because the refusal to vote by the moderates left everything down one tolerable king, and setting up a million of intolerin their hands. able masters in a republic. He declared that, in his opinion, the best social regimen was that in which not one-not some

greatest latitude of possible liberty; at the same time, he demanded to have the state and cumbrousness taken away from monarchy, and that it should be deprived of the power of corrupting and conspiring. Paine assailed him in Brissot's journal, and Sièyes replied through the Monitor; but Condorcet, who had been formerly a contributor to the Encyclopédie, now, in conjunction with Clavière, Buzot, and others, established a periodical, with the plain title of the Republican, to disseminate their ideas, and the afterwards celebrated Madame Roland was a zealous writer in it. But Brissot, both in the jacobin club and in his journal, made the most uncompromising onslaught on royalty, for Marat, at this juncture, was ill at Vincennes. Brissot ridiculed monarchy by stating that the ancient Egyptians, to render it as innocuous as possible, put a stone block upon the throne, and that the Sheiks put on theirs a Koran and a sword. "If," said Brissot, "this stone king and this Koran are incapable of punishment, they are also incapable of offence. They cannot conspire against the nation. Our declaration of the Rights of Man demands that all citizens shall be equal before the law. Now this equality ceases the moment that one man is placed above the law, and every article of that declaration of rights will begin to lose its force the very moment people have the audacity to trample one of them under foot." He declared that he could see in a sovereign nothing but a god, and in the pretended citizens brutes or serfs. As to external dangers, he could see none; the Americans, he said, though a handful of people, had liberated themselves, beating off above thirty thousand English. Of the French, Spaniards, and Dutch engaged in the same contest against Great Britain, he took no note. As for the continental kings, they had only to lead their oppressed and degraded subjects against France, and her glorious principles would cause them all to revolt against their despots, and to carry back liberty to their different countries, as France had brought it from America.

At the same time, publications openly advocating the deposition of the king and the establishment of a republic | men alone - but in which all men tranquilly enjoyed the appeared. Antoine Léon Saint-Just, a young man destined to a sanguinary renown, put forth an essay on this subject; and a still more remarkable document, in the form of a proclamation to the French nation, subscribed by Achille Duchatelet, who had served in America under La Fayette. This was a call to the French to seize the opportunity of the king having abandoned his post to set him aside and erect a republic. This was placarded all over Paris. The members of the assembly favourable to royalty were incensed. Malouet and Cazales demanded that Duchatelet should be prosecuted; but the assembly passed to the order of the day, leaving the public to think as it pleased on the subject. The document was not the composition of Duchatelet but of Thomas Paine, who was now extremely active at the clubs, endeavouring to introduce a republic here, as he imagined he had done in America. Paine spoke repeatedly on this head in the jacobin club. He declared that the French had, in reality, made a republic, but had not had the courage to cut away from it the absurd anomaly of a king. Paine, on account f his "Rights of Man," and his share in the American revolution, had a great reputation with the republicans of Paris, and his ideas flew abroad with great effect. He tried to bring La Fayette, Sièyes, and others of the leading revolutionists to his views; but both Sièyes and La Fayette replied that it was not yet time. He made, however, a decided convert of Condorcet, at whose house he was a frequent guest. The marquis de Condorcet was a distinguished mathematician. He was of one of the oldest families of Dauphiny, but was born at Ribemont, in Picardy, in 1743, and consequently was now forty-eight. When only twenty-two years of age, he had distinguished himself by a work on "Integral Calculations;" and during the next four years by his "Problem of the Three Bodies," and his "Analytical Essays." In 1769 he was elected member of the academy, and in 1773 its secretary. Having now adopted these republican ideas, he became as noted for the fervour of his political opinions as he already was for science. His house became the centre of union for men of like opinions. The question of a republic was continually discussed by Condorcet, Petion, Clavière, Buzot, and others, who met in private committees. They declared that the king had lost for ever the public confidence; that the nation could never forget his flight after his repeated assurances of voluntary approval of the revolution; and the king himself could never forget that he had been brought back by force, and was a prisoner in the hands of the assembly. That the elements of the monarchy were destroyed in this one man, and that there could be no restoration of it. Condorcet argued, that to allow the transition from monarchy to a republic to be made by the people rising against the court, would be a bloody and terrible affair; but that the assembly, having now all power in their hands, had only to decree the republic, and it would be done and accepted in peace. Sièyes, on the other hand, though no man had done more to curb the power of the crown, was for prserving the crown. He had a lively apprehension of the danger of putting

With respect to England, Pitt saw too well that a war with France would complete the ruin of that country, already impending from its enormous debt, and from the impossibility of six thousand English retaining twenty millions of Indians in slavery. Holland and Prussia, he contended, were equally incapable of carrying on a war; and as for the emperor Leopold, he had enough on his hands to keep the fermenting and discordant provinces of his empire together. The Hungarians and Italians he represented to be in a state ripe for insurrection; and Poland was on the eve of a revolution. In short, there was no danger, neither from individual states nor from Europe combined.

On the 16th of July the committees of constitution and research made their report on the king's flight to Varennes. They declared that, if there was any crime committed, it was not against the constitution, for the king had not passed beyond the frontiers, or employed foreign troops. If there was any personal offence, the person of the king was inviolable, and, therefore, it could not be punished. A terrible outcry arose against the doctrine of inviolability. M. Vadier

A.D. 1791.]

on;

PETITION FOR THE ABOLITION OF ROYALTY.

563

declared that with their inviolability they would make Neros of which and its chiefs we shall soon speak more particularly, and Caligulas; and he repeatedly called the king a crowned were amongst the most eager spectators and most prompt brigand, much to the delight of the galleries. Robespierre signers of the petition on this eventful day. At an early declared the king to be as much subject to the laws as any hour of the morning, and before the arrival of any petition, other man; that, if he committed a violent offence against a number of people had ascended the platform on which the any citizen, that citizen could avenge it, in spite of this fabled altar stood, and were walking about. Suddenly some one inviolability. "The king, you say, is inviolable," he went felt himself pricked under the sole of his foot. There was "I say the people too are inviolable. The king is only an outcry, an astonishment, a search, and behold, a gimletinviolable by fiction; the people are inviolable by the sacred hole in the boards! An alarm of some plot to blow up the right of nature!" and he demanded that the question should whole of the spectators was given; the boards were torn up, be put to the people at large, in their several departments. and beneath were discovered two men concealed there. The committees had suggested that the governess, madame They were dragged forth, and were discovered to be an de Tourzel, Bouillé, and the three gardes-du-corps were invalid with a wooden leg and a journeyman hair-dresser. guilty of a crime against the nation, by endeavouring to They had provisions with them in their concealment sufficarry the king off, but Robespierre very properly ridi- cient for the day; and being questioned why they had crept culed this conclusion. He declared that all were alike in there, they laughed, and replied, only to have a look at guilty, or all innocent, and that it would be mean and the ladies' legs! This was probably the real and base cowardly to let the chief individual escape, and punish the purpose of the fellows-for they had no combustibles or any subordinates. Goupil de Prefeln replied to Robespierre, means of annoyance more formidable than their eyes and and made a fierce attack on the clubs, and about twenty their gimlet; but they were not believed, and they were individuals, who, he said, governed those riotous bodies, speedily hanged at a lanterne near, their heads were cut meaning Robespierre, Marat, Danton, Brissot, and their off, stuck on poles, and paraded through the streets. confrères. He was extremely severe on Condorcet and Brissot; and he was followed by the abbé Gregoire, who declared that the king had forfeited his throne, and that it was a sacred duty to bring him to punishment. Salles, Barnave, and Dufort defended the monarchy. They declared that a republic might suit a new country like America, but could never suit an old and wealthy one like France. Salles, to make a show of binding the king, proposed three resolutions, which Barnave supported. These were, that if, when the constitution was finished, and the king had sworn to the totality of it, he should retract, this should be held to amount to abdication. If he should ever put himself at the head of an army against the nation, or instruct any of his generals to do so, or fail in doing his utmost to prevent such a scheme, that should be held as abdication; and, having once abdicated by these or any means, the king should become an ordinary citizen, and be amenable to all forms of law for any offences committed by him after abdication. After a violent debate, these resolutions were carried, but so much to the indignation of the mob and their jacobin leaders, that there was immediately a determined opposition to them out of doors.

The resolutions passed on the evening of the 15th of July. That very night the jacobin club took up the subject, and Brissot produced a petition demanding the abolition of royalty. Robespierre thought it was too soon, and that the petition might be made the pretext for some sanguinary attack on the people. A petition was also prepared at the cordeliers club the next day, Saturday, and the walls of Paris were placarded with a call to sign it the next day in the Champde-Mars on the wooden altar of the country. Thither the next morning, Sunday, the 17th, all Paris seemed to be moving, and amongst them was a party now gradually rising into form and importance, afterwards called the Gironde, of which M. Roland and his wife were the heads, and Brissot, Condorcet, and Vergniaud were the chief agitators; Condorcet writing and speaking in its favour, and Vergniaud being its most eloquent speaker. This party,

At the rumour of this alleged conspiracy, and the tumult in consequence of it, La Fayette advanced to the spot with his national guards, and some pieces of artillery; but, as all was found quiet, he marched back again. Both the jacobin and the cordeliers clubs, alarmed at the appearance of the soldiers, and at the many wild rumours of a plot, and an intention to massacre the spectators, kept away with their petitions, and the people, tired of waiting, drew up a petition themselves, declaring that the king had committed a monstrous crime, that the assembly was near its close, and it ought to secure the constitution before retiring, by abolishing royalty. This petition has been preserved in the municipal archives of Paris, and the paper, the signatures, and the orthography, present a curious specimen of the popular want of education, and they record the names of some of the most bloody men of the reign of terror. The signing continued till five o'clock in the evening, and numerous messages had already arrived at the Hôtel de Ville, saying that there was much excitement in consequence of the carrying about the heads of the two murdered men; that the mob had insulted the national guards, and that there was danger of riot. The business of this gathering being in defiance of the national assembly, that body had charged mayor Bailly to see that no disturbance took place, and, if necessary, to disperse the crowd. Accordingly, a commissioner was dispatched to order the throng to disperse, but they refused. The red flag was then hung out of the windows of the Hôtel de Ville, as the sign of martial law, and mayor Bailly, after six o'clock, marched to the Champ de Mars with a strong detachment of the national guards, a body of cavalry, three cannon, and the red flag displayed. No sooner did the mob see them than they shouted, "Down with the red flag! Down with those bayonets!" The entrance to the Champ de Mars was barricaded, and the people began to pelt the soldiers with stones. broke down the barricades, and marched steadily forwards towards the altar, commanding the people to disperse; but they only assailed the soldiers the more actively for their

La Fayette

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 fre 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 Seellières, 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