First p\rbtisbed in rhe Fontana Library 1964 Fifternth Impression Octobet 1978

@ George Rud6 1964 Made arrd printed in Great Btitai4 by Ifilliara Collins Soos & Co Lt4 Glesgow

CONTENTS
PART ONE: EURO"E ON TIIE BVE OF TIIE FRENCrI REVOLUTION

r u Itr rv v 1'r .lrr vru

The Social Pattem

Govelruneats and the Con.flicts The Conflicts betweea States

P48c 9

withil

States

28

to

PART TWO; THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

Why vas there a Revolution i:r Ftance ?

1789

65

The Reconstnrction of Francc The Stuggle fot Power

Robespierre

8, ro6
121

r42

r:<

The Bourgeois Republic

t6o

PART TT{REB: REVOLUTIONARY EUROIE

x xr

Europe and the Ftench Revolutios 'Wat Revolutionary

179

PAN.T FOUN:

TIiE NAPOLEONIC SRA

22'
242

This booL is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of tlade ol othetwise, b lent, ie-sold, hiled out or otherwise circulatd wiihout the publisher's prior consent in any fotm of bindins or cove! other tban that in which it is published a.nd without a similar conditioa including this condition being imposed oa the subsequmt Duichaset

xn Napoleon and Ftance xrrr The Napoleouic Empire :mr The Fall of Napoleon xv Perspectives
t{llPs
FURTIIBR RBADING
GLOSSARY

264
284

to,
3\5

INDEX

tt5

I I

r'I
J. R. Hale
RENAISSANCE EURO?E

FONTANA HISTORY OF EUROPB General Editor: J. H, Plznb

David Ogg
EUROIJE OF

GEORGE RUDE

r48o r t20
G. R. Elton
RFFOR\IIT'ON
EURO?B

tTrt-t76t
Jacques

TI{E INCTEN 4iGIMB

REVOLUTIONARY
EUROPE 1783 - rSri

Dtoz

rtrl-15t9
J. H.

EUROIE IEIWEEN REVOUJAIONg

r8rt-r848
EUROPE OF

Elliott

rttg-rt98
John Stoye
EUROPE UNFOLDING

Elizabth \Tiskemafln II-IE D1C1ATORS

t9r9-194'

r648-r688

P.

D. King

Ragnhild M. Hatron
EUROIE r680-17ro

EARI-Y MEDIEVAL BUROPB

R. C. Snail
CRUSADING EURO?B

Olwen Hufton
EUROPE

rTro-r78,

G. A. Holmes
ErrRoPE

rJ2o-r4to
rt98-1648

J. A. S. Gtenville EURoPE r848-1878

Hugh Trevor-Roper
EURoPE

F. H. Hinsley Europe r878-r9r9

FONTANA/COLLINS

8z

The French Retolution

Overwhelmed by this national movement of plotest, th goverment was compelled to surfendr. The States Genera, were promised for May q89; Brienne was replaced bi Ne&er; Lamoignon's judicial reforms-and, for ihat matti a1l other projected fefoms*wer withdrawn; and, the Pa entent! wete recalled soon afle!. The result was hailed as a triumphant victory for the people at large-aot least by the Paris tradesmen, journeymen and apprentices of both City arc fauboxtgt, who had found an additiona.l cause for demonstra-

it

refused to fire and fraternized with the riotous towrtsmen.

Cbapter

r7a9
11 Jlnuary 1789, four months aftr the triumphant return of the Pallement Lo Paris, Mallet du pan, a shrewj Swiss observer, noted that the position in France had radically chaneed. The guestion at issue, he wrote, was no longer a consrjtuf;nal contesr between rhe King and rhe privileged classes but ,a war between the Third Estate and the two other orders,,. Not

tion in the sudden upward moveroent in the price of bread. The " aristooatic revolt " (for such it was in essence) had

triumphed all along the line: with th suppod of the nonprivileged classes, it had forced the government to withdras its taxatioo proposals and to reirutate the Paflements; the States General would meet in May; and the States Gereral, jr was conidently be.lieved, would solve all the oation's prot lerns. But many beiieved (and some hoped and others feared) that, by striking fudher blows at the " despotism " of minis. ters, it would propodionately increase the authority, stahr

levolt'.

only that; but a nation-q/ide movement agaiost the roval Sove1meotl led by the arisiocrary and clerg!, *"s becomirrg transformed inro one that lined up rhe monarchv and peooG againsr tlre very forces chat had unleashed the ' , arisrocrjtic

of the privileged orders. Yet these calorlations proved to be ill-founded, and rhe revolution that emerged from the convening of the States General turned out to be of a very di$erent kind from that
and advantage

of the pamPhleteers of r7B8 and Arthui Young's informants of October 1787. Chateaubriand late! wfote that " the patricians began the revolution and the
envisaged by many

newly-found conEdence of the middle classes, whose scribes and. pamphlereers were already proclaiming thejr readiness to Je-dd,rnd represent rhe narion: already
Mitabeau,_ himself a noL,leman, had declared lege " as the mortal enemy of the ,,nation,,.

King or his minisiers at Versailles. Fartly ir was due Io the

, Hoo* had this change come about? parrly it w25 due to the deepenrng economic crisis. in the course of which rhe peasant was likely to see the landlord as a Areater menace than the

in

it"; and Robespierre said something similar, In a sense it was true, and many histolians have
plebeians completed
accepted the

veldict. But the revolt of the nobility was, perhaps, a curtain-raiser rather thao a revolution, for it was the prelude of a revolution which, by associating the middle and lower classes in common acrion agaiost Kiog and atistocracy, v-as unique io contempolary Europe. This was by no means what liberal aristoclats or middle-ciass " patriots ", or anyone else, had intended or foreseen. Vhy and how it came about,
nonetleless,

professed champioas

revolt togelher: nov.] ihe only hope for reform lay in strelgthening the hand of the Third Eitate within the comiag States General. And perhaps eveo more imporrant was th! sudden rerization th^t the pa pmentr and priuiligi.r, fte
of the natioo's
,.liberties,,,1

defeat and. the coilapse of his reform-progtamm-e had brought 'pa'rjots ' ranged on opposing ,;ides during the ,aristocritic

Again, Brieinne,s

,,piiui_ -u, in

August r7gg,

iar from

will

be told

in the ndxt

cbaptet.

orren vrrruzlly synonymous term5.

l _ No' was thL ,nere hvp"cr,.y or double.talk: in a,istncratic D.|r_ ldn.e. as lor Bdrke in Engt:nd. liberries" and .privileges,, were

It

84

The Fretch Reuolution

envisaging radical reforms, were at

costs eager to cliog to their old privileges and immunities. Once the States Geoeral

all

had been definitely promised, the great question was: how should they be corstituted-as in the distant past (in Richelieu's day), when the Third Estate had been willing to play secoad fiddle to the other two orders; or should some rew formula be found that would take account of the increased importance of the middle dasses withiq the nation? According to the formula of 1614, the three orders should be composed

r78q 85 srhen convened to er,?ress its opinion on the mattet, gave a similar reply; and, in Decemt'er, the Princes of the Blood denounced the pretensions of the commons as a danger to ihe safety of the State. Yet the privileged orders were no longer 6rmly unired : leading pariementire: like Adrien Duport and Hrault de S6chelles, aod the Duke of Orleans amoos
the Princes, supported the claims of the Third Estate: and th; Parletnext of Paris had, ir a recent decree caried by the votes of ifs younger members, incensed the older landed nobleste by

of an equal number of deputies and should deliberate in

their ihree separate assemblies; thus ensuring that the Third Estate would be in a permanent minoriq' in its relations with
the other orders. But the Third Estate of 1189 was not wi[ing to accept this humble role any more; aod once the date of the States General's meeting had been declared, its spokesrnen began to insist that it should have double representation and that lhe orders should meet in a sinsle deliberative assembiv:

thus ihe Third Estate would at aji rirues be ass.ued of a majority. After all, it was argued, the representariles of France's z4 million commooers should have loting equality, at least, with the mere zoo,ooo of the privileged minorirl. The AbM Sieyes, whose pamphlet lVhdt is tbe Tl:ird Ertate? appeared at the efld of January, welt further and .laimed that the Third Estate was the nation itself and that. therefore. the rvishes of the 2oo,ooo could be conveniently igoored altogether. But this was not yet the general view. The privileged orders had a very difiereot conception of how the States General should be constituled and of the role that the Third Estate should play within it: why else, in fact, should they have takefl the initiative in demanding lhat the estates be surunooed to meet? Alreadv at the end of Septem. ber. 1788, when its popularity was it iLs heighr. the Paris Parlemen, had insisted that the precedent of 1614 should be followed to ihe letter: that the three estates be equally represenied and that voting be by separate assemblies.

guise of the champion of reform; while the aristocracy aad Pdrlemenrt, so tecently the acclaimed custodians of the nation's " liberties " against mitisterial oppression, appealed as its bitterest enemy. From this simple' realizatioa I,as bora the " great hope " that the nation might be regeoerated through the convening of the estates; and, with this " hope ", the fear

resolving that its feudal rights be ended; and-most bitte! blow of all-advised by Nedcer, the royal Council, on z7 December, while suspendiog judgment on the questiofl of voring procedure, decided to allow double repres;ntation to the Thifd Estate. So, for a while, ihe monarchy, outraged by the disloyalty of the privileged orders, once more assumed the

that it mighr be shanered by the evil machinitions of ao " aristocraLic plot "., Meanwhile, the preparations fof the States General's meetiog went ahead. On z4 January, regulations were issued governing the electiol of deputies; and, as an earnest of the goverment's conceln for reform, the people were invited to prepare their own cabiat de dollancet. or Jjsts of grr'evances, to guide the estates in their deliberations. In qeneral, electoral

dislricts were formed from the ancienr sLrb-divisioos used {or administeling iustice, the bailliaget atd finichaussdes; bft Paris was heated as a separate electoral division and the
2 There were, however, at Rennes (Bfittany), late 26-21 ^s ^s J^nnary q89, bloody riofs io rfiich local domestic servants and

mooth

latsr, a second asseobly of Notables, less liberal than the fust,

chairrnen, supported by the provincial xoble::e, were engaged agahst the law students and laqers' clerks of the Third Estate.

86

he Ftench Reaolution

r789

87

revived estates of Dauphin verc accofdd ihe right to appoiot iheir own deputies. Deputiet were ao be elected in separate orders. The privileged orders enjoyed direct male adult sufirage; all lay nobles, aged twenty-five and above, had the vote itr their electoral assemblies, either in person or by proxy; the same right was enjoyed by bishops and parish clergy, whereas canons and mooks were only entitled to send leplesentatives. Deputies of the Third Estatg on the othe!
hand, were chosen by a rather more rest.icted frairchise and by a mo{e complicated system of indirect election. Except in Par.is, where the su-firage was Limited to those paying six iivles per arlnum i8 capiraiot, Frenchmen of twenty-fve years of age and over, whose |Iames were iascribed in the ta]ratioo rolls (for howwer small an amount), were eligible to vote in their

pef certt s/erc agriculturists-and, even of tbese, oaly a hand-

ful were

peasants.3

"A.nd, even before the campaign had started, a " patriot " party had been emerging a.(oong the promoters of coqstitutional reform. Though mainly voicing the hopes of the Third Estate, it included such wealthy aristocrats as the Marquis de Lafayette, the Duke of La Rochefoucauld, aad th Marquis de Condorcel, and nofed pd ementaircr such as Adrien Duport,

primary assembly-<ither in that of their parish or of their urban guild. In brief, all oale adult corrroonrs had the vote

Hrault de S6chelles and Lepeletier de Saint-Fargeau: some had taken part in the " aristoclatic revolt " and all were to play a prominent part in the Revolution. Sooe belonged to Masonic lodges; others to the famots Coniti d.e[ Tlente, which met at Duport's house and was composed of lavyers, liberal arisfocrats and clerics (Talleyraod and Sieyes were of their number); others, again, such as Sieyes and Mirabeau,

with the exception of domestic servants, aon-householders (non-domitilidt), sons living in their father's house, the poorest labourers and downright paupers. But the fioally elected reprsentatives of thei! estate only emerged after fwo, three or four stages of the electoral process, depending on whether the constifuncy was urbao or rural and v/hethe! a principal or secondary beilliage (ot tdndchautie).
Nfhatever had beo the goveroment's intention, the system most definitely favoured the urban and professional bourgeoisie, who dominated discussions and voting in the assemblies of the Thild Estate, took full advantage of their practical monopoly of literacy and vocal expression, and enjoyed the means and Ieisure to concert corlr ooo action among " patliots ", to print circulars and paarphlets, and to conduct electoral campaigns denied to the rural craftsmen aad peasantry, let alooe to the labourers and village poor. It is, therefore, no accident that

link betweeq the Coniti d.et Trenre and the Duke Odeans, who conducted his own separate campaign. Sudr facts have led some historians to lay too much :tress on the existence of a ceotral directioq of all revolutionary agitation and to exaggerate the palt played by Freemasons and " the Thirty ", whose operations have been seen as evidence of a cooceried " coospiracv " to uodermine the institutioqs of the Old Rgime. Yit it-must be remembered that the Masoqic lodges recruited men of every shade of opinion; and comacted as a

of

the urban bcurgeoisie captured the great bulk of the seats among the deputies of the Third Estate: of the 610 that weot to rpresent their order at Versailies, some 25 pe! cent were
lawyers, 5 pe! cent were other professional oeo, r3 per cent wele industr.ial.ists, mercbajrts and banlers; at most 7 io 9

Bllnicatioos vTere as yet not su6ciently developed to allow of a highly organized direaion Ly compar,rLively urknown mm. Even so, it is certainly true lhat leaders were now beginniag to emerge from among both bouJgeois and liberal aristocrats, 'who .were able to give some guidance to the oation-wide discussions afld impress their personalities and ideas on the spontaneous actions of many thousands that broadly shared their views, or were willing to adopt them, in every part of the country. The electors, meanwhile, had been drafting theb cabier de doliancet, They were of 'wo main kinds: rhose drafted in the

prelirainary assemblies

34.

Cobban,

of the parishes aod guilds for suL Hittot! ol Modnn Frarce, vol. r (1957), p, r4o. A

88

The French Revolution

mission to the assemblies

demanding the removal of many of the more oppressive and wasteful practices of rhe absoiure monarchy. They roundly condemn 6scal abuse aod extravagance, the arbitrary arts oi rinistels, the system of lettrct de ca et, the anomalies al]d vexations of the internal customs and the prevailirg chaotic system of weights and measutes. More posiiively, they demand Jreedom of the press and of the iodividual (though rrot that of conscience) and a constitution that, while upholding the traditiooal power and authority of the monarch, will invest a periodically convened Siates General with the riqht to frame laws and vote taxes, whose asseisment and colleiLion will be entrusted to elective provincial aod municipal assemblies. In brief, on matters afiecting political and admioistrative reform, there wes a considerable measute of agreement among ihe

meot to their traditional privileges and immunit.ies, tlrough they frequently concede the principle of 6scal equality. At the same time, they join with those of the Third Estate in

the bdilli4?e; and those drawn up in lhe bailliage for direct subrniision-to the States Generai. Of the latter kind most have survived aod are fairlv evenlv divided between the three orders. As might be expened. the cahiert of the c|ergy and aobility generaLly stress tfieir attach-

of

r78E
intentions

89

smaller portion has survived. Some are set pieces based on circulated models and" therefore. tell us little of the leal

of their repuled authors; others (and

there

are

several among the parish cabiers) are genuine enough and illustrate fwo truths: the ooe, that the viilagers taking part in the debates supported bourgeois criticisms of the absolute

of the feirdal survivals in land-tenue aod justice; and the other, that they had ofte[ social claims of tbeir owo that, in other respects, divided them sharply from the capitalists and large proprietors withiD the Third Estaie.
monarchy and The voice of the urban wage-earnefs, ho$/eve!, is rarely heard. Io Paris, none but the wealthiest merclant-guilds were iovited to air their grievances; elsewhere, the compagnoflr, of iourneytnen, were generally excluded from tbe assemblies of the master cfaftsmen. There were exceptions, as at Rheims, Troyes. Marseilles and l-yons. qhere the workers prore;ted against the rise in prices, but otherwise accepted the lead given by their employers. The peasaflt cabieu tetded to be more outspokeo. ln addition to tbe general grievances of rhe whole rurai community, we occasionally hear the particular complaints of the small proprietor, share-cropper or laboufer. In the Rouen district, where the price of the 4-lb. loaf had risen to 16 sous, villagers demand that it be reduced to a half. Io Brittany, small peasants around Renles complain that such are the burdens of taxation and seisneurial exaction that a strip of land with a gross yield of 4o livres per annum
scarcely brings its ownet, once the demands of tax-colleclor and landlord have been met, a net iacome of a quar:er of that

three estates. But the general cabiert of ihe Third Estate, drawo up in nearJy every case by the bourgeoisie, go much furrher. i'bey oot only demand liberty of speech, writing and assembly, freedom of trade and freedom irom arbitrary arrest; but thiy generally .insist on the complete civil equaliry of ali three estates-that is, that the clergy and nobility must surreoder not ooly utterly discredited relics like serfdom, but they must give up such age-old privileges as titbe, banalitis (local rnonopolies), cbanPdrt (fzudal rent in kind), hunting rights and
seigneurial jurisdiaioo. So much the bourgeoisie had learot,

amount.

In

the parish

of Pierreville (Cotentin), the labo r-

not from their own experience, at least from a study of peasant grievances; bui the most urgent peasaot demand of all-

if

for land-is seldom, if ever. voiced it these cabierc, Of the local caliers dralted in parishes and guilds a far

in their condemof royal oficials and of tithe and hunting rights that the bdlli rcftses to accept their grievances and dictales a cabiet of his own! In Lorraine and Hainault, landless peasants and small laboureurs join forces in opposing enclosure edicfs and land clearance schem$ Dlomoted bv the more prosperous members of their communiry. Jn lhe Vosges. oo
(peasant pfopdetors) are so forthright

eur

oation

the other hand, a pafish cahiet protests that the allocatioo of

90
laod

The Frerch Reuolution

1789

9r

to landless labourers, following the division of the commons, has disturbed the harmonious relations existing hirherto between lahourers and proprierorsl In shor'. 'he pansh cabiers refiect both the common bonds of interest linking.all members of the peasant commuoity in opposition to royal tax-gatherer, tithe-owner and landlord, and those further divisions separating small consumer from large producer atd landless labourer from tenant farmer or pfoDrietor. The revolution in the viliage was to be compounded of all these
elements.

bined strength of their opponerts. So they refused to delibelate as a separate assembly, and they demanded a ioiot session to consider the validity of mandates-as a first step to holding common sessions on more fundamental guestions. The nobles and bishops natually saw the danger and resisted
the suggestioq, though the bishops had dificrlty in dissuading the parish pliests (who outnu/albeled theo by 6ve to one)

from joining their

fellow-commoners. So, bhind the

6ve-week procedural wrangle that ensued, lay a struggle ove!

a basic orinciole.

The royal Council, though it had ageed to g.ani the commons double representaiion, was unwilling to concede their fudher demand to deliberate in common. Necler vras svmparhetic bui. being strongly opposed wlrhin the Council by Barentil, the Keepet of the Seals, felt unable to give a lead. He merely advised the Third Estate to show forbearaoce, while asking the privileged orders voluntarily to ,:eoounce their 6scal immunities. Meanwhile, the estates were invited tu meet irr separate assemblies aod to recommend which subjects should be discussed and voted in common. The King had no settled pol;ry and was pulled from one si.le ro thi other. But to the commons it seemed that he had decided to throw in his lot with the dergy and nobility; for doubie representation q'ould b a hollow victory without the unjon of the orders: without the support of like-minded deputies of t}!e other estates, they could always be outvoted by the co@-

The States General met at Versailles on 5 May 1789 against a background of mounting cisis and popular unrest: in Paris, the price of bread was at oearly twice its normal level; there haci been bloody riots in tbe Faubourg St. Antoine and, in the pfofinces, peasantg were already teginnilg to pass from words to deeds by stopping food-convoys, raiding markets and destroying game,reserves. As the grat assembly opened, nothiag was done io spare the comrooos' susceptibilities or to realize their high hopes of early reform. They were ordered to wear the traditional black, to entef the meetinp hal.l by a side door and, in every way. mode mindful of rheiiinferioriry of status.

On ro June. the Third Estate- encouraged by the growing suppoft from" without dools ", decided to take the bit between its teeth. It invited the other orde.s to a corunon velificatio! of powers: if they refused to attend, it would proceed without them. Joined by a few parish priests, it completed a chec.k of election returns, elected two se{retaries and a presideot (}eaoSylvain Bailly), and, on 17 Juae, by a majority of 49\ b ag votes, arrogated to itself the title of Natiooal Assembly. This 6rst revolutiooary act of the cornmons was followed by the issue of two decrees, of whidr one provided that a dissolutioo of the new Assembly, for whatever cause, would invalidate all existing taxes; and the other lhat, as soon as a constitution had been determined. the oublic debt should be consolidated aod
underwritten by th oation as a whole. On zo June, a further challenge was throwo dowo v/hen the Assembly found itself-accidentally, it seems-lo&ed out of its usual meetiog

hall: following President Bailly into an adjoining tennis

court, every depug exrept one took a solemo oath that the National Assembly should rot disperse until the conslitution had beeo firmly established. By this time the clergy had, by a narrow majority, decided to throw in its lot with ihe new Assembly, and r5o clerical deputies, headed by two archbishops, ioined it a few days later. Even before this last act of de6aoce, Necter had urged the King to assert his authority, break the deadlock bctween the orders and take th initiative in legislative form. To this end,
he suggested that a royal sessioq (rdance royale) be held, where

T he French Revolution

r78g
in coqmoa

93

it

tutior of the

should be announced that su& eattets as the future consfi.

States General should be discussed

assembly, whereas matters a.fiecting the vested interests of individual states shou.id continue to be seDaratelv considered. Atier birler 4rgumenrs wirhin the Louncrr, a 6rsr decjsion was taken on 19 Juae to hold a slance royale on the 22[d-presu-mably on rtre basis of Necler proposals. But, meanwbile, " the King, indecisive as wer, had been prevailed upon by other counsels. Surrounded at Marly (s/here the Couri had retired ol rhe dealh of the young Dauphin in early .]une) by a group ol courtrers, led by his younger broLhei, che Comre d Artois, whose arguments were supported by the Queen and leaders of the_ privileged orders, he was persuaded to agree to quash the self'styled Assembly's decee of r7 Jung to refer diicr:ssion on t}!e fun:re orgaoization of the States General to each of the sepaiate orders, and to ovelawe the Third Estate by a display of force. The session was deferred uotil z3 Juae; Ne&er, whose removal had beeo secretly decided upon, decided to stay -away. Once more, nothing was done to spare t}le feelings of ttre Third Esrate: they were kept wa-itiog in the

Finally, the estates wer ordered to disperse and to resu.Be discussion in their separate chambers on the mortow. Yet the piaos of the Coult party miscaffied. Thousands of Parisians invaded the courtyard of t\e chdteeu to demand tlat Necl<er be retaioed in o6ce; soldiers uader the command of the Prince de Conti refused to obey the order to fire; the deputies of the Third Estate, having declined to disperse afte! the termimtion of the ftance, were rallied by Mirabeau in an historic speech. Thc King was compelled to yield. Necker rernained in office and not only was the Natioaal Assembly (whose numbers had now risen to 83o deputics) left in possession of its chamber; but, on u7 June, the remnants of the other orders were expressly ordered to merge with it. Up to now the revolutionary temper dweloping in Paris had been without efiective leadership. lfith the latest news from Versailles, however, the profissiooal ard commercial
classes, who had been prepared to await events and had viewed the simmerings ln the faabourgt aod markets without sympathy, began to give a directioo to afiairs without which the Ju.ly revolution could hardly have taken place. FroB this dat the pamphleteers alld jouna[sts irl the efltourage of the Duke of Orleans (who had joined the new National Assembly at Versailles) began to establish a permaneflt headquarters at the Palais Royal; here thousands congregated nightly and acquired the slogans and directives-and, possibly, too, the funds---of what the diarist Hatdy called " the extreme revolutionary party ". Also at this time, th 4o7 electors of the Paris Third Estate, whose oliginal task it had beo to aPPoint the Parisian deputies to the Third Estate at Versai[es, began to meet regulally at the City Hall in the heart of the caPital. These two bodies were to piay distinct, yet complemeotary,

rain while the privileged ordels took their siats; the hall was vith troops; and the proceedings had all the arbitrary atmosphere of a /it de jxstice, The main business was devoted to the reading of two royal declaratiqns by Barentin. The 6rst pronounced the National Assembiy's resolutions null and void and, while.recomoending Lhe acceptance of the principle or comrnon sesslons lof matters of .ommon con(ero, exprcssly reserved for separaie deliberation all questions relating-io thi special privileges and immuoities of the first two estates. The second dedararion ourlined the Council's legislarive prograoLme. IL provided, broadly, for a reform of the institutjons of the Old Rdgime along lines already advocated by all three estates in their rcspective cabiers; but the social fabric of the old order was to reaain.iDtact: it wr-s categorically stated that tithes and feudal and manorial dues wele to be treated as Droprietary ligllts and that no surrender of fiscal privilege w6uld be called for without the consent of the parties conceroed,
ringed

parts in the events of July. In the earl.ier days, however, it was the Palais Royal aloae that gave a positive directio!. to the

popular movemeat. !(rhereas the City Hall contented itself with &afting paper schemes for a citizeas' militia, the Palais Royal took steps, by public agitatioo arrd liberal expenditure, to v/in over the troops-above all, dre Gardes Frangaises-

94

The Frcnch Reuolution

r7d9

95

from their loyalty to the Court. Traats supporiiog fte stand of the Third Estate were distributed among the Paris gaffisons; and, by the end of June, the Guards, who had .loyally shot

down lioters two months before in the FauboEg SaintAntoine, wele parading the streets of Paris to shouts of " long live the Third Estate I We are the soldie rs of the
On ro July, eighty attillerymen, who had broken out barrad<s in the H6tel des Inval.ides, were publidy fted in the Palais Royal and the Champs Elyses. Responding to these developments, the Court, which had been steadily summoning loyal Swiss and German regiments
nation
|

"

erpelled fmm their lodgings. The Paiais Royal appcars to have had a hand in the afiair: it is perhaps significant that two posts said to belong to the Duke of Orleans were deliberately spared by the incendiaries, The main motive of the rioters was, no doubt, to settle accounts with a'l institution tbat added materially to the cost of food and wine enteling
the city;
concerned

of their

fie organizers seem, however, to have been mainly to destroy tle monopoly of the Farmers General

to Versailles, attempted a further show-down. On rr Ju1y, Necker was sent ioto exile and replaced by a nominee of the Queen, the Baroo de Breteuil. This proved to be the spark that touched ofi the insurrection in Paris. The news reached

the c4pital at oooo on the r2th. During the

Parisiafls flocked to the Palais Royal, where

afterooofl

oratofs-the young

Carnille Desmoulins among them-gave the call to arms. Groups of marchers quickly formed; the busts of Necker and the Duke of Orleans, the heroes of the hour, were paraded on the boulevards: beaLres were compelled to close as a sign of mourning; in the Place Louis XV (the Place de la Coocorde

and to control the entry and exit of almr and persons to and from the capital. The same night, a similar operarion was carried out on the lorthern fringe of the city, when armed civilians and Gardes Fraogaises, once Erole directed from the Palais Royal, broke into the monastery of the St. Lazare brottrerhood, seardred it for arms, deased prisoners and removed over 6fty cadloads of grain and flour to the central markets. This pad of the proceedings was followed by an invasion of local poor and unemployed, who stripped the buildiag of mooey, food, silvet and hidden treasure. But the main feature of the night of rz-r3 July was the
search

for arms.

Religious houses were visited and gun-

of

today), dtrlonstrators dashed

wi*r

cavalry commanded by

the Prince de Lambesc, who had been oldeled to clea! the

Tuileries gardens. Besenval, commander of Ore Paris garrison, withdrew to dre Champ de Mars. The capiial was in &e hands of the people. As ihe tocsin souaded-soon to become a familiar su-rnmons to Parisians-bands of insurgents ioined those who, fwo days earlier, had begun to bura down the hated batriAles (r:f,stoms posts), whose e{actioos were bitterly reseoted by shopkeepers, wine-merchaqts and small conflrmels. and which had alreadv been the s(ene of frequent di.,hrrbance and anempled smuggling. Forty of the fifty-four customs posts wele systematically demolished in the courc of four days'rioting; docu-oertts, registers aod receipts were burned, iron railings were pulled dowa, oftces and furnitue vrere fued aad custoqs oficers

smiths', armourets' and harness-makers' were raided in different parts of the capital. The Parisian gunsmiths evenbtally submitted to the National Assembly a statement of their losses, amounti[8 to ove! roo,ooo livres. They do not appear to have been paid and must be counted aoong thc roinor victims of the Revolution. On the morning of fhe r3th, the Paris electors made a firo bid to gain control of the situation. They fomred a permaneot cormittee to ad os a provisional govetrment of the city aod determined to put a stop to the indisciminate arming of the whole population. To them the bands of unemployed and homeless, some of whom had played a part in the mids on the

bafiirer

and, the

3t

Lazare monastery, were as great a melace

to the security and properties of ttre citizens as the Court arld privileged orders conspiring at Versailles. It rras with both thleats in mirld that they now set seriously about orgaoizing a
eitizens' militia, ot gatde nasionale; and

it

goes without saying

9o

that

to attend meetings h the sixty electoral districls into which Paris had been divided; each district \ras to provide 2oo (latr 8oo) me[; and Barnave wrote, the same evening, to hjs constituents in Dauphine, that there were already :3,zoo cit.izens registered and equipped. From this body all vag.ants and homeless persons (gazr uu aaea) and even a large patt of the settled wage-earoefs, were specifically excluded: it was, as Baroave said, to be " bonne bottpeoite". Yet arms confinued to fall into unauthorized hands as lons as the insurection lasted. Crowds besieged the City HaJi, demonding arms and pov/det. Jacques de Flesselles, prlo1t des marchand; ar'd acting head of the provisiooal city governoent, being aoxious to lim.it their distribution, sent parties ofi oo fruitless quests to the Arsenal alld the Carthusian monastery: this " treachery " would cost him his Life on the morrow. Meanwhile, the electors had depBted ooe of their number, the AbM Lefevre, to guard the stocks assembled in the vaults of the City Hall; but so great was tlre pressure of the half-armed crowds surging tound dre building that he was compeiied to hand out his Dowdr with more soeed and less discriminatioq thalr he wou.ld
summoned
Lave .pished.

was induced, rbe next day, to give his consent. Householderi were

it

The Frcnch Reaolution qas on the former score alone that the Kins

The seardr for arms continued on the mornilg of the r4th, when a spectac!.lar raid was made on the H6tel des Invalides across the river. Here some 3o,ooo muskets were removed by the 7-8,ooo citizens taking part; and from here ihe cry weot out, " To the Bastille ! " The object was not to release plison-

in fact, only seven of them), but to seize the powde! that, as was known, had lately been sent there from the Arsenal. Besides, the fortress was widely hated as a symbol of past tyranries and had figured as such in the cabiert of all thrce estates. It vras believed to be heavily armed and its guns, which tlat morning were trained on the Rue St. Antoine, could play havoc among the crowded tenemeots. In t}le night, too, it had been rumoured that 3o,ooo
ers (there were, royalist tloops had marched into the Faubourg St. Aqtoioe

97 and had beSun to slaughte! its citizens. Yet trere dos not seem to have been any serious intention, at the outset, of taking the Bastille by storm-least of all oo the part of the committee of electors, who had tlrrust on them the task of directing operations from the City Hail. Frcm the electors' own account of the eveat, 1re learD that theT proposed to negotiate with the governor, de Launay, for t}le sutrender of the gunpowder in his keeping and for the withdrawal of the guos from his battlements. De Launay received their deDutatiols and oromised not to fire unless altacl<ed. Nevertl.reless, the besiiging crowds, already filling the outer courtyard, managed to lower ttie drawbridge lead. ing into the itoer coar d gowernement\ and the governor, believiog a frontal assault to be irominent, ordered his men to 6re. Ir the ensuing afiray, the besiegers lost 98 dead and 73 wounded. Tempers $/ere roused and the electors lost coltrol of operations. The decisive blow was strud< t'7 two detachments of Gardes FranEaises who, responding to the summoff of Hulin. a foroer N.C.O.. marched to the fortress with flve canqon removed that morning from the Invalides. Supported by a few hundred armed civilians-master craftsmen, journeymen and labourers of the St. Antoine and neighbouring districts4-they trained thei! caonon on the main gate. De Launay threatefled to blow up the fortress, but, being dissuaded by the garrisoa, lowered his main drawbridge and surrendcred to his assailants. He himself and six of the hundred defenders were massacred; de Flesselles met a similar fate, So the Bastille fell. Though of little military importance, its fall had far-leaching consequences. The National Assernbly, for the time being at least, was saved and received royal recognition. The Court Party began to disintegrate and Artois, Cond6 and Breteuil went into exile, 'while Necker was recalled. In the capital, power passed firmly into tbe hands of the electors, who set up a municipal council, or Communq with Bailly as mayor and

1789

lThe

names

addresses,

&.8.

in the i{.rcbives

oI

some 660 of ihese are liskd. with their aaes and Natronales, T5r4 (r), ia Paris.
D

98
escorLed

The Frcxch Retolation

r76q

99

by 6fty depur.ies (Robespierre a-mong them), sas received-by rhe victors ai. the Ciry Hall and, in roken of acquiescence i! t}le tuln o{ events, dooned lhe red, white and- b}ue cod(ade of the Revolution. It seemed as if low thc Nationa.l Assembly raight ploceed quietly with its work. But the provinces had yet to have their say. The news frcm Paris, reach.iog the villages and markettowqs by vnord of mouth and by deputies letters during the &ird week in fuly, inteosified and spread a pealant-movement that had alrea$ beguo. It also piovoked a series of minor muaicipa.l rerohrtiors. Uolike the peasartry and sma.ll urban consumefs, the provincial bourgeoisie had been resigned to await &c outcoae of events in Paris and Versailles, If&en the news of Ned.er's dismissal reached Nalcy on r5 JuIy, Arthur Young was told ;

of its newly-Iormed National Guard. On r7 July, the Kiag himself made rtre journey to paris,
Lafayette as commander

"

in Paris." The 'municipal revolr.uion took various forms. Sometimes, as in mariiime Flanders, the old town coryoration metely broadened its coEposition, adopted the
done tricolour cod<ade and carried ort as before. Sometimes, as at Bordeaux, .it followed the example of Pads and made way for the local assembly of electors. More often-as at Lille, Rouen,
Cherbourg, Dijon, Rennes and Lyons-the old author.ities were overthlown and replaced by entirely new bodies, sometimes piedged to reduce the price of bread. Io nearly every case, the tuansfcr of power was accompanied by the creatba of a National Guard oo the Parisian model, whose 6rst ob;ect was, as in lhe capital, to meet the double danger of ariiro-

\(e

are a provincial town; we must wait and see what is

Gtande Peu" (the Great Fear), itself a product of the economic crisis and of the revolution in Paris. The crisis had increased the number of vaglants oo ihe corintry-roads, as it had incteased the hostilitv of the oeasalts to their landiords. On top of this came the intrigues of the Court and arisLocracy at Velsailles and their defeat by the popular victory in Paris, followed, in turn, by the emigration of Artois and Cond6 and the dispersal of military units to couniry districts. FroE all this had grown the belief that the aristocrats were preparing to wreak suomary vengeaoce with the help of armed vagrants, or " brigands ", who were reputed to be roaming the countryside. So the peasants armed and awaited the invaders: such incidents were reported from every province of France with the exception of Alsace, Brittany and lorraine. \When the imagiaary " brigands " did not materialize, the defenders, with true peasant thrift, often turned their arms agaiast the mansions of their landlords iostead" Thcir targets were, in fact, not so much the mansions as the hated oanorial regisrets on which their seigneurial obligations, both old aod new, were generally inscribed. And so, in July and early August, the peasaflts left a trail of rczed, cbiteaax and burning manorlolls in maoy parts of the couotry. Often, they were led by persols beariog orders purportinS to come from the King himself ; and there seems little doubt t}rat the peasants believed that, in senling accounts wirh their rcigneit. they were carrying out the Kiog's wishes, if not his specific .instructions.s The news of these events colopelled the National Assembly
to pay itrunediate attention to feudal privilege and to the needs 5G. Lefebvre, la Gftr.l Peul dz 1789 Ggj2\.

sumf,s' movemeot atteoded by assaults on millels, grarlaries and food-convo1s, it had, by the following spring and summer, begun to assume ihe propoltioff of a widespread rural revolt against game ln\1s. huating rights, royal taxes, tithes and seigneuial dues. The news from Paris gave this Bovement a fresh stioulus, generalized it and gave it a more precise purpose. It was accompanied by the strange phenomenon known as " /a

cratic reactioo and popular disturbance. Meanwhile, the Intendaots were either expelled or quietly d.isappeared; io either case, the loyal authority rvas weakened.

It is one of the legends of history-books that the peasants, _ also, had waited on events. In fact, rural disfurbairce had
been continuous, irl maoy parts of the country, since December 1788. Startin& as ia the grair riots of x775, as a small con-

But, though saved by the people of Paris in July and prodded into " destroy.ing feudalism " by the peasantry in August, tbe National Asseobly was \ no means yet secure. As long as the C-ourt ald King remained at Versailles ald an active minority of deputies were able, in alliance with the
Court, to frustrate the constitutional programme of the major. ity, efiective power still remained divided between the revolutionary bourgeoisig supported by a minority of aristocrats and bishops, and.the adherents of the Old Rdgime. The gains so far made, substantial as they seemed, were precarious: Inuis refused to assent both lo the August decrees and to the Dedaration of the fughts of Man (see next drapter); thcle were repeated royalist intrigues to abduct the King to a safe distance from the capital; and now determined attempts were made to persuade the Assembly to adopt an " English " constitution-by granting the Kiag ao absolute " veto " over legislalioo and creatiog an Upper Chamber. These proposals were put forward in August by the socalled " monarcbienr " or " English party ", a group led by Mouaicr and Malouet among the commons ard Lally Tollea-

the Assembly's claim that " tbe feudal rgime had been utterly " was misleading: while the remnants of serfdon, the coru6e and ecdesiastical tithes were aboiished outright, some of the @ore oqelous privileges and obligations-the cenr, qlrt-tejit, cbdtnPart, IodJ et lenre! arnong them-were made redeemable by individual purchase. The fact that the landlords never got thei! money (the total compensation has been estimated at 4,ooo millioo livres) was dui less to the folesight aqd generosity of the legislators ihao to the insistence and militancy of the pasants. Eventualty, the Jacobin Conveotion faced the accomplished fact and, by a decree of ltly 1793, declared the outstanding debt nuil aad wid.
deshoyed

Thc Frcnch Reuolution of the peasants. It was bound to ma1<e concessions, and these took the spectacular form of the surrender of their feudal rights and fiscal ionuaities by the deputies of the Liberal alistooacy and clergy on the famous night of 4 August. But

roo

r789

IOI

dal among the nobiliry. Their aims were to frame a " mixed " constitution on the English roodel where powers would be divided, in more or less equal portiors, betweea King, nobility and cornmons; ooly property-owners of substance would have the vote; a,rd the rebellious peasants and urban ment/ perPle would be kept in their place. The proposal to form an Upper Chamber was easily defeated, as oot only were the Left and Centre within the Assembly ranged against it, but it was strongly opposed by the provincial noblere who feared their virhral exclusion from a Chamber dominated by the Court aristocracy, The " veto " proposal, however, was more tenaciolrsly uphld arld created sharper divisioqs, reachiog beyond the conflnes of the Assembly itself. The Parisian " patriots ", established at the Palais Royal, called for its outright rejection; but Barnave, who spoke for the "patriot" deputies (the Left) ar Versailles, wis prepared to negotiate with *re Centre, vrho favoured a compromise. r$trhen, at the end of August, negoliaiions broke down, the Pa.isjans hands were stlengthened aod an attempt was made by a group of Palais Royal journalists to induce Parisians to rnarch to Ve!sailles and fetdr the King ba& to his capital. This frst attempt failed both because Barnave and his colleagues opposed it and because Parisians were not yet ready to undertake it. They were ready to do so, five weeks later, as the lesult of the combination of three factors-their indoctrination with the ideas of the " patriots ", the sharpening of the food crisis, and the provocative measures of t}le Court. That the common people of the capital were deeply influenced by the curreots of advanced opinioa had been evident during the electoral campaign, when rioters in the Faubourg St. Antoine and others had championed ihe claims of the tiers ltat agair.st its opponents. The d,.bates at Versailles were relayed with aroazing speed ro croods in rhe Palais Royal and the Place de Crdve] outside the Cin Hall. Already oo 24 August, before the Dedaration of -.he Rights of Man had been adopted, a iouroeymao gunsmirh, shen cross-examined by the police after arrest

ro2 Thc Frcnch Reuolution insisted that kle droit de ljhonme" entitled him to a fai! hearing. Chairmen at the gates of the National Assemblv (Malouet tells us) freely discussed the righrs und *rongs of t]re " veto "; and,- in September, the unemployed workeis of the de cbariti (national workshops) declared their -aeliets readiness to go to Versailles to fetctr the royal faqlily to the
cartital.

r789

ro3

on.. more, it was the food crisis that lent a partiorlar agitarion The prie of the 4Jb. loaf had, a week aftir the fali of the Bastilie. been reduced lrom 4r2 ro :'3\ sous; and. a fortnigbr laLer. after demonstrations at the City Hall, to rr sous. But the calm that followed was short-lived. The harvest had been good, but a prolonged drought made it impossible for millJs to grind sufficient corn. The shorfage of-flour and bread ihat rc;ulted yg a boon to speciaiors but a matter of deep concern to bakers, who were the most ready largers of popuJir vengeance.
insistence and- intensity fo popular

^Yeg

During August and Seprember, there were ionstant brea-d riots in Paris, Versailies and Si. Denis, in the coulse of which a baker and_ a municipal oltcer were killed by angry crowds and ssveral others were threate[ed with the dreadJd ', Ianterne", It was ooted by Hardy that, from rnid-september, a leading parj io the agitation was played by the women of the marketi and la ^axtqtt and it wrs they who took Lhe initiatire and gave a lead to their menfolk in the Areat mardl to Versaills on
s - OctoberBuL in Juty, it was developments at Versailles itself that -as brought matters to a head. On rr September, Barnave had

King to agree to withdraw his objection to the August decrees. Il wai rhe Assemblv's insisterce on this latter point that determined the Court to break the deadlock by a funher display of military force. On 15 Sepfember. Iouis, having relected the modeiates' advice to transfer the Asembly to a provincial town, ordered the flanders regimenl to Versailles. It was welcomed by a ban. quet given b-y, the royal Gardes du Corps (Iife-Guardi;, in tte course of whictr the national co&ade was tfampled underfoot

persuaded-the Assembly to urge rhe

and the Queen and her children were received with almost mystical ferlour. The incident was wjdelv reported in paris the. next day and the " pafriot " presr called for vengeance. This time, Barnave withdiew his ob.jcction to a resort tJforce; so at least would appear from his comments after the event. Danton carried a resolution in the Cordeliers Ciub in paris. urging Lafayere ro go ro Versailles with an ultimatum; and Desmoulins repeated his $rlnsroos to Parisians to fetch the King to the capital. The call was echoed, on Sunday, 4 Octobr, at rneeiings in the gardeos of the palais Royal. Early net morning, women oi the central markeis and the Faubourg St. Antoine invaded the City Hall, calling for bread and searching for arms. They were ioined outside by Stanislas Maiiiard, a sherifi's oftcer who had distinzuished himself at the Ba.tille. and s,hom ,hey persuaded to Jead them to Versailles to present their demanis to the Kinq and the National Assembly. So rhey set out in rwo great cohurns. in the rain, chanting as they marched (or so tradition has it), ,, let us fetch the baker, the baker's wife and the little baker's lad". Thev were followed. a few hours larer. by :o,ooo Narional Guards'men of the Paris Districts, who had compelled the reluclant lafayette to place himself at tl.reir head, and a motley band of civilians rrmed with muskets. sticks and pikes. Faced wirh this impressive array, the King needed little persuasion to give orders for the provisioning of the capital and to sanction the August decrees and rhe Declaration o1 Righrs. Bul these concessioos were nor eoough to satisfy the insurgents: and, tbe next day, the King and his family, having rhrown away their last chance of seeking refuge in flight, were compeiled to acco<npany the marchers back to Paris, where they were joined, teo days later, by the Natiooal Assembly. So the French monarchy, after an absence of over a hundred years, returned for a brief sojourn to its ancesrral home. By this second intervention of the people of Paris the gains of the July revolution were consolidated. The King -ame under the watchful eye of the Assembly, the Paris city government aod Districts; the " English palty " was discredited and

q.ho, though having aios and grievances of their own, shared their fears and susp.icions of ttre aristocracy. In this sense, the revolution of 1789 was a merger of two distiflct movements bourgeois aod the popular-a metger that would leave -the oa the whole future course of the Revolutioq in irs mark
France.

The French Retolution its leadels began to follow Artois aad Breteuil into exile; while power passed firmly ioto the hands of the " constitutional " monarchists. Yet they had only survived and tri. umphed because, under the pressing compulsion of events, they had been willing to ma.ke coomon cause with the people

ro4

r789
labourer, was hanged on

ro5
foE attempting to Provoke

victim of these lestraints oo libertv, Midrel A&ien, a Bastille

dorfble victory over aristocra{ and " despotism ", the bour' 'quiet geoisie now wanted peace and to prdeed with its task of giving France a constitutioo.

a " sedition

" in the Faubourq St. Antoine.

zr Ocobir

Having won its

Yet, wen vrith such divided aims, a nerger of this kind could not take place in other countries .in Europe----cither because (as in Austria and Poland) the middle dass was too weak to make any efiective political challenge; or (as in England, Switzerland and the United Provinces) because it lacked the will or the motive to ally itself with the people. But, in France, too, the revolution of 1789 might have turned out difiereutly. If the King had proved biqself more trustworlhy as a cbanpion of reform, aod if the aristocracy had been as willing to surrender privilege as to 6ght royal " despotism ", dre Third Estate aight have settled for a compromise-something perhaps Iike tle bourgeois-aristocraticmonarciist partnership proposed by Mounier or the alliaoce of King and people desired by Mirabeau. But, after July, it was too late: by his feeble intrigues with Court and nobility, the King had already lost all chaoce of being accepted as the leader of a national movement of regeneratioo; and the privileged dasses were by now daorred, io the eyes of " patriots " and people, as the declared enemies of reforo. Yet the alliance of bourgmisie and people was by no means an easy, stable or unchequered one, Even among dre victors of October, there were many who viewed it wiih misgiv.ings; and once the insurrection had served its purposg the Assembly took steps to curb the revolutionary energies of the Parisian men Peu?le by imposing martial law, the death penalty for rebellion aod a ce!.sorship of the radical press. The 6rst

Chapter

VI

THE RECONSTRUCTlON OF FRANCB

The men who laboured for the next two years to give France her first revolutionaly constitution vere by no oeans th starryeyed dreamers or "ideologues " that they have somelimes been represented to be; nor were they as thoroughly committed, by inclination or precept, to re-shape society on entirely new foundations as Burke imagined. The Const.ituents, or constitutional monarchisis, were essentially the lawyers, merchanis, formet governmenl oficers and landed proprietors of the old Third Estafe, shorA of a srqall minority of nzonarcb)em and. teinforced by the addition of some frfty " patfiot " nobles, fortyfour bishops and zoo parish dergy. Their new leaders, after Mohnier's and Malouet's departure, were men of the former Centle and Left-the triumvirate of Baroave, Duport aod
Charles Lameth; with Sieyes playing an impoftant lole and with a Left opposition formed by a small group of democlats like Robespierre and P6tion. Their thought and their laqguage, it is true, were cast, like those of the Americans, in the

but even the presence of Thomas Jeferion in paris and ther:r dose kinship with the Virginian Declaration of 1776 do not prove that they owed their origin largely to American inspiralion or e).perience: it is more sensjble to conclude that borh A-melicans and Frenchmen acknowledged a common debt to the " natural-law " school of philosophy-. in particular ro Iocke, Montesquieu and Rousseau. The Declaration of Rishts is re_ markable in thar it nearly balances a starement of"universal principles and human righrs with ao evident concern for the interests of the bourgeoisie. In general, it voices the basic claims of the Third Estate, as erer;ssed in the .abiefr i Drotec_ tion of proprty, freedom of cioscience. of oress arrd' froarbitrary arrest: eguality before the law, equll taxatioo and qual eJigibility to office: and, to show the deputies' apprecia-

The Recons*uction ol Francc ro7 of hard bargaininq between different smuos of deputies. Both Mounier and -Lafayene, respectivei oi rhe Righ[ and-Centre, played an important part in rheir irafting;
the outcome

of

mould

of the new philosophy but, like

thern, they had

shrewd idea of which side of their bread was buttered. Owing Rdgime

not entirely of their own volition, the Old of afistoclatic privilege and royal absolutism had col' lapsed, and someihing had to be put in its place. The cofftitution and the iaws that they enacted during these years of comparative social peace bore, like the Declaration of Rights that pleceded them, the mark of the cBrrent philosophy; but they were also conceived in iheir own pafticllar image. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen was adopted by the Assembly, while still at Versailles, on z7 August 1789. These " principles of rj89", which were later to eothlall and to divide the wtrole of, Europe, were ro5

to

circumstances

freedom ' of the market had not yet become an urgenr issue. Equality presented in largety political terms: "economic "is egualfy does nol arise. Property is ',a sacred and inviolable right ", and no attempt is yefmahe to de6ae or to circumscribe it: tlof is any mention made of the State's oblisations to Dro_ ride work or relief for the poor and unprop.ii.d. Th.r. i, silence, too, o.n th9 rights of assembly, of paitioniag and asso ciation. I-aw said to be " the expression -of the geieral will ,' -is (memories of the Patlement! reionstrances of lhe r77o's!), but there is oo guarante that all c.itizens will have aq equal right to enact it-least of all in the colooies: no mentioi is made of slavery and the slave trade. In matters of religion, Protestants-and Jews are entitled to their opinions, .,pro.iia.j their maqifesiatiofl does not distulb the public orderi': there cao be oo questioa of cocoplete and untra-omelled liberty of

nocaic freedom, as the Assembly was siijl divided on the fuhre the guilds, aqd the resistance of small consumers to the

tion of.practical realities, ir implicitly sanaions- pori iorto, lighr of rebellion. On thi othei hand, its oaoissions and -the reservatiols are equally significant. Nothing is said of eco_

'

Io8

The Frcnch Reaolution

Thc Reconstruction of

Francc

roq
absolute

conscience as lorg as the Roman Catholic Church remarns the single State Churdr of France. The Declaration, then, for all its nobiiity of IarLgaage and its proclamation of universal prin-

ciples, is essentially a manifesto

of the rwolutionary

bour-

geoisie and its clerical and liberal-aristocratic aliies. As such,

it

sounded the death-kneil of the Old R6gime, while pleparirg the public for the constructive lesislation that was to follow. The Sreater part of this legislation, though by no rneans all, became incorporated in the Constitution of r79r. Running through it all is the concern of the nation's new rulers that the system to be devised must be adequately pfotected agaiost the triple danger of royal " despotism ", aristocratic privilege and popular " liceniiousness ". There were no declared Republicans in the Assembly and it was generally agreed that the monarchy should remain; but it was to be a new consiihrticnal monarchy, stfipped of its former absolute control of government, legislation, army arld iustice. The " King of the French "

would hoJd heredirary office. be gran'ed a ci'il li,r of:t million livfes as the first servant of the State, and hare the righl to apJ'oinr hii own minisrers (from out. de rhe Assembly), his ambassadors and military commanders. By the so-called " suspensive veto ", he would haye ihe power to suspend or delay all laws, other than financial, initiated and adopted by the Assembly for a period up to four years. or the
duration

strong executive, centred on a monard with an power of vto, witl an army at his cornmand aad served by ministers drawn from the Assembly. The real power in the land v/as, in fact, to be the Legislative Assembly itself. lt was to be a uni-cameral body, untrammelled by " drecls and balances " on the English or Americall modei. armed with unlimited Dowers over taxation and with ioitiative and authority io a legislative matters restficted only by the " suspensive veto " and the obligation to hold electioos every two years. The majority took cate, bcsides, to ensure that, if not they themselves, at least like-minded deputies should be returned at eadr subseque[t electioq. Prompted by Sieyes, they adopted a formula where\ oaly citizens of some substance aod property should be entitled to vote io two electoral stages. Though the Declaration of Rights had proclaimed the righi of all cilizens " to take Part, ir person or through their rePlesentatives, in the making of laws", it had been silent on the specific right of suffrage. Citizens were now to be divided into " actives " and " Passives ", of whom " actives " alooe would have the vote. To qualify for active citizenship ooe had to be a male aged z5 years or above, domiciled for a yea!, not engaged in domestic
service, and paying a direct tax equivalent to the value

of thlee

of hvo colsecutive parliaments. But he had no

power to dissolve the Assembly; ministers wouid virually be answerable, not to himself but to the Assembly and its numerous committees; and, while he might take the first steps in declaring war or making peace, such measu-es *ould be subject to the approval of padiament. The armed forces, meanx'hile, had already been largely lemoved flom royal control: a great many of the old aristocratic offcers had been purged, often by the troops themselves; commissions were declared open to all; all ranks were called upon to take an oath of allegiance to the " nation " as well as to the Kins: and local aulhorities had the disposal of their ovzn citizens' militias, or Nationel Guatd. So Mirabeau, as muctr as Mounier, failed ia his attempt to create a

which actually " elected " the dein roo of all active citizens and ixcludecl all but those vho paid a direct tax equivaleot to the value of ten days' labour. Finally, to qualify as a deputy, a citizen had to pay a silver mark, or 5z livrs, in taxes. \(4rat limitations this system aciually imposed, or was iotended to impose, on the right of vote aod fepresentation has been hotly disputed by historians; it is a dificult question to resolve and all the more complicated because, in August r79r, the Asthe secondary
assemblies,

days'unskilled labour. Sudr citizens might vote, in the primary assemblies, at the 6rst stage of the eleccoral process. But

Duties. were limited to one

sembly considerably tightened up the provisions restricting access to the electofal aJsemblies, while easing those relating to deputies. Formally, Professor Paloer oay be right in con-

the.right to- vote in the pri.qary assembJies, about 50 in roo cou( quaLly as electors, and one in roo might qualify as a ,. ,"c|o1f d5putf Yel published lisrs suggest ihat, in pracriqe, bolh active" citizens and electors-particularly the laner_ tended to be meo of greater substance ihan these fqures would

Thc French Reaolution duding that, up to August r79r, almost 7o.in roo

l ro

citizens had

lII to have its owo of ;ounicipal council and to be further subdiv.ided into forty' eight sections (replacing the sixty electoral disilicts of t789),
Thc Reconstruction of France
powets

local administration. Paris was

imply. Even so, it is undeniably rrue thar tbese reitricrjons on the !i8ht to vote were far less stringent than those imposed by
society

the unreformed Parliament of Brirain: French bourpeois oI 1789-92 was decidedly roore democraiic rhon aiisro-

clatic society across the Channel. royal authority was further weakened by the reform of _The administration and of local governeent. The old hereditary o6ces, acquired by purchasg were swept away aod their holders compensated: it could hardly be otherwise, as two in five of the Assembly's members were previous offce-holders ! A similar fate betell rhe old complicatid \lem at ganituljftr and )ntetdantes. bailliaget and tin,lcbatusies, palt dlitatt, and Pay d ;kc!ion-,.privileged- corporations and ihe surviving pockets ot ecdesrastical and seigneurial jurisdiction. Follow_ ing the.Declaration of Rights, public of6ce was made open, by electior or appointment, to taleot. Io the place of the old parciwork of local auLhoriries a uniform svsLim wrs devired. based on departrnenls, disrricts,.onton, -d aurn^*es, *hich, io its essentials, has survived to the present day. There wer to be 83 departmeots of oore or less iqual size,'whose boundaries, however, were drawn q ith carelul aLtnrion ro geography :

of election, police and local justice Thus, oot ooly absolute monarchy but the whole old system of centralized goveruent was dismantled; aad France, at this stage of the Revolution, became virtually a federation of elective departoents and municipalities, enjoying a wide measure of local autonomy and held together, at the centle, by a strong lesislature but weak executive. The s"-. considerations governed the reform of iustice and
armed with powers

the judicial systero. In the new bourgeois State, iustice could oa longer be subject to the royal prerogative or be dispensed by a local alistocracy of the sword, rcbe ot mjtre, So Pa e,ltentr, lelffer d.e cachel. and seigneurial and ecdesiastical courts followed the Bastille aod the old venal offices into

oblivion. As in England and America. the iudiciary was declared to be indeoeadent of the executive: it was to become depeadent oo the " nation " (that is, on the enJranchised citizeqs) instead. Justice was made free aad equal fot all; a aetwork of tribunals was ceated at municipal, departmltal
and national level, with elective judges and with juries elected to serve in criminal cases. At the apex were two natiooal

like those of the months in the Revolutionary Calendar, were derived from natural Dhenomena-in rhis case, mainly from rivers, mourttains ani seas. The deparLments, like their subdivisions, the districts and cantoos, wele no longer, as under the old royal system, to be run by nomiaated oftcials but by committees e.lected from below. The base of the pyramid was formed by some 44,ooo communes (or municipaliiies), whose mayors ard coundllors
aames, were elected by the active citizens and exercised considerable 1R. R, Paloer, The Age ol rbe Dernacrutic Ret)olztiafr, t" 522-g.

in fact, their

-laier

the latter, concerned with the trial of ministers, public of State, looked forward to the Revolutionary Tribuaal of t793. And, io due course (after MardI t1'92), the guillotine, the great leveller, would replace the aristoclatic sword or axe and plebeian noose as the single iflstru-Deot of er(ecution fo! all capital o$enders. The old 6scal system had already been largely destroyed in tlre surqmer of t789 : then taille, gabelle, ddes, tithes, cusfoosbarriers, fiscal immunities aod the authority of the Farmers General had been swept away by the nation under arms. Their replacement faced the Constituents with one of their knottiest problems. To meet irnrnediate requirements, a land
officials and enemies tax was inlroduced, assessed oa all properties ard calculated to

tribunals-a Court of Appeals and a High Court, of which

12

The French Reaolution

The Recons,truct;on ol France

rr3

raise z4o million livres a year. Further taxes were to be levied on personal incomes and movable property, and oa commercial and industrial tevenues; .in addition, a " patriotic" contribution, ploposed by Mirabeau, raised another roo million livres. But these measlrres were quite insumcient to meet the mounting toll of debt, compeosation payment and crrrrent expeodituie, and they provoked violent hostility-

particularly from the peasants who, complaining that they

wele once more being over-taxed, declared, in many distticts, what amounted to a tax-payels' strike. So exceptional remedies had to be found, of which by far the most ioportant was the decision to natioqalize the estates of the Church and put them up for public auction. To 6nance tle operalion, intereslbearing bonds teta\ed " drt;gndJr" were issued, which gradually cante ta be accepted as bank-notes aod, after r79o, suffered steady dq>reciation. The assigaat was a salutary shot in the arrrr and saved the Assembly from its momentary difficulties; but the inflation that it eventually brought in its traiounder the irnpact of war arrd speculation-was to exact a heayy toli in terms of human suferiag and of popular disturbance.'z The nobiiity had, as we saw, lost their rights of private justice, 6scai exemptions and feudal dues and ;lrivileges; ia additior, titles and hereditary nobility were abolished and the aristocrary ceased to exist, with other corporations, as arl state of the realm. The abolition of titles, by reducing the former nobleroan to the simple status of citizen, satisfie<i the commoners' demand for social equalify. But more far-reaching in its consequeoces was the removal of feudal burdens frorn lhe land, proclaimed by the National Assembly in AuSust 1789 and briefly mentioaed in our last ciapter. \Ve then saw that the Assembly distinguished between one type of feudal obligation and aflother, thus betraying the deputies' arxiety not to transgress glole than absolutely necessary agaiost their own

these were the rights of conducLing manorial courts, hu-ating and fshing rights, the right to malntain warrens, dovecotes, mills and wine-presses, [o collect tolls and market 6nes, to levy personal taxes and labour obligations (conie) and, above all, to keep peasalts in personal servitude. Such rights and monopolies, being deemed illegitimate, were abolished without compensatioq. But others, though often a heavier buden on the peasantry, were dedared to be lawful rights of ploperty: these wle the varioui Payments made in respect of the holding or tfansfer of land, sudr as the rezt quit-rent, champart aod lod.t et untet, Redemption was detem.ined at

'

of twenty times the annual payment io cash and twenty6ve times that in kind. The peasants, however, as we already noted, failed to appreciate the aicety of these distinctions and refused to pay any compensation whatsoe ver-until the Jacobio Convention, four years later, declared the debt to be null and void. The abolition of tithe also benefited the pasaor proprietor; but there remained the great mass of share-croppers and landless .labourers, who were largely untouched by these alfangements. The nationalization and sale of Church lands provided a possible solution; but sale by auction tended, in most cases, to favour large purchasers; and little was done by the Constituent Assembly to sell land in small lots or to encouage the
a late

rural population to combine. So ao important part

faction continued.

of

the

agrarian problem remained unsolved, and peasant dissatis-

As beftted an Assembly io which middle-class

interests

played so large a part, the Constituents were more consistent and thorough in their handling of commercial and industrial .reforms. These, for reasons that we have ooted, were omitted

property. They of Merlin of Douai that certaio rights had been usurped or been established by violence: among
accepted the contention

dedared principle

of the inviolability of

25. E. Harris, Tbe Assignar (Harvard Univ. Press, r93o).

hardened against the anomalies and controls of the Old R6gime, and the Assembly passed a number of laws that, in large measure, removed past restiictions on the natiofi's economy and introduced free trade in the internal market. ,t uaitary systeo of weights aqd loeasuJes was iotroduced; local

from the Declaration of Rights. Meanwhile, opioioo

had

r14

lhe

French Rerolation

tolls end p1aget were abolished and customs posts rolled bacl to the national frontiers; aod the guilds and controls on manufactured goods (a controvesial issue in the cahiers of t\e Third Estate) were finally suppressed in February r79r. In natters dating to external trade, their policT was less decisive
and betrayed the pull of conteoding interests. Thus the India Company lost its monopoly, trade beyond &e Cape of Good Hope was released from controls, and Marseilles lost its Privi' leges in trade with the levant. But freedom of trade was another matter when it came to co@sercial relations with other Euopean countries: tarifis were maintained to ptotect Frenci indLtries, though manufacturers fajled, for the present, to persuade [he Assembly to rqrudiate the " Free tade " treaty of 1786 with England. However, all pat ies closed their ranla when faced with the problems of labour. In June r79r, the Constitueots, for fear of the unemployed, closed down the

public workshops (dtelierr de chatir|) sdt up to absotb and employ the workless in 1789. The same month, thE passed the famous Le Chapelier law, by whici combinations of workers were dedared illegal at a time when food prices, for lack of controls, were liable to rise. The law followed strikes

of

carDenters and other tradesmen in Paris and was passed in response to the protestiog petitions of manufacturers. No one

io the Assembly, not eten Robespierre objected. Trade unions remained proscribed throughout the Revolution, and the law was not fnally repealed until 1884. Most iotractable of all the ptoblems tadcled by the Constitueots, aDd most fateful

large part of these properties was held, not by the secular dergy, but by monasteries and chapters, whidr, as impropriators of tithe arid other revenues, often paid a yearly stipend, known as the ?ortion congrtle, to the practising priest and draplain, and whose own services to religioo were being increasingly called in question by dergy and laymen alike. So litde regatd was, in fact, shown for the contemplative olders thal, aftef an enquiry in 1768, no fewer than r,ooo communities had becn disbaoded and their properties ttansferred to secular uses. A social gulf separated the higher clergy of aristocratic bishops and abbots from the commoo run of parish priests : while a bishop of Strasbourg drew revenues of 4oo,ooo livres and a wealthy abbot of Angers 5o,ooo livres, a humble cud migbt be expected to subsist on an income from tithe or Portion con grue of r,ooo or 7oo livres a year. Other divisions, too, had arisen: Gallican bishoos. universities and Pa ements had combined in q6z to disb;d aqd expel the Jesuits; Jansenism, though a declining force after the mid-century, pe!sisted to confuse preacher and parishioner on matters of

exempt from all taxation other than what it volutrtarily ofered to the Treasury iri the form of tbe d.on gratair, A

Thc Recongraaion ol France privileges and authority: the value of its propeties, yielding an annual income of between 5o and roo million livres, represented something between two-fifths and one-half of the landed wealth in every province of the realm; and it was

doarine; aod-molt significant if

in its consequences, was their

settle-

Catholic Church. The solution that they found was by no meaqs determ.ined by philosophical cootenPt fol religion, by anti-Catholic bias, or even by particdar considera' tions of dass; and the deep divisions and hostility thai the settlement orovoked were due. in part at least, to circumment
stances outs'ide

of tle

parish priests, "lt-Ae resentful of increasing episcopal pretensions, had become deeply infected with Lhe'Richerisf claim thar the Church
should be governed, not merely by bishops and canons, but by the whole company of its pastors.

their coritrol. It had been generally accepted-

and not least by bishops and parish clergy-that the Church was in grave need of, reform. As a corporative body, the Church of the Old R6gime had enjoyed horroerue wealt\

So the Church had been swept into the Revolution as a divided force, though by no means as a disinterested spectator. Vhile bishops and abbots had supponed tbe " aristocratic revolt " and called for the convocatio{r of the States General, the parish dergy saw their own opporhuiity of settling old scores when the royal Council's instructiors of January 1789 Branted them the right to attead the electoral assembl.ies ia

I IO

The Frenth Revolution

The Reconstrucrion ol France

Protestaots (and later to Jews), had oo intentioo o{ disestablishing the Catholic Church or of ending its privileged stahrs as the single State Chuch of France. Again, the dergy was prepared to accept a loog overdue re-drafting of diocesao and parochia.l boundaries; but the drastic reduction of bishop-

person, while monks and canons might only send fepresentalrves. Taling full advantage of tiis dispensation, the parish dergy called in their separate cabiet for extensive teforns, for Churc}l self-govemnent on Richerist lines, and even for the right to elect their own bishops; they dominated the local assemblies of the clergy, and composd fwo in every three deputies of their order at Ye$ailles, Her, as we have seen, it was the parish clergy who gave the warmest suppolt to the dai.ms of the Th.ird Estate, and their defection from their eccle.siastical superiors played no small part in decidiag the King, against bis own iadioations, to orde! the two higher
est4tes

rics from r3s ro

8l

(ro accord with t}le new

deparrmenri,;

to ioin the self-styled National Assembly. So it was not altogether surprising that the Asseobly sbould receive support, lathe! than discourageoeat, from'the main tody of the clergy wher4 in August 1789, it decreed the abolition of tithe, aqrates a.rd plurality of oftces, and eoded the old corporative status o{ the Church and its right of self-taxation. Nor was the clergy unduly alarmed wheo, as proposed by Talleyrand (then BishoP of Autun) and Mirabeau, it was decided to natiar'alize Church properties and put them up fot auction ; the cuh and :J'eir oicairet, at least, had little to lose (and possibly much to gain), and there was ampie Precedeqt for the view lhat sud properties should only be held in return for services readered. Again, when, in February q9o, the
Assembly proceeded to dissolve, or tegrouP, the contemPlative religious orders, few tears wele shed excePt by those mo;t imrnediately afiected. It was flot, in fact, any of lhese measures that brought Chutch and Revolutioq ioto serious canflict : this happeaed only after the adoptior of th Civil Constitutioo o{

meant Lhat several bishops-and many more parish priestswould be deprived of their livings. More serious still was the refusal of the Assembly to submit the Constitution, before it became enforced, to a syood of the Church for its saqction: thus both Richerist clergy and Gallican bishops might have been appeased. But " corporations " had been abolished; aad to refer to an assembly of the Church what it was the sole duty of the " nation " to decide would, it was objected (by Robes, piecre among orher:), be to s,-rbjecr .he general wiil . as intefpreted by the natioo's representatives, io tlie overriding veLo of a single corpoiative body. On this poiat rhe Assembly, apad fiom its cierical members, remained adamant. So canonical sanctioo (if any) had to be sought from rhe Pope. But Pius VI, although known to be hostile to the Reioluticn, was engaged in delicate rlegotiations concernir,g the future starus ol rhe old papai encJa'e of Avignon. "nJ. fearing ro prejudice his temporal interests by an over-hasty decision on a matter of doarine, delayed his answer for several months. The Assembly, however, was in a hurry: sees and livings were falling vacant and, for lack of firm guidance and aurhority,
the clergy was becoming confused aod divided. So, in Novem" ber r79o, it burned its bridges, declared the Const.itutior to be in force, and ordered clerics holding ofice to take an oath of allegiaoce to the constitution of the kingdom (and, therefore, by implication, to the Civil Crnstitution of the Clergy). The

the Clergy io ltly q9o. Even then, the collisioo was

rot immediatb and oight per' haps have been avoided. Several of the Constihtion's Provi sions were acceptable enough to the main body of the clergy : neither bishops nor parish clergy had any particular objection to becoming salaried servants of the State: the Priests, al least, werc to be paid more generously than before; and the Con'
stituerts, though grarlting fuller freedom

lay deputies, firmJy convinced that an agreemelt would be

of

wolshiP to

result: only two of the As44 bishops and one-third of its clerical members complied; and the dergy at large became divided into two more or less erenly bal.nced opposing blocs of 'jurors' and " oon-.jurors "----a divisioo t-hat became all rhe more irrevoc.
sembly's

reached, were appalled at the

I8

The French Retolution

he Reconstruction ol Frcnce

I 19

able when Pius ai last, in March and April r79r, slammed the door on any compromise by conde-"iug the Civil Constitution as a whole, suspending the conformist bishops (Talley' rand and Gobel of lydda), and expressly instructing all dergy to withhold, or to withdtaq/, their allegiance to ttle new Churdi settlement. So, once the Pope had spoken in these terms, those who ad<nowledge d h.is au&ority or merely followed their own cooscience in refusing the oath, became, by inevitable staSes, the declared opponerts of not only the Civil Constitution but of tlle Revolution itself and, as sudr, identi' 6ed by " patriots " vith alistoclact ard counter-levolution. From this followed, in turn, the tragic ard fateful sequence of emigration, proscription, aod even the massacre, of " refmctory " priests, the civil war in tbe Yendde, teffor and counte!"telror. Another consequence was that, h time, the

oew Constitutioqal Churdr itself, whose doctrine was the same as that of the proscribed " fanatics ", also lost cledit, was separated from the State, persecuted in the days of " de. christianization ", and followed by cults of Reason, of the Supreme Being and Theophilanthropy-until the old Church was re-established oo new foundations by Bonaparte's Coocordat of r8or, But this is, of murse, to atrticipate events lying far beyond

the tero of ofice

of the

Constihrent Assembly;

it is also a

indivisible " came to replace that of the loosely-knit federative monarchy of q9t. Agah, in its social legislation, the Convention s/ent far beyond the limits dras'n by the Constihreflts. Cooirols were placed on the price and supply of all the oecessities of life; ttre peasaots' outstanding debt to their landlords was (as we have seen) annulled; and some, admittedly hesitant, steps wer takel to eosure that a palt of the auctiooed properfies of Church and. lmigrd nobility should 6nd its way .into the possession of landless or small peasants- Slavery in the colonies, which had been maintained bv the Coqstituents. was abolished by ihe Jacobins in q94: and rhe Conventjon,

cfeatiol that was, of coursg entirely at variance with the Constituents' conception of an iodependent iudiciary. The Jacobin Coostitution of June 1793 was far oorc democatic aod far more concerned with the needs of the poor than that of r79r; yet, under the impact of war and revolution, it was put into cold storage and a highly centralized " revolutionary governrnent " emerged, based on the two powerful committees of Public Safety and General Security, whose meobers were drawn from the Assembly and which had at their service representatives " on mission " and " national agents ", empowered to override the authority of departEeqts and communes. Thus, the conception of the Republic " one and

both before and after the fall

rerainder that the Constihrents were not the only legislators of the Revolution that played patt i.D reconstructiag France after the collapse of the Old^Rgime. The Revolutibo went thlough many stages and by no means all their work survived. The Constihrtion of rj9\ \qes, in its maio political provisions, abandoned only a year after it had been adopted: in 1792, the monarchy was overthrown and abolished and the Republic prodaimed; the saoe year, the distioction betweeo " active "

the foundatjon of a national system of public education and a code of laws rhar evenruallv found exorission in the Code Napoleon. Yet a great deal of this legislatioo was ephemeral. Robespierre's Republic of Virtue gave way ro tha property-owners'

()dy q9$,laid

of

Robespiere

in Thermidor

and " passive " citizens was reooved and wery adult male (with some exceptions) was given the vote. The National
Convention,

in 1793, created an xcePtional court for dealing with cimes agaiast lhe State: so the Revolutionary Tribunal came iato being as ao instrument of exe{utive justice--a

ing memories: its spirit lived again ar'd, some of its great* Eomeots sr'ere te-elacted in the later revolutioos of t83o,

Republic of Thennidor and the Directory; this, in turn, gave way to Napoleon's military dictatorship of the Coosulate and Empire; and the Bourbon monarchy was restored io r8r4. A second Chambet, or Senate, appeared under the Directory and was inherited. in suLstance rhough not in name. by Napoleon and the Restoration. The Republic of the Year II left endur-

I2o
1848 and

The French Revolution

r87r; yet th greater part of its work-including

price-controls, popular participation in local government, th Ireedom of negro slavs-wtu destroyed by one or other of its
succgssols.

Nonetheless, with all these vagaries and constitutional expedients and experiments, a solid core of constructive legislatior survived the revolutionary period and was carried on, beyond Napoleon's defeat aod exile to St. Heleoa, into the Monarchies, Empire and Republics of the nineteenth cerhrry. Though ' liberty " a-rd democracl continued to have their ups aod downs and though the wage-earner had gained little of permarteltt benefit from the Revolution, tax-sxemptioo aod

Cbdp,er

VII

TFIE STRUGGLE FOR POVER

h
proclaiming the Constitution on 28 September r79r and in re:ommending it to Frencimen with a stirring plea for r:tional unity, Louis XVI solemnly declared : " The Revolu:ioo is over." It was a hope that was shared, far more sincerely, by the Assembly's majority and even by some of the
democratic opposition. Yet, within a yeat the Constitution been brushed aside, the King had lost his throne, Ihe lerding constihrtional monarchists were being prosctibed or brd emigrated, and the Revoluiion, far f.rom being compieted, * as entering on a new and decisive phase. There were a numbe! of reasons why this should have come about, eome of them arising from the circumstances and condicts already described, others from events that were as yet

privilege had gone; equality before the law and " the career

reoained; France retained her economic and administlative unity; and the peasant kept such land as he had gained and his freedom from tithe and feudal obligations. In
fact, a great deal of what was permanent in the legislation of ihe revolutionary years $ias that completed or begun by the Constituent Assembly; ahd it is no exagglation to maintain that the lgacy that the Revolution left was, in substance, that conceived in the decidedly bourgeois iraage of " the mea of

open to taleots

"

h:d

1789".

oaly dimly discernible. The King, in the 6rst placg had only 2ccepted the Constitution with his tongue in his cheek: long b'efore it had been signed he had rnade an uosuccessful bid to seek safety in flight and, having been returned igaominiously :o his capital, continued to iotrigue with the rulers of Sweden, Spain. Prussia and Austria for the restoration of his old r,rrhority by force of arms. So the King-and still more the Queel-could not be trusted, and their desertioD and treadrerv made it imoossible for the constitutional Eonardrists-the authors of the tonstitution of r79r-to continue to govern or to aclieve the sott of comoromise that their C-onstitution had
envisaged.

Again, only

ninoriiy of the nobility had willingly

accepted

the sutrender of their old rights and privileges. Many had foilowed Artois and Bretzuil into exile. or ioined Cond's

inigri

umy at Coblenz and \forms: yet these never accounted

for oore thaa oie io twelve of the former noble farnilies of