The Great Events by Famous Historians [Volumes 1-14]

This memorable and decisive event took place on June 20th. On the 23d the King came to the Church of St. Louis, whither they had been compelled to remove, and where they were joined by a considerable number of the clergy; addressed them in a tone of authority and reprimand, treated them as simply the Tiers État, pointed out certain partial reforms which he approved, and which he enjoined them to effect in conjunction with the other orders, or threatened to dissolve them and take the whole management of the government upon himself, and ended with a command that they should separate. The nobles and the clergy obeyed; the deputies of the people remained firm, immovable, silent.

Mirabeau then started from his seat and appealed to the Assembly in that mixed style of the academician and the demagogue which characterized his eloquence. The words are worth repeating here, both as a sample of the unqualified tone of the period and on account of the fierce and personal attack on the King, whom he stigmatizes by a sort of nickname. "Gentlemen, I acknowledge that what you have just heard might be a pledge of the welfare of the country, if the offers of despotism were not always dangerous. What is the meaning of this insolent dictation, the array of arms, the violation of the national temple, merely to command you to be happy? Who gives you this command? your Mandatory ['deputy']. Who imposes his imperious laws? your Mandatory, he who ought to receive them from you; from us, gentlemen, who are invested with an inviolable political priesthood; from us, in short, to whom, and to whom alone, twenty-five millions of men look up for a happiness insured by its being agreed upon, given, and received by all. But the freedom of your deliberations is suspended: a military force surrounds the Assembly! Where are the enemies of the nation, that this outrage should be attempted? Is Catiline at our gates? I demand that in asserting the claims of your insulted dignity, of your legislative power, you arm yourselves with the sanctity of your oath: it does not permit us to separate till we have achieved the constitution."

From this unbridled effusion of bombast, affectation, and real passion two things are evident: first, that the designs of the Court were already looked upon as altogether hostile and alien to the patriotic side; secondly, that the Assembly, from the beginning, felt in themselves the strong and undoubted conviction of their being called to the task of removing the abuses of power and regenerating the hopes of a mighty people. The die was cast, the lists were marked out in the opinions and sentiments of the two parties toward each other. The grand master of the ceremonies of this occasion, seeing that the Assembly did not break up, reminded them of the command of the King. "Go tell your master," cried Mirabeau, "that we are here by order of the people; and that we shall not retire but at the point of the bayonet." This was at once an invitation to violence and a defiance of authority. Sieyès added, with his customary coolness: "You are to-day in the same situation that you were yesterday; let us deliberate!" The Assembly immediately confirmed its former resolutions, and, at the instance of Mirabeau, decreed the inviolability of its members.

Such was at one time the brilliant, daring, and forward zeal of a man who not long after sold himself to the Court: so little has flashy eloquence or bold pretension to do with steadiness of principle! Indeed, the Revolution, of which he was one of the most prominent leaders, presented too many characters of this kind—dazzling, ardent, wavering, corrupt—a succession of momentary fires, made of light and worthless materials, soon kindled and soon exhausted, and requiring some new fuel to repair them: nothing deep, internal, relying on its own resources—"outliving fortunes outward with a mind that doth renew swifter than blood decays"—but a flame rash and violent, fanned by circumstances, kept alive by vanity, smothered by sordid interest, and wandering from object to object in search of the most contemptible and contradictory excitement! We may also remark, in the debates and proceedings of this early period, the fevered and anxious state of the public mind; while galling and intolerable abuses, called in question for the first time and defended with blind confidence, were exposed in the most naked and flagrant point of view; and the drapery of forms and circumstances was torn from rank and power with sarcastic petulance or a ruthless logic.

The resistance of the Assembly alarmed the Court, who did not, however, as yet dare to proceed against it. Necker, who had disapproved of the royal interference, and whose dismission had been determined on in the morning, was the same night entreated both by the King and Queen to stay. On the next meeting of the Assembly a large portion of the clergy again repaired to their place of sitting; and four days after, forty members of the noblesse joined them, with the Duke of Orléans at their head. The conduct of this nobleman, all through the Revolution, was in my opinion uncalled for, indecent, and profligate, and his fate not unmerited. Persons situated as he was cannot take a decided part one way or the other, without doing violence either to the dictates of reason and justice or to all their natural sentiments, unless they are characters of that heroic stamp as to be raised above suspicion or temptation: the only way for all others is to stand aloof from a struggle in which they have no alternative but to commit a parricide on their country or their friends, and to await the issue in silence and at a distance.