The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2

H >> Hippolyte A. Taine >> The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2

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The French Revolution, Volume 1.
^M
The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2^M
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by Hippolyte A. Taine^M

CONTENTS:

ANARCHY

PREFACE

BOOK FIRST. Spontaneous Anarchy.

CHAPTER I. The Beginnings of Anarchy

CHAPTER II. Paris up to the 14th of July

CHAPTER III. Anarchy from July 14th to October 6th, 1789

CHAPTER IV. PARIS

BOOK SECOND. The constituent Assembly, and the Result of its Labors

CHAPTER I. The Constituent Assembly

CHAPTER II. The Damage

CHAPTER III. The Constructions - The Constitution of 1791.

BOOK THIRD. The Application of the Constitution

CHAPTER I. The Federations

CHAPTER II. Sovereignty of Unrestrained Passions

CHAPTER III. Development of the ruling Passion

PREFACE

This second part of "Les Origines de la France Contemporaine" will
consist of two volumes. - Popular insurrections and the laws of the
Constituent Assembly end in destroying all government in France;
this forms the subject of the present volume. - A party arises
around an extreme doctrine, grabs control of the government, and
rules in conformity with its doctrine. This will form the subject
of the second volume.

A third volume would be required to criticize and evaluate the
source material. I lack the necessary space: I merely state the
rule that I have observed. The trustworthiest testimony will always
be that of an eyewitness, especially

* When this witness is an honorable, attentive, and intelligent man,

* When he is writing on the spot, at the moment, and under the
dictate of the facts themselves,

* When it is obvious that his sole object is to preserve or furnish
information,

* When his work instead of a piece of polemics planned for the needs
of a cause, or a passage of eloquence arranged for popular effect is
a legal deposition, a secret report, a confidential dispatch, a
private letter, or a personal memento.

The nearer a document approaches this type, the more it merits
confidence, and supplies superior material. - I have found many of
this kind in the national archives, principally in the manuscript
correspondence of ministers, intendants, sub-delegates, magistrates,
and other functionaries; of military commanders, officers in the
army, and gendarmerie; of royal commissioners, and of the Assembly;
of administrators of departments, districts, and municipalities,
besides persons in private life who address the King, the National
Assembly, or the ministry. Among these are men of every rank,
profession, education, and party. They are distributed by hundreds
and thousands over the whole surface of the territory. They write
apart, without being able to consult each other, and without even
knowing each other. No one is so well placed for collecting and
transmitting accurate information. None of them seek literary
effect, or even imagine that what they write will ever be published.
They draw up their statements at once, under the direct impression
of local events. Testimony of this character, of the highest order,
and at first hand, provides the means by which all other testimony
ought to be verified. - The footnotes at the bottom of the pages
indicate the condition, office, name, and address of those decisive
witnesses. For greater certainty I have transcribed as often as
possible their own words. In this way the reader, confronting the
texts, can interpret them for himself, and form his own opinions; he
will have the same documents as myself for arriving at his
conclusions, and, if he is pleased to do so, he may conclude
otherwise. As for allusions, if he finds any, he himself will have
introduced them, and if he applies them he is alone responsible for
them. To my mind, the past has features of its own, and the
portrait here presented resembles only the France of the past. I
have drawn it without concerning myself with the discussions of the
day; I have written as if my subject were the revolutions of
Florence or Athens. This is history, and nothing more, and, if I
may fully express myself, I esteem my vocation of historian too
highly to make a cloak of it for the concealment of another.
(December 1877).

_________________________________________________________________

BOOK FIRST. SPONTANEOUS ANARCHY.

CHAPTER I. THE BEGINNINGS OF ANARCHY.

I.

Dearth the first cause. - Bad crops. The winter of 1788 and 1789.
- High price and poor quality of bread. - In the provinces. - At
Paris.

During the night of July 14-15, 1789, the Duc de la Rochefoucauld-
Liancourt caused Louis XVI to be aroused to inform him of the taking
of the Bastille. "It is a revolt, then?" exclaimed the King.
"Sire!" replied the Duke; "it is a revolution!" The event was even
more serious. Not only had power slipped from the hands of the
King, but also it had not fallen into those of the Assembly. It now
lay on the ground, ready to the hands of the unchained populace, the
violent and over-excited crowd, the mobs, which picked it up like
some weapon that had been thrown away in the street. In fact, there
was no longer any government; the artificial structure of human
society was giving way entirely; things were returning to a state of
nature. This was not a revolution, but a dissolution.

Two causes excite and maintain the universal upheaval. The first
one is food shortages and dearth, which being constant, lasting for
ten years, and aggravated by the very disturbances which it excites,
bids fair to inflame the popular passions to madness, and change the
whole course of the Revolution into a series of spasmodic stumbles.

When a stream is brimful, a slight rise suffices to cause an
overflow. So was it with the extreme distress of the eighteenth
century. A poor man, who finds it difficult to live when bread is
cheap, sees death staring him in the face when it is dear. In this
state of suffering the animal instinct revolts, and the universal
obedience which constitutes public peace depends on a degree more or
less of dryness or damp, heat or cold. In 1788, a year of severe
drought, the crops had been poor. In addition to this, on the eve
of the harvest,[1] a terrible hail-storm burst over the region
around Paris, from Normandy to Champagne, devastating sixty leagues
of the most fertile territory, and causing damage to the amount of
one hundred millions of francs. Winter came on, the severest that
had been seen since 1709. At the close of December the Seine was
frozen over from Paris to Havre, while the thermometer stood at 180
below zero. A third of the olive-trees died in Provence, and the
rest suffered to such an extent that they were considered incapable
of bearing fruit for two years to come. The same disaster befell
Languedoc. In Vivarais, and in the Cevennes, whole forests of
chestnuts had perished, along with all the grain and grass crops on
the uplands. On the plain the Rhone remained in a state of overflow
for two months. After the spring of 1789 the famine spread
everywhere, and it increased from month to month like a rising
flood. In vain did the Government order the farmers, proprietors,
and corn-dealers to keep the markets supplied. In vain did it
double the bounty on imports, resort to all sorts of expedients,
involve itself in debt, and expend over forty millions of francs to
furnish France with wheat. In vain do individuals, princes,
noblemen, bishops, chapters, and communities multiply their
charities. The Archbishop of Paris incurring a debt of 400,000
livres, one rich man distributing 40,000 francs the morning after
the hailstorm, and a convent of Bernardines feeding twelve hundred
poor persons for six weeks[2]. But it had been too devastating.
Neither public measures nor private charity could meet the
overwhelming need. In Normandy, where the last commercial treaty
had ruined the manufacture of linen and of lace trimmings, forty
thousand workmen were out of work. In many parishes one-fourth of
the population[3] are beggars. Here, "nearly all the inhabitants,
not excepting the farmers and landowners, are eating barley bread
and drinking water;" there, "many poor creatures have to eat oat
bread, and others soaked bran, which has caused the death of several
children." -- "Above all," writes the Rouen Parliament, "let help be
sent to a perishing people . . .. Sire, most of your subjects
are unable to pay the price of bread, and what bread is given to
those who do buy it " -- Arthur Young,[4] who was traveling through
France at this time, heard of nothing but the high cost of bread and
the distress of the people. At Troyes bread costs four sous a pound
-- that is to say, eight sous of the present day; and unemployed
artisans flock to the relief works, where they can earn only twelve
sous a day. In Lorraine, according to the testimony of all
observers, "the people are half dead with hunger." In Paris the
number of paupers has been trebled; there are thirty thousand in the
Faubourg Saint-Antoine alone. Around Paris there is a short supply
of grain, or it is spoilt[5]. In the beginning of July, at
Montereau, the market is empty. "The bakers could not have baked"
if the police officers had not increased the price of bread to five
sous per pound; the rye and barley which the intendant is able to
send "are of the worst possible quality, rotten and in a condition
to produce dangerous diseases. Nevertheless, most of the small
consumers are reduced to the hard necessity of using this spoilt
grain." At Villeneuve- le-Roi, writes the mayor, "the rye of the two
lots last sent is so black and poor that it cannot be retailed
without wheat." At Sens the barley "tastes musty" to such an extent
that buyers of it throw the detestable bread, which it makes in the
face of the sub-delegate. At Chevreuse the barley has sprouted and
smells bad; the " poor wretches," says an employee, "must be hard
pressed with hunger to put up with it." At Fontainebleau "the
barley, half eaten away, produces more bran than flour, and to make
bread of it, one is obliged to work it over several times." This
bread, such as it is, is an object of savage greed; "it has come to
this, that it is impossible to distribute it except through
wickets." And those who thus obtain their ration, "are often
attacked on the road and robbed of it by the more vigorous of the
famished people." At Nangis "the magistrates prohibit the same
person from buying more than two bushels in the same market." In
short, provisions are so scarce that there is a difficulty in
feeding the soldiers; the minister dispatches two letters one after
another to order the cutting down of 250,000 bushels of rye before
the harvest[6]. Paris thus, in a perfect state of tranquility,
appears like a famished city put on rations at the end of a long
siege, and the dearth will not be greater nor the food worse in
December 1870, than in July 1789.

"The nearer the 14th of July approached," says an eyewitness,[7]
"the more did the dearth increase." Every baker's shop was
surrounded by a crowd, to which bread was distributed with the most
grudging economy. This bread was generally blackish, earthy, and
bitter, producing inflammation of the throat and pain in the bowels.
I have seen flour of detestable quality at the military school and
at other depots. I have seen portions of it yellow in color, with
an offensive smell; some forming blocks so hard that they had to be
broken into fragments by repeated blows of a hatchet. For my own
part, wearied with the difficulty of procuring this poor bread, and
disgusted with that offered to me at the tables d'hôte, I avoided
this kind of food altogether. In the evening I went to the Café du
Caveau, where, fortunately, they were kind enough to reserve for me
two of those rolls which are called flutes, and this is the only
bread I have eaten for a week at a time."

But this resource is only for the rich. As for the people, to get
bread fit for dogs, they must stand in a line for hours. And here
they fight for it; "they snatch food from one another." There is no
more work to be had; "the work-rooms are deserted;" often, after
waiting a whole day, the workman returns home empty-handed. When he
does bring back a four-pound loaf it costs him 3 francs 12 sous;
that is, 12 sous for the bread, and 3 francs for the lost day. In
this long line of unemployed, excited men, swaying to and fro before
the shop-door, dark thoughts are fermenting: "if the bakers find no
flour to-night to bake with, we shall have nothing to eat to-
morrow." An appalling idea; -- in presence of which the whole power
of the Government is not too strong; for to keep order in the midst
of famine nothing avails but the sight of an armed force, palpable
and threatening. Under Louis XIV and Louis XV there had been even
greater hunger and misery; but the outbreaks, which were roughly and
promptly put down, were only partial and passing disorders. Some
rioters were at once hung, and others were sent to the galleys. The
peasant or the workman, convinced of his impotence, at once returned
to his stall or his plow. When a wall is too high one does not even
think of scaling it. -- But now the wall is cracking -- all its
custodians, the clergy, the nobles, the Third-Estate, men of
letters, the politicians, and even the Government itself, making the
breach wider. The wretched, for the first time, discover an issue:
they dash through it, at first in driblets, then in a mass, and
rebellion becomes as universal as resignation was in the past.

II.

Expectations the second cause. - Separation and laxity of the
administrative forces. - Investigations of local assemblies. - The
people become aware of their condition. - Convocation of the
States-General. - Hope is born. The coincidence of early
Assemblies with early difficulties.

It is just through this breach that hope steals like a beam of
light, and gradually finds its way down to the depths below. For
the last fifty years it has been rising, and its rays, which first
illuminated the upper class in their splendid apartments in the
first story, and next the middle class in their entresol and on the
ground floor. They have now for two years penetrated to the cellars
where the people toil, and even to the deep sinks and obscure
corners where rogues and vagabonds and malefactors, a foul and
swarming herd, crowd and hide themselves from the persecution of the
law. -- To the first two provincial assemblies instituted by Necker
in 1778 and 1779, Loménie de Brienne has in 1787 just added nineteen
others; under each of these are assemblies of the arrondissement,
under each assembly of the arrondissement are parish assemblies[8].
Thus the whole machinery of administration has been changed. It is
the new assemblies which assess the taxes and superintend their
collection; which determine upon and direct all public works; and
which form the court of final appeal in regard to matters in
dispute. The intendant, the sub-delegate, the elected
representative[9], thus lose three-quarters of their authority.
Conflicts arise, consequently, between rival powers whose frontiers
are not clearly defined; command shifts about, and obedience is
diminished. The subject no longer feels on his shoulders the
commanding weight of the one hand which, without possibility of
interference or resistance, held him in, urged him forward, and made
him move on. Meanwhile, in each assembly of the parish
arrondissement, and even of the province, plebeians, "husband-
men,"[10] and often common farmers, sit by the side of lords and
prelates. They listen to and remember the vast figure of the taxes
which are paid exclusively, or almost exclusively, by them -- the
taille and its accessories, the poll-tax and road dues, and
assuredly on their return home they talk all this over with their
neighbor. These figures are all printed; the village attorney
discusses the matter with his clients, the artisans and rustics, on
Sunday as they leave the mass, or in the evening in the large public
room of the tavern. These little gatherings, moreover, are
sanctioned, encouraged by the powers above. In the earliest days of
1788 the provincial assemblies order a board of inquiry to be held
by the syndics and inhabitants of each parish. Knowledge is wanted
in detail of their grievances. What part of the revenue is
chargeable to each impost? What must the cultivator pay and how much
does he suffer? How many privileged persons there are in the parish,
what is the amount of their fortune, are they residents, and what
their exemptions amount to? In replying, the attorney who holds the
pen, names and points out with his finger each privileged
individual, criticizes his way of living, and estimates his fortune,
calculates the injury done to the village by his immunities,
inveighs against the taxes and the tax-collectors. On leaving these
assemblies the villager broods over what he has just heard. He sees
his grievances no longer singly as before, but in mass, and coupled
with the enormity of evils under which his fellows suffer. Besides
this, they begin to disentangle the causes of their misery: the King
is good -- why then do his collectors take so much of our money?
This or that canon or nobleman is not unkind -- why then do they
make us pay in their place? -- Imagine that a sudden gleam of reason
should allow a beast of burden to comprehend the contrast between
the species of horse and mankind. Imagine, if you can, what its
first ideas would be in relation to the coachmen and drivers who
bridle and whip it and again in relation to the good-natured
travelers and sensitive ladies who pity it, but who to the weight of
the vehicle add their own and that of their luggage.

Likewise, in the mind of the peasant, athwart his perplexed
brooding, a new idea, slowly, little by little, is unfolded: -- that
of an oppressed multitude of which he makes one, a vast herd
scattered far beyond the visible horizon, everywhere ill used,
starved, and fleeced. Towards the end of 1788 we begin to detect in
the correspondence of the intendants and military commandants the
dull universal muttering of coming wrath. Men's characters seem to
change; they become suspicious and restive. -- And just at this
moment, the Government, dropping the reins, calls upon them to
direct themselves.[11]. In the month of November 1787, the King
declared that he would convoke the States-General. On the 5th of
July 1788, he calls for memoranda (des mémoires) on this subject
from every competent person and body. On the 8th of August he fixes
the date of the session. On the 5th of October he convokes the
notables, in order to consider the subject with them. On the 27th
of December he grants a double representation to the Third-Estate,
because "its cause is allied with generous sentiments, and it will
always obtain the support of public opinion." The same day he
introduces into the electoral assemblies of the clergy a majority of
curés[12], "because good and useful pastors are daily and closely
associated with the indigence and relief of the people," from which
it follows "that they are much more familiar with their sufferings"
and necessities. On the 24th January 1789, he prescribes the
procedure and method of the meetings. After the 7th of February
writs of summons are sent out one after the other. Eight days
after, each parish assembly begins to draw up its memorial of
grievances, and becomes excited over the detailed enumeration of all
the miseries which it sets down in writing. -- All these appeals
and all these acts are so many strokes, which reverberate, in the
popular imagination. "It is the desire of His Majesty," says the
order issued, "that every one, from the extremities of his kingdom,
and from the most obscure of its hamlets, should be certain of his
wishes and protests reaching him." Thus, it is all quite true: there
can be no mistake about it, the thing is sure. The people are
invited to speak out, they are summoned, and they are consulted.
There is a disposition to relieve them; henceforth their misery
shall be less; better times are coming. This is all they know about
it. A few month after, in July,[13] the only answer a peasant girl
can make to Arthur Young is, "something was to be done by some great
folks for such poor ones, but she did not know who nor how." The
thing is too complicated, beyond the reach of a stupefied and
mechanical brain. - One idea alone emerges, the hope of immediate
relief. The persuasion that one is entitled to it, the resolution
to aid it with every possible means. Consequently, an anxious
waiting, a ready fervor, a tension of the will simply due to the
waiting for the opportunity to let go and take off like a
irresistible arrow towards the unknown end which will reveal itself
all of a sudden. Hunger is to mark this sudden target out for them.

The market must be supplied with wheat; the farmers and land-owners
must bring it; wholesale buyers, whether the Government or
individuals, must not be allowed to send it elsewhere. The wheat
must be sold at a low price; the price must be cut down and fixed,
so that the baker can sell bread at two sous the pound. Grain,
flour, wine, salt, and provisions must pay no more duties.
Seignorial dues and claims, ecclesiastical tithes, and royal or
municipal taxes must no longer exist. On the strength of this idea
disturbances broke out on all sides in March, April, and May.
Contemporaries " do not know what to think of such a scourge;[14]
they cannot comprehend how such a vast number of criminals, without
visible leaders, agree amongst themselves everywhere to commit the
same excesses just at the time when the States-General are going to
begin their sittings." The reason is that, under the ancient régime,
the conflagration was smoldering in a closed chamber; the great door
is suddenly opened, the air enters, and immediately the flame breaks
out.

III.
The provinces during the first six months of 1789. - Effects of the
famine.

At first there are only intermittent, isolated fires, which are
extinguished or go out of themselves; but, a moment after, in the
same place, or very near it, the sparks again appear. Their number,
like their recurrence, shows the vastness, depth, and heat of the
combustible matter, which is about to explode. In the four months,
which precede the taking of the Bastille, over three hundred
outbreaks may be counted in France. They take place from month to
month and from week to week, in Poitou, Brittany, Touraine,
Orléanais, Normandy, Ile-de-France, Picardy, Champagne, Alsace,
Burgundy, Nivernais, Auvergne, Languedoc, and Provence. On the 28th
of May the parliament of Rouen announces robberies of grain,
"violent and bloody tumults, in which men on both sides have
fallen," throughout the province, at Caen, Saint-Lô, Mortain,
Granville, Evreux, Bernay, Pont-Andemer, Elboeuf; Louviers, and in
other sections besides. On the 20th of April Baron de Bezenval,
military commander in the Central Provinces, writes: "I once more
lay before M. Necker a picture of the frightful condition of
Touraine and of Orléanais. Every letter I receive from these two
provinces is the narrative of three or four riots, which are put
down with difficulty by the troops and constabulary,"[15] -- and
throughout the whole extent of the kingdom a similar state of things
is seen. The women, as is natural, are generally at the head of
these outbreaks. It is they who, at Montlhéry, rip open the sacks
of grain with their scissors. On learning each week, on market day
that the price of a loaf of bread advances three, four, or seven
sous, they break out into shrieks of rage: at this rate for bread,
with the small salaries of the men, and when work fails,[16] how can
a family be fed? Crowds gather around the sacks of flour and the
doors of the bakers. Amidst outcries and reproaches some one in the
crowd makes a push; the proprietor or dealer is hustled and knocked
down. The shop is invaded, the commodity is in the hands of the
buyers and of the famished, each one grabbing for himself, pay or no
pay, and running away with the booty. -- Sometimes a party is made
up beforehand[17] At Bray-sur-Seine, on the 1st of May, the
villagers for four leagues around, armed with stones, knives, and
cudgels, to the number of four thousand, compel the metayers and
farmers, who have brought grain with them, to sell it at 3 livres,
instead of 4 livres 10 sous the bushel. They threaten to do the
same thing on the following market-day: but the farmers do not
return, the storehouse remains empty. Now soldiers must be at hand,
or the inhabitants of Bray will be pillaged. At Bagnols, in
Languedoc, on the 1st and 2nd of April, the peasants, armed with
cudgels and assembled by tap of drum, "traverse the town,
threatening to burn and destroy everything if flour and money are
not given to them." They go to private houses for grain, divide it
amongst themselves at a reduced price, "promising to pay when the
next crop comes round," and force the Consuls to put bread at two
sous the pound, and to increase the day's wages four sous. --
Indeed this is now the regular thing; it is not the people who obey
the authorities, but the authorities who obey the people. Consuls,
sheriffs, mayors, municipal officers, town-clerks, become confused
and hesitating in the face of this huge clamor; they feel that they
are likely to be trodden under foot or thrown out of the windows.
Others, with more firmness, being aware that a riotous crowd is mad,
and having scruples to spill blood; yield for the time being, hoping
that at the next market-day there will be more soldiers and better
precautions taken. At Amiens, "after a very violent outbreak,"[18]
they decide to take the wheat belonging to the Jacobin monks, and,
protected by the troops, to sell it to the people at a third below
its value. At Nantes, where the town hall is attacked, they are
forced to lower the price of bread one sou per pound. At Angoulême,
to avoid a recourse to arms, they request the Comte d'Artois to
renounce his dues on flour for two months, reduce the price of
bread, and compensate the bakers. At Cette they are so maltreated
they let everything take its course; the people sack their dwellings
and get the upper hand; they announce by sound of trumpet that all
their demands are granted. On other occasions, the mob dispenses
with their services and acts for itself. If there happens to be no
grain on the market-place, the people go after it wherever they can
find it -- to proprietors and farmers who are unable to bring it for
fear of pillage; to convents, which by royal edict are obliged
always to have one year's crop in store; to granaries where the
Government keeps its supplies; and to convoys which are dispatched
by the intendants to the relief of famished towns. Each for himself
-- so much the worse for his neighbor. The inhabitants of Fougères
beat and drive out those who come from Ernée to buy in their market;
a similar violence is shown at Vitré to the in-habitants of
Maine.[19] At Sainte-Léonard the people stop the grain started for
Limoges; at Bost that intended for Aurillac; at Saint-Didier that
ordered for Moulins; and at Tournus that dispatched to Macon. In
vain are escorts added to the convoys; troops of men and women,
armed with hatchets and guns, put themselves in ambush in the woods
along the road, and seize the horses by their bridles; the saber has
to be used to secure any advance. In vain are arguments and kind
words offered, "and in vain even is wheat offered for money; they
refuse, shouting out that the convoy shall not go on." They have
taken a stubborn stand, their resolution being that of a bull
planted in the middle of the road and lowering his horns. Since the
wheat is in the district, it is theirs; whoever carries it off or
withholds it is a robber. This fixed idea cannot be driven out of
their minds. At Chant-nay, near Mans,[20] they prevent a miller
from carrying that which he had just bought to his mill. At
Montdragon, in Languedoc, they stone a dealer in the act of sending
his last wagon load elsewhere. At Thiers, workmen go in force to
gather wheat in the fields; a proprietor with whom some is found is
nearly killed; they drink wine in the cellars, and leave the taps
running. At Nevers, the bakers not having put bread on their
counters for four days, the mob force the granaries of private
persons, of dealers and religious communities. "The frightened
corn-dealers part with their grain at any price; most of it is
stolen in the face of the guards," and, in the tumult of these
searches of homes, a number of houses are sacked. -- In these days
woe to all who are concerned in the acquisition, commerce, and
manipulation of grain! Popular imagination requires living beings to
who it may impute its misfortunes, and on whom it may gratify its
resentments. To it, all such persons are monopolists, and, at any
rate, public enemies. Near Angers the Benedictine establishment is
invaded, and its fields and woods are devastated.[21] At Amiens "the
people are arranging to pillage and perhaps burn the houses of two
merchants, who have built labor-saving mills." Restrained by the
soldiers, they confine themselves to breaking windows; but other
"groups come to destroy or plunder the houses of two or three
persons whom they suspect of being monopolists." At Nantes, a sieur
Geslin, being deputized by the people to inspect a house, and
finding no wheat, a shout is set up that he is a receiver, an
accomplice! The crowd rush at him, and he is wounded and almost cut
in pieces. -- It is very evident that there is no more security in
France; property, even life, is in danger. The primary possession,
food, is violated in hundreds of places, and is everywhere menaced
and precarious. The local officials everywhere call for aid,
declare the constabulary incompetent, and demand regular troops.
And mark how public authority, everywhere inadequate, disorganized,
and tottering, finds stirred up against it not only the blind
madness of hunger, but, in addition, the evil instincts which profit
by every disorder and the inveterate lusts which every political
commotion frees from restraint.

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