forbearance. La Fayette then ordered the national guards to fire into the air, which for a moment dispersed the crowd, but the most part of it came again, perceiving no mischief done, and attacked the soldiers with such fury, firing several balls near La Fayette, that he at length ordered the soldiers to fire with ball. A number of people were killed, a great many more wounded; the accounts are so various that no particular account can be relied on. Report made the number of killed and wounded some hundreds, then some thousands, but the real amount would appear to have been somewhere about thirty. A number of others were seized, and by ten o'clock all was quiet, and Bailly and La Fayette returned to the Hôtel de Ville. For a moment this severity had the effect of cowing the people. The noisiest demagogues, Marat, Robespierre, Brissot, the Rolands, &c., fled in consternation into the country, or concealed themselves in obscure nooks; but very soon they ventured out again, and filled Paris with terrible outcries of the sanguinary plots that had been laid for the people, and boldly charged these and the massacre of the citizens on Bailly and La Fayette. It was clear that there was an end to their popularity with the mob, and that the jacobin orators and journalists would never rest till they had spilled their blood, or made them fly to save it. The days were over when La Fayette talked of the divine right of insurrection; it had long ago assumed an aspect which had nothing divine in it, but menaces of blood and anarchy. The next morning Bailly and the municipal body appeared at the bar of the assembly to present a report of the proceedings of the day before. The assembly expressed its full approval, and Barnave declared that it was time to defend the monarchy, and to hunt out and bring to justice the instigators of these unconstitutional proceedings, and compel obedience to the laws. The assembly passed several very stringent decrees against all instigations to breach of the law, whether by placards, handbills, journals, or speeches. Petion opposed these decrees, as destructive of the liberty of the press; but some were carried out hostile to Marat, Danton, Laclos, Brissot, &c. The coté gauche appeared silent and intimidated, and, had the assembly now had the courage and perseverance to arrest and capitally punish the authors of incessant stimulus to murder and anarchy, torrents of blood might have been spared. For a time, the assembly showed much spirit. It seized the types of most of the journals, though those of Brissot escaped. It arrested a number of fiery demagogues, but the chief agitators had escaped. The assembly and municipality now turned the press against its own champions, and through the columns of Le Chant du Coq, or Crowing of the Cock," a journal which they set up, they denounced the authors of anarchy, and published many infamous details of their lives. This produced a very yell of fury from these concealed jacobins. Brissot exclaimed, in his journal, "Patriots! a frightful conspiracy is a-foot against all who have developed any energy in defence of the people; who have unmasked the traitors and enemies of the constitution. Their ruin is sworn: gold is flowing in torrents to pay the infamous libellers of the friends of their country." Marat emerged from his hiding-place to send forth his paper; Fréron, his Orateur; Labinette, his Devil's Journal: in which they charged Bailly and La Fayette with being allied with the assembly to destroy the liberty of the people, and with having attacked and shot them down in the Champ de Mars, when peaceably petitioning the assembly. Camille Desmoulins also, from his hiding-place, made the most atrocious charges against Bailly and La Fayette. He declared that they had got up the plot at the Champ de Mars to massacre the people, and that the number they had killed was four hundred; that there had been no firing at La Fayette, but that he had set one of his own men to fire at him, without a ball, for a pretext to butcher the people, and that he and Bailly had delayed the massacre till late in the evening, in the hope that the clubs would be there, signing, so that he might dispatch them altogether; he had penetrated the league of Barnave with the court, and protested that he and the Lameths were bribed to restore the ancient despotism. A great schism took place in the jacobin club, in consequence of the violence of the members. Numbers of the more moderate quitted the club and joined the Feuillants. The assembly particularly favoured this going over to the Feuillants; it circulated an address throughout the country, recommending all the affiliated societies in the provinces to acknowledge the Feuillant club as their head; and this succeeded to a certain extent. But Robespierre read an address at the jacobin club, in which he warned these societies against the Feuillants, as enemies of the liberties of the people, and reminded them that the days of the assembly were numbered, and that true jacobins would succeed them, and perhaps modify the constitution. The consequence was that the affiliated societies again rallied round the mother society, and the jacobins recovered, in a great measure, the power and boldness that they had lost. The heads of the popular hydra had escaped, and the members of the assembly and of the municipality were soon to feel their vengeance. The assembly had, indeed, just performed a piece of blasphemous mummery, the apotheosis of Voltaire, which tended wonderfully to increase the influence of the jacobins and of the mob. They had decreed that the bones of the impious poet should be brought from the abbey of Scellières, and carried in state to the Panthéon. In Voltaire's lifetime it was boasted that he had buried the priests and the Christian religion, but now the priests were going to bury him, having very little of the Christian religion left amongst them. It is to the credit of a minority in the Parisians that a public protest against this honour to a man who heaped ribaldry and obscenity on everything sacred was made and placarded on the walls. The writers of this protest were declared to be fools and Jansenists. The assembly fixed the day of the procession for the 10th of July; but the 10th was a deluging, rainy day, and the ceremony was postponed to the next day, or till the weather should be fine. The officer of the commune to whom this message of postponement was delivered, remarked that it was the low jealousy of the aristocracy of heaven which had sent this deluge to prevent the triumph of the great man who had been the rival and conqueror of the Divinity! Such was the atheistic madness to which the doctrines of Voltaire had by this time reduced the French. The next day was as wet, and the assembly was about to renew the postponement, when about two o'clock at noon it cleared up. The coffin was placed on a car of the true classic form, and being received at the barrier of Charenton, it was borne first to the spot on which the Bastille had stood, and where Voltaire had been confined by lettre-de-cachet. The ground was converted into a temporary garden by turf and shrubs, and boughs of trees, and the sarcophagus containing the coffin of the great infidel was placed on a platform in the centre, being covered with myrtles, roses, and wild flowers, and bearing the following inscriptions :-" If man is born free, he ought to govern himself." "If man has tyrants placed over him, he ought to dethrone them." This was plain speaking. Besides these there were various other inscriptions in different parts of the area, and on a huge block of stone, in large letters: Receive, O Voltaire! on this spot, where despotism once held thee in chains, the honours thy country renders thee!" From the Bastille to the Panthéon all Paris seemed to be following the procession. Soldiers, lawyers, doctors, each made their part of the train, carrying banners with devices in honour of the hero of the occasion. The assembly, the municipal body, marched in their places of honour; the learned academies with a crowd of poets, literary men, and artists, carried a gilded chest containing the seventy volumes of Voltaire's works; the men who had taken part in the demolition of the Bastille carried chains, fetters, and cuirasses found in the prison; a bust of Voltaire, surrounded by those of Rousseau, Mirabeau, and Desilles, was borne by the actors from the different theatres, in ancient costume; then came the car which at the Bastille had been surmounted by a statue of the philosopher which France was crowning with a wreath of immortelles; this fresh inscription on the sides of the sarcophagus:-" He avenged Calas, La Barre, Sirven, and Montbailly: poet, philosopher, and historian, be made the human mind take a high flight, and prepared us to become free." The immense procession was preceded and closed by national guards. The procession halted at various places for the poet to receive particular honours. At the opera houses, the actors and actresses were waiting to present a laurel crown, and to sing a hymn to his glory; at the house of M. Villettewhere was yet deposited the heart of the great man previous to being sent to Fernay-four tall poplars were planted and adorned with wreaths and festoons of flowers, and on the front of the house was written, in large letters :-"His genius is everywhere, and his heart is here!" Madame Villette, who had been so much celebrated by Voltaire as the good and beautiful, also appeared and placed another crown on the statue. Near this was raised a sort of amphitheatre, on which were seated a crowd of young girls in white dresses with blue sashes, crowned with roses, and holding wreaths in honour of the poet in their hands, whilst they sang another hymn to his glory; madame Villette and some members of the family of Calas then walked before the car to the Théatre Française, where the names of Voltaire's works were written on the front of the building, and the columns of its portico were also garlanded with flowers, and hung with medallions. A similar halt was made on the site of the former theatre, Comédie Française, and a statue of the poet was there crowned, by actors costumed as 567 Tragedy and Comedy; the actors then sang a chorus from his opera of "Samson," and then the procession advanced to the Panthéon, where the mouldering remains of Voltaire were placed beside those of Descartes and Mirabeau. All Paris that evening was one festal scene; illuminations blazing on the busts and figures of the patriot of equality, the Creator himself having been, in imagination, dethroned by him, and by quotations from his works, which were deemed to have swept away for ever all the old superstitions of the Bible. Three days after this, the 14th of July, the anniversary of the taking of the Bastille was kept, and bishop Gobel celebrated mass at the altar of the cemetery in the Champ de Mars; and, just three days later, La Fayette fired on the assembled people, in the same spot-a curious concurrence of circumstances, and suggestive of serious thoughts on the tendency of the revolution. The assembly now took upon itself the education of the dauphin. Poor Louis complained in vain that he should not be allowed to dictate the education of his own child; but individual feelings, or rights of nature in a monarch, were things that the revolutionists of France took no account of. A king or a prince was, with them, only a piece of machinery to be fashioned and used as they pleased, and, accordingly, to manufacture a prince answerable to their ideas, the assembly piled on the poor boy's head a crowd of teachers, enough to drive any child mad. There were no less than sixty-eight preceptors of one kind or another! Amongst them were St. Pierre, the author of the "Studies of Nature," and of "Paul and Virginia; " Berquin, the author of "The Children's Friend; Dacier, chief secretary of the Academy of Belles Lettres; Ducis, translator of Shakespeare; Lacépède, the naturalist; Lacratelle, the historian; Malesherbes, formerly minister; De Quincey, writer on art and antiquities; Piéyres, author of "The School of Fathers; " Segur, the diplomatist; and the abbé Sicard, the improver of the art of teaching the deaf and dumb. If the king complained of the appointment of many of these teachers, the jacobins complained of more, and declared that the boy ought to be put into the patriotic hands of Marat and Robespierre. And now, prior to its own dissolution, the assembly commenced the great work of the revision of the constitu tion. A report of a committee was brought up on this subject. Men of all politics were on this committee; there were Thouret, Target, Chapelier, Sièyes, Talleyrand, St. Etienne, Barnave, Duport, Alexander Lameth, ClermontTonnère, Buzot, Petion, &c. The discussion of this report continued till the 1st of September. Malouet, Barnave, and the Lameths, resolved, on this occasion, to make a determined stand for the restoration of the most important of the royal prerogatives. Malouet was to take the lead; Barnave and the Lameths to appear to oppose him; but, in the course of their speeches, to admit that certain concessions to the crown were necessary to the independent working of the constitution. It is possible that something might have been gained by this plan, but, unfortunately, the moderates had ruined all hope of it, by refusing to vote any more in the assembly, thus leaving the matter in the hands of the coté gauche, or ultra-revolutionists. Malouet made a daring and uncompromising attack on the constitution, and demanded, first of all, that the declaration of the Rights of Man should be expunged. It is not to be supposed that he could for a moment hope to succeed in this demand, but that, by his extreme demands, he might render the points of revision suggested by Barnave and the Lameths moderate in appearance. The most terrible outcries were raised around him by the coté gauche; but he went on, and denounced the clubs and their influence. He adverted to the proposition that no alteration should be made in the constitution till 1800, and contended that it was intolerable to expect France to groan under such a tyrannous constitution for that length of time; that they had pared down the royal power to an absolute nullity; had reduced the king to a prisoner and a puppet, and thus destroyed all his moral influence in the state; that the legislative had usurped the executive, and was itself the slave of the clubs and the mob. "Have you taken any measures," he demanded, amid the most violent interruptions, yellings, and hootings, "for compelling that multitude of tyrannical clubs, which corrupt and subdue public opinion, which exercise an entire influence over elections, which domineer over all the authorities, to restore to us that liberty and peace which they have torn from us? Have you taken any measures to restrain within the due limits of the law those masses of armed men which cover the whole of France as national guards? If your constitution does not check the abuses of the extraordinary means that have been made use of to establish it, you can yet propose to us a long interval, before any alterations or reforms shall be permitted?" lived, could not have a vote; but he did not remind the assembly that the bulk of the French people were no Rousseaus yet, but were utterly illiterate, and degraded by oppression and ignorance, and therefore incapable of an enlightened vote, as they were incapable of any but the most savage conduct. Petion demanded that the royal power should be still more restricted, and popular power extended according to Robespierre's recommendation. The duke of Orleans offered to resign any rights that he might possess as a member of the blood royal, on condition that he should be allowed to exercise the same rights of voting as all other citizens. He asked whether the king's relations were not men, and ought, therefore, to possess the rights of men? But Robespierre rose again, and said they were talking too much of the rights of individuals, and too little of the rights of the nation. At the same time, he did not object to give the same rights of voting to the king's relations as to all other men, for it tended to abolish distinctions; and he quoted the examples of England, Hungary, Bohemia, and other countries where the relations of the king sate in the legislative chambers. But such a doctrine was not tolerated even in Robespierre, and he was clamoured down. Barnave and Alexander Lameth exerted themselves to procure some modifications in favour of oppressed royalty, but in vain; the cote gauche, unopposed by the coté drov, which had voluntarily abandoned the right of voting, carried it triumphantly that the constitution was perfect, and war finished. So much, indeed, was conceded, that instead of fixing the year 1800 as the earliest period at which any alterations in the constitution should take place, necessary In the midst of a raging storm of abuse and tumult he reforms might be introduced by a third consecutive assembly went on "Gentlemen, are we to remain in our present when in the last two months of its session; and this was terrible condition till the year 1800?—in a condition in which to be done without requiring the sanction of the crown. neither liberty, nor property, nor the lives nor consciences The work of reform must then be committed to a select of men are free a single day from the most terrible viola-number-two hundred and forty-nine members-who should tions? Gentlemen, you must put down your inquisitorial committees of research, your laws against the emigrants, your multiplied oaths and deeds of violence, your persecution of priests, your arbitrary imprisonment of all classes of people, your criminal proceedings without evidence, the fanaticism and dominion of the clubs. But even all this is not enough to preserve public tranquillity. Licentiousness has committed such ravages; the dregs of the nation still boil up so furiously—" Here the confusion, the shouting of "down with the maligner," the uproar from the left side and the galleries were deafening, but Malouet went on, as soon as he could be heard :-"The frightful insubordination of our troops; our religious troubles; the discontents and insurrections of our colonies, which are destroying our commerce; the embarrassments of our finances, growing worse and worse every day, are motives which should induce you to reform the constitution, and render it as effective and beneficial as it is now powerless and contemptible." This was a sketch of things far too true to be agreeable. Robespierre, on the contrary, insisted that a further extension of the popular power, by universal suffrage, was the remedy for all these troubles. He declared, that till all distinctions of money and property were abolished there could be no equality; that by the present law Rousseau, one of the greatest philosophers and legislators that ever form an assembly of revision, and in this assembly or com mittee those who demanded the reforms were to have no place. The number of members of the assembly at large was fixed at seven hundred and forty five; and though universal suffrage was not literally conceded, yet there was a very near approach to it, for every man of twenty-fiv years of age, having a fixed domicile, not being a footman or valet, and paying a direct yearly contribution to the state equal to the value of three days' labour, was endowed with the franchise. The constitution was pronounced complete on the 3rd t September, and a deputation of sixty members was appoint to present it to the king, and demand his pure and simpe acceptance of it. "From that moment," says Thiers, "h freedom was restored to him; or, if that expression b objected to, the strict watch kept over the palace ceased, and he had liberty to retire whither he pleased, to examine the constitutional act, and to accept it freely." That expression will certainly be objected to by every reader. I was a cruel farce played upon the unhappy Louis. He was told that he might retire to St. Cloud, from which he bui been some time ago so insultingly kept back. He was miserable captive, dragged back from Varennes, and watched day and night, both he himself and the queen, as a cat watch mice. Yet now, as it was desirable to give a free air to La A.D. 1791.] ACCEPTANCE OF THE CONSTITUTION BY THE KING. acceptance of the constitution, suddenly the strict surveillance is abandoned, the door of his trap is left open, and he is told that he may go at large. But Louis knew better; he knew that the assembly had still a string to his leg, and that if he really did endeavour to liberate himself, he would be savagely plucked back. He knew that if he exercised his own judgment on the constitution, this fawning assembly would pounce upon him like a crouching tiger; and that, if he should declare himself unable to sanction it, there would be a very short cut for him to the scaffold. Thiers himself, after telling us that he was restored to his freedom, and might go where he pleased—if we "do not object to the expression" -gives us the most sufficient reason why we should object to it. แ What," he asks, "was Louis XVI. to do in this case? To reject the constitution would have been to abdicate in favour of a republic. The safest way, even according to his own system, was to accept it, and to expect from time those restitutions of power which he considered due to him." Malouet, indeed, with the same daring which prompted his speech in the assembly, advised the king to state plainly his objections to it, and to point out the vices and dangers which he saw in their constitution. Montmorin was of the same opinion; but they stood alone. Barnave and Duport knew the assembly and the jacobins too well to give the king such perilous advice. They agreed with Kaunitz, the Austrian ambassador, who had been the favourite minister of the great Maria Theresa, Marie Antoinette's mother, and who had the queen's interest deeply at heart, that the only safe plan for Louis was to accept it without any exceptions. Accordingly, in the course of a few days, Louis wrote to the assembly that he accepted the constitution, entirely. There was a burst of applause on the reading of this message. There were loud cries of "Vive le roi!" for some obstacle on the part of Louis had been expected. La Fayette seized the opportunity of this sudden elation to propose a general amnesty for all acts committed during the revolution. This-which included a cessation of prosecutions carrying on against those concerned in the flight to Varennes- was instantly carried, and, according to Thiers, the prison doors were immediately thrown open. The king repaired to the assembly, and again swore to observe the constitution; and, according to the same author, all was joy and satisfaction. But other writers give a very different account, and, amongst them, madame Campan. This is her version:-" A deputation of sixty members waited on the king, to express to him the satisfaction that his letter had given. The queen, his son, and madame, were at the door of the chamber into which the deputation was admitted. The king said to the deputies:-'You see there my wife and children, who participate in my sentiments;' and the queen herself confirmed the king's assurance. The apparent marks of confidence were very inconsistent with the agitated state of her mind. 'These people will have no sovereigns,' said she. 'We shall fall before their treacherous though well-planned tactics; they are demolishing the monarchy stone by stone!' "The day after that of the deputation, particulars of their reception by the king were reported to the assembly; and they excited warm approbation. But the president 569 having put the question, whether the assembly ought not to remain seated while the king took the oath: 'Certainly,' was repeated by many voices; and the king standing uncovered.' M. Malouet observed, that there was no occasion on which the nation, assembled in the presence of the king, did not acknowledge him as its head; that the omission to treat the head of the state with the respect due to him would be an offence to the nation as well as to the monarch. He moved that the king should take the oath standing, and that the assembly should be in the same posture whilst he was doing so. M. Malouet's observations would have carried the decree, but a deputy from Brittany exclaimed, that he had an amendment to make, which would render all unanimous. 'Let us decree,' said he, 'that M. Malouet, and whoever else shall so please, may have leave to receive the king upon their knees, but let us stick to the decree.' "The king repaired to the chamber at mid-day. His speech was followed by plaudits which lasted several minutes. After the signing of the constitutional act, all sate down. The president rose to deliver his speech; but, after he had began, perceiving that the king did not rise to hear him, he sate down again. His speech made a powerful impression; the sentence with which it concluded excited fresh acclamations, cries of 'Bravo!' and 'Vive le Roi!' 'Sire,' said he, 'how important in our eyes, and how dear to our hearts; how sublime a feature in our history must be the epoch of that regeneration which gives citizens to France, a country to Frenchmen; to you, as a king, a new glory; and, as a man, a fresh source of enjoyment and of new feelings.' "At length, I hoped to see a return of that tranquillity, which had been so long chased from the countenances of my august master and mistress. But, no! The queen had attended the sitting in a private box. I remarked her total silence, and the deep grief which was depicted on her countenance on her return. The king came to her apartment the private way. His features were much changed. The queen uttered an exclamation of surprise at his appearance. I thought he was ill; but what was my affliction when I heard the unfortunate monarch say, as he threw himself into a chair, and put his handkerchief to his eyes-All is lost! Ah, madame, and you are witness to this humiliation! What! You are come into France to see -.' These words were interrupted by sobs. The queen threw herself upon her knees before him, and pressed him in her arms. I remained with them, not from any blameable curiosity, but from a stupefaction, which rendered me incapable of determining what I ought to do. The queen said to me, 'Oh, go, go!' with an accent which expressed, 'Do not remain to witness the dejection and despair of your sovereign.' "I withdrew, struck with the contrast between the shouts of joy without the palace and the profound grief which oppressed the sovereigns within. Half an hour afterwards, the queen sent for me. She desired to see M. Goguelat, to announce to him her departure on that very night for Vienna. The new attacks upon the dignity of the throne, which had been exhibited during the sitting; the spirit of the assembly, worse than the former; the monarch put |