Unsettled Condition of Europe—Machinations of Russia and Austria against Turkey—Disasters of the Austrians—Capture of Oczakoff—Further Designs of Catherine—Intervention of Pitt—Gustavus of Sweden invades Russia—His Temporary Check—He remodels the Diet and pursues the War—Joseph renews the War—Disaffection in Hungary—Revolution in the Austrian Netherlands—Abolition of the Joyeuse Entrée—The Emperor declared to have forfeited the Crown—The Austrian Troops retired to Luxembourg—Death of Joseph—Outbreak of the French Revolution—Efforts of Turgot and his Successors to introduce Reforms—Loménie de Brienne—Recall of Necker—Assembly of the States General—The Third Estate becomes the National Assembly—The Meeting in the Tennis Court—Contemplated Coup d\'état—Project of a City Guard—Dismissal of Necker—Insurrection in Paris—The City Guard—Capture of the Bastille—The Noblesse renounce their Privileges—Bankruptcy and Famine—"O Richard, O Mon Roi!"—The Women and the National Guard march on Versailles—The King brought to Paris—Effect of the Revolution in England—Different Views of Burke and Fox—Rejection of Flood\'s Reform Bill—The Nootka Sound Affair—Satisfaction obtained from Spain—Motions of Reform in the Irish Parliament—Convention of Reichenbach—Continuance of the War between Sweden and Russia—Renewal of the War with Tippoo Sahib—Debates in Parliament—Discussions on the Eastern Question—The Canada Bill—It is made the occasion of speeches on the French Revolution—Breach between Fox and Burke—Abuse of Burke by the Whigs—Wilberforce\'s Notice for Immediate Emancipation—Colonisation of Sierra Leone—Bill for the Relief of Roman Catholics—Fox\'s Libel Bill—Burke\'s "Reflections on the French Revolution"—Replies of Mackintosh and Paine—Dr. Price—Dr. Priestley—The Anniversary of the taking of the Bastille—The Birmingham Riots—Destruction of Priestley\'s Library—Suppression of the Riots—Mildness of the Sentences.

Whilst the war of parties had been raging in England, matters abroad had been rapidly assuming a shape which threatened the tranquillity of all Europe. In France the elements of revolution had been fermenting, and had already burst into open fury with a character which, to observant eyes, appeared to bode inevitably their spread into every surrounding country. At the same time, the sovereigns of these countries, instead of discerning the signs of the times, and taking measures to guard their people from the contagious influence, were some of them acting so as certainly to invite the specious anarchy. In others, they were wasting their strength on schemes of conquest which only too much enfeebled them for opposition to the dangers thus preparing. Some of these warlike movements seem, at first sight, to have little connection with the history of England, but, more or less, they all are necessary to our comprehension of our own position in the time of those marvellous subversions which were at hand.

Least of all did the ambitious designs of the Czarina Catherine against Turkey seem menacing to us; yet these designs speedily drew into their current the whole power of Austria, endangered our relations with the countries on the Baltic, and attracted the revolutionary torrent over the fertile plains of the Netherlands, opposite to our own shores, menacing the stability of our allies, the Dutch. Catherine had found the Turks not so easily to be overcome as she imagined, feeble and tottering as she considered their empire. The absorption of the Ottoman kingdom and the establishment of the Muscovite throne at Constantinople had been her confident dream. But the Turks, though in a condition of decline and disorganisation which promised an easy subjugation[350] of them, had still their spirit of fanatic fatalism, which could rouse them to deeds of impetuous valour. The whole organisation and regulations of their army were in the worst condition. The janissaries, which had been amongst the finest infantry in the world, were now thoroughly demoralised and in insolent insubordination towards their own government. Their cavalry was numerous, but wretchedly disciplined. The commissariat was in the worst state conceivable, and their artillery, though it had received the energetic attentions of the French Baron De Toff, was contemptible. It might have appeared that nothing was necessary but to enter Turkey and drive the army, as a disorganised rabble, before the foe. But Catherine had not found it so. Her favourite, Potemkin, had been repeatedly defeated in his attempts to advance into Turkey from the Crimea, and Catherine had been glad to engage Joseph II. of Austria in the enterprise by a promise of an ample share of the spoil. In fact, the pair contemplated something like a partition of Europe. In their meeting at Cherson in 1787, Joseph had engaged to send one hundred thousand men to the campaign against Turkey. He had no quarrel with the Sultan, and though a zealous advocate for national reforms, he paid very little regard to national or international justice. In all his reforms, Joseph, with true Austrian spirit, showed the despot still. He did not attempt to carry such reforms as his subjects desired, but such as he thought proper for them; and he was always ready to force what he deemed liberalism and improvement upon them at the point of the bayonet. In attacking Turkey, he did not wait to proclaim war, much less to have a pretence for it, but he suddenly made a rush upon the neighbouring city and frontier fortress of Belgrade. The Turks, though taken by surprise, defended the place victoriously; and Joseph\'s subsequent assault on the fortress of Gradiska was equally unsuccessful and equally disgraceful.

In prosecution, however, of his unrighteous engagement to Catherine, he mustered the large army he had engaged to bring against Turkey, and in February, 1788, he made a formal proclamation of war, having no cause of hostility to assign of his own, but merely that his alliance with Russia demanded that he should support that power in its equally lawless invasion of Turkey. The Prince of Saxe-Coburg, who commanded one division of Joseph\'s army, entered Moldavia, and spent the whole campaign nearly in the siege and reduction of the fortress of Choczim. The Emperor himself accompanied another division, the destination of which was the renewal of the siege of Belgrade. He had been led by Catherine to hope, as his reward for the co-operation, the recovery of Bosnia and Servia, the acquisition of Moldavia and Wallachia, and the extension of his boundaries to the Dnieper. But, having waited some time for the junction of the Russians, Joseph\'s army assembled on the banks of the Danube in February, and occupied itself in securing the banks of that river and of the Save. Joseph himself joined it in April, accompanied by his favourite marshal and counsellor, Lacy, and having also with him, but paying little attention to him or his advice, the brave and able Laudohn, who had so successfully coped with Frederick of Prussia in Silesia. On the 24th he took the little fortress of Szabatch, whilst another part of his army suffered a defeat from the Turks at Dobitza. He then sat down before Belgrade, but carried on the siege with such slackness as to disgust his own troops and astonish all Europe. He was at length roused by the advance of the vizier, Yussuff, who was coming rapidly down upon him. At his approach, Joseph precipitately retreated behind the Save, while Yussuff threw bridges over the Danube at Cladova, broke the Austrian cordon by the defeat of a portion of the forces of General Wartesleben on the heights of Meadiha, and swept through the banat of Temeswar, Joseph\'s own territory, which he held, and threatened to invade Hungary. Joseph hastened with forty thousand men to support Wartesleben, leaving General Laudohn to conduct the war in Croatia. The army was delighted to have Laudohn at their head instead of the Emperor. He led it on the very day of his arrival against the fortress of Dobitza, which he took; he then passed the Save, drove the Turks before him, defeated seven thousand of the enemy before Novi, and took that place, where his operations were suspended by the winter. Joseph gained little credit by his junction with Wartesleben. The Turks attacked him, and, though they were for the moment repulsed, the Emperor retreated in a dark night, and Turks and Austrians resumed their former positions. After taking Verplanka, the campaign ended with a three months\' truce. But the Austrians had suffered more severely from the miasma of the marshes of the Danube and Save than from the Turks.

Meanwhile, the Russians had been occupied with the siege of Oczakoff, near the mouth of the Dnieper. There the Turks had endeavoured to burn their flotillas and flat-bottomed boats, in the[351] shallows, at the mouth of the river; but besides Potemkin, they had the able Suvaroff to contend with. This sagacious general drew the Russian flotilla under the forts of Kinburn, nearly opposite to Oczakoff, of which they were in possession. Thus safe himself, he swept the broad liman with his guns, destroyed many of the boats of the Turks, as they got entangled in the sands of the shallows, and compelled the admiral, who commanded, to withdraw his fleet. After several vain attempts, Oczakoff was stormed on St. Nicholas\' Day, the 17th of November. But this success was only obtained at the last moment, in the very desperation of despair, and when the campaign had cost Russia twenty thousand men, of whom five thousand perished in the final assault.

But the Czarina, though mistress of Oczakoff, was far from the end of her designs. She contemplated nothing but the subjugation of the Turkish empire. For this purpose she determined to excite insurrection in all the tributary states of that empire. Her agents had excited the Montenegrins to an outbreak; they had prepared the Greeks for the same experiment, and the Mameluke Beys in Egypt. She determined to send a powerful fleet into the Mediterranean to co-operate with these insurgents, to seize on the island of Crete, to ravage the coasts of Thrace and Asia Minor, and to force the passage of the Dardanelles, or, if that were not practicable, to blockade them. Thus opening the communication between her forces in the Mediterranean and in the Black Sea, she considered that Turkey would lie helpless at her feet. To give the necessary ascendency to her fleet, she had long been encouraging English naval officers to take commands in it. At the famous battle of Chesmé, it was the British Admirals Elphinstone, Greig, and others who had made Potemkin victorious. Greig was now at the head of the fleet that was being prepared at Cronstadt for this Mediterranean enterprise. She had also managed to engage eighteen British ships to serve as transports of troops, artillery, and stores.

If Pitt had possessed the far-seeing genius of his father Chatham, it was at this moment in his power, as the ally of Turkey, to have stepped in and given a blow to the ambitious designs of Russia which would have saved a far more arduous and costly effort for that very purpose afterwards. Russia had spared no pains to insult Britain, especially since the unfortunate contest on account of America. It was certain that if she once obtained Turkey she would become a most troublesome power in the Mediterranean; and it now required only the dispatch of a tolerable fleet to the Baltic, and of another to the Black Sea, to annihilate in a few days every vestige of her maritime force. Such a check would have caused her to recoil from her Eastern aggressions for the purpose of defending her very existence at home. Holland was bound to us by the re-establishment of the Prince of Orange, our fast friend, whom Pitt, with the assistance of Prussia, had restored to the throne, whence he had been driven by his democratic subjects, in spite of the assistance given to the rebels by France; we were at peace with Prussia; France was engrossed inextricably with her own affairs; Denmark was in terror of us; and Sweden longed for nothing so much as to take vengeance for Russian insults and invasions. Catherine\'s fleets destroyed, Sweden would have full opportunity to ravage her coasts, and to seek the recovery of her Finnish dominions. But Pitt contented himself with diplomacy. Instead of destroying the Russian fleet in the Baltic, or of attacking it in the Mediterranean the moment it commenced its operations on the Turkish dependencies, and then clearing the Black Sea of their ships, he contented himself with issuing a proclamation in the London Gazette, forbidding English seamen to enter any foreign service, and commanding the owners of the vessels engaged by Russia to renounce their contracts. Thus the fleet before Oczakoff was left to operate against the Turks, and the fleet in the Baltic was detained there.

To insure a powerful diversion, the Sultan had engaged the military co-operation of Sweden. Sweden had been forcibly deprived of Finland by Peter the Great, and she longed to recover it. She had a brave army, but no money. The Grand Turk, to enable her to commence the enterprise, had sent her a present of about four hundred thousand pounds sterling. Sweden put her fleet in preparation in all haste, and had Pitt merely allowed the Russian fleet to quit the Baltic, there was nothing to prevent the execution of the Swedish design on Finland, nor, indeed, of marching directly on St. Petersburg in the absence of the army.

But the English measures detained the Russian fleet in the Baltic with Greig at its head, and Russia was saved from her due chastisement. The King of Sweden, indeed, landed an army of thirty-five thousand men in Finland; and his brother, the Duke of Sudermania, appeared in the[352] Baltic at the head of a strong fleet. Nothing could have prevented Gustavus from marching directly on the Russian capital, and St. Petersburg was consequently thrown into the wildest alarm. But Gustavus was only bent on recovering the provinces which Russia had reft from Sweden. He advanced successfully for some time, the Russians everywhere flying before him; but Russian gold and Russian intrigue soon altered all this. Catherine ordered her fleet, which was in the Gulf of Finland, with Greig at its head, to bear down on the Swedish fleet, and, at the same time, emissaries were despatched amongst the officers of Gustavus\'s army with plenty of gold, and letters were sent to the States of Sweden, calling on them to disavow the proceedings of the king. Before Gustavus had left Sweden with his army, her Minister, passing over the king himself, had made similar communications to Gustavus\'s proud and disaffected nobles, and Gustavus had ordered him out of the country. The Russian and Swedish fleets now came to an engagement in the straits of Kalkbaden. The battle was desperate; the Swedes fought with their wonted valour; and the Russians, under the management of Greig and the British officers, showed that they were apt scholars. The two fleets separated, after doing each other great mischief, each claiming the victory. Catherine immediately rewarded Greig with a letter of thanks, written by her own hand, and with the more substantial present of a large sum of money, and a good estate in Livonia. Moreover, the partial success of Russia by sea had the effect of encouraging the corrupted officers of Gustavus to refuse to proceed farther in Finland.

Gustavus despatched the chief mutineers under arrest to Stockholm; but he found those who remained equally infected. In fact, the whole of the Swedish aristocracy had long aimed at usurping the entire powers of the State, and of dictating to the king. Whilst thus suddenly disabled, the men themselves in a great measure assuming the language of their officers, Gustavus found that Sweden itself was menaced with an invasion of the Danes from the side of Norway, at the instigation of Russia. It was necessary to hurry home, leaving the portion of the army in Finland, which remained subordinate, under the command of his brother. On arriving, Gustavus issued an earnest proclamation to his people to follow him to the defence of their country. But to lose no time he hastened on to Dalecarlia, the brave inhabitants of which had first placed his great ancestor, Gustavus Vasa, on the throne. They speedily mustered to his aid, and he led them directly against the Danes, who, under the Prince of Hesse, were already in possession of Str?mstad and Uddevalla, and in full march on Gothenburg, the chief commercial town of Sweden.

His arrival gave great joy and confidence to the people of Gothenburg; and at this moment, seeing the consequence of their too easy conduct, the British Government sent a peremptory demand to Copenhagen through Mr. Elliot, their ambassador there, that Denmark should desist from this invasion of Sweden, the ally of Britain, or, in default of this, that a powerful British fleet should be dispatched to the Baltic. The Danes evacuated Sweden, again retiring into Norway, but Gustavus was left to continue his contest with Russia. His broken army, under his brother in Finland, took up their winter quarters at the strong seaport of Sveaborg; and he himself prepared to make some decisive movement against his haughty and refractory nobles. Besides the Order of nobility, three other Orders sat in the General Assembly of the States; and Gustavus, confident of their affection to him, determined to throw himself upon them for protection against the nobles. He therefore, in the first place, sent for the chief magistrates, clergy, and citizens, and laid before them forcibly his position. He showed them how the recovery of the ancient Swedish provinces on the other side of the Baltic had been prevented by the defection of the aristocracy, and how the country had been invaded by the Danes through this encouragement. Made certain of their support, he then summoned a Diet, which met on the 26th of January, 1789.

The nobles rose in a body and quitted the Assembly; but Gustavus continued his speech to the three remaining Orders. He declared it necessary, for the salvation of the country, for him to assume almost despotic powers, and he called on the three Estates to support him in punishing the traitorous nobles, promising to secure the liberties of the country as soon as this was accomplished. Not only the three Orders, but the public at large zealously supported him. Stockholm was in a state of high excitement. Gustavus surrounded the houses of the chief nobility with his brave Dalecarlians; secured twenty-five of the principal nobles, including the Counts Brahé, Fersen, Horne, and others, who were consigned to the castle. He had already arrested nine of the leaders of the insurrection in the army in Finland, and these officers were[353] now also confined in the castle; others had escaped and fled to their patroness in St. Petersburg. To intimidate the king, nearly all the officers of the army, the fleet, and the civil department threw up their commissions and appointments, believing that they should thus completely paralyse his proceedings. But Gustavus remained undaunted. He filled up the vacancies, as well as he could, from the other Orders of the State; he brought the nobles and officers to trial, and numbers of them were condemned to capital punishment, for treason and abandonment of their sworn duties. Some few examples were made; the rest, after a short confinement, were liberated, and they hastened to their estates in the country. But it was found there, as everywhere else, that rank confers no monopoly of talent. The three other Orders warmly supported Gustavus, and he remodelled the Diet, excluding from it almost all the most powerful nobles, and giving greater preponderance to the other three Orders. In return for this, these Orders sanctioned an act called the Act of Safety, which conferred on the king the same power which is attached to the British Crown, namely, that of making peace or war. They granted him liberal supplies, and he quickly raised an army of fifty thousand men. As he considered the reduction of the restless and lawless power of Russia was equally essential to Britain, Holland, and Prussia, as to Sweden, Gustavus called on them to second his efforts. But Pitt would do nothing more than guarantee the neutrality of Denmark; and even this guarantee he permitted to become nugatory, by allowing the Danish fleet to give protection to the Russian fleet in the Baltic. A second Russian squadron, commanded by Dessein, a French admiral, descended from Archangel, entered the Baltic, menaced Gothenburg, and by the aid of the Danish ships was enabled to join the other Russian fleet at Cronstadt.

EXPULSION OF THE PROFESSORS FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF ANTWERP. (See p. 355.)
[See larger version]

The Swedes cursed the less than half assistance of their British allies, and Gustavus endeavoured to fight his way without them. He continued to win victory after victory on land; but Catherine soon brought down on his squadron of galleys, which attended his march along the coast to keep up his supplies, an overwhelming fleet of galleys[354] of her own. A desperate battle ensued, but the Swedish galley-fleet was at length overcome. Gustavus was thus greatly embarrassed, and compelled to stand merely on the defensive, till it was time to go into winter quarters. He continued for twelve months to do battle with Russia, and, though with insufficient forces, threatened the very capital of that country. A little support from Britain, Prussia, and Holland, would have enabled Sweden to regain its territories on the eastern shores of the Baltic, to curb the power of Russia, and to assume that station in the North which is essential to the peace of Europe. These countries, however, had not the statesmanship to appreciate this point, or the friendly feeling to effect it, and Gustavus was left to struggle on alone.

The Emperor Joseph of Austria had returned from the campaign of 1788 against Turkey greatly chagrined, and with fast-failing health. Had he been wise, he would have accepted the overtures for peace made to him by the Sultan, and have spent the few remaining days of his existence in tranquillity. But his ambitious and persuasive ally, Catherine, prevailed upon him to make another effort. He mustered fresh troops. A hundred and fifty thousand men were marched against the Turkish frontier, early in the year of 1789, in different divisions. It was a circumstance very much in their favour that the able Sultan, Abdul Hamid, died suddenly in April, and was succeeded by his nephew, Selim, a young, rash, and unprincipled man. The acts of Selim, in murdering and dismissing his father\'s best ministers and commanders, and the unruly condition of the janissaries, rendered Turkey especially open to the attacks of its enemies. Marshal Laudohn, supporting his earlier fame, took the fortress of Gradiska, and stormed Belgrade. But this was not accomplished till the 8th of October, and an attempt was then made to reduce Orsova, but this failed. Coburg and Suvaroff having joined, won a great victory over the new Vizier, Martinitzi, in Wallachia, on the 22nd of September, and the remains of the Turkish army retired to the pass of Shumla, on the Balkan mountains. Potemkin, on his part, had greatly increased his forces after the reduction of Oczakoff, and after a desperate resistance took Bender, famous as the abode of Charles XII. of Sweden, after the battle of Pultawa. Before winter, the Russians had made decided progress in their inroads into the Turkish dominions on the Black Sea. They had gained possession of Akerman, at the mouth of the Dniester; of Keglia Nova, on the northern banks of the Danube, and of other places on the Black Sea. They had also extended their frontier to the left bank of the Danube, and they had actually reduced every important place between the Bug and Dniester and that river. Had Catherine had a sufficient fleet in the Black Sea, Constantinople might have trembled for its safety.

But Catherine\'s ally, Joseph, was fast sinking, and his mortal sun was going down amid storm clouds, all collected by his reckless disregard of the rights of his subjects, great reformer as he desired to be. He had wantonly invaded the ancient constitution of Hungary; and on this the high-spirited and martial Hungarians had expressed their determination not to submit to it. They insisted that he should restore the regalia of their ancient kingdom, which he had carried off from Buda, the old capital, and where the Austrian emperors, as kings of Hungary, were always expected to be crowned, and to take the oath to observe the constitution. The Turks, already in possession of the banat of Temeswar, invited their alliance, offering to assist them in driving out the Austrians, and establishing their independence. Joseph, alarmed at this prospect, made haste to avert the danger by conceding the restoration of the Hungarian constitution and of the regalia, and the generous Hungarians were at once appeased.

But far different was the issue of the troubles with his Flemish subjects, which, with an unaccountable folly and absence of good faith, he had excited. He sent into the Netherlands Count Trautmansdorff as Governor, and General Dalton, a brutal Irishman, as commander. The latter ordered the professors of theology at Louvain to give way to the Emperor\'s reforms, and, as they refused, Dalton turned them out by force, shut up the colleges, and Joseph sent back again the German professors, who had been before recalled, to appease the popular indignation. But the colleges remained empty; not a student would attend the classes of the Germans. As the volunteer corps had disbanded themselves, in reliance on the Emperor\'s wish, Trautmansdorff calculated on an easy compulsion of the people, and he called on the Grand Council at Brussels to enforce the decrees of the Emperor. The Council paid no regard to the order.

The people having collected in great crowds in the neighbourhood of the Council House, Dalton ordered out a company of soldiers, under a young[355] ensign, to patrol the streets, and overawe any attempts at demonstrations in support of the Council. The young ensign, having a stone flung at him, without further ceremony ordered his men to fire into the crowd, and six persons were killed, and numbers of others wounded. No sooner did Joseph hear of this rash and cruel act, than he wrote highly approving of it, and promoting the ensign. The people, greatly enraged, rose in the different towns, and were attacked by the Imperial troops, and blood was shed in various places. With his usual disregard of consequences, Joseph was at this moment endeavouring to raise a loan in the Netherlands, to enable him to carry on the war against Turkey. But this conduct completely quashed all hope of it; not a man of money would advance a stiver. Trautmansdorff continued to threaten the people, and Dalton was ready to execute his most harsh orders. It was determined to break up the University of Antwerp, and on the 4th of August, 1789, troops were drawn up, and cannon planted in the public square, to keep down the populace, whilst the professors were turned into the streets, and the college doors locked. Here there occurred an attack on the unarmed people, as wanton as that which took place at Brussels, and no less than thirty or forty persons were killed on the spot, and great numbers wounded. This Massacre of Antwerp, as it was called, roused the indignation of the whole Netherlands, and was heard with horror by all Europe. The monks and professors who had been turned out became objects of sympathy, even to those who regarded with wonder and contempt their bigotry and superstition. But Joseph, engaged in his miserable and disgraceful war against the Turks, sent to Dalton his warmest approval of what he called these vigorous measures.

Joseph, in the face of these things, passed an edict sequestrating all the abbeys in Brabant. The States of Brabant therefore refused the voting of any subsidies, and Joseph, irritated to deeper blindness, determined to abolish the Great Charter entitled the Joyeuse Entrée, so called because granted on the entry of Philip the Good into Brussels, and on which nearly all their privileges rested. To compel them to vote a permanent subsidy, the military surrounded the States of Hainault, forcibly dissolved their sitting, and then calling an extraordinary meeting of the States of Brabant, Trautmansdorff ordered them to pass an Act sanctioning such a subsidy. But the deputies remained firm, and thereupon the Joyeuse Entrée was annulled by proclamation, and the House of Assembly dissolved. Joseph vowed that he would extinguish the rebellion in blood, and reduce the Netherlands to the same despotism which ruled all his other states, except Hungary and the Tyrol.

Trautmansdorff declared that, if necessary, forty thousand troops should be marched into the country; but this was an empty boast, for Joseph had so completely engaged his army against Turkey, that he could only send a thousand men into the Netherlands. On the contrary, the French Revolutionists offered the oppressed Netherlands speedy aid, and the Duke d\'Aremberg, the Archbishop of Malines, and other nobles and dignitaries of the Church, met at Breda on the 14th of September, and proclaimed themselves the legitimate Assembly of the States of Brabant. They sent the plainest remonstrances to the Emperor, declaring that unless he immediately repealed his arbitrary edicts, and restored their Great Charter, they would assert their rights by the sword. In proof that these were no empty vaunts, the militia and volunteers again flew to arms. Scarcely a month had passed after the repeal of the Joyeuse Entrée before a number of collisions had taken place between these citizen soldiers and the Imperial troops. In Tirlemont, Louvain, Antwerp, and Mons blood was shed. At Diest, the patriots, led on by the monks, drove out the troops and the magistrates. Dalton and Trautmansdorff, instead of fulfilling their menace, appeared paralysed.

Numbers of persons fled from the different towns to the frontiers of Holland, trade became stagnant, manufactories stood empty; the whole country began to assume a melancholy and ruinous aspect. Many of the refugees, formed into revolutionary clubs by French emissaries, were prepared not merely to oppose Joseph\'s despotism, but all monarchical government whatever. A powerful body of these placed themselves under the leadership of Van der Noot, a lawyer, who assumed the title of plenipotentiary agent of the people of Brabant; and of Van der Mersch, an officer who had served in the Seven Years\' War, who was made their commander-in-chief. These two men were in league with the new Assembly of Breda, and issued their proclamations. These Trautmansdorff caused to be burnt by the executioner. The patriots in Brussels who sympathised with those in arms were, many of them, arrested; the citizens were disarmed, the fortifications strengthened by palisades, and every means of defence was resorted to.

[356]

But in October the patriots of Breda surprised the forts of Lillo and Liefkenshoek, on the Scheldt. Dalton dispatched General Schr?der with a strong force, who retook the forts; but on Schr?der\'s venturing to enter Turnhout after the insurgents, a body of three thousand of them, under Van der Mersch, armed with pitchforks, bludgeons, and staves, attacked and drove him out. General Bender, who had been dispatched against the insurgents at Tirlemont, was driven out in the same manner. General Arberg was compelled to retreat behind the Scheldt, and the people were victorious in Louvain, Ghent, Bruges, Ostend, and most towns of the district. Both Joseph and his Governor and Commander in the Netherlands now fell into the utmost alarm. The news which Marie Antoinette sent from Paris to her Imperial brother only rendered this consternation the greater. Joseph, with that sudden revulsion which he had manifested on other occasions, after equally astonishing rashness, now issued a conciliatory proclamation, offering to redress all grievances on the condition of the Netherlanders laying down their arms. But they were not likely, after former experience, to trust any such promises of Joseph. On the 20th of November the States of Flanders assumed the title of the High and Mighty States; they declared the Emperor to have forfeited the Crown by tyranny and injustice; they proclaimed their entire independence, and ordered a levy of twenty thousand men.

Trautmansdorff now hastened to conciliate in earnest. He issued two-and-twenty separate proclamations, made all kinds of fair promises, restored the arms of the citizens, and liberated the imprisoned patriots. But it was too late. The insurgents, under Van der Mersch, were fast advancing towards Brussels, and Dalton marched out to meet them; but he was confounded by the appearance of their numbers, and entered into an armistice of ten days. But this did not stop the progress of insurrection in Brussels. There the people rose, and resolved to open the gates to their compatriots. Women and children tore up the palisades, and levelled the entrenchments. The population assumed the national cockade, and the streets resounded with cries of "Long live the Patriots!" "Long live Van der Noot!" Dalton retreated into Brussels, but found no security there. The soldiers began to desert. The people attacked those who stood to their colours, and Dalton was glad to secure his retreat by a capitulation. In a few days the insurgents from Breda entered, Trautmansdorff having withdrawn at their approach, and the new federal union of the Netherlands was completely established. The State of Luxembourg was the only one remaining to Joseph, and thither Dalton retired with his forces, five thousand in number.

But Joseph did not live to see the full extent of the alienation of the Netherlands. He had despatched Count Cobentzel to Brussels on the failure of Trautmansdorff\'s efforts. Cobentzel was an able diplomatist, but all his offers were treated with indifference. On the last day of 1789 the States of Brabant, in presence of the citizens of Brussels, swore to stand by their new freedom—an act which was received by the acclamations of the assembled crowds. They soon afterwards ratified their league with the other States, and entered into active negotiation with the revolutionists of France for mutual defence. On the 20th of February, 1790, Joseph expired, leaving a prospect full of trouble to his brother Leopold, the new Emperor.

At the period at which we have now arrived France was in a state of the wildest and most awful convulsion. A revolution had broken out, more terrible and furious than had ever yet appeared in the history of nations. The French people, so long trodden down by their princes, their aristocracy, and their clergy, and reduced to a condition of wretchedness and of ignorant brutality, almost unparalleled, seizing the opportunity of the distresses of the impoverished Government, and encouraged by a new race of philosophers who preached up the equality of the human race, had broken through their ancient subserviency, and were pulling down all the old constituted powers, ranks, and distinctions, with a rapidity which electrified the whole world.

The people might have dragged on a considerable time still in their misery; but the Government was in its death-throes for want of revenue, and Louis XVI., who ascended the throne in 1774, had but little political sagacity. The administration groaned beneath a mountain of debts; the mass of the people were exhausted in their resources; trade was ruined by these causes; and the nobility and clergy clung convulsively to their prescriptive exemptions from taxation. Long before the American war the State was in reality bankrupt. The Prime Minister of Louis XVI., the Count de Maurepas, was never of a genius to extricate the nation from such enormous difficulties; but now he was upwards of eighty years[357] of age; and, besides that, steeped in aristocratic prejudices. Still, he had the sense to catch at the wise propositions of Turgot, who was made Comptroller-General, and had he been permitted to have his way, might have effected much. Turgot insisted that there must be a rigid and inflexible economy introduced into all departments of the State, in order gradually to discharge the debts. The excellent Malesherbes being also appointed Minister of Justice, these two able and good men recommended a series of reforms which must have struck the old and incorrigible courtiers and nobility with consternation. They prevailed in having the Parliament restored, and they recommended that the king should himself initiate the business of reform, thus preventing it from falling into less scrupulous hands, and so attaching the body of the people to him by the most encouraging expectations. Turgot presented his calculations and his enlightened economic plans, and Malesherbes drew up his two memoirs "On the Calamities of France, and the Means of Repairing them;" but they had not a monarch with the mind and the nerve to carry out the only reforms which could save the monarchy. Turgot, who was of the modern school of philosophy himself, and well knew the heads of the school, recommended that they should be employed by Government. Had this been done, the voices that were raised so fatally against the king and Crown might have been raised for them, and the grand catastrophe averted. But Louis could not be brought to listen to any measures so politic; indeed, he was listening, instead, to the cries of fierce indignation which the privileged classes were raising against all reform. Turgot succeeded in abolishing the corvées, the interior custom-houses between one province and another, and some other abuses, but there the great plan was stopped. Both Louis and his Minister, Maurepas, shrank from the wrath of the noblesse and the clergy, and desisted from all further reform.

NOTRE DAME, PARIS.
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[358]

By a still greater fatality, Louis was persuaded to comply with the solicitations of the American colonists, to assist them in throwing off their allegiance to Britain. To rend these colonies from Britain, which had deprived France of Canada and Nova Scotia, was too flattering to French vanity and French desire of revenge. Turgot in vain protested that the first cannon that was fired would insure revolution; Louis consented to the American alliance, and thus set the seal to his own destruction. Bitterly did he rue this afterwards, still more bitterly was it rued by his queen when they both saw the fatal infection of Republicanism brought back from America by the army. When Turgot saw that this fatal war was determined upon, he retired before the wild rage of the noblesse and clergy, and from the ruinous weakness of the king. Minister after minister rapidly succeeded each other in the vain endeavour to keep up the old partial laws and privileges, the old extravagance and encumbrances, at the command of the king, and yet avert revolution. In turn Clugny, Necker, and Calonne withdrew discomfited.

The next person to attempt the impossible in the vain endeavour to keep the vessel of the old French monarchy afloat with all its leaks and rottenness, was the Archbishop of Toulouse, Loménie de Brienne. He had vigorously opposed Calonne; but there was no way of raising the necessary revenue but to adopt some of the very proposals of Calonne, and tax the privileged classes, or to attempt to draw something still from the exhausted people. As the less difficult experiment of the two, he was compelled to cast his eyes towards the property of the nobles and the Church; but he found the nobles and the clergy as ready to sacrifice him as they had been to sacrifice Calonne. When one or two of the more pliant or more enlightened members of those classes ventured to remark on the vast amount of untaxed property, and particularly of tithes, there was an actual tempest of fury raised. Tithes were declared to be the voluntary offerings of the piety of the faithful, and therefore not to be touched. As further loans were out of the question, some one ventured to assert that the only means of solving the difficulty was to assemble the States General. "You would convoke the States General?" said the Minister in consternation. "Yes," replied Lafayette, who was bent on revolutionising France, as he had helped to revolutionise America—"yes, and something more than that!" These words were taken down as most exceptionable and dangerous. All that the Assembly of Notables could be brought to do was to confirm the abolition of the corvée, and to pass a stamp act. They would not move a step further, and they were dismissed by the king on the 25th of May, 1787. The Parliament, or Chief Court of Justice, adopted a similar course, and it also was dismissed. The king then promulgated a new constitution, but it fell hopelessly to the ground.

Events now rushed on with accumulating force and accelerated pace. There had been a long drought, withering up the prospects of the harvest, and now, in July, came a terrible hailstorm, which extended one hundred and fifty miles round Paris, destroying the nearly ripe corn, the fruit on the trees, and leaving all that extent of country a desert, and the inhabitants the prey of famine. In such circumstances the people could not, those in other quarters would not, pay taxes; the Treasury was empty, and the king was compelled to promise to convoke the States General in the following May; Brienne endeavoured to amuse the active reformers by calling on men of intelligence to send in plans for the proper conduct of the States General, as none had been held for one hundred and seventy-two years. The public was impatient for a much earlier summons, but probably they would not have been much listened to, had Loménie de Brienne known how to keep things going. His empty exchequer, however, and the pressing demands upon him, drove him to solicit the king to recall Necker and appoint him once more Comptroller of the Finances. He imagined that the popularity of Necker would at least extend the public patience. The queen energetically opposed the reinstatement of Necker; the position of affairs was, however, too desperate, and Necker was recalled. His triumphant return was speedily followed by the meeting of the States.

On the 4th of May, 1789, Versailles was crowded by immense masses of people from Paris and the country round, to see the grand procession of the deputies of the three Orders advancing from the church of Notre Dame to that of St. Louis. The whole of the costumes, the order of march, and the spectacle had been carefully studied by the Court, so as to impress deeply the distinctions of the three Orders, and to humiliate the Tiers état. The evening before, the deputies had waited on the king, and even then he had greatly incensed those of the Tiers état who came most favourably disposed to him. Even whilst he[359] hoped to obtain essential advantages from the people against the presumption of the privileged orders, Louis or his advisers could not refrain from humiliating the Third Estate. Instead of receiving the deputies in one body, they had been carefully separated; the clergy were received first, the nobles next, and then, not till after a considerable pause, the Tiers état. Now, on the great morning, all Paris and the vicinity—thousands from distant towns—was astir. The streets of Versailles were lined with French and Swiss guards and made gay with garlands of flowers, and from the windows hung rich tapestries. The balconies and windows were crowded with spectators of all ages and both sexes—the handsomest ladies gorgeously attired. The deputies, instead of one thousand, amounted to one thousand two hundred. First marched the members of the Tiers état, six hundred in number, all clad in plain black mantles, white cravats, and slouched hats. Next went the nobles in black coats, but the other garments of cloth of gold, silk cloak, lace cravat, plumed hat turned up à la Henry IV.; then the clergy, in surplice, with mantle, and square cap; the bishops in their purple robes, with their rochets. Last came the Court, all ablaze with jewels and splendid robes; the king in good spirits, the queen anxious, and dimly conscious even then of the miseries that were to follow. Her eldest son, the Dauphin, was lying at the point of death in the palace, and her reputation was being daily murdered by atrocious calumnies. Yet still Marie Antoinette, the daughter of the great Maria Theresa, the once light-hearted, always kind and amiable woman, was the perfect queen in her stately beauty. Two things were remarked—the absence of Siéyès, and the presence of Mirabeau, two men who had already become popular leaders. Siéyès had not yet arrived; Mirabeau drew all eyes. His immense head of hair; his lion-like appearance, marked by an ugliness quite startling, almost terrifying; the spectators seemed fascinated by his look. He marched on visibly a man; the rest, compared with him, were mere shadows.

It was not long before the Third Estate was discovered to be in hopeless antagonism with the Court and privileged Orders, and they resolved to act separately. They must act for themselves and for the people at large, or, by further delays, lose all the advantages of the moment. They resolved to assume the character of the representatives of the entire nation. Siéyès declared that the Commons had waited on the other Orders long enough. They had given in to all the conciliations proposed; their condescensions had been unavailing; they could delay no longer, without abandoning their duty to the country. A great debate arose regarding the name that the body of deputies which resolved to become the real legislative power should choose. Mirabeau proposed, the "Representatives of the People;" Mounier, "The Deliberative Majority in the absence of the Minority;" and Legrand, "The National Assembly." The proposal of Mounier was soon disposed of; but there was a strong inclination in favour of "The National Assembly," and Mirabeau vehemently opposed it. The name of "National Assembly" had, it is said, been recommended to Lafayette by Jefferson, the American Minister, and as Lafayette had not yet ventured to move before his Order, and join the Tiers état, Legrand, an obscure member, and lately a provincial advocate, was employed to propose it. But Siéyès had, in his famous brochure on the "Rights of Man," long before thrown out these words:—"The Tiers état alone, it will be said, cannot form a States General. So much the better; it will constitute a National Assembly!" On the 15th of June, Siéyès proposed that the title should be "The National Assembly of Representatives, known and verified by the French Nation." Mirabeau indignantly repelled the title in any shape. He declared that such a title, by denying the rights and existence of the other two Orders, would plunge the nation into civil war. Legrand proposed to modify the name by making it "The General Assembly." Siéyès then came back to his original title of simply "The National Assembly," as devoid of all ambiguity, and Mirabeau still more violently opposed it. But it was soon seen that this name carried the opinion of the mob with it; the deputies cried out loudly for it; the galleries joined as loudly in the cries. Mirabeau in a fierce rage read his speech, said to have been written by his friend Dumont, before the president Bailly, and withdrew, using violent language against the people who had hooted him down, declaring that they would soon be compelled to seek his aid. He had protested in his speech that the veto, which some of the deputies wished to refuse to the king, must be given to him; that without the royal veto he would rather live in Constantinople than in France; that he could conceive nothing more dreadful than the sovereignty of six hundred persons; that they would very soon declare themselves hereditary, and would[360] finish, like all other aristocracies that the world had ever seen, by usurping everything. These words, only too prophetic, had brought down upon him a tempest of execration; and writhing under it he had hastened to the Court and had an interview with Necker, warning him of the danger of the crisis, and offering to use his influence in favour of the king\'s authority. Necker received him coldly, and thus Mirabeau was thrown back on the people. Siéyès\'s motion was carried by a majority of four hundred and ninety-one against ninety; and the National Assembly was proclaimed amid loud acclamations, mingled with cries of "Vive le Roi!"

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION: COSTUME OF LADY OF THE PERIOD.
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This alarming event produced an instant and zealous union of the Court and the nobles. The heads of the aristocracy and of the dignified clergy threw themselves at the feet of the king, declaring the monarchy lost if he did not at once dismiss the States. The utmost confusion reigned in the palace. The unhappy Louis, never able to form a resolution of his own, was made to sway to and fro like a pendulum between opposite recommendations. The Assembly had adjourned on the 19th to the next day, and Bailly, on reaching the door of the hall, attended by many other deputies found it not only closed, but surrounded by soldiers of the French Guard, who had orders to refuse admittance to every one. Some of the fiercer young spirits amongst the deputies proposed to force their way in; but the officer in command ordered his men to stand to their arms, and showed that he would make use of them. Bailly induced the young men to be patient, and obtained leave from the officer to enter a court and write a protest. A brisk conference was then held, while standing in the Avenue de Paris, in the midst of pouring rain, as to whither they should betake themselves. The deputy Guillotin recommended that they should go to Old Versailles, to the Jeu de Paume, or Tennis Court, and this plan was adopted.

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION: COSTUME OF 1790.
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Before leaving, the courteous officer permitted Bailly and about half-a-dozen deputies to enter and bring out their papers. The carpenters were already at work making preparations for the royal séance, which was intended for a counter-manifestation, and as the body of the deputies, now nearly completing their six hundred, marched through the streets, they heard the heralds[361] proclaiming it for Monday, the 22nd. Bailly felt that there was more indignity intended than even that of turning them so unceremoniously out of their house, for a message had been sent to him from the king, announcing the séance, but it had not been delivered to him, as etiquette required, at the hall, but at his private house, and not by a written dispatch, but verbally by De Brézé, the master of ceremonies. When the deputies, with their president at their head, reached the Tennis Court, they found it a very spacious apartment, but naked, unfurnished, and desolate. There were no seats for the deputies, and a chair being offered to Bailly he declined it, saying he would not sit whilst the other members were standing. A wooden bench was brought, and served for a desk, two deputies were stationed as doorkeepers, and the keeper of the Court appeared and offered them his services. Great numbers of the populace crowded in, and the deliberations commenced. There were loud complaints of the interruption of their sitting, and many proposals to prevent such accidents in future. It was proposed to adjourn to Paris, where they would have the support of the people, and this project was received with enthusiasm; but Bailly feared that they might be attacked on the way, and, moreover, that such a measure would give an advantage to their enemies, looking like a desertion of their ground. Mounier then proposed that the deputies should bind themselves by an oath never to separate till they had completed the Constitution. This was hailed with enthusiasm. The oath was drawn up, and Bailly, standing on the bench, read it aloud:—"You solemnly swear never to separate, and to re-assemble whenever circumstances shall require it, until the Constitution of the kingdom is founded and established on a solid basis." As he read this all the deputies held up their right hands, and repeated after him the words, "We swear!" The formula was read so loud that not only the spectators within but numbers without heard it, and all joined in the cry, "We swear!" Then followed loud acclaims of "Vive l\'Assemblée!" "Vive le Roi!"

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION: COSTUME "à LA ROBESPIERRE."
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TRICOTEUSE, OR KNITTING WOMAN, OF THE NATIONAL CONVENTION.
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After this the royal sitting was useless, as the king\'s authority was disregarded by the Third Estate. The Court had to learn that the Tiers état had remained in their seats after the king and the nobles had retired. The Assembly then, on the motion of Mirabeau, declared its members[362] inviolable, and that whoever should lay a hand on any one of them was a traitor, infamous, and worthy of death.

"Thus," says Thiers, "was effected the first revolution. The Tiers état had recovered the Legislature, and its adversaries had lost it by attempting to keep it entirely to themselves. In a few days this legislative revolution was completely consummated." But it was not consummated without a violent fermentation of the populace.

The Court and the nobles were greatly alarmed, and secretly preparing for war. The nobles had joined the Assembly with the utmost repugnance, and many only on the assurance that the union would not continue. The members of that Order continued to protest against the proceedings of the Assembly, rather than join in its deliberations. The king himself had consented to the union, in the hope that the nobles would be able to put a check on the Tiers état. King and nobles saw now that all such hopes were vain. And whilst Necker was retained to satisfy the people for the present, and whilst Mounier, Lally Tollendal, and Clermont Tonnerre were consulting with him on establishing a Constitution resembling that of Britain, the Court was preparing to put down the insurrection and the Assembly by force. Marshal Broglie was placed at the head of the troops which surrounded both Paris and Versailles. He judged of both soldiers and citizens by the recollections of the Seven Years\' War, and assured the king that a little grape-shot would soon disperse the rioters. Fifteen regiments, chiefly foreign, had been gradually drawn round the capital. The headquarters of Broglie were at Versailles, where he had a brilliant staff and a formidable train of artillery, some of which commanded the very hall in which the Assembly sat. There was a battery at the bridge of Sèvres, commanding the road to Paris, and in Paris itself there were strong batteries on Montmartre, which overlooked the city, and which, moreover, were carefully entrenched. Besides these preparations, there were French regiments quartered at St. Germain, Charenton, St. Cloud, and other places. Altogether, fifty thousand troops were calculated to be collected. The old noblesse were impatient for the king to give the order to disperse the people both in Paris and Versailles; to surround the Assembly, seize the chief members, put them in prison, and send the rest adrift; to treat the ringleaders of the electors in the same manner; to dissolve formally the States General, and restore the old order of things. Had the reins of government been in the hands of a Bonaparte, the whole plan would have been executed, and would for the time, without doubt, have succeeded. But Louis XVI. was not the man for a coup-d\'état of that rigorous nature. He shuddered at the idea of shedding his subjects\' blood; and instead of doing that for which the troops had been assembled, he now listened to Necker, who reminded him that when the people were put down or shot down, and the States General dispersed, the old debts and difficulties would remain, and without States General or Parliament there would be no authority to impose or collect taxes. To Necker\'s arguments, the more timid and liberal nobles added that the excitement would soon wear itself out; that nothing serious could be done in the presence of such forces, and that the Constitution, once completed, all would right itself, and that he would have to congratulate himself on his bloodless patience in a new and happier reign. This was humane but fatal advice in the circumstances. The soldiers, allowed to remain inactive in the very midst of the hotbed of sedition, were sure to become infected with the spirit of revolution. The debates in the National Assembly were actively distributed in print, and the soldiers read them eagerly.

Whilst the Court had been conspiring, the people had conspired too. The electors at the H?tel de Ville listened with avidity to a suggestion of Mirabeau, thrown out in the National Assembly, which passed at the time without much notice. This was for organising the citizens into a City Guard. The plan had originated with Dumont and his countryman, Duroverai, both Genevese. Mirabeau had adopted and promulgated it. Fallen unnoticed in the Assembly, on the 10th of July Carra revived it at the H?tel de Ville. He declared that the right of the Commune to take means for the defence of the city was older than the Monarchy itself. The Parisian people seconded, in an immense multitude, this daring proposition, and desired nothing more than a direct order to arm themselves and to maintain their own safety. Thus encouraged, Mirabeau renewed his motion in the National Assembly. He demanded that the troops should be withdrawn from the neighbourhood of Versailles and Paris, and a burgher guard substituted. He also moved that the "discussion on the Constitution should be suspended till the security of the capital and the Assembly were effected." He moved for an address to the king, praying him to dismiss the[363] troops, and rely on the affections of his people. The motion was carried, and a committee appointed to draw up the address. The address was presented by a deputation of twenty-four members. The king replied that the troops had been assembled to preserve public tranquillity and to protect the National Assembly; but that if the Assembly felt any apprehension, he would send away the troops to Noyon or Soissons and would go himself to Compiègne. This answer was anything but satisfactory, for this would be to withdraw the Assembly much farther from Paris, and the movement would thus weaken the influence of the Assembly, and at the same time place the king between two powerful armies—the one under Broglie, at Soissons, and another which lay on the river Oise, under the Marquis de Bouillé, a most determined Royalist. The Assembly was greatly disconcerted when this reply was reported.

At this very moment Necker was receiving his dismissal. His situation at Court had been most painful. The people surrounded the palace, crying, "Vive Necker!" "Vive le Ministre du Peuple!" He was more popular than ever, because he had had no part in the insult to the Tiers état on the 23rd of June. At the same time, when the queen appeared on the balcony with a child in her arms, the fiercest execrations were uttered amid curses on the aristocrats. This made Necker all the more unpopular within the palace. He was accused of having produced all the mischiefs by advising the king to summon the States General. He retorted that the nobles and bishops were the cause, by preventing the king from following the plans he had laid down. Necker, therefore, begged to resign; but he had been always desired to remain, for the Court apprehended an outbreak if he were dismissed. But now, matters being deemed sufficiently safe—the army being in grand force—the king, on the 11th of July, took him at his word. Necker was just sitting down to dinner when he received the king\'s note, which begged him to keep his retirement secret, and to get across the frontier as expeditiously as possible.

On the morning of the next day, Sunday, the 12th of July, the news was all over Paris that Necker was dismissed. The alarm was intense. Paris was in an uproar. The Palais Royal was choked with people in a frenzy of excitement. All at once a young man leaped upon a table and shouted, "To arms! to arms! Whilst we are talking, foreign troops are gathering round us to massacre us!" This orator, whose loud voice and dramatic action stopped in a moment the buzz of tongues and the voices of lesser orators, mounted on chairs and tables, was Benoit Camille Desmoulins, already a favourite orator of the people on this spot. This fanatic revolutionist now held up a brace of pistols; and, snatching a green twig from a tree, stuck it into his hat as a cockade. There was an instantaneous imitation of the act by the whole mass of people. The trees were all stripped, and a woman brought out a great roll of green ribbon, and cut off cockades for the patriots as far as it would go. The mob, armed with pistols, clubs, swords, and axes, continued their procession along the Rue Richelieu; then turning on the Boulevard, along the Rues St. Martin, St. Denis, St. Honoré, to the Place Vend?me. There a German squadron was drawn up before the hotel of the farmers of the taxes, and attacked the crowd, destroyed the busts, and killed a soldier of the French Guard who stood his ground. The commandant, Besenval, remained inactive in the école Militaire; he was without orders from Broglie; and, besides, dared not trust the French Guard, but kept them close in their barracks. But he had three foreign regiments at his disposal, one of Swiss and two of German cavalry. Towards afternoon, seeing the disorder increase, he sent the Swiss into the Champs Elysées with four pieces of cannon, and the German cavalry into the Place Louis Quinze, adjoining. As Prince Lambesc, with the Germans, was marching along the Chaussée d\'Antin, he was met by a body of the French Guard, who had escaped from their barracks to avenge their slain comrade. They fired on him and killed three of the German cavalry, and wounded numbers more. They then advanced with fixed bayonets to the Place Louis Quinze, where the Swiss Guard were posted. There they and the Swiss remained facing each other under arms all night, the people feasting and encouraging the French Guard; who, however, did not come to blows with the Swiss. Lambesc had continued his route to St. Cloud, leaving the city all night in the hands of the mob, who burnt the barriers at the different entrances, so as to allow free access to the people from the country; and broke open the gunsmiths\' shops, and carried off the arms. During the whole of the next day the city was in the hands of the mob.

Whilst these scenes were going on all around, and the city was menaced every moment by troops, by the raving multitude, and by whole squadrons of thieves and assassins, the electors were busily employed in organising a City Guard. But, previous to entering on this task, it was necessary to[364] establish some sort of municipal authority more definite and valid than that of the electors at large. A requisition was then presented to the provost of trades (prév?t des marchands) to take the head. A number of electors were appointed his assistants. Thus was formed a municipality of sufficient powers. It was then determined that this militia, or guard, should consist of forty-eight thousand men furnished by the districts. They were to wear not the green, but the Parisian cockade, of red and blue. Every man found in arms, and wearing this cockade, without having been enrolled in this body by his district, was to be apprehended, disarmed, and punished. And thus arose the National Guard of Paris.

During these proceedings, the National Assembly was sitting at Versailles in the utmost agitation. On the morning of the 13th, Mounier had risen and censured the dismissal of the Ministers, and had been seconded by Lally Tollendal, who had pronounced a splendid panegyric on Necker, and recommended an address to the king for his recall. M. de Virieu, a deputy of the noblesse, proposed to confirm by oath the proceedings of the 17th of June; but Clermont Tonnerre declared that unnecessary, as the Assembly had sworn to establish a constitution, and he exclaimed, "The Constitution we will have, or we will perish!" In the midst of this discussion came the news of the rising of the people of Paris, on the morning of the 13th, and an address was immediately voted to the king, beseeching him to withdraw the foreign troops, and authorise the organisation of the Civic Guards. The Duke de la Rochefoucauld said, the foreign troops in the hands of despotism were most perilous to the people, who were not in any one\'s hands. The address was sent, and the king returned a curt answer, that Paris was not in a condition to take care of itself. The Assembly then assumed a higher tone, asserted that the present counsellors of the king would be responsible for all the calamities which might take place, and declared itself in permanent session, that is, that it would sit day and night till the crisis was over. It appointed M. de Lafayette vice-president, in the place of the aged Bishop of Vienne, who was not capable of much exertion.

But the Court had hesitated too long. The people had taken the start of them, and now came sounds which paralysed the Court party with consternation. Scarcely was midnight passed on this eventful 14th of July, when the throngs increased rapidly around the Bastille, and the cries grew fiercer, "Down with it!" "Let us storm it!" De Launay, the governor, had made all necessary preparations, charged a dozen long guns on the towers with balls of a pound and a half each, and disposed his little force to the best advantage. While the democratic leaders were negotiating with the garrison, the crowd grew first impatient, then furious. They advanced impetuously against the first drawbridge. Two men mounted the roof of the guard-house, and, with axes, cut the chains of the bridge, which fell down. The mass of assailants rushed forward towards the second bridge, but were met by a discharge of musketry, which did deadly execution amongst them and brought them to a stand. The firing proceeded at once from the towers and from the loop-holes below. A number of the assailants fell, whilst only two of the muskets fired by the people during the whole day took effect. De Launay now gave orders to fire on the assailants with grape. This drove them back to some distance, but they soon came on more furious than ever. De Launay looked in vain for the promised succour from Besenval or Broglie, and seeing the ever-increasing and ever more raging thousands around, he lost his head, was seized with despair, and resolved to blow up the prison and a great part of the old town near it. Six hundred and thirty-five barrels of gunpowder were deposited in the magazine. Seizing a match, he ran to cast it into an open barrel, and thus send into the air the horrible old fortress, himself, and garrison. With it must inevitably have been destroyed all the quarter of the Bastille, all the Marais, and a great part of the Faubourg St. Antoine. Two uncommissioned officers stopped him by crossing their bayonets. He then attempted to kill himself, but was secured. His head was wholly gone—he was no longer capable of issuing an order.

The Bastille surrendered almost immediately after the governor had been seized with despair. The French Guard began to cannonade the fortress; the captain of the Swiss, who might undoubtedly have held out much longer, saw that no rescue came, and that prolonged resistance would only lead in the end to sanguinary vengeance, he therefore hoisted a white flag. The captain of the Swiss demanded to be allowed to capitulate, and to march out with the honours of war; but the furious mob cried out, "No capitulation! no quarter! The rascals have fired upon the People!" The Swiss captain then said that they would lay down their arms, on condition that their lives should be spared. Then the gates of the old prison were thrown open, and the furious and triumphant mob burst in. The news of the fall of the Bastille came as a thunder-clap. The king, who had not been so confident, was gone to bed. The Duke de Liancourt, Grand Master of the Wardrobe, by virtue of his office went to his bedside, awoke him, and told him the amazing fact. "What!" exclaimed Louis, "is it, then, really a revolt?" "Say, rather, sire," replied the Duke, "a revolution!"

THE CONQUERORS OF THE BASTILLE. (After the Picture by Fran?ois Flameng.)
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[366]

The king agreed to visit the Assembly in the morning; and he went, attended by his two brothers. He addressed them in a kind and conciliatory tone. He said, "You have been afraid of me; but, for my part, I put my trust in you." This avowal was received with applause, in one of those bursts of sentiment, so sudden and so soon over, which mark French history one moment with tearful emotions and the next with savage bloodshed. The deputies surrounded the monarch, and escorted him back to the palace with tears in their eyes. The queen, from a balcony, saw this enthusiastic procession. She stood with the little dauphin in her arms, and her daughter holding by her dress; and herself, greatly moved, was hailed for the moment also by the senators. For the time all seemed to be forgotten. The king consented to the recall of Necker. The Duke de Liancourt was appointed president of the Assembly, in the place of Bailly; and the nobles, who had hitherto absented themselves from the sittings, now attended and voted. Thus was the Assembly apparently amalgamated, and the revolution completed. A sudden fit of generosity seemed to seize the nobles in the Assembly—which, in fact, was a fit of terror—for they had come to the conclusion that no protection was to be expected from the Assembly against the fury and cupidity of the people. They saw that the Assembly was the slave of the people; that the army had fraternised with the people; and that they were at the mercy of the merciless populace. The Viscount de Noailles and the Duke d\'Aiguillon declared that it would be wicked and absurd to employ force to quiet the people. They must destroy the cause of their sufferings, and all would be accomplished. The nobles hastened to renounce their privileges. They crowded round the table to enumerate what they surrendered. The Commons, having nothing of their own to give up, surrendered the privileges and charters of towns and provinces. Some offered up their pensions; and one deputy, having nothing else, surrendered his personal convenience, pledging himself to devote his energies to the public welfare. The whole Assembly was in a ferment and fever-heat paroxysm of renunciation, such as could only be witnessed in France. Lally Tollendal, unable to approach the tribunal, sent up a note to the President—"Everything is to be apprehended, from the enthusiasm of the Assembly. Break up the sitting!" Lally moved that the king should be proclaimed the restorer of French liberty, which was carried by acclamation; that a Te Deum should be performed for this joyful event; and the Assembly broke up about midnight in a bewilderment of rapture and wonder at its own deed.

The Assembly had, on this memorable night of the 4th of August, decreed nothing less than—the abolition of all serfdom; the right of compounding for the seignorial dues, and the abolition of seignorial jurisdictions; the suppression of exclusive rights of hunting, shooting, keeping warrens, dovecotes, etc.; the abolition of tithes; the equality of taxes; the admission of all citizens to civil and military employments; the abolition of the sale of offices; the suppression of all the privileges of towns and provinces; the reformation of wardenships; and the suppression of pensions obtained without just claims. The Assembly then continued the work of the constitution.

In the midst of this constitution-making, famine was stalking through the country, and bankruptcy was menacing the exchequer. The first loan of thirty millions had proved a total failure; a second of eighty, according to a fresh plan of Necker\'s, was equally a blank. With the necessities of the Government, the necessities of the people kept pace. The whole country was revolutionising instead of working; destroying estates instead of cultivating them. Farmers were afraid of sowing what they might never reap; trade and manufactures were at an end, for there was little money and no confidence. The country was not become unfruitful, but its people had gone mad, and the inevitable consequence was an ever-increasing famine. This, instead of being attributed to the true causes, was ascribed by the mob orators to all kinds of devilish practices of the Court and the aristocracy.

The Court was soon alarmed by the report that the National Guard intended to march from Paris to Versailles, and, after removing the Bodyguard, to do duty at the palace themselves, in order to prevent the royal family from escaping abroad. Lafayette, now head of the National Guard, on the 17th of September wrote to St. Priest, one[367] of the Ministers, to assure him that there was no truth in the report, and therefore no danger. D\'Estaing, the commander of the Bodyguard, however, to whom Lafayette\'s letter was communicated by St. Priest, did not feel satisfied, and proposed to bring the regiment of Flanders to Versailles, and the Assembly being applied to for its sanction, declared it was no business of theirs; and thus, neither encouraging nor discouraging the measure, the regiment was sent for. It arrived on the 23rd of September; and, at the sight of the long train of waggons that followed, alarm seized both the people of Versailles and the Assembly. Mirabeau, who, by a word, could have prevented the coming of the regiment, now denounced it as dangerous. News flew to Paris that a counter-revolution was preparing, and that the foreigners would be marched on the city. All this terror of one single regiment showed a disposition to feign alarm, rather than the real existence of it; but the Court committed the great folly of creating fresh reasons for jealousy. The officers of the Life Guard showed a most lively desire to fraternise with those of the Flanders regiment, and the courtiers were equally attentive to them. The officers of the Flanders regiment were not only presented at the king\'s levee, but invited to the queen\'s drawing-room, and treated in the most flattering manner. The Gardes du Corps gave a grand dinner to welcome them; and, what was extraordinary, they were allowed to give it in the theatre of the palace. This took place on the 2nd of October. The boxes were filled by people belonging to the Court. The officers of the National Guard were amongst the guests. After the wine had circulated some time amongst the three hundred guests, the soldiers, both of the Flanders regiment and of the other corps, the company, with drawn swords, and heated by champagne, drank the health of the royal family; the toast of the nation was rejected or omitted. The grenadiers in the pit demanded to be allowed to drink the royal healths, and goblets of wine were handed to them, and they drank the health of the king, the queen, the dauphin, and the rest of the royal family amid mutual shaking of hands and loud shouts of "Vive le Roi! Vive la Reine!" The band of the Flanders regiment then struck up the very expressive and celebrated song of Blondel when seeking his captive king, C?ur de Lion—
"O Richard! o mon Roi!
L\'univers t\'abandonne—"

The whole company caught the royal infection. They vowed to die for the king, as if he were in imminent danger. Cockades, white or black, but all of one colour, were distributed; and it is said the tricolour was trodden under foot. In a word, the whole company was gone mad with champagne and French sentiment, and hugged and kissed each other in a wild frenzy. At this moment a door opened, and the king and queen, leading the dauphin by the hand, entered, and at the sight the tumult became boundles............