The Long Nineteenth Century: A History of Europe from 1789 to 1918. Charles Downer Hazen
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and declared that the three orders should meet separately and verify their credentials. He rose and left the hall while outside the bugles sounded around his coach. The nobility, triumphant, withdrew from the hall; the clergy also. But in the center of the great chamber the third estate remained, in gloomy silence. This was one of the solemn, critical moments of history. Suddenly the master of ceremonies advanced, resplendent in his official costume. "You have heard the King's orders," he said. "His Majesty requests the deputies of the third estate to withdraw." Behind the grand master, at the door, soldiers were seen. Were they there to clear the hall? The King had given his orders. To leave the hall meant abandonment of all that the third estate stood for; to remain meant disobedience to the express commands of the King and probably severe punishment.
The occasion brought forth its man. Mirabeau, a noble whom his fellow nobles had refused to elect to the States-General and who had then been chosen by the third estate, now arose and advanced impetuously and imperiously toward the master of ceremonies, de Breze, and with thunderous voice exclaimed, "Go tell your master that we are here by the will of the people and that we shall not leave except at the point of the bayonet." Then on motion of Mirabeau it expressed by was voted that all persons who should lay violent hands on any members of the National Assembly would be "infamous and traitors to the nation and guilty of capital crime." De Breze reported the defiant eloquence to the King. All eyes were fixed upon the latter. Not knowing what to do he made a motion indicating weariness, then said: "They wish to remain, do they? Well, let them."
Two days later a majority of the clergy and a minority of the nobility came over to the Assembly. On June 27 the King commanded the nobility and clergy to sit with the third estate in a single assembly. Thus the question was finally settled, which should have been settled before the first meeting in May. The National Assembly was now complete. It immediately appointed a committee on the constitution. The National Assembly, accomplished by this fusion of the three estates, adopted the title Constituent Assembly because of the character of the work it had to do. No sooner was this crisis over than another began to develop.
A second attempt was made by the King, again inspired by the court, to suppress the Assembly or effectively to intimidate it, to regain the ground that had been lost. Considerable bodies of soldiers began to appear near Versailles and Paris. They were chiefly the foreign mercenaries, or the troops from frontier stations, supposedly less responsive to the popular emotions. On July 11 Necker and his colleagues, favorable to reform, were suddenly dismissed and Necker was ordered to leave the country immediately. What could all this mean but that reaction and repression were coming and that things were to be put back where they had been? The Assembly was in great danger, yet it possessed no physical force. What could it do if troops were sent against it?
The violent intervention of the city of Paris saved the day and gave the protection which the nation's representatives lacked, assuring their continuance. The storming of the Bastille was an incident which seized instantly the imagination of the world, and which was disfigured and transfigured by a mass of legends that sprang up on the very morrow of the event. The Bastille was a fortress commanding the eastern section of Paris. It was used as a state prison and had had many distinguished occupants, among others Voltaire and Mirabeau, thrown into it by lettres de cachet. It was an odious symbol of arbitrary government and it was also a strong fortress which these newly arriving troops might use. There was a large discontented and miserable class in Paris; also a lively band of radical or liberal men who were in favor of reform and were alarmed and indignant at every rumor that the Assembly on which such hopes were pinned was in danger. Paris was on the side of the Assembly, and when the news of the dismissal of Necker arrived it took fire. Rumors of the most alarming character spread rapidly. Popular meetings were addressed by impromptu and impassioned orators. The people began to pillage the shops where arms were to be found. Finally they attacked the Bastille and after a confused and bloody battle fortress was in their hands. They had lost about 200 men, killed or wounded. The crowd savagely murdered the commander of the fortress and several of the Swiss Guard. Though characterized by these and other acts of barbarism, nevertheless the seizure of the Bastille was everywhere regarded in France and abroad as the triumph of liberty. Enthusiasm was widespread. The Fourteenth of July was declared the national holiday and a new flag, the tricolor, the red, white, and blue, was adopted in place of the old white banner of the Bourbons, studded with the fleur-de-lis. At the same time, quite spontaneously, Paris gave itself a new form of municipal government, superseding the old royal form, and organized a new military force, the National Guard, which was destined to become famous. Three days later Louis XVI came to the capital and formally ratified these changes. Meanwhile similar changes were made all over France. Municipal governments on an elective basis and national guards were created everywhere in imitation of Paris. The movement extended to rural France. There the peasants, impatient that the Assembly had let two months go by without suppressing the feudal dues, took things into their own hands. They turned upon their oppressors and made a violent "war upon the chateaux," destroying the records of feudal dues if they could find them or if the owner gave them up; if not, frequently burning the chateaux themselves in order to burn the odious documents. Day after day in the closing week July, 1789, the destructive and incendiary process went on amid inevitable excesses and disorders. In this method feudalism was abolished - not legally but practically. It remained to be seen what the effect of this victory of the people would be upon the National Assembly.
Its effect was immediate and sensational. On the 4th of August, committee on the state of the nation made a report, describing the incidents which were occurring throughout the length and breadth of the land, chateaux burning, unpopular tax collectors assaulted, millers hanged, lawlessness triumphant. It was night before the stupefying report was finished. Suddenly eight o'clock in the evening, as the session was about to close, a nobleman, the Viscount of Noailles, rushed to the platform. The only reason, he said, why the people had devastated the chateaux was the heavy burden of the seignorial dues, odious reminders of feudalism. These must be swept away. He so moved and instantly another noble, the Duke d'Aiguillon, next to the King the greatest feudal lord in France, seconded the motion. A frenzy of generosity seized the Assembly. Noble vied with noble in the enthusiasm of renunciation. The Bishop of Nancy renounced the privileges of his order. Parish priests renounced their fees. Judges discarded their distinctions. Rights of chase, rights of tithes went by the board. Representatives of the cities and provinces gave up their privileges, Brittany, Burgundy Lorraine, Languedoc. A veritable delirium of joy swept in wave after wave over the Assembly. All night long the excitement continued amid tears, embraces, rapturous applause, a very ecstasy of patriotic abandonment, and by eight in the morning thirty decrees, more or less had been passed and the most extraordinary social revolution that any nation has known had been voted. The feudal dues were revolution dead. Tithes were abandoned ; the guilds, with their narrow restrictions, were swept away; no longer were offices to be purchasable but henceforth all Frenchmen were to be equally eligible to all public positions; justice was to be free; provinces and individuals were all to be on the same plane. Distinctions of class were abolished. The principle of equality was henceforth to be the basis of the state.
Years later participants in this memorable session, in which a social revolution was accomplished or at least promised, spoke of it with excitement and enthusiasm. The astonishing session was proclaimed closed with a Te Deum in the chapel of the royal palace, at the suggestion of the Archbishop of Paris, and Louis French XVI, who had had no more to do with all this than you or I, was officially proclaimed by the Assembly the "Restorer of French Liberty."
Thus was the dead weight of an oppressive, unjust past lifted from the nation's shoulders. Grievances, centuries old, vanished into the night. That it needed time to work out all these tumultuous and rapturous resolutions into clear and just laws was a fact ignored by the people, who regarded them as real legislation, not as a programme merely sketched, to be filled in slowly in detail. Hence when men awoke to the fact that not everything was what it seemed, that before the actual application of all these changes many adjustments must or should be made, there was some friction, some disappointment, some impatience. The clouds speedily gathered again. Because a number of nobles and bishops had in an outburst of generosity relinquished all their privileges, it was not at all certain that their action would be ratified by even the majority of their orders and it was indeed likely that the threatened contrary would prove true. The contagion might not extend beyond the walls of