THE ORIGINS OF CONTEMPORARY FRANCE, VOLUME 2
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, VOLUME 1.
by Hippolyte A. Taine
Text Transcriber's Note: The numbering of Volumes, Books, Chapters
and Sections are as in the French not the American edition.
Annotations by the transcriber are initialled SR.
Svend Rom, April 2000.
include as a prefix to the original footnote number, the book and
chapter numbers. A table of contents has been added with active
links.
David Widger, June 2008
CONTENTS
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, VOLUME 1.
PREFACE
BOOK FIRST. SPONTANEOUS ANARCHY.
CHAPTER I. THE BEGINNINGS OF ANARCHY.
I.—Dearth the first cause.CHAPTER II. PARIS UP TO THE 14TH OF JULY.
II.—Expectations the second cause
III.—The provinces during the first six months of 1789
IV.—Intervention of ruffians and vagabonds.
V.—Effect on the Population of the New Ideas.
VI.—The first jacquerie in Province
I.—Mob recruits in the vicinityCHAPTER III.
II. The Press.
III.—The Réveillon affair.
IV.—The Palais-Royal.
V.—Popular mobs become a political force.
VI.—July 13th and 14th 1789.
VII.—Murders of Foulon and Berthier.
VIII.—Paris in the hands of the people.
I.—Anarchy from July 14th to October 6th, 1789CHAPTER IV. PARIS.
II.—The provinces
III.—Public feeling.—Famine
IV.—Panic.
V.—Attacks on public individuals and public property.
VI.—Taxes are no longer paid.
VII.—Attack upon private individuals and private property.
I.—Paris.BOOK SECOND. THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY, AND THE RESULT OF ITS LABORS.
II.—The distress of the people.
III.—The new popular leaders.
IV.—Intervention by the popular leaders with the Government.
V.—The 5th and 6th of October.
VI.—The Government and the nation in the hands of the revolutionary party.
CHAPTER I.—CONDITIONS REQUIRED FOR THE FRAMING OF GOOD LAWS.
II.—Inadequacy of its information.
III.—The Power Of Simple, General Ideas.
IV.—Refusal to supply the ministry
CHAPTER II. DESTRUCTION.
II—Nature of societies, and the principle of enduring constitutions.
III.—The estates of a society.
IV.—Abuse and lukewarmness in 1789 in the ecclesiastical bodies.
II.—The Creation Of Popular Democracy.
III.—Municipal Kingdoms.
IV.—On Universal Suffrage.
V.—The Ruling Minority.
VI.—Summary of the work of the Constituent Assembly.
CHAPTER I.
II.—Independence of the municipalities.
III.—Independent Assemblies.
II.—Passion Supreme.
III.—Egotism of the tax-payer.
IV.—Cupidity of tenants.
II.—Workings of the popular imagination with respect to them.
III.—Domiciliary visits.
IV.—The nobles obliged to leave the rural districts.
V.—Persecutions in private life.
VI.—Conduct of officers.
VI.—Conduct of the officers.
VII.—Emigration and its causes.
VIII.—Attitude of the non-juring priests.
IX.—General state of opinion.
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, VOLUME 1.
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
* 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.
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,1101 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 weeks1102. 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 population1103 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,
"The nearer the 14th of July approached," says an eyewitness,1107 "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
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 assemblies1108. 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 representative1109, 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
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.1111. 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 curés1112, "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,1113 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;1114 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
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,