To the King and Queen their position had long since become intolerable. They regarded the constitution as a monstrous work, based on principles subversive of all good government. To the laws establishing the Civil Constitution of the Clergy and imposing an oath on beneficed ecclesiastics, Louis had given his official consent with reluctance, but as he was unable to obtain the sanction of the Pope to what he had done, his peace of conscience was gone. The Queen was greatly suspected of using her influence to incite her husband against the revolution. She was intensely unpopular. Up to the middle of the century France had pursued a policy of opposition to Austria. In 1756 jealousy of England, and of England’s ally, the rising state of Prussia, had brought about an offensive and defensive alliance between France and Austria. The national feeling of hostility had, however, not died out, and the insignificant part that France took in foreign affairs was ascribed not to the decadence of the monarchy, but to the Austrian alliance. To make firm the bond, the partisans of the new system had accomplished, in 1770, a marriage between Louis, then Dauphin, and Marie Antoinette, daughter of the Empress Queen, Maria Theresa. Thus, from her first entrance into the country, Marie Antoinette had been regarded with disfavour, as the pledge of an unpopular alliance. Courtiers and intriguers, opposed to the faction which had brought about her marriage, had accused her of sacrificing French to Austrian interests, and had bruited false and scandalous tales against her name. By the revolutionary journalists she was now held up to execration as the untrue wife and false Queen, the betrayer of France, who was seeking by aid of Austrian troops to put down the revolution in blood. Now that trouble had destroyed her love of dissipation and brought into relief the strong side of her character, Marie Antoinette devoted all the energy of which her mind was capable to the task of recovering for her husband and bequeathing to her son the reins of government. She found her chief pleasure in the fulfilment of her duties as wife and mother, and by her dignified bearing impressed those who came into contact with her with a high idea of her daring and intellect. Less ready, however, than her husband to make concessions, and far more so to practise deceit, she proved an evil councillor to Louis. Both desired that the constitution should fail, and regarded the increase of disorder with indifference, under the idea that suffering would speedily recall their penitent subjects to the foot of the throne. Meanwhile, Louis made repeated and public avowals of his satisfaction with the constitution, intending hereafter to withdraw his words on the plea that he was not at liberty to express his true opinion. Since the winter a plan of flight to the eastern frontier was projected, but its execution was delayed owing to want of money and troops. The Queen relied on her brother, the Emperor Leopold, to place whatever Austrian troops were in Luxemburg at her disposal in case of need. She thought that if the King were once in safety on the frontier, and able to protect his supporters, a large portion of the nation would rally round him, and that it would be possible to make a settlement which, while leaving to the country some form of constitutional government, would set the royal authority above the heads of all subjects. Rumours that the King intended flight had for months been floating about. In April, the national guard, in spite of Lafayette’s remonstrances, detained by force the royal carriages when on the point of starting for the Palace of St. Cloud, a short distance outside the city.

The King and Queen had for some time been preparing for flight, though the day of departure had been from various causes delayed. Servants who could not be trusted had to be dismissed, and clothes and other articles forwarded to the frontier ready for use. On the night of June 20 the King, disguised as a valet, his sister, the Princess Elizabeth, the Queen, the two children, and their governess, left the Tuileries unobserved, and were driven in a hackney-carriage a short distance outside Paris. Here they found ready waiting them a large new travelling coach, built for the occasion, and three soldiers of the bodyguard, dressed in yellow liveries, and prepared to act as couriers. The destination of the royal party was Montmédy, close to the Luxemburg frontier; and the Marquis of Bouillé, who commanded in that quarter, had undertaken to station detachments of troops to guard the way at all the chief towns and villages after Chalons. It was already two o’clock at night when the coach left Paris behind. The driver urged on his horses at a quick pace, some eight miles an hour, and about five o’clock in the afternoon the travellers reached Chalons-sur-Marne. At this point the most dangerous part of the journey seemed over. At the next post-house, Pont Sommevesle, Louis expected to see the first detachment of Bouillé’s troops. On his arrival, a little after six, he was, however, disappointed. Bouillé had, indeed, with considerable skill, ordered the passage of troops so that detachments should be present at all the principal places on the road along which the royal party was travelling; but unfortunately at each station those in command lacked either zeal or capacity, or both. Because the coach was three or four hours behind the time expected, the troops had already withdrawn from Pont Sommevesle. At St. Menehould, Louis, who incautiously put his head out of window, was recognised by the master of the post, Drouet, who observed his likeness to the image of the King on the assignats. Though not stopped, the coach was pursued by Drouet and others, whilst the troops present in the town suffered themselves to be disarmed. About midnight the coach safely reached Varennes, a little town divided in two by the river Aire. While the bodyguards were vainly seeking in the darkness a relay of horses, which was waiting on the farther side of the bridge, Drouet and his companions rode into the town, roused the mayor, and with whatever waggons and barrels came first to hand, blocked the road over the bridge. The coach was stopped, and the travellers compelled to alight and enter a house belonging to a grocer, the procureur of the commune. This was close to the bridge, beyond which were sixty hussars in their barracks. Their officers, in place of calling them out on the first alarm, rode off to seek instructions of Bouillé, who was miles away, at Stenay. Fifty or sixty more troops arrived shortly afterwards, and during the night it was still possible to disperse the opposers with a charge, and force a way through the barricade. The officers, unwilling to do it on their own responsibility, sought commands of Louis, who refused to take any decisive action. The Queen, nearly on her knees, implored the wife of the procureur, Madame Sauce, to let them proceed on their way. The woman expressed sympathy for her, but said that she too had a husband and children to care for. Meanwhile barricades were being strengthened, the alarm-bells were ringing through all the countryside, and by the morning the town was crowded with national guards, with whom the troops were drinking. The return journey was therefore begun, and five days after their departure the fugitives re-entered the Tuileries as prisoners (June 25).

When Louis’s flight was first reported, intense alarm prevailed at Paris. It was expected that civil war, already organised, was on the point of breaking out, and that the emigrants were about to cross the frontier. The King’s capture brought a sense of relief, but did not tend to lessen the difficulties of the situation. In justification of his departure, Louis had left behind him a document, in which he criticised the constitution from an unfavourable point of view, and called in question all that had been done since October 1789. Thus by act and word he had made known, without disguise, his intention not to rule in accordance with the constitution, and henceforth it was impossible that the country should have confidence in him. Ultra-democrats with one voice wisely pronounced his protest and flight a virtual abdication. Some, slow to take a decided part, amongst whom Robespierre was prominent, or desirous of putting the Duke of Orleans forward, demanded Louis’s deposition and a regency; others, as Brissot, Desmoulins, and Danton, more sanguine and more outspoken, called for the establishment of a republic. The Cordeliers, under Danton’s guidance, covered the walls with placards in favour of a republic. The Jacobins, following Robespierre, stopped short of this, and asked only for the deposition of Louis. Closing their eyes, however, to the undoubted fact of the King’s insincerity, the deputies of the left and centre rallied together to support the tottering throne. They were aware that the republican party was but a small minority. Lafayette and Barnave, as well as other deputies, held themselves pledged in honour to Louis to maintain his throne. In case of deposition, there was increased danger of involving France in foreign war. Neither a change of succession nor a regency appeared desirable. The King’s brothers were emigrants, the Duke of Orleans a tool in the hands of Parisian demagogues. Above all, there was fear that the deposition of Louis would tend to undermine the constitution itself, and give increased influence to the advocates of pure democracy. Under the influence of such motives, the Assembly determined to restore the executive power to Louis, should he accept the constitution when presented to him as a completed whole. The republican party attempted a demonstration against this decision. On Sunday, July 17, a large gathering of persons assembled in the Champ de Mars, where a petition was signed asking the Assembly to reconsider its decrees. The meeting itself was not illegal, and in character perfectly peaceful. It was possible, however, that within twenty-four hours the petition would be brought before the Assembly supported by an armed and threatening mob. Urged on by the monarchists, the municipal officers, accompanied by Lafayette and the national guard, marched to the place of assemblage. Before the Riot Act was read or dispersion possible, some companies fired, in irritation, into the throng, killing and maiming several persons, men, women, and children. General flight followed, and the petition was no more heard of.

This event, known in the annals of the revolution as the massacre of the Champ de Mars, caused complete severance between the men who were bent on maintaining the constitution and the ultra-democratic party. A schism took place in the Jacobins. The constitutionalists founded a new club, the Feuillants, so called because it met in a convent formerly belonging to monks of that name, while the ultra-democrats remained in undisputed possession of the Jacobins. Amongst the constitutionalists or Feuillants were Lafayette, Barnave, the Lameths, and all the most prominent men of the centre and left. Could they have done their work over again, they would have introduced material changes in the constitution, with the double object of making it more acceptable to the King, and enabling the ministry to exercise control over the administrative bodies. Their main fear was that, after the dissolution of the existing Assembly, new men would come into power who, having had no hand in framing the constitution, would not have the same interest as themselves in sustaining it. According to a constitutional law, those who had been deputies could neither enter the ministry nor hold any government appointment for a certain number of years; while a special law forbade the election of men who had been members of the present constituent Assembly to the ensuing Legislature. Robespierre had proposed this latter law in April 1791, and to obtain its adoption had appealed to the deputies to give proof of disinterestedness. When the constitutional laws were adopted in a body, ready for final presentation to Louis, some few amendments were made, but the attempt of the constitutionalists to obtain the repeal of these important disqualifications failed. The right voted with Robespierre and Pétion, rejoicing over the falling out of their opponents.

Louis, when the constitution was presented to him, undertook to govern in accordance with it, and the deputies then dispersed to give place to their successors (September 30). Called upon to effect in the course of a few months changes which could only be accomplished without convulsions in the course of years, whatever their errors, they had rendered France many and great services. By their legal reforms alone they did away with an untold amount of mental and physical suffering. By their economical and financial reforms they paved the way for a new era in agriculture and industrialism. If, under passion and prejudice, they had on occasions wantonly increased the number and fury of opponents, yet much that they had been called on to do remained still undone, and when they closed the sittings there was small prospect that the tide of revolution would stop at the limit which they had drawn. They had found neither time nor opportunity to establish any general system of poor relief or any national system of education. By their decrees dealing with proprietary rights they had struck at the root of the old law, but the work of promulgating a new code they left to those who came after them. With the fiefs had fallen the law of primogeniture, but liberty of devise had been left in the main unrestricted, though in default of a will all relations equal in blood inherited equally. This principle of equal division was not a speculative invention of the revolution, but as regards land held by certain tenures, it had already existed in some parts of France. The finances of the state had been restored only on paper. All the expenses of government were regulated and the civil list fixed. Four main branches of the revenue, tobacco and salt monopolies, excise duties, and duties on wine had been abolished. The yearly expenditure, including the expenses of the Established Church, was estimated at 27,900,000l., of which 21,350,000l. had to be raised by taxation. In place of the taille a tax of 13,125,000l., rated by local boards, was imposed on lands and buildings. Taxes of 2,625,000l. were imposed on personal property. The remaining 6,000,000l. were to be raised by various forms of indirect taxation, custom duties, stamp taxes, and trade patents. The debt, however, during these two and a half years of revolution had been greatly augmented, and the deficit increased. The holders of the abolished offices had been liberally indemnified, and the reforms effected in all departments cost the nation no less than 61,200,000l., swelling the state debt to more than 87,500,000l. Meanwhile the people had refused to pay the old taxes long before their abolition by the Assembly, and it was now only with difficulty that some portion of the new was collected. Not only to pay state creditors, but also to cover the expenses of government, resort had been had to new issues of assignats, and in the spring of 1791 the paper money fell in value about ten per cent. Metal money became scarce, being sent out of the kingdom or kept in reserve. To supply the circulation, assignats of a few shillings value had been created, and thus their fall in value affected all classes. In September 1791 there were in circulation assignats to the value of about 48,125,000l.

Marie Antoinette and Louis had no other aim in accepting the constitution than to deceive the nation until foreign powers were ready to act in their behalf. After her return from Varennes the Queen repeatedly urged on her brother, the Emperor Leopold, to effect the meeting of a European congress for the settlement of French affairs. This congress was to have at its disposition an army; but the Queen wished that war should be avoided. Her expectation was that the country, under terror of invasion, would gladly accept the mediation of the King, and consent to a remodelling of the constitution according to his wishes. She sought to separate the cause of the crown alike from the cause of emigrants and of constitutionalists. She recalled with bitterness the opposition of the nobles to the government before 1789, and deeply resented their subsequent flight as a base desertion of the royal cause. Their present conduct stood in the way of the accomplishment of her own plans and heightened her feelings of resentment. They refused to accept as sincere the King’s acceptance of the constitution; they excited the country by threats of invasion and vengeance; and, by representing themselves as defenders of the monarchy, brought on Louis suspicion of being their accomplice. ‘The cowards,’ she indignantly wrote, ‘first to abandon us, and then to require that we should think only of them and their interests!’ To alliance with the constitutionalists Marie Antoinette was as averse as to alliance with the emigrants. Even were they willing and able to make some modifications in the constitution, to rule on their terms was to rule under their tutorship. Accordingly, while pretending to be acting with them, she looked forward with impatience to the day when she might with safety show her hand and prove them her tools and dupes.

There was, however, small probability that a European congress would meet; still less that the nation would, without resistance, submit to foreign interference. Europe was in a disturbed condition. The great powers had no confidence in one another, nor were they desirous of acting in union. The empire of which the Queen’s brother was the head was composed of more than 300 states, greatly varying in size. The Peace of Westphalia, concluded at the end of the Thirty Years’ War (1648), had assured the princes all the rights of independent and absolute rulers. Imperial institutions were in decay. The military organisation of the empire was very defective and inefficient for its defence. The Diet consisted merely of a few diplomatists, sitting permanently at Ratisbon, who were representatives of the larger states, and whom the smaller entrusted with their votes. Under Frederick the Great (1740–1786) Prussia had developed into a strong power, which acted as a rival to Austria within the empire. On all important occasions the larger states followed the lead either of the Emperor or of the King of Prussia, and between the cabinets of Vienna and Berlin a bitter antagonism existed. Russia was another state which, during the past hundred years, had risen into prominence. The Empress Catherine II. was an able and ambitious woman, who had made use of the rivalry existing between Prussia and Austria to interfere with effect in the affairs of Central Europe. Throughout the century, all the great powers, influenced by ambition and a desire for strengthening their frontiers, had pursued a policy of territorial aggrandisement. Louis XIV. had taken from the empire Alsace and Lorraine; Frederick the Great had torn Silesia from Austria; in 1772, Catherine II., Frederick the Great, and Maria Theresa together had deprived Poland of some of her provinces; more recently the Emperor Joseph II., son of Maria Theresa, had sought to incorporate Bavaria with the Austrian dominions, and had formed an alliance with Catherine for the spoliation of Turkey. In 1783 Catherine obtained the Crimea, thus extending her dominions to the Black Sea. Under this condition of things, the main security of the weaker states was found in the jealousy existing between the more powerful. The principle of the balance of power required that no large alterations should be made in the map of Europe, and that no one power should make territorial acquisitions unless others obtained an equivalent. Thus the opposition of Frederick the Great had foiled Joseph’s project of incorporating Bavaria. It was the traditional policy of France to support Sweden, Poland, and Turkey against aggression, and the readiness with which the first partition of Poland was carried out in 1772 was wholly owing to the decadence into which the French monarchy had fallen under Louis XV.

In 1789, when the States-General met, Joseph and Catherine were engaged in hostilities with Turkey, while England, Holland, and Prussia threatened to take part in the conflict on behalf of the Porte. This war in the east, and the possibility of a European conflict diverted attention from affairs in France. In February 1790, however, the enterprising and ambitious Joseph II. died; and his brother and successor, Leopold II., a prince of cool and cautious temperament, made it his chief object to restore order within his own dominions, more especially in Hungary and Belgium, which were still in a disturbed state owing to Joseph’s reforms. To insure Austria against being attacked by Prussia, he made, in July 1790, a treaty with Frederick William II., nephew of Frederick the Great, at Reichenbach, and, to free his hands more completely, entered into negotiations with Turkey. He had no disposition to attempt the restoration of absolute monarchy in France. It was the belief of continental statesmen that where, as in Poland or in England, a constitutional form of monarchy existed, the executive was necessarily weak and precluded from acting with vigour or decision in foreign affairs. Hence neither Leopold nor his chancellor, Kaunitz, took exception to the establishment of constitutional monarchy in France, which indeed they regarded as a pure gain to Austria. But after the flight of the royal family to Varennes, and the manifestation of republican opinions in Paris, foreign princes began to look on Louis’s cause as the cause of kings, and to dread lest revolutionary principles, spreading beyond France, should render their own thrones insecure. Leopold, desirous to aid his sister, sought the alliance of Frederick William, and made peace with the Porte at Sistova. A meeting was held between the two allied princes at Pilnitz, where they signed a declaration expressing their readiness to undertake armed intervention in French affairs, if other European powers would unite with them (August 27). Practically this declaration was no more than a threat. Neither Leopold nor Frederick William contemplated immediate resource to arms. The English cabinet, directed by Pitt, had already refused to take part in common action. The alliance between Austria and Prussia was as yet but loosely knit and was regarded with distrust by the old school of both Austrian and Prussian statesmen. Affairs in the east, moreover, called for unremitting attention. Poland, situated between three powerful and grasping neighbours, was a prey to perpetual anarchy. The monarchy was elective, and the king was kept in check by the fierce and seditious nobility by whose votes he was placed on the throne. The peasantry were downtrodden serfs, and the middle class without political rights; king and nobles struggling for power invited foreign interference, and Russia and Prussia by turns exercised ascendancy at Warsaw. In May 1791, a patriotic party, eager to secure national independence by the establishment of a strong government, obtained the adoption of a new constitution, curtailing the privileges of the nobles and making the crown hereditary. This measure at once excited the hostility of Catherine. She gave support to its opponents, and in order that she might carry out her designs in Poland undisturbed made peace with Turkey, and sought to stir up a European war in the west, encouraging the French emigrants, and instigating the German powers to interfere in their behalf. Catherine’s zeal, however, rendered Leopold the less willing to involve himself in hostilities, since events on the Vistula were of much more moment to him than the details of the French constitution. When, therefore, in September, Louis agreed to rule in accordance with the constitution, he affected to regard him as a free agent, and in the hope that the constitutional party would maintain the upper hand, turned a deaf ear to his sister’s entreaties that he would obtain the meeting of a European congress. The King of Prussia entertained a violent hatred of the principles of the revolution, but Polish affairs and distrust of Austria restrained him from coming forward as a champion of Louis’s cause. Thus, while continental princes agreed that the revolutionary tide must be stayed, nothing was settled as to time and means.

In such a state of foreign affairs the new Legislative Assembly met (October 1), the only one which ever came together in accordance with that constitution which had cost so much labour to build up. It consisted of 740 deputies, who represented exclusively revolutionary France. There were in it no partisans of the old rule, and no reformers with aristocratic tendencies. The right side was now composed of constitutionalists, who held that only by close adherence to the constitution could the country be safely guided between the double perils of reaction and anarchy. Though without confidence in the King, they regarded him as much less powerful for harm than the leaders of the Parisian populace, and sought on all occasions to maintain him in the unrestrained exercise of his constitutional prerogatives. The left of the Assembly, though avowedly constitutionalist, at heart cherished a desire for the establishment of a more democratic government, and the abolition of monarchy. A group of men, remarkable for youth, talent, and eloquence, sat on this side of the house. They were called Girondists, because their chief orators—Vergniaud, Gensonné, Guadet, and others who formerly belonged to the bar of Bordeaux—had been returned by the department of the Gironde. These men were fervent democrats and republicans, and at the same time defenders of the principle of individual liberty. They were also sceptics and theists, inheritors of Voltaire’s passionate scorn and hatred of Catholicism. Brissot, who now had a seat in the house, belonged to them, and his journal became the recognised organ of their party. Their policy was mainly dictated by a theoretic aversion to monarchical government, and nervous apprehension of the consequences of Louis’s treachery. Alive, however, to the fact that public opinion was in favour of the constitution, they formed no definite plans for its destruction, but endeavoured to obtain the adoption of measures calculated to reveal the King’s duplicity, and so to weaken the hold that the throne had upon the affection of the nation. The body of deputies forming the centre of the Assembly sincerely desired the maintenance of the constitution, but had no reliance on the good faith of Louis, and hence oscillated between the right and the left, being desirous of maintaining the throne, and yet being afraid to give to the executive a hearty support or to take strong measures for the suppression of insurrectionary movements.

Important questions pressed upon the Legislature for solution. The ecclesiastical settlement attempted by the constituent Assembly was being daily proved impracticable. In many cases the administrative bodies strove hard to preserve the peace and to keep the Churches open, both to the nonjurors and their rivals; but their efforts were hopeless. Without a military force always at command it was practically impossible to maintain both parties in their legal rights. In some departments the nonjurors set themselves at the head of insurgent peasants. In others they were subjected to insult and outrage. At Paris they could celebrate mass only under the protection of national guards. During the summer of 1791 many administrative bodies, on the plea that by no other means could order be preserved, prohibited nonjurors from officiating in parish churches, and required them to reside in the chief town of the department, away from their former parishioners. The Legislature had no choice but either to abandon the imposition of the oath or to follow it out to its logical consequences, and to regard those who refused to take it as enemies to the existing order. The last course accorded best with the prejudices of the majority, who accused the nonjurors of being the sole authors of troubles to which the situation itself could not fail to give rise. Some on the left proposed to exile them in a body. The Girondists detested them as the most bigoted of Catholics. The right weakly sought, on the ground of religious liberty, to leave matters as they were; but the centre here voted with the left, and a decree was passed depriving nonjurors of their pensions, and preventing their officiating in public (November 25). Louis, however, refused his sanction, and the situation remained unchanged.

A second and no less important question before the Assembly was the policy to be pursued in relation to the emigrants and to foreign powers. The Elector of Treves and other rulers of the small states, lay and ecclesiastical, on the Rhine, gave encouragement and aid to the emigrants in arming against France. These princes were eager to involve the larger states of the Empire in hostilities. Their territories were amongst the worst governed in Germany, and they feared lest revolutionary principles should prove contagious, and affect their own subjects. Many of them had, besides, a special ground of complaint. In Alsace and Lorraine they possessed rights as seigneurs, secured to them by the Treaty of Westphalia, and of which the decrees of August 4 (p. 50) had deprived them. This matter, however, might easily have been arranged between France and the Empire had there been a disposition on either side to maintain peace.

The principles of foreign policy pursued by the cabinets of Europe, and the theories promulgated by the revolutionists, were in direct opposition to one another. Statesmen took no account of national forces or aspirations, but, intent on territorial acquisitions, were ready to distribute populations of the same race and tongue among different masters as suited diplomatic combinations. On the contrary, the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people involved a right to national independence. The constituent Assembly had publicly declared the aversion of the French nation to offensive wars, and had given proof of its pacific tendencies by limiting the army to 150,000 men. But the flight of the King and the drawing together of Austria and Prussia gave rise to great uneasiness as to the intentions of those powers, while the threat of interference in the Declaration of Pilnitz gave deep offence to the national pride. Measures were taken for increasing the army by an additional force of 97,000 volunteers. The Legislative, like the constituent Assembly, repudiated ideas of aggression and conquest, but became rapidly inflamed with warlike zeal. It gave expression to the intense feelings of hatred existing against the emigrants by a decree condemning to death as traitors all Frenchmen who, after the end of the year, should still be beyond the frontier in arms against their country (November 9). Louis refused to sanction the decree, and thus increased the suspicion resting on him of being the secret accomplice of those against whom it was aimed. The Girondists desired war with Austria. They were aware that there was no immediate danger of attack from the great powers, and that both the emigrants and the princes who abetted them, unless supported by the Emperor, were impotent; but they believed that, during war, the King’s duplicity would be clearly revealed, and judged it the wiser course, in place of waiting for attack, to begin hostilities, while Leopold still sought to avoid them. Enthusiastic confidence in the national spirit to fight to the last extremity in defence of its independence, and the expectation that the principles of the revolution would spread rapidly amongst other nations, and cause them to rise against their rulers, led the Girondists to entertain no doubt of the success of their arms. ‘Let us tell Europe,’ exclaimed a fiery orator, Isnard, ‘that if cabinets engage kings in a war against peoples, we will engage peoples in a war against kings.’ Of the constitutionalists few cared to avoid a rupture. The majority looked forward to war as a means of insuring the ascendancy of their own party, and of bringing into existence a powerful army under Lafayette’s command. There was no difficulty in finding a ground of quarrel with Leopold either as Emperor or as King of Hungary and Bohemia. The Assembly threatened to attack the empire unless the bands of emigrants on the frontier were dispersed. Afterwards, shifting its ground, it accused Leopold of having broken the treaty of 1756 between France and Austria, and declared that a refusal to renounce all treaties directed against the independence of the French nation—in other words, his understanding with the King of Prussia—would be held tantamount to a declaration of war (January 25, 1792). This hostile attitude of the Assembly hastened the conclusion of a defensive alliance between Austria and Prussia; after which Leopold, no longer caring to delay hostilities, added fuel to the flame by claiming a right of interference in the internal affairs of France, and by accusing the Assembly of being under the illegal ascendancy of republicans and Jacobins.

The outbreak of war might probably have been postponed, but it could hardly have been definitely averted. The doctrines of social and political equality announced by the French revolutionists were not, as were the arguments from law and precedent which had in the seventeenth century risen to the surface in the English Long Parliament, adapted merely to the country in which they arose. They were applicable to all the states of Western Europe. Hence, they acquired all the force of a religious propaganda. As in the sixteenth century men were not asked whether they were Germans or Frenchmen, but whether they were Catholics or Protestants, so now they would be first asked whether they were on the side of the revolutionary opinions or not. Before that great division of opinions all national antagonisms sank into comparative insignificance. The French revolutionist could not long avoid being carried away by a fierce desire to give effectual aid to his brother revolutionist abroad, and the German or English anti-revolutionist could not long keep his hands out of the fray whilst the classes in France with whom he warmly sympathised were being borne down and oppressed.

The ministry at this important crisis was disunited and without the confidence of the Assembly. While the Assembly desired war, Delessart, minister of foreign affairs, sought to maintain peace. The minister of war, Narbonne, a friend of Lafayette, flung so much energy and enthusiasm into the work of making preparations for hostilities that he won support from both sides of the Assembly. Bertrand de Molleville, minister of marine, was a reactionary. Louis through aversion to Lafayette dismissed Narbonne from office. Brissot took advantage of the discontent that this step excited amongst constitutionalists to bring a charge of high treason against Delessart for betraying the interests of France to Austria (March 10). This attack led to a break-up of the cabinet, and Louis, whose one object now was to tide with safety over the next few months, till the arrival of the allies at Paris, put in office men who represented the opinions dominant in the Assembly. Roland and Clavière, respectively ministers of the interior and of finance, belonged to the Girondists. Dumouriez, minister of foreign affairs, was an able, self-confident and unscrupulous soldier, eager to obtain distinction and a career. On March 1, Leopold had died. His son and successor, Francis, a young man of four-and-twenty, who was some months later elected Emperor, cared less to avoid a rupture than his father had done. The new French ministry was above all a war ministry, and on the official proposition of the King, the Assembly amid loud applause, declared war against Francis, as King of Hungary and Bohemia (April 20). Wars have often been entered on with as little ground of offence, but rarely with more rashness than when the Assembly thus engaged France in hostilities with Austria, which would necessarily involve a war also with her ally Prussia. The French fortresses were out of repair and the army completely disorganised. Since 1789 hundreds of officers had resigned, deserted, or had been driven away by their men. According to the laws of the constituent Assembly under officers were elected out of the ranks, and officers generally advanced according to length of service. There were, however, hundreds of vacancies still unfilled, and desertions both in army and navy continued. Of the 150,000 troops of the line, 50,000 had yet to be recruited. The 97,000 volunteers ordered to be raised were for the most part unarmed and untrained.

The peril of the country excited on all sides suspicion and distrust, increasing the bitterness of party strife and threatening to undermine the standing ground alike of constitutionalists and Girondists. Girondists as little as constitutionalists had an interest in making further alterations in the bases of social order. If the Girondists held more democratic notions of life and government, yet by equality they understood equality of rights alone, and were to the full as zealous defenders of the principles of internal free trade and individual liberty. They were also political purists and precisians, who, while decrying the aristocracies of birth and wealth, were intent on founding one of talent and virtue. Hence no sooner had they obtained possession of the ministries than they came into sharp collision with whatever members of the ultra-democratic party did not share their genuine devotion to impracticable ideals. A spirit different from theirs was by this time rising into prominence amongst the Jacobins. The saddest result of the long exercise of arbitrary authority is that it renders mutual confidence impossible. The legacy of the old system of government to the new France was distrust. Man distrusted man, and class distrusted class. Thousands of persons who had embarked in the revolution full of sentimental hope and confidence were now rushing into the opposite extreme. They had known so little of their fellow creatures as to imagine that the new equality would be received with enthusiasm, even by those who had profited the most by the old inequality; and they now fancied that under every reluctance to accept the fullest results of the revolution was concealed a deep design to betray it. A perfect self-confidence easily leads to the most deep-rooted suspicion; and those who, after the long seclusion from all participation in practical politics to which most Frenchmen had been condemned for centuries, were inevitably ignorant how complicated modern society is, readily imagined all who differed from them to be traitors to their country. Not only was this suspicion directed against the King and those of the once privileged orders who remained in France, but it fastened upon all superiority of station or of intellect. Many who had been educated in the theories of Rousseau to believe unreasonably in the purity and intelligence of the masses, learned no less unreasonably to distrust every man who in any way rose above the common level, and offered himself with more or less qualification as a rallying point to the disorganised society around him.

The man who most represented this prevailing distrust of all superiority would in the end gain for a time that very superiority which he himself denied to be desirable, but which was required by the very necessities of human nature. Such a man was Maximilien Robespierre. A lawyer from Arras, he had been so far influenced by the teaching of Rousseau as to throw up a lucrative judicial post, lest he should be compelled to condemn a fellow-creature to death. From such feelings of pity for the human race to cruelty towards individuals there is in times of revolution, but a short step. The few who stood in the way of the entrance of the people into the promised land, where liberty, equality, and fraternity were to become the accepted rule of life, soon came to be regarded as monsters of wickedness, whom it was the duty of every good citizen to sweep away from the earth for very kindness’ sake. The time for such a proscription had not yet come. But Robespierre, though he was now excluded from the Legislature, as having been a member of the last Assembly, was always on the alert in the Jacobins, ready in dry and acrid tones to draw attention to every delinquency of those who were struggling to build up authority. The social and political formulas of Rousseau alone had taken root in his mind. He cared for equality, and he cared for democracy. For individual liberty he ceased to care as soon as he found himself in a position to get the better of his adversaries by resorting to the arms of absolute and despotic governments. He was certain to be a dangerous and a cruel opponent. His mind was logical and narrow, he was ambitious and envious of all above himself, cunning and hypocritical, yet earnest in pursuit of his aims, incapable of strong affection, of a generous act or a magnanimous resolution, and wholly devoid of moral sense. Whoever stood in his light he regarded at once as a personal enemy and a traitor to the people’s cause. By temperament he was nervous and cautious. He never set himself at the head of popular movements, always guarded his statements so as to mean much or little, according to circumstances; and in case of danger, delayed till the last moment to take a decided part. Robespierre opposed the war because he divined that both constitutionalists and Girondists entered upon it with the aim of obtaining for themselves mastery over France. While the Girondists accused him of making himself the people’s idol, he accused them of seeking power for party purposes. In the end he entirely destroyed the popularity originally enjoyed by Brissot, Guadet, and others in the Jacobins. The society had become even more democratic in character since the constitutionalists abandoned it in July 1791. The galleries were opened to the public, and were ordinarily filled by the most ardent revolutionists belonging to the lower and lower middle classes. Of this audience Robespierre won the entire confidence. He put himself forward as the special representative of the people, whose wisdom and goodness formed his constant theme. He personified the distrust felt by the lower classes towards the possessors of rank, wealth, and talent. He was himself indifferent to the enjoyments that wealth can give, absolutely incorruptible, an orator without brilliant qualities of any kind, but in appearance and language always respectable. Behind Robespierre, frequenters of the Jacobins and joining in the attack on the Girondists, were Desmoulins and others, to whom the preciseness and exclusiveness of Roland and Brissot gave offence, besides adventurers and agitators of the lowest type, whose sole object was to pave the way for their own advent to power and office. Marat, in his journal, openly accused the Girondists as well as the constitutionalists of being sold to the court, and included both in the general proscription which he unceasingly urged on the people of Paris.

The party conflicts waged in the capital were repeated in the departments. The central government was powerless to impose uniform action. Roland, the minister of the interior, issued circulars, inculcating the duty of obedience to the laws, but words were powerless to restrain the passions which the revolution had let loose. Each administrative body followed its own course, according as it was under the dominion of constitutionalist or Girondist opinions. In the departments round Paris small armies of peasants and brigands, often with municipal officers at their head, went about fixing a maximum price of corn and other articles of food. In Languedoc and Guienne insurgent bands extorted money and pillaged country houses. But nowhere was administrative anarchy so great and crime so rife as in the four departments of Gard, Bouches-du-Rhône, Vaucluse, and Lozère, where reactionary and revolutionary elements came into violent collision. In Lozère attempts were being made to excite amongst the peasantry a Catholic reaction, and an armed camp, in communication with the emigrants, was formed at Jalès. On the other hand, the municipality at Marseilles, composed of violent ultra-democrats, raised a force of 4,000 men, and disarmed a Swiss regiment at Aix, and the national guard of Arles. Avignon, under mob rule, witnessed the commission of horrible crimes. The Comtat Venaissin had belonged to the Pope since 1273, and Avignon, its chief town, since 1348. After the meeting of the States-General civil war broke out within this small territory between the supporters and opponents of revolutionary principles and of union with France. The constituent Assembly sent mediators who patched up a peace in January 1791. In September 1791 it at last decreed the union of Avignon and the Comtat to France. But it had been too late to prevent the perpetration of the most atrocious deeds. The force raised by the French party, which had been recruited from the lowest sources, quarrelled with its employers, the municipality of Avignon. A number of persons were imprisoned without regard to age or sex. One of the insurgent officers was in revenge brutally murdered in the streets. His comrades, led by Jourdan, a brigand by profession, retaliated by killing in cold blood sixty and more prisoners—men, women, and children—whose bodies they flung into a dungeon beneath a tower of the Papal palace (October, 1791). The assassins, though they were at first imprisoned, afterwards obtained their release in right of an amnesty, which the constituent Assembly before its dispersion had passed, covering all crimes attaching to the revolution.

The undisguised enmity of Robespierre, the cry raised for a maximum price of corn, the tragedy of Avignon, the illegalities and crimes incessantly committed, alarmed the Girondists, and tended to restrain them from coming to open breach with the constitutionalists; but they continued to regard domestic treason as far more dangerous than mob violence, both to themselves and to France, and fearing to give the executive the least vantage ground whence to facilitate the advance of the Allies, opposed with vehemence the employment of coercive measures, either to suppress political agitation on the part of the clubs, or to restrain administrative bodies from passing beyond their legal functions. They still entertained the belief that the people would be brought to obey the voice of reason, and thought that were Louis’s treachery once set in a clear light, the storm of revolution would pass over with the establishment of a republican government, and the country return without effort to paths of law and amity.