468

BOUILLE MARCHES ON NANCY.

up Malseigne to their comrades; and this thunderbolt of war made his entrance into Nancy in a dressing-gown, nightcap, and slippers.

Bouillé behaved very strangely. He wrote to the Assembly, entreating it to send him two deputies who might help him to set matters in order; and on the same day, without waiting for an answer, departed in person to settle them with his

cannon.

On the 31st of August, the very day on which the massacre took place, that pacific letter was read to the Assembly. Emmery and Lafayette attempted to have it decreed, that "the Assembly approves whatever Bouillé is doing and may do." Luckily, a deputation from the National Guards of Nancy was there to protest; and Barnave proposed and caused to be adopted a firm and paternal proclamation, in which the Assembly promised to judge impartially... Judge! It was rather late! . One of the parties had ceased to exist.

Bouillé, who had left Metz on the 28th, and Toulon on the 29th, was on the 31st close to Nancy. Three deputations at eleven in the morning, and at three and four in the afternoon, went forward to meet him and inquire his conditions. The deputies were soldiers and National Guards (Bouillé says populace, because they wore no uniforms); they had placed at their head some of the terrified municipal authorities, who, on joining Bouillé, were unwilling to go back, and remained with him, authorising him still more by their presence and the dread they evinced of returning to Nancy. The general's conditions were to make none, to require first that the regiments should march forth, give back their hostage,-Malseigne,--and deliver up four of their party to be judged by the Assembly. To be required to choose, betray, and themselves deliver up their own comrades, was cruel and disgraceful for the French, but horrible to the Swiss, who were very sure that they would never go to be judged by the Assembly, but that by virtue of the capitulations, their leaders would claim them to hang them, flog them to death, or break them on the wheel.

The two French regiments, the king's and the Mestre-deCamp, submitted, gave up Malseigne, and began to file out of the town. There remained the poor and scanty regiment of Châteauvieux, composed of only two battalions. A few of our

MASSACRE OF THE VAUDOIS.

469

men, however, were ashamed to abandon it; and many valiant National Guards of the environs of Nancy went likewise and generously posted themselves with the Swiss, wishing to share their fate. Uniting together, they took up their position at the Stainville gate, the only one that was fortified.

If Bouillé had been willing to spare bloodshed, he had but one course to take: to halt at a short distance, wait till the

French regiments had come out, and then pour in a few troops by the other gates, thus placing the Swiss between two fires; he would have taken them without fighting.

But, then, where was the glory? And where was the startling blow which the Court and Lafayette expected from Bouillé ?

The latter relates himself two facts that tell against him: first, that he advanced within thirty paces of the gate, that is to say, he brought into contact and placed face to face two parties of Swiss, rivals and foes, who could not fail to insult and provoke one another with the mutual accusation of being traitors; secondly, he left the head of his column to speak to some deputies whom he could very easily have sent for. His absence had the natural effect that might have been expected: they began shouting and insulting one another; at last they fired.

Those of Nancy say that the whole affair was begun by Bouillé's huzzars; whilst Bouillé accuses the soldiers of Châteauvieux. One can hardly understand, however, how the latter, in such peril, should have thought proper to begin the provocation. They wanted to fire their cannon; but a young officer, Désilles, a native of Brittany, as courageous as obstinate, sat down upon the lighted match; thrown down, he hugged the mouth of the cannon (a serious incident, that enabled Bouillé's people to advance); they could only force him from the cannon by charging him with their bayonets.

Bouillé hastens to the spot, makes himself master of the gate, pours his huzzars into the town, through a discharge of musketry well kept up from the windows of the houses. It was evidently not the Châteauvieux regiment alone that was firing, nor the National Guards of the environs alone, but the majority of the poorer class had declared in favour of the Swiss. However, the officers of the two French regiments followed Désille's example, and with better success; they contrived to keep the

470

THE ASSEMBLY'S APPROBATION.

troops within the barracks. From that moment, Bouillé could not fail in reducing the town.

In the evening, order was restored; the French regiments had left; and half the Swiss soldiers were killed, and the rest prisoners. Such as did not immediately surrender were found murdered on the following days. Three days afterwards, another was caught and cut to pieces in the market-place,—a fact attested to by ten thousand witnesses.

After the massacre, the town beheld a still more horrid spectacle, an immense execution. The Swiss officers were not satisfied with decimating their remaining soldiers, there would have been too few victims; they caused twenty-one to be hanged. This atrocious deed lasted all day, and, to give a grand finish to the fête, the twenty-second was broken on the wheel.

What is most disgraceful and infamous for us, is, that those Neros, having condemned fifty more Swiss to the galleys, (probably all that remained alive,) we received those galleyslaves, and had the noble mission of transporting them and keeping them at Brest. These people, who had been unwilling to fire on us on the 14th of July, received, as a national reward, the penalty of dragging along a cannon-ball in France.

On the same day, August 31st, as we have said, the Assembly had made the pacific promise of giving impartial justice. It had previously voted two commissaries for an amicable arrangement. Bouillé, who had asked for them, had not awaited their arrival; he had settled the matter by the annihilation of one of the parties. Doubtless, the Assembly will disapprove his conduct.

On the contrary, the Assembly, on Mirabeau's proposal, solemnly returns thanks to Bouillé, and approves his conduct; rewards are likewise voted to the National Guards who followed him; to the dead funeral honours in the Field of Mars, and pensions to their families.

On this occasion, Louis XVI. did not testify his usual horror of bloodshed. His eager desire to see order restored caused him to express for this afflicting, but necessary, affair, his extreme satisfaction. He thanked Bouillé for his good conduct, and recommended him to continue. "This letter," says Bouillé, "shows the goodness and sensibility of his heart."

LOUSTALOT DIES OF GRIEF.

471

"Alas! said the eloquent Loustalot, "that was not the language of Augustus, when, at the account of the slaughter, he dashed his head against the wall, shouting, 'Varus! restore to me my legions!

The grief of the patriots for this event was very great. Loustalot could not withstand it. This young man, who had but just quitted the bar at Bordeaux, had become in two years the first of journalists, and certainly the most popular (since his Révolutions de Paris were sometimes printed to the number of 200,000 copies). He proved that he was also the most sincere of them all,-the one who cherished liberty with the greatest affection, living with her, and dying at her death. This blow appeared to him to postpone for a long time, for ever,the hope of his native land. He wrote his last leaf, full of eloquence and sorrow,- —a manly sorrow,-that cannot weep, but the more profound on that account-one that it is impossible to survive. A few days after the massacre, he died in his twentyeighth year.

CHAPTER V.

THE JACOBINS.

Danger of France.-The affair of Nancy causes the National Guard to be looked upon with suspicion.-New disturbances in the South.-The Counter-revolutionary Confederation of Jalès.-The King consults the Pope; he protests to the King of Spain, October 6th, 1790.-Unanimity of Europe against the Revolution.-Europe derives a moral power from the interest inspired by Louis XVI.-Necessity for a great association of surveillance.-Origin of the Jacobins, 1789.-Example of a Jacobin Confederation.-What classes contributed to the formation of the Jacobin Clubs. Had they any precise creed?-In what did they modify the old French spirit ?-They formed a body of surveillants and accusers, an inquisition against an inquisition.-The Society at Paris is at first a meeting of Deputies, October, 1789.-It prepares the laws and organises a revolutionary police.-The Revolution assumes the offensive, September, 1790.— Necker's flight.-The nobles create terror by their duelling system.―The Jacobins oppose to them the terror of the people.-The mansion of the Duke de Castries sacked, November 13th, 1790.

THE Nancy massacre is a truly fatal period, whence we might date the commencement of those social divisions which, developed with industrialism, at a later period, have become at the present day the real difficulty of France, the secret of her weakness, and the hope of her enemies.

The aristocracy of Europe, and England, their great agent, ought here to thank their good fortune. The Revolution will now be, as it were, with one arm tied, and have but one arm to fight against them all.

This little skirmish at Nancy had the effect of a great moral victory; for it caused the two powers which the Revolution had just created, its own revolutionary municipalities, and the National Guard, to be suspected of being aristocratic.

People said, repeated, believed, and many still say, that the National Guard had fought for Bouillé. Andyet we have seen that, with Lafayette's letters and all the endeavours of his own aid-de-camps, sent expressly from Paris, Bouillé was able to collect, throughout his rather long passage, only seven hundred National Guards, very probably nobles, with