The French Revolution (Vol.1-3). Taine Hippolyte
have become objects of popular fury, and, when no other resource was left to us to avoid the tempest but to get rid of the endowments of the clergy, we yielded to force. It had become a pressing necessity, and I should have been sorry to have had you still here, exposed to the outrages and violence with which I have been repeatedly threatened."]
2140 (return) [ Mercure de France, Nos. of January 15, 1791; October 2, 1790; May 14,1791.—Buchez and Roux, V. 343 (April 13, 1790); VII. 76 (September 2, 1790); X. 225 ( June 21, 1791).—De Montlosier, I. 357.—Moniteur, IV, 427.]
2141 (return) [ Archives of the Police, exposed by the Committee of the district of Saint-Roch. Judgment of the Police Tribunal, May 15, 1790.]
2142 (return) [ Malouet, II. 68.—De Montlosier, II. 217, 257 (Speech of M. Lavie, September 18, 1791).]
2143 (return) [ I.e. members of the old local parlements.]
2144 (return) [ Mercure, October 1, 1791. (Article by Mallet du Pan.)]
2145 (return) [ Malouet II. 66. "Those only who were not intimidated by insults or threats, nor by actual blows, could come forward as opponents."]
2146 (return) [ Buchez and Roux, X. 432, 465.]
2147 (return) [ Malouet, II, 153.]
2148 (return) [ Decrees of July 23rd and 28th, 1789.—"Archives Nationales." Papers of Committee of Investigation, passim. Among other affairs see that of Madame de Persan (Moniteur, V. 611, sitting of September 9, 1790), and that of Malouet ("Mémoires" II. 12).]
2149 (return) [ Buchez and Roux, IV. 56 (Report of Garan de Coulon); V. 49 (Decision of the Committee of Investigation, December 28, 1789).]
2150 (return) [ The arrests of M. de Riolles, M. de Bussy, etc., of Madame de Jumilhac, of two other ladies, one at Bar-le-Duc and the other of Nancy, etc.]
2151 (return) [ Sitting of July 28, 1789, the speeches of Duport and Rewbell, etc.—Mercure, No. of January 1, 1791 (article by Mallet du Pan).—Buchez and Roux, V. 146l "Behold five or six successive conspiracies—that of the sacks of flour, that of the sacks of money, etc." (Article by Camille Desmoulins.)]
2152 (return) [ "Archives de la Préfecture de Police." Extract from the registers of the deliberations of the Conseil-Général of the district of Saint-Roch, October 10 1789: Arrête: to request all the men in the commune to devote themselves, with all the prudence, activity, and force of which they are capable, to the discovery, exposure, and publication of the horrible plots and infernal treachery which are constantly meditated against the inhabitants of the capital; to denounce to the public the authors, abettors, and adherents of the said plots, whatever their rank may be; to secure their persons and insure their punishment with all the rigor which outrages of this kind call for. The commandant of the battalion and the district captains come daily to consult with the committee. "While the alarm lasts, the first story of each house is to be lighted with lamps during the night: all citizens of the district are requested to be at home by ten o'clock in the evening at the latest, unless they should be on duty. … All citizens are invited to communicate whatever they may learn or discover in relation to the abominable plots which are secretly going on in the capital."]
2153 (return) [ Letter of M. de Guillermy, July 31, 1790 ("Actes des Apôtres," V. 56). "During these two nights (July 13th and 14th, 1789) that we remained in session I heard one deputy try to get it believed that an artillery corps had been ordered to point its guns against our hall; another, that it was undermined, and that it was to be blown up; another went so far as to declare that he smelt powder, upon which M. le Comte de Virieu replied that power had no odor until it was burnt."]
2154 (return) [ Dumont, 351. "Each constitutional law was a party triumph."]
2155 (return) [ Here Taine indicates how subversive parties may proceed to weaken a nation prior to their take-over.(SR.)]
CHAPTER II. DESTRUCTION.
I.—Two principal vices of the ancient régime.
Two principal reforms proposed by the King and the
privileged classes.—They suffice for actual needs.—
Impracticable if carried further.
In the structure of the old society there were two fundamental vices which called for two reforms of corresponding importance.2201
In the first place, those who were privileged having ceased to render the services for which the advantages they enjoyed constituted their compensation and their privileges were no longer anything but a gratuitous charge imposed on one portion of the nation for the benefit of the other. Hence the necessity for suppressing them.
In the second place, the Government, being absolute, made use of public resources as if they were its own private property, arbitrarily and wastefully;2202 it was therefore necessary to impose upon it some effective and regular restraints.
To render all citizens equal before taxation, to put the purse of the tax-payers into the hands of their representatives, such was the twofold operation to be carried out in 1789; and the privileged class as well as the King willingly lent themselves to it. Not only, in this respect, were the memorials of nobles and clergy in perfect harmony, but the monarch himself; in his declaration of the 23rd of June, 1789, decreed the two articles. Henceforth,