"this day, the people have conquered their king." Passing on, through two hundred thousand armed. men, with three-coloured cockades, while he was accompanied only by his brother and five noblemen*, amidst menacing cries and interjections, and without a cheering exclamation from any of the people, the King exhibited no terror or disquiet. Nor was the danger confined to words: when the royal carriage arrived at the Champs Elysées, three muskets were heard, and a woman, close to the coach, was shot dead by a ball of extraordinary magnitude†; while the hat of a nobleman was also struck through by a bullet, although he sustained no personal injury. Thus was the King conducted to the Hotel de Ville, where he entered under what was called the arch of steel,—that is, bayonets and pikes crossed over his head; a symbol, it is said, invented by the secret societies. Bailly presented to him the three-coloured, now called national, cockade, accompanied with an expression which denoted that he thought it his only protection. The King, overpowered by the variety of sensations which this protracted torture created, answered only that his people might depend upon his love: M. De Lally, anxious to afford some relief, made a short speech, inviting them to swear that they would defend the King; all present declared that they swore it, and this terrible day at last drew to a conclusion. CHAP LXVI. 1789. In extenuation of the cruelties which followed the More murders committed. taking of the Bastille, it might be alleged, although not very correctly, that the people were exasperated by resistance, and carried beyond their natural bounds by the pressure of the moment. Events which soon occurred demonstrated that horrible murders, attended with savage aggravations, could be perpetrated with deliberation, and applauded where reprehension and restraint ought to have been expected. The unsparing rage of faction still produced lists of proscription, and the persons mentioned in them were not permitted to * MM. De Beaucaire, De Villeroy, De Nesle, De Villequier, and D'Estaing. + Named, Aimée Felicité du Prateau. Le Marquis de Corbière. CHAP. 22nd. 1789. In the pro vinces. believe them inefficient menaces. M. Foulon, a man seventy-four years old, was dragged to Paris as a prisoner, with his hands tied behind him, a crown of nettles on his head, and his mouth stuffed with hay. The mob forced the Hotel de Ville, and, in spite of the remonstrances of Bailly and Lafayette, suspended him to the lamp iron; the rope broke twice, but still the murderers persevered; and, after they had executed him, fixed his head on a pike, and paraded it through the streets. In their procession, they discovered his son-in law, M. Berthier de Sauvigny, and siezed him as an additional victim. Young and in full health, he made a valiant resistance; to avoid the disgrace of the rope, he assailed the whole mob with a musket, wrenched from the hand of a national guard, and fell covered with unnumbered bayonet wounds. One of his military murderers ripped open his body, and tore out his palpitating heart; and his head, placed on a pike, was paraded with that of his father-in-law. Nor were these scenes confined to the capital. The provinces, where it might be presumed that vice and corruption had made less progress, produced their full share. Emissaries from Paris spread alarming reports of meditated mischief: the crops were to be destroyed before harvest, and violence and massacre were to be perpetrated in all parts. The military in garrison towns generally renounced the law of discipline; the mob took upon themselves the work of blood and destruction. In provinces far distant from each other, these proceed in Guyenne, Alsace, Provence, Franche-Comté, Normandy, Burgundy, the same means were pursued, with so much similarity of particulars as to leave no doubt that a general instruction pervaded all the insurgent bodies. It were tedious and nauseous to recite the circumstances of savageness by which the acts of carnage were characterized; but it is worthy of remark, that the incendiaries uniformly destroyed the title deeds of those whose houses they plundered, and applied horrible tortures to make the proprietors discover System in ings. Indifference of the Assembly. and surrender them. In the Assembly no effective measures were taken to restrain these excesses. The members occupied themselves in abstract discussions on the rights of man, or the formation of committees for purposes of remote or undefined legislation. They professed to be arranging the principles of a constitution, which should be the glory of their country, and a model for all mankind; but when M. Lally depicted the horrors he had witnessed, and required the intervention of the Assembly, Robespierre met the demand with a canting apostrophe on the ills which the people had suf fered from despotism during two centuries; and Barnave asked, with a sneer, if the blood which had been shed was so very pure? At last, they issued, not a law, but a proclamation, not commanding, but inviting the people to keep the peace, and, with respect to the murder of Foulon and Berthier, they passed to the order of the day. M. Necker was recalled, the National Assembly Necker's having addressed the Crown to re-instate him. His triumph. passage to Versailles and the capital was a triumph; troops of military attended him; the legislature received him with acclamations and complimentary 29th speeches; Bailly was profuse in commendations and 30th. professions of regard; the mob insisted on seeing their benefactor, and celebrated his return with illuminations and bonfires. He addressed them in a long speech, deprecating all tumultuary and illegal proceedings, and praying the release of the Baron de Besenval, commandant of the Swiss guards, who had been imprisoned, and whose life was menaced by the new distributors of vengeance. The Communes, influenced by Bailly, decreed accordingly, and Necker departed, thinking himself firmly established in popular favour, and substantially the head of a party in the state, when, in fact, his name was a mere word used by a faction to distress the court, while his person and merits were entirely indifferent to them. His reputation, such as it was, gave distaste to the faction which sought to govern; his ruin was resolved on, and the compliment of the day was the last mark of popular favour which awaited him. The district assemblies, of which there were sixty in Paris, were convened that very night, and, under the influence of the Orléans party, the greater portion of them censured and annulled the decree for liberating the Baron de Besenval. In the Assembly, Mirabeau blamed the Commune for arrogating to itself the right of granting pardons and mitigating the severity of the law, and, amidst censures of the minister himself, for seeking this triumph in an indirect way, instead of preferring his request to the Assembly or to the Crown; the decree of the Parisian legislature was declared void*. It is impossible to reconsider this long, though abridged, detail of the greatest event of modern history, without feeling how much all parties erred from the line of propriety. The vices of the popular agitators, and the crimes to which they gave birth, appear in every period of the narrative. The faulty formation and factious disposition of the legislative body are equally obvious. The vanity, egotism, and self-sufficiency of Necker are not less striking; but the enumeration of errors does not terminate there. The conduct of the King, steadied by no fixed principle, but wavering from side to side, with perpetual self-contradiction, gave every advantage to his enemies, and made it impossible that he should be effectually served by his friends. If he meant to yield to popular clamours, he acted unwisely in displaying, on so many occasions, the forms of ancient authority; the beds of justice, the royal sittings, the enforced registration of decrees, and the exile of magistracies, should never have been undertaken but by a monarch whose vigour of mind and amplitude of resources gave prospect of maintaining with firmness the prerogatives thus asserted. Still more, if he was determined that blood should not be shed in his quarrel, the collection of a military force near the capital and the seat of legislation was an act of consummate indiscretion. A military array should never be displayed, but when there is a determination After this event, the Baron de Besenval was detained six months in prison, tried before the Court of the Chatelet, and, to the inexpressible mortification of the Orléans faction, acquitted. He died soon afterward. CHAP LXVI. 1789. The emi- Emigration. Had the to use it with vigour, if necessary; but the precise urgency of that necessity should be calculated, the mode of employing the force predetermined, and nothing left to accident or sudden impulse. Yet Louis was, in every respect,, more sinned against than sinning. His advisers, availing themselves of the flexibility of his character, put in force their separate notions of The nobility. government, during the alarming crisis into which the nation was thrown, but did not stand forward to make a party in his favour, and finally deserted him, when encompassed with danger on every side. gration was a most distressing calamity. princes and nobles remained, they might, each in his several spot, by an exercise of influence, or by pecuniary means, have obtained succour and support to the cause of government; or, if they had united in any certain place, they might have defended each other, and formed a centre, around which the well-affected might have rallied; but, while they persisted in thinking that by absenting themselves they avenged their injuries, while, with ostentatious affectation, they publicly ordered their carriages to be driven beyond the frontier, they not only injured and weakened their own cause, but threw suspicion around the conduct and intentions of the royal family. One striking distinction, however, should not be forgotten. Crimes were committed only by those who arrogated the name of patriots they pillaged, they burned, they murdered; but the hand of the plunderer was never enriched, nor the blade of the assassin ever discoloured, by the instigation of the Crown or any of its supporters. National If, in the National Assembly, no regulations, tend- Progress of the ing to the establishment of social order, the protection Assembly. of life and property, or the restraint and punishment of crime, were proposed, measures of destruction were cherished, and even proclaimed: the change of denominations and of proprietorships was acknowledged as a principle, without which a solid reform could not be effected. All territorial tenures were called feudal; and the feudal system being, by a definition equally incorrect, stigmatized as one of tyrants and of slaves, it |