Lectures on the French Revolution

ime. Agreement on first principles did not involve agreement in policy, and in a

e division of powers and the multiplication of checks, to make their country as free as England or America. They desired to control the Representatives in three ways: by a Second Chamber, the royal veto, and the right of dissolution. Their success depended on the

e working class in towns, for the industrial age had hardly dawned, and it was hard to understand that the Third Estate contained divergent interests and the material of a

legs, had little in him; and Maury, afterwards Cardinal and Archbishop of Paris, a man whose character was below his talents. N

eventful September, and what in conseq

nd exercises none. On both sides there were men who were impatient of this restriction, and by whom it was interpreted in contrary ways. Some wished for security that the national will should always pr

and the Church disestablished. The enthusiasm of the first hour had cooled. One after another, ecclesiastics attempted to obtain the recognition of Catholicism. Each time the attem

He said that the danger was not from the Crown, but from the representatives; for they may exclude strangers and debate in secret, as the English law allows, and these may declare themselves permanent, and escape all control. Through the king, the public possesses the means of holding them in check. He is their natural

lected indirectly, by equal districts, and a moderate property franchise. Mounier further conceded that the Constitution was not subject to the royal veto, that Ministers should not be members of the Assembly, that the Assembly, and not the king, should have the ini

to revise the Constitution. These offers were a sign of weakness. The Constitutional party was still in the ascendant, and on August 31 the Bishop of Langres, the chief advocate of a House of Lords, was chosen President by 499 to 328. If the division of the legislature into two was sure of a majority, then the proposed bargain was one-sided, and the Democra

to surrender at the conference were rejected by the Assembly; and the offers he had rejected were not made again. When the legislature was limited to two years, the right of dissolution lost its value. The right of revision would have caused no more rapi

undue importance to the absolute veto; but that was not the point on which the conference broke up. He was supported by Lafayette, who dreaded as much as he did the extinction of the royal power; at times by Mirabeau, whom he detested. Even Sieyès was willing to have two Houses, and even

ly, or perilous its approach might be. They subordinated the means to the end, and never regarded conditional forms as an emanation of eternal principles. Having secured the Rights of Man, they looked with alarm at future legislati

consent that the power in their hands should be inferior to that which had been exercised over them, or to admit that an entire people is not above the law which it obeys. It was to be expected that they would endeavour by legislation to diminish those securities for the minority and the weaker cause which were appointed by the Rig

d to be inviolable, to put them on their trial. These were first-fruits of liberty, and the meed and reward of Liberals. No man can tell in what country such things would remain without effect. In France it was believed that civic courage was often wanting. De Serre, the great orator of the Restoration, once affirmed, from the tribune, that the bulk of the representatives had

st, deliverance from known and habitual causes of oppression. True, there might be others; but they were less clear and less certain. All European experience proclaimed that the executive constantly masters the legislative, eve

ested by obstacles. Its action may be delayed; it cannot be stopped. It is the ultimate master of all, without responsibility or exemption, and with no limit that is not laid down in the Rights of Man

gth, who have had experience of Swift and Bolingbroke and Junius. Maury once said, "We have a free press: we have everything." In 1812, when Napoleon watched the grand army crossing the Niemen to invade Russia, and whistled the tune of Malbrook, he interrupted his tune to exclaim, "And yet all that is not equal to the songs of Paris!" Chateaubriand afterwards said that, with the liberty of the press, there was no abuse he would not undertake to destroy. For he wrote French as it had never been written, and the magnificent roll of his sentences caug

hey thought that when men were safe from the force above them, they required no saving from the influence around them. Opinion finds its own level, and a man yields easily and not unkindly to what surrounds him daily. Pressure from equals is not to be confounded with persecution by superiors. It is right that the majorit

vers of successive Assemblies, until they completed their code under Napoleon. Of all the enemies of the old monarchical régime, they were the most methodical and consistent. The leader of the Paris Bar, Target, was their most active politician. When he heard of a plan for setting the finances in order

, representation and delegation were treason to true democracy. As the people could not directly govern itself, the principle exacted that it should do so as nearly as possible, by means of a perpetual control over the delegates. The parliamentary vote ought to be constantly brought into harmony with the wish of the constituency, by the press, the galleries and the mob. To act consciously in opposition to the delegat

has a single will, not two. If the whole does not govern the part, the part will govern the whole. Robespierre conceived that it was time to constitute powers sufficient to conquer the outward foe, and also the inward; one for national safety, and one for national progress, and the elevation of the poor at the expense of the minorities that have oppressed them. He stands at the end of

y those classes themselves. They were not willing that a new aristocracy should be raised upon their ruins; and they suspected that Government would give the preference to that minority of the nobles who went over in time, and who were renegades in the

f Langres, was driven by insult to resign. The next day the Assemb

give way to the third. The Ministers themselves were unable to insist on the absolute veto in preference to the suspensive thus defined. A letter from the king was sent to the Assembly, to inform them that he was content with the temporary veto. Mounier did not allow the letter to be read, that it might not influence votes. He was defeated by 673 to 325. The Conservatives had deserted him when

lated with success, now called on him to sanction the decrees of August 4. His reply, dated September 18, is drawn up with unusual ability. He adopted the argument of Sieyès on the suppression of tithe. He said that a large income would be granted to the land, and that the rich, who ought to contri

ful attention to the remarks of the king, whenever the decrees came to be completed by legislation. The royal sanction was accordingly given on the following day. Thereup

e national credit by the surrender of tithe had been rejected. His partition of the Assembly, together with partial renewal, which is favourable to the executive, by never allowing the new parliament to rise, like a giant refreshed, from a general election, had encountered no support. It remained that he should compose the working machinery for his essential doctrine, that the law is the will of him that obeys, not of him that commands. To do this, the Abbé Sieyès abolished the historic Provinces, and divided France in

ves to the department, and these elected the deputy. Those who paid no taxes were not recognized as shareholders in the national concern. Like women and minors, they enjoyed the benefit of government; but as they were not independent,

mpleted. It had been the work of these two months, from August 4 to September 29. The final promulgation came two years later. No legislative inst

pposition; the army was almost dissolved, and war broke out when there was not a disciplined force at the command of Government. After Varennes, the king was practically useless in peace, and impossible in times of

me he gave to each of the nine divisions of a department. He intended that there should be only 720 of these self-governing districts in France. Instead of 720, the Assembly created 44,000, making

could succeed, after Varennes; and the one of which we are speaking, the object of the memorable conflict between Mounier and Sieyès, is not identical with the one that failed. The repudiation of the English model did not cause the quick passage from the Constitutio

rt of the United States, occurred to Sieyès long after. An effective Senate might have been founded on the provincial assembli

There was no Senate, no initiative, no dissolution, no effective veto, no reliance on the judicial or the Federal element. These are not defect

ttributed to the absolute veto an importance which it does not possess; and he frustrated all chance of a Second Chamber by allowing it to be known that he would have liked to make it hereditary. This was too much for men who had just rejoiced over the fall of the aristocracy. In order to exc

t it would be used as a reward for those among them to whose defection they partly owed their defeat. And as they did not wish the Constitution to

he saw, and was going to his own country. "Yes," said the king, taking him aside; "things are going badly, and nothing can improve our position but the excess

esident on August 1, refused the honour. He had been warned of his unpopularity, and gave way to threats. Yielding to the current which, as Mirabeau said, submerges those who resist it, he went over to the other side, and s

t eminent of the deputies in the department of letters, made the attempt on September 18. He proposed that there should be new elections for a parliament that should not consist of heterogeneous ingredients, but in which class interests should be disregarded and unknown. He moved that it

nt, carried to the king the articles by which his cause had been brought to its fall. Lewis undertook to send his reply; and from Mounier came no urging word. They both fancied that delay was possible, and might ye

k ought to be averted, not by the dubious fidelity and the more dubious capacity of the commander of the National Guard, but by the direct resources of the Crown. They summoned the Flanders regiment, which was reputed loyal, and on October 1 it marched in, a thousand strong. The officers, on their arrival, were invited by their comrades at Versailles to a festive supper in the theatre. The men were admitted, and made to drink the health of the king; and in the midst of

ld not obtain a loan, and he asked for a very large increase of direct taxation. He was heard with impatience, and Mirabeau, who spoke for him, made no impression. On September 26 he made another effort, and gained the supreme triumph of his career. In a speech that was evidently un

inate parties. From that day the Court knew what he was, and what he could do; and they knew how his imperious spirit longed to serve the royal cause, and

the monarch is about to begin. The events of the next two days, October 5 and 6, form a complete an