vents, excited the surprise, and perhaps also the envy of the laity. The parochial clergy, although poor themselves, constituted the only stay and consolation of the people; they also were oppressed by their mote opulent brethren, for the prelates had continued to throw the burden of the voluntary gift upon the great body of the priesthood, whose complaints had long proved unavailing, but whose resentment, at a subsequent period, by inducing them to join the third estate, produced a schism in the church, and put an end to the established hierarchy. between the virulent counsels of his court | sands four hundred priories, and fourteen and the timidity of his own nature, he thousand seven hundred and eighty conappears to have been, by turns, tyrannical and complaisant. The queen, while dauphiness, had obtained the respect of the nation by refusing to countenance the licentiousness of the court of the reigning monarch; and her beauty had long commanded the admiration of the capital. But her levities had now sunk her into disesteem; and her enormous expenses, her haughty demeanour, and her aversion to every thing that bore the name of liberty, exposed her to general censure; and the manner in which she governed the king, subjected both him and herself to increasing suspicion. Her majesty and the king's two brothers were also at open variance. The eldest of these had acquired and retained the respect of the nation; but the profusion of the younger, and still more his zeal against every innovation on the ancient despotism, at length rendered his name odious. On the other hand, the Duke of Orleans, first prince of the blood, and his adherents, openly aspired to popularity, and the duke expended an amazing fortune to produce, strengthen, and support a revolution, that in the end proved their destruction. The numerous and notorious abuses in the government also produced an effect correspondent to the knowledge of an inquisitive and critical age, and France was denied even the sleep of despotism-the only consolation that a people can derive from the degradation of servitude. The feudal hierarchy had become burdensome and oppressive. Instead of softening, as formerly, the exercise of the royal prerogative, presenting a barrier between the king and the people, it divided into casts of old and new, nobles of the sword and of the robe, of the court and of the provinces, who all claimed an exemption from taxes; and, although jealous of each other, cordially united in treating the inhabitants of the towns with insufferable haughtiness, while they considered those of the country as little better than their slaves. What the possessors of fiefs originally acquired by their swords, the clergy had obtained by the profusion of the people in times past, but their influence was now visibly declining throughout the nation; and an age devoted to the cultivation of literature and the sciences, felt itself but little interested in those polemical contentions which at once occupied and disgraced the two former reigns. The amazing wealth possessed by nineteen archbishops, and one hundred and twenty-two bishops; the immense revenues belonging to twelve hundred and eighty-eight abbeys, twelve thou Among the other changes that had taken place, that of the liberty of speech was not the least conspicuous. Writings were everywhere read and circulated against the weight, number, inequality, and misapplication of the taxes; the vexations of the farmers-general; the venality of officers; the imperfection of the criminal code; and those arbitrary and illegal imprisonments produced by lettres de cachet. There was a general outery against the tributes paid to the pope, the wealth of the clergy, and the profusion with which pensions were assigned on an exhausted treasury. The Bastile, and a variety of subordinate prisons, had always opened their dreadful dungeons at the voice of an absolute prince; a free press, which leaves to a bad minister the choice of his duty or his dishonour, was still unknown; and lettres de cachet, sold publicly towards the end of the late reign, had been granted during the early part of the present with scandalous impunity. The people were overburdened with taxes, many of which were rather oppressive than productive; offices conferring nobility were publicly bought and sold; while the nobles were exempt from the operation of imposts, and the clergy contributed only what they pleased under the name of a benevolence. The occupations of the merchant and the farmer were considered as discreditable; the plebeians were excluded from all the high offices of the state, and the profession of arms, alone honourable, was consecrated to the enjoyment of a particular caste: to command a regiment, or a man of war, it was necessary to be a noble. The people being thus left destitute of redress or protection; the royal authority paramount and unbounded; the laws venal; the peasantry oppressed; agriculture in a languishing state; commerce considered as degrading; the public revenues farmed out to greedy financiers; the public money consumed by a court wallowing in luxury, and every institution at variance with justice, policy, and reason;-a change became inevitable in the ordinary course of human events, and like all sudden alterations in corrupt states, was accompanied with evils and crimes, that made many good men look back on the ancient despotism with a sigh. SECTION V. FROM the contemplation of the various and multiplied causes that produced the destruction of the monarchy of France, it is proper to turn to a review of the events that attended and flowed from the Revolution in that country. While the deputies, incapable of making any resistance, stood aghast, the citizens of Paris were taking measures to alter the destiny of the assembly, the monarch, and the empire. They began by carrying in triumph the busts of Necker and the Duke of Orleans, each of whom had been, at different times, the victim of despotism. Being attacked by a patrol of the Royal Allemande, several persons were wounded, but the guard was at length obliged to take refuge in the Tuilleries. It was at this critical period, that Gorsas, then a schoolmaster, and afterwards a deputy, with a stentorian voice, continued to harangue a large body of citizens in one quarter; at the same time that Camille Desmoulins, a celebrated advocate, with a pistol in each hand, addressed an eloquent | oration to the surrounding multitude, in another; and after being exhausted with fatigue, and rendered unable to proceed, still contrived to articulate the words,-" To arms! to arms!" While the women and children, terrified at the first appearance of the troops, rent the air with their shrieks and lamentations, the alarm bell was rung in every parish; the theatres were shut; cannons were fired by way of signal; some of the citizens barricaded their houses, and prepared to defend themselves against the assailants; while the multitude, unprovided with any certain means of annoyance, seized all the arms to be found in the shops of the gunsmiths and armourers, and then proceeded towards the town-house. In this critical moment, when every thing depended on the conduct adopted by the French guards, the Marquis de Valadi, formerly an officer in that corps, repaired to the barracks, and contrived to excite their passions, arouse their ambition, and subdue their fidelity. At nine o'clock in the evening, they accordingly sallied out, when, being joined by patrols of armed citizens, as well as by a mob, many of whom carried torches, they attacked and dispersed a company of the Royal Allemande. The fugi tives having retreated to the main body of their regiment posted in the Place de Louis XV., twelve hundred of the guards repaired to the Palais Royal, where they held a council of war, and at length determined, though destitute of both officers and artillery, to give battle to the foreign troops. They accordingly commenced their march, obtained a complete victory, obliged them to retreat, drove them before them to the Boulevards, and at length forced all the regular troops to evacuate Paris, and with draw to Versailles, where they spread dismay and consternation among the adherents of the court, whose projects had been thus anticipated and disconcerted, the evening of the 14th of July having been the day fixed for an attack upon the capital. An extraordinary circumstance occurred at this moment, which tended not a little to produce and accelerate the catastrophe that ensued. Twenty thousand men of different nations, who had been employed in cutting roads over Montmartre, but who were now without bread and without occupation, threatened to plunder the capital, which was itself rapidly approaching to a state of famine. These banditti had already approached to the suburbs, and after burning the outlet called the white barriers, began to enter several houses. To meet this emergency, it was resolved to form a city militia, and the citizens ran in crowds to inscribe their names as the defenders of their country. Arms being still wanting, upwards of thirty thousand men ran to the hospital of the invalids, seized on the artillery, and obtained possession of about fifty thousand muskets, sabres, and pikes, which had been concealed there. The citizens were immediately marshalled, and more than sixty thousand enrolled and formed into companies; patrols were established in every district; the sergeants and grenadiers of the French guards were appointed officers: cannon were immediately posted on the Pont Neuf, the Pont Royal, and in all the avenues leading to Versailles; while the Place Dauphine, admirably situated for this purpose, was provided with a numerous artillery, and became the head-quarters of the patriotic army, as it now began to be called. The revolution had thus actually commenced; and some unknown individual, on the morning of the 14th of July, after attracting the attention of the citizens, exclaimed," Let us take the Bastile!" The name of this fortress, which recalled to the memory of the people every thing hateful and odious in the ancient despotism, operated with all the effect of electricity. The cry of "To the Bastile!" resounded from rank to rank, from street to street, from the released in triumph; the instruments of torture were dragged from the dungeons, and exposed to day; and the destiny of the monarch and the monarchy seemed to be already decided. Palais-Royal to the suburbs St. Antoine. An army, composed of citizens and soldiers, provided with pikes forged during the night, with muskets procured at the Invalids, with gilded lances and battle-axes, snatched from the Garde Meuble, was immediately formed, Many of the grandees, alarmed in the and the French guards were prevailed upon highest degree at the revolutionary moveto join this motley crew. During the attack, ments in the capital, resolved to emigrate, the insurgents were joined by a detachment and the Count d'Artois, for whom it was of grenadiers of Ruffeville, and fusileers of reserved, after a lapse of five-and-twenty Lubersac; and, though a formidable resist-years, to be reinstated in his right of sucance was made by de Launay, the gover- cession to the throne of France, having nor, the gates were at length forced, the be- been informed that a price was set upon siegers entered, and a castle was taken by his head, escaped with his two sons durstorm in less than four hours, which had ing the night. The Princes of Condè and menaced France for nearly as many ages, Conti, as well as the Dukes de Luxemand which an army, headed by the great burgh and Vaugion, quickly followed, and Conde, had formerly besieged in vain dur- their example soon became epidemic. ing three-and-twenty days. De Launay, whose name had been long odious to the Parisians, was put to death in his way to the town-house; M. de Losine, the major, a man of great humanity, unhappily experienced a similar fate; Requait, a subaltern officer, who had prevented the governor from setting fire to the powder magazine, was also killed; and the whole garrison would perhaps have been sacrificed by an enraged populace, had it not been for the generous intervention of the French guards, who petitioned for, and obtained mercy. In the mean time, De Hesseles, the provost of the merchants, having been accused of a conspiracy, escaped from the Hotel de Ville, but was shot in the Place de Greve, and his head carried about in procession with that of the governor of the Bastile; a horrid kind of spectacle, which at length accustomed the people to the spilling of human blood, and let loose all the furies of vengeance and proscription. In the mean time, while the assembly was yet uncertain of its own fate, and that of the nation, it had determined, in case of the worst, to leave behind it a monument of its patriotism and zeal. The following celebrated “ DECLARation of Rights," the groundwork of the new constitution, was accordingly voted, after three different plans had been submitted by La Fayette, Mounier, and Sieyes, and presented to the king on the 3d of September, 1791, and at length obtained the sanction of his majesty. (5) The representatives of the French people, formed into a national assembly, considering that ignorance, forgetfulness, or contempt of the Rights of Men, are the sole causes of public grievances, solved to exhibit in a solemn declaration the naand of the corruption of government, have retural, unalienable, and sacred Rights of Man, in order that this declaration, ever present to all the members of the SOCIAL BODY, may incessantly remind them of their rights and of their duties; and those of the Executive Power, being able to the end, that the acts of the Legislative Power to be every moment compared with the end of all political institutions, may acquire the more These events which had been carefully respect; in order also, that the remonstrances of concealed from the unfortunate monarch, the citizens founded henceforward on simple and although they occurred at seven in the af-tain the Constitution, and to promote the general incontestible principles, may ever tend to mainternoon, were first communicated to him by good. the Duke de Liancourt, who repaired to his "For this reason, the National Assembly recog chamber at midnight, and made him ac-nises, and declares in the presence of, and under quainted with the situation of the capital. the auspices of the Supreme Being, the following On the succeeding morning, his majesty repaired to the assembly, and intimated that he had given orders for the retreat of the troops on this, a deputation of eighty-four members was sent to communicate the intelligence to the citizens, who now elected M. Bailly mayor of Paris, and intrusted the command of the national guard to the Marquis de la Fayette. The Bastile was immediately devoted to destruction; the unhappy prisoners* were Rights of Men and Citizens: 1. Men were born, and always continue, free and equal in respect to their rights; civil distinctions, therefore, can be founded only on public utility. It appears clearly from the annals of the Bastile, that insanity or idiotism generally results from the system of secret imprisonment; of the seven prisoners enumerated above, two were actually sent to a mad-house. with the constitution, afterwards framed by the (5) The declaration of rights is here confounded National Assembly. The former was agreed to on the 1st of October, 1789, and approved of by the king on the 5th of the same month. The labours of the Assembly on the Constitution were not brought to a close until the month of September, 1791, when it received the sanction of the king 2. The end of all political associations is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man; and these rights are liberty, property, security, and the resistance of oppression. 3. The nation is essentially the source of all Sovereignty; nor can any individual, or any body of men, be entitled to any authority which is not expressly derived from it." 4. Political liberty consists in the power of doing whatever does not injure another. The exercise of the natural rights of every man, has no other limits than those which are necessary to secure to every other man the free exercise of the same rights; and these limits are determinable alone by the law. 5. The law ought only to prohibit actions hurtful to society. What is not prohibited by the law should not be hindered; nor should any one be compelled to that which the law does not require. 6. The law is an expression of the will of the community. All citizens have a right to concur, either personally or by their representatives, in its formation. It should be the same to all, whether it protects or punishes; and all being equal in its sight, are equally eligible to honours, places, and employments, according to their different abilities, without any other distinction than that created by their virtues and talents. 7. No man should be accused, arrested, or held in confinement, except in cases determined by the law, and according to the forms which it has prescribed. All who promote, solicit, execute, or cause to be executed, arbitrary orders, ought to be punished: and every citizen called upon or apprehended by virtue of the law, ought immediately to obey, and he renders himself culpable by resistance. 8. The law ought to impose no other penalties than such as are absolutely and evidently necessary; and no one ought to be punished but in vir tue of a law promulgated before the offence, and legally applied. 9. Every man being presumed innocent until he has been convicted, whenever his detention becomes indispensable, all rigour to him, more than is necessary to secure his person, ought to be provided against by the law. 10. No man ought to be molested on account of his opinions, not even on account of his religious opinions, provided his avowal of them does not disturb the public order established by the law. 11. The unrestrained communication of thoughts and opinions being one of the most precious rights of man, every citizen may speak, write, and publish freely, provided he is responsible for the abuse of this liberty in cases determined by the law. 12. A public force being necessary to give security to the rights of men and citizens, that force is instituted for the benefit of the community, and not for the particular benefit of the persons to whom it is intrusted. 13. A common contribution being necessary for the support of the public force, and for defraying the other expenses of government, it ought to be divided equally among the members of the community according to their abilities. 14. Every citizen has a right, either by himself or his representative, to a free voice in determining the necessity of public contributions, the appropriation of them, and their amount, mode of assessment, and duration. 15. Every community has a right to demand of all its agents an account of their conduct. 16. Every community in which a separation of powers and a security of rights is not provided for wants a constitution." 17. The right to property being inviolable and acred, no one ought to be deprived of it, except in cases of evident public necessity, legally ascertained, and on condition of a previous just indemnity. (6) "The NATIONAL ASSEMBLY, desirous of establishing the French Constitution on the principles which it has just now recognised and declared, abolishes irrevocably those institutions which are injurious to liberty, and equality of rights. There is no longer any nobility, nor peerage, nor hereditary distinctions, nor difference of orders, nor feudal governments, nor patrimonial jurisdic tions, nor any of the titles, denominations, and prerogatives which are derived from them; nor any of the orders of chivalry, corporations, or decorations, for which proofs of nobility were required; nor any kind of superiority, but that of public functionaries, in the exercise of their functions. "No public office is henceforth hereditary or purchasable. "No part of the nation, nor any individual, can henceforth possess any privilege or exception from the common rights of all Frenchmen. "There are no more wardenships or corporations in professions, arts, or trades. "The law recognises no longer any religious vows, nor any other engagement which would be contrary to natural rights, or to the constitution." The attention of the assembly was now suddenly diverted from the formation of a constitutional code, to the unhappy situation of the empire in consequence of the anarchy that succeeded the extinction of the ancient despotism, and for which it was found difficult to administer any immediate or effectual relief. It is truly lamentable, that among the many ills originating from, or inherent in slavery, one is that it renders its victims long unfit for the enjoyment of the very blessings they have panted after: and that the enfranchised bondman, like the miserable prisoner long immured in a gloomy dungeon, is utterly unable at first to enjoy the genial light of liberty. We accordingly find, that the vassalage of several centuries had steeled the hearts of a and instead of deriving happiness from the great portion of the nation to humanity, transition, many dreamed only of avenging the wrongs of ages in the blood of their oppressors, and of obtaining that wealth from plunder, which, by prejudice and injustice, they had hitherto been deprived the chance of acquiring. All the great cities were at the same time agitated by the dread of famine, and the necessities of the populace, fanaticised by the spirit of the times, unfortunately mistook licentiousness for liberty, while Paris, the cradle of the revolution, contained a prodigious number of individuals, whose daily subsistence arose from fraud and violence alone. The peasantry, too long oppressed by their lords, seemed to consider this as a favourable opportunity for making reprisals: but unhappily they were not (6) Here ends the Declaration of Rights, adopted in 1789. What follows is a part of the preamble to the Constitution of 1791. content with the liberation of themselves three departments-the qualifications of and children from manual servitude. Many the electors were fixed-lettres de cachet of the castles of the nobles were accord- were abolished-the sale of offices inade ingly attacked, pillaged, and burned; while criminal-the feudal system annihilatedthey themselves, with their wives and their all distinctions of orders abolished-bienoffspring, by a sad reverse, were now ex- nial legislatures were agreed to-the susposed to the insults, the menaces, and pensive veto on all laws was granted to the sometimes even the vengeance of the un-king-and the representatives were to form happy villagers. Many however were the but one chamber. (8) instances in which a generous oblivion ensued, and only in a few cases did the good and beneficent landholder experience ingratitude as a retribution for his benevolence. The assembly, fully impressed with the necessity of restoring peace and tranquillity, passed a decree on the evening of the 4th of August, enjoining the taxes to be paid as usual, and enforcing the law for the security of persons and of property. But in the course of that celebrated night, a memorable measure was proposed and carried; and to the honour of the nobles, it must be acknowledged to have originated with them. This measure was no less than the abolition of the feudal system :that system of privileges and exemptions to one class of the community, and of oppression and tyranny to the other, was abolished, and it was declared that henceforth in France there should be only one law, one nation, one family, and one honourable title that of a French citizen. (7) On the succeeding day, it was suggested, that as tithes operated in the manner of a premium against agriculture, and a tax upon industry, they should be immediately abolished: this was at first strenuously opposed by the clergy, particularly by the Abbe Sieyes, but the archbishop of Paris at length consented in the name of himself and his brethren. The next object that engaged the attention of the assembly was the constitution; and, after a variety of long and interesting debates, France was divided into eighty (7) From the construction of this sentence, it may be supposed that the titles of the nobility, as well as the whole of the feudal system, were abolished on the 4th of August, 1789. This was not however the case, to the extent stated. The most grievous of the feudal exactions, such as the claim of the lord to the personal service of his vassal, and other degrading duties, were abolished, but his right to the land and to money rents was not disturbed. Neither was the question of hereditary titles agitated at that time. In the enthusiasm of the moment, the deputies of certain provinces and cities, which had enjoyed particular immunities, surrendered their franchises, and it was then that the famous wish was expressed, that in future there might exist no more provinces, but one nation, one family, and one law. No decree however appears to have been adopted on the subject, and titles were not abolished until the 24th of February in the succeeding year. Precis Historique, &c. by Rabaut de St. Etienne. The national assembly had by this time acquired an ascendency over the nation, and its popularity was daily increasing, both in the capital and the provinces. Between the assembly and the court, considerable jealousies existed, which were heightened by the introduction of a corps of Swiss guards into the metropolis; and while affairs were in this situation, the inhabitants of Paris, goaded on by famine, were thrown into a state of violent agitation. The commotion began among the women, who, on the morning of the 5th of October, ran about the streets, crying out "Bread, bread!" Seizing on a person of the name of Maillard, they forced him to become their conductor; and being joined by a multitude of armed men, and followed by a company of the volunteers of the Bastile, and several cannon, they set out for Versailles, the residence of the royal family. The national guards, actuated by a similar impulse, insisted on marching thither also; and La Fayette, after obtaining the sanction of the municipality, deemed it prudent to accede to the proposition. He was unable, however, to prevent the events that ensued; for some of the mob, having burst into the castle, sacrificed two of the bodyguards to their fury, and the life of the queen was perhaps saved by the gallantry of a third, called Miomandre. The guards now, for the first time, placed the national cockade in their hats, and supplicated for mercy. On this the popular fury seemed to subside, but the cry of "To Paris! to Paris!" clearly intimated their intentions, and his majesty thought proper to comply. The king accordingly repaired thither, on the 6th of October, preceded by an executioner, between two wretches, each carrying a bloody head on a pike, accompanied by an immense mob, a deputation of two hundred members of the national assembly, the troops of Paris, and the French guards, who had prevented much violence and bloodshed. 1790. In the midst of this disorder, a national bankruptcy was apprehended, to avert which, the territorial possessions of the clergy were declared at the disposal of (8) The constitutional ordinances in regard to biennial legislatures, the suspensive veto of the king, and the union of the representatives in one chamber, were not enacted until the year 1790 |