Chapter 21

The king himself had called in the invaders. His envoy, concealed in the uniform of a Prussian major, rode by the side of Brunswick. His brothers were entering France with the heavy baggage of the enemies, and Breteuil, the agent whom he trusted more than his brothers, was preparing to govern, and did in September govern, the provinces they occupied, under the shelter of their bayonets. For him the blow was about to fall--not for his safety, but for his plenary authority. The purpose of the allied sovereigns, and of the _emigres_ who prompted them, stood confessed. They were fighting for unconditional restoration, and both as invaders and as absolutists the king was their accomplice. The country could not make war with confidence, if the military power was in the hands of traitors. The king could protect them from the horrors with which they were threatened on his account, not as the head of the executive, but as a hostage. He was a danger in his palace; he would be a security in prison. All this was obvious at the time, and the effect it had was to disable and disarm the friends of the constitutional king, so that no resistance was offered when the attack came, although it was the act of a very small part of the population. The Girondins no longer displayed a distinct policy, and scarcely differed from their former associates, of June, except by their wish to suspend the king, and not to dethrone him. The final question, as to monarchy, regency, or republic, was to be left to the Convention that was to follow. Petion was persuaded that he would soon be the Regent of France. He received a large sum of money from the Court; and it was in reliance on him, and on some less conspicuous men, that the king and queen remained obstinately in Paris. At the last moment Liancourt offered them a haven in Normandy; but Liancourt was a Liberal of the Constituante, and therefore unforgiven. Marie Antoinette preferred to trust to Petion and Santerre.

Early in August the most revolutionary section of Paris decided that the king should be deposed. The Assembly rescinded the vote. Then the people of that section and some others made known that they would execute their own decree, unless the Assembly itself made it unnecessary and accomplished legally what would otherwise be done by the act of the sovereign people, superseding all powers and standing above law. Time was to be allowed until August 9. If the king was still on the throne upon the evening of that day, the people of Paris would sound the tocsin against him.

On August 8 the Assembly came to a vote on the conduct of Lafayette, in abandoning his army in time of war to threaten his enemies at home. He was justified by 406 votes to 224. It was the last appearance of the Liberal party. Four hundred deputies, a majority of the entire body, kept out of the way in the moment of danger, and allowed the Girondin and republican remnant to proceed without them. The absolution of Lafayette proclaimed the resolve not to dethrone the king. The Gironde had no constitutional remedy for its anxieties. The next step would be taken by the democracy of Paris, and their victory would be a grave danger to the Gironde and a triumph for the extreme revolutionary faction. Up to this time they had struggled for mastery; they would now have to struggle for existence. They accepted what was inevitable. After the flight of the Feuillants, the Gironde, now supreme in the legislature, capitulated to the revolution which they dreaded, and appeared without initiative or policy.

On August 9 the Jacobin leaders settled their plan of action. Their partisans in each section were to elect three commissaries to act with the Commune for the public good, and to strengthen, and, if necessary, eventually to supersede, the existing municipality. About one-half of Paris sent them, and they assembled in the course of the night at the Hotel de Ville, apart from the legal body. In the political science of the day the constituency suspended the constituted authorities and resumed all delegated powers. The revolutionary town-councillors, who now came to the front, are the authors of the atrocities that afflicted France during the next two years. They were creatures of Danton. And as we now enter the company of malefactors and the Chamber of Horrors, we must bear this in mind, that our own laws punish the slightest step towards absolute government with the same supreme penalty as murder; so that morally the difference between the two extremes is not serious. The agents are ferocious ruffians, and the leaders are no better; but they are at the same time influenced by republican convictions, as respectable as those of the _emigres_. The function of this supplementary Commune was not to lead the insurrection or direct the attack, but to disable the defence; for the commander of the National Guard received his orders from the Hotel de Ville, and he was a loyal soldier.

The forces of the Revolution were not overwhelming. The men from Marseilles and Brest were intent on fighting, and so were some from the departments. But when the tocsin rang from the churches soon after midnight, the Paris combatants assembled slowly, and the event might be doubtful. Ammunition was supplied to the insurgent forces from the Hotel de Ville, but not to the National Guard. It is extremely dangerous, said Petion, to oppose one public force to another. At the Tuileries there were less than a thousand Swiss mercenaries, who were sure to do their duty; one or two hundred gentlemen, come to defend the king; and several thousand National Guards of uncertain fidelity and valour. Petion showed himself at the palace, and at the Assembly, and then was seen no more. By a happy inspiration he induced Santerre to place him under arrest, with a guard of four hundred men to protect him from the dangers of responsibility. He himself tells the story, and is mean enough to boast of his ingenuity. But if the mayor was a traitor and a coward, the commanding general, Mandat, knew his duty, and was resolved to do it. He prepared for the defence of the palace, and there was great probability that his men would fight. If they did, they were strong enough to repulse attack. Therefore, early in the morning of August 10, Mandat was summoned by his lawful superiors to the Hotel de Ville. He appeared before them, made his report, and was then taken to the revolutionary committee sitting separately. He declared that he had orders to repel force by force, and that it would be done. They required him to sign an order removing half of the National Guard from the place they were to defend. Mandat refused to save his life by an act of treachery, and by Danton's order he was shot dead. He was in flagrant insurrection against the people themselves and abetting constituted authorities in resistance to their master. By this first act of bloodshed the defence of the palace was deprived of half its forces. The National Guards were without a commander, and, left to themselves, it was uncertain how many would fire on the people of Paris.

Having disposed of the general commanding, the new Commune appointed Santerre to succeed him, and then took the place of the former Commune. There was no obstacle now to the concentration and advance of the insurgents, and they appeared in the space between the Louvre and the Tuileries, which was crowded with private houses. It was between seven and eight in the morning. All night long the royal family expected to be attacked, and the king did nothing. Some thousands of Swiss were within reach, at Courbevoie, and were not brought up in time. At last, surrounded by his family, the king made a forlorn attempt to rouse his guards to combat. It was an occasion memorable for all time, for it was the last stand of the monarchy of Clovis. His wife, his children, his sister were there, their lives depending on the spirit which, by a word, by a glance, he might infuse into the brave men before him. The king had nothing to say, and the soldiers laughed in his face. When the queen came back, tears of rage were bursting from her eyes. "He has been deplorable," she said, "and all is lost." Others soon came to the same conclusion. Roederer went amongst the men, and found them unwilling to fight in such a cause. He was invested with authority as a high official; and although the ministers were present, it was he who gave the law. The disappearance of Mandat and the hesitation of the artillery convinced him that there was no hope for the defenders.

There was a looker-on who lived to erect a throne in the place of the one that fell that day, and to be the next sovereign who reigned at the Tuileries. In 1813 Napoleon told Roederer that he had watched the scene from a window on the Carrousel, and assured him that he had made a fatal mistake. Many of the National Guard were staunch, and the royal forces were superior to those with which he himself conquered in Vendemiaire. He thought that the defence ought to have been victorious. I do not suppose he seriously resented the blunder to which he owed so much. Roederer was a clever man, and there is some reason to doubt whether he was single-minded in desiring to prevent the uncertain conflict. The queen was eager to fight, and spoke brave words to every one. Afterwards, when she heard the cannonade from her refuge in the reporter's box, she said to d'Hervilly: "Well, do you think now that we were wrong to remain in Paris?" He answered, "God grant, madam, that you may not repent of it!" Roederer had detected what was passing in her mind. Defeat would be terrible, for nothing could save the royal family. But victory would also be a perilous thing for the revolution, for it would restore the monarchy in its power, and the old nobles collected in the palace would gain too much by it. They were indeed but a residue: 7000 had been expected to appear at the supreme moment; there were scarcely 120. Charette, the future hero of Vendee, was among them, unconscious yet of his extraordinary gifts for war.

Roederer, vigorously backed by his colleagues of the department, informed the king of what he had seen and heard, assured him that the Tuileries could not be defended with the forces present, and that there was no safety except in the Assembly, the only authority that was regarded. It was but two days since the deputies, by an immense majority, had approved the act of Lafayette. He thought they might be trusted to protect the king. As there was nothing left to fight for, he affirmed that those who remained behind would be in no danger. He would not allow the garrison to retire, and he left the Swiss, without orders, to their fate. Marie Antoinette resisted vehemently, and Lewis was not easy to convince. At last he said that there was nothing to be done, and gave orders to set out. But the queen in a fury turned upon him, and exclaimed: "Now I know you for what you are!" Lewis told his valet to wait his return; but as they crossed the garden, where the men were sweeping the gravel, he remarked: "The leaves are falling early this year." Roederer heard, and understood.

A newspaper had said that the throne would not last to the fall of the leaf; and it was by those trivial but significant words that the fallen monarch acknowledged the pathetic solemnity of the moment, and indicated that the footsteps which took him away from his palace would never be retraced. A deputation met him at the door of the Assembly, and he entered, saying that he came there to avert a great crime. The Feuillants were absent. The Girondins predominated, and the president, Vergniaud, received him with stately sentences. From his retreat in the reporter's box he placidly watched the proceedings. Vergniaud also moved that he be suspended, as he had been before, and that a Convention should be convoked, to pronounce on the future government of France. It was decided that the elections should be held without a property qualification. Roland and the other Girondin ministers returned to their former posts, and Danton was appointed Minister of Justice by 222 votes. For Danton was the victor. While Petion kept out of the way, it was he who issued commands from the Hotel de Ville, and when Santerre faltered, it was Danton's friend Westermann who brought up his men to the tryst at the Carrousel. After the king was gone they made their way into the Tuileries, holding parley with the defenders. If there had been anybody left to give orders, bloodshed might have been averted. But the tension was extreme; the Swiss refused to surrender their arms; a shot was fired, and then they lost patience and fell upon the intruders. In ten minutes they cleared the palace and the courtyard. But the king heard the fusillade, and sent orders to cease firing. The bearer of the order was d'Hervilly; but he had the heart of a soldier; and finding the position by no means desperate, he did not at once produce it. When he did, it was too late. The insurgents had penetrated by the long gallery of the Louvre, near the river, and then there was no escape for the Swiss. They were killed in the palace, and in the gardens, and their graves are under the tall chestnuts. Of the women, some were taken to prison, and some to their homes. The conquerors slaked their thirst in the king's wine, and then flooded the cellars, lest some fugitive aristocrat should be lurking underground. Their victims were between 700 and 800 men, and about 140 of the assailants had fallen.

The royalists did not at first perceive that the monarchy was at an end. They imagined that the king was again in the same condition as after Varennes, only occupying the Luxembourg instead of the Tuileries, and that he would be again restored, as the year before. The majority of the Legislature was loyal, and it was hoped that France would resent the action of the capital. But Paris, represented by the intruding municipality, held its prey. The allowance promised by the Assembly was suppressed, and the Temple was substituted for the Luxembourg which was deemed unsafe because of the subterranean galleries. A sum of L20,000 was voted for expenses, until the Convention in September disposed of the king.

With no severer effort than the signing of an order, Lewis might have called up other regiments of Swiss, who would have made the stronghold of monarchy impregnable. And it would have been in his power, before sunset that day, to march out of Paris at the head of a victorious army, and at once to proclaim reforms which enlightened statesmen had drawn up. His queen was active and resolute; but she had learnt, in adversity, to think more of the claims of authority and the historic right of kings. She shared Burke's passionate hatred for men whose royalism was conditional. At every step downward they were the authors of their own disaster. The French Republic was not a spontaneous evolution of social elements. The issue between constitutional monarchy, the richest and most flexible of political forms, and the Republic one and indivisible (that is, not federal), which is the most rigorous and sterile, was decided by the crimes of men, and by errors more inevitably fatal than crime. There is another world for the expiation of guilt; but the wages of folly are payable here below.

XVI

THE EXECUTION OF THE KING

The constitutional experiment, first tried on the Continent under Lewis XVI., failed mainly through distrust of the executive and a mechanical misconstruction of the division of power. Government had been incapable, the finances were disordered, the army was disorganised; the monarchy had brought on an invasion which it was now the mission of the Republic to repel. The instinct of freedom made way for the instinct of force, the Liberal movement was definitely reversed, and the change which followed the shock of the First European Coalition was more significant, the angle more acute, than the mere transition from royal to republican forms. Unity of power was the evident need of the moment, and as it could not be bestowed upon a king who was in league with the enemy, it had to be sought in a democracy which should have concentration and vigour for its dominant note. Therefore supremacy was assured to that political party which was most alert in laying its grasp on all the resources of the State, and most resolute in crushing resistance. More than public interests were at stake. Great armies were approaching, guided by vindictive _emigres_, and they had announced the horrors they were prepared to inflict on the population of Paris.

Beyond the rest of France the Parisians were interested in the creation of a power equal to the danger, and were ready to be saved even by a dictatorship. The need was supplied by the members of the new municipality who expelled the old on the night of August 9. They were instituted by Danton. They appointed Marat their organ of publicity. Robespierre was elected a member of the body on August 11. It was the stronghold of the Revolution. Strictly, they were an illegal assembly, and their authority was usurped; but they were masters of Paris, and had dethroned the king. The _Legislative_, having accepted their action, was forced to obey their commandments, and to rescind its decrees at their pleasure. By convoking the constituencies to elect a Convention, it had annulled itself. It was no more than a dying assembly whose days were exactly numbered, and whose credit and influence were at an end.

Between a king who was deposed and an assembly that abdicated, the Commune alone exhibited the energy and force that were to save the country. Being illegitimate, they could quell opposition only by violence; and they made it clear what violence they meant to use when they gave an office to Marat. This man had been a writer on science, and Goethe celebrates his sagacity and gift of observation in a passage which is remarkable for the absence of any allusion to his public career. But he considered that the rich have no right to enjoyments of which the masses are deprived, and that the guilt of selfishness and oppression could only be expiated by death. A year before he had proposed that obnoxious deputies should be killed by torture, and their quarters nailed to the walls as a hint to their successors. He now desired to reconcile mercy with safety, and declared himself satisfied if the Assembly was decimated. For royalists, and men who had belonged to privileged orders, he had no such clemency. If, he said, the able-bodied men become soldiers and are sent to guard the frontier, who is to protect us from traitors at home? Either thousands of fighting men must be kept away from the army in the field, or the internal enemy must be put out of the way. On August 10 Marat began to employ this argument, and a company of recruits protested against being sent to the front whilst their families were at the mercy of the royalists. The cry became popular that France would be condemned to fight her enemies with one arm, if she had to guard the traitors with the other. And this was the plea provided to excuse the crimes that were about to follow. It was the plea, but not the motive. If the intended destruction of royalists could be represented as an act of war, as a necessity of national defence, moderate men would be unable to prevent it without incurring reproach as unpatriotic citizens.

When the Jacobins prepared the massacre in the prisons, their purpose was to fill France with terror and to secure their majority in the Convention. That is the controlling idea that governed the events of the next few weeks. After the decree which assigned the Luxemburg palace as a residence to the king, the Commune claimed him; and he was delivered up to them, and confined in the Temple, the ancient fortress in which the Valois kept their treasure. They proceeded to suppress the newspapers that were against them, disfranchised the voters who had signed opposing or reactionary petitions, and closed the barriers. They threw their enemies into prison, erected a new tribunal for the punishment of crimes against the Revolution, and supplied it with a new and most efficient instrument which executed its victims painlessly, expeditiously, and on terms conforming to the precept of equality. From the moment of his appearance at the Hotel de Ville, the day after the fight was over, Robespierre became the ruling spirit and the organiser, and it was felt at once that, behind the declamations and imprecations of Marat, there was a singularly methodical, consistent, patient, and systematic mind at work, directing the action of the Commune.

The fall of Longwy was known at Paris on August 26. On that day the Minister of Justice, Danton, revised the list of prisoners; domiciliary visits were carried out, all over the city, to search for arms, and for suspected persons. Nearly 3000 were arrested by the 28th, and a thing still more ominous was that many prisoners were released. Nobody doubted, nobody seriously denied, the significance of these measures. The legislature, seeing that this was not the mere frenzy of passion, but a deliberate and settled plan, dissolved the Commune, August 30, and ordered that it should be renewed by a fresh election. They also restored the governing body of the department, as a check on the municipality. They had the law and constitution on their side, and their act was an act of sovereignty. It was the critical and deciding moment in the struggle between the Girondins and the Hotel de Ville. On the following day, August 31, the Assembly revoked the decree. Tallien read an address, drawn up by Robespierre, declaring that the Commune, just instituted by the people of Paris, with a fresh and definite mandate, could not submit to an assembly which had lost its powers, which had allowed the initiative to pass away from it. The Assembly was entirely helpless, and was too much compromised by its complicity since the 10th of August to resist its master. Robespierre, at the Commune, threatened the Girondins with imprisonment, and, to complete their discomfiture, Brissot's papers were examined, and Roland, Minister of the Interior, was subjected to the same indignity.

In the last days of August, whilst every house was being searched for fugitives, the primary elections were held. The Jacobins were much opposed to the principle of indirect election, but they did not succeed in abolishing it. They instituted universal suffrage for the first stage, and they gave to the primary assemblies a veto on the choice of the second. For the rest, they relied on intimidation. The 800 electors met at the bishop's palace on September 2. But here there was no stranger's gallery, and it was requisite that the nominees of the people should act in the presence of the public that nominated them to do its work. Robespierre proposed that the electoral body should hold its sittings at the Jacobin Club, in the full enjoyment of publicity. On the following day they met at the same place, and proceeded to the Jacobins. Their way led them over the bridge, where a spectacle awaited them which was carefully calculated to assist their deliberations. They found themselves in the presence of a great number of dead men, deposited from the neighbouring prison.

For this is what had happened. On the 2nd of September Verdun had fallen. This was not yet known at Paris; but it was reported that the Prussians had appeared before the fortress, and that it could not hold out. Verdun was the last barrier on the road to Paris, and the first scene of the war in Belgium made it doubtful whether the new levies would stand their ground against battalions that had been drilled by Frederic. Alarm guns were fired, the tocsin sounded, the black flag proclaimed that the country was in danger, and the men of Paris were summoned by beat of drum to be enrolled for the army of national defence.