document very grand and sublime, would not abandon the aristocracy. It was decided that there should be no second word rights. Malouet and others pointed out the inevitable mischief of proclaiming to the uneducated people the dogma of utter freedom and equality, but in vain; the declaration was passed, and the people soon showed in what sense they understood it, and, carrying it to the extreme application, proceeded to destroy all ranks, properties, and principles, on the authority of the assembly; and would, in time, have chamber. Then came the question, whether the king should have a veto on decrees sent up to him from the assembly, or only the function of promulgating them, as the executive power. It was soon seen that not a shred of power would be left to the crown; that all would be absorbed into the assembly, and used not independently by them, but at the dictation of the sovereign people. The people were declared to be all reduced France to a desert, scattered with dead men's bones, had not a military dictator stepped in and stopped their imagined right to do just whatever they pleased. From the rights of man the assembly passed to the constitution, and entered on the important question, whether there should be two legislative chambers or only one. Mounier, Lally-Tollendal, Rochefoucauld, Liancourt, and a few others, including Necker, were for a second chamber, like the English house of peers. But the absurdity of an upper house, after the declaration of the perfect equality of all men, was too preposterous. Barnave, Duport, and the Lamethes, were opposed to more than one chamber, and Mirabeau was of the same opinion, from his hatred of the | free and equal, and why should they be hampered by the resolutions of even their own deputies? They were resolved to rule not merely through the assembly, but over the assembly. The very proposal to give the king a veto, roused all France. The Palais Royal was in a fiery ferment. There, Camille Desmoulins, and the old marquis St. Huruque, who had been imprisoned for family quarrels, were indignant at the very idea of a veto. They declared that the national guard was becoming an aristocracy; La Fayette, a Cromwell. It was necessary, then, to go to Versailles, and call both the king and the assembly to account. On Sunday, the 30th of August, they met, and accused Mounier, menaced Mirabeau, and set out in march to Versailles. La Fayette pursued them with the national 66 On the 31st, Mounier, in the assembly, denounced a deputation which had reached him from the Palais Royal, menacing him for supporting the veto, and stating that twenty thousand men were about to march, to compel the enemies of the people to silence on the veto. Mirabeau also read letters, of a most menacing nature, addressed to him. The assembly ordered the arrest of St. Huruque, who had written some of these letters, and the question of the veto was continued. Mirabeau had long before declared that, without the king had a veto on the acts of the assembly, he would rather live in Constantinople than in Paris, and he now maintained the same doctrine; but on the proposal being made that the royal veto should not be absolute, but merely suspensive, Mirabeau conceded to this compromise; and the suspensive veto, to be limited to two sessions, was passed by six hundred and seventy-three votes against three hundred and fifty-five for the absolute veto. The king and the ministers were not particularly averse to the suspensive veto, for they trusted that if a measure were suspended two years, it would not often be revived. The next questions were the hereditary transmission of the crown and the inviolability of the royal person. These were passed without division; but, on the inviolability of the heir presumptive being proposed, it was rejected, as giving to a disloyal heir immunity in any attempt against the reigning prince. Mirabeau, to ascertain what was the strength of the party of the duke of Orleans in the assembly, proposed that there should be a clause providing that none but a Frenchman should succeed to the throne, nor even be appointed on a regency, as that might open the way to the relatives of the royal family, Spanish or Austrian, and expose the country to foreign domination. There were loud outcries at these words, and Mirabeau noticed carefully the opposers of his motion, for he was certain that they preferred, in case of a regency, an Austrian or Spanish prince to the duke of Orleans. He did not press his motion, for he had attained his object; but he had won by it the firm persuasion in the mind of the public that he was a partisan of the duke, which, in fact, he was not. Mirabeau was familiar with Orleans, as he was with men of all parties, because he was thus enabled to penetrate often into their opinions and designs; but he was properly of no party. The duke was rich, and Mirabeau extremely poor and extravagant; consequently, it was readily believed that he was paid by Orleans; but, on the contrary, Mirabeau continued as poor as ever till his connection with the court. rose. stalking through the country, and bankruptcy was menacing the exchequer. The first loan of thirty millions had proved a total failure; a second of eighty, according to a fresh plan of Necker's, was equally a blank. "Go on discussing,” said M. Degouy D'Arcy, one day, "throw in delays, and at the expiration of those delays, we shall no longer live! I have just heard fearful truths." "Order! order!" exclaimed some. "No! no! Speak!" rejoined others. A deputy "Proceed," he said to M. Degouy, "spread around alarm. What will be the consequence? We shall give part of our fortune, and all will be over." M. Degouy continued: "The loans which you have voted have produced nothing; there are not ten millions in the exchequer!" There arose a wild hubbub. The speaker was surrounded, and reduced to silence. Necker appeared. He confirmed the statements of M. Degouy. He reproached the assembly with doing nothing for the finances for five months. Necker represented that people, alarmed by the state of the country, had concealed vast sums of money; foreigners, for the same reason, had held back from the loan; travellers had ceased to venture into it; and emigrants had carried their cash away with them. The circulating medium had been so much reduced by these means that there was not enough for daily use. The king and queen had been obliged to send their plate to the mint; the treasury was empty, and the members began to wonder where their daily pay was to come from. Necker declared that loans were unattainable, and that it was a stern necessity that one-fourth of the income of every individual, except the poor, should be at once voted and contributed to ward off national bankruptcy. A committee was appointed to examine this plan, and, in three days, reported its full approval. Meantime, the distresses of the country, as detailed by the minister, had produced a fit of patriotism. French sentiment was touched, and a deputy proposed that every one should offer something at once to his country. The deputies then laid down the money in their pockets; those who had not any took off their buckles from their shoes. All was to be entered in a register, and, vanity aiding sentiment, people flocked in with silver spoons and forks, gold rings, and other ornaments, so that the assembly looked rather like a jeweller's or pawnbroker's shop than a manufactory of laws. The women of the town, from Paris and Versailles, brought in a large proportion of their peculiar earnings, which were accepted without scruple, for, indeed, the very rich and honourable, after all, were not very liberal. One landowner gave a whole forest. Necker gave one hundred thousand livres; but still the fund was but moderate, and the fit was speedily over. Then Mirabeau called on the assembly to pass the demand of Necker without delay or examination. As Necker had been recalled as the only man who could save the country, Mirabeau now ironically insisted that the assembly should agree literally to his plan, and, if it succeeded, should let him have the glory of it. Mirabeau knew that it could not succeed, and that Necker, for whom he had a great contempt, would only expose his incompetence by being permitted to follow his own schemes. There were those who penetrated his object, and M. de Virieu exclaimed, "You murder the minister's plan; you crush him under the In the midst of this constitution-making, famine was whole weight of responsibility!" Mirabeau admitted that A.D. 1789.] THE COUNTRY ON THE VERGE OF BANKRUPTCY. he had rather that Necker should show himself a driveller than the assembly should proclaim a national bankruptcy by hesitating to vote the necessary supplies. He then painted the horrors of a national bankruptcy; he represented it as a ruinous tax, which did not reach all, but fell only on some, and crushed them to death; as a gulf into which living victims might be thrown, but which could neither be filled thus, nor made to close again; "for," he observed, "we owe none the less, even after we have refused to pay." Then, raising his voice to a terrible pitch, "The other day, when a ridiculous motion was made at the Palais Royal, some one exclaimed, 'Catiline is at the gates of Rome! and you deliberate!' but, assuredly, there was neither Catiline, nor danger, nor Rome; but, to-day, hideous bankruptcy is here, threatening to consume you, your honour, your fortunesand you hesitate!" The assembly, electrified at the picture which he drew, rose with shouts, and voted the tax. But of what avail? The so-called rich, on whom the burden would chiefly fall, were no longer rich. Their houses had been burned, their estates ravaged; they could truly state their incomes as almost nil; those who had plundered them were not ready to tax their booty to this extent; and this grand scheme failed, as Mirabeau and every thinking man knew from the first that it must. To proclaim that the country was on the verge of bankruptcy was the certain way to induce every man to conceal his money with double diligence. With the necessities of the government, the necessities of the people kept pace. The whole country was revolutionising instead of working; destroying estates instead of cultivating them. Farmers were afraid of sowing what they might never reap; trade and manufactures were at an end, for there was little money and no confidence. The country was not become unfruitful, but its people had gone mad, and the inevitable consequence was an ever-increasing famine. This, instead of being attributed to the true causes, was ascribed by the mob-orators to all kinds of devilish practices of the court and the aristocracy. Danton, Marat, Desmoulins, in journals and speeches, propagated the most absurd stories. One orator exclaimed, "Three days ago the king got that veto suspensif, and already the aristocrats have brought up all the suspensions, and sent all the corn out of the kingdom." The ignorant audience declared, "Ah!! that is it! nothing but that!" Others said the queen was sending all the corn to the Austrian army, to encourage them to invade France; others that the government agents had thrown vast quantities into the Seine. Necker, in his despair, applied to Pitt to send over twenty thousand sacks of English flour. Pitt quietly declined to send it, on the plea of need of it at home, of the prospect of a deficient harvest, &c.; this refusal at such a moment excited a deep feeling of resentment amongst the French. Yet it was nothing more than the French government might have expected after its conduct towards England in her struggle with her American colonies. Nevertheless, at the same time, Necker refused the offer from marshal Bouillé of the corn laid up for his troops at Metz. The authorities at the Hôtel de Ville appointed purveyors to hunt out corn, and compel the owners to sell it at a fixed 405 price. This only made dealers the more careful not to bring their supplies into the city. The state of the people became desperate. The national guards were all under arms to prevent their gutting the bakers' and flour dealers' shops and warehouses. But they could not prevent them seizing and hanging the mayor at St. Denis. Bailly employed seventeen thousand men in digging trenches on Montmartre, and exerted himself wonderfully to procure flour for them; but it was reported that Bouillé, who had already corn enough for his army, and who, spite of Necker's refusal, was delivering part of it for popular consumption, was seizing and laying up all he could find; and, finally, that the king, and queen, and royal family were about to fly to Metz to join Bouillé, and there, joined by the Austrians, to raise the standard of civil war. And in this last piece of intelligence they were correct. This was actually in preparation, and, had the king been half as energetic as the queen, would have been already accomplished. D'Estaing, the admiral so much employed in the West Indies, and on the coast of America during the war there, was now commander of the national guard at Versailles. D'Estaing learnt the secret from La Fayette, and wrote to the queen, detailing the whole communication. He implored an interview to counsel her majesty on the importance of the subject; but the queen passed lightly over the matter. But the court was soon alarmed by the report that the old French guards intended to march from Paris to Versailles, and, after removing the body-guard and the Versailles national guard, to do the duty at the palace themselves, in order to prevent the royal family escaping to Metz. These French guards had deserted the king's service, and had become incorporated with the national guard of Paris, under the name of Centre Grenadiers. La Fayette, on the 17th of September, wrote to St. Priest, one of the ministers, to assure him that there was no truth in this report, and therefore no danger; but he placed a detachment of soldiers at the bridge of Sevres to prevent any such march, and managed to stop the French guards. D'Estaing, however, to whom La Fayette's letter was communicated by St. Priest, did not feel satisfied, and proposed to bring the regiment of Flanders to Versailles, and the assembly being applied to for its sanction, declared it was no business of theirs; and thus, neither encouraging nor discouraging the measure, it was sent for. It arrived on the 23rd of September; and, at the sight of the long train of tumbrils and wagons that followed, great alarm seized both the people of Versailles and the assembly. Mirabeau, who, by a word, could have prevented the coming of the regiment, now denounced it as dangerous. News flew to Paris that a counter-revolution was preparing, and that the foreigners would be marched on the city. All this terror of one single regiment showed a disposition to feign alarm, rather than the real existence of it; but the court committed the great folly of administering fresh reasons for jealousy. The officers of the life-guards showed a most lively desire to fraternise with those of the Flanders regiment, and the courtiers were equally attentive to them. The officers of the Flanders regiment were not only presented at the king's levee, but invited to the queen's drawing-room, and treated in the most flattering manner. The gardes du corps gave a grand dinner to welcome them; and, what was extraordi-Antoine to the Place de Grève, where they found a detachnary, they were allowed to give it in the theatre of the ment of the national guards posted before the Hôtel de palace. This took place on the 2nd of October. The boxes Ville. The guard presented bayonets, and bade them keep were filled by people belonging to the court. The officers of off; but, crying that they would see Father Bailly, they the national guard were amongst the guests. After the wine rushed on, throwing volleys of stones; and the guard, not had circulated some time amongst the three hundred guests, prepared to kill women, opened, and left a passage to the the soldiers, both of the Flanders regiment and of the other hotel. This virago army burst into the hotel; but, finding corps, the company, with drawn swords, and heated by none of the authorities sitting, they ranged over the whole champagne, drank the health of the royal family; the toast house, and, finding some clerks just jumping out of bed in of the nation was rejected or omitted. The grenadiers in their fright, they called for bread, seized the books and the pit demanded to be allowed to drink the royal healths, papers on the bureau, swearing that they would burn them and goblets of wine were handed to them, and they drank all, for the commune were only fit to be hanged, and Bailly the health of the king, the queen, the dauphin, and the rest and La Fayette before all the rest. That their words were of the royal family amid mutual shaking of hands and loud not mere bravados they showed by seizing the abbé Lefevre, shouts of " Vive le Roi! Vive la Reine!" The band of the who had distributed the powder so boldly on the night of Flanders regiment struck up the very expressive and the attack on the Bastille, and hanging him to a beam; but, celebrated song of Blondel when seeking his captive king, leaving him there, he was fortunately cut down before he Cœur de Lionwas dead. O Richard! ô mon roi! L'univers t'abandonne "O, Richard! O, my king! all the world abandons thee!" The whole company caught the royal infection. They vowed to die for the king, as if he were in imminent danger. Cockades, white or black, but all of one colour, were distributed; and it is said the tricolour was trodden under foot. In a word, the whole company was gone mad with champagne and French sentiment, and hugged and kissed each other in a wild frenzy. At this moment a door opened, and the king and queen, leading the dauphin by the hand, entered, and at the sight the tumult became boundless. The cries of "Vive le Roi! Vive la Reine! were redoubled; "O Richard! ô mon Roi!" and "Peut-on affliger ce qu'on aime?"—"Can we afflict what we love ?"-were played, amid tears and sobs from every side. Numbers flung themselves at the feet of the royal pair, and escorted them back to their apartments. The following morning the life-guards gave a breakfast to the officers of the Flanders regiment, and similar mad scenes took place. They were afterwards admitted to the presence of the queen, who said she had been delighted with the dinner of Thursday. All this was little less than madness on the part of the royal family. They knew that the army at large was disaffected to royalty, and of what avail was the drunken follies of two regiments? If they really sought to escape to Metz, it could only have been done by the utmost quiet and caution. The Flanders regiment could have guarded them thither. But now the certain consequence must be to rouse all the fury of Paris, and bring it down upon them. This was the instant result. Paris, in alarm, cried, "To Versailles !" On the night of the 4th of October the streets were thronged with excited people; the national guards were under arms everywhere, and maintained some degree of order. On the morning of the 5th the women took up the matter. They found no bread at the bakers', and they collected in crowds, and determined to march to the Hôtel de Ville, and demand it of the mayor. They seized on any weapons that came to hand-broomsticks, old muskets, bludgeons, or cutlasses. A girl seized a drum and beat it before them. Thus drumming and shouting, they collected an ever-increasing number on the way from the Faubourg St. The women had refused to allow the men to join them, declaring that they were not fit for the work they were going to do; but numbers had followed them, better armed than themselves, and they now assisted them to break open doors, where they obtained seven or eight hundred muskets, three bags of money, and two small cannon. As they were proceeding to made a bonfire of the papers, which would probably have burnt the whole place down, the commander of the national guard gave up the matter in despair; but one Stanilas Maillard, a riding-messenger of the municipality, with more address, called out to them to desist; that there was a much better thing to do-to march at once to Versailles, and compel the court to furnish bread, and that he would be their leader. He seized a drum and beat it; the women cried lustily, "To Versailles!" Some ran to the tower of the hotel and sounded the tocsin. The bells soon began to ring out from every steeple in Paris; the whole population was afloat; and men and women, armed with all sorts of weapons, followed their new leader, who had been one of the heroes of the Bastille, and he marched them to the Champs Elysées. There he arranged his motley and everincreasing army: the women in a compact body in the middle, the men in front and rear. Horses, wagons, carriages of all kinds, were seized on wherever they were seen ; some of these were harnessed to the cannon, and then Maillard, drumming at their head, put his army in motion, and on they went towards Versailles, stopping every carriage that they met, and compelling even ladies to turn again and accompany them. Meantime, La Fayette and Bailly, summoned by this strange news, had hurried to the Hôtel de Ville, where they found the national guards and the French guards drawn up, and demanding to be led to Versailles. The French guards declared that the nation had been insulted by the Flanders regiment—the national cockade trampled on; and that they would go and bring the king to Paris, and then all would be well. Bailly and La Fayette attempted to reason with them: but they, and thousands upon thousands of armed rabble again collected there, only cried, "Bread! bread! lead us to Versailles!" There was nothing for it but to comply; and, at length, La Fayette declared that he would conduct ther there. He mounted his white horse, and this second army, |