AGITATION OF THE VETO. 237 Fear of the rising, growing Revolution. He beheld that young giant then prevailing over him, and which subsequently carried him off like another man. And then he cast himself back upon what was called the old order-true anarchy and a real chaos. From that fruitless struggle he was saved by death. CHAPTER VII. Agitation of Paris for the Question of the Veto, August 30th.-State of the Press-Increase of Newspapers.-Tendencies of the Press. It is still Royalist.-Loustalot, the Editor of the Révolutions des Paris.-His Proposition on the 31st of August; Rejected at the Hôtel-de-Ville.-Conspiracy of the Court, known to Lafayette and everybody.-Growing Opposition between the National Guards and the People.-Uncertain Conduct of the Assembly.-Volney proposes its Dissolution, September 18th.Impotency of Necker, the Assembly, the Court, and the Duke of Orleans. -Even the Press powerless. That We have just seen two things: the situation of affairs was intolerable, and the Assembly incapable of remedying it. Would a popular movement settle the difficulty? could take place only on condition that it was truly a spontaneous, vast, unanimous movement of the people, like that of the 14th of July. The fermentation was great, the agitation lively, but as yet partial. From the very first day that the question of the veto was put (Sunday, August 30), all Paris took alarm, for the absolute veto appeared as the annihilation of the sovereignty of the people. However, the Palais Royal alone stood forward. There it was decided that they should go to Versailles, to warn the Assembly that they perceived in its bosom a league for the veto, that they knew the members, and that, unless they renounced, Paris would march against them. A few hundred men accordingly set forth at ten in the evening; a pertinacious violent man, the Marquis de Saint-Hururge, a favourite with the crowd on account of his herculean strength and stentorian voice, had placed himself at their head. Having been imprisoned under the old government at the prayer of his wife 238 AGITATION ON THE VETO. (a pretty coquette who possessed some credit), Saint-Hururge, as may be conceived, was already a furious enemy of the ancien régime, and an ardent champion of the Revolution. On reaching the Champs-Elysées, his band, already greatly diminished, met with some national guards sent by Lafayette, who prevented their further progress. The Palais Royal dispatched, one after the other, three or four deputations to the city, to obtain leave to pass. They wanted to make the riot legal, and with the consent of the authority. It is superfluous to say that the latter did not consent. Meanwhile another attempt, far more serious, was preparing in the Palais Royal. The latter, whatever might be its success, would necessarily have at least the general advantage of introducing the grand question of the day into discussion among the whole people. There was, then, no longer any possibility of its being suddenly decided, or carried by surprise, at Versailles; Paris was observing and watching the Assembly, both by the press and by its own assembly-the great Parisian assembly, united, though divided into its sixty districts. The author of the proposition was a young journalist. Before relating it, we ought to give an idea of the movement operating among the Press. This sudden awaking of a people, called all at once to a knowledge of their rights and to decide on their destiny, had absorbed all the activity of the time in journalism. The most speculative minds had been hurried to the field of the practical. Every science, every branch of literature, stood still; political life was everything. Every great day in '89 was accompanied with an eruption of newspapers: 1st. In May and June, at the opening of the States-General, a multitude of them spring forth. Mirabeau patronised the Courrier de Provence; Gorsas, the Courrier de Versailles; Brissot, the Patriote Français; Barrière, the Point du Jour, &c. &c. 2ndly. On the night before the 14th of July, appeared the most popular of all the newspapers, Les Révolutions de Paris, edited by Loustalot. INCREASE OF THE PRESS. 239 3rdly. On the eve of the 5th and 6th of October appeared the Ami du Peuple (Marat), and the Annales Patriotiques (Carra and Mercier). Soon after, the Courrier de Brabant, by Camille Desmoulins, certainly the most witty of all; next, one of the most violent, the Orateur du Peuple, by Fréron. The general character of that great movement, and which renders it the more admirable, is, that, in spite of shades of opinion, there is almost unanimity. Except one conspicuous newspaper, the Press presents the appearance of one vast council, in which everybody speaks in his turn, and all being engaged in a common aim, avoid every kind of hostility. The Press, at that early age, struggling against the central power, has generally a tendency to strengthen the local powers, and to exaggerate the rights of the commune against the State. If the language of after-times might be here employed, we should say, that at that period they all seem fédéralists. Mirabeau is as much so as Brissot or Lafayette. This goes so far as to admit the independence of the provinces, if liberty become impossible for all France. Mirabeau would be contented to be Count of Provence; he says so in plain terms. Notwithstanding all this, the Press, struggling against the King, is generally royalist. "At that time," says Camille Desmoulins at a later period, "there were not ten of us republicans in France." We must not allow ourselves to mistake the meaning of certain bold expressions. In '88, the violent d'Eprémesnil had said: "We must unbourbonise France." But it was only to make the Parliament king. Mirabeau, who was destined to complete the sum of contradictions, caused Milton's violent little book against kings to be translated and printed in his name in '89, at the very moment when he was undertaking the defence of royalty. It was suppressed by his friends. Two men were preaching the Republic: one of the most prolific writers of the period, the indefatigable Brissot, and the brilliant, eloquent, and bold Desmoulins. His book La France libre contains a violently satirical brief history of the monarchy. Therein he shows that principle of order and stability to have been, in practice, a perpetual disorder. Hereditary royalty, in order to redeem itself from so many inconveniences which are evidently inherent, has one general reply to everything: peace, 240 THE PRESS-LOUSTALOT. the maintenance of peace; which does not prevent it from having, by minorities and quarrels of succession, kept France in an almost perpetual state of war-wars with the English, wars with Italy, wars about the succession in Spain, &c.* Robespierre has said that the Republic has crept in between the parties, without anybody having suspected it. It is more exact to say that royalty itself introduced it, and urged it upon the minds of men. If men refuse to govern themselves, it is because royalty offers itself as a simplification which facilitates, removes impediments, and dispenses with virtue and efforts. But how, if it become itself the obstacle? It may be boldly affirmed, that royalty taught the Republic, that it hurried France. into it, when she distrusted it, and was far from it, even in thought. But To return, the first of the journalists of that day was neither Mirabeau, Camille Desmoulins, Brissot, Condorcet, Mercier, Carra, Gorsas, Marat, nor Barrère. They all published newspapers, and some to a great extent. Mirabeau used to print ten thousand copies of his famous Courrier de Provence. of the Révolutions de Paris there were (of some numbers) as many as two hundred thousand copies printed. This was the greatest publicity ever obtained. The editor's name did not appear. The printer signed :-Prudhomme. That name has become one of the best known in the world. The unknown editor was Loustalot. Loustalot, who died in 1792 at the age of twenty-nine, was a serious, honest, laborious young man. A writer of mediocrity, but grave, of an impassioned seriousness; his real originality was his contrast with the frivolity of the journalists of the time. In his very violence we perceive an effort to be just. He was the writer preferred by the people. Nor was he unworthy of the preference. He gave, in the outbreak of the Revolution, more than one proof of courageous moderation. When the French guards were delivered by the people, he said there was but one solution for the affair; that the prisoners should betake themselves to prison again, and that the electors and the National * Sismondi has shown, by an exact calculation on a period of 500 years, how much longer and more frequent wars have been in hereditary than in elective monarchies this is the natural effect of minorities, quarrels of succession, &c. Sismondi, Etudes sur les Constitutions des Peuples libres, i., 214—221. LOUSTALOT'S PROPOSITION. 241 Assembly should petition the king to pardon them. When a mistake of the crowd had placed good Lasalle, the brave commandant of the city, in peril, Loustalot undertook his defence, justified him, and restored him to favour. In the affair of the servants who wanted the Savoyards to be driven away, he showed himself firm and severe as well as judicious. A true journalist, he was the man of the day, and not of the morrow. When Camille Desmoulins published his book, La France libre, wherein he suppresses the king, Loustalot, whilst praising him, finds him extravagant, and calls him a man of feverish imagination. Marat, then little known, had violently attacked Bailly in the Ami du Peuple, both as a public character and as a man. Loustalot defended him. He considered journalism as a public function, a sort of magistracy. No tendency to abstractions. He lives wholly and entirely in the crowd, and feels their wants and sufferings; he applies himself especially to the consideration of provisions, and to the grand question of the day, bread. He proposes machines for grinding corn more expeditiously. He visits the unfortunate beings employed at work at Montmartre. And those miserable objects, whose extreme wretchedness had almost divested them of the human form, that deplorable army of phantoms or skeletons, who inspire rather fear than pity,-wound Loustalot to the heart, and he addresses them in words of affection and tenderest compassion. Paris could not remain in that position. It was necessary either to restore absolute royalty or found liberty. On Monday morning, August 31st, Loustalot, finding the minds of the multitude more calm than on the Sunday evening, harangued in the Palais Royal. He said the remedy was not to go to Versailles, and made a less violent yet a bolder proposition. It was to go to the city, obtain the convocation of the districts, and in those assemblies to put these questions :1st. Does Paris believe that the king has the right of preventing? 2ndly. Does Paris confirm or revoke its deputies? 3dly. If deputies be named, will they have a special mandate to refuse the veto? 4thly. If the former deputies be confirmed, cannot the Assembly be induced to adjourn the discussion? The measure proposed, though eminently revolutionary and illegal (unconstitutional if there had been a constitution), never R |