Lectures on the French Revolution

XV. THE CATASTROPHE OF MONARCHY

LectFrRevol_151-200.indd 194 4/27/12 10:05 AM XV THE CATASTROPHE OF MONARCHY The calculations ofthe Girondins were justified by the event. Four months after the declaration of war the throne had fallen, and the king was in prison. Next to Dumouriez the principal members of the new ministry were the Genevese Claviere, one of Mirabeau's advisers, and the promoter of the assignats; Servan, a meritorious officer, better known to us as a meritorious military historian; and Roland, whose wife shared, on a lower scale, the social influence and intellectual celebrity of Madame de Stael. Dumouriez, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, is one of the great figures of the Revolution. He was excessively clever rather than great, agreeable, and abounding in resource, not only cool in danger , as a commander should be, but steadfast and cheerful when hope seemed lost, and ready to meet the veterans of Frederic with undisciplined volunteers, and officers who were the remnant ofthe royal army. Without principle or conviction or even scruple, he had none of the inhumanity of dogmatic revolutionists. To the king, whom he despised, he said, "I shall often displease you, but I shall never deceive you." He was not an accomplice ofthe conspiracy to compromise him and to ruin him by war, and would have saved him ifthe merit and the reward had been his own. He did not begin well, in the arts either of war or peace. He employed all his diplomacy , all his secret service money, in the endeavour to make Prussia neutral. Nothing availed against the indignation ofthe Prussians at French policy, and their contempt for French arms. The officers 194 LectFrRevol_151-200.indd 195 4/27/12 10:05 AM THE CATASTROPHE OF MONARCHY received orders to make ready for a march to Paris, and were privately told that it would be a mere parade. The first encounter with Austrians on Belgian soil confirmed this persuasion, for the French turned and fled, and murdered one of their generals. Dumouriez's credit was shaken, and the Girondin leaders, who could not rely on him to make the coming campaign turn towards the execution of their schemes, revived the question of the clergy. On May 27 Vergniaud carried a decree placing nonjurors at the mercy of local authorities, and threatening them with arbitrary expulsion as public enemies in time ofnational peril. Ifthe king sanctioned , he would be isolated and humiliated. If the king vetoed, they would have the means of raising Paris against him, without waiting for the vicissitudes of war or the co-operation of Dumouriez . Madame Roland wrote a letter to the king, and her husband signed it, on June 10, representing that it was for the safety of the priests themselves that they should be sent out of the way of danger . Roland, proud of the composition, sent it to the papers. The Girondin ministry was at once dismissed. Dumouriez remained, attempted to form an administration without the Girondin colleagues, but could not overcome the king's resistance to the act of banishment . On June 15 he resigned office, and took a command on the frontier. The majority in the Assembly was still faithful to the Constitution of 1791, and opposed to further change; but the rejection oftheir decree against the royalist clergy alienated them at the critical moment. Lewis had lost ground with his friends; he had angered the Girondins; and he had lost the services ofthe last man who was strong enough to save him. On June 15 a high official in the administration of the department was at Maubeuge, on a visit to Lafayette. His name was Roederer , and we shall meet him again. He rose high under Napoleon, and is one of those to whom we owe our knowledge of the Emperor 's character, as well as of the events I am about to relate. His interview with the general was interrupted by a message from Paris. Lafayette was called away; and Roederer, from the next room, heard the joyful exclamations ofthe officers. The news was the fall ofthe Girondin ministry; and Lafayette, to strengthen the king's hands, wrote to the Assembly remonstrating against the illiberal and unconstitutional tendencies of the hour. His letter was read on the 18th. A new ministry had been forming, consisting ofFeuillants and 195 LectFrRevol_151-200.indd 196 4/27/12 10:05 AM THE FRENCH REVOLUTION men friendly to...