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Chapter 14
Page: 182-201
CHAPTER XIV
Outline of France under king Jean; Rabault de S. - Etienne wants to create a people for the constitution rather than a constitution for the people; soldiers continue to be corrupted; opinions of the abbot Maury regarding the monarchy; Mirabeau talks in favor of one direction and acts in another; the stupidity of Dupont.
Under the reign of king Jean, war was impoverishing France making it necessary to raise funds to pay for it. Thus the States General was convened in 1355.
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The archbishop of Rheims presided over the clergy; Gauthier de Brienne presided over the nobility, and Marcel, the mayor of Paris, over the third estate. An equality of taxation was imposed; personal servitude was removed; corvees were abolished as were arbitrary promotions in the military and arbitrary sentences by judges. All these were wise improvements. A patriotic contribution was levied; an army was voted for and the deputies would be obliged to assist in the military reviews.
However, because these reforms were delivered in ignorance, the article governing finances was left out and this caused the kingdom to fall victim to revolts and the horrors of civil war. The nobility came under attack, and some 20 of them were murdered in the city of Arras alone.
In 1356, a new States General was convened. King Jean had just allowed himself to be taken captive at the battle of Poitiers and the dauphin (to become Charles V) was declared regent. Eight hundred deputies were assembled with the Cordeliers. The duke d’ Orleans presided over the nobility with Marcel over the third estate. However, the clergy stated they were unable to assist with it.
A new ministry was formed that limited the powers of the administrative officers. Anarchy resulted from these changes and fighting broke out throughout
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the Kingdom. People wanted to seize the clergy and confiscate their goods. Marcel then seized all authority. In 1357 the deputies declared themselves inviolable and to ensure their invincibility Marcel assigned six bodyguards to protect each one. Thus King Jean, now confined in the dungeon of a prison, was able to undo all that the States General had accomplished.
Now began all manner of cruelties and barbarisms. The king died and the sane part of the nation repudiated the control of its deputies as many decent people separated themselves from the legislative body.
The new king, Charles V, dissolved the States General and left Paris but soon returned in consideration of some magnificent offers that were made to him. But he too was obliged to convoque a new assembly of the States General.
Charles the bad, a brother-in-law of the king, arrived there with an army of brigands and set up his headquarters with the abbey S. - Germain. The king harangued the people asserting that he wielded absolute power including the executive power. With Marcel also haranguing at his side, he triumphed. Meanwhile the nobility, made indignant by this restructuring of power, withdrew from the States General. In an act of desperation Perin assassinated the treasurer of the king and fled to a church for safety but he was captured and hung. Outraged, Marcel arranged to have the execution done in the street.
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Regnault d' Arcy, the attorney-general who was authorized to carry out the orders of his superiors, went to the palace of the sovereign and, before the eyes of the terrified king, had his two marshals, Conflans and Clermont murdered. Charles pleaded for his life and this was granted on condition that he changed his emblem (cocarde or rosette). This done, he became a puppet king who approved all that was set before him. To obtain the king’s submission, the corpses of his two friends were paraded before his eyes. After this the most absurd decrees brought before the king for his royal sanction were approved.
The troops were disbanded, rank and subordination ceased, everywhere pillage and plunder took place with impunity, and though the king supposedly wielded absolute power, he could do nothing that wasn’t ordered by three members of the commune or at least approved by Marcel. A gentleman named Renti, was accused of conspiracy and summarily executed by hanging.
Tired of such a sham, the king took the party away from Paris and out to Champagne. In 1358 the States General were re-convened in Compiegne. Now all the good French subjects carried to the king their expressions of love and fidelity. The Parisian delegates were excluded and, seized by fright, they sent
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a delegation to the king expressing their remorse. The king forgave them provided that ten of the worst agitators were turned over to him.
Marcel with Consac, an alderman, made a last desperate attempt to hang on to power. They preached to the people claiming that the king wasn’t able to control the kingdom and that it was essential to name Charles the bad to be commander-in-chief. This initiative didn’t succeed. Charles the bad was a coward who had lost the confidence of the Parisians. Finally the rascal Marcel died under the blows of Maillard and some other rascals were seized. The king then returned to Paris in the midst of acclamation; good laws were made, subsidies paid, and calm was restored.
This outline drawn from history has many striking similarities to the first events of the French revolution. There are many parallels.
We had a Marcel in Péthion; our Charles the bad was d’Orleans; the innocent Renti who was executed was the equivalent of Favras; we also saw the king insulted in his own palace; we saw not only the exchange of the emblem or rosette (cocarde), but also that of the hat for a red bonnet; and, sadly, we also saw the heads and corpses of people promenaded below our windows.
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We saw agitators of the rabble preaching insubordination and pillage but we will show in the course of this book scenes of horror which were seen in no other nation – no, not even amongst the wildest savages.
Thus when a new constitution was to be devised, there was no reflection on what happened before – something of utmost importance since it was to be the model for the whole nation. “It is necessary to renew the French people,” said Rabault de S. Etienne. Mr. President! If you were not delirious when you said such a thing, then you must be looked upon as one of the chief inflamers of France!
Why the need to renew the French people when their arts, sciences, eloquence and energy are all of the highest caliber? Why renew their ideas when they are good? Why renew their laws when their foundation is excellent, although certain abuses should be corrected.
Men? Are you able to renew men? How well have you succeeded in that?
Manners? The French are renowned everywhere for manners that bear the stamp of amiability.
Things? Isn’t this like a religion because it causes so much fanaticism? Ah! M.Rabault de S. - Etienne, instead of saying: “It is necessary to renew the French people and necessary to dismantle everything,” you should have been standing up for peace, unity, and harmony, and not propagating doctrines inclined to inflame the spirits of the people. Accustomed to instructing men, you knew how dangerous it is to have people clamor for independence. You might as well have put a razor in the hands of children, because the outcome would be equally predictable..
It would be folly to say that the regeneration of France will bring back to us a golden age and that our country would then resemble the valley of Tempé; that we will be as happy as the old Arcadiens; that our old age will be that of Philémon and Baucis. I envy the imagination of those who envision such happy endings, but I am an observer of cold reality and I look in vain for this freedom which I so much long for. Does it exist in general society or just in the minds of the committee of research which imposes from one end of our kingdom to the other inquisitions crueler than those of Goa. This is a tyranny where any denouncement is taken seriously; where my enemy has the capacity to dispose of me; where a thousand pretexts justify this tyranny; where the secrecy of private correspondence is violated;
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where travelers are stopped and tormented by interminable searches and then imprisoned on suspicions without substance. This is a tyranny where one listens neither to one’s explanations nor their complaints even though they may be accurate and justified. Finally it is an undeniable fact that under this ‘reign of freedom’ there were more attacks against personal liberty, more illegal imprisonments, more prices fixed, more murders and more atrocities than there were in the last thirty years of the so-called ‘reign of slavery’. Let us add to that the pretext of ‘plots’, if needed by the slanderers to trap the people in their ferocious grip. There was the ‘plot’ of Favras who was hung; the plot of Voisin who was murdered; the plot of Augeart, fermier-general, the plot of Maillebois; the plot of the nobility; the plot of Languedoc; of Avignon, of Calumnies, etc. Always there were the ‘plots’ of which the true objective was to justify the elimination of virtuous citizens.
Why did all these infamies take place? In order to change the form of the state.
There were, it seems to me, better ways to reverse the excesses of government, and to sweep away the abuses from it
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by building on its foundation the theoretical plans of an experimental building. There certainly was no need to become like savages who would cut down a tree in order to harvest its fruit. One did not have to treat government like a deranged machine that needed to have all of its inner workings destroyed.
The monarchical constitution is itself opposed to despotism. It was thus simply a question of working with the monarchy and restoring to it its true principles. But the object was to seize the power invested in royalty and to do so with a minimum of resistance. Thus it was necessary to use vicious parties to destroy the forces which could defend it. By treating the monarchy like a constitutional principle it would be possible to degrade the monarch’s reputation – a strategy quite surprising in a legislative body. As for the rest of the population, daring instigators devoid of principles would strip thousands of citizens without any thought of compensating them; to cut sharply into their financial well-being without listening to the piercing cries of the fathers of families which had been reduced to begging.
I say that such men, after having successfully invaded all the public sectors can still, without scruples, dethrone their king. But how to
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dethrone a king who has a hundred thousand men under his command? In such a case trickery is more effective than force. Soldiers are shown the sovereign under an odious light then they are admitted into the subversive political clubs so that they too adopt the turbulent spirit of these monstrous companies. One says to the cavalier, the dragoon, the hussard and infantryman: "You are citizens, so why not enjoy humans rights like everyone else? Nobody is above you, and even the bishops are elected. So why shouldn’t Generals be similarly elected? In fact, why shouldn’t an ordinary soldier assert his claim to become a general? Why at least should you not have the right to elect your superiors? Brothers and friends! You have this right; you can do it and you deserve it."
The levers of self-interest were then used successfully. Sergeants and corporals were arbitrarily promoted to higher ranks and the power invested in the councils of war passed into their hands. The result was to give an astonished Europe the spectacle of a France without law and order. To more surely arrive at this state of disorganization, two armies were created which could not work in harmony. The civic guard and the National Guard (the regular army) were two large bodies working in opposition to one another but trying to move the same machine.
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Regiments of peasants could hardly be expected to assimilate with regiments of regular disciplined troops, having neither the same respect for rank nor the same spirit. This division gave rise to a unique problem: If the nation and its representatives were to divide, which body would give the orders and who would command the forces?
So, in order to reform the abuses of government they began by creating two anarchies: one civic, the other military. And to destroy an alleged despotism they replaced it with a tyranny.
The legislators were passionate about their masterpiece which they proudly displayed having put the most glamorous face on it. Their work resounded to patriotic airs wrapped in lofty words like freedom, equality, philosophy and light. The strategy was to find spokesmen, enthusiasts, apostles and martyrs for the cause, but experience was its stern judge. He already pronounced that the administration of an empire cannot be established on mere whims. The administrator alone has the proper judgment because he can anticipate what will result from such-and-such a change and because he alone is familiar with the problems, obstacles, and resistances. It must thus appear quite extraordinary that a body which undertook to regenerate a kingdom made up of
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twenty-five million souls, repelled from its centre the administrators, the enlightened members of the council, and in general all those who knew how the mechanics of the empire worked. Moreover, it absolutely rejected fifteen centuries of experience and scorned the genius of the most erudite masters in politics.
When one follows the National Assembly in its operations, one sees everywhere the blunders and contradictions. Beside the order to carry out some command one sees the impossibility of its execution. Everywhere this disastrous leveling of the citizenry through human rights would bring forth the greatest obstacles.
One would have difficulty believing that the legislators of the French empire rejected the slow but sure walk of reason. They did not bother to deliver themselves up to a sophistical spirit and the wisdom of the old schools where that which was best wrapped in truth was looked upon as the smartest way to proceed. Sadly, they rejected all the standard rules of politics thus making the fate of a great nation dependent on the simplistic notions of some disreputable theoreticians. Unfortunately the good direction which was always sought and revealed by somebody with a spirit of moderation was continually resisted and overcome
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so that at least three quarters of the decrees produced nothing but noise, tumult, insults and threats.
In good faith, is this the way to regenerate an empire? Is this the course of action which the deputies, honored with the confidence of the French people, should follow? I repeat, nothing done in the assembly followed a set plan. Everything yielded to the impulse of the moment or according to the sinister whims of the cabal. Thus one sees no coherence in the new administration.
The jurisdictions and authorities were confused. There was no central planning authority; no cooperation of the forces within the state, no senate to rectify the errors of the people and to bring back the representatives when they deviated from acceptable norms; no political rapport with neighboring states; there was only the pretense of a king in place of a true monarch so essential to maintaining stability in Europe. Never was there any mention of a body politic comprised of an active assembly having executive officers, a king, and public servants. Certainly eight million families cannot constitute a government in themselves.
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The legislators said, "We seek no conquests which is a wise thing, but not wanting to conquer is not a reason for us to be conquered. War is a necessary evil, and peace exists only in the midst of our readiness to make war.” Si vis pacem para bellum.
The good state of safety for citizens in a vast kingdom is where the right to declare war rests in the hands of a national assembly. When the empire is threatened it is necessary that the sovereign, before making a decision, assembles the deputies from all areas to come together in order to examine whether it is necessary to be defended. What potentate would like to make an alliance with an impotent monarch? If this leader asked for the execution of a treaty, how wise would it be to say to him, "Please await the convocation of an assembly of peasants, merchants, farmers and lawyers to see if it convenient for us to comply with this treaty.”
All the books demand the maintenance of a stable royalty, and here lies the true wish of the people. It was decreed that laws would be brought before the king and in order to have them established, his sovereign sanction would be required. What happens when a law is sanctioned? It is to make it compulsory and to give it the essence of inviolability.
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Since the sanction of the sovereign is his approval, it follows that he also has the right to disapprove. Thus the right to approve or disapprove presupposes his absolute freedom. The national assembly was sensitive to this truth which was the source of its discussion on the veto and other deliberations that followed.
On these fantasies, which one cannot dispute, each delegate deluded himself into viewing oneself like the whole nation and allotting oneself, for this reason, sovereign powers to the point of treating the sanction of the king as useless. The French revolution produced a hazard that will last forever. Never does one see a nation’s leader appealing to his subjects to repair some disorder. And never does one see a sovereign throwing himself helplessly into the arms of his people, or fear a delegation of legislators.
It would be wise to restrict the power of the monarch in order to spare our descendants the worry of having another Louis XI, or Charles IX, but the more restraint that gets placed on the authority of the sovereign, the more necessary it is that public opinion compensates for his weakness.
Consider the doges of Venice and Genoa, and
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gonfalonier de Lucques. They were slaves in fact, but as leaders, they enjoyed the greatest honors and the deepest veneration.
It is difficult to conceive why the French constitution was based on a monarchy and then why the monarch was deliberately degraded because, if the sanction of the sovereign were necessary to give to the law its legitimacy and force, then the authority of the monarch was intimately tied to that of the law. The abbot Maury demonstrated with clarity that France would no longer be a single monarchy and that a monstrous government would arise if the king were stripped of the rights vested in the crown. "Who can show me from history,” he said, “a single kingdom where the monarch did not exert, without contradiction and division, the right to make war or peace."
Mirabeau developed the same principles. He feared the influence of the departments on the legislative body and he feared that a decision to make war or peace might reside with the provinces. He feared that violent agitations would strip the legislative body of its powers and thus become, in effect, a second
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executive. He was concerned about the disadvantages of having a public deliberation on war or peace, and he feared grafting republican forms of government into a monarchical state. However at the conclusion of his speech he stated that it was necessary to have the legislative body contribute meaningfully in exercising the right to make war or peace. Thus Mirabeau, after expressing his opposition, went along with those whom he had come to oppose.
One can believe, with probability, that a certain M. Dupont who obviously didn’t hear Mirabeau, said in the national assembly: "We must call England to disarm. It should be declared to the English nation that if she refuses, the French nation swears on its honor, to go to London to seek its disarmament. The reply,” added the speaker, “must be prompt. Its disarmament must commence within the week or hostilities will ensue within one month."
Here is an example of how the business of politics was treated. An Englishman, having read the motion of the representative, M. Dupont, shrugged his shoulders and said, “The poor man is mad.”
It has been said that "the principle of sovereignty
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resides essentially in the nation and no body or individual can exert the authority which emanates from it.”
It is certain that if the people who comprise a nation were all united, its will would be sovereign. But I contend that 1200 deputies who cannot agree on anything, and who all want their particular will to constitute the ‘general will’, cannot en masse represent true sovereignty.
The ‘general will’, for example, appeared frequently in the books of 1789, and whatever credence one gives to that, did this emanate from the authority vested in the legislative body? If so, then it obviously didn’t believe that sovereignty lay essentially within the nation.
If the French people have some occasion to exert their sovereignty, it is within the primary assemblies which combine into a single body to speak for the nation. Thus it is not permissible for a people-king to deliberate and then say that all power rests with him in order to defend us. It is an aberration of the constitution to have created free people and then at the same time placing obstacles to that freedom in the only jurisdiction where a man has a right to exert it.
We have arrived at September 6, 1790. The constituent assembly did away with the parlements (courts)
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all the old courts, and then created new ones.
At that time, money had disappeared so much that it wasn’t possible any longer to provide even the basic necessities of life.
On the 29th it was decreed that the national debts and those before the clergy would henceforth be paid off in assignats currency, and that some 1200 millions worth of assignats would be put into circulation.
Then, for lack of currency, they made it permissible for anyone to pass in public cards and tickets being worth from one to five sous (pennies) and this, of course, gave rogues the most beautiful game imaginable.
Suddenly there appeared ticket-currency of all forms and colors. Audacity was pushed to the limit when this currency was carried into neighboring countries and those who dared to refuse the new currency were threatened and intimidated.
Soon the folly of this money was recognized. Half or more of the tickets were counterfeit. Since the country folk weren’t able to earn anything for their labors, the markets ceased to be supplied and people begged the government to sell them some chickens and cows.
Then assignats of ten sous and fifteen sous were printed, but abundance did not return. The sources had dried up by the issuance of assignats.
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On November 27, 1790 the National Assembly tried to impose acceptance of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy by insisting clerics take an oath of allegiance. The decree obliging the clerics to take the oath contained seven articles. The decree read as follows:
“The bishops, archbishops and priests are required to take the oath to which they are subject by Article 39 of the decree of 24July last, on the Civil Constitution of the Clergy; in consequence of which they will swear to watch over the faithful of the diocese or parish entrusted to them, to be faithful to the nation, the law and the king, and to uphold with all their power the constitution decreed by the National Assembly and accepted by the king. The oath will be taken on a Sunday, at the end of Mass. Those of the said bishops, archbishops, priests and other ecclesiastical public servants, who are members of the National Assembly, and who currently carry out their duties there, will take the oath at the National Assembly one week following the day on which the approval of this decree shall have been announced.”
The second article gave eight days to those who were present to take the oath and a month to those who were absent.
The third article ordered the cleric to take the oath at the end of the mass on a Sunday.
The fourth, those who were members of the National Assembly would take the oath at the Assembly.
The fifth, those who refused to take the oath would be replaced.
The sixth, those who missed taking the oath would be pursued until they did.
The seventh and the eighth, those who were deposed would no longer be able to fulfill their sacerdotal functions, and those who unite in their refusal to obey, will be pursued.
The mania of the National Assembly was its oaths - a bad way of trying to bring forth good laws and really pointless.
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