CHAPTER II.

FROM THE NIGHT OF THE 4TH OF AUGUST TO THE 5TH AND 6TH OF OCTOBER, 1789.

State of the constituent assembly-Party of the high clergy and nobilityMaury and Cazales-Party of the ministry and of the two chambers: Mounier, Lally-Tollendal― Popular party: triumvirate of Barnave, Duport, and Lameth-Its position-Influence of Siéyes-Mirabeau, chief of the assembly at that period-Opinion to be formed of the Orleans party-Constitutional labours-Declaration of rights-Permanency and unity of the legislative body-Royal sanction-External agitation caused by it-Project of the court-Banquet of the gardesdu-corps Insurrection of the 5th and 6th October--The king comes to reside at Paris.

THE national assembly, composed of the élite of the nation, was full of intelligence, pure intentions, and projects for the public good. It was not, indeed, free from parties, or wholly unanimous; but the mass was, under the empire, neither of an idea nor of a man; and it was the mass which, upon a conviction ever untrammelled and often entirely spontaneous, decided the deliberations and decreed popularity. The following were the divisions of views and interests it contained within itself:

The court had a party in the assembly, the privileged classes, who remained for a long time silent, and took but a tardy share in the debates. This party consisted of those who during the dispute as to the orders had declared against union. The aristocratic classes, notwithstanding their momentary agreement with the commons, had interests altogether contrary to those of the national party; and, accordingly, the nobility and higher clergy, who formed the Right of the as

sembly, were in constant opposition to it, except on days of peculiar excitement. These foes of the revolution, unable to prevent it by their sacrifices, or to stop it by their adhesion, systematically contended against all its reforms. Their leaders were two men who were not the first among them in birth or rank, but who were superior to the rest in talents. Maury and Cazales represented, as it were, the one the clergy, and the other the nobility.

These two orators of the privileged classes, according to the intentions of their party, who put little faith in the duration of these changes, rather protested than stood on the defensive; and in all their discussions their aim was not to instruct the assembly, but to bring it into disrepute. Each introduced into his part the particular turn of his mind and character: Maury made long speeches, Cazales lively sallies. The first preserved at the tribune his habits as a preacher and academician; he spoke on legislative subjects without understanding them, never seizing the right view of the subject, nor even that most advantageous to his party; he gave proofs of audacity, erudition, skill, a brilliant and well-sustained facility, but never displayed solidity of judgment, firm conviction, or real eloquence. The abbé Maury spoke as soldiers fight. No one could contradict oftener or more pertinaciously than he, or more flippantly substitute quotations and sophisms for reasoning, or rhetorical phrases for real bursts of feeling. He possessed much talent, but wanted the faculty which gives it life and truth. Cazales was the opposite of Maury: he had a just and ready mind; his eloquence was equally facile, but more animated; there was candour in his outbursts, and he always gave the best reasons. No rhetorician, he always took the true side of a question that concerned his party, and left declamation to Maury. With the clearness of his views, his ardent character, and the good use he made of his talents, his only fault was that of his position; Maury, on the other hand, added the errors of his mind to those which were inseparable from the cause he espoused.

Necker and the ministry had also a party; but it was less numerous than the other, on account of its moderation. France was then divided into the privileged classes opposed to the revolution, and the people who strenuously desired it. As yet there was no place for a mediating party between

them. Necker had declared himself in favour of the English constitution, and those who from ambition or conviction were of his views, rallied round him. Among these was Mounier, a man of strong mind and inflexible spirit, who considered that system as the type of representative governments; Lally-Tollendal, as decided in his views as the former, and more persuasive; Clermont-Tonnerre, the friend and ally of Mounier and Lally; in a word, the minority of the nobility, and some of the bishops, who hoped to become members of the upper chamber, should Necker's views be adopted.

The leaders of this party, afterwards called the monarchical party, wished to effect a revolution by compromise, and to introduce into France a representative government, ready formed, namely, that of England. At every point, they besought the powerful to make a compromise with the weak. Before the 14th of July, they asked the court and privileged classes to satisfy the commons; afterwards, they asked the commons to agree to an arrangement with the court and the privileged classes. They thought that each ought to preserve his influence in the state; that deposed parties are discontented parties, and that a legal existence must be made for them, or interminable struggles be expected on their part. But they did not see how little their ideas were appropriate to a moment of exclusive passions. The struggle was begun, the struggle destined to result in the triumph of a system, and not in a compromise. It was a victory which had made the three orders give place to a single assembly, and it was difficult to break the unity of this assembly in order to arrive at a government of two chambers. The moderate party had not been able to obtain this government from the court, nor were they to obtain it from the nation: to the one it had appeared too popular; for the other, it was too aristocratic.

The rest of the assembly consisted of the national party. As yet there were not observed in it men who, like Robespierre, Pétion, Buzot, &c., wished to begin a second revolution when the first was accomplished. At this period the most extreme of this party were Duport, Barnave, and Lameth, who formed a triumvirate, whose opinions were prepared by Duport, sustained by Barnave, and managed by Alexander Lameth. There was something remarkable and announcing the spirit of equality of the times, in this intimate

union of an advocate belonging to the middle classes, or a counsellor belonging to the parliamentary class, and a colonel belonging to the court, renouncing the interests of their order to unite in views of the public good and popular happiness. This party at first took a more advanced position than that which the revolution had attained. The 14th of July had been the triumph of the middle class; the constituent assembly was its legislature, the national guard its armed force, the mayoralty its popular power. Mirabeau, Lafayette, Bailly, relied on this class; one was its tribune, the other its general, and the third its magistrate. Duport, Barnave, and Lameth's party were of the principles, and sustained the interests of that period of the revolution; but this party, composed of young men of ardent patriotism, who entered on public affairs with superior qualities, fine talents, and elevated positions, and who joined to the love of liberty the ambition of playing a leading part, placed itself from the first rather in advance of the revolution of July the 14th. Its fulcrum within the assembly was, the members of the extreme left, without, in the clubs; in the nation, in the party of the people, who had co-operated on the 14th of July, and who were unwilling that the bourgeoisie alone should derive advantage from the victory. By putting itself at the head of those who had no leaders, and who being a little out of the government aspired to enter it, it did not cease to belong to this first period of the revolution; only it formed a kind of democratic opposition, even in the middle class itself, only differing from its leaders cn a few unimportant points, and voting with them on most questions. It was, among these popular men, rather a patriotic emulation than a party dissension.

Duport, who was strong-minded, and who had acquired premature experience of the management of political passions, in the struggles which parliament had sustained against the ministry, and which he had chiefly directed, knew well that a people reposes the moment it has gained its rights, and that it begins to grow weak as soon as it reposes. То keep in vigour those who governed in the assembly, in the mayoralty, in the militia; to prevent the public activity from slackening, and not to disband the people, whose aid he might one day require, he conceived and executed the famous confederation of the clubs. This institution, like everything

that gives a great impulse to a nation, caused a great deal of good, and a great deal of harm. It impeded legal authority, when this of itself was sufficient; but it also gave an immense energy to the revolution, when, attacked on all sides, it could only save itself by the most violent efforts. For the rest, the founders of this association had not calculated all its consequences. They regarded it simply as a wheel destined to keep or put in movement the public machine, without danger, when it tended to abate or to cease its activity; they did not think they were working for the advantage of the multitude. After the flight of Varennes, this party had become too exacting and too formidable; they forsook it, and supported themselves against it with the mass of the assembly and the middle class, whose direction was left vacant by the death of Mirabeau. At this period, it was important to them speedily to fix the constitutional revolution; for to protract it would have been to bring on the republican revolution.

The mass of the assembly, we have just mentioned, abounded in just, experienced, and even superior minds. Its leaders were two men, strangers to the third estate, and adopted by it. Without the abbé Siéyes, the constituent assembly would probably have had less unity in its operation and without Mirabeau, less energy in its conduct.

Siéyes was one of those men who create sects in an age of enthusiasm, and who exercise the ascendancy of a powerful reason in an enlightened age. Solitude and philosophical studies had matured him at an early age. His views were new, strong, and extensive, but somewhat too systematic. Society had especially been the subject of his examination; he had watched its progress, investigated its springs. The nature of government appeared to him less a question of right than a question of epoch. His vast intellect ranged the society of our days in its divisions, relations, powers, and movement. Siéyes, though of cold temperament, had the ardour which the pursuit of truth inspires, and the passion which its discovery gives; he was accordingly absolute in his views, disdaining those of others, because he considered them incomplete, and that, in his opinion, half truth was error. Contradiction irritated him; he was not communicative. Desirous of making himself thoroughly known, he could not do