The French Revolution (Vol.1-3). Taine Hippolyte
this final influx, the public sink is full to overflowing. Think of the extraordinary and rapid increase of population in Paris, the multitude of artisans brought there by recent demolition and constructions. Think of all the craftsmen whom the stagnation of manufactures, the augmentation of octrois, the rigor of winter, and the dearness of bread have reduced to extreme distress. Remember that in 1786 "two hundred thousand persons are counted whose property, all told, has not the intrinsic worth of fifty crowns." Remember that, from time immemorial, these have been at war with the city watchmen. Remember that in 1789 there are twenty thousand poachers in the capital and that, to provide them with work, it is found necessary to establish national workshops. Remember "that twelve thousand are kept uselessly occupied digging on the hill of Montmartre, and paid twenty sous per day. Remember that the wharves and quays are covered with them, that the Hôtel-de-Ville is invested by them, and that, around the palace, they seem to be a reproach to the inactivity of disarmed justice." Daily they grow bitter and excited around the doors of the bakeries, where, kept waiting a long time, they are not sure of obtaining bread. You can imagine the fury and the force with which they will storm any obstacle to which their attention may be directed.
II. The Press.
Excitement of the press and of opinion.—The people make
their choice.
Such an obstacle has been pointed out to them during the last two years, it is the Ministry, the Court, the Government, in short the entire ancient régime. Whoever protests against it in favor of the people is sure to be followed as far, and perhaps even farther, than he chooses to lead.—The moment the Parliament of a large city refuses to register fiscal edicts it finds a riot at its service. On the 7th of June 1788, at Grenoble, tiles rain down on the heads of the soldiery, and the military force is powerless. At Rennes, to put down the rebellious city, an army and after this a permanent camp of four regiments of infantry and two of cavalry, under the command of a Marshal of France, is required.1206—The following year, when the Parliaments now side with the privileged class, the disturbances again begin, but this time against the Parliaments. In February 1789, at Besançon and at Aix, the magistrates are hooted at, chased in the streets, besieged in the town hall, and obliged to conceal themselves or take to flight.—If such is the disposition in the provincial capitals, what must it be in the capital of the kingdom? For a start, in the month of August, 1788, after the dismissal of Brienne and Lamoignon, the mob, collected on the Place Dauphine, constitutes itself judge, burns both ministers in effigy, disperses the watch, and resists the troops: no sedition, as bloody as this, had been seen for a century. Two days later, the riot bursts out a second time; the people are seized with a resolve to go and burn the residences of the two ministers and that of Dubois, the lieutenant of police.—Clearly a new ferment has been infused among the ignorant and brutal masses, and the new ideas are producing their effect. They have for a long time imperceptibly been filtering downwards from layer to layer After having gained over the aristocracy, the whole of the lettered portion of the Third-Estate, the lawyers, the schools, all the young, they have insinuated themselves drop by drop and by a thousand fissures into the class which supports itself by the labor of its own hands. Noblemen, at their toilettes, have scoffed at Christianity, and affirmed the rights of man before their valets, hairdressers, purveyors, and all those that are in attendance upon them. Men of letters, lawyers, and attorneys have repeated, in the bitterest tone, the same diatribes and the same theories in the coffee-houses and in the restaurants, on the promenades and in all public places. They have spoken out before the lower class as if it were not present, and, from all this eloquence poured out without precaution, some bubbles besprinkle the brain of the artisan, the publican, the messenger, the shopkeeper, and the soldier.
Hence it is that a year suffices to convert mute discontent into political passion. From the 5th of July 1787, on the invitation of the King, who convokes the States-General and demands advice from everybody, both speech and the press alter in tone.1207 Instead of general conversation of a speculative turn there is preaching, with a view to practical effect, sudden, radical, and close at hand, preaching as shrill and thrilling as the blast of a trumpet. Revolutionary pamphlets appear in quick succession: "Qu'est-ce que le Tiers?" by Sieyès; "Mémoire pour le Peuple Français," by Cerutti; "Considerations sur les Intérêts des Tiers-Etat," by Rabtau Saint-Etienne; "Ma Pétition," by Target; "Les Droits des Etats-généraux," by M. d'Entraigues, and, a little later, "La France libre," par Camille Desmoulins, and others by hundreds and thousands.1208 All of which are repeated and amplified in the electoral assemblies, where new-made citizens come to declaim and increase their own excitement.1209 The unanimous, universal and daily shout rolls along from echo to echo, into barracks and into faubourgs, into markets, workshops, and garrets. In the month of February, 1789, Necker avows "that obedience is not to be found anywhere, and that even the troops are not to be relied on." In the month of May, the fisherwomen, and next the greengrocers, of the town market halls come to recommend the interests of the people to the bodies of electors, and to sing rhymes in honor of the Third-Estate. In the month of June pamphlets are in all hands; "even lackeys are poring over them at the gates of hotels." In the month of July, as the King is signing an order, a patriotic valet becomes alarmed and reads it over his shoulder.—There is no illusion here; it is not merely the bourgeoisie which ranges itself against the legal authorities and against the established regime. It is the entire people as well. The craftsmen, the shopkeepers and the domestics, workmen of every kind and degree, the mob underneath the people, the vagabonds, street rovers, and beggars, the whole multitude, which, bound down by anxiety for its daily bread, had never lifted its eyes to look at the great social order of which it is the lowest stratum, and the whole weight of which it bears.
III.—The Réveillon affair.
Suddenly the people stirs, and the superposed scaffolding totters. It is the movement of a brute nature exasperated by want and maddened by suspicion.—Have paid hands, which are invisible goaded it on from beneath? Contemporaries are convinced of this, and it is probably the case.1210 But the uproar made around the suffering brute would alone suffice to make it shy, and explain its arousal.—On the 21st of April the Electoral Assemblies have begun in Paris; there is one in each quarter, one for the clergy, one for the nobles, and one for the Third-Estate. Every day, for almost a month, files of electors are seen passing along the streets. Those of the first degree continue to meet after having nominated those of the second: the nation must needs watch its mandatories and maintain its imprescriptible rights. If this exercise of their rights has been delegated to them, they still belong to the nation, and it reserves to itself the privilege of interposing when it pleases. A pretension of this kind travels fast; immediately after the Third-Estate of the Assemblies it reaches the Third-Estate of the streets. Nothing is more natural than the desire to lead one's leaders: the first time any dissatisfaction occurs, they lay hands on those who halt and make them march on as directed. On a Saturday, April 25th,1211 a rumor is current that Réveillon, an elector and manufacturer of wall-paper, Rue Saint-Antoine, and Lerat, a commissioner, have "spoken badly" at the Electoral Assembly of Sainte-Marguerite. To speak badly means to speak badly of the people. What has Réveillon said? Nobody knows, but popular imagination with its terrible powers of invention and precision, readily fabricates or welcomes a murderous phrase. He said that "a working-man with a wife and children could live on fifteen sous a day." Such a man is a traitor, and must be disposed of at once; "all his belongings must be put to fire and sword." The rumor, it must be noted, is false.1212