Book: History of the Girondists, Volume I

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[Illustration: Portrait of Robespierre]




HISTORY

OF

THE GIRONDISTS;

OR

_Personal Memoirs of the Patriots_

OF

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.


FROM UNPUBLISHED SOURCES.

BY

ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE,

Author of "Travels in the Holy Land," &c.

* * * * *

IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I.

* * * * *

TRANSLATED BY H. T. RYDE.


LONDON: HENRY G. BOHN, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN. 1856.
LONDON PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO. NEW-STREET SQUARE

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|Transcriber's Note: You may notice some inconsistencies in |
|accentation. These have been left as they are in the original.|
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ADVERTISEMENT.

We have not thought it necessary to preface this recital by any
introduction of the preceding epochs of the Revolution.

We have not re-produced, with the minute elaboration of an annalist, the
numerous parliamentary and military details of all the events of these
forty months. Two or three times we have, in order to group men and
circumstances in masses, made unimportant anachronisms.

We have written after having scrupulously investigated facts and
characters: we do not ask to be credited on our mere word only. Although
we have not encumbered our work with notes, quotations, and documentary
testimony, we have not made one assertion unauthorised by authentic
memoirs, by unpublished manuscripts, by autograph letters, which the
families of the most conspicuous persons have confided to our care, or
by oral and well confirmed statements gathered from the lips of the last
survivors of this great epoch.

If some errors in fact or judgment have, notwithstanding, escaped us, we
shall be ready to acknowledge them, and repair them in sequent editions,
when the proofs have been transmitted to us. We shall not reply one by
one to such denials and contradictions as this book may give rise to; it
might be a tedious and unprofitable paper-war in the newspapers. But we
will make notes of every observation, and reply _en masse_, by our
proofs and tests, after a certain lapse of time. We seek the truth only,
and should blush to make our work a calumny of the dead.

As to the title of this book, we have only assumed it, as being unable
to find any other which can so well define this recital, which has none
of the pretensions of history, and therefore should not affect its
gravity. It is an intermediate labour between history and memoirs.
Events do not herein occupy so much space as men and ideas. It is full
of private details, and details are the physiognomy of characters, and
by them they engrave themselves on the imagination.

Great writers have already written the records of this memorable epoch,
and others still to follow will write them also. It would be an
injustice to compare us with them. They have produced, or will produce,
the history of an age. We have produced nothing more than a "study" of a
group of men and a few months of the Revolution.

A. L.

Paris, March 1. 1847.




CONTENTS.


BOOK I.

Introduction. Mirabeau. Marries. Enters the National Assembly. His
Master Mind. His Death and Character. Glance at the Revolution. The
New Idea. Revolution defined. Revolutions the Results of Printing.
Bossuet's Warnings. Rousseau. Fenelon. Voltaire. The Philosophers
of France. Louis XVI. The King's Ministers. The Queen. Her Conduct
and Plans. The National Assembly. Maury. Cazales. Barnave and the
Lameths. Rival Champions. Robespierre. His Personal Appearance.
Revolutionary Leaders. State of the Kingdom. Jacobin Club. Effects
of the Clubs. Club of the Cordeliers. La Fayette. His Popularity.
Characters of the Leaders. What the Revolution might have been 1

BOOK II.

State of the Assembly. Discussions. The Periodical Press. The King
and his Brothers. He meditates Escape. Various Plans of Flight. The
King's embarrassed Position. Marquis de Bouille. The King and
Mirabeau. Preparations for the King's Escape. Fatal Alterations.
Anxiety. Rumours. Count de Fersen. A Faithless Servant suspicious.
Mode of Escape. Dangers of the Route. The Passport. Hopes of
Success. Drouet recognises the King. Narrowly saves his own Life.
Varennes. Capture of the Royal Family. Entreaties of the King and
Queen. Refusal of the Syndic and his Wife. Conduct of the Soldiers
and People. Effect on the Queen. Conduct of the Parisians. Their
Rage. La Fayette attacked. Defended by Barnave. Power assumed by La
Fayette. La Fayette's Proceedings. The King's Parting Address.
Manifesto. Proceedings of the Cordeliers and Jacobins.
Robespierre's Address. Its Effect. Danton's Oration. His Audacity
and Venality. Address of the Assembly. The King's Arrest known. His
Hopes. The Queen's Despair. The Royal Family depart for Paris. De
Bouille's unavailing Efforts. Indignation of the Populace.
Barnave's noble Interference. Barnave gained over. Drouet's
Declaration. The Entrance into Paris. Arrival at the Tuileries.
Barnave and Petion's report to the Assembly. La Fayette and the
Royal Family. The Queen's Courage. Effects of the Flight. The King
should have abdicated 42

BOOK III.

The Interregnum. Barnave's Conversion. His Devotion. His Meetings
with the Queen. The King's Reply. Fatal Resolution of the "Right."
A Party that protests, abdicates. Address of the Cordeliers to the
National Assembly. Barnave's great Speech. Irresistible Advance of
the Revolution. The Press. Camille Desmoulins. Marat. Brissot.
Clamours for a Republic. Desmoulin's Attack on La Fayette.
Petitions of the People. Robespierre's Popularity. Popular Meeting
in the Champ de Mars. Absence of the Ringleaders. "The Altar of
the Country." The Remarkable Signatures. Advance of the National
Guard, preceded by the Red Flag. Fearful Massacre. The Day after.
The Jacobins take Courage. Schisms in the Clubs. Attempts of
Desmoulins and Petion to restore Unity. Malouet's Plan for amending
the Constitution. Power of the Assembly. The New Men. Condorcet.
Danton. Brissot disowned by Robespierre. Charges made against him.
Defended by Manuel. Girondist Leaders 100

BOOK IV.

Revolutionary Press. High State of Excitement. Removal of
Voltaire's Remains to the Pantheon. The Procession. Voltaire's
Character. His War against Christianity. His Tact and Courage in
opposing the Priesthood. His Devotion. His Deficiencies. Barnave's
weakened Position. His momentary Success while addressing the
Assembly. Sillery's Defence of the Duc d'Orleans. Robespierre's
Alarm. Malouet's Speech in Defence of the Monarchy. Robespierre's
Remarks. Constitution presented to the King. His Reply and
Acceptance. Rejoicings. Universal Satisfaction. The King in Person
dissolves the Assembly 145

BOOK V.

Opinions of the Revolution in Europe.
Austria--Prussia--Russia--England--Spain. State of
Italy--Venice--Genoa--Florence--Piedmont--Savoy--Sweden. Gustavus
III. Feelings of the People. Poets and Philosophers. England and
its Liberty. America. Holland. Germany. Freemasonry. German School.
French Emigration. Female Influence. Louis XIV.'s Letter. Conduct
of the Emigrant Princes unsatisfactory to the King. Attempts of the
Emigres. The German Sovereigns. Their Conference. The Revolt. The
Declaration. The Courts of Europe, The Princes disobey the King.
Desire for War in the Assembly. Madame de Staeel. Count Louis de
Narbonne. His Ambition. The Hero of Madame de Staeel. M. de Segur's
Mission. The Mission frustrated. The Duke of Brunswick 172

BOOK VI.

The New Assembly. Juvenile Members. First Audience with the King.
Decrees of the Assembly. Vergniaud's Policy. Offensive Decree
repealed. Rage of the Clubs. Indifference of the People. The King's
Address to the Assembly. Momentary Calm. The Girondists. The
Clergy. The King's Religious Alarms. State of Religious Worship.
Fauchet's Speech. The Abbe Tourne's Reply. Advantages of
Toleration. Dacos. Gensonne. Isnard. Isnard's eloquent Address to
the Assembly. His severe Measures. Decree against the Priests. New
Policy of Louis XVI. Question of Emigration. Brissot advocates War.
His Arguments. Condorcet. Vergniaud. His Character and his Speech
against the Emigrants. Isnard's violent Harangue. Decision of the
Assembly. Andre Chenier. Camille Desmoulins. State of Parties.
Hopes of the Aristocracy. La Fayette's Letter. La Fayette in
Retirement. Candidates for Mayor of Paris. Petion and La Fayette.
La Fayette's Popularity. Petion elected Mayor 211

BOOK VII

Character of Parties. France worked for the Universe. Mechanism of
the Constitution. The King's Veto. Defence of the Constitution. No
Balance of Power. All Odium falls upon the King. Order, the Life of
Monarchy. When a Republic is needful. The Will of the People.
Mistake of the Assembly. The King's Position. The Assembly
hesitates. Third Course open. The Republicans 257


BOOK VIII.

Madame Roland. Her Infancy. Her Personal Appearance. Early
Abilities. Habits. Her Father's House. Future Heloise. Influence of
Birth in Society. Her Impression of the Court. Has many Suitors. M.
Roland. His Career. Their Marriage. Mode of Life. La Platiere.
Country Life. Madame Roland's Love for Mankind. The Rolands in
Paris. Interview with Brissot. Reunion at Roland's. Madame Roland
and Robespierre. Her Opinion of him. Her Anxiety for his Safety 272


BOOK IX.

New Assembly. Roland's Position. De Molleville. M. de Narbonne.
Treachery of the Girondists. Narbonne's Policy and Success. His
Popularity. Robespierre his sole Opponent. Robespierre's Desire for
Peace. His Views. His Rupture with the Girondists. His Speech
against War. Louvet's Reply. Brissot's Efforts 296


BOOK X.

Committee of the Girondists. Its Report. Gensonne. His Reply.
Guadet. Vergniaud's Proclamation. Constitutionalists for War.
Narbonne's Report. The Pamphleteers. Unpopularity of the Veto.
Outbreak at Avignon. Jourdan. San Domingo. Negro Slavery. Men of
Colour. Oge. His Execution. Insurrection of the Blacks at San
Domingo. Increase of Disorder. The Abbe Fauchet. His Career.
Charges against him. Riot in Caen Cathedral. Insurrection at Mende.
National Guard drives out the Troops. Insubordination. Universal
Bloodshed. The Swiss Soldiers. Their Revolt pardoned. Chenier's
Remonstrance. Dupont de Nemours. Petion's Weakness. Robespierre's
Interference. Gouvion. Couthon. Triumph of the Swiss Soldiers 312


BOOK XI

Increasing Disturbances. Murder of Simoneau. Duc d'Orleans. His
peculiar Position. The Duchesse d'Orleans. Duc disliked at Court.
Forms the Palais Royal. Madame de Genlis. Her Talents. The Duke
Citizen. Mirabeau's Estimate of the Duke. La Fayette's Interference
with the Duc d'Orleans. Plans of the Girondists. Duc d'Orleans made
Admiral. His Declaration. Details. Avoided by the King's Friends.
Becomes a Jacobin. Vergniaud's great Eloquence. His powerful
Appeal. Its Effects 352


BOOK XII.

The Emperor Leopold. De Lessart's Despatch. His Impeachment. De
Narbonne's Dismissal. Death of Leopold. Supposed to be poisoned.
His Vices and Virtues. Conspiracy. Assassination. Ankastroem. Death
of Gustavus. Joy of the Jacobins. Brissot's Policy. Accusation of
M. de Lessart. Roland and the Girondist Ministry 377


BOOK XIII.

Dumouriez's Talent and Aptitude. Education and Acquirements.
Favier. Corsica. Paoli. Dumouriez sent to Poland. Stanislaus
Policy. Dumouriez at Cherbourg. His Tact; Appearance. Dumouriez and
Madame Roland. Roland's Vanity. His Opinion of the King. His Wife's
Sagacity. Dumouriez in favour with the King. His Interview with the
Queen. His Advice. Bonnet Rouge. Dumouriez and Robespierre. Petion
and the Bonnet Rouge. The King's Letter. Treachery of the
Girondists. Roland's Letter to the King. Letter of the Girondist
Chiefs. Dumouriez's Policy. Danton. Hatred of Robespierre and
Brissot. Camille Desmoulins. Brissot's Attack on Robespierre.
Guadet. Robespierre's Defence 396


BOOK XIV.

Quarrel between Girondists and Jacobins. Violence of the Journals.
Marat's atrocious Writings. Duke of Brunswick. Mirabeau's Opinion
of him. Dumouriez's Plan. The King himself proposes War. Slight
Opposition. Condorcet's Manifesto. War declared. State of Belgium.
Revolt. German Confederation. French Nobility and Emigres. Comte de
Provence. Comte d'Artois. Mallet-Dupan, the King's Confidant 436


BOOK XV.

Dumouriez's Tactics. Servan's Proposition. Change of Ministry.
Dumouriez's Infidelity. Another Change of Ministers. Dumouriez
quits Paris. Barbaroux. Madame Roland's Plans for a Republic.
Increase of the Girondists. Buzot. Danton: his Origin and Life.
Progress. Hostilities in Belgium. Duc de Lauzun. Luckner. State of
France 459


BOOK XVI.

King Petion. His Policy. Murder of De Brissac. Another Phase of the
Revolution. Santerre, Legendre, Instigators of 20th June.
Preparation. Disposition of Lower Orders. The Mobs excited. The
Alarm of the King. The Assembling of the People. St. Huruge.
Theroigne de Mericourt. Her Fate. The Procession. Roederer's
Courage. Huguenin's Declaration. The Mob admitted. Defence at the
Tuileries. Movement of the Populace. The Troops faithless. Fury of
the Mob. The King's Defenders. Madame Elizabeth. Legendre's
Insolence. The Bonnet Rouge. "Vive le Roi." The Dangers of the
Queen. Princesse de Lamballe. Queen and Royal Children. Santerre.
Deputation to the King. Petion's Duplicity. Retirement of the
Rebels. Merlin's brutal Remark. The Marseillaise. Its Origin and
Popularity: universally adopted 478




HISTORY

OF

THE GIRONDISTS.




BOOK I.


I.

INTRODUCTION.

I now undertake to write the history of a small party of men who, cast
by Providence into the very centre of the greatest drama of modern
times, comprise in themselves the ideas, the passions, the faults, the
virtues of their epoch, and whose life and political acts forming, as we
may say, the nucleus of the French Revolution, perished by the same blow
which crushed the destinies of their country.

This history, full of blood and tears, is full also of instruction for
the people. Never, perhaps, were so many tragical events crowded into so
short a space of time, never was the mysterious connexion which exists
between deeds and their consequences developed with greater rapidity.
Never did weaknesses more quickly engender faults,--faults
crimes,--crimes punishment. That retributive justice which God has
implanted in our very acts, as a conscience more sacred than the
fatalism of the ancients[1], never manifested itself more unequivocally;
never was the law of morality illustrated by a more ample testimony, or
avenged more mercilessly. Thus the simple recital of these two years is
the most luminous commentary of the whole Revolution; and blood, spilled
like water, not only shrieks in accents of terror and pity, but gives,
indeed, a lesson and an example to mankind. It is in this spirit I would
indite this work. The impartiality of history is not that of a mirror,
which merely reflects objects, it should be that of a judge who sees,
listens, and decides. Annals are not history; in order to deserve that
appellation it requires a conviction; for it becomes, in after times,
_that_ of the human race.

Recital animated by the imagination, weighed and judged by wisdom,--such
is history as the ancients understood it; and of history conceived and
produced in such a spirit, I would, under the Divine guidance, leave a
fragment to my country.


II.

HISTORY OF THE GIRONDISTS.

Mirabeau had just died. The instinct of the people led them to press
around the house of his tribune, as if to demand inspiration even from
his coffin; but had Mirabeau been still living, he could no longer have
given it; his star had paled its fires before that of the Revolution;
hurried to the verge of an unavoidable precipice by the very chariot he
himself had set in motion, it was in vain that he clung to the tribune.
The last memorial he addressed to the king, which the Iron Chest has
surrendered to us, together with the secret of his venality, testify the
failure and dejection of his mind. His counsels are versatile,
incoherent, and almost childish:--now he will arrest the Revolution with
a grain of sand--now he places the salvation of the Monarchy in a
proclamation of the crown and a regal ceremony which shall revive the
popularity of the king,--.and now he is desirous of buying the
acclamations of the tribune, and believes the nation, like him, to be
purchasable at a price. The pettiness of his means of safety are in
contrast with the vast increase of perils; there is a vagueness in every
idea; we see that he is impelled by the very passions he has excited,
and that unable any longer to guide or control them, he betrays, whilst
he is yet unable to crush, them. The prime agitator is now but the
alarmed courtier seeking shelter beneath the throne, and though still
stuttering out terrible words in behalf of the nation and liberty, which
are in the part set down for him, has already in his soul all the
paltriness and the thoughts of vanity which are proper to a court. We
pity genius when we behold it struggling with impossibility. Mirabeau
was the most potent man of his time; but the greatest individual
contending with an enraged element appears but a madman. A fall is only
majestic when accompanied by virtue.

Poets say that clouds assume the form of the countries over which they
have passed, and moulding themselves upon the valleys, plains, or
mountains, acquire their shapes and move with them over the skies. This
resembles certain men, whose genius being as it were acquisitive, models
itself upon the epoch in which it lives, and assumes all the
individuality of the nation to which it belongs. Mirabeau was a man of
this class: he did not invent the Revolution, but was its manifestation.
But for him it might perhaps have remained in a state of idea and
tendency. He was born, and it took in him the form, the passion, the
language which make a multitude say when they see a thing--There it is.

He was born a gentleman and of ancient lineage, refugee and established
in Provence, but of Italian origin: the progenitors were Tuscan. The
family was one of those whom Florence had cast from her bosom in the
stormy excesses of her liberty, and for which Dante reproaches his
country in such bitter strains for her exiles and persecutions. The
blood of Machiavel and the earthquake genius of the Italian republics
were characteristics of all the individuals of this race. The
proportions of their souls exceed the height of their destiny: vices,
passions, virtues are all in excess. The women are all angelic or
perverse, the men sublime or depraved, and their language even is as
emphatic and lofty as their aspirations. There is in their most familiar
correspondence the colour and tone of the heroic tongues of Italy.

The ancestors of Mirabeau speak of their domestic affairs as Plutarch of
the quarrels of Marius and Sylla, of Caesar and Pompey. We perceive the
great men descending to trifling matters. Mirabeau inspired this
domestic majesty and virility in his very cradle. I dwell on these
details, which may seem foreign to this history, but explain it. The
source of genius is often in ancestry, and the blood of descent is
sometimes the prophecy of destiny.


III.

Mirabeau's education was as rough and rude as the hand of his father,
who was styled the _friend of man_, but whose restless spirit and
selfish vanity rendered him the persecutor of his wife and the tyrant of
all his family. The only virtue he was taught was honour, for by that
name in those days they dignified that ceremonious demeanour which was
too frequently but the show of probity and the elegance of vice.
Entering the army at an early age, he acquired nothing of military
habits except a love of licentiousness and play. The hand of his father
was constantly extended not to aid him in rising, but to depress him
still lower under the consequences of his errors: his youth was passed
in the prisons of the state; his passions, becoming envenomed by
solitude, and his intellect being rendered more acute by contact with
the irons of his dungeon, where his mind lost that modesty which rarely
survives the infamy of precocious punishments.

Released from gaol, in order, by his father's command, to attempt to
form a marriage beset with difficulties with Mademoiselle De Marignan, a
rich heiress of one of the greatest families of Provence, he displayed,
like a wrestler, all kinds of stratagems and daring schemes of policy in
the small theatre of Aix. Cunning, seduction, courage, he used every
resource of his nature to succeed, and he succeeded; but he was hardly
married, before fresh persecutions beset him, and the stronghold of
Pontarlier gaped to enclose him. A love, which his _Lettres a Sophie_
has rendered immortal, opened its gates and freed him. He carried off
Madame de Monier from her aged husband. The lovers, happy for some
months, took refuge in Holland; they were seized there, separated and
shut up, the one in a convent and the other in the dungeon of Vincennes.
Love, which, like fire in the veins of the earth, is always detected in
some crevice of man's destiny, lighted up in a single and ardent blaze
all Mirabeau's passions. In his vengeance it was outraged love that he
appeased; in liberty, it was love which he sought and which delivered
him; in study, it was love which still illustrated his path. Entering
obscure into his cell, he quitted it a writer, orator, statesman, but
perverted--ripe for any thing, even to sell himself, in order to buy
fortune and celebrity. The drama of life was conceived in his head, he
wanted but the stage, and that time was preparing for him. During the
few short years which elapsed for him between his leaving the keep of
Vincennes and the tribune of the National Assembly, he employed himself
with polemic labours, which would have weighed down another man, but
which only kept him in health. The Bank of Saint Charles, the
Institutions of Holland, the books on Prussia, the skirmish with
Beaumarchais, his style and character, his lengthened pleadings on
questions of warfare, the balance of European power, finance, those
biting invectives, that war of words with the ministers or men of the
hour, resembled the Roman forum in the days of Clodius and Cicero. We
discern the men of antiquity in even his most modern controversies. We
may fancy that we hear the first roarings of those popular tumults which
were so soon to burst forth, and which his voice was destined to
control. At the first election of Aix, rejected with contempt by the
_noblesse_, he cast himself into the arms of the people, certain of
making the balance incline to the side on which he should cast the
weight of his daring and his genius. Marseilles contended with Aix for
the great plebeian; his two elections, the discourses he then delivered,
the addresses he drew up, the energy he employed, commanded the
attention of all France. His sonorous phrases became the proverbs of the
Revolution; comparing himself, in his lofty language, to the men of
antiquity, he placed himself already in the public estimation in the
elevated position he aspired to reach. Men became accustomed to identify
him with the names he cited; he made a loud noise in order to prepare
minds for great commotions; he announced himself proudly to the nation
in that sublime apostrophe in his address to the Marseillais: "When the
last of the Gracchi expired, he flung dust towards heaven, and from this
dust sprung Marius! Marius, less great for having exterminated the
Cimbri than for having prostrated in Rome the aristocracy of the
nobility."

From the moment of his entry into the National Assembly he filled it: he
was the whole people. His gestures were commands; his movements _coups
d'etat_. He placed himself on a level with the throne, and the nobility
felt itself subdued by a power emanating from its own body. The clergy,
which is the people, and desires to reconcile the democracy with the
church, lends him its influence, in order to destroy the double
aristocracy of the nobility and bishops.

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