The First French Republic

The Origin of the Republic

Louis XVI., in 1789, was praised by the mass of the French nation as the best of monarchs, and as the restorer of national liberties; his name was coupled with that of Henry IV., a king about whom tradition had thrown a halo of glory. But, on September 21, 1792, the newly-chosen Convention abolished the monarchy. So rapid is the transition from the one phase of the national feeling to the other, that it occasions a surmise either that the professed loyalty to the monarch in 1789 was not sincere, or that the action of the Convention was the work of a coterie of radicals, who misrepresented the popular feeling. A review of the period intervening between 1789 and 1792 shows that both of these suppositions are unwarranted, and confirms the conclusion that there was a progressive development of hostility, first to Louis XVI. and the royal family, and then to the monarchical government.

Previous to 1789, the term Republic is used by French publicists or agitators, but it is either in a sense so qualified as to be consistent with the monarchy, or as a form of government unsuited to France with its actual traditions and conditions.93 The very nearly unanimous feeling and judgment in 1789 was that the monarchy was the best form of government for France, and that the chief need was to regenerate it. We have said that one hundred and ninety-four cahiers specifically asked for the retention of the monarchy; the silence of the others upon this question must not be construed to mean that their authors were indifferent or opposed to the monarchy, but rather that they believed it unnecessary to ask for what they already had, and against which there was no strong movement. As Paris may rightly be considered the source of the anti-monarchical agitation, the attitude of the third estate in this city at the opening of the Revolution may justly be taken to represent the feeling of the radical element toward the monarchy. In their cahier they said: “In the French monarchy, the legislative power belongs to the nation conjointly with the king; to the king alone belongs the executive power.”94 The sub-cahiers from the districts of the city expressed the same idea.95 In truth, in not a single cahier examined do we find a hint of any opposition to the monarchy. Hence, it is to be inferred that, if any individuals had Republican inclinations, these inclinations were not shared by any appreciable part of the nation. A few men of the reform party, Lauragnais, Lally-Tollendal, and Montlosier, ventured to say that the French monarchy had originally been elective and that the elective monarchy would consequently be not an innovation, but a restoration of their early system;96 but the adherence of these men to the monarchy in the early days of the Constituent Assembly is conclusive that by the elective monarchy they did not mean the Republic of 1792.

The Constituent Assembly, having been formed out of the States General, had to formulate a constitution for the regeneration of France, and was obliged, therefore, to specify the divisions of government, designate the organs and the functions of each division, prescribe their powers, limitations, sources and transmission; hence the debates and decrees of this national body may be taken as indicative of the public sentiment toward the monarch. Here may be traced the changes worked in the public mind, the censure or the eulogy of persons and institutions. As this national assembly itself became transformed by the withdrawal of the more conservative elements, it reflected rather faithfully the change that was taking place in the minds of the radical classes of France.

This Assembly frequently gave expression of its satisfaction with the monarch and with the monarchy. Near the close of the famous session of August 4, 1789, when feudalism had been so enthusiastically renounced by its own favored sons, M. Lally-Tollendal proposed that they should proclaim “Louis XVI. the Restorer of French liberty.” “The proclamation,” we are told, “was made immediately by the deputies, by the people, and by all those who were present, and the National Assembly resounded for a quarter of an hour with the cries ‘Vive le roi; vive Louis XVI., restaurateur de la liberté française.’”97 As early as July 4, 1789, Gouverneur Morris, a careful observer of the French spirit and movements, wrote: “They wish an American Constitution, with a king in the place of a president.”98 On August 28, 1789, Mounier presented a project of the monarchical element of the Constitution, and a member made the following statement, the verity of which was not disputed: “Here we should reflect upon the national spirit. For fourteen centuries the French, free to direct themselves by the republican spirit, preferred the peacefulness of the monarchic government to the storms of a republican government.... Louis XVI. is no more upon the throne by the chance of birth, he is there by the choice of the nation; it has raised him there, as formerly our brave ancestors raised Pharamond upon the shield. No one contests the monarchical government. All the cahiers are certainly clear... we cannot avoid the conclusion, the only government which is suitable to our manners (moeurs), to our climate, to the extent of our provinces, is the monarchical government.”99 Other speeches made on the same occasion are indicative of the strong monarchical spirit that possessed the Assembly at this stage of its history.

Twenty days later, M. de Baron de Juigne proposed to consecrate the principles of the heredity of the crown and the inviolability of the king’s person. Scarcely were these principles announced, than the Assembly proclaimed them by an unanimous movement.100 These principles were embodied in the decree of September 17, 1789.101

From these citations, we are warranted in the inference that the members of the Constituent Assembly in its earlier period regarded the monarchy as the natural and the most suitable form of government for France. On the question of the division of powers, the number of chambers, the elective or hereditary kingship, the absolute or limited veto, there were differences of opinion; but national tradition and personal attachment to Louis XVI. were of sufficient force to bar any discussion of other possible forms for the executive branch.

The first strong manifestation of personal displeasure toward the king reflected in the Assembly, was aroused by his attempt to escape from the country with the royal family, on June 20 and 21, 1791. Fearing to be held longer as a hostage by the revolutionary party and to be supplanted by the invading émigrés, the king with his family sought to reach the eastern frontier and there to be free to act independently of both factions; but at Varennes he was arrested and brought back to face the enraged Parisians. It is then that words of displeasure were first heard in the Assembly. What shall be done with the royal fugitive? was then the living question. Some contended that he was inviolable and could not be called to account; others, that his inviolability extended only to public actions, not to private; while still others maintained that he had, by his treason, forfeited his inviolability. The agitation which reigned without found some expression within the Assembly. A committee reported, July 13, that the flight of the king was not a constitutional offense, that the principle of inviolability did not permit Louis XVI. to be put on trial. For three days the discussion over the king’s inviolability was carried on. Pétion, Putraink, Vadier, Robespierre, Prieur, Grégoire, Buzot spoke against, and Larochefoucault, Liancourt, Prugnon, Duport, Goupil de Prefeln, Salles and Barnave for the inviolability. Only Condorcet attempted to show the fitness of France for a Republic.102 The people were astir without; they met on the squares, in the public places, crowded around the Assembly, and urged the dethronement of the king or the reference of the question to the people of the eighty-three departments. Petitions, posters, and ardent declamations were instruments by which the radicals sought to turn public opinion their way.103 On July 16, 1791, a decree of the Assembly defined the acts whereby the king should be considered as no longer inviolable. Should he, having taken the oath to the Constitution, violate it: or should he put himself at the head of an army against the nation, or should he fail to oppose such an act on the part of his generals, he should be considered to have abdicated, and might be brought to trial like any ordinary citizen. His executive functions, suspended June 25, were not to be restored till the completion of the Constitution.104

The Constitution was completed and reviewed, and on September 14, 1791, the king went to the Constituent Assembly, accepted the Constitution, and, amid prolonged applause, subscribed to this new instrument that was to give liberty to France. He was escorted back to the Tuileries by the entire Assembly. The flight of the monarch seemed forgotten or forgiven.105

On September 30th, the monarch made the closing speech to the Assembly and was greeted with repeated shouts of Vive le Roi. The President responded to the royal speech by an eulogy upon the monarch and a compliment upon the form of government inaugurated under the Constitution.106 Though the Constituent Assembly had not laid sacrilegious hands upon the time-honored monarchy of France further than to divest it of some of its privileges and prerogatives, though the storm of displeasure, incurred by the ill-advised flight of June 20th, had apparently subsided and the Assembly and the king had exchanged expressions of mutual esteem, and had sworn to preserve the great document so laboriously wrought out by the French Lycurguses, yet the leaven had been engendered which, under favorable circumstances, would leaven the whole lump and transform the limited monarchy into a republic. Ideas have their origin in individual minds, are advocated by these individuals, and by and by the nucleus of devotees has grown into a party that serves as an organ of propagation and makes use of the instrumentalities of their age for the dissemination of their views and for the moulding of public opinion into conformity thereto. If the conditions are favorable, the new ideas secure acceptance and are embodied in institutions; but if the conditions are hostile, the conceptions are rejected and relegated to that vast repository where are accumulated the world’s Utopias; thence some ardent soul may bring forward the idea at a time which is propitious, and the Utopia may become a practical reality. It is our task to endeavor to discover the notion of a republic for France as it was conceived and promulgated by those individuals who may be called the precursors of French republicanism, to trace the formation of an organic body for its promulgation, and to find the means used in the formation of a public opinion sufficiently strong to secure the adoption of the Republic of 1792.

There were already in 1789 a few ardent natures enthusiastic over the transformation to be wrought in France, who harbored a vague desire to see the monarchy abolished and a more liberal government instituted. Whence had come this hazy notion which wrought up their feelings may only be conjectured. Perhaps the classic studies upon which the Jesuits and Oratorians nourished their pupils had made them familiar with the Greek and Roman Republics.107 Either the Social Contract, or the example of the American colonies, may have given them their republican notions.

Camille Desmoulins, an ardent, impetuous son of liberty, gave unequivocal expression of republican sentiments as early as 1789, and even asserted that the republican form of government was best suited for France.108 In May, 1793, in two addresses, made in answer to Brissot, he confirms his early preference for republicanism. He said: “In the month of July, 1789, the number of Republicans in Paris did not probably exceed ten: and this it is which crowns with eternal glory those old members of the Club of Cordeliers, who began building the edifice of the republic with such slight materials.”109 In June, 1790, he used the term Congress of the Republic of France in speaking of the Constituent Assembly, and said that only four republicans had had the courage to resist the royal budget of 25,000,000 voted upon in the Assembly. Again in the Jacobin Club, October 21, 1791, at the time when France was big with hope that the new Constitution would work, Desmoulins pointed out its imperfections and favored republican institutions. Here then was one mind already thinking of a republic and claiming that in the Cordelier Club there were others who, at that early period, shared his opinions. Who these were he does not say.110 The district of the city called the Cordeliers had formed a popular society which manifested a severely critical spirit toward the monarchical and aristocratic legislation. This district clamored for liberty of the press,111 and championed the political rights of passive citizens.112 It took the side of the sixty districts which kept up their popular electoral assemblies and which continued to meet in the interim of elections, as against the forty-eight sections, which convened only for elections. The ardent opposition of the Cordeliers to the Assembly and to the municipality doubtless provoked the enactment of the law which, on May 27, 1790, transformed these districts into the sections.113 Then forming the Club of Cordeliers, the Society of the Rights of Man and of Citizens, this district continued its policy of aggression upon the conservatives, until their more democratic programme became an accomplished fact. Here then was a company of men, having a common interest in extreme radicalism, meeting frequently and fanning into fuller heat by their addresses the embers of opposition. This society, anti-aristocratic, anti-monarchical, occasionally uttered republican sentiments and indulged in the word republic. They remarked the inconsistency between the principles contained in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and an hereditary monarchy, resting upon the divine right of kings.114 On June 22, 1791, the Club of Cordeliers issued an address to the Assembly showing its republican proclivities, much to the displeasure of the Jacobins. They said: “We conjure you, in the name of the country, either to declare immediately that France is no more a monarchy, that it is a republic, or at least to wait until all the departments, until all the primary assemblies, have expressed their wish upon this important question, before thinking of replacing a second time the most fair Empire of the world in chains and in the limits of monarchism.”115 The flight of the king was the occasion that called for this expression of animosity to the monarchy and the preference for a republic. Even before the attempted escape, another newspaper had joined with Desmoulins in his strong anti-monarchical views and in the suggestion of a more suitable form of government for France. Prudhomme, the publisher of booklets and pamphlets of the liberal party previous to, and during the Revolution, had established a paper devoted to the new ideas, the Révolutions de Paris. The experienced publisher had discovered the practical sagacity and the sincere democratic proclivities of a young advocate from Bourdeaux, recently come to Paris, Loustallot, who had already in 1789 proved himself a good pamphleteer for the reformers. These two men began the issue of their sheet July 12, 1789. In its earlier numbers the slavery of the Frenchmen to the aristocracy was bitterly censured, but the king is not treated so much with hostility as with pity for his weakness.116 Whether Loustallot would have continued to advocate liberal monarchical views had he lived,117 we shall not venture to say; but in the spring of 1791,118 the paper had changed its spirit toward the king. The issue of April 21-30 gave notice of a decree proposed to the National Assembly advocating the abolition of royalty. After citing a long list of considerations, chiefly of the evils of kings and of the inconsistency of such an institution with the rights of man, twenty-one articles were given proposing the abolition of royalty and the substitution of a President.119 Subsequent numbers continued to discuss favorably the abolition of the monarchy. In No. 91 a letter was printed which suggested the placing of a ballot-box in each of the churches to receive the vote of the people upon the question at issue. The writer shows himself friendly to the change. Another friend of the proposal, in a letter printed in No. 92120, opposed this mode of voting, lest the monarchists should take advantage of it. Instead, he proposed that the vote should be collected viva voce, a list made of those voting; this list should be sent to the Assembly, yet care should be taken to keep a duplicate in order to avoid any surprise. No. 96 contained an article upon “The White Elephant,” advocating, in a facetious manner, similar ideas. The same number entered into an examination of these three propositions, the first two of which it decided affirmatively, the last one negatively. I. Whether the elements and the principles of our Constitution are not in continual opposition to the form of our government. II. Whether every hereditary delegation is not a violation of rights and a contradiction in principles. III. Whether the illustrious citizen of Geneva is mistaken when he says that the monarchy is a government contrary to nature.

But the most venomous assault upon the king and upon royalty appeared in the number of June 18-25, which reported the king’s flight. Denunciatory epithets were heaped upon the faithless monarch. “Julius Cæsar, poigniarded by the Romans; Charles I., decapitated by the English, were innocent, if we compare them to Louis XVI.... If the President of the National Assembly had put to vote upon the question whether we should have a republican form of government, in the Place de Grève, in the Garden of Tuileries and in the Palace of Orléans, France would no more be a monarchy.” Such were some of the contents of this liberal Parisian paper.121 The next issue (No. 103) found fault with the National Assembly for not dealing severely with the king, and said that, inasmuch as war would come anyway, it had better come under a republic than under a monarch or a regent. Here also appeared an announcement of the propagandism of liberty, of which the Girondists spoke so enthusiastically a year later.122 A few numbers later, an article censured the indifference of the people in regard to the elections for the coming Legislative Assembly, saying that upon the composition of this body would depend the safety of the republic. The Constituent Assembly is not spared criticism for making the Constitution unalterable by the Legislative Assembly.123 In subsequent numbers of the autumn of 1791, the monarchical features of the Constitution were pointed out and criticised.124 Later on, the republic was mentioned less frequently, nevertheless royalty was still attacked. The issue which gave an account of the events of August 10, 1792, the determination of the Legislative Assembly to suspend the king and to call a National Convention to determine the nature of the executive office, referred to the king as “Louis XVI., whom we shall call no more the king of the French.” The number following advised the members of the convention that their first work should be to dethrone the monarch, but a republic was not explicitly recommended.125 That this paper exercised considerable influence in arousing hostility to the king and to the monarchy, and in suggesting a republic, seems quite reasonable, when we remember that its weekly circulation reached nearly two hundred thousand copies.126

We have deemed it advisable to follow the Révolutions de Paris through to the proclamation of the republic, in order to give a connected account of the direction in which this popular publication attempted to sway public opinion. Having noted that its positive republicanism was manifest in April, two months before Louis XVI’s unsuccessful attempt at exodus, we shall endeavor to see what was the strength which this party possessed in the summer of 1791.

Bonneville’s paper, Bouche de fer, in June, 1791, pronounced against a monarchy, a protectorate, and a regency, and urged an united declaration to the effect that they wanted no more of these.127 A placard was posted at the door of the Assembly, July 1st, announcing that a society of republicans had resolved to publish a paper, Le Republican, for pointing out the abuses of monarchy and for enlightening the minds of the people upon republicanism. This was signed by Duchastellet.128 A few copies of this paper were published within this month.129 Montlosier mentions the existence of a republican party after the flight of the king,130 and Gouverneur Morris wrote, July 13, 1791, what confirms the same fact. Here is what he said: “This step was a very foolish one.... His departure changed everything, and now the general wish seems to be for a republic, which is quite in the natural order of things.”131 On the eve of the convening of the Legislative Assembly, September 30, 1791, Morris wrote to Washington the following explicit observations upon the status of the republican movement: “The new Assembly, as far as can at present be determined, is deeply imbued with republican or, rather, democratic principles. The southern part of the kingdom is in the same disposition; the eastern is attached to Germany and would gladly be united to the empire; Normandy is aristocratical, and so is part of Brittany; the interior part of the kingdom is monarchal. This map is (you may rely on it) just, for it is the result of great and expensive investigation made by the Government.”132 Brissot’s paper, Patriote français, of June 25, 1791, in analyzing the proposals then made for the executive department of the government, said: “The first opinion which has been presented to the public is decisive,—No more kings, let us be republicans,—such has been the cry of the Palais Royal, of some societies, of some writers.”133 Thomas Paine’s letter in response to Siéyès, published in the Patriote français, July 11, declares the American system of government superior to every other, and closes the letter with these suggestive words: “Enfin c’est à tout l’enfer de la monarchie que j’ai déclaré la guerre.”134

From these accumulated statements, we infer that about Paris, in the spring of 1791, especially after the 20th of June, there was much agitation in favor of the dethronement of Louis XVI, some for the change of the royal family, and a perceptible tendency in favor of a republic. After the acceptance of the Constitution by the king and by the Legislative Assembly, the constitutional question of the kingship is little discussed till in the summer of 1792. Then the Legislative Assembly was frightened over the defeat of the French army at Lille and at Tournay, the disastrous defeat of Biron’s army at Mons, and the probable advance of the Austrian army upon Paris. The king, following the advice of Montmorin and Malouet, had sent Mallet du Pan on a mission to the German courts to secure a manifesto of intimidation against the factious Frenchmen.135 The Austrian committee was denounced boldly in the journals and in the Assembly.136

Incited by this array of reverses, royal intrigues, and threatened invasion, the Assembly passed three decrees for the protection of the country: May 27, the deportation of the non-juring priests; May 29, the dismissal of the king’s guard; June 8, the formation of a camp of 20,000 fédérés at Paris. The king opposed his veto to the first and last of these. The Girondin ministry was dismissed early in June.137 The invasion of the Tuileries, June 20, was the result of these aggravations. The petition presented to the Legislative Assembly by the crowd on that day does not solicit the establishment of a republic, but urges that the king should fulfill his constitutional function of protecting liberty.138 The king continued to be disturbed by the people. The manifesto of the Duke of Brunswick, July 27, greatly excited the Parisians, already much aroused. Then from the sections of Paris, from administrative bodies, and from communes, addresses were sent in asking for the suspension or the dethronement of the king.139 The significant fact about this outcry for the removal of Louis is the silence about what is to supersede him. The commune representing the forty-eight sections of Paris, through Pétion, presented at the bar of the Assembly, August 3, a petition most vehement in its denunciation of the faithless monarch and most startling in the picture presented of the country’s danger; but this commune, the most radical, perhaps, in France, invoked the Constitution in praying for his dethronement.140

The Legislative Assembly hesitated to take upon itself the work of deposition. The sections gave it till midnight of the 9th of August to decide; if at that time the dethronement had not been voted, the tocsin should sound and the générale should beat for the insurrection. The Assembly adjourned at 7 o’clock without deciding the question. The 10th of August the King was driven from the Tuileries, and took refuge in the Assembly. Even then the legislators only suspended the King until “the National Convention should pronounce upon the measures which it believes ought to be adopted for assuring the sovereignty of the people and the reign of liberty and equality.”141

August 11, the Assembly provided for the mode of election for the members of the new Convention, and gave universal suffrage to males over 21 years. Did it ask that the delegates should be instructed to vote for the monarchy or the republic? No; but they were to be given “unlimited confidence.”142 M. Aulard has analyzed for us the powers given by the primary assemblies to the electoral assemblies of the Departments and by the latter to the deputies. He notes that almost universally the primary assemblies conformed to the advice to grant unlimited powers to the departmental electors. At the final election of deputies, September 2, in thirty-four Departments the electors made no allusion to what powers should be bestowed upon their representatives; in thirty-six they gave them “unlimited powers” or “unlimited confidence;” in two Departments, the Lower Pyrenees and Somme, the previous question was raised upon the powers to be given; in a single one (Charente) they gave as mandate the oath taken by the electors, “to maintain equality and liberty.” In three Departments, Aisne, Eure-et-Soir, and Paris, they gave full powers with the restriction that the constitutional laws to be made shall be submitted to the ratification of the people. Thus all either “inscribed the formula prescribed by the Legislature or omitted it as useless and self-evident.”

Shall there be a monarchy or a republic? What was the voice of the departments upon this question? Only one out of the eighty-three Departments expressed a clear demand upon this point. This one, that which includes Paris, asked for “the form of a republican government.” In the other eighty-two the word republic was not pronounced. One Department, Jura, however, attempted to define in rather express terms the sort of government to be formed, “A temporary executive power, removable at the option of the people,” but it does not use the term republic.143 Four Departments were pronounced against royalty, and swore eternal hostility thereto; these were Aube, Charente-Inférieure, Jura, and Paris. No Department asked the continuance of the monarchy, and only a few primary assemblies asked this. These assemblies were in four Departments, i. e., five in Allier, one in Ariége, three in the Gironde, and two in Lot-et-Garonne.

If we examine the proceedings of the Jacobin Club, we find that this society was devoted for some time to the King and to the constitution.144 No bitter opposition to the monarch is found till after June 20, 1791. Then it was his violation of the constitution that caused his denunciation. After the two famous vetoes, a member proposed in the Club that they make use of Art. vi, Sec. 10, Chapt. 2, of the Constitution, “If the King puts himself at the head of an army and directs the forces against the nation... he will be considered to have abdicated royalty.”145 The printing of this discourse was urged on all hands. The Club frequently mentioned the calling of a convention. Its sympathy with the work of August 10 is evident,146 and its hostility to the monarchy is more pronounced from this period.147

A definite suggestion of the constructive scheme was made in the Club, September 7; Chabot introduced the discussion of the form of government, and referred to two kinds, (1) the federation of the departments, and (2) a National Council, which should be presided over in turn by one of the deputies of one of the portions of the empire. Chabot favored the latter.148 Again returning to the same question, September 10, Terrasson pronounced a preference for the federation, and cited Rousseau as his authority and America for a successful example.149 Two days after, September 12, a letter was proposed and was adopted in the Jacobin Club of Paris, to be sent to the affiliated societies. In it were contained these three proposals, which may be regarded as setting forth the policy of the democratic party of Paris; the popular sanction or popular revision of all the constitutional decrees of the National Convention; the total abolition of royalty, and the penalty of death against those who proposed to re-establish it; the republican form of government.150

The significance of this movement on the part of the parent Jacobin Club must not be overlooked in tracing the progress of republicanism. The affiliation of well nigh a thousand societies in other parts of France with the parent society afforded a strong and thoroughly organized means for concerted political action.151 The nominees of the popular societies were nearly everywhere chosen to represent the provinces in the Convention.152 In the list of deputies from Paris appeared the names of pronounced republicans and radical Jacobins who might be expected to take a stand for a popular form of government.153

The Convention held its first meeting in the Tuileries; only 371 members were present. They verified their powers, organized by choosing Pétion as President, and by naming five Secretaries. September 21, they occupied the place of the Legislative Assembly in the Riding School. Here they had declared in favor of the following measures suitable for allaying the fears of disorder: (1) The National Convention declares that there can only be a constitution when it is accepted by the people; (2) that the security of person and of property is under the safeguard of the nation; (3) that all laws not abrogated, and all powers not revoked or suspended are maintained; (4) that the existing taxes shall be collected as in the past.

This effected, they were about to adjourn, when Collot d’Herbois ascended the tribune and said: “You have just passed a wise resolution, but there is one which you can not put off till tomorrow, which you can not put off till this evening, which you can not put off a single instant without being unfaithful to the wish of the nation; that is the abolition of royalty.” Unanimous applause greeted this speech. M. Grégoire proposed that “by a solemn law they sanction the abolition of royalty,” and the entire Assembly by a spontaneous movement arose and voted this proclamation by acclamation; a brief discussion followed, and then with loud bursts of applause they voted, “The National Convention decrees that royalty is abolished in France.” For some time the cry “Vive la Nation” was prolonged. At this juncture a company of 150 chasseurs were admitted to the hall and swore upon their arms to return only after having triumphed over all the enemies of liberty and equality. But as yet the word Republic had not been mentioned in the new Convention.

At the evening session of that day the time was consumed in hearing of the discourses of divers deputations that had come to congratulate the Convention upon the great work done that day. Two of these spoke of the Republic as an already established fact,154 while on the streets, however, of the city the cry was resounding, “Vive la République.” One orator spoke of nine battalions already sent to the front, and reported that another was on the way. “They were coming,” he said, “to pray your blessing upon their arms, when they learned on the way that they were to fight no more for kings. They were happy to go to save the Republic. When they were informed that all your moments must be consecrated to it, they renounced the enjoyment of receiving your blessing and went on their way. Our Department is busy forming new battalions, in seeking to arm them, and especially in inspiring them with republican manners.” This was greeted with new applause. The section of Quatre-Nations was represented by its orator, who said among other things; “We have given three thousand men for the frontier; these are three thousand republicans.... We ask to defile through your midst. If arms are needed, speak, we shall hasten to use them in the defense of the country, too happy to pay with our blood for the Republic which you have decreed for us.” Applause greeted this expression of devotion.155 The newspapers signaled the decree of abolition in enthusiastic descriptions, but only Brissot’s Patriote français proclaimed, “Royalty is abolished; France is a Republic.”156

On the morrow early in the session, Billaud-Varenne moved, and the Convention decreed, that “all public acts were to be dated from the first year of the Republic.” A new seal of State bearing the words “République de France” decided upon and national colors were proposed, but not adopted.157 The journals took little notice of this new name with which France had been baptized. Nevertheless, the members of the Convention seemed to take it as a matter of course and to make repeated use of the term Republic. For instance, on September 22, it appeared in the following decree: “The National Convention decrees that the committees of the legislative assembly and the members of the executive council shall render an account to the National Convention of the state of their work and of the condition of the different parts of the French Republic....” The report of the Minister of the Interior, M. Gorsas, in the session of September 23, contained this report of the state of public opinion: “The will of the French is pronounced. Liberty and equality are their supreme good; they will sacrifice all to preserve these. They have a horror for the crimes of the nobles, the hypocrisy of the priests, the tyranny of kings. Kings! they wish no more of them, they know that outside of a Republic there is no liberty.” Again on September 24, the Convention decreed “that there shall be named six commissioners charged with rendering as full an account as shall be possible, of the present state of the Republic and that of Paris.” On September 25, the Convention declared “the French Republic is one and indivisible.”158

Here we have passed to the period in which the Republic had become an accepted fact for France. Robespierre said truly that it had “glided in furtively among the factions,” and we may say that to Frenchmen, interested in the national defence, it was a welcome change. Gouverneur Morris is authority for this in a note of October, 1792, in which he said: “These are the outlines made use of on either side to convince the public that each is exclusively the author of a Republic which the people find themselves possessed of by a kind of magic, or at least, a sleight of hand, and which, nevertheless, they are as fond of as if it were their own offspring.”159

It would be interesting to know how completely this Parisian enthusiasm was shared by the nation. Grave objections may have been offered, but it soon came about that to be disloyal to the Republic was to be a foe of liberty and equality, and, worse yet, a traitor to France. So far as we are able to discover, the army accepted the Republic with enthusiasm. On September 9, General Valence wrote to Dumouriez that he would run to the Republic with transport. Prieur (de la Marne) awakened enthusiasm in the army of the Ardennes by announcing to them on September 29, the news of the birth of the Republic.160 And a report from the camp of volunteers at Châlons speaks of a like worthy sentiment.161

These are the facts about the growth of republican ideas in Revolutionary France and of the proclamation of the Republic. We can sum them up as follows: At the meeting of the States-General in 1789 France was pronouncedly monarchic. A little coterie of men became anti-monarchical; these developed the Club of Cordeliers. In 1791, when Louis XVI showed his distrust of the French people and tried to escape, hostility to the monarch and also to the monarchy was strong. Even republicanism was championed by an orator in the Assembly and by a few newspapers; one of these journals, the Révolutions de Paris, had a large circulation. The king however accepted the Constitution in September, 1791, and the outcry against him and in favor of the abolition of the monarchy subsided. Not until in the summer of 1792 did the royal vetoes, the menacing manifesto of the allies, the actual advance of the Prussian army toward Paris, call forth many petitions and requests for the suspension or for the dethronement of the king, or for the abolition of the monarchy.

Comparatively little was said, however, about the form to be given to the executive. On August 10, the Legislative Assembly only “suspended Louis XVI provisionally, until the National Convention should pronounce upon the measures it believed ought to be adopted for assuring the sovereignty of the people and the reign of liberty and equality.” Clubs, sections, journals, and provinces, and even radical democrats, are rather silent about a substitute for the monarchy. When the abolition came on September 21, it was received as the news of a national victory; but at first the term Republic, used on the 22nd, was little greeted by the nation. It however became the shibboleth of the army and of the patriots. For this revival of republicanism, Paris, and perhaps the army, are responsible. The Jacobin Club of Paris also made use of its influential position to encourage republican inclinations in the affiliated societies throughout France, and, what was more important still, to secure the election of anti-monarchical and of democratic deputies to the Convention.

A few questions remain to be answered. First among these is, What was the relation between the republican movement of 1791 and that of 1792? The earlier movement must have had a tendency to increase the number in France who perceived the inconsistency between individual rights and the equality of men on the one hand, and the hereditary kingship on the other. It also increased the number of those who believed a republic suited for France and who, though they recognized that the realization of their opinions was for the time being impossible, yet were ready to strive for its establishment when the circumstances should give opportunity. To this group of men belongs the credit of having secured an expression from Paris in favor of the Republic, and of having secured its early recognition in the city on the abolition of royalty.

A second question is, Why was there so much said in 1792 about the abolition of monarchy, and so little about the Republic that should replace it? Why were those of republican preferences so slow to say it? This may be answered by the statement that generally, in movements depending upon public opinion, the people are more pronounced against an abuse or misuse which they have experienced than about an untried theory; are more capable to pronounce upon a destructive than upon a constructive scheme, are more enlightened in their negative than in their positive actions. The Constituent Assembly was happy in its negative work of destroying the abuses of the old régime, but less felicitous in its positive work of reconstruction. The French people of 1792 were conversant with the vacillations of the king, the treasonable intrigues and anti-popular feelings of the court, but a Republic was as yet an untried and unproved expedient. Under its name anarchy, or, what to the Parisians was little less odious, federalism, might become the order of the day. Hence the very friends of a strong united Republic hesitated to use the word till the form of the institution should be shaped by the tendency of affairs. The very friends of Republican government might have remembered that their use of the word Republic in 1791 had been fraught with bitter schismatic tendencies among the friends of the Revolution; and how much more dangerous such a schism in 1792, when the nation found itself called upon to resist the humiliating invasion of its territory by the allies. They also knew that to be a republican in 1791 had been unpopular,162 and were chary of exposing themselves to unnecessary odium, knowing that the monarchy once abolished, they would be by necessity under a liberal form of government, call it what they might.

A third query is, Why did the Conventionalists choose the republican government? The question is easily answered by another question, i. e., What other expedient was possible, considering the state of public opinion? Was it an aristocracy? But the Revolution in its incipient stages was a revolt against an aristocracy. Was it a regency? But here the difficulty was to find a regent who did not share the obloquy of the dethroned monarch, or was not incapable of commanding the respect of the nation. Was it under the protection of a foreign prince or power? Not so; the spirit of national independence was too strong to suffer even a dispassionate consideration of this. What way could the Constitutionalists turn? Sorel has truly said: “The abolition of royalty was the acknowledgment of a fact; the proclamation of the Republic was the recognition of a necessity. A government was necessary to France, and no other than a republican government was possible.”163 And the Republic had existed in fact in France for two short, but very critical periods. From June 21 to September 14, 1791, the king had been suspended and the Constituent Assembly had conducted through the ministry the work of the executive. And again from August 10 to September 21, 1792, the same expedient was resorted to. But it may be said that the Republic was not in accord with French national traditions, and that, therefore, it could never be accepted by the nation. True, France had been a monarchy for centuries, and the history of her kings was dear to the people in 1789; but there was a stronger tradition to which the people were more devotedly attached than to royalty, and now the king had forced the issue between these two traditions, that is, the tradition of the monarchy and the tradition of nationality and independence. So soon as it seemed clear that the French must choose between these, the choice was made by the abolition of royalty.

Royalty was thus abolished on September 21, 1792: the republic was recognized by the Convention as its legitimate successor. The name had been adopted, now a new constitution was necessary; not one like that of 1791, a base accommodation of hereditary powers and democratic rights; but one consistently constructed. The Convention early appointed its Committee of Constitution. The leader in the committee was Condorcet, and the majority were Girondists. Their work was ready to be reported February 15 and 16, 1793. But by this time the republicans themselves had formed two antagonistic factions, the Girondists and the Montagnards. The latter were the men of action, and now held the power in the Convention. Condorcet’s Constitution was not submitted to the nation.

On May 30, 1793, the Committee of Public Safety was augmented by five members. These were Couthon, Herault de Séchelles, Mathieu, Ramel, and Saint Just. They lost no time in the elaboration of a Constitution, and by June 22, were ready to report. Herault de Séchelles made the final reading June 24. Delegates were sent all over France to receive the vote of the primary assemblies for the acceptance of the Constitutional Act; 1,801,918 votes were cast for its adoption. Their glowing report was made August 9th by Gossuin, and the next day was fixed as a national festival “consecrated to the inauguration of the Constitution of the Republic.” The artist, David, planned the ceremonies.

The glorious fundamental law was not, however, to reign in France. France must be defended from invasion, civil war must be subdued, and then the rest of Europe must be delivered from political slavery. In just two months after this inaugural festival, the Convention decreed that the provisional government should be revolutionary till peace. When peace came, a new monarch was enthroned. But these enthusiastic men of 1792 and 1793 had given France a name and an ideal; they had placed above her horizon a star of hope. When oppression shall make them weary, or when the popular spirits shall rise, they shall think of a republic as the aim and end of political effort.

Footnotes

1 Ritchie, Natural Rights, p. 1; M. Charles Borgeaud, Établissement et Revision des Constitutions en Amérique et en Europe, 240-242; Dr. Geo. Jellinek, Die Erklärung der Menschen-und Bürgerrechte, p. 10.

2 Two requests for a Declaration of the Rights of Man came from Paris, intra muros; one from the Nobility, Archives parlementaires, v, 271; the other from the Third Estate, Ibid., v, 281. The latter cahier contains a formulated Declaration of thirteen articles. The general cahier of Rennes, Arch. Parl., v, 538, that of the Third Estate of Annonay, Arch. Parl., ii, 50, and that of the Third Estate of Nemours, Arch. Parl., iv, 161, ask for the Declaration of Rights.

3 Arch. Parl., viii, 216.

4 Ibid., 221 et seq.

5 Ibid., 221-222.

6 Ibid., 230-231.

7 Ibid.

8 Arch. Parl., 341.

9 Ibid., 422.

10 “Convertions nous en acte législatif cet exposé métaphysique, ou présenterons nous les principes avec leur modification dans la constitution que nous allons faire? Je sais que les Américains n’ont pas pris cette précaution; ils ont pris l’homme dans le sein de la nature, et le présentent à l’univers dans sa souveraineté primitive, mais la société Américaine nouvellement formée, est composée, en totalité de propriétaires déjà accoutumés à l’égalité, étrangers au luxe ainsi qu’à l’indulgence, connaissant à peine le joug des impôts, des préjugés qui nous dominent, n’ayant trouvé sur la terre qu’ils cultivent aucune trace de féodalité. De tels hommes étaient sans doute préparés à recevoir la liberté dans toute son energie; car leurs goûts, leurs moeurs, leur position les appelaient à la démocratie. Mais, nous, Messieurs, nous avons pour concitoyens une multitude immense d’hommes sans propriétés, qui attendent, avant toute chose, leur subsistence d’un travail assuré, d’une police exacte, d’une protection continue, qui s’irritent quelquefois, non sans de justes motifs, du spectacle du luxe et de l’opulence,” etc. Arch. Parl., viii, 322.

11 Arch. Parl., viii, 434.

12 “Nous avons cherché cette forme populaire qui rappelle au peuple, non ce qu’on a étudié dans les livres ou dans les méditations abstraites, mais ce qu’il a lui même éprouvé.... C’est ainsi que les Américains ont fait leur déclaration de droits; ils en ont à dessein écarté la science; ils ont présenté les vérités politiques qu’il s’agissait de fixer sous une forme qui pût devenir facilement celle du peuple, à qui seul la liberté importe, et qui seul peut la maintenir.” Arch. Parl., viii, 438-440.

13 Arch. Parl., viii, 452 et seq.

14 A comparison of the Declaration offered by the Sixth Bureau with the Bill of Rights of the Revolutionary Constitutions of Massachusetts and of Virginia, shows that the Bill of Rights of the Virginia Constitution contained sixteen articles, that of the Massachusetts thirty, and that of the Sixth Bureau, twenty-four. The same general ideas are found in all three, but they are couched in different words, that of the Sixth Bureau being the least extreme.

15 Arch. Parl., viii, 470 et seq.

16 Ibid., 483-484.

17 Ibid., 487, 489.

18 Ibid., 492.

19 Histoire Parlementaire, 395-402.

20 Lavisse et Rambaud; Histoire Générale, vii, 360.

21 Ibid., vii, 360.

22 Dict. Universelle, under Rétroactif.

23 Three friends of tolerance were Voltaire, D’Argenson and Turgot. Voltaire in his Discourse Historique et Critique placed as an introduction to the tragedy Les Guebres (Oeuvres, by M. Beuchet, ix, 26, Paris, 1831), and in his Traité sur la tolérance, written upon the death of Jean Calas, 1763 (Oeuvres, ix, 141 and 243 et seq.), pleads for tolerance. For d’Argenson’s views on tolérance in 1744, see Rocquain, L’ésprit révolutionnaire, 116 and 138, and d’Argenson, Mémoires, v, 328 et seq. Turgot in a letter to an ecclesiastic, his schoolmate at the Sorbonne, expressed himself in 1753 in favor of tolerance; another letter of the year following was of like import. His Conciliateur was printed about the same time. Oeuvres, ii, 353 et seq., Paris, 1808. June, 1755, he presented a Memoir to the king on “Toleration, or Religious Equality.” Life and Writings of Turgot, by W. Walker Stephens, 256 et seq.

24 Rocquain, L’ésprit rév., p. 463.

25 Ibid., 336.

26 Rocquain, L’ésprit rév., 412. For a list of the books condemned, see Rocquain, Ibid., 489-535.

27 Quoted in Rocquain, L’ésprit rév., 178, and in Mémoires, viii, 248.

28 Rocquain, L’ésprit rév., 286.

29 Essai sur le despotisme, Oeuvres, viii, 111 et seq., Paris, 1835.

30 The cahier of the Nobility of Sisteron asked: “Qu’il sera fait des réglements, et pris des précautions pour que les troupes nécessaires au maintien de la tranquilité générale ne puissent jamais servir à opprimer le citoyen et à enchaîner la liberté publique.” Arch. Parl., iii, 364. The cahier of the Nobility and the Third Estate of Péronne asked: “Que... les officiers et les soldats, en prêtant le serment de fidélité au Roi, le prêtent aussi à la nation et jurent d n’exécuter aucun ordre qui soit contraire aux lois constitutionelles.” Arch. Parl., v, 356.

31 Jean Bodin, De Republica. Libre vi, chap. ii.

32 Hist. Gén., v, 362.

33 État de la France en 1789, Paul Boiteau, ch. xiv, Paris, 1861.

34 Alfred Neymarck, Turgot et ses Doctrines, i, 257 et seq., 2 vols., Paris, 1885.

35 Hist. Gén., vii, chap. xii.

36 For instances of the abuses at which Art. 13 aimed, see De Tocqueville, L’Ancien régime, trans. by Henry Buor, notes 32-38, pp. 271-273.

37 Rocquain, L’ésprit rév., 448.

38 For the part taken by the States General in granting subsidies, see Henri Hervieu, Recherches sur les premiers États généraux, Paris, 1879; G. Picot, Hist. des États Généraux Paris, 1885, 5 vols.; Ch. V. Langlois, États généraux in La Grande Encyclopédie; for that of the parlements, see Rocquain, L’ésprit rév., and Ch. Gomel, Les Causes financières de la révolution française.

39 Protest of the Cour des Aides of Paris, April 10, 1775, in Translations and Reprints from the Original Sources of European History, edited by James Harvey Robinson, Ph. D., with an English version by Grace Read Robinson.

40 Gomel in Les Causes financières de la révolution française, p. 113, gives the following quotation from a contemporary writer: “Le livre de Necker sur L’administration des finances produisit autant d’effet que si l’auteur avait encore dirigé celles du royaume.... Des magistrats, des juriconsultes, des militaires, des prélats l’étudieraient, non pour devenir administrateurs, mais pour se rendre des censeurs redoubtables de l’administration.”

41 Rocquain, L’ésprit rév., 444.

42 L’Ancien Rég., trans. by Henry Reeve, note 39, p. 273.

43 A. Babeau, La Ville sous l’ancien régime, ii, 9; Reeve’s translation of De Tocqueville, Ancien régime, notes 60-62, pp. 286, 287.

44 Poole, Illustrations of the History of Mediaeval Thought, p. 242.

45 Ibid., p. 267.

46 E. d’Eichthal, souveraineté du peuple, 37-40.

47 Memoirs, Letters and Remains of Alexis de Tocqueville, i, pp. 254-260, 2 vols. London, 1861.

48 Martin, Histoire de France, vol xv, 334.

49 Martin, Histoire de France, 355.

50 R. L. Corwin, Entwicklung und Vergleichung der Erziehungslehren von John Locke und Jean Jacques Rousseau, Heidelberg, 1894; Vasille Saftu, Ein Vergleich der physichen Erziehung bei Locke und Rousseau, Bucarest, 1889; David G. Ritchie, The Social Contract, in vi. vol. of Pol. Sc. Quart.; Jaeger, Geschichte der sozialen Bewegung und des Socialismus in Franckreiche, vol. ii, 342, Berlin, 1890; Prof. J. Horning, Les idées politiques de Rousseau, in J. J. Rousseau jugé par les Génevois d’aujourd’hui, p. 135 et seq.; also M. Jules Vuy in Bulletin de L’Institut National Génevois for 1883, pp. 273-344; Rousseau et Locke, Henri Marion; J. Locke, Sa Vie et son Oeuvre d’après des documents nouveaux, Paris, 1893.

51 Voltaire in a letter of April 2, 1764, wrote: “Tout ce que je vois jeté les semences d’une révolution qui arrivera immanquablement, et dont je n’aurai pas le plaisir d’être témoin.... Les jeunes gens sont bien heureux: ils verront de belles choses.” Quoted in Martin, Hist. de Fr., vol. xvi, 136. Malesherbes, in speaking to the king as the organ of the parlement in 1770, said: “You hold your crown, Sire, from God alone; but you will not refuse yourself the satisfaction of believing that, for your power, you are likewise indebted to the voluntary submission of your subjects. There exist in France some inviolable rights, which belong to the nation.” Quoted from Remontrances de la Cours des Aides, 1770, by De Tocqueville; Mémoires, etc., i, 259-60. For Rousseau’s literary influence, see Joseph Texte, Jean Jacques Rousseau et les Origines du Cosmopolitisme Littéraire, Liv. ii, Paris, 1895.

52 A pamphlet of 1789, “Lettre d’un Curé de Picardie à un évêque sur le droit des curés d’assister aux assemblées du clergé et aux États-généraux,” etc., illustrates how the curates applied the natural rights doctrine: “Les droits des hommes réunis en société ne sont point fondés sur leur histoire mais sur leur nature. Il ne peut y avoir de raisons de perpétuer les établissements faits sans raisons, 3 p.” In vol. 84 of French Revolution Collection of the Pennsylvania Historical Society.

53 Contrat Social, Livre ii, ch. iv, 43.

54 Ibid., Livre i, ch. vi, 20.

55 Contrat Social, Livre II, ch. I, 35.

56 Ibid., Livre II, ch. IV, 43-44.

57 Ibid., Livre II, ch. VI, 54-55.

58 Ibid., Livre II, ch. IV, p. 46.

59 Quesnay said: “The security of property is the essential foundation of the economic order of society.” Maximes générales au gouvernement, Physiocrates, ii, 83, Paris, 1846. Turgot, writing of the omnipotence of the State, said: “This principle that nothing should limit the rights of society upon the individual, save the greater good of society, appears to me false and dangerous. Every man is born free, and this liberty can never be limited unless it degenerate into license, that is to say, ceases to be liberty.... It is forgotten that society is made for the individual, that is, instituted only for protecting the rights of all, by assuring the accomplishment of all mutual duties.” Quoted by M. E. Daire, Physiocrates, ii, Introd., xxi, xxii.

60 Ésprit des Lois, Liv. xi.

61 Saint Girons, Droit public français, treats thoroughly the question of separation of powers. Mirabeau in referring to the separation of powers, in a speech delivered in the Assembly July 16, 1789, pointed out the general misapprehension of this theory: “Nous aurons bientôt occasion d’examiner cette théorie des trois pouvoirs, laquelle exactement analysée montrera peut être la facilité de l’ésprit humain à prendre des mots pour des choses, des formules pour des arguments et à se routiner vers un certain ordre d’idées sans revenir jamais à examiner l’intelligible définition qu’il a prise pour un axiome.” Arch. Parl., VIII, 243.

62 G. Picot, Histoire des États généraux; Ch. Langlois, États généraux in La Grande Encyclopédie.

63 Jules Flammermont, Remontrances du Parlement de Paris au XVIII. siècle, Introd., XCII.

64 Dictionnaire Nouvelle, Parlements.

65 T. i, 78, 266.

66 Martin, Histoire de France, xi, 543.

67 These two decrees, one 1667, the other 1673, are given in substance in Jules Flammermont, Remontrances, Intro. i and ii. The second was the more sweeping: “Dès que les gens du Roi auraient reçu les ordonnances, édits, déclarations ou lettres patents, ils devraient dorénavant les présenter tout de suite aux cours toutes chambres assemblées, qui auraient à les enregistrer purement et simplement sans aucune modification, restriction, ni autres clauses qui en pussent surseoir ou empêcher la pleine et entière exécution. Dans le cas où les cours auraient des remontrances à présenter elles ne pourraient plus le faire qu’après que l’arrêt d’enregistrement aurait été donné et séparément rédigé. Mais que le Roi donnôit suite ou non à ces remontrances, qui devaient être dressées dans la huitaine après l’enregistrement, les cours ne devaient pas faire d’itératives remontrances.”

68 Flammermont, Remontrances, 95.

69 Cited in Prof. J. H. Robinson’s very suggestive article, The Tennis Court Oath (Political Science Quarterly, Sept., 1895); from the Itératives Remontrances sur la Refonte des Monnaies, July 26, 1718, Flammermont’s Remontrances, 94, 95.

70 Cited by Prof. Robinson, The Tennis Court Oath, 467.

71 Jules Flammermont, Le Chancelier Maupeou et les Parlements, Paris, 1885, 370 pp.

[72] Flammermont, Le Chancelier Maupeou et les Parlements, 380, 381.

73 Ibid., 117.

74 Barbier has left record of how intimate was the sympathy of the people with the Parlement in the struggle over Jansenism: “Le bonne Ville de Paris est janséniste de la tête aux pieds.... Tous degrés de Paris, hommes, femmes, petites enfants, tiennent pour cette doctrine, sans savoir la matière, sans rien entendre à ces distinctions et interprétations, par haine contre Rome et les jésuites, tout ce monde est entêté comme un diable. Les femmes, femmelettes et jusqu’aux femmes de chambre s’y feraient hocher.” Cited in Aubertin, l’Ésprit public au XVIII siècle, 263, 264.

75 “Votre parlement s’est toujours fait gloire de leur donner l’exemple de l’obéissance. Il vous a toujours prouvé par sa conduite que, si l’obéissance due à la Majesté du Roi était perdue, elle se retrouverait dans sa cour de parlement. Mais s’il y a des occasions où son attachement inviolable aux lois et au bien public semble ne pouvoir pas s’allier avec une obéissance sans bornes, alors il serait criminel envers vous même et envers l’État d’oublier ce que lui disait en 1567 un chancelier de France: Vous avez juré de garder tous les communs éléments du Roi, bien de garder les ordonnances qui sont ses vrais commandements. Ou ce qu’il disait lui-même en 1604 au Souverain: Si c’est désobéissance de bien servir, le Parlement fait ordinairement cette faute, et quand il se trouve conflit entre la puissance absolue du Roi et le bien de son service, il juge l’un préférable à l’autre, non par désobéissance, mais pour son devoir, à la décharge de sa conscience.” Grandes Remontrances, April 9, 1753; Flammermont, Remontrances, 529.

76 Flammermont, Le Chancelier Maupeou, 269.

77 Les Mirabeaus, i. 181. This refers to constitutional ideas, not to a written constitution.

78 Aubertin, 391, 392: Voltaire complained in the ’60’s of being tired of people, “qui gouvernaient les États du fond de leurs greniers.” Rocquain, L’ésprit rév., 244.

79 Gomel, 334.

80 The calling of the États généraux had been suggested by la Rochefoucauld, 1774; by d’Espremenil, 1775, and in remonstrances of the cour des aides of Paris and the Parlement of Besançon 1775 and 1781, and in the Assembly of Notables by Lafayette in 1787.

81 The contents of the cahiers are difficult to tabulate, owing to their various modes of expression. The following summary will, however, give an approximate idea of their import upon constitutional questions: Of 448 primary and secondary cahiers examined, 305 demanded or implied a constitution; 194, the monarchy; 401, periodic États généraux; 372, granting of taxes by the États généraux; 269, legislation by the États généraux; 331, ministerial responsibility; and 366, proportional taxation.

82 The cahier of the nobility of the bailliage of Aumont asked: “Que l’ancienne constitution française est monarchique, que les lois fondamentales du royaume subsisteront dans leur intégrité et qu’elles ne pourront être changées par les députés aux États généraux, Que la formation des États généraux fait partie de la constitution.”... Arch. Parl., i, 766. Somewhat similar views are found in the cahiers of the clergy of Lectoure, Ibid., ii, 66; of the clergy of Auten, ii, 100; of the clergy of Aval, ii, 137; of the clergy of Carcassonne, ii, 257; of the clergy of Blois, ii, 376; of the nobility of Guyenne, ii, 394; of the clergy of Châlons-sur-Marne, ii, 582; of the clergy of Clermont-Ferrand, ii, 766; of the third estate of Comte de Comminges, iii, 26; of the nobility of Constances, iii, 52; of the clergy of Etampes, iii, 279; of the nobility of Libourne, iii, 506; of the nobility of Timoux, iii, 577; of the nobility of Mâcon, iii, 623; of the nobility of Gevaudan, iii, 754; of the third estate of the parish of Ferrières en Brie, iv, 545; of the nobility of Provins and Monterau, v, 448; of the nobility of Touraine, vi, 39; of the clergy of Vermandois, vi, 134; of the clergy of Villers-Catterels, vi, 187; of the clergy of Vitry le François, vi, 207; of the nobility of Besançon, vi, 516. Some wished to re-establish in more definite terms the old constitution. The cahier of the clergy of Auxerre asked: “Que les États généraux s’occuperont d’abord de reconnaître, conserver, fixer irrévocablement, et rendre publiques les lois constitutionnelles de la monarchie, les droits du Roi et ceux de la nation,” ii, 111. Of similar import were the cahiers of the clergy of Argenois, i, 675; of the third estate of Albert, i, 704; of the third estate of Alençon, i, 716; of the third estate of Exemes, i, 727; of the nobility of Pont-à-Mousson, ii, 229; of the nobility of Castres, ii, 566; of the clergy of Caux, ii, 573; of the nobility of Caux, ii, 575; of the nobility of Châlons-sur-Saône, ii, 604; of the clergy of Châteauneuf en Thimerais, ii, 639; of the nobility of Launes, iii, 94; of the nobility of Évreux, iii, 295; of the third estate of Province of Forez, iii, 385; of the clergy of Pays de Labourt, iii, 424; of the nobility of Montagres, iv, 20; of the Parish of Clermont-Mendon, iv, 440; of the third estate of Agenois, i, 687. A smaller number of the cahiers asked for a new constitution. The cahier of the third estate of Paris intra muros presented a model constitution, essentially similar to the one actually framed, v, 581. The Parish of Toussus-le-Noble, of Paris, hors des murs, instructed that: Les députés demanderont une nouvelle constitution nationale, la suppression de toutes les lois, qui, jusqu’à présent, ont été considérées constitutionnelles, comme illégalement établies et n’ayant pas reçu l’approbation de la nation, v, 138. The third estate of Mont de Morsan said: Il est temps qu’on pose les règles fixes, et qu’on assure à la France une Constitution qui garantisse les droits naturels et imprescriptibles des hommes, iv, 34. The third estate of Etampes, after referring to the abuses, said: Nos premiers voeux doivent naturellement se porter sur ce qui doit former à l’avenir la constitution du royaume. Le anciens monuments nous offrent si peu de conformité et de certitude, que nous devons profiter des lumières actuelles pour opérer un plus grand bien, iii, 283. The nobility of Blois said: Le malheur de la France vient de ce qu’elle n’a jamais eu de constitution fixe, ii, 379.

83 Rocquain, L’Ésprit, 405, 406; Lettres de cachet, ch. viii, edition of 1820.

84 Cited in Rocquain, L’Ésprit, 457.

85 Qu’est-ce que donc qu’une Constitution, si ce n’est l’ordre, la distribution des deux grands pouvoirs politiques et de leur séparation dans différentes mains, et leur exercise ou différentes formes: le tout sanctionné et constitué, c’est à dire statué avec la nation assemblée, représentant l’également la volonté générale, et voulant librement pour l’intérêt commun? Si l’on recherche en France ces deux pouvoirs, on les trouve, par le fait, réunis dans la même main, sans qu’on puisse voir l’apparence d’un droit contraire qu’en remontant vers les âges ténébreux de l’ignorance et de la servitude. Or la collection de ces pouvoirs ne peut former que l’autorité arbitraire d’un despote; ce qui exclut toute idée de Lois fondamentales et constitutionnelles: aussi n’en trouve-t-on en assumé. Donc point de Constitution, Vol. 87 of Fr. Rev. Col. of Penn. Hist. Soc., 114, 115.

86 Arch. Parl., i, 543, 544.

87 Hist. Parl., i, 445.

88 He said of Mirabeau: “Nous n’avons l’un et l’autre entrevu rien de mieux pour la France qu’un gouvernement monarchique constitutionnel. De tous les rois, Louis XVI. était le plus propre à résoudre le problème.... Il croyait le gouvernement constitutionnel plus convenable, et il le désirait; et je puis le dire avec autant de certitude que conviction, la reine partageait à cet égard les opinions et les penchants de Louis XVI.; les matériaux qui sont dans mon portefeuille rendent ces assertions incontestables.” Correspondence entre Mirabeau et La Marck, i, 67, 95.

89 Arch. Parl., viii, 55.

90 Ibid., 113.

91 Ibid., 127.

92 Arch. Parl., viii, 138.

93 D’Argenson in 1752 said: “Quant à moi je tiens pour l’avènement du second article et même du républicanisme.” He meant Republicanism not in the modern sense, but in the sense of a monarchy with democratic local institutions. Aubertin, L’Ésprit public, 278, 279. Even the Ésprit des Lois gave some sanction to a Republic as an ideal form of government when it recognized virtue as the temper of society required for this form of government. Voltaire, friend of the monarchy and critic of Rousseau as he was, wrote: “Le plus tolérable des gouvernements est le républicain, parce-que c’est celui qui rapproche le plus les hommes de l’égalité naturelle.” He also compared the frequency of crimes under a monarchy with their infrequency under republics. Martin, Histoire de France, xvi, 136. Mably held that France should pass by degrees from a monarchy to a republic. Ibid., 149 et seq., Cerutti, the coadjutor of Mirabeau at a later date, had published a book on Republics. This book had been generally attributed to Rousseau. Dictionnaire Universelle.

94 Arch. Parl., v, 282.

95 The cahier of the district of Abbey Saint Germain des Près said: Il sera arrêté qu’à la nation assemblée, réunie au Roi, appartient le droit de faire les lois de royaume, Arch. Parl., v, 306; that of Saint Gervais: Le pouvoir législatif appartient conjointement au Roi et à la nation.... Le pouvoir exécutif appartient au Roi, comme chef suprême et premier magistrat de la nation, Ibid., 308; that of Saint Louis de-la-Culture: Qu’il soit reconnu que l’état est monarchique, que la couronne est héréditaire en ligne masculine, etc., Ibid., 311; that of Theatins: Le Roi en (of the army) aura la discipline et le commandement général, Ibid., 316; that of Sorbonne: that the States-General and the king jointly make the laws; that of Filles de Saint Thomas: that the nation and the king make the laws, and that the executive power be guaranteed to the king and to the reigning family without restriction or division; that of Bonne Nouvelle: that the laws should be made by the States-General and announced by the king; that of Saint Joseph Quartier des Halles: that laws be made by the nation and king jointly; that of Sainte Elizabeth: that the nation make the laws and the king sanction them; that of Enfants Rouges: that the laws be made by the nation and the king jointly; that of Blancs Manteaux: that France should have an hereditary monarchy in the male line of the reigning house, laws made by the nation and sanctioned by the king, and that the executive power should belong to the monarch; that of Capucins du Marais: that the laws be made by the nation and the king jointly; that of Minimes de la Place Royale: that the laws be made jointly by the nation and the king. Chassin, Les Élection et Cahiers de Paris, ii, ch. xvi-xviii.

96 Chassin, Les Élections et Cahiers, i, 453.

97 Arch. Parl., viii. 350.

98 Quoted in A. Saint Girons, Droit. public français, 129.

99 Arch. Parl., viii, 505.

100 Ibid., 642.

101 Ibid., ix, 26.

102 Arch Parl., xxviii, 336-338.

103 Hist. Parl., x, 449 et seq., and xi, 20 et seq.

104 Arch. Parl., xxviii, 377.

105 Ibid., xxx, 635, 636.

106 “Convaincue que le gouvernement qui convient le mieux aux prérogatives respectables du trône avec les droits inaliénables du peuple, elle a donné à l’État une constitution qui garantit également et la royauté et la liberté nationale.... Et vous, Sire, déjà vous avez presque tout fait. Votre Majesté a fini la Révolution par Son acceptation si loyale et si franche de la Constitution. Elle a porté au dehors le découragement, ramené au dedans la confiance, rétabli par elle le principal nerf du gouvernement et préparé l’utile activité de l’administration.” Arch. Parl., xxxi 688, 689.

107 It is noteworthy that the French had not followed the history of their own development. “Pendant toute la durée de la monarchie, tandis que le peuple n’apprenait presque rien les hautes classes, en général, apprenaient mal. Leur ignorance de l’histoire nationale explique pourquoi, au moment de la Révolution, on ne put se rendre un compte exact des faits sociaux et politiques que nous léguait l’ancien régime, pourquoi on détruisit pêle-mêle ce qu’il y avait de bon et de mauvais dans les institutions du passé, pourquoi, lorsqu’il s’agit de constituer une nation moderne, le nation française, on n’eut à la bouche que des exemples empruntés à l’antiquité, à Athènes, à Sparte, à Rome. Cette instruction incomplète, cette fausse éducation classique était, en somme, une médiocre préparation au métier de législateurs, si nouveau pour nos pères de la Révolution.” M. Alfred Rambaud, Histoire de la Civilisation française, ii, 280. An English lady who was traveling in France writes in August, 1792: “Their studies are chiefly confined to Rollin and Plutarch, the deistical works of Voltaire and the visionary politics of Jean Jacques. Hence they amuse their hearers with allusions to Cæsar and Lycurgus, the Rubicon and Thermopylæ. Hence they pretend to be too enlightened for belief, and despise all governments not founded on the contrat social or the profession de foi.... They talk familiarly of Sparta and Lacedemon.” A Residence in France during 1792-95, London, 1797.

108 La France Libre, 1789, 60-61 pp.

[109] Collection of Pamphlets in Columbia Library, 94404, Book M, 292.

110 Camille Desmoulins’ La France Libre contained three striking utterances. “For forty years philosophy had undermined all the parts of the foundations of despotism; and as Rome before Cæsar was already enslaved by its vices, France before Necker was already freed by its intelligence,” 56. In various parts of this article of 1789 he speaks of a republic as being the best suited to France. “Before the Royal Sitting I regarded Louis XVI. with admiration, for he had some virtues, as he walked not at all in the steps of his fathers, was not at all a despot, and had convoked the States-General. While in the province I read in the gazette his beautiful speech: ‘What does it matter that my authority suffer provided my people should be happy?’ We have, I said to myself, a greater king than the Trojans, the Marcus Aurelius, the Antonines, who did not at all limit their power. Personally I loved Louis XVI.; but the monarchy was not less odious,” 60-61. “I declare then boldly for democracy,” 64.

111 Hist. Parl., ii, 353, and iv, 295.

112 Ibid., iii, 433.

113 Hist. Gén., viii, 104.

114 See Condorcet’s speech on the question of the kingship, July 15, 1791. Arch. Parl., xviii, 336-338.

115 Hist. Parl., x, 416-418. It seems to have been the Cordeliers who planned for the public signing of the petition upon the altar of the country, July 17, 1791, on the Champs de Mars. This petition prayed the Assembly to accept the abdication of the king, and to convoke a new constituent power for the trial of the guilty and for the replacing and organization of a new executive power. Hist. Gén., viii, 100; Hist. Parl., xi, 115. Six thousand petitioners had signed this instrument.

116 Henry Morse Stephens, The French Revolution, i, 96 et seq. The number of February 4, 1790, contained these words: “Il est impossible dans de pareils moments de se livrer à aucunes réflexions; il faut être tout à sentir. Nous dirons donc seulement et du fond du coeur: Puisse cette journée étouffer la discorde qui régnoit entre les citoyens, et ramener à la nation ceux qui ne vouloient pas reconnoitre ses droits: Et nous, patriotes, faisons au bien de la paix tous les sacrifices qui peuvent s’allier avec la liberté, soyons dignes d’être libres, soyons dignes d’être les sujets d’un tel roi.” Rév. de Paris, Vol. 3, No. 31. In referring to a company about to go to Ohio, the editor would dissuade them by saying: “Nous allons en jouir par une constitution plus heureusement conçue que celle des États-Unis.” Vol. 3, No. 32. In No. 52 of July, 1790, former kings are calumniated and Louis XVI. was praised. The last number of 1790 paid its respects to the king in laudable terms. “Louis tu as pris, comme par instinct, le parti le plus sage. Tu as cessé d’être l’oint du Seigneur, pour devenir le fils aîné de la patrie. Notre mère commune t’a confirmé dans ta place, à la tête de la grande famille. Dis n’est il pas plus doux de présider des frères, que de fouler aux pieds des sujets?” No. 77.

117 He died September, 1790.

118 March 26-April 2.

119 I. La nation ne reconnoît pour chef suprême de l’empire que le président de son assemblée représentative et permanente. II. On ne pourra être élu président avant sa cinquantième année, ni pour plus d’un mois, ni plus d’une fois en sa vie.... XIX. La nation supprime, abolit et annulle à jamais les titres de roi, de reine, de prince du sang royal, ces mots cesseront d’avoir un sens dans la langue française.... XXI. A l’imitation de la pâque des Hébreux, il sera instituté une fête commémorative qui tombera le premier juin, jour de l’expulsion des Tarquins à Rome, et consacrée à célébrer l’abolition de la royauté le plus grand des fléaux dont l’espèce humaine ait été la victime. No. 90.

120 May 7-14, 1791

121 The picture which the editor gives of the feeling in Paris after the flight of Louis shows him to be an extreme radical, and that the people of the city were greatly aroused by the escape. “L’opinion dominante était une antipathie pour les rois, un mépris pour la personne de Louis XVI., qui se manifestérent jusque dans les plus petits détails. A la Grève, on fit tomber en morceaux le buste de Louis XVI., qu’éclairait la célèbre lanterne, l’effroi des ennemis de la révolution. Quand donc le peuple se fera t-il justice de tous ces rois de bronze, monuments de notre idôlatrie? Rue Saint-Honoré, on exigea d’un marchand le sacrifice d’une tête de plâtre, à la ressemblance de Louis XVI.; dans un autre magasin, on se contenta de lui poser sur les yeux un bandeau de papier; les noms de roi, reine, royale, Bourbon, Louis, cour, monsieur, frère du roi furent effacés par tout où on les trouva écrits sur tous les tableaux et enseignes des magasins et des boutiques. Le Palais royal est aujourd’hui le Palais d’Orléans. Les couronnes peintes furent même proscrites, et le jour de la Fête-Dieu on les couvrit d’un voile sur les tapisseries où elles se trouvoient, afin de ne point souiller par leur aspect la sainteté de le procession.... Un piquet de cinquante lances fit des patrouilles jusque dans les Tuileries, portant pour bannière un écriteau, avec cette inscription:
Vivre libre ou mourir,
Louis XVI., s’expatriant,
N’existe plus pour nous.”

No. 102.

122 “Il ne nous faut qu’un seul chef du pouvoir exécutif, mais un chef à temps, un chef impuissant par lui même, qui n’ait d’autorité que celle de la loi. Il est temps, il est plus que temps de frapper un grand coup: que la tête de Louis tombe; ou bien qu’on le dédaigne, elle est assez méprisable; que le trône et tous les pompeux hochets de la royauté soient livrés aux flammes; que l’assemblée nationale de la monarchie fasse place au sénat de la république; que celui-ci adresse un manifesta à tous les tyrans de l’Europe; qu’il invite tous les peuples à la liberté; qu’à la première hostilité d’immenses légions de nos nouveaux républicains aillent exterminer tous les despotes, et planter le drapeau de la liberté jusque dans le fond de l’Allemagne; nous serons libres alors, nous préviendrons la guerre qu’on vent apporter chez nous, et la France aura la gloire, inconnue jusqu’ à ce jour, devoir non pas conquis l’Europe à la France, mais conquis l’univers à la liberté, en le purgeant des rois, empereurs, et tyrans de touts espèces.” No. 103.

123 T. 8, 606 et seq.

124 In No. 115, September 17-24, reference was made to the prize offered by the Jacobin Club for an Almanac to be distributed among the people teaching the advantages of the constitution, but the editor suggests that they had better offer a prize for an almanac revealing the defects of the constitution.

125 “Il n’est pas besoin d’examiner l’abolition de la royauté. Le voeu de la nation sans doute, est assez prononcé; sans doute ceux-mêmes qui prétendaient que les adresses de tous les départements sur la déchéance ne suffisoient pas à l’assemblée nationale avant le 10 août, sont à présent convaincus que les Français ne veulent ni d’un roi de leur nation, ni d’un étranger.” Noting the weakness in the American constitution which made it possible for one man, Washington or Adams, to acquire too great power, the article urged that the French should imitate no country, but should work out their own plan. However, this same number told of the first meeting of the Convention and of the abolition of the monarchy.

126 Stephens, The French Revolution, i, 102.

127 Hist. Parl., x, 414.

128 Hist. Gén., x, 449.

129 E. Hamel, Hist. de Robespierre, i, 388 et seq., Paris, 1867.

130 “Trois différentes opinions partageaient donc l’Assemblée et la France. La première, de rétablir le roi, et de maintenir la monarchie d’après les bases de la constitution; la seconde, d’abolir la royauté et d’élever une république; la troisième mitoyenne entre les deux autres, de rétablir le roi ou de placer le dauphin sur le trône, mais de l’environner d’un conseil exécutif indépendant dont les membres amovibles fussent élus par le peuple,” Montlosier, Mémoires, t. i, 467 et seq.

131 Diary and Letters, i, 436.

132 Diary and Letters, i, 456 et seq.

133 Hist. Parl., x, 414 et seq.

134 Ibid., 452.

135 Ibid., xxv, 422 et seq.

136 Hist. Gén., viii, 133-134; Hist. Parl., xiv, 278 et seq.; Sorel, L’Europe et la Rév. fr., ii, 478.

137 Hist. Parl., xv, 32 et seq.

138 La liberté ne peut être suspendue; si le pouvoir exécutif n’agit point, il ne peut y avoir d’alternatives, c’est lui qui doit l’être: un seul homme ne doit point influencer la volonté de vingt-cinq millions d’hommes. Si, par égard, nous le maintenons dans son poste, c’est à condition qu’il le remplira constitutionellement; s’il s’en écarte, il n’est plus rien pour le peuple français. Hist. Parl., xv, 139.

139 Hist. Parl., 324 et seq.

140 Louis XVI. invoque sans cesse la Constitution: nous l’invoquons à notre tour, et nous demandons sa déchéance. Hist. Parl., xvi, 319.

141 Hist. Parl., xvii, 48.

142 Ibid., 44.

143 From some Department of Jura there is some reason to believe a political club had addressed a letter at the beginning of 1792 to the Jacobin Club in Paris, asking for the establishment of a republic. Biré, Diary of a Citizen, etc., i, 45.

144 F. A. Aulard, La Société des Jacobins, i, Intro., XII, XIII, Paris, 1889.

145 Ibid., iv, 80.

146 The club decreed August 12: “Qu’il sera fait une adresse aux Sociétés affiliés, pour leur donner une connaissance exacte des événements du 10 Août, les instruire du courage et du patriotisme qu’ont déployé dans cette journée à jamais mémorable les fédérés des quatre-vingt-trois départments, qui avec leurs frères d’armes de Paris, out sauvé le patrie.” Aulard, La Société des Jacobins, iv, 194, 195. August 22, an address was sent to the affiliated society pointing out what class of men should be chosen for the Convention. If they do not choose these, a new insurrection like that of August 10 may be necessary. La Société des Jacobins, iv, 233-235.

147 One of the speakers, M. Manuel, said, August 27: “Nous devons tous jurer, et y’en fais le premier le serment, à quelque poste que je me trouve placé tous mes efforts seront dirigés vers ce but important, de purger la terre de fléau de la royauté.” La Société des Jacobins, iv, 238 et seq.

148 Ibid., iv, 259 et seq.

149 Société des Jacobins, iv, 273 et seq.

150 “La sanction ou la revision populaire de tous les décrets constitutionnels de la convention nationale; l’abolition absolue de la royauté et peine de mort contre ceux qui proposeraient de la rétablir; la forme d’un gouvernement républicain.” La Société des Jacobins, iv, 281. A letter written by an English lady from Arras, September 1, 1792, contains this statement: “Mr. Thomas Paine... is in high repute here—his works are translated—all the Jacobins who can read, quote, and all who can’t, admire him.” A Residence in France, i, 68.

151 December 21, 1790, the Jacobin Club printed a list of 1,100 members; August 16, 1790, there were fifteen affiliated societies. These affiliations increased rapidly in the spring of 1791, so that by June 16, there were 406 affiliated and 14 corresponding societies; by June, 1793, there were a thousand affiliated clubs. Aulard, La Société des Jacobins, i, Intro., xxxiii-xxxix. That these clubs knew how to make use of their affiliations for political action is patent from the letter sent out among them, August 22, four days before the primary elections were held: “C’est à nous à le soutenir; et nous le pouvons, en éloignant des assemblées électorales tous ceux qui ont protégé, même indirectement la cour et le sacerdoce, les émigrés et leurs adhérents. Notre choix ne doit pas être difficile; les patriotes font la majorité de la nation. Ils peuvent donc, s’ils savent se réunis, faire des choix favorables à leurs intérêts. Les électeurs étant payés à trois livres... il n’est plus nécessaire d’être riche bourgeois, prêtre, ou ci-devant noble pour accepter cette noble mission; et, si la majorité des électeurs est au niveau de la révolution du 10 Août 1792 nos nouveaux députés ne tarderont pas à la consolider et à sauver le peuple par une constitution conformé à la déclaration des droits et à l’intérêt du plus grand nombre.” Société des Jacobins, iv, 233, et seq.

152 Stephen’s French Rev., ii, 154; Babeau’s Hist. de Troyes pendant la Rév., i, 527, 528. The following excerpt from A Residence in France, 1792-95, described in a series of letters from an English Lady, i, 93: “If the electors and elected of the other departments be of the same complexion with those of Arras, the new Assembly will not, in any respect, be preferable to the old one. I have reproached many of the people of this place, who, from their education and property, have a right to take an interest in the public affairs, with thus suffering themselves to be represented by the most desperate and worthless individuals of the town. Their defense is that they are insulted and overpowered if they attend the popular meetings, and by electing les gueux et les scélérats pour députés, they send them to Paris and secure their own local tranquillity.”

153 The twenty four deputies from the city were Robespierre, Danton, Collot-d’Herbois, Manuel, Billaud-Varenne, Camille Desmoulins, Marat, Lavicomterie, Legendre the butcher, Raffron du Trouillet, Paris, Sergent, Robert, Dusaulx, Frèron, Beauvis de Preau, Fabre d’Eglantine the dramatist, Osselin, Augustine Robespierre, David the great painter, Boucher, Laignelot, Thomas, the ci-devant Duke of Orléans, now democratically named Philippe Égalité. Stephen’s French Rev., ii, 155, 156.

154 The proclamation of the abolition of the monarchy filled Paris with joy. We cite from the Rév. de Paris, No. 167, 534: “Cette proclamation, parvenue dans les 48 sections de Paris, fut répétée dans tous les carrefours au bruit des cors et au milieu des applaudissements universelles. Tous les citoyens à l’envi illuminèrent le devant de leurs maisons, comme à l’occasion d’un grande victoire remportée sur le plus puissant de nos ennemis.”

155 Hist. Parl., xix, 6 et seq.

156 Hist. Parl., xix, 20, 21.

157 Biré, Diary of a Citizen, i, 14; Aulard, Études et Leçons sur la Rév. fr., 109 et seq.

158 Hist. Parl., xix, 35, 39, 105.

159 Diary and Letters, i, 596.

160 Aulard, Études et Leçons.

161 Révolutions de Paris, ii, 68-76.

162 See Siéyès disavowal, Hist. Parl., x, 451. Brissot’s Journal of Sept. 21, 1791, said: “Qui ne se rappellera pas avec quelque douleur, que le mot de république était alors presque proscrit aux Jacobins même; qu’ il fallait prendre des tournures oratoires pour justifier le républicanisme.” Hist. Parl., xix, 20, 21.

163 L’Europe et la Rév. fr., iii, 67.