DESIRE FOR UNION AMONG THE PROVINCES.

325

longer a royalist? Or else, was he sacrificing his clergy and faithful nobility, in order to save a remnant of royalty?

Bouillé, left without orders, and absolutely ignorant of what he had to do, then fell into the deepest despondency. Such was also the feeling of many nobles, officers of the army or navy, who then abandoned their country. Bouillé himself requested permission to do the same, and serve abroad. The king sent him word to remain, because he should want him. People had begun to hope too soon. The Revolution was finished on the 14th of July; finished on the 6th of October; and finished on the 4th of February; and yet I begin to fear that in March it is not quite ended.

What matter! Liberty, mature and powerful even in her cradle, needs not be alarmed at her antagonists. In a moment, she has just overcome the most formidable disorder and anarchy. Those pillages in the rural districts, that warfare against the castles, which, extending further and further, was threatening the whole country with one immense conflagration; all subsides in a moment. The movement of January and February is already appeased in March. Whilst the king was presenting himself as the only guarantee of public tranquillity, and the Assembly was seeking but not finding the means of restoring it, France had created it herself. The enthusiastic transport of fraternity had outstepped the speed of legislation; the knotty point which nobody could solve, had been settled for ever by national magnanimity. The cities all in arms, had marched forth for the defence of the chateaux, and protected the nobles, their enemies.

The great meetings continue, and become more numerous every day, so formidable, that without acting, by their mere presence, they necessarily intimidate the two enemies of France; on one hand, anarchy and pillage, on the other the counter-revolution. They are no longer merely the more thin and scattered populations of the South that now assemble; but the massy and compact legions of the great provinces of the north; now it is Champaign with her hundred thousand men ; now Lorraine with her hundred thousand; next, the Vosges, Alsace, and others. A movement full of grandeur, disinterested, and devoid of jealousy. All France is grouping, uniting, and gravitating towards union. Paris summons the provinces, and

326

LEOPOLD'S NEGOTIATIONS.

wishes to unite to herself every commune. And the provinces wish, of their own accord, without the least particle of envy, to unite still more closely. On the 20th of March, Brittany demands that France should send to Paris one man in every thousand. Bordeaux has already demanded a civic festival for the 14th of July. These two propositions presently will make but one. France will invite all France to this grand festival, the first of the new religion.

CHAPTER VI.

CONTINUATION. THE QUEEN AND AUSTRIA.-THE QUEEN AND MIRABEAU.-THE ARMY (MARCH TO MAY, 1790). Austria obtains the Alliance of Europe. She advises the Court to gain over Mirabeau (March).-Equivocal Conduct of the Court in its Negotiation with Mirabeau.-Mirabeau lashes it again (April).—Mirabeau has little Influence in the Clubs.—Mirabeau gained over (May 10th).-Mirabeau causes the King to obtain the Initiative in making War (May 22nd).— Interview between Mirabeau and the Queen (end of May).—The Soldier fraternises with the People.-The Court tries to gain over the Soldiery.— Misery of the Ancient Army.-Insolence of the Officers.-They endeavour to set the Soldiers against the People.-Restoration of the Soldier and the Sailor.

THE Conspiracy of Favras was devised by Monsieur; that of Maillebois (discovered in March) belonged to the Count d'Artois and the emigrants. The Court, without being ignorant of these, seemed to follow rather the counsel in the memorial of Augéard, the queen's keeper of the seals: to refuse, wait, feign confidence, and let five or six months slip away. This same watchword was given at Vienna and at Paris.

Leopold was negotiating. He was putting the governments self-styled the friends of liberty—those spurious revolutionists (I mean England and Prussia)—to a serious trial: he was placing them opposite to the Revolution, and they were gradually unmasking. Leopold said to the English: "Does it suit you that I should be forced to yield to France a portion of the Low Countries? and England drew back; she sacrificed, to that dread, the hope of seizing on Ostend. To the Prussians and Germans in general, he said: "Can we abandon

AUSTRIA OBTAINS THE ALLIANCE OF EUROPE.

327

our German princes established in Alsace, who are losing their feudal rights?" As early as the 16th of February, Prussia had already spoken in their favour, and proclaimed the right of the empire to demand satisfaction of France.

The whole of Europe belonging to either party, on one hand Austria and Russia, on the other England and Prussia, were gradually gravitating towards the self-same thought, the hatred of the Revolution. However, there was this difference, that liberal England and philosophical Prussia needed a little time in order to pass from one pole to the other, to prevail upon themselves to give themselves the lie, to abjure and disown their principles, and avow that they were the enemies of liberty. This worthy struggle between decency and shame was to be treated delicately by Austria; therefore, by waiting, an infinite advantage would be obtained. A little longer, and all honest people would be agreed. Then, left quite alone, what would France do? . . What an enormous advantage would Austria presently have over her, when assisted by all Europe!

Meanwhile, there was no harm in deluding the revolutionists of France and Belgium with fair words, in lulling them into security, and, if possible, in dividing them.

As soon as ever Leopold was made emperor (February 20th), and published his strange manifesto, in which he adopted the principles of the Belgian revolution, and acknowledged the legality of the insurrection against the emperor (March 2nd), his ambassador, M. Mercy d'Argenteau, prevailed upon MarieAntoinette to master her repugnance and form an alliance with Mirabeau.

But, nothwithstanding the facility of the orator's character, and his eternal need of money, this alliance was difficult to execute. He had been slighted and rejected at the time when he might have been useful. And now they came to court him, when all was compromised, and perhaps even lost.

In November they had had an understanding with the most revolutionary deputies to exclude Mirabeau from the ministry for ever; and now they invited him.

He was summoned for an enterprise that had become impossible, after so many acts of imprudence and three unsuccessful plots.

328

EQUIVOCAL CONDUCT OF THE COURT.

The ambassador of Austria himself undertook to recall from Belgium the man the most likely to prove the best mediator, M. de Lamarck, Mirabeau's personal friend, and also personally devoted to the queen.

He returned. On the 15th of March he took to Mirabeau the overtures of the Court, but found him very cool; for his good sense enabled him to perceive that the Court merely proposed to him that they should sink together.

When pressed by Lamarck, he said that the throne could only be restored by establishing it upon the basis of liberty; that if the Court wanted anything else, he would oppose it instead of serving it. And what guarantee had he for this? He himself had just proclaimed before the Assembly how little confidence he put in the executive power. In order to pacify him, Louis XVI. wrote to Lamarck that he had never desired anything but a power limited by the laws.

Whilst this negotiation was pending, the Court was carrying on another with Lafayette. The king gave him a written promise of the most absolute confidence. On the 14th of April, he asked him his opinion on the royal prerogative, and Lafayette was simple enough to give it.

Now, seriously, what was it that the Court wanted? To gain time,—nothing more; to delude Lafayette, neutralise Mirabeau, annihilate his influence, keep him divided between opposite principles, and, perhaps, also to compromise him, as it had served Necker. The Court had ever shown its deepest policy in ruining and destroying its deliverers.

Exactly at the same period, and in the very same manner, the queen's brother, Leopold, was negotiating with the Belgian progressists and compromising them; then, when menaced by the people, denounced and prosecuted, they were at length induced to desire the invasion and the re-establishment of Austria.*

How is it possible to believe that these precisely identical proceedings of the brother and the sister happened by mere chance to be the same.

Mirabeau, indeed, had reason to reflect twice before he trusted himself to the Court. It was the time when the king,

For the conduct of Leopold in Europe, and especially in Belgium, see Hardenberg, Borgnet, &c.

MIRABEAU LASHES IT.

329

yielding to the importunate demands of the Assembly, gave up to it the famous Red Book (of which we shall presently speak) and the honour of so many persons; all the secret pensioners heard their names cried in the streets. Who could assure Mirabeau that the Court might not think proper, in a short time, to publish also his treaty with it? . . The negotiation was not very encouraging; offers were made, and then withdrawn: the Court put no confidence in him at all, but demanded his secrets and the opinions of his party.

But a man like Mirabeau was not to be deluded so easily. However great might be his tendency to royalty in his heart, it was impossible to blind so keen-sighted a person. Meanwhile, he proceeded in his usual course: as the organ of the Revolution, his voice was never wanting on decisive occasions; he might have been gained over, but he was neither to be silenced, enervated, nor neutralised. Whenever the state of affairs was urgent, the vicious and corrupt politician instantly disappeared; the god of eloquence took possession of him, his native land acted by him, and thundered by his voice.

In the single month of April, whilst the Court was hesitating, bargaining, and concluding, the power of his eloquence smote it twice.

The first blow (which we postpone to the next chapter, in order to keep together whatever relates to the clergy) was his famous apostrophe on Charles IX. and the St. Bartholomew massacre, which is to be found in every memoir: "From hence I behold the window," &c. Never had the priests been stunned by so terrible a blow! (April 13th.)

The second affair, no less serious, was on the question whether the Assembly should dissolve; the powers of several deputies were limited to one year, and this year was drawing to a close. As far back as the 6th of October, a proposal had been made (and then very properly) to dissolve the Assembly. The Court was expecting and watching for the moment of dissolution,the interregnum,-the ever perilous moment between the Assembly that exists no longer, and the one not yet formed. Who was to reign in the interval but the king, by ordinances? And having once resumed his power and seized the sword, it would be his business to keep it.

Maury and Cazalès in forcible, but irritating and provoking,