174 THE KING YIELDS TO THE POPULAR DEMANDS. [1789. killed. Two of the Invalides were hanged by the mob. Many of the besiegers have been exploring the dungeons of the Bastille, where they find only seven prisoners. Others linger around the hated place, shouting and singing in frantic joy. A vast number have marched off to the Hôtel de Ville, conducting their prisoners to receive judgment for the guilt of having been faithful to their duty. The officers of the French guard demand that the Invalides and the Swiss shall go free, as the reward of themselves and their men for their aid in this day's work. Another murder, that of Flesselles, a magistrate, was perpetrated that evening. Through the night Paris watched as if a foreign enemy were approaching to sack the city. The windows were lighted; patrols were in all the streets; orators were still haranguing the populace, amongst whom Marat was conspicuous. St. Antoine gave itself up to a frenzy of delight, and the pains of hunger were less keenly felt in the time of triumph and of revenge. The occurrences at Paris were imperfectly known at Versailles; but at midnight the duke de Liancourt entered the king's bed-chamber, and told him how the Bastille had fallen. "It is a riot" (émeute) said the king. "No, Sire, it is a revolution," replied the duke. The danger which now threatened the throne, and all who surrounded the throne, was manifest. The power was passing away from the National Assembly into the hands of an armed populace. On the morning of the 15th of July the king suddenly appeared in the midst of the National Assembly, to announce that he had given orders to the troops to withdraw from Paris and Versailles, and that he relied upon the Assembly to restore order and tranquillity. The deputies loudly applauded; as the king returned to the palace the people vociferously shouted. A deputation of the Assembly proceeded to Paris to proclaim at the Hôtel de Ville the glad words that Louis had that day spoken. The king, it was held, had authorized the establishment of the National Guard. A commander must be found. In the hall was a bust of La Fayette; and a deputy pointing to it, the friend of Washington was elected commander by acclamation. In the same way Bailly was constituted Mayor of Paris, in the place of Flesselles, the Provost of the Merchants, who had been shot the night before. The Parisians had now confidence in the king, and the king had confidence in the Parisians. He announced to the Assembly that he would visit his good city. He would dismiss his ministers; he would recall Necker. But some who surrounded the king had not his trust in the disposition of the people. On the morning of the 17th the king is on his way to Paris, attended by a large number of the deputies. The count d'Artois (the king's brother), the prince de Condé, and others of royal blood-marshal de Broglie, the Polignacs, and several of the recent ministry, are on their way to the frontiers. The queen vainly attempted to prevent the king going amongst a dangerous populace. "The king was of a weak character, but he was not timid,"* and he kept to his determination. His reception was such as to fill him with hope for the future. Loyalty and patriotism joined in the universal cry-" Vive le RoiVive la Nation." The obnoxious ministers have fled from Versailles. One, the most obnoxious, Foulon, is reported to have died; for a sumptuous funeral has Dumont-"Souvenirs sur Mirabeau," p. 81. 1789.] MURDER OF FOULON AND BERTHIER. 175 proceeded from his house. On the morning of the 22nd of July some peasants of Vitry, near Fontainebleau, are leading into Paris an old man bound with ropes to the tail of a cart. On his back is fastened a bundle of grass, and a collar of nettles is round his neck. It is Foulon, who has been denounced as a speculator in famine-one who said the poor should eat grass if they could not get bread. He is dragged to the Hôtel de Ville to be judged. La Fayette arrived. Anxious to save the trembling man of seventyfour from the popular fury, he proposed to consign him to the prison of the Abbaye, that he might be tried according to the laws. "What is the use of trying a man," cried a voice, "who has been judged these thirty years ?" The crowd rushed upon their victim; dragged him out of the hall; and in a few minutes he was hanging to a lantern at the corner of the street. His head was cut off; a bundle of hay was stuffed into the mouth; and this trophy of mob vengeance was carried through the city. The same night Berthier, the son-in-law of Foulon,-Intendant of Paris, and hated as a tax-levier,—is brought in a carriage to the Hôtel de Ville, surrounded by National Guards, sent by the municipals to protect him. The protection avails him not. The superseders of law have him in their clutches. He fights against them with dogged resolution. But the lantern has its prey; and another ghastly head, and a bleeding heart, are carried in horrible procession. The municipal authorities of Paris have been trampled down by murderers. Bailly and La Fayette indignantly resigned their offices; but they were won back again, when the municipality was re-organized, under the name of La Commune. 66 The doings of Paris were not without successful imitations in the provinces. On the 20th of July, Arthur Young was at Strasbourg, where he first heard the news of the overthrow of the Bastille. He writes, "The spirit of revolt is gone forth into various parts of the kingdom. The price of bread has prepared the populace everywhere for all sorts of violence." He soon saw the course which the violence was taking in the rural districts. He was at Besançon on the 27th. There he heard of châteaux burnt or plundered, the seigneurs hunted down like wild beasts, their wives and daughters outraged; "and these abominations, not inflicted on marked persons, who were odious for their former conduct or principles."* In his inn at Dole there were "a gentleman, unfortunately a seigneur, his wife, family, three servants, an infant but a few months old, who escaped from their flaming château half naked in the night; all their property lost except the land itself; and this family valued and esteemed by the neighbours, with many virtues to command the love of the poor, and no oppressions to provoke their enmity."+ The inquiries of Arthur Young led him to believe that the burnings and plunderings had not been committed by troops of brigands, but by the peasants only. The notion of brigands going through the country in troops eight hundred strong, and even to the number of sixteen hundred, was the prevalent belief in the towns. People came around Young to ask for news. "They were much surprised to find that I gave no credit to the existence of brigands, as I was well persuaded that all the outrages that had been committed were the work of the peasants only."+ "Travels in France," p. 146. + Ibid., p. 149. Ibid., p. 155. 176 FEUDAL RIGHTS ABOLISHED. [1789. The National Assembly, all things being tolerably quiet in Paris, proceeds with its self-appointed work of sweeping away all ancient things, for the purpose of building up a wholly new system for the government of twentyfive millions of people. The Assembly had been long occupied in drawing up a Declaration of the Rights of Man. Some who were concerned in the preparation of this document, amongst whom was Dumont, considered it a puerile fiction. It declared that "men are born free and equal." It is rot true, writes the fellow-worker of Mirabeau. Are men born free? They are born in a state of weakness and necessary dependence. Are they equal? By equality do we understand equality of fortune, of talent, of virtue, of industry, of condition ?* The metaphysical difficulties of the National Assembly were quickly absorbed in one vast measure of sweeping change. At a nocturnal sitting of the 4th of August, after a Report of a Committee on the troubled state of the kingdom had been read, it was proposed by two noblemen that all taxes should be proportionably paid by all, according to their income, as well as all other public burthens; that all feudal rights should be made redeemable by a money value; that corvées and all personal service should be abolished. A Breton deputy, in the dress of a farmer, rose and exclaimed, "Let the title-deeds, the terrible instruments which for ages have tormented the people, be brought here, and burnt-those parchments by which men are required to be yoked to a wagon like beasts-which compel men to pass the night in beating the ponds, to prevent the frogs from disturbing the sleep of their luxurious lords. Declare the compulsory redemption of these services, and thus stop the burning of the châteaux." Dumont saw the extraordinary scene of the 4th of August, when a work "which would have demanded a year of care and deliberation, was proposed, voted, resolved, by general acclamation. I know not how many laws were decreed: the abolition of feudal rights, the abolition of tithes, and the abolition of the privileges of provinces-three articles which in themselves embrace a whole system of jurisprudence and of policy, were decided, with ten or a dozen cthers, in less time than a parliament of England would have taken for the first reading of a Bill of some importance."+ Mirabeau was not present at that sitting. The next day he said to Dumont: "Behold our French; they take an entire month to dispute about syllables, and in one night they overturn all the ancient order of the monarchy." On the 12th of August, Arthur Young, being at Clermont, hears of the famous decrees of the 4th. "The great news just arrived from Paris, of the utter abolition of tithes, feudal rights, game, warrens, pigeons, ‡ &c., has been received with the greatest joy by the mass of the people." Sensible inen, however, complained of the injustice of declaring what will be done, without regulations of what was to be done at the moment of declaring. About a fortnight later he was "pestered with all the mob of the country shooting." The declaration of the National Assembly, " without any statute or provision to secure the right of the game to the possessor of the soil, according to the tenour of the vote, has, as I am everywhere informed, filled + Ibid., p. 100. "Souvenirs sur Mirabeau," p. 98. One of the exclusive privileges of the seigneurs was to have dove-houses for flocks of birds to feed upon the grain of lands of which these lords neither owned nor cultivated any part. 1789.] PROVINCIAL ANARCHY-WANT OF BREAD. 177 all the fields of France with sportsmen, to an utter nuisance. The same effects have flowed from declarations of right relative to tithes, taxes, feudal rights, &c. In the declarations, conditions and compensations are talked of; but an unruly, ungovernable multitude seize the benefit of the abolition, and laugh at the obligations or recompense." The barriers that stood between a people long misgoverned and oppressed, and all the ancient restraints of their servitude, being suddenly broken down, their excesses could scarcely be matter of wonder. There is very little exaggeration in what Mr. Eden wrote to Mr. Pitt from Paris, on the 27th of August, 1789: "It would lead me too far to enter into the strange and unhappy particulars of the present situation of this country. The anarchy is most complete; the people have renounced every idea and principle of subordination; the magistracy (so far as there remain any traces of magistracy) is panic-struck; the army is utterly undone; and the soldiers are so freed from military discipline, that on every discontent, and in the face of day, they take their arms and knapsacks, and leave their regiments; the church, which formerly had so much influence, is now in general treated by the people with derision; the revenue is greatly and rapidly decreasing amidst the disorders of the time; even the industry of the labouring class is interrupted and suspended. In short, the prospect, in every point of view, is most alarming: and it is sufficient to walk into the streets, and to look at the faces of those who pass, to see that there is a general impression of calamity and terror."* The scarcity consequent upon a bad harvest was growing more fearful, especially in Paris. The furious multitude, filled with vague suspicions by incendiary journalists and orators, ascribed the enormous price of bread to other than natural causes. "The people," says Dumont, "attributed the scarcity to the aristocracy. The aristocrats had caused the corn to be cut down whilst in the blade; the aristocrats had paid the bakers not to make bread; the aristocrats had thrown the grain into the rivers. There was no lie, no absurdity, that did not appear probable." A foolish display of loyalty at Versailles turned the follies of the people into a new channel of rage against the Court. A regiment of Flanders had come to Versailles; and the officers of the king's body-guard gave an entertainment on the 1st of October to the officers of this regiment. The king and queen entered during the banquet. The orchestra played " O Richard, O mon Roi," and shouts of "Vive le Roi" awoke the sentiment of loyalty even amongst officers of the National Guard who had been invited. Some of them turned their national cockade, showing only the white beneath. Even black cockades were to be seen. There was an evident re-action against the popular cause. The Parisians heard of these demonstrations; and an insurrectionary feeling was fast spreading amongst the half-starved populace, who had broken open bakers' shops, and attempted to hang a baker, who was saved by the National Guard. At daybreak on the morning of the 5th of October, a woman went into a guard-room, and took a drum, which she beat as she marched along. Crowds of market-women came forth, for this day, being Monday, was an idle day for them. They began to cry "Bread." There was no bread in the *Tomline's "Life of Pitt," vol. ii. p. 74. 178 PARISIAN MOB AT VERSAILLES. [1789. bakers' shops, and they would go to Versailles, to fetch the baker and his wife. The crowd of women increased to hundreds; and they soon filled the Hôtel de Ville. In four or five hours they were joined by a body of men, who obtained muskets and two pieces of cannon from the municipal stores. The excesses of the women, who wanted to burn the building, were stopped by Maillard, an usher of the court, who told them that he was one of the conquerors of the Bastille. By the consent of a superior officer he proposed to lead the women away on the road to Versailles, where they wanted to go, that the authorities might have time to collect their forces, and stop the tumult. On the troop of Amazons went, with this tall man in black as their general. As the day advanced the affair became more serious. La Fayette and the Committees of Districts were at the Hôtel de Ville. The National Guard, the French Guards (now called Grenadiers), the rough men from the Faubourg St. Antoine-all gathered round La Fayette, demanding to go to Versailles. The Commune deliberated till four o'clock, and then ordered La Fayette to march. Meanwhile, Maillard, with his female host, had reached Versailles about three o'clock. The women demanded to enter the National Assembly. Fifteen were admitted, with a soldier, who had belonged to the The Women of Paris entering the Hall of the National Assembly, Versailles. From the French Guards. The soldier said Paris was starving; they came for bread; and for the punishment of the king's body-guard, who had insulted the national cockade. Mounier, the president, could only get rid of the troublesome visitors, upon the condition that he should accompany the deputation to |