Part 20

The autumn of 1789 and the whole of the year 1790 were passed in the debate and promulgation of rapid and drastic reforms, by which the Parliament within eighteen months reduced the monarchy to little more than a form. Mirabeau, the most popular member, and in a sense the leader of the Parliament, secretly agreed with the court to save the monarchy from destruction; but on his sudden death, on April 2, 1791, the king and queen, in terror at their situation, determined to fly from Paris. The plan, which was matured during May and June, was to reach the frontier fortress of Montmédy by way of Chalons, and to take refuge with the army on the frontier.

The royal family made every preparation for departure; very few persons were informed of it, and no measures betrayed it. Louis XVI. and the queen, on the contrary, pursued a line of conduct calculated to silence suspicion, and on the night of June 20 they issued at the appointed hour from the château, one by one, in disguise, and took the road to Chalons and Montmédy.

The success of the first day's journey, the increasing distance from Paris, rendered the king less reserved and more confident. He had the imprudence to show himself, was recognised, and arrested at Varennes on the 21st.

The king was provisionally suspended--a guard set over him, as over the queen--and commissioners were appointed to question him.

IV.--Europe Declares War on the Revolution

While this was passing in the Assembly and in Paris, the emigrants, whom the flight of Louis XVI. had elated with hope, were thrown into consternation at his arrest. Monsieur, who had fled at the same time as his brother, and with better fortune, arrived alone at Brussels with the powers and title of regent. The emigrants thenceforth relied only on the assistance of Europe; the officers quitted their colours; 290 members of the Assembly protested against its decrees; in order to legitimatise invasion, Bouillé wrote a threatening letter, in the inconceivable hope of intimidating the Assembly, and at the same time to take up himself the sole responsibility of the flight of Louis XVI.; finally the emperor, the King of Prussia, and the Count d'Artois met at Pilnitz, where they made the famous declaration of August 27, 1791, preparatory to the invasion of France.

On April 20, 1792, Louis XVI. went to the Assembly, attended by all his ministers. In that sitting war was almost unanimously decided upon. Thus was undertaken against the chief of confederate powers that war which was protracted throughout a quarter of a century, which victoriously established the revolution, and which changed the whole face of Europe.

On July 28, when the allied army of the invaders began to move from Coblentz, the Duke of Brunswick, its commander-in-chief, published a manifesto in the name of the emperor and the King of Prussia. He declared that the allied sovereigns were advancing to put an end to anarchy in France, to arrest the attacks made on the altar and the throne. He said that the inhabitants of towns who dared to stand on the defensive should instantly be punished as rebels, with the rigour of war, and their houses demolished or burned; and that if the Tuileries were attacked or insulted, the princes would deliver Paris over to military execution and total subversion.

This fiery and impolitic manifesto more than anything else hastened the fall of the throne, and prevented the success of the coalition.

The insurgents fixed the attack on the Tuileries for the morning of August 10. The vanguard of the Faubourgs, composed of Marseillese and Breton Federates, had already arrived by the Rue Saint Honoré, stationed themselves in battle array on the Carrousel, and turned their cannon against the Tuileries, when Louis XVI. left his chamber with his family, ministers, and the members of the department, and announced to the persons assembled for the defence of the palace that he was going to the National Assembly. All motives for resistance ceased with the king's departure. The means of defence had also been diminished by the departure of the National Guards who escorted the king. The Swiss discharged a murderous fire on the assailants, who were dispersed. The Place du Carrousel was cleared. But the Marseillese and Bretons soon returned with renewed force; the Swiss were fired on by the cannon, and surrounded; and the crowd perpetrated in the palace all the excesses of victory.

Royalty had already fallen, and thus on August 10 began the dictatorial and arbitrary epoch of the revolution.

During three days, from September 2, the prisoners confined in the Carmes, the Abbaye, the Conciergerie, the Force, etc., were slaughtered by a band of about three hundred assassins. On the 20th, the in itself almost insignificant success of Valmy, by checking the invasion, produced on our troops and upon opinion in France the effect of the most complete victory.

On the same day the new Parliament, the Convention, began its deliberations. In its first sitting it abolished royalty, and proclaimed the republic. And already Robespierre, who played so terrible a part in our revolution, was beginning to take a prominent position in the debates.

The discussion on the trial of Louis XVI. began on November 13. The Assembly unanimously decided, on January 20, 1793, that Louis was guilty; when the appeal was put to the question, 284 voices voted for, 424 against it; 10 declined voting. Then came the terrible question as to the nature of the punishment. Paris was in a state of the greatest excitement; deputies were threatened at the very door of the Assembly. There were 721 voters. The actual majority was 361. The death of the king was decided by a majority of 26 votes.

He was executed at half-past ten in the morning of January 21, and his death was the signal for an almost universal war.

This time all the frontiers of France were to be attacked by the European powers.

The cabinet of St. James, on learning the death of Louis XVI., dismissed the Ambassador Chauvelin, whom it had refused to acknowledge since August 10 and the dethronement of the king. The Convention, finding England already leagued with the coalition, and consequently all its promises of neutrality vain and illusive, on February 1, 1793, declared war against the King of Great Britain and the stadtholder of Holland, who had been entirely guided by the cabinet of St. James since 1788.

Spain came to a rupture with the republic, after having interceded in vain for Louis XVI., and made its neutrality the price of the life of the king. The German Empire entirely adopted the war; Bavaria, Suabia, and the Elector Palatine joined the hostile circles of the empire. Naples followed the example of the Holy See, and the only neutral powers were Venice, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, and Turkey.

In order to confront so many enemies, the Convention decreed a levy of 300,000 men.

The Austrians assumed the offensive, and at Liège put our army wholly to the rout.

Meanwhile, partial disturbances had taken place several times in La Vendée. The Vendéans beat the gendarmerie at Saint Florens. The troops of the line and the battalions of the National Guard who advanced against the insurgents were defeated.

At the same time tidings of new military disasters arrived, one after the other. Dumouriez ventured a general action at Neerwinden, and lost it. Belgium was evacuated, Dumouriez had recourse to the guilty project of defection. He had conference with Colonel Mack, and agreed with the Austrians to march upon Paris for the purpose of re-establishing the monarchy, leaving them on the frontiers, and having first given up to them several fortresses as a guarantee. He proceeded to the execution of his impractical design. He was really in a very difficult position; the soldiers were very much attached to him, but they were also devoted to their country. He had the commissioners of the Convention arrested by German hussars, and delivered them as hostages to the Austrians. After this act of revolt he could no longer hesitate. He tried to induce the army to join him, but was forsaken by it, and then went over to the Austrian camp with the Duc de Chartres, Colonel Thouvenot, and two squadrons of Berchiny. The rest of his army went to the camp at Famars, and joined the troops commanded by Dampierre.

The Convention on learning the arrest of the commissions, established itself as a permanent assembly, declared Dumouriez a traitor, authorised any citizen to attack him, set a price on his head, and decreed the famous Committee of Public Safety.

V.---The Committee of Public Safety

Thus was created that terrible power which first destroyed the enemies of the Mountain, then the Mountain and the commune, and, lastly, itself. The committee did everything in the name of the Convention, which it used as an instrument. It nominated and dismissed generals, ministers, representatives, commissioners, judges, and juries. It assailed factions; it took the initiative in all measures. Through its commissioners, armies and generals were dependent upon it, and it ruled the departments with sovereign sway.

By means of the law touching suspected persons, it disposed of men's liberties; by the revolutionary tribunal, of men's lives; by levies and the maximum, of property; by decrees of accusation in the terrified Convention, of its own members. Lastly, its dictatorship was supported by the multitude who debated in the clubs, ruled in the revolutionary committees; whose services it paid by a daily stipend, and whom it fed with the maximum. The multitude adhered to a system which inflamed its passions, exaggerated its importance, assigned it the first place, and appeared to do everything for it.

Two enemies, however, threatened the power of this dictatorial government. Danton and his faction, whose established popularity gave him great weight, and who, as victory over the allies seemed more certain, demanded a cessation of the "Terror," or martial law of the committee; and the commune, or extreme republican municipal government of Paris.

The Committee of Public Safety was too strong not to triumph over the commune, but, at the same time, it had to resist the moderate party, which demanded the cessation of the revolutionary government and the dictatorship of the committees. The revolutionary government had only been created to restrain, the dictatorship to conquer; and as Danton and his party no longer considered restraint within and further victory abroad essential, they sought to establish legal order. Early in 1794 it was time for Danton to defend himself; the proscription, after striking the commune, threatened him. He was advised to be on his guard and to take immediate steps. His friends implored him to defend himself.