Part 5

At the evening session of that day the time was consumed in hearing of the discourses of divers deputations that had come to congratulate the Convention upon the great work done that day. Two of these spoke of the Republic as an already established fact,[154] while on the streets, however, of the city the cry was resounding, “_Vive la République_.” One orator spoke of nine battalions already sent to the front, and reported that another was on the way. “They were coming,” he said, “to pray your blessing upon their arms, when they learned on the way that they were to fight no more for kings. They were happy to go to save the Republic. When they were informed that all your moments must be consecrated to it, they renounced the enjoyment of receiving your blessing and went on their way. Our Department is busy forming new battalions, in seeking to arm them, and especially in inspiring them with republican manners.” This was greeted with new applause. The section of Quatre-Nations was represented by its orator, who said among other things; “We have given three thousand men for the frontier; these are three thousand republicans.... We ask to defile through your midst. If arms are needed, speak, we shall hasten to use them in the defense of the country, too happy to pay with our blood for the Republic which you have decreed for us.” Applause greeted this expression of devotion.[155] The newspapers signaled the decree of abolition in enthusiastic descriptions, but only Brissot’s _Patriote français_ proclaimed, “Royalty is abolished; France is a Republic.”[156]

On the morrow early in the session, Billaud-Varenne moved, and the Convention decreed, that “all public acts were to be dated from the first year of the Republic.” A new seal of State bearing the words “_République de France_” decided upon and national colors were proposed, but not adopted.[157] The journals took little notice of this new name with which France had been baptized. Nevertheless, the members of the Convention seemed to take it as a matter of course and to make repeated use of the term Republic. For instance, on September 22, it appeared in the following decree: “The National Convention decrees that the committees of the legislative assembly and the members of the executive council shall render an account to the National Convention of the state of their work and of the condition of the different parts of the French Republic....” The report of the Minister of the Interior, M. Gorsas, in the session of September 23, contained this report of the state of public opinion: “The will of the French is pronounced. Liberty and equality are their supreme good; they will sacrifice all to preserve these. They have a horror for the crimes of the nobles, the hypocrisy of the priests, the tyranny of kings. Kings! they wish no more of them, they know that outside of a Republic there is no liberty.” Again on September 24, the Convention decreed “that there shall be named six commissioners charged with rendering as full an account as shall be possible, of the present state of the _Republic_ and that of Paris.” On September 25, the Convention declared “the French Republic is one and indivisible.”[158]

Here we have passed to the period in which the Republic had become an accepted fact for France. Robespierre said truly that it had “glided in furtively among the factions,” and we may say that to Frenchmen, interested in the national defence, it was a welcome change. Gouverneur Morris is authority for this in a note of October, 1792, in which he said: “These are the outlines made use of on either side to convince the public that each is exclusively the author of a Republic which the people find themselves possessed of by a kind of magic, or at least, a sleight of hand, and which, nevertheless, they are as fond of as if it were their own offspring.”[159]

It would be interesting to know how completely this Parisian enthusiasm was shared by the nation. Grave objections may have been offered, but it soon came about that to be disloyal to the Republic was to be a foe of liberty and equality, and, worse yet, a traitor to France. So far as we are able to discover, the army accepted the Republic with enthusiasm. On September 9, General Valence wrote to Dumouriez _that he would run to the Republic with transport_. Prieur (de la Marne) awakened enthusiasm in the army of the Ardennes by announcing to them on September 29, the news of the birth of the Republic.[160] And a report from the camp of volunteers at Châlons speaks of a like worthy sentiment.[161]

These are the facts about the growth of republican ideas in Revolutionary France and of the proclamation of the Republic. We can sum them up as follows: At the meeting of the States-General in 1789 France was pronouncedly monarchic. A little coterie of men became anti-monarchical; these developed the Club of Cordeliers. In 1791, when Louis XVI showed his distrust of the French people and tried to escape, hostility to the monarch and also to the monarchy was strong. Even republicanism was championed by an orator in the Assembly and by a few newspapers; one of these journals, the _Révolutions de Paris_, had a large circulation. The king however accepted the Constitution in September, 1791, and the outcry against him and in favor of the abolition of the monarchy subsided. Not until in the summer of 1792 did the royal vetoes, the menacing manifesto of the allies, the actual advance of the Prussian army toward Paris, call forth many petitions and requests for the suspension or for the dethronement of the king, or for the abolition of the monarchy.

Comparatively little was said, however, about the form to be given to the executive. On August 10, the Legislative Assembly only “suspended Louis XVI provisionally, until the National Convention should pronounce upon the measures it believed ought to be adopted for assuring the sovereignty of the people and the reign of liberty and equality.” Clubs, sections, journals, and provinces, and even radical democrats, are rather silent about a substitute for the monarchy. When the abolition came on September 21, it was received as the news of a national victory; but at first the term Republic, used on the 22nd, was little greeted by the nation. It however became the shibboleth of the army and of the patriots. For this revival of republicanism, Paris, and perhaps the army, are responsible. The Jacobin Club of Paris also made use of its influential position to encourage republican inclinations in the affiliated societies throughout France, and, what was more important still, to secure the election of anti-monarchical and of democratic deputies to the Convention.

A few questions remain to be answered. First among these is, What was the relation between the republican movement of 1791 and that of 1792? The earlier movement must have had a tendency to increase the number in France who perceived the inconsistency between individual rights and the equality of men on the one hand, and the hereditary kingship on the other. It also increased the number of those who believed a republic suited for France and who, though they recognized that the realization of their opinions was for the time being impossible, yet were ready to strive for its establishment when the circumstances should give opportunity. To this group of men belongs the credit of having secured an expression from Paris in favor of the Republic, and of having secured its early recognition in the city on the abolition of royalty.

A second question is, Why was there so much said in 1792 about the abolition of monarchy, and so little about the Republic that should replace it? Why were those of republican preferences so slow to say it? This may be answered by the statement that generally, in movements depending upon public opinion, the people are more pronounced against an abuse or misuse which they have experienced than about an untried theory; are more capable to pronounce upon a destructive than upon a constructive scheme, are more enlightened in their negative than in their positive actions. The Constituent Assembly was happy in its negative work of destroying the abuses of the old régime, but less felicitous in its positive work of reconstruction. The French people of 1792 were conversant with the vacillations of the king, the treasonable intrigues and anti-popular feelings of the court, but a Republic was as yet an untried and unproved expedient. Under its name anarchy, or, what to the Parisians was little less odious, _federalism_, might become the order of the day. Hence the very friends of a strong united Republic hesitated to use the word till the form of the institution should be shaped by the tendency of affairs. The very friends of Republican government might have remembered that their use of the word Republic in 1791 had been fraught with bitter schismatic tendencies among the friends of the Revolution; and how much more dangerous such a schism in 1792, when the nation found itself called upon to resist the humiliating invasion of its territory by the allies. They also knew that to be a republican in 1791 had been unpopular,[162] and were chary of exposing themselves to unnecessary odium, knowing that the monarchy once abolished, they would be by necessity under a liberal form of government, call it what they might.

A third query is, Why did the Conventionalists choose the republican government? The question is easily answered by another question, _i. e._, What other expedient was possible, considering the state of public opinion? Was it an aristocracy? But the Revolution in its incipient stages was a revolt against an aristocracy. Was it a regency? But here the difficulty was to find a regent who did not share the obloquy of the dethroned monarch, or was not incapable of commanding the respect of the nation. Was it under the protection of a foreign prince or power? Not so; the spirit of national independence was too strong to suffer even a dispassionate consideration of this. What way could the Constitutionalists turn? Sorel has truly said: “The abolition of royalty was the acknowledgment of a fact; the proclamation of the Republic was the recognition of a necessity. A government was necessary to France, and no other than a republican government was possible.”[163] And the Republic had existed in fact in France for two short, but very critical periods. From June 21 to September 14, 1791, the king had been suspended and the Constituent Assembly had conducted through the ministry the work of the executive. And again from August 10 to September 21, 1792, the same expedient was resorted to. But it may be said that the Republic was not in accord with French national traditions, and that, therefore, it could never be accepted by the nation. True, France had been a monarchy for centuries, and the history of her kings was dear to the people in 1789; but there was a stronger tradition to which the people were more devotedly attached than to royalty, and now the king had forced the issue between these two traditions, that is, the tradition of the monarchy and the tradition of nationality and independence. So soon as it seemed clear that the French must choose between these, the choice was made by the abolition of royalty.

Royalty was thus abolished on September 21, 1792: the republic was recognized by the Convention as its legitimate successor. The name had been adopted, now a new constitution was necessary; not one like that of 1791, a base accommodation of hereditary powers and democratic rights; but one consistently constructed. The Convention early appointed its Committee of Constitution. The leader in the committee was Condorcet, and the majority were Girondists. Their work was ready to be reported February 15 and 16, 1793. But by this time the republicans themselves had formed two antagonistic factions, the Girondists and the Montagnards. The latter were the men of action, and now held the power in the Convention. Condorcet’s Constitution was not submitted to the nation.

On May 30, 1793, the Committee of Public Safety was augmented by five members. These were Couthon, Herault de Séchelles, Mathieu, Ramel, and Saint Just. They lost no time in the elaboration of a Constitution, and by June 22, were ready to report. Herault de Séchelles made the final reading June 24. Delegates were sent all over France to receive the vote of the primary assemblies for the acceptance of the Constitutional Act; 1,801,918 votes were cast for its adoption. Their glowing report was made August 9th by Gossuin, and the next day was fixed as a national festival “consecrated to the inauguration of the Constitution of the Republic.” The artist, David, planned the ceremonies.

The glorious fundamental law was not, however, to reign in France. France must be defended from invasion, civil war must be subdued, and then the rest of Europe must be delivered from political slavery. In just two months after this inaugural festival, the Convention decreed that the provisional government should be revolutionary till peace. When peace came, a new monarch was enthroned. But these enthusiastic men of 1792 and 1793 had given France a name and an ideal; they had placed above her horizon a star of hope. When oppression shall make them weary, or when the popular spirits shall rise, they shall think of a republic as the aim and end of political effort.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Ritchie, Natural Rights, p. 1; M. Charles Borgeaud, _Établissement et Revision des Constitutions en Amérique et en Europe_, 240-242; Dr. Geo. Jellinek, _Die Erklärung der Menschen- und Bürgerrechte_, p. 10.

[2] Two requests for a Declaration of the Rights of Man came from Paris, _intra muros_; one from the Nobility, _Archives parlementaires_, v, 271; the other from the Third Estate, _Ibid._, v, 281. The latter cahier contains a formulated Declaration of thirteen articles. The general cahier of Rennes, _Arch. Parl._, v, 538, that of the Third Estate of Annonay, _Arch. Parl._, ii, 50, and that of the Third Estate of Nemours, _Arch. Parl._, iv, 161, ask for the Declaration of Rights.

[3] _Arch. Parl._, viii, 216.

[4] _Ibid._, 221 et seq.

[5] _Ibid._, 221-222.

[6] _Ibid._, 230-231.

[7] _Ibid._

[8] _Arch. Parl._, 341.

[9] _Ibid._, 422.

[10] “Convertions nous en acte législatif cet exposé métaphysique, ou présenterons nous les principes avec leur modification dans la constitution que nous allons faire? Je sais que les Américains n’ont pas pris cette précaution; ils ont pris l’homme dans le sein de la nature, et le présentent à l’univers dans sa souveraineté primitive, mais la société Américaine nouvellement formée, est composée, en totalité de propriétaires déjà accoutumés à l’égalité, étrangers au luxe ainsi qu’à l’indulgence, connaissant à peine le joug des impôts, des préjugés qui nous dominent, n’ayant trouvé sur la terre qu’ils cultivent aucune trace de féodalité. De tels hommes étaient sans _doute_ préparés à recevoir la liberté dans toute son energie; car leurs goûts, leurs moeurs, _leur_ position les appelaient à la démocratie. Mais, nous, Messieurs, nous avons pour concitoyens une multitude immense d’hommes sans propriétés, qui attendent, avant toute chose, leur subsistence d’un travail assuré, d’une police exacte, d’une protection continue, qui s’irritent quelquefois, non sans de justes motifs, du spectacle du luxe et de l’opulence,” etc. _Arch. Parl._, viii, 322.

[11] _Arch. Parl._, viii, 434.

[12] “Nous avons cherché cette forme populaire qui rappelle au peuple, non ce qu’on a étudié dans les livres ou dans les méditations abstraites, mais ce qu’il a lui même éprouvé.... C’est ainsi que les Américains ont fait leur déclaration de droits; ils en ont à dessein écarté la science; ils ont présenté les vérités politiques qu’il s’agissait de fixer sous une forme qui pût devenir facilement celle du peuple, à qui seul la liberté importe, et qui seul peut la maintenir.” _Arch. Parl._, viii, 438-440.

[13] _Arch. Parl._, viii, 452 _et seq._

[14] A comparison of the Declaration offered by the Sixth Bureau with the Bill of Rights of the Revolutionary Constitutions of Massachusetts and of Virginia, shows that the Bill of Rights of the Virginia Constitution contained sixteen articles, that of the Massachusetts thirty, and that of the Sixth Bureau, twenty-four. The same general ideas are found in all three, but they are couched in different words, that of the Sixth Bureau being the least extreme.

[15] _Arch. Parl._, viii, 470 _et seq._

[16] _Ibid._, 483-484.

[17] _Ibid._, 487, 489.

[18] _Ibid._, 492.

[19] _Histoire Parlementaire_, 395-402.

[20] _Lavisse et Rambaud; Histoire Générale_, vii, 360.

[21] _Ibid._, vii, 360.

[22] _Dict. Universelle_, under _Rétroactif_.

[23] Three friends of tolerance were Voltaire, D’Argenson and Turgot. Voltaire in his _Discourse Historique et Critique_ placed as an introduction to the tragedy _Les Guebres_ (_Oeuvres_, by M. Beuchet, ix, 26, Paris, 1831), and in his _Traité sur la tolérance_, written upon the death of Jean Calas, 1763 (_Oeuvres_, ix, 141 and 243 _et seq._), pleads for tolerance. For d’Argenson’s views on tolérance in 1744, see Rocquain, _L’ésprit révolutionnaire_, 116 and 138, and d’Argenson, _Mémoires_, v, 328 _et seq._ Turgot in a letter to an ecclesiastic, his schoolmate at the Sorbonne, expressed himself in 1753 in favor of tolerance; another letter of the year following was of like import. His _Conciliateur_ was printed about the same time. _Oeuvres_, ii, 353 _et seq._, Paris, 1808. June, 1755, he presented a Memoir to the king on “Toleration, or Religious Equality.” _Life and Writings of Turgot_, by W. Walker Stephens, 256 _et seq._

[24] Rocquain, _L’ésprit rév._, p. 463.

[25] _Ibid._, 336.

[26] Rocquain, _L’ésprit rév._, 412. For a list of the books condemned, see Rocquain, _Ibid._, 489-535.

[27] Quoted in Rocquain, _L’ésprit rév._, 178, and in _Mémoires_, viii, 248.

[28] Rocquain, _L’ésprit rév._, 286.

[29] _Essai sur le despotisme_, _Oeuvres_, viii, 111 _et seq._, Paris, 1835.

[30] The cahier of the Nobility of Sisteron asked: “Qu’il sera fait des réglements, et pris des précautions pour que les troupes nécessaires au maintien de la tranquilité générale ne puissent jamais servir à opprimer le citoyen et à enchaîner la liberté publique.” _Arch. Parl._, iii, 364. The _cahier_ of the Nobility and the Third Estate of Péronne asked: “Que ... les officiers et les soldats, en prêtant le serment de fidélité au Roi, le prêtent aussi à la nation et jurent d n’exécuter aucun ordre qui soit contraire aux lois constitutionelles.” _Arch. Parl._, v, 356.

[31] Jean Bodin, _De Republica_. Libre vi, chap. ii.

[32] _Hist. Gén._, v, 362.

[33] _État de la France en 1789_, Paul Boiteau, ch. xiv, Paris, 1861.

[34] Alfred Neymarck, _Turgot et ses Doctrines_, i, 257 _et seq._, 2 vols., Paris, 1885.

[35] _Hist. Gén._, vii, chap. xii.

[36] For instances of the abuses at which Art. 13 aimed, see De Tocqueville, _L’Ancien régime_, trans. by Henry Buor, notes 32-38, pp. 271-273.

[37] Rocquain, _L’ésprit rév._, 448.

[38] For the part taken by the States General in granting subsidies, see Henri Hervieu, _Recherches sur les premiers États généraux_, Paris, 1879; G. Picot, _Hist. des États Généraux_ Paris, 1885, 5 vols.; Ch. V. Langlois, _États généraux_ in _La Grande Encyclopédie_; for that of the parlements, see Rocquain, _L’ésprit rév._, and Ch. Gomel, _Les Causes financières de la révolution française_.

[39] Protest of the Cour des Aides of Paris, April 10, 1775, in _Translations and Reprints from the Original Sources of European History_, edited by James Harvey Robinson, Ph. D., with an English version by Grace Read Robinson.

[40] Gomel in _Les Causes financières de la révolution française_, p. 113, gives the following quotation from a contemporary writer: “Le livre de Necker sur _L’administration des finances_ produisit autant d’effet que si l’auteur avait encore dirigé celles du royaume.... Des magistrats, des juriconsultes, des militaires, des prélats l’étudieraient, non pour devenir administrateurs, mais pour se rendre des censeurs redoubtables de l’administration.”

[41] Rocquain, _L’ésprit rév._, 444.

[42] _L’Ancien Rég._, trans. by Henry Reeve, note 39, p. 273.

[43] A. Babeau, _La Ville sous l’ancien régime_, ii, 9; Reeve’s translation of De Tocqueville, _Ancien régime_, notes 60-62, pp. 286, 287.

[44] Poole, _Illustrations of the History of Mediaeval Thought_, p. 242.

[45] _Ibid._, p. 267.

[46] E. d’Eichthal, _souveraineté du peuple_, 37-40.

[47] _Memoirs, Letters and Remains of Alexis de Tocqueville_, i, pp. 254-260, 2 vols. London, 1861.

[48] Martin, _Histoire de France_, vol xv, 334.

[49] Martin, _Histoire de France_, 355.

[50] R. L. Corwin, _Entwicklung und Vergleichung der Erziehungslehren von John Locke und Jean Jacques Rousseau_, Heidelberg, 1894; Vasille Saftu, _Ein Vergleich der physichen Erziehung bei Locke und Rousseau_, Bucarest, 1889; David G. Ritchie, _The Social Contract_, in vi. vol. of _Pol. Sc. Quart._; Jaeger, _Geschichte der sozialen Bewegung und des Socialismus in Franckreiche_, vol. ii, 342, Berlin, 1890; Prof. J. Horning, _Les idées politiques de Rousseau_, in J. J. Rousseau _jugé par les Génevois d’aujourd’hui_, p. 135 _et seq._; also M. Jules Vuy in _Bulletin de L’Institut National Génevois for 1883_, pp. 273-344; Rousseau et Locke, _Henri Marion_; J. Locke, _Sa Vie et son Oeuvre d’après des documents nouveaux_, Paris, 1893.

[51] Voltaire in a letter of April 2, 1764, wrote: “Tout ce que je vois jeté les semences d’une révolution qui arrivera immanquablement, et dont je n’aurai pas le plaisir d’être témoin.... Les jeunes gens sont bien heureux: ils verront de belles choses.” Quoted in Martin, _Hist. de Fr._, vol. xvi, 136. Malesherbes, in speaking to the king as the organ of the _parlement_ in 1770, said: “You hold your crown, Sire, from God alone; but you will not refuse yourself the satisfaction of believing that, for your power, you are likewise indebted to the voluntary submission of your subjects. There exist in France some inviolable rights, which belong to the nation.” Quoted from _Remontrances de la Cours des Aides_, 1770, by De Tocqueville; _Mémoires_, etc., i, 259-60. For Rousseau’s literary influence, see Joseph Texte, _Jean Jacques Rousseau et les Origines du Cosmopolitisme Littéraire_, Liv. ii, Paris, 1895.

[52] A pamphlet of 1789, “Lettre d’un Curé de Picardie à un évêque sur le droit des curés d’assister aux assemblées du clergé et aux États-généraux,” etc., illustrates how the curates applied the natural rights doctrine: “Les droits des hommes réunis en société ne sont point fondés sur leur histoire mais sur _leur nature_. Il ne peut y avoir de raisons de perpétuer les établissements faits sans raisons, 3 p.” In vol. 84 of _French Revolution Collection of the Pennsylvania Historical Society_.

[53] _Contrat Social_, Livre ii, ch. iv, 43.

[54] _Ibid._, Livre i, ch. vi, 20.

[55] _Contrat Social_, Livre II, ch. I, 35.

[56] _Ibid._, Livre II, ch. IV, 43-44.

[57] _Ibid._, Livre II, ch. VI, 54-55.

[58] _Ibid._, Livre II, ch. IV, p. 46.

[59] Quesnay said: “The security of property is the essential foundation of the economic order of society.” _Maximes générales au gouvernement, Physiocrates_, ii, 83, Paris, 1846. Turgot, writing of the omnipotence of the State, said: “This principle that nothing should limit the rights of society upon the individual, save the greater good of society, appears to me false and dangerous. Every man is born free, and this liberty can never be limited unless it degenerate into license, that is to say, ceases to be liberty.... It is forgotten that society is made for the individual, that is, instituted only for protecting the rights of all, by assuring the accomplishment of all mutual duties.” Quoted by M. E. Daire, _Physiocrates_, ii, Introd., xxi, xxii.

[60] _Ésprit des Lois_, Liv. xi.