CHAPTER II.
MIRABEAU.
At the end of that same year of 1789, the National Assembly decreed theabolition of tithes, without redemption, and the immediate sale of theproperties of the clergy. The value of these properties amounted to morethan four thousand million francs. At the beginning of the year 1790,the Assembly decreed itself the Convention. In that memorable session,Mirabeau took the floor, concluding a magnificent speech with thisperoration:
"They ask since when the Deputies of the people have become a NationalConvention? I reply, The day when, finding the entrance to their seatsblocked with soldiers, they adjourned to the Tennis Court, where theyswore to die rather than abandon the rights of the people! That day ourpowers changed their nature, and those that we have exercised have beenlegitimatized, sanctified, by the adherence of the people! I wouldrecall to you the words of that grand man of antiquity, who disregardedthe formal laws to save his country. Summoned before a factious tribunalto answer, Whether he had observed the laws, he said, 'I swear that Ihave saved the country!'" And turning toward the deputies, Mirabeauconcluded, "I swear that you have saved France!"
The entire Assembly rose to its feet with enthusiasm, and vowed that itwould disband only after the completion of its work.
In spite of this energetic attitude of the Assembly, the court continuedits intrigues against the Revolution. Louis XVI planned a new flight,for the purpose of seeking aid from the foreign rulers. It was at thismoment that the great scandal occasioned by the discovery of the RedBook electrified the city.
Deputy Camus had found among the papers whose surrender had beendemanded by the Committee on Finance, a certain ledger bound in redmorocco, containing the account of the secret expenses of Louis XV andLouis XVI. In the items on this ledger figured princes, grand seigneurs,and all the royal coterie. The Count of Artois, brother to the King, wasrecorded as having, under the ministry of Calonne, put his fingers on14,050,050 livres, merely for "extra expenses." Monsieur the Count ofProvence, another brother of the King, had gone through, for his part,13,880,000 livres. Among the courtiers, the Polignac family was down for700,000 livres pension: a Marquis of Autichamp for four severalpensions: the first for services of his late father; the second, for thesame object; the third, same reason; and the fourth--for the same cause.A German prince was also the beneficiary of four pensions: first, forhis services as a colonel; the second, the same; the third, the same;and the fourth, as a _non-colonel_. A certain Desgalois of La Tour wasdrawing 22,720 livres as the total of his four pensions: the first, asfirst president and intendant; the second as intendant and firstpresident; the third for the same considerations as above, etc., etc..
"At last we have it, the Red Book," wrote Camille Desmoulins with hisbrilliant imagery and pitiless incisiveness. "The Committee on Financehas broken all the seven seals which locked its fatal pages. Here isfulfilled the terrible threat of the prophet, here it is accomplishedbefore the last judgment: _Revelabo pudentia tua_--I shall uncover yourshame!"
All the while inflaming the inhabitants in whatever provinces it could,the clergy but awaited the opportune instant to blow into a blaze thecarefully sown sparks of civil war. The court and Louis XVI thoughtthemselves at the moment of triumph in having gained Mirabeau over totheir cause by the power of gold--Mirabeau, the mettlesome tribune, themighty orator, who had so far served the cause of liberty. Alas, it wasbut too true. Consumed with a thirst for luxury and pleasures, thatgreat spirit had sold himself to the court for a million down and apension of a hundred thousand livres monthly.
But death did not permit him to enjoy the fruits of his treason. On the2nd of April, 1791, he died. Some hours before his death he heard theboom of cannon, and said, in his gigantic self-conceit, "Do they alreadysound the knell of Achilles?" His last words, in which his treasonstands revealed, were: "I am in mourning for the monarchy; its remainswill be the prey of the malcontents."
The people, trusting and credulous, and ignorant as yet of therenegading of their tribune, learned of his death with profoundconsternation. I traveled over Paris that day. Everywhere the mourningwas deep. One would have thought a public calamity had fallen uponFrance; people accosted one another with the words, impressed withmournful despair: "Mirabeau is dead!" Tears flowed from all eyes. Theweeping multitude religiously followed the ashes of the great orator,which were deposited in the Pantheon. Nevertheless two voices, twoprophetic voices, rose alone above this concert of civic commiseration,protesting against the pious homage rendered to the memory of a traitor.
"As for me," wrote Camille Desmoulins in his journal, "when they raisedthe mortuary cloth that covered the body of Mirabeau, and I saw the manI had idolized, I vow I felt not a tear--I looked at him with an eye asdry as Cicero's regarding the body of Caesar pierced with twenty-threedagger-thrusts. It was the remains of a traitor."
And Marat, guided by a sort of intuition, wrote in _The Friend of thePeople_ the day after Mirabeau's funeral: "Give thanks to the gods,people! Your most redoubtable enemy is no more! He died the victim ofhis many treasons, by the farsighted barbarism of his accomplices.[9]The life of Mirabeau was stained with crimes. May a veil forever hidethat hideous picture. Mirabeau in the Pantheon! What man of integritywould desire to repose beside him? The ashes of Rousseau, ofMontesquieu, would shudder to find themselves in company with thetraitor! Ah, if ever liberty is established in France, if ever somelegislator, according to what I may have done for the country, shouldattempt to decree me the honors of the Pantheon, I here vigorouslyprotest against the black affront! Rather would I never die! Curses onthe name of Mirabeau."
Strange prophecy! Mirabeau's secret papers, discovered on August 10,1792, in the King's secret Iron Cupboard in the Tuileries, laid bareirrefutable proofs of his treason, and the National Convention onNovember 27 of the following year, issued the following memorableorder:[10]
"The National Convention, considering that there is no greatness in man without honor, decrees that the body of Honore Gabriel Riquetti Mirabeau be withdrawn from the Pantheon. The body of Marat shall be transferred thither."
Ah, sons of Joel! Never forget those sacred words, _There is nogreatness in man without honor_. For none was ever more exalted ingenius than Mirabeau! And nevertheless, the National Assembly,responsive to a sentiment of justice and impartiality that reflectshonor on it, expelled from the Pantheon the body of the man of genius,of the grand orator, of the fiery tribune who sold himself to the court,and replaced it by that of Marat, the humble journalist, the man ofprobity and disinterestedness, the friend of the people, theincorruptible citizen.
The death of Mirabeau disconcerted the court of Louis XVI, and shatteredits hope of dominating, disarming, and vanquishing the Revolution bymeans of the National Assembly; the court then resolved to execute aproject it had long been revolving, and had already vainly attempted atVersailles, on the days of the 5th and 6th of October. That project was:
"The King shall fly to some fortified place on the frontiers. There,surrounded by devoted troops under the command of a royalist general(the Marquis of Bouille), Louis XVI shall protest solemnly to all Europeagainst the usurpatory acts of the National Assembly, shall stronglyinvoke against the French Revolution the spirit of solidarity whichought to bind all sovereigns, and stamp out the revolt under the heel ofthe foreign armies."
This criminal project Louis XVI was on the point of carrying out. ButMarat, always watchful, always prophetic, had, several days before theflight of the King, denounced the fact in these terms in _The Friend ofthe People_ (June 16, 1791):
"They are working might and main to get the King into the Netherlands,on the pretext that his cause is that of all the Kings of Europe! Youwill be brainless enough not to prevent the flight of the royal family.Parisians--senseless people of Paris! I am tired of repeating it to you:Hold fast the King and the Dauphin within our walls; watch them withcare; shut up the Queen, her brother-in-law, and her family. The loss ofone day may prove fatal to the nation and dig the
graves of threemillion Frenchmen."
Here I, John Lebrenn, begin the extracts from my journal.