History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814. M. Mignet
of the assembly. Had they gained this point, they would have acquired a great advantage, and with this view they themselves appealed to the sovereignty of the people. "Without doubt," replied Chapelier, "all sovereignty rests with the people; but this principle has no application to the present case; it would be destroying the constitution and liberty to renew the assembly before the constitution is completed. This is, indeed, the hope of those who wish to see liberty and the constitution perish, and to witness the return of the distinction of orders, of prodigality in the public expenditure, and of the abuses that spring from despotism." At this moment all eyes were turned to the Right, and rested on the abbé Maury. "Send those people to the Châtelet," cried the latter, sharply; "or if you do not know them, do not speak of them." "The constitution," continued Chapelier, "can only be made by one assembly. Besides, the former electors no longer exist; the bailiwicks are absorbed in the departments, the orders are no longer separate. The clause respecting the limitation of power is consequently without value; it will therefore be contrary to the constitution, if the deputies do not retain their seats in this assembly; their oath commands them to continue there, and public interest requires it."
"You entangle us in sophisms," replied the abbé Maury; "how long have we been a national convention? You talk of the oath we took on the 20th of June, without considering that it cannot weaken that which we made to our constituents. Besides, gentlemen, the constitution is completed; you have, only now to declare that the king enjoys the plenitude of the executive power. We are here for the sole purpose of securing to the French nation the right of influencing its legislation, of establishing the principle that taxation shall be consented to by the people, and of securing our liberty. Yes, the constitution is made; and I will oppose every decree calculated to limit the rights of the people over their representatives. The founders of liberty ought to respect the liberty of the nation; the nation is above us all, and we destroy our authority by limiting the national authority."
The abbé Maury's speech was received with loud applause from the Right. Mirabeau immediately ascended the tribune. "It is asked," said he, "how long the deputies of the people have been a national convention? I answer, from the day when, finding the door of their session-house surrounded by soldiers, they went and assembled where they could, and swore to perish rather than betray or abandon the rights of the nation. Whatever our powers were, that day their nature was changed; and whatever powers we may have exercised, our efforts and labours have rendered them legitimate, and the adhesion of the nation has sanctified them. You all remember the saying of the great man of antiquity, who had neglected legal forms to save his country. Summoned by a factious tribune to declare whether he had observed the laws, he replied, 'I swear I have saved my country!' Gentlemen," he exclaimed, turning to the deputies of the commons, "I swear that you have saved France!"
The assembly then rose by a spontaneous movement, and declared that the session should not close till their task was accomplished.
Anti-revolutionary efforts were increasing, at the same time, without the assembly. Attempts were made to seduce or disorganize the army, but the assembly took prudent measures in this respect. It gained the affections of the troops by rendering promotion independent of the court, and of titles of nobility. The count d'Artois and the prince de Condé, who had retired to Turin after the 14th of July, corresponded with Lyons and the south; but the emigrants not having yet the external influence they afterwards acquired at Coblentz, and failing to meet with internal support, all their efforts were vain. The attempts at insurrection, originating with the clergy in Languedoc, had as little effect. They brought on some transient disturbances, but did not effect a religious war. Time is necessary to form a party; still more is required to induce it to decide on serious hostilities. A more practicable design was that of carrying off the king and conveying him to Peronne. The marquis de Favras, with the support of Monsieur, the king's brother, was preparing to execute it, when it was discovered. The Châtelet condemned to death this intrepid adventurer, who had failed in his enterprise, through undertaking it with too much display. The king's flight, after the events of October, could only be effected furtively, as it subsequently happened at Varennes.
The position of the court was equivocal and embarrassing. It encouraged every anti-revolutionary enterprise and avowed none; it felt more than ever its weakness and dependence on the assembly; and while desirous of throwing off the yoke, feared to make the attempt because success appeared difficult. Accordingly, it excited opposition without openly co-operating in it; with some it dreamed of the restoration of the ancient régìme, with others it only aimed at modifying the revolution. Mirabeau had been recently in treaty with it. After having been one of the chief authors of reform, he sought to give it stability by enchaining faction. His object was to convert the court to the revolution, not to give up the revolution to the court. The support he offered was constitutional; he could not offer any other; for his power depended on his popularity, and his popularity on his principles. But he was wrong in suffering it to be bought. Had not his immense necessities obliged him to accept money and sell his counsels, he would not have been more blameable than the unalterable Lafayette, the Lameths and the Girondins, who successively negotiated with it. But none of them gained the confidence of the court; it only had recourse to them in extremity. By their means it endeavoured to suspend the revolution, while by the means of the aristocracy it tried to destroy it. Of all the popular leaders, Mirabeau had perhaps the greatest ascendancy over the court, because he was the most winning, and had the strongest mind.
The assembly worked unceasingly at the constitution, in the midst of these intrigues and plots. It decreed the new judicial organization of France. All the new magistracies were temporary. Under the absolute monarchy, all powers emanated from the throne, and all functionaries were appointed by the king; under the constitutional monarchy, all powers emanating from the people, the functionaries were to be appointed by it. The throne alone was transmissible; the other powers being the property neither of a man nor of a family, were neither of life-tenure, nor hereditary. The legislation of that period depended on one sole principle, the sovereignty of the nation. The judicial functions had themselves that changeable character. Trial by jury, a democratic institution formerly common to nearly all the continent, but which in England alone had survived the encroachments of feudalism and the throne, was introduced into criminal causes. For civil causes special judges were nominated. Fixed courts were established, two courts of appeal to prevent error, and a cour de cassation intended to secure the preservation of the protecting forms of the law. This formidable power, when it proceeds from the throne, can only be independent by being fixed; but it must be temporary when it proceeds from the people; because, while depending on all, it depends upon no one.
In another matter, quite as important, the right of making peace or war, the assembly decided a new and delicate question, and this in a sure, just, and prompt manner, after one of the most luminous and eloquent discussions that ever distinguished its sittings. As peace and war belonged more to action than to will, it confided, contrary to the usual rule, the initiative to the king. He who was best able to judge of its fitness was to propose the question, but it was left to the legislative body to decide it.
The popular torrent, after having burst forth against the ancient regime, gradually subsided into its bed; new dykes restrained it on all sides. The government of the revolution was rapidly becoming established. The assembly had given to the new régime its monarch, its national representation, its territorial division, its armed force, its municipal and administrative power, its popular tribunals, its currency, its clergy; it had made an arrangement with respect to its debt, and it had found means to reconstruct property without injustice.
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