when he came back he found a fat fishwoman making a speech to the crowd from his own chair. The Assembly had taken power and authority away from the King; now the mob was bent on doing the same thing to the Assembly.

At eleven o’clock that evening Lafayette reached Versailles with his National Guards and the rest of the rabble from Paris. On the way he had tried to curb the rougher part of the crowd and had made his troops stop and renew their oaths of allegiance “to the nation, the law, and the King.” He went at once to the palace to receive King Louis’ orders, but the Swiss guards would not let him enter until he agreed to go in without any of the people from Paris. When he did enter he found the halls and rooms filled with courtiers. One of them, seeing him, exclaimed, “Here is Cromwell!” Lafayette answered instantly, “Cromwell would not have entered alone.”

The King received him cordially, and told him to guard the outside of the palace, leaving the inside to the protection of the royal body-guards. Lafayette then saw that his men were bivouacked for the night, quieted noisy marchers, and felt that, at least for the time, Versailles was at rest. Worn out with the day’s exertions the Marquis finally got a chance to sleep.

Early next day, however, the mob burst forth again. A crowd fell to disputing with the royal body-guards at one of the gates to the palace, rushed the soldiers, and broke into the inner court. Up the stairs they streamed, killing the guards that tried to oppose them. Marie Antoinette had barely time to fly from her room to that of the King before the rioters reached her apartment, crying out threats against her.

As soon as he heard of all this Lafayette sent two companies of soldiers to clear the mob from the palace. When he arrived himself he found the people all shouting “To Paris!” He saw at once that his National Guards were not to be trusted to oppose the crowd, and urged the King to agree to go to Paris. Louis consented, and Lafayette went out on the balcony and announced the King’s decision.

This appeased the throng somewhat, and Lafayette asked the King to appear on the balcony with him. Louis stepped out and was greeted with cheers of “_Vive le roi!_” Then Lafayette said to the Queen, “What are your intentions, madame?”

“I know the fate which awaits me,” answered Marie Antoinette, “but my duty is to die at the feet of the King and in the arms of my children.”

“Well, madame, come with me,” said Lafayette.

“What! Alone on the balcony? Have you not seen the signs which have been made to me?”

“Yes, madame, but let us go.”

Marie Antoinette agreed, and stepped out with her children. The crowd cried, “No children!” and they were sent back. The mob was making too much noise for Lafayette to speak to them, so instead he took the Queen’s hand, and, bowing low, kissed it. The crowd, always ready to go from one extreme to another, immediately set up shouts of “Long live the General! Long live the Queen!”

King Louis then asked Lafayette about the safety of his body-guards. Lafayette stuck a tricolor cockade in the hat of one of these soldiers, and taking him on to the balcony, embraced him. The mob’s answer was cheers of “_Vive les gardes du corps!_”

So peace was restored for the time. Fifty thousand people marched back to Paris, the King and the royal family in their carriage, Lafayette riding beside them. Close to them marched the royal body-guards, and close to the latter came the National Guards. And the crowd shouted with exultation at having forced their sovereign to do their will.

At the gates of the city the mayor met the procession and made a patriotic address. From there they went to the Hôtel de Ville, where more speeches were made, and it was late in the day before Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette and their children were allowed to take refuge in the Palace of the Tuileries.

Lafayette, who had played with the Queen and her friends in the gardens at Versailles when he was a boy, had stood by her loyally on that day when the mob had vowed vengeance against her. He believed in liberty and constitutional government, but he also believed in order. He wanted to protect the weak and defenseless, and he hated the excesses of the mob. He thought he could reproduce in France what he had seen accomplished in America. But conditions were too different. The people of France had been ground down too long by their nobles. Their first taste of liberty had gone to their heads like strong wine. So, like a boat that has lost its rudder, the ship of state of France plunged on to the whirlpool of the French Revolution.

X

STORM-CLOUDS OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

King Louis XVI., Queen Marie Antoinette, and their children were now virtually prisoners in the Palace of the Tuileries in Paris, the nobles were leaving France for their own safety, and the Assembly was trying to govern the country. But the Assembly was very large and unwieldy, and its members were more interested in making speeches denouncing the present laws than in trying to frame new ones. Lafayette was commander of the National Guard, and so in a way the most powerful man in France, although the most able statesman and leader was Mirabeau. Occasionally Lafayette found time to attend the meetings of the Assembly, and at one of these sessions a deputy demanded that all titles of nobility should be abolished. Another member objected, saying that merit ought to be recognized, and asking what could be put in the place of the words, “Such a one has been made noble and count for having saved the State on such a day.”

Lafayette rose at once to answer. “Suppress the words ‘made noble and count,’” said he; “say only, ‘Such a one saved the State on such a day.’ It seems to me that these words have something of an American character, precious fruit of the New World, which ought to aid much in rejuvenating the old one.”

The measure was carried immediately, and Lafayette dropped from his name both the “marquis” and the “de.” He never used them again; and when, after the French Revolution was over, all titles were restored, Lafayette, steadfast to his convictions, never called himself or allowed himself to be addressed as the Marquis de Lafayette, but was always known simply as General Lafayette.

Lafayette did all he could to ease the difficult position of King Louis, though relations between the two men were necessarily strained, since the King could hardly look with pleasure on the commander of the National Guard, who held his office from the Assembly and people and not from the crown. Louis chafed at having to stay in the Tuileries and wanted to go hunting in the country, but the people would not allow this. And it fell to Lafayette to urge the King to show as little discontent as possible, which naturally made the sovereign resentful toward the General.

During the winter of 1789-90 Lafayette was busy trying to keep order in Paris and drilling the Guard. He sent the Duke of Orleans, who had been stirring up the worst elements to dethrone Louis XVI. and make him king instead, in exile from the country. Violent bread riots broke out and mobs tried to pillage the convents, but Lafayette and his Guards prevented much damage being done. It took all his tact and perseverance to handle these soldiers under his command; they were quick-tempered and restive under any authority, and only too ready to follow the last excitable speaker they had heard. Lafayette said to his officers, “We are lost if the service continues to be conducted with such great inexactitude. We are the only soldiers of the Revolution; we alone should defend the royal family from every attack; we alone should establish the liberty of the representatives of the nation; we are the only guardians of the public treasury. France, all Europe, have fixed their eyes on the Parisians. A disturbance in Paris, an attack made through our negligence on these sacred institutions, would dishonor us forever, and bring upon us the hatred of the provinces.”

He did not want any great office or power for himself, his desires were always very much like those of George Washington, he simply wanted to serve the sacred cause of liberty. Yet he was at that time the most powerful and the most popular man in France. The court, though it disliked him as the representative of the people, depended on him for its personal safety. The Assembly relied on him as its guardian, the soldiers trusted him as their commander, and the people considered him their bulwark against any return to the old despotism.

Through all this time he wrote regularly to Washington, and when, by his orders, the Bastille was torn down he sent the keys of the fortress to his friend at Mount Vernon. The keys were sent, he wrote, as a tribute from “a son to an adopted father, an aide-de-camp to his general, a missionary of liberty to her patriarch.”

On the first anniversary of the storming of the Bastille, July 14, 1790, a great celebration was held in Paris. A vast crowd of more than three hundred thousand persons, including the court, the Assembly, the National Guard, and men from the provinces as well as from the city, met in the amphitheatre of the Champs de Mars to swear obedience to the new constitution which was to govern them all. First Louis XVI. took the oath, and then Lafayette, who was made for that day commander-in-chief of all the armed forces of France, stepped forward, placed the point of his sword on the altar, and took the oath as the representative of the French people. A great roar of voices greeted the commander’s words.

But although Lafayette meant to remain faithful to the principles of a constitutional monarchy, the mass of his countrymen soon showed that they had no such intention. Disorder and rioting grew more frequent, the people demanded more of the Assembly than the latter felt it could grant, the Guards grew increasingly unpopular as the symbol of a law and order the mob did not like. Within the Assembly itself there were many quarrels and wrangles; sometimes the mob vented its feelings on an unpopular member by attacking his house. And as often as not the National Guards, when they were sent to protect property, joined with the crowd and helped to destroy it instead.

In February, 1791, a crowd from Paris attacked the fortress of Vincennes, which had once been a state prison, but had been unused for some time. Lafayette, with his staff and a considerable number of National Guards, marched out to the place, quelled the disturbance, and arrested sixty of the ringleaders. When he brought his prisoners back to the city he found the gates of the Faubourg St. Antoine closed against him, and he had to threaten to blow the gates open with cannon before the people would allow him to enter. All the way to the Conciergerie, where he took his prisoners, the General and his soldiers were targets for the abuse of the crowds.

On the same day some of the nobles who lived in the neighborhood of the royal palace of the Tuileries, hearing of the attack at Vincennes, thought that the King might also be in danger, and went to the palace, armed with pistols and daggers. This angered the National Guards who were posted about the Tuileries and who thought that the noblemen were poaching on their territory. The King had to appear in person to settle the dispute, and even then some of the nobles were maltreated by the soldiers. Immediately revolutionary orators made use of the incident to inflame the people’s mind, representing that the King’s friends had planned to murder officers of the Guards.

It was clear that the National Guards were growing less and less trustworthy, and equally evident that the people of Paris were becoming more and more hostile to their King. Louis disliked staying at the Tuileries, where he was constantly under the eyes of enemies, and at Easter decided to go to the palace of St. Cloud, which was near Paris, and celebrate the day there. Word of this got abroad, and the people grumbled; more than that they said that Louis should not go to St. Cloud.

On the morning of April eighteenth the King and his family entered their traveling-carriage, only to have an angry crowd seize the horses’ heads and forbid the King to move. Louis appealed to the National Guards who were in attendance, but the soldiers took the side of the people and helped to block the way. The mob swarmed close to the carriage, insulting the King and his servants. Louis had courage. He put his head out at the window and cried, “It would be an astonishing thing, if, after having given liberty to the nation, I myself should not be free!”

At this point Lafayette and the mayor, Bailly, arrived, and urged the mob and the Guards to keep the peace and disperse. The crowd was obstinate; most of the Guards were openly rebellious. Then Lafayette went to the royal carriage, and offered to use force to secure the King’s departure if Louis would give the word. The King answered promptly, “It is for you, sir, to see to what is necessary for the due fulfilment of your constitution.” Again Lafayette turned to the mob and addressed it, but it showed no intention of obeying his orders, and at last he had to tell Louis that it would be dangerous for him to drive forth. So the King and his family returned to the Tuileries, fully aware now that they were prisoners of the people and could not count on the protection of the troops.

Everywhere it was now said that the King must obey “the supreme will of the people.” Louis protested; he went to the National Assembly and told the deputies that he expected them to protect his liberty; but Mirabeau, the leader who had used his influence on behalf of the sovereign in earlier meetings, was dead, and the party of Robespierre held the upper hand. The Assembly had no intention of opposing the people, and paid little heed to the King’s demands.

Lafayette saw that a general whose troops would not obey him was a useless officer, and sent in his resignation as commander of the Guards. But the better element in Paris wanted him to stay, and the more loyal of the troops begged him to resume his command. No one could fill his place, and so he agreed to take the office again. He went to the Commune of Paris and addressed its members. “We are citizens, gentlemen, we are free,” said he; “but without obedience to the law, there is only confusion, anarchy, despotism; and if this capital, the cradle of the Revolution, instead of surrounding with intelligence and respect the depositaries of national power, should besiege them with tumult, or fatigue them with violence, it would cease to be the example of Frenchmen, it would risk becoming their terror.”

The Commune applauded his words, and he went forth again as Commander-in-chief, the Guards taking a new oath to obey the laws. But at the same time the Jacobins, or revolutionaries, placarded the walls of Paris with praises of the soldiers who had rebelled and feasted them as models of patriotism.

Meantime King Louis and his closest friends determined that the royal family must escape from the Tuileries. Careful plans were laid and a number of the nobles were told of them. Rumors of the intended escape got abroad, but such rumors had been current for the past year. Lafayette heard them and spoke of them to the King, who assured him that he had no such design. Lafayette went to the mayor, Bailly, and the two men discussed the rumor, concluding that there was nothing more to it than to the earlier stories.

The night of June twentieth was the time chosen by the King and his intimate friends. Marie Antoinette placed her children in the care of Madame de Tourzel, her companion, saying, “The King and I, madame, place in your hands, with the utmost confidence, all that we hold dear in the world. Everything is ready; go.” Madame de Tourzel and the children went out to a carriage, driven by the Count de Fersen, and rode along the quays to a place that had been decided on as the rendezvous.