The French Revolution

T >> Thomas Carlyle >> The French Revolution


In vain, O D'Espremenil! Here is this cast-iron Captain D'Agoust,
with his cast-iron military air, come back. Despotism, constraint,
destruction sit waving in his plumes. D'Espremenil must fall silent;
heroically give himself up, lest worst befall. Him Goeslard heroically
imitates. With spoken and speechless emotion, they fling themselves into
the arms of their Parlementary brethren, for a last embrace: and so
amid plaudits and plaints, from a hundred and sixty-five throats; amid
wavings, sobbings, a whole forest-sigh of Parlementary pathos,--they are
led through winding passages, to the rear-gate; where, in the gray of
the morning, two Coaches with Exempts stand waiting. There must the
victims mount; bayonets menacing behind. D'Espremenil's stern question
to the populace, 'Whether they have courage?' is answered by silence.
They mount, and roll; and neither the rising of the May sun (it is the
6th morning), nor its setting shall lighten their heart: but they fare
forward continually; D'Espremenil towards the utmost Isles of Sainte
Marguerite, or Hieres (supposed by some, if that is any comfort, to be
Calypso's Island); Goeslard towards the land-fortress of Pierre-en-Cize,
extant then, near the City of Lyons.

Captain D'Agoust may now therefore look forward to Majorship, to
Commandantship of the Tuilleries; (Montgaillard, i. 404.)--and withal
vanish from History; where nevertheless he has been fated to do a
notable thing. For not only are D'Espremenil and Goeslard safe whirling
southward, but the Parlement itself has straightway to march out: to
that also his inexorable order reaches. Gathering up their long skirts,
they file out, the whole Hundred and Sixty-five of them, through two
rows of unsympathetic grenadiers: a spectacle to gods and men. The
people revolt not; they only wonder and grumble: also, we remark, these
unsympathetic grenadiers are Gardes Francaises,--who, one day, will
sympathise! In a word, the Palais de Justice is swept clear, the doors
of it are locked; and D'Agoust returns to Versailles with the key in his
pocket,--having, as was said, merited preferment.

As for this Parlement of Paris, now turned out to the street, we
will without reluctance leave it there. The Beds of Justice it had to
undergo, in the coming fortnight, at Versailles, in registering, or
rather refusing to register, those new-hatched Edicts; and how it
assembled in taverns and tap-rooms there, for the purpose of Protesting,
(Weber, i. 299-303.) or hovered disconsolate, with outspread skirts,
not knowing where to assemble; and was reduced to lodge Protest 'with a
Notary;' and in the end, to sit still (in a state of forced 'vacation'),
and do nothing; all this, natural now, as the burying of the dead after
battle, shall not concern us. The Parlement of Paris has as good as
performed its part; doing and misdoing, so far, but hardly further,
could it stir the world.

Lomenie has removed the evil then? Not at all: not so much as the
symptom of the evil; scarcely the twelfth part of the symptom, and
exasperated the other eleven! The Intendants of Provinces, the Military
Commandants are at their posts, on the appointed 8th of May: but in no
Parlement, if not in the single one of Douai, can these new Edicts
get registered. Not peaceable signing with ink; but browbeating,
bloodshedding, appeal to primary club-law! Against these Bailliages,
against this Plenary Court, exasperated Themis everywhere shows face
of battle; the Provincial Noblesse are of her party, and whoever hates
Lomenie and the evil time; with her attorneys and Tipstaves, she enlists
and operates down even to the populace. At Rennes in Brittany, where the
historical Bertrand de Moleville is Intendant, it has passed from fatal
continual duelling, between the military and gentry, to street-fighting;
to stone-volleys and musket-shot: and still the Edicts remained
unregistered. The afflicted Bretons send remonstrance to Lomenie, by a
Deputation of Twelve; whom, however, Lomenie, having heard them, shuts
up in the Bastille. A second larger deputation he meets, by his scouts,
on the road, and persuades or frightens back. But now a third largest
Deputation is indignantly sent by many roads: refused audience on
arriving, it meets to take council; invites Lafayette and all Patriot
Bretons in Paris to assist; agitates itself; becomes the Breton Club,
first germ of--the Jacobins' Society. (A. F. de Bertrand-Moleville,
Memoires Particuliers (Paris, 1816), I. ch. i. Marmontel, Memoires, iv.
27.)

So many as eight Parlements get exiled: (Montgaillard, i. 308.) others
might need that remedy, but it is one not always easy of appliance. At
Grenoble, for instance, where a Mounier, a Barnave have not been idle,
the Parlement had due order (by Lettres-de-Cachet) to depart, and
exile itself: but on the morrow, instead of coaches getting yoked, the
alarm-bell bursts forth, ominous; and peals and booms all day: crowds
of mountaineers rush down, with axes, even with firelocks,--whom (most
ominous of all!) the soldiery shows no eagerness to deal with. 'Axe over
head,' the poor General has to sign capitulation; to engage that the
Lettres-de-Cachet shall remain unexecuted, and a beloved Parlement stay
where it is. Besancon, Dijon, Rouen, Bourdeaux, are not what they should
be! At Pau in Bearn, where the old Commandant had failed, the new one
(a Grammont, native to them) is met by a Procession of townsmen with the
Cradle of Henri Quatre, the Palladium of their Town; is conjured as he
venerates this old Tortoise-shell, in which the great Henri was rocked,
not to trample on Bearnese liberty; is informed, withal, that his
Majesty's cannon are all safe--in the keeping of his Majesty's faithful
Burghers of Pau, and do now lie pointed on the walls there; ready for
action! (Besenval, iii. 348.)

At this rate, your Grand Bailliages are like to have a stormy infancy.
As for the Plenary Court, it has literally expired in the birth. The
very Courtiers looked shy at it; old Marshal Broglie declined the honour
of sitting therein. Assaulted by a universal storm of mingled ridicule
and execration, (La Cour Pleniere, heroi-tragi-comedie en trois actes et
en prose; jouee le 14 Juillet 1788, par une societe d'amateurs dans un
Chateau aux environs de Versailles; par M. l'Abbe de Vermond, Lecteur de
la Reine: A Baville (Lamoignon's Country-house), et se trouve a Paris,
chez la Veuve Liberte, a l'enseigne de la Revolution, 1788.--La Passion,
la Mort et la Resurrection du Peuple: Imprime a Jerusalem, &c. &c.--See
Montgaillard, i. 407.) this poor Plenary Court met once, and never
any second time. Distracted country! Contention hisses up, with
forked hydra-tongues, wheresoever poor Lomenie sets his foot. 'Let a
Commandant, a Commissioner of the King,' says Weber, 'enter one of
these Parlements to have an Edict registered, the whole Tribunal will
disappear, and leave the Commandant alone with the Clerk and First
President. The Edict registered and the Commandant gone, the whole
Tribunal hastens back, to declare such registration null. The highways
are covered with Grand Deputations of Parlements, proceeding to
Versailles, to have their registers expunged by the King's hand; or
returning home, to cover a new page with a new resolution still more
audacious.' (Weber, i. 275.)

Such is the France of this year 1788. Not now a Golden or Paper Age of
Hope; with its horse-racings, balloon-flyings, and finer sensibilities
of the heart: ah, gone is that; its golden effulgence paled, bedarkened
in this singular manner,--brewing towards preternatural weather! For,
as in that wreck-storm of Paul et Virginie and Saint-Pierre,--'One huge
motionless cloud' (say, of Sorrow and Indignation) 'girdles our whole
horizon; streams up, hairy, copper-edged, over a sky of the colour of
lead.' Motionless itself; but 'small clouds' (as exiled Parlements and
suchlike), 'parting from it, fly over the zenith, with the velocity
of birds:'--till at last, with one loud howl, the whole Four Winds be
dashed together, and all the world exclaim, There is the tornado! Tout
le monde s'ecria, Voila l'ouragan!

For the rest, in such circumstances, the Successive Loan, very
naturally, remains unfilled; neither, indeed, can that impost of the
Second Twentieth, at least not on 'strict valuation,' be levied to good
purpose: 'Lenders,' says Weber, in his hysterical vehement manner, 'are
afraid of ruin; tax-gatherers of hanging.' The very Clergy turn
away their face: convoked in Extraordinary Assembly, they afford no
gratuitous gift (don gratuit),--if it be not that of advice; here too
instead of cash is clamour for States-General. (Lameth, Assemb. Const.
(Introd.) p. 87.)

O Lomenie-Brienne, with thy poor flimsy mind all bewildered, and now
'three actual cauteries' on thy worn-out body; who art like to die of
inflamation, provocation, milk-diet, dartres vives and maladie--(best
untranslated); (Montgaillard, i. 424.) and presidest over a France with
innumerable actual cauteries, which also is dying of inflammation and
the rest! Was it wise to quit the bosky verdures of Brienne, and thy new
ashlar Chateau there, and what it held, for this? Soft were those
shades and lawns; sweet the hymns of Poetasters, the blandishments of
high-rouged Graces: (See Memoires de Morellet.) and always this and
the other Philosophe Morellet (nothing deeming himself or thee a
questionable Sham-Priest) could be so happy in making happy:--and
also (hadst thou known it), in the Military School hard by there sat,
studying mathematics, a dusky-complexioned taciturn Boy, under the
name of: NAPOLEON BONAPARTE!--With fifty years of effort, and one final
dead-lift struggle, thou hast made an exchange! Thou hast got thy robe
of office,--as Hercules had his Nessus'-shirt.

On the 13th of July of this 1788, there fell, on the very edge of
harvest, the most frightful hailstorm; scattering into wild waste the
Fruits of the Year; which had otherwise suffered grievously by drought.
For sixty leagues round Paris especially, the ruin was almost total.
(Marmontel, iv. 30.) To so many other evils, then, there is to be added,
that of dearth, perhaps of famine.

Some days before this hailstorm, on the 5th of July; and still more
decisively some days after it, on the 8th of August,--Lomenie announces
that the States-General are actually to meet in the following month of
May. Till after which period, this of the Plenary Court, and the rest,
shall remain postponed. Further, as in Lomenie there is no plan of
forming or holding these most desirable States-General, 'thinkers are
invited' to furnish him with one,--through the medium of discussion by
the public press!

What could a poor Minister do? There are still ten months of respite
reserved: a sinking pilot will fling out all things, his very
biscuit-bags, lead, log, compass and quadrant, before flinging out
himself. It is on this principle, of sinking, and the incipient delirium
of despair, that we explain likewise the almost miraculous 'invitation
to thinkers.' Invitation to Chaos to be so kind as build, out of its
tumultuous drift-wood, an Ark of Escape for him! In these cases, not
invitation but command has usually proved serviceable.--The Queen stood,
that evening, pensive, in a window, with her face turned towards the
Garden. The Chef de Gobelet had followed her with an obsequious cup of
coffee; and then retired till it were sipped. Her Majesty beckoned Dame
Campan to approach: "Grand Dieu!" murmured she, with the cup in her
hand, "what a piece of news will be made public to-day! The King grants
States-General." Then raising her eyes to Heaven (if Campan were not
mistaken), she added: "'Tis a first beat of the drum, of ill-omen for
France. This Noblesse will ruin us." (Campan, iii. 104, 111.)

During all that hatching of the Plenary Court, while Lamoignon looked so
mysterious, Besenval had kept asking him one question: Whether they had
cash? To which as Lamoignon always answered (on the faith of Lomenie)
that the cash was safe, judicious Besenval rejoined that then all was
safe. Nevertheless, the melancholy fact is, that the royal coffers are
almost getting literally void of coin. Indeed, apart from all other
things this 'invitation to thinkers,' and the great change now at hand
are enough to 'arrest the circulation of capital,' and forward only that
of pamphlets. A few thousand gold louis are now all of money or money's
worth that remains in the King's Treasury. With another movement as
of desperation, Lomenie invites Necker to come and be Controller of
Finances! Necker has other work in view than controlling Finances for
Lomenie: with a dry refusal he stands taciturn; awaiting his time.

What shall a desperate Prime Minister do? He has grasped at the
strongbox of the King's Theatre: some Lottery had been set on foot for
those sufferers by the hailstorm; in his extreme necessity, Lomenie
lays hands even on this. (Besenval, iii. 360.) To make provision for
the passing day, on any terms, will soon be impossible.--On the 16th
of August, poor Weber heard, at Paris and Versailles, hawkers, 'with
a hoarse stifled tone of voice (voix etouffee, sourde)' drawling and
snuffling, through the streets, an Edict concerning Payments (such was
the soft title Rivarol had contrived for it): all payments at the
Royal Treasury shall be made henceforth, three-fifths in Cash, and
the remaining two-fifths--in Paper bearing interest! Poor Weber almost
swooned at the sound of these cracked voices, with their bodeful
raven-note; and will never forget the effect it had on him. (Weber, i.
339.)

But the effect on Paris, on the world generally? From the dens of
Stock-brokerage, from the heights of Political Economy, of Neckerism
and Philosophism; from all articulate and inarticulate throats, rise
hootings and howlings, such as ear had not yet heard. Sedition itself
may be imminent! Monseigneur d'Artois, moved by Duchess Polignac, feels
called to wait upon her Majesty; and explain frankly what crisis matters
stand in. 'The Queen wept;' Brienne himself wept;--for it is now visible
and palpable that he must go.

Remains only that the Court, to whom his manners and garrulities were
always agreeable, shall make his fall soft. The grasping old man has
already got his Archbishopship of Toulouse exchanged for the richer one
of Sens: and now, in this hour of pity, he shall have the Coadjutorship
for his nephew (hardly yet of due age); a Dameship of the Palace for his
niece; a Regiment for her husband; for himself a red Cardinal's-hat, a
Coupe de Bois (cutting from the royal forests), and on the whole 'from
five to six hundred thousand livres of revenue:' (Weber, i. 341.)
finally, his Brother, the Comte de Brienne, shall still continue
War-minister. Buckled-round with such bolsters and huge featherbeds of
Promotion, let him now fall as soft as he can!

And so Lomenie departs: rich if Court-titles and Money-bonds can enrich
him; but if these cannot, perhaps the poorest of all extant men. 'Hissed
at by the people of Versailles,' he drives forth to Jardi; southward
to Brienne,--for recovery of health. Then to Nice, to Italy; but shall
return; shall glide to and fro, tremulous, faint-twinkling, fallen on
awful times: till the Guillotine--snuff out his weak existence? Alas,
worse: for it is blown out, or choked out, foully, pitiably, on the way
to the Guillotine! In his Palace of Sens, rude Jacobin Bailiffs made him
drink with them from his own wine-cellars, feast with them from his own
larder; and on the morrow morning, the miserable old man lies dead. This
is the end of Prime Minister, Cardinal Archbishop Lomenie de Brienne.
Flimsier mortal was seldom fated to do as weighty a mischief; to have
a life as despicable-envied, an exit as frightful. Fired, as the phrase
is, with ambition: blown, like a kindled rag, the sport of winds,
not this way, not that way, but of all ways, straight towards such a
powder-mine,--which he kindled! Let us pity the hapless Lomenie; and
forgive him; and, as soon as possible, forget him.



Chapter 1.3.IX.

Burial with Bonfire.

Besenval, during these extraordinary operations, of Payment two-fifths
in Paper, and change of Prime Minister, had been out on a tour through
his District of Command; and indeed, for the last months, peacefully
drinking the waters of Contrexeville. Returning now, in the end of
August, towards Moulins, and 'knowing nothing,' he arrives one evening
at Langres; finds the whole Town in a state of uproar (grande rumeur).
Doubtless some sedition; a thing too common in these days! He alights
nevertheless; inquires of a 'man tolerably dressed,' what the matter
is?--"How?" answers the man, "you have not heard the news? The
Archbishop is thrown out, and M. Necker is recalled; and all is going to
go well!" (Besenval, iii. 366.)

Such rumeur and vociferous acclaim has risen round M. Necker, ever
from 'that day when he issued from the Queen's Apartments,' a nominated
Minister. It was on the 24th of August: 'the galleries of the Chateau,
the courts, the streets of Versailles; in few hours, the Capital; and,
as the news flew, all France, resounded with the cry of Vive le Roi!
Vive M. Necker! (Weber, i. 342.) In Paris indeed it unfortunately
got the length of turbulence.' Petards, rockets go off, in the Place
Dauphine, more than enough. A 'wicker Figure (Mannequin d'osier),'
in Archbishop's stole, made emblematically, three-fifths of it satin,
two-fifths of it paper, is promenaded, not in silence, to the popular
judgment-bar; is doomed; shriven by a mock Abbe de Vermond; then
solemnly consumed by fire, at the foot of Henri's Statue on the Pont
Neuf;--with such petarding and huzzaing that Chevalier Dubois and his
City-watch see good finally to make a charge (more or less ineffectual);
and there wanted not burning of sentry-boxes, forcing of guard-houses,
and also 'dead bodies thrown into the Seine over-night,' to avoid new
effervescence. (Histoire Parlementaire de la Revolution Francaise; ou
Journal des Assemblees Nationales depuis 1789 (Paris, 1833 et seqq.), i.
253. Lameth, Assemblee Constituante, i. (Introd.) p. 89.)

Parlements therefore shall return from exile: Plenary Court, Payment
two-fifths in Paper have vanished; gone off in smoke, at the foot of
Henri's Statue. States-General (with a Political Millennium) are now
certain; nay, it shall be announced, in our fond haste, for January
next: and all, as the Langres man said, is 'going to go.'

To the prophetic glance of Besenval, one other thing is too apparent:
that Friend Lamoignon cannot keep his Keepership. Neither he nor
War-minister Comte de Brienne! Already old Foulon, with an eye to be
war-minister himself, is making underground movements. This is that same
Foulon named ame damnee du Parlement; a man grown gray in treachery,
in griping, projecting, intriguing and iniquity: who once when it
was objected, to some finance-scheme of his, "What will the people
do?"--made answer, in the fire of discussion, "The people may eat
grass:" hasty words, which fly abroad irrevocable,--and will send back
tidings!

Foulon, to the relief of the world, fails on this occasion; and will
always fail. Nevertheless it steads not M. de Lamoignon. It steads not
the doomed man that he have interviews with the King; and be 'seen to
return radieux,' emitting rays. Lamoignon is the hated of Parlements:
Comte de Brienne is Brother to the Cardinal Archbishop. The 24th of
August has been; and the 14th September is not yet, when they two, as
their great Principal had done, descend,--made to fall soft, like him.

And now, as if the last burden had been rolled from its heart, and
assurance were at length perfect, Paris bursts forth anew into extreme
jubilee. The Basoche rejoices aloud, that the foe of Parlements is
fallen; Nobility, Gentry, Commonalty have rejoiced; and rejoice. Nay
now, with new emphasis, Rascality itself, starting suddenly from its dim
depths, will arise and do it,--for down even thither the new Political
Evangel, in some rude version or other, has penetrated. It is Monday,
the 14th of September 1788: Rascality assembles anew, in great force,
in the Place Dauphine; lets off petards, fires blunderbusses, to an
incredible extent, without interval, for eighteen hours. There is again
a wicker Figure, 'Mannequin of osier:' the centre of endless howlings.
Also Necker's Portrait snatched, or purchased, from some Printshop, is
borne processionally, aloft on a perch, with huzzas;--an example to be
remembered.

But chiefly on the Pont Neuf, where the Great Henri, in bronze, rides
sublime; there do the crowds gather. All passengers must stop, till they
have bowed to the People's King, and said audibly: Vive Henri Quatre;
au diable Lamoignon! No carriage but must stop; not even that of his
Highness d'Orleans. Your coach-doors are opened: Monsieur will please
to put forth his head and bow; or even, if refractory, to alight
altogether, and kneel: from Madame a wave of her plumes, a smile of her
fair face, there where she sits, shall suffice;--and surely a coin
or two (to buy fusees) were not unreasonable from the Upper Classes,
friends of Liberty? In this manner it proceeds for days; in such rude
horse-play,--not without kicks. The City-watch can do nothing; hardly
save its own skin: for the last twelve-month, as we have sometimes seen,
it has been a kind of pastime to hunt the Watch. Besenval indeed is at
hand with soldiers; but they have orders to avoid firing, and are not
prompt to stir.

On Monday morning the explosion of petards began: and now it is
near midnight of Wednesday; and the 'wicker Mannequin' is to be
buried,--apparently in the Antique fashion. Long rows of torches,
following it, move towards the Hotel Lamoignon; but 'a servant of mine'
(Besenval's) has run to give warning, and there are soldiers come.
Gloomy Lamoignon is not to die by conflagration, or this night; not yet
for a year, and then by gunshot (suicidal or accidental is unknown).
(Histoire de la Revolution, par Deux Amis de la Liberte, i. 50.) Foiled
Rascality burns its 'Mannikin of osier,' under his windows; 'tears up
the sentry-box,' and rolls off: to try Brienne; to try Dubois Captain
of the Watch. Now, however, all is bestirring itself; Gardes Francaises,
Invalides, Horse-patrol: the Torch Procession is met with sharp shot,
with the thrusting of bayonets, the slashing of sabres. Even Dubois
makes a charge, with that Cavalry of his, and the cruelest charge of
all: 'there are a great many killed and wounded.' Not without clangour,
complaint; subsequent criminal trials, and official persons dying of
heartbreak! (Histoire de la Revolution, par Deux Amis de la Liberte, i.
58.) So, however, with steel-besom, Rascality is brushed back into its
dim depths, and the streets are swept clear.

Not for a century and half had Rascality ventured to step forth in this
fashion; not for so long, showed its huge rude lineaments in the light
of day. A Wonder and new Thing: as yet gamboling merely, in awkward
Brobdingnag sport, not without quaintness; hardly in anger: yet in its
huge half-vacant laugh lurks a shade of grimness,--which could unfold
itself!

However, the thinkers invited by Lomenie are now far on with their
pamphlets: States-General, on one plan or another, will infallibly meet;
if not in January, as was once hoped, yet at latest in May. Old Duke
de Richelieu, moribund in these autumn days, opens his eyes once more,
murmuring, "What would Louis Fourteenth" (whom he remembers) "have
said!"--then closes them again, forever, before the evil time.




BOOK 1.IV.

STATES-GENERAL


Chapter 1.4.I.

The Notables Again.

The universal prayer, therefore, is to be fulfilled! Always in days of
national perplexity, when wrong abounded and help was not, this remedy
of States-General was called for; by a Malesherbes, nay by a Fenelon;
(Montgaillard, i. 461.) even Parlements calling for it were 'escorted
with blessings.' And now behold it is vouchsafed us; States-General
shall verily be!

To say, let States-General be, was easy; to say in what manner they
shall be, is not so easy. Since the year of 1614, there have no
States-General met in France, all trace of them has vanished from the
living habits of men. Their structure, powers, methods of procedure,
which were never in any measure fixed, have now become wholly a vague
possibility. Clay which the potter may shape, this way or that:--say
rather, the twenty-five millions of potters; for so many have now,
more or less, a vote in it! How to shape the States-General? There is a
problem. Each Body-corporate, each privileged, each organised Class has
secret hopes of its own in that matter; and also secret misgivings of
its own,--for, behold, this monstrous twenty-million Class, hitherto the
dumb sheep which these others had to agree about the manner of shearing,
is now also arising with hopes! It has ceased or is ceasing to be dumb;
it speaks through Pamphlets, or at least brays and growls behind them,
in unison,--increasing wonderfully their volume of sound.