Part 26 (1/2)
CHAPTER VI.
WAR AND COUNTER-WAR.
After the ma.s.sacre of the Field of Mars, the reaction thought itself all-powerful, and entered pitilessly upon its career of repression. The presses of the patriot journals were destroyed, their writers forced to flee or go into hiding. The clubs, under the weight of intimidation, remained almost silent.
Re-established in full power, Louis XVI immediately renewed his intrigues, within France with the enemies of the Revolution, the n.o.bility and priesthood, and without, with the Emigrant n.o.bles, and foreign sovereigns.
The Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly, having finished its labors, submitted the Const.i.tution to the royal sanction, and declared itself dissolved on September 29, 1791. Although covertly resolved to tear the Const.i.tution to shreds, the King solemnly swore to uphold it. The Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly gave place to the Legislative a.s.sembly. According to its own enactment, none of the old members could be re-elected. Robespierre and the other minority leaders no longer held their seats, therefore, among the Representatives of the people; but the principles which inspired the minority in the Const.i.tuent, became, through the majority of the Legislative a.s.sembly, the expressed general opinion of France. The spirit of the Revolution was resuscitated by the elections. The Right of the new a.s.sembly was not composed, as that of the Const.i.tuent, of grand seigneurs, cardinals, bishops, bourgeois aristocrats, men of the court or the sword, defenders of the old regime; the Right of the Legislative a.s.sembly was occupied by the Const.i.tutional party, represented outside the a.s.sembly by the Club of the Feuillants. The heads of this party, Lafayette, Mathieu, Dumas, Ramond, Vaublanc, Beugnot, and others, sought the continuance in power of Louis XVI and the Const.i.tution. The leaders of the Left were, to a great extent, from the department of the Gironde, whence the name of Girondins, applied to Vergniaud, Guadet, Gensonne, Ducos and their companions. Their leanings were either purely republican, or were on the way to become so. Finally Bazire, Chabot and Merlin sat at the extreme Left; but this faction, as well as that of the Girondins, was devoted to the Revolution, and determined to defend it by all means. The Center of the a.s.sembly, undecided and watery, voted as the spirit moved them, sometimes with the Left, sometimes with the Right. In short, the majority of the body, no longer able to doubt the treason of Louis XVI or his secret understanding with the foreign coalition, was undisguisedly hostile to royalty. It even decided, at its first session, to suppress, in the reports of the representatives of the sovereign people and its executive committee, those ridiculous appellations of _Sire_ and _Majesty_, the superannuated relics of monarchical fetichism.
Louis XVI, on his part, believing himself sure of the a.s.sistance of the foreign sovereigns, and counting, within, on the activity of the clergy and the complicity of the generals and officers of the National Guard, obstinately defied the a.s.sembly. The King chose his ministry from the Feuillant Club, notoriously counter-revolutionary. In vain did the a.s.sembly render its decrees against the priests, who were fanning the fires of civil war; against the aristocrats, who were flocking to join the body of Emigrants gathered in arms on the frontier. Louis XVI opposed his veto to the execution of these decrees. Soon there came to light the odious plot of the foreign war, organized between the King, the ministers, the court party, and the despots of Europe. The Emigrants made open preparations on the frontiers for an armed invasion under the protection of the German princes bordering on France, and were to serve as advance guard to the troops of the coalition. These threatening preparations aroused the Representatives. Isnard mounted the tribunal and exclaimed:
”Representatives of the people, let us rise to the height of our office.
Let us speak to the King, to his ministers, to Europe, with the firmness that befits us. Let us say to the King: You reign but by the people and for the people. The people alone is sovereign! Let us say to the ministers: Choose between public grat.i.tude and the vengeance of the laws. Let us say to Europe: France draws her sword; the scabbard she will fling away. Then she will wage to the death the war of the peoples against the Kings, and soon the people will embrace before the spectacle of their dethroned tyrants; the earth will be consoled, the heavens satisfied!”
Meanwhile Louis cloaked himself in a well-feigned submission to the orders of the a.s.sembly. He promised to hold off the German princes firmly and with dignity. 'Twas the promise of a King! Under the pretext of possible eventualities of war, he chose as Minister of War the Count of Narbonne, a young courtier crammed with ambition and audacity. The latter organized three army corps, placing the first under the command of the Marquis of Lafayette, and giving the other two to the Marquis of Rochambeau and Marshal Lukner, two enemies of the Revolution.
Robespierre, Danton, and Billaud-Varenne were farsighted enough to detect the conspiracy hidden beneath these ostensible preparations for war. In the memorable meeting of the Jacobins, of the 12th of December, 1791, several orators of the republican party gave utterance to their sentiments.
”Far be it from me to raise my voice against the cruel necessity of an inevitable war,” declared Billaud-Varenne. ”No! For when in 1789 people were congratulating themselves, saying that never had a revolution cost so little blood, I always answered: A people which breaks the yoke of tyranny can never seal its liberty irrevocably save by tracing the decree which consecrates it with the points of their bayonets! These must be plunged at least into the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of our enemies! Only by combating them can we be freed of them forever!”
”If it were a question of deciding whether, actually, we were to have war, I would answer, Yes,” declared Danton in turn. ”Yes, the clarions of war resound; yes, the exterminating angel of liberty will smite the satellites of despotism. But when are we to have the war? Is it not after having well judged our situation, after having weighed everything, after having deeply scrutinized the intentions of the King who is going to propose war to us? Let us be on our guard against the Executive.”
Thus did Billaud-Varenne denounce at the Jacobins the plan of the counter-revolution, of which war was the mask. Thus did Danton, while sharing the same suspicion, nevertheless incline toward war, asking only that before the declaration of hostilities, the a.s.sembly should scan closely the intentions of Louis XVI. Brissot took the floor and spoke for war, but a revolutionary war.
Robespierre finally arose to the tribunal:
”It seems to me that those who desire to provoke war have only adopted that opinion through insufficient scrutiny of the nature of the war we are about to embark upon, and of the circ.u.mstances with which we find ourselves surrounded. What sort of a war is it proposed that we declare?
Is it a war of one nation against other nations? Is it a war of one king against other kings? Is it a war of revolution by a free people against the tyrants who override other peoples? No! What they propose to us, citizens, is the war of all the enemies of the French Revolution against the Revolution itself! This I shall prove by examining what has occurred up to this day, from the administration of the Duke of Broglie who in 1789 proposed to annihilate the National a.s.sembly, up to that of the last successors of this minister....
”Behold what tissues of prevarication and perfidy, of violence and of ruse! Behold the subsidized sedition! Behold the conduct of the court and of the ministry! And is it to that ministry, is it to those agents of the executive power, that you would entrust the conduct of the war?
Is it thus you would abandon the safety of the country to those who wish to destroy you?
”The thing which you have most cause to fear, is war. War is the greatest scourge which can, in our present circ.u.mstances, menace liberty! For it is in no wise a war kindled by the enmity of peoples. It is a war concerted by the enemies of our Revolution. What are their probable designs? What use would they make of these military forces, this augmentation of power which they ask of you under the pretext of war? They seek, in strengthening the powers of the crown, to force us to a deal! If we refuse, these royalists will then attempt to fasten it upon us by the force of the arms which you will have put into their hands.
”What, there are rebels to punish? The Representatives of the people aimed at them with a decree, and the King opposed his veto to the decree! Instead of allowing the punishment, imposed by the a.s.sembly upon the Emigrants, to take its course, the King proposes a declaration of war, a sham war, whose only aim is to place a formidable military force at the disposal of the enemies of the Revolution, or to open to them our frontiers, thanks to the treason of the aristocratic generals still at the head of our armies! There you have the secret workings of this cabinet intrigue! There is the heart of this complot in which we shall be lost if we allow ourselves to be taken by the snare so craftily colored with patriotism and martial ardor, sentiments so strong in the French spirit.”
The sagacity of Robespierre thus tore the veil off the double project of Louis and the Austrian Committee, that perennial hotbed of conspiracy.
The soul of this Committee was the Queen, and its numerous emissaries maintained relations with the Emigrant n.o.bles and the foreign Kings; but Louis XVI and his court, by the sublimation of duplicity, carried treason within treason. They deceived even their accomplices.
Louis XVI wanted war because he reckoned on a victory by the allied Kings, and upon their early entry into Paris. Lafayette and his party never mingled in this machination against the country; hence, in order to obtain their support for the declaration of hostilities, Louis had to feign to conspire with them for the triumph of the const.i.tutional kingdom and monarchic inst.i.tutions.
The Girondins, scenting peril and treachery, sought to conjure away the dangers of the situation by imposing on Louis XVI three ministers whom they thought worthy of their confidence: General Dumouriez was charged with Foreign Affairs; Servan with the Department of War; and Roland with the ministry of the Interior. Dumouriez was a man of war, resourceful, bold and fiery, cunning and subtle of policy, but already grown old in underground intrigue and occult diplomacy; ambitious, cynical, intemperate of habit, covetous to the point of exaction, unreasonable in pride, without virtues, without principles, capable of serving valiantly the Republic and the Revolution, or of shamefully betraying both, according to the exigencies of his interest or ambition. Servan, an officer of genius, was a soldier of integrity, industry and modesty. He was capable and upright, and devoted to the Revolution. Roland was one of the purest and most beautiful characters of the time--simple, stoical, austere, disinterested, of scrupulous honesty, and with a firmness of will equal to the rigidity of his republican convictions, which were shared by his young and charming wife, the soul of the Girondin party, where she reigned as much by the loftiness of her spirit as by her qualities of heart and the attraction of her person.
On April 19, 1792, the a.s.sembly declared war on Austria. Some days after the opening of the campaign the army corps under Count Theobald of Dillon, was, at the first engagement, stampeded before the armies of the coalition. The royalist officers gave the cry ”Each for himself!” and provoked a panic among the troops. The army fled in full rout. The enemy crossed our frontiers and the heart of France fell under the menace of the foreign cohorts.
The Girondins recognized the trap into which their patriotism had led them, and spurred by the realization took three active revolutionary measures. They p.r.o.nounced a sentence of exile upon the fractious priests, the promoters of civil war, who refused to stand by the Const.i.tution; they had the a.s.sembly decree the dissolution of the paid guard of Louis XVI; and they ordered the establishment of a camp of twenty thousand men around Paris, to form a reserve army and to cover the threatened capital. But Louis entered upon an open war with the a.s.sembly, maintained his veto in the matter of the refractory priests, and refused to sanction the organization of the camp at Paris. Roland and Servan, the two patriot ministers, were unseated the 13th of June, and Louis formed a new cabinet, choosing its members from among the enemies of the people.