Part 12

Including both revolutionists and reactionists in the same accusation, Lafayette makes this reflection: {180} "What a remarkable conformity of language exists, gentlemen, between those seditious persons acknowledged by the aristocracy, and those who usurp the name of patriots! All are alike ready to repeal our laws, to rejoice in disorders, to rebel against the authorities granted by the people, to detest the National Guard, to preach indiscipline to the army, and almost to disseminate distrust and discouragement." Lafayette concludes in these words: "Let the royal power be intact, for it is guaranteed by the Constitution; let it be independent, for this independence is one of the forces of our liberty; let the King be revered, for he is invested with the national majesty; let him choose a ministry unhampered by the yoke of any faction; if conspirators exist, let them perish only by the sword of law; finally, let the reign of clubs, brought to nothing by you, give place to the reign of law; their disorganizing maxims to the true principles of liberty; their delirious fury to the calm courage of a nation which knows its rights and which defends them!"

Lafayette's letter was read to the Assembly at the session of June 18. The noble thoughts it expresses produced at first a favorable impression, and it was greeted with much applause. For an instant the Girondins were disconcerted; but, feeling themselves supported by the Jacobins who lined the galleries, they soon resumed the offensive. "What does the advice of the general of the army amount to," said Vergniaud, "if it is not law?" Guadet maintained {181} that the letter must be apocryphal. "When Cromwell used such language," said he, "liberty was at an end in England, and I cannot persuade myself that the emulator of Washington desires to imitate the conduct of the Protector. We no longer have a constitution if a general can give us laws." The allusion to Cromwell produced its effect. The letter, instead of being published and copies sent to the eighty-three departments, was merely referred to a committee.

Nevertheless, public opinion was aroused. A reactionary sentiment against the Jacobins began to show itself. The King might have profited by it, and found his account in relying upon Lafayette, the army, and the National Guard. But Louis XVI. was in too much haste. His resistance, like his concessions, was maladroit and inopportune. Without having combined his means of defence, consulted with Lafayette, or having any troops at his disposal, he vetoed the two famous decrees, June 19, and thus threw himself headlong into the snare. The Revolution, which had lain in wait for him, would not let its prey escape. It gave Lafayette no time to arrive, but, without losing a minute, organized an insurrection for the next day. The royal tree had been so violently shaken, that it needed, or so they thought, but one more shock to lay it low and root it out.

On June 16, a request had been presented to the Council-General of the Commune, asking them to authorize the citizens of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine {182} to assemble in arms on June 20, the anniversary of the oath of the Jeu de Paume, and present a petition to the Assembly and the King. The Council had passed to the order of the day, but the petitioners declared that they would assemble notwithstanding. On the 19th, the Directory of the department, which on all occasions had shown itself inimical to agitators, and which was presided over by the Duke de La Rochefoucauld, issued an order forbidding all armed gatherings, and enjoining the commandant-general and the mayor to take all necessary measures for dispersing them. This order was communicated to the National Assembly by the Minister of the Interior at the evening session.

"It is important," said a deputy, "that the Assembly should know the decrees of the administrative bodies when they tend to assure public tranquillity. Nobody is ignorant that at this moment the people are greatly agitated. Nobody is ignorant that to-morrow threatens to be a day of violence." Vergniaud replied: "I do not know whether or not to-morrow is to be a day of troubles, but I cannot understand how M. Becquet, who is always so constitutional" (here there was laughter and applause), "how M. Becquet, by an inversion of law and order, desires the National Assembly to occupy itself with police regulations." The decree of the Directory was read, nevertheless. But the Assembly, far from supporting it, passed to the order of the day. The rioters had nothing to fear.

{183}

During the same session, a deputation of citizens from Marseilles had been presented at the bar of the Assembly. The orator of this deputation thus expressed himself: "French liberty is in danger. The free men of the South are ready to march in its defence. The day of the people's wrath has come at last. The people, whom they have always sought to ruin or enslave, are tired of parrying blows. They want to inflict them, and to annihilate conspiracies. It is time for the people to rise. This lion, generous but enraged, is about to quit his repose, and spring upon the pack of conspirators." Here the galleries applauded furiously. The orator continued: "The popular force is your force; employ it. No quarter, since you can expect none." The applause and enthusiastic cries of the galleries redoubled. Somebody demanded that the speech should be sent to the eighty-three departments of France. A deputy, M. Rouher, was courageous enough to exclaim: "It is not by the harangues of seditious persons that the departments should be instructed!" Another deputy, M. Lecointre-Puyravaux, responded: "Is it surprising that men born under a burning sun should have a more ardent imagination and a patriotism more energetic than ours?" The question whether the discourse should be sent to the departments was put to vote, and the president and secretaries declared that the Assembly had decided against it. This did not suit the public in the galleries. They howled, they vociferated. They claimed that the result was {184} doubtful. They demanded a viva voce count. This demand alarmed those deputies who never dared to look the Revolution in the face. A new vote was taken, and this time, the sending of the address to the eighty-three departments was decreed. With such an Assembly, why should the insurrectionists have hesitated?

The rioters of the next day did not hesitate a moment. The order of the Directory had somewhat intimidated them. But Chabot, the deputy so celebrated for his violence at the Jacobin Club, hastened to reassure them. "To-morrow," said he, "you will be received with open arms by the National Assembly. People count on you." The Faubourg Saint-Antoine was in commotion. Condorcet said, in speaking of the anxieties expressed by the ministers: "Is it not fine to see the Executive asking legislators to provide means of action! Let them save themselves; that is their business!"

The Most Christian King is treated like the Divine Master. Pétion, mayor of Paris, is to play the rôle of Pontius Pilate. He washes his hands of all that is to happen. He orders the battalions of National Guards under arms for the following day, not in order to oppose the march of the columns of the people, but to fraternize with the petitioners, and act as escort to the insurrection. This equivocal measure, he thinks, will set him right with both the Directory and the populace. To one he says: "I am watching," and to the other, "I am with you." {185} The rioters count on Pétion as anarchy counts on weakness. He is precisely the magistrate that suits the faubourgs when they resort to violent measures. A last conventicle was held at the house of Santerre the brewer, chief of battalion of the National Guard of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, on the night of June 19-20. It broke up at midnight. All was ready. The leaders of the insurrection repaired each to his post. They summoned their loyal adherents, and sent them about in small detachments to assemble and mass together the working classes, as soon as they should leave their houses in the morning. Santerre had declared that the National Guard could offer no opposition to the rioters. "Rest easy," said he to the conspirators; "Pétion will be there." Louis XVI. no longer feigned not to notice the danger. "Who knows," said he during the night to M. de Malesherbes, with a melancholy smile, "who knows if I shall see the sun set to-morrow?"

{186}

XVIII.

THE MORNING OF JUNE TWENTIETH.

It is Wednesday, June 20, 1792, the anniversary of the oath of the Jeu de Paume. The signal is given. The faubourgs assemble. It is five in the morning. Santerre, on horseback, is at the Place de la Bastille, at the head of a popular staff. The army of rioters forms slowly. Some anxiety is shown at first. The departmental decree forbidding armed gatherings had been posted, and occasioned some reflection in the timid. But Santerre reassures them. He tells them that the National Guard will not be ordered to oppose their march, and that they may count on Pétion's complicity.

When the march toward the National Assembly begins, hardly more than fifteen hundred are in line. But the little band increases as it goes. The route lies through rues Saint-Antoine, de la Verrerie, des Lombards, de la Ferronnerie, and Saint-Honoré. The procession is headed by soldiers, after whom comes a great poplar stretched upon a wagon. It is the Liberty tree. According to some, it is to be planted in the courtyard of the Riding School, opposite the Assembly chamber; according to others, on the {187} terrace of the Tuileries, before the principal door of the palace. A military band plays the _Ça ira_, which is chanted in chorus by the insurrectionary troop. No obstacle impedes their march. The torrent swells incessantly. The inquisitive mingle with the bandits. Some are in uniform, some in rags; there are soldiers, active and disabled, National Guards, workmen, and beggars. Harlots in dirty silk gowns join the contingent from studios, garrets, and robbers' dens, and gangs of ragpickers unite with butchers from the slaughter-houses. Pikes, lances, spits, masons' hammers, paviors' crowbars, kitchen utensils,--their equipment is oddity itself.

It is noon. The session of the Assembly has just been opened. At this hour the throng, now numbering some twenty thousand persons, enters the rue Saint-Honoré. The Directory of the Department of Paris demands admission to the bar on pressing business, and the municipal attorney-general, Roederer, begins to speak. Heeding neither the murmurs of the galleries, the disapprobation of part of the Assembly, nor the clamor sure to be raised against him that evening in the Jacobin and Cordelier clubs, he boldly announces what is going on. He reminds them of the law, and the decrees forbidding armed gatherings which have been issued by the Commune and the Department. He adds that, without such prohibitions, neither the authorities nor private individuals have any security for their lives. "We demand," cried he, "to be invested with {188} complete responsibility; we demand that our obligation to die for the maintenance of public tranquillity shall in nowise be diminished."

Vergniaud ascends the platform. He owns that, in principle, the Assembly is wrong in admitting armed gatherings within its precincts, but he declares that he thinks it impossible to refuse a permission accorded to so many others to that which now presents itself. He believes, moreover, that it could not be dispersed without a resort to martial law and a renewal of the massacre of the Champ-de-Mars. "It would be insulting to the citizens who are now asking to pay their respects to you," said he, "to suspect them of bad intentions... The assemblage doubtless does not claim to accompany the citizens who desire to present a petition to the King. Nevertheless, as a precaution, I propose that sixty members of the Assembly shall be commissioned to go to the King and remain near him until this gathering shall have been dispersed."

The discussion continues. M. Ramond follows Vergniaud. What is going to happen? What will the insurrectionary column do? Glance for an instant at the topography of the Assembly and its environs. The session-chamber is the Hall of the Riding School, which extends to the terrace of the Feuillants, and occupies the site where the rue de Rivoli was opened later on, almost at the corner of the future rue de Castiglione. It is a building about one hundred and fifty feet long. In front of it is a long and {189} narrow courtyard beginning very near the rue de Dauphin. It is entered through this courtyard, which a wall, afterwards replaced by a grating, separates from the terrace of the Feuillants. It may be entered at the other extremity, also, at the spot where the flight of steps facing the Place Vendôme was afterwards built. From the side of the courtyard it can be approached by carriages, but from the other, only by pedestrians who cross the narrow passage of the Feuillants, which starts from the rue Saint-Honoré, opposite the Place Vendôme, and leads to the garden of the Tuileries. This passage is bordered on the right by the convent of the Capuchins; on the left is the Riding School, almost at the spot where the passage opens into the Tuileries Garden by a door which had just been closed, and before which had been placed a cannon and a battalion of National Guards.

On reaching the rue Saint-Honoré, the crowd had taken good care not to enter the court of the Riding School, where they might have been arrested and disarmed. They preferred to follow the rue Saint-Honoré and take the passage conducting thence to the Assembly and the terrace of the Feuillants. Three municipal officers who had gone to the Tuileries Garden, passed through this passage before the crowd, and met the advancing column at the door of the Assembly, just as M. Ramond was in the tribune discussing Vergniaud's proposition. While the head of the column was awaiting the issue of this discussion, the rank and file were constantly advancing. The {190} passage became so thronged that people were in danger of stifling. Part of them withdrew from the crowd and went into the garden of the Capuchin convent, where they amused themselves by planting the Liberty tree in the classic ground of monkish ignorance and idleness, as was said in those days. The remainder, which was in front of the door and the grating of the terrace of the Feuillants, became exasperated. The sight of the glittering bayonets, and the cannon placed in front of this grating, roused them to fury.

Meanwhile, a letter from Santerre reached the president of the National Assembly: "Gentlemen," said he, "I have received a letter from the commandant of the National Guard, which announces that the gathering amounts to eight thousand men, and that they demand admission to the bar of the chamber."--"Since there are eight thousand of them," cried a deputy, "and since we are only seven hundred and forty-five, I move that we adjourn the session and go away."

Santerre's letter is thus expressed: "Mr. President, the inhabitants of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine are celebrating to-day the anniversary of the oath of the _Jeu de Paume_. They have been calumniated before you; they ask to be admitted to the bar; they will confound their cowardly detractors for the second time, and prove that they are still the men of July 14." It was applauded by a large number of the Assembly. On the other side murmurs rose against it. M. Ramond {191} went on with his speech: "Eight thousand men, they say, are awaiting your decision. You owe it to twenty-five millions of other men who await it with no less interest.... Certainly, I shall never fear to see the citizens of Paris in our midst, nor the entire French people around us. No one could behold with greater pleasure than I the weapons which are a terror to the enemies of liberty; but the law and the authorities have spoken. Let the petitioners, therefore, lay down at the entrance of the sanctuary the arms they are forbidden to bear within it. You ought to insist on this. They ought to obey."

M. Ramond's courage did not last long. Passing to Vergniaud's proposal to send sixty members of the Assembly to the Tuileries, he said: "I applaud the motive which prompted this proposition. But, convinced that there is nothing to be feared by any person from the citizens of Paris, I regard the motion as insulting to them."

Meanwhile, the noise at the door redoubles; the petitioners are growing impatient. Guadet rises to demand that they shall come in with their arms. It is plain that the Gironde has taken the riot under its patronage. After some disorderly and violent debate, it is resolved that the president shall put the question: Are the petitioners to be admitted to the bar? They do not yet decide this other: Shall the armed citizens defile before the Assembly after they have been heard? The first question is answered in the affirmative. The delegates of the crowd are {192} admitted to the bar. They make their entry into the Assembly between one and two in the afternoon.

Their orator is a person named Huguenin, who will preside a few weeks later at the Council of the Commune during the September massacres. In his declamatory harangue he includes every tirade, threat, and insult current in the streets. "We demand," said he, "that you should find out why our armies are inactive. If the executive power is the cause, let it be abolished. The blood of patriots must not flow to satisfy the pride and ambition of the perfidious palace of the Tuileries." Here the galleries burst into enthusiastic applause. The orator goes on: "We complain of the delays of the Superior National Court. Why is it so slow in bringing down the sword of the law upon the heads of the guilty? ... Do the enemies of the country imagine that the men of July 14 are sleeping? If they appear to be so, their awakening will be terrible.... There is no time to dissimulate; the hour is come, blood will flow, and the tree of Liberty we are about to plant will flourish in peace." The applause from the galleries redoubles. Huguenin excites himself to fury: "The image of the country," he shouts, "is the sole divinity which it shall be permitted to adore. Ought this divinity, so dear to Frenchmen, to find in its own temple those who rebel against its worship? Are there any such? Let them show themselves, these friends of arbitrary power; let them make themselves known! This is not their {193} place! Let them depart from the land of liberty! Let them go to Coblentz and rejoin the _émigrés_. There, their hearts will expand, they will distil their venom, they will machinate, they will conspire against their country." The orator concludes by demanding that the armed citizens shall be passed in review by the Assembly. It was in vain that Stanislas de Girardin cries, "Do the laws exist no longer, then?" The Assembly capitulates. Armed citizens are introduced. Twenty thousand men are about to pass through the session hall. The march is opened by a dozen musicians, who stop in front of the president's armchair. Then the two leaders of the manifestation make their appearance: Santerre, king of the fish markets, idol of the faubourgs, and Saint-Huruge, the deserter from the aristocracy, the marquis demagogue; Saint-Huruge, cast into the Bastille for his debts and scandalous behavior, and liberated by the Revolution; Saint-Huruge, the man of gigantic stature and the strength of a Hercules, who is the rioter _par excellence_, and whose stentorian voice rises above the bellowing of the crowd.

The spectators in the galleries tremble with joy; they stamp on perceiving both Santerre and Saint-Huruge, sabre in hand and pistols at the belt. The band plays the _Ça ira_, the national hymn of the red caps. Is this an orgy, a masquerade? Look at these rags, these bizarre costumes, these butcher-boys brandishing their knives, these tattered women, these drunken harlots who dance and shout; inhale this {194} odor of wine and eau-de-vie; behold the ensigns, the banners of insurrection, the ambulating trophies, the stone table on which are inscribed the Rights of Man; the placards wherein one reads: "Down with the veto!" "The people are tired of suffering!" "Liberty or Death!" "Tremble, tyrant!"; the gibbet from which hangs a doll representing Marie Antoinette; the ragged breeches surmounting the fashionable motto: "Live the Sans-Culottes!"; the bleeding heart set upon a pike, with the inscription, "Heart of an aristocrat!" The procession, which began about two in the afternoon, is not over until nearly four o'clock. At this time Santerre repairs to the bar, where he says: "The citizens of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine came here to express to you their ardent wishes for the welfare of the country. They beg you to accept this flag in gratitude for the good will you have shown towards them." The president responds: "The National Assembly receives your offering; it invites you to continue to march under the protection of the law, the safeguard of the country." And then, heedless of the dangers the King was about to incur, he adjourns the session at half-past four in the afternoon.

What is going to happen? Will the armed citizens return peaceably to their homes? Or, not content with their promenade to the Assembly, will they make another to the palace of the Tuileries? What preparations have been made for its defence? Ten battalions line the terrace facing the palace. Two {195} others are on the terrace at the water side, four on the side of the Carrousel. There are two companies of gendarmes before the door of the Royal Court; four on the Place Louis XVI., to guard the passage of the Orangery, opposite rue Saint-Florentin. Here, there might have been serious means of defence. But Louis XVI. is a sovereign who does not defend himself. Two municipal officers, MM. Boucher-Saint-Sauveur and Mouchet, had just approached him: "My colleagues and myself," said M. Mouchet to him, "have observed with pain that the Tuileries were closed the very instant the cortège made its appearance. The people, crowded into the passage of the Feuillants, were all the more dissatisfied because they could see through the wicket that there were persons in the garden. We ourselves, Sire, were very much affected at seeing cannon pointed at the people. It is urgent that Your Majesty should order the gates of the Tuileries to be opened."

After hesitating slightly, Louis XVI. ended by replying: "I consent that the door of the Feuillants shall be opened; but on condition that you make the procession march across the length of the terrace and go out by the courtyard gate of the Riding School, without descending into the garden."