410 CONFEDERATION OF KINGS. of the Assembly, a score of men from every nation in their national costumes,-Europeans and Asiatics. He demanded, in their name, to be allowed to take a part in the confederation of the Field of Mars: "in the name of every people, that is to say, of the legitimate sovereigns, everywhere oppressed by kings." And yet Some deputies were affected, others laughed. there was something serious in that deputation; it comprised men from Avignon, Liege, Savoy, and Belgium, who really desired at that time to become French; besides refugees from England, Prussia, Holland, and Austria, hostile to their governments, who, at that very moment, were conspiring against France. These refugees seemed a European committee, readyformed against Europe, the first outline of those foreign legions which Carnot advised at a later period. In opposition to the confederation of nations was formed one of kings. Indeed, the queen of France had reason to entertain hope, on seeing with what facility her brother Leopold had rallied Europe to Austria. German diplomacy, usually so slow, seemed to have found wings. The reason of this was that diplomatists were entirely left out of the affair, which was arranged personally by the kings themselves, without the knowledge of their ministers and ambassadors. Leopold had applied straight to the king of Prussia, pointed out to him their common danger, and opened a congress, in the very kingdom of Prussia, at Reichembach, in concert with England and Holland. A dismal prospect for France: backed only by the powerless good-wishes of nations, and presently besieged by the armies and the malevolence of kings! Neither did France seem safer at home: the Court gaining over different members of the Assembly every day, and acting no longer by the right side, but even by the left, by the club of '89, by Mirabeau and Sièyes, by corruption in different forms, treachery and intimidation. By these means it carried triumphantly a civil list of twenty-five millions, and for the queen a jointure of four. It obtained also coercive measures against the press, and was even so bold as to prosecute parties for the doings of the 5th and 6th of October. Such was the state of things that the confederates beheld on THE FIELD OF MARS. 411 arriving at Paris. Their idolatrous enthusiasm for the Assembly and the king was put to a very severe trial. Most of them had come inspired with a filial sentiment for their good citizen king, uniting in their emotion the past and the future,-royalty and liberty; and several, when admitted to an audience, fell upon their knees, and offered him their swords and their hearts... The king, timid by nature and by his false equivocal position, found little to say in answer to this warm and cordial expression of youthful emotion; and the queen still less. With the exception of her faithful Lorrains, the hereditary subjects of her family, she behaved generally very coolly towards the confederates. At length arrived the great and long-desired day, the 14th of July, for which these good people had undertaken their arduous journey. Everything was in readiness. Even during the night, for fear of missing the festival, many of the people and the National Guard bivouacked in the Field of Mars. Day light at length appears; but, alas! it rains! And heavy showers, with violent gusts of wind, continued throughout the day. The weather is aristocratical," said the people, who took their places all the same; and their courageous persevering good humour seemed willing to avert the ill omen by a thousand mad jokes. One hundred and sixty thousand persons were seated upon the hillocks in the Field of Mars, and one hundred and fifty thousand remained standing; whilst, in the field itself about fifty thousand men, of whom fourteen thousand National Guards from the provinces, those of Paris, the deputies from the army, the navy, and others, were to perform evolutions. The vast eminences of Chaillot and Passy were also crowded with spectators: a magnificent, immense amphitheatre, itself commanded by the more distant circus formed by Montmartre, Saint-Cloud, Meudon, and Sevres; such a place seemed destined to receive the States-General of the world. But, in spite of all this, it was raining! How slowly the hours seemed to pass in expectation! The confederates and the Parisian National Guards, who had been waiting ever since five in the morning along the boulevards, though drenched with rain, and dying of hunger, were still in good humour. Loaves, hams, and bottles of wine are sent down to them by FF 412 THE FIELD OF MARS. ropes from the windows of the Rue Saint-Martin and the Ruc Saint-Honoré. They now arrive, crossing the river over a wooden bridge, built in front of Chaillot, and entering by a triumphal arch. In the middle of the Field of Mars arose the altar of the native land; and in front of the Military School the platforms to receive the king and the Assembly. Again, all this was very tedious and trying to the patience. The first who arrived, to keep up their spirits in spite of the rain and the bad weather, bravely set to dancing. Their joyous farandoles, spreading further and further, in spite of the mud, form at length vast rondos, each of which is a province, a department, or several distinct races of men mingled together: Brittany is seen dancing with Burgundy, and Flanders with the Pyrenees. We beheld those groups commencing their merry rondos in the winter of '89; and the immense farandole which has gradually formed itself of the whole of France, is now completed and ended at the Field of Mars. . . This is unity! Farewell to the period of expectation, aspiration, and desire, when everybody dreamed and longed for this day . . . Here it is at last! What do we desire more? Why all this uneasiness? . . . Alas! the experience of the world teaches us this sad fact, so strange to tell, and yet so true, that union too often diminishes in unity. The wish to unite was already the union of hearts, perhaps the very best unity. ... But, hush! The king has arrived and is seated; and so is the Assembly, and also the queen in a gallery that commands all the rest. Lafayette and his white horse have now reached the foot of the throne; and the commandant is alighting and receiving the king's orders. Amid two hundred priests, wearing tricoloured sashes, Talleyrand, Bishop of Autun, ascends, with a limping equivocal gait, towards the altar: who but he ought to officiate, when the ceremony is to take an oath? Twelve hundred musicians were playing, but their music was scarcely heard. A dead silence ensues; but the plain is suddenly shaken by the report of forty pieces of cannon. At that clap of thunder, all arise and stretch forth their hands to heaven... O king! O people! pause... Heaven is listening, and the sun is bursting expressly through the cloud . . . Pay attention to your oaths! ... THE FIELD OF MARS. 413 Oh! how heartily the people swear! How credulous they still are! . . . But why does the king not grant them the happiness of seeing him swear at the altar? Why does he swear under cover, in the shade, and half concealed from the people? ... For God's sake, sire, raise your hand so that everybody may see it! And you, madam, do you feel no compassion for this simple, confiding, credulous people, who were dancing just now so cheerfully, between their melancholy past and their formidable future? Wherefore that doubtful expression in your handsome blue eyes? A royalist has noticed it: "Do you see the enchantress?" exclaimed Count de Virieu. . . Can you then, from this spot, behold your envoy who is even now receiving and congratulating, at Nice, the agent of the massacres in the South? Or else, do you imagine you perceive, in these crowds of people, the distant armies of Leopold ? Listen! This is peace; but a peace of an entirely warlike character. The three millions of armed men who have deputed these, have among them more soldiers than all the kings of Europe. They offer a brotherly peace, but they are nevertheless quite ready for the fight. Even now several departments, Seine, Charente, Gironde, and many others, are willing to give, arm, and equip, each six thousand men to march to the frontier. Presently, the Marseillais will also demand to march; and, renewing the oath of the Phocians, their ancestors, will fling a stone into the sea, and swear that, unless they be conquerors, they will not return till the day when that stone shall float upon the waters! END OF BOOK III. BOOK IV. JULY 1790, TO JULY 1791. CHAPTER I. WHY THE NEW RELIGION COULD NOT BE REDUCED TO A FORMULA.-INTERIOR OBSTACLES. Agreement of the Kings against the Revolution, July 27th, 1790.-Interior Obstacles. Disunion in Francc.--No great Revolution had ever been made with so little sacrifice.-Religious Fecundity of 1790.-Inventive Powers of France.-Generous Impulse in the People.-Re-action of Egotism and Fear, Irritation and Animosity.-The Revolution being impeded, produces its Political results, but cannot yet attain the Religious and Social results which would have placed it on a solid foundation. On the very night before the festival, from the 13th to the 14th of July, when the whole population, full of enthusiasm and confidence, was absorbed by one thought, advantage was taken of that moment to fetch away from the prison of the Abbaye the deviser of the last plot, and the agent of the emigrants, Bonne de Savardin, who wanted to introduce them into Lyons, and whose confessions might be fatal to the royalists. At the same time, M. de Flachslanden the queen's confidential man with the Count d' Artois, was sent by him to welcome Froment, who had escaped from Nismes, and to congratulate him at Nice. On the 27th, the Assembly learned that the king granted to the Austrians a passage through the French territory, to go and quash the revolution in Belgium. On the same day, a memorable date, July 27th, 1790, Europe made her first alliance against the Revolution, and first |