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[1789 A.D.]

doers can be tracked from province to province by the depredations they commit along the way.

WHO SHALL GUARD THE GUARDS?

When the sedition at length grows universal, what force can prevail? Among the hundred and fifty thousand men who are to maintain order, precisely the same conditions prevail as among the twenty-six millions who are to be restrained; and the abuses, the disaffection, the numberless causes that tend to split the nation into fragments are also constantly in operation to disrupt the army. [There were sixty thousand desertions in eight years.] Out of the ninety millions that the maintenance of the army annually costs the state, forty-six millions go to the officers, and only forty-four to the men ; while it is well known that by a recent ordinance only those who can prove their right to a title of nobility can be admitted to the rank of officer. In no other branch of the social organisation does the inequality against which public opinion has revolted show forth in such vivid contrasts. On the one hand are the few for whom all the honours, all the emoluments, all the leisure, all the private theatricals, all the good cheer and pleasures of this world are reserved; on the other is the great majority whose lot is enforced service, hardship, and fatigue, whose gain is six sous a day without hope of more, whose narrow bed is shared with another, whose food is that given to a dog with, latterly, the blows thrown in. Here, on this side, are ranged the highest members of the nobility, on that the lowest dregs of the populace.

For the militia only the poorest classes are available, and not a man will enter it willingly. So odious is the service to them that many take refuge in the depths of the woods, whither it is necessary to send in pursuit of them an armed force. In a certain canton which, three years later, is to furnish from fifty to a hundred volunteers a day, young men cut off their thumbs to escape conscription.

The irritation spreads and deepens; the soldiers of Rochambeau have fought side by side with the free militiamen of America and the memory is not likely to desert them. In 1788, when Dauphiné rises in revolt, Marshal de Vaux sends to the ministry the warning cry: "Impossible to count on the troops!" Four months after the opening of the states-general sixteen thousand deserters are found to be leading insurrections instead of exerting their utmost power to put them down.

France is now a whirlwind of human dust that whirls and writhes. In one great cloud it rolls at the blind impulse of the tempest.'

PERIOD II. THE REVOLUTIONARY EPOCH [1789-1815 A.D.]

(Comprising Chapters VII-XXII)

A PREFATORY CHARACTERISATION OF THE PERIOD

WRITTEN SPECIALLY FOR THE PRESENT WORK

BY ALFRED RAMBAUD

Professor in the University of Paris, Member of the Institute

I. POLITICAL PROBLEMS 1

THE Revolution burst forth, and from the outset its mission, politically speaking, was plainly revealed. It had but to make true the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen published on November 3rd, 1789, a prototype for which can be found in certain American declarations of 1776, notably that of Virginia.

To the theory of absolute monarchy formulated by Louis XIV and Bossuet was now to be opposed the new theory, "The principle of all sovereignty resides in the nation"; or in other words, national sovereignty was to succeed sovereignty by "divine right.'

Louis XIV, like the Roman emperors, had believed himself above all laws because being in his own person the "living law" he alone had the right to make them. "Laws," affirms the Declaration, "are the expression of the general will; all citizens, either personally or by their representatives, are entitled to assist in their creation." Henceforth the king was to reign not "by the grace of God" alone but also "by the will of the people." Formerlyabsolute master over all public property, disposing freely of the state as well as of the private royal funds, he has now to conform to a "civil list" strictly made out for him by others. He can be no longer looked upon as more than the "head of the executive power," the chief magistrate of the state, as he is its first salaried servant.

From subjects Frenchmen have been pro

[1 Works for consultation: H. Taine, Origines de la France contemporaine, vol. ii. Thiers, Mignet, Michelet, Louis Blanc, Edgar Guinet, Aulard, etc., Histoire de la Revolution française. Albert Sorel, L'Europe et la Revolution française. Aug. Challamel, Histoire de la liberte en France depuis 1789. Innumerable Memoires and Souvenirs of which we will cite only those of Gouverneur Morris, 2 volumes, 1832. Mortimer Ternaux, Histoire de la Terreur. H. Wallon, Histoire du Tribunal Revolutionnaire. Ernest Hamel, Histoire de Robespierre. On Napoleon Thiers, Histoire du Consulate et de l'empereur. Lanfzey, Histoire de Napoleon. H. Taine, op. cit., vol. vi. Aucoc, Le conseil d'Etat. Madelin, Le premier consul legislateur. Perouse, Napoleon I et les lois civiles. D'Haussonville, L'Eglise romaine et l'Empire. Henri Avenal, Histoire de la presse française depuis 1789. Alma Soderhjelm, Le régime de la presse pendant la Revolution française.

moted to the rank of citizens, pending the time when there shall be no more kings.

All forms of liberty that had been so constantly and ruthlessly suppressed under the old régime; personal liberty violated by means of the lettres de cachet, liberty of conscience by the persecution of Protestants and Jansenists, liberty of the press by the bonfires which had been made of condemned books and by the prison cells whither the imprudent authors had been sent to languish-every liberty was affirmed anew by the Declaration, and the same articles figured at the head of the constitution of 1791.

Inequality formed the basis of our ancient social system. There was inequality between men, some being known as "nobles," others as "roturiers" (plebeians), inequality among public officials, in the army and the high places of the church, inequality before the bar of justice-for not only were the privileged and lower classes not treated alike at the king's tribunals, but the nobility and the clergy had jurisdiction of their own; inequality in the taxation since the nobility and the clergy were practically exempt themselves while imposing lesser taxes on their fellow-citizens; inequality between the different provinces of which some had "states" and some had not; inequalities between cities, some having magistrates appointed by election and others being without the right to elect.

The Declaration abolished titles and all other hereditary distinctions; it proclaimed that all citizens were alike admissible to public office, on no other claims than those presented by their talents and ability. It also pronounced all citizens liable to assessment exactly in proportion to their means, and established their equality before the civil and penal law. Inequality between provinces disappeared with the provinces themselves which were turned into departments. All legal distinctions between cities, towns, and villages ceased, there being no longer anything but communes, or commonwealths, which all submitted to the same organic laws.

The work was made complete by the application of new principles in legislation, in the machinery of justice, in military organisation, and in the system of public schools and charities.

Mistakes of the Constitutent Assembly

If the constituent assembly in undertaking an ecclesiastical reorganisation had been wise enough to refrain from entering the field of pure religion-as it did when it tried to restrain the bishops from demanding canonical investiture of the pope-if it had not, following the lead of Jansenists and other obstinate theologians, provoked an agitation which degenerated into civil war and aggravated the foreign war already in progress, its work, from a political and administrative point of view, might have been fairly easy of accomplishment.

But was this work a good one in itself? No, for the constituent assembly succeeded neither in creating a new power in place of the one it had cast down, nor in laying a firm foundation for liberty in France.

It had stripped the king of every prerogative recognised as essential then or since by all parliamentary constitutions, commencing with that of Great Britain. It had forbidden him active participation in the framing of the laws, and had withdrawn from him the power of absolute veto to leave him only that of a qualified (suspensif) veto, an act that prepared the way for perpetual conflict between the legislative assembly and the crown. The king had no longer the right to declare war, to conclude peace, or to sign

treaties; he proposed, but the assembly decreed. Neither was the nomination of bishops, judges, and army-officers left in his hands; all appointing to office, even to that of curé, became the work of the electoral body.

Heedless alike of the experience gained by Great Britain and of the wisdom recently shown by young America, the revolutionary powers placed opposite to royalty, despoiled and mutilated, a single assembly called the legislative, from the ranks of which the king was not permitted to choose his ministers, since ministers were exclusively creatures of the king and as such would be open to suspicion. Between royalty refusing to become reconciled to its fallen condition, and a single assembly over which there was no restraining authority, conflict was, in the very nature of the situation, certain to arise. The constitution of 1791 had a term of existence of only eleven months. The constituent assembly did not even succeed in organising a "cabinet government" which is the very essence of a parliamentary régime.

In administrative matters its mistakes, born of the best intentions, were no less disastrous. As politically it had rendered further reign, yes further existence for the king impossible, so administratively it set conscientiously to work to create a condition of complete anarchy.

It began by suppressing the posts of intendant and sub-delegate, thus destroying the whole royal order of financial officials, and placed the administration in the hands of bodies appointed by election to act for the department, the district, the commune. To such committees were intrusted the most vital state functions, the assessment of taxes and the levying of troops. By suppressing all the indirect imposts, the playing-card and other royal monopolies, the taxes on liquors and salt (gabelle), the farming of tobacco which alone brought thirty millions to the state, the constituent assembly left the state without proper means of subsistence and apparently gave no thought to making good the loss. Hence it became necessary to take the dangerous measure of fabricating assignats which were afterwards issued in ever-increasing numbers.

In return for the prerogatives of which the king had been stripped he was recognised as non-responsible, all responsibility being transferred to the ministers. The worth of this guarantee was amply demonstrated by the scaffold of the 21st of January, 1793.

The breaking down of the royal power was supposed to have laid the foundations of liberty in France, as though power and liberty were not both necessary in equal degree to a great nation! Notwithstanding its errors the work of the constituent assembly might have lasted some time in a country at peace with itself and its neighbours; but immediately anarchy and Jacqueries arose, and it was perceived that no one was rendering obedience to anyone else, that the marvellous machine constructed by so many thinkers who believed themselves sure of their ground was incapable of performing its functions. The situation became worse when, under the legislative, a foreign war broke out, when in February, 1793, after the execution of the king, the great European coalition was formed, and when the Vendée and thirty or forty departments rose in insurrection. The convention must secure obedience at any cost, and to gain this end it resolutely assumed powers more absolute than any wielded by Louis XIV, the Grand Turk, or the Great Mogul. It respected the work of the constituent assembly, the departments and district administrations, and the municipalities; but beside existing institutions it raised up an administrative system of its own which it called "revolutionary" and "provisory."

H. W.- VOL. XIL N

Work of the Convention

The convention constituted itself a vigorous executive power since it organised various committees, of which the most important was the Committee of the Public Safety, holding the full executive power of the assembly. The intendants of the old régime were replaced by special delegates sent out into the rebellious provinces, into the cities disturbed by reactionary movements, to the frontiers and among the armies. In each commune, by the side of each district assembly, the convention established national agents which it alone had the right to appoint and recall. It suppressed the departmental general councils and subordinated the former's directories. It assumed all the prerogatives of which the constituent assembly had deprived the king, and left but one-third of the public nominations to be decided by ballot. It gave out the commissions of general in the army, called by Hoche "warrants to mount the scaffold," which indeed they proved in the case of the generals Custine, Houchard, Beauharnais, Brunet, Biren, Luckner, etc.

The tribunals not performing their functions to its satisfaction, the convention established by the side of the elected judges the "revolutionary tribunals," of which the most terrible was that of Paris which pronounced 2,550 sentences of death; the revolutionary army composed of sans-culottes and intended to replace the royal maréchaussée; and the Jacobin committees which formed the police force, and conducted "Saint Guillotine" on a cart all over the country. All this machinery constituted a system of justice as repressive as that of the Turks, especially after the law of Prairial, 1794, when to be brought before any of the tribunals was equivalent to a sentence of death.

In place of the national guards of the constituent assembly and the “ volunteers" of 1792 the convention instituted "forced requisition" and the levy en masse. Later the Directory acting on the report of General Jourdan established conscription, a system that satisfied Napoleon.

The methods of public economy practised by the convention were thoroughly revolutionary in character. To prevent the raising of prices on the necessaries of life it imposed upon merchants the law of the maximum. It prohibited under pain of death the exportation of grains and under pain of twenty years' imprisonment the importation, sale, or purchase of English merchandise. There being no revenue from taxes, the government in order to feed, equip, and arm its troops resorted to "requisitions," by which it seized on grains, fabrics, leathers, metals, and saltpetre wherever they could be found; it also disposed arbitrarily of all the working hands of France by shutting up old men, women, and children in the "national workshops." The Directory went still further for it established an "enforced loan" upon all rich people.

Liberty of the Press

That liberty which the constituent assembly firmly believed it had founded in France was but little enjoyed even during the relative calm of its own period. Under the convention the right of reunion became merely the right to form "popular" societies, all unions of men of moderate views being held to be conspiracies having the scaffold for their central point. After the 9th Thermidor the "moderate" side, taking its revenge, belaboured in its turn the terrified Jacobins with the rod called executive power, and brought about the closing of their clubs. Under the Directory, the law of Thermidor, year V, prohibited political associations of any kind, and Napoleon was not to be

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