IV. CHAP. and his last efforts in public life were devoted to the vain endeavour to erect a barrier against that very democratic power which at first he made such strenuous efforts to establish. 1789. 36. of Talley rand. These were the leading characters in the Constituent Biography Assembly for TALLEYRAND,* who took an important, though not a conspicuous part in their proceedings, was a man who subsequently rose to greatness, and whose portrait will more fitly be drawn in a future volume, when the extraordinary mutations of his fortune, and the unparalleled adroitness with which he regulated his career, have been unfolded. It would have been well for France, however, if the Assembly had contained only such men as these, who were endowed with enlarged minds, and held, in general, philanthropic views; and all of whom, even including Mirabeau, became ere long alive to the peril of the career on which they had adventured, and made strenuous, though unsuccessful efforts to arrest the march of the Revolution. But in addition to these, there were two clubs * Charles Maurice de Perigord, afterwards Prince of Talleyrand, was born at Paris in 1754. He was nephew of the Archbishop of Rheims, and was early destined for the church, in which his inimitable penetration and skill in the management of affairs soon gave him a degree of importance, especially in matters of business. In 1780 his talents in these respects were so well known that he was named agent-general of the clergy; and in 1789, when the Revolution broke out, he was already Bishop of Autun. So well were his abilities known at this early period, that Mirabeau, in his secret correspondence with the court of Berlin, remarked him as one of the most acute and powerful men of his age. He was appointed deputy for the clergy of his diocese to the States-general in 1789; and though not possessed of any oratorical talents, and seldom appearing at the tribune, he ere long acquired a great degree of celebrity; was a member of all the important committees, of which he soon acquired the direction, and thus came to exercise a powerful influence on the progress of the Revolution. His character will come to be more appropriately drawn in the close of this work, when the latter stages of his eventful career are detailed, with the immense sway which he exercised at the fall of Napoleon. He was the only distinguished member of the Constituent Assembly on the popular side, who escaped exile or death at the hands of the democratic faction; and he did so only in consequence of the good sense which led him to withdraw to America during the worst days of the Revolution, when he was denounced by the Convention.-See infra, CHAP. LXXXIX. § 34 et seq.; and Biographie des Contemporains, xx. 440, 443. IV. 1789. already established in Paris, which, although they had CHAP. not attained the celebrity of those of the Jacobins and Cordeliers, which exercised so terrible a sway on its future fortunes, were yet not without their influence at the time, and are highly important as illustrating 147, 148. the secret views of the parties which were already formed in the States-general. 1 Lab. iii. 37. The Club Montrouge of the Or The first of these was a club which held its meetings at Montrouge, near Paris, and embraced all the confirmed conspirators. Its leading characters were Mirabeau, Siêyes, the centre the Count Latouche, the Count de Sillery, and the Cheva- leans conlier Laclos. The three last were avowed and well-known spiracy. parasites of the Orleans family, and had taken an active part in those infamous orgies which had given the Palais Royal and Folie de Chartres so deplorable a reputation. Laclos said with truth, that he had been for his friends. "la liaison la plus dangereuse." The plan of these conspirators, who had formed the settled design of overturning the throne, was to supplant the reigning dynasty by the Orleans branch of the Bourbon family—to get the duke created, first lieutenant-general, and then sovereign of the kingdom. But as they were possessed of little influence, except in the most depraved circles of the capital, and had no weight whatever with any of the respectable members of society, they felt the necessity of allying themselves to the popular leaders, and using every effort, by the liberal application of money, and still more liberal assertion of democratic opinions, 2 Beaulieu, i. 344. Influence to win over to their side those masses of abandoned Rév. Franc. men and women with whom every great capital abounds, Mounier, and who literally overflowed in Paris at the commence- des Philoment of the Revolution. Mirabeau, to a certain extent, sophes, 92. Montjoye, was admitted to their councils; he was flattered by Consp. their caresses and seduced by their luxuries, and would i. 94, 268. have gone all lengths with them if he had seen more 148, 149. vigour, and consequent chance of success, in their chief.2 * Alluding to his well-known production, “Les Liaisons Dangereuses." d'Orleans, Lab. iii. IV. CHAP. The Duke of Orleans, ambitious, but yet weak and irresolute, allowed the conspiracy to proceed without any settled 1789. plan to what purpose to apply it, and still less capacity to obtain the mastery of its dark and selfish passions. 38. The Club Breton; the Jaco bins. 1 Ante, ch. iii. § 113. The other club, which embraced a much greater number, not of more abandoned, but of more sincere the cradle of and determined characters, was the Club Breton. It had its meetings in Paris, and embraced all the decided democrats both in and out of the Assembly. The name of the club was taken from a number of ardent deputies from Brittany, who first formed it, and at once brought into its bosom those fierce passions which had been drawn forth, and extreme designs which had been matured, during the civil conflict which had so lately distracted that province.1 Barnave, Rabaut St Etienne, the Abbé Grégoire, and many others, who made a figure in the first stages of the Constituent Assembly, were members of it; but it embraced others who rose to celebrity only in its later stages, particularly ROBESPIERRE, PETION, Buzot, Lanjuinais, and a large part of the Jacobins who ultimately acquired such irresistible power in the Revolution. Their intentions were to establish an entire democracy, and, in the prosecution of that object, overturn the throne, the altar, and the whole institutions of the country. The Constituent Assembly was not ripe for their designs; the remains of monarchical attachment yet lingered in the bosoms of the majority of its members; they were prepared to overthrow almost every thing else, but sincerely believed this might be effected without shaking the throne. Hence these extreme characters acquired no great influence in 100. Bailly, the first Assembly, but they were all-powerful in the last. i. 331. This club, however, was regarded as a valuable focus of Moniteur, Dec. 11, union by all the determined republicans: the early excesses 1794, p.340. Déposit. au of the Revolution were, for the most part, matured in its le 5 et 6 Oct. committees; and little is known of its designs, because all its members were bound by a solemn oath to divulge none of its proceedings.2 Sièyes, who was at first a member, 1 Dumont, Souv. de Châtelet sur 1789. Lab. iii. 146. CHAP. IV. 1789. 39. excitement during the early divined their dangerous intentions. intentions. “ I will return there no more," said he to Mirabeau: "their politics are those of the cavern ; their expedients consist in crimes." Immense was the addition made to the excitement in the capital, by the protracted contest between the nobles and Prodigious commons as to the verification of their orders separately in Paris or in common. Suspense in this, as in most other cases, contest of added to passion. It was felt by all that this was the vital the orders. question of the Revolution; that if this cardinal point were once gained, there would no longer remain any obstacle whatever to the establishment of a new constitution on a thoroughly democratic basis. The journals incessantly dwelt on the incalculable blessings which would flow from such a consummation; they extolled Necker to the skies; he was the first of men, the saviour of France, the destroyer of feudal tyranny, the Avatar of the human race. The arts lent their aid to the general illusion; and in a multitude of engravings, rapidly published and eagerly bought up, he was represented like Samson, throwing down, by his single arm, the vast fabric of Gothic oppression. * It may be conceived how the mind of this well-meaning and conscientious, but vain, and in this respect weak manliving as he did on the breath of popularity, and worshipping with fervent adoration public opinion as the unerring guide of the statesman-reeled under the intoxication of de Moll. i. this universal adoration. It rendered him wholly unequal De Stael, i, to the crisis, and aggravated the dreadful fault he had Necker, originally committed, in leaving the question of voting by i. 119,121. order or by head undecided by the King. For he was too * The author is in possession of a collection of these engravings, which is one of the most curious records of the Revolution. They indicate a degree of fervour in the public mind which would be deemed incredible, if not established by such authoritative contemporary evidence. So rapid, however, were the mutations of popularity in the progress of the convulsion, that all the industry of the artists could not produce original designs to keep pace with them; and the device they fell upon was to reproduce the old plates with a new face inserted in the principal figure. In this way they soon decapitated Necker, and substituted the hideous visage of Marat on his shoulders; and on the old body of Lafayette there appeared first the head of Dumourier, and afterwards that of Napoleon. 1 Bertrand 199, 212. 94, 161. Rév. Franc. IV. CHAP. much influenced by the thirst for popularity to attempt any thing likely to check it, and yet too sensible of the 1789. impending danger to venture upon that bold course which, by putting him at once at the head of the movement, might possibly have given him its direction. 40. and terror of the Ministry. The aristocratic class, however, as the contest between Vacillation the orders rolled on, and week after week elapsed without any adjustment having been effected, became daily more sensible of the danger in which they were involved. The King's ministers were in consternation, but wholly at a loss what expedient to adopt to extricate the nation from its embarrassments. Necker, whom the menacing tone and hourly increasing strength of the Tiers Etat had at length weaned, at the eleventh hour, from his unbounded confidence in their wisdom, moderation, and virtue, fairly confessed in private to Marmontel that he had no project to suggest. The more influential members of the commons, who dined frequently at his hotel, evinced clearly by their manner that they would no longer submit to him as their leader, and that gratitude for past services was entirely obliterated in their breasts by the ambition for future elevation. It was proposed to the ministers that the King should retire into one of the strong places, and put himself at the head of his troops; but the total want of money, and the certainty that such a step would at once induce national bankruptcy and civil war, was considered as an insurmountable objection. "Do you really," said M. de Montmorin, "conceive the danger to be so imminent as to call for these extreme measures ?"-“ I believe it is so pressing," replied Marmontel, "that in a month hence I would not answer for the liberty of the King, nor for his head, nor for yours."1 1 Marm. Mém. ii. 296, 313, 317. The prelates sounded the alarm in the strongest terms on this portentous state of things. The torrent of irreligious opinion with which France had lately been deluged, had awakened a general belief amongst the reflecting part of the community that some terrible national catastrophe |