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Jean-Sylvain Bailly (BUY-Yee) Member of the National Assembly

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Jean-Sylvain Bailly (BUY-Yee) Member of the National Assembly ROUSSEAU, BURKE AND REVOLUTION IN FRANCE, 1791 FEUILLANT FACTION Jean-Sylvain Bailly (BUY-yee) Member of the National Assembly ou are cultured and influential. You were born 55 years ago in Paris and raised in its environs and in Versailles. Your family has always been deeply involved in court life. Both your father and grandfather were court painters and you originally intended Y to follow in their footsteps. You became attracted in the course of your studies to astronomical science, however, and prepared a career in that path instead, building an observatory in the Louvre and promoting the new science everywhere. You were elected to the French Academy in 1783, and by the time the Revolution began, you were a renowned astronomer and a bril- liant philosophe. Your Essay on the Theory of the Satellites of Jupiter added to Galileo and Kepler’s vision of the universe, and your literary reputation was not far below that of your scientific one. Everyone knows who you are and admires you. This is France, after all, and to be a brilliant philosopher is to be influential. It is not surprising, then, that when you wished to take part in revolutionary politics, you found the path wide open. You presided over your district’s elections for delegates to the Estates General, and you yourself were elected. The Third Estate contingent was thrilled to have such a brilliant mind as yours; it brought prestige and honor to the delegates (who were, after all, mere commoners). When the Third Estate fol- lowed Sieyès and declared itself to be the National Assembly, it chose you as its president. You weren’t a politician, exactly, but you were a brilliant mind and an important symbol as its foremost leader. As a fitting complement to that symbolism, on June 20, 1789, you were the first delegate to swear the Tennis Court Oath, a promise made by members of the National Assembly not to be disturbed until they had provided the nation with a constitution. Some of this leaves you feeling conflicted. You trembled with fear that the king’s soldiers would shoot you for forcing your way into the hall to hold meetings of the National Assembly.1 You under- stand that you and those you led were taking authority, until then vested in privilege and hierarchy, and claiming it as your—the nation’s—own. You surely did not expect them to yield so easily. When they did, you were exhilarated, but not entirely relieved. You were elected the mayor of Paris—a new posi- tion—on July 15, the day after the storming of the Bastille. Paris was still in an uproar, and you were to lead it. You, a philosopher! On July 17, you received the king and offered him the tricolor cockade, the symbol of the Revo- lution. You told him, “Whereas Henri IV conquered his people, here it is the people who have recon- quered their king.”2 This was another bold move on your part, one which endeared you to the people. It also, however, engendered much criticism from royalists who thought you should have exhibited more respect for the king. You were certain this was a misunderstanding, as what you really meant was that the king had been “conquered” by love. You had wanted to remind the king that his people loved him and that he should love them well. Your popularity with the people of Paris will continue as long as they see you as their champion. You are naturally a bit cautious, however, and their violence gives you pause. You are a scientist, a phi- losopher, and a member of the elite, though not a noble. You wanted an end to the massive inequalities 1. Jean-Sylvain Bailly, Jean François Barrière, and Saint-Albin Berville, Mémoires de Bailly: avec une notice sur sa vie, des notes et des éclaircissemens historiques (Baudouin frères, 1822). 2. Paul R. Hanson, Historical Dictionary of the French Revolution (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2004), 24. ROLE SHEET: Jean-Sylvain Bailly, Feuillant Faction 1 OF 12 214935_RS04_Jean-Sylvain_Bailly_001-012_r2_el.indd 1 13/01/16 3:46 PM ROUSSEAU, BURKE AND REVOLUTION IN FRANCE, 1791 that you saw, but you do not think that the answer lies in street riots or the destruction of order, things that Danton and the Cordeliers consistently seem to provoke. Also, you know the king and believe that he can be a good and fair ruler. Constitutional monarchy, with a guarantee of rights, is the right way to proceed. For this to happen, you need your authority and that of the National Assembly to be supreme over the uncontrolled and unfocused power of the people. ROLE SHEET: Jean-Sylvain Bailly, Feuillant Faction 2 OF 12 214935_RS04_Jean-Sylvain_Bailly_001-012_r2_el.indd 2 13/01/16 3:46 PM ROUSSEAU, BURKE AND REVOLUTION IN FRANCE, 1791 Faction Advisory FEUILLANTS You are a member of the Feuillant faction. Depending on the size of the class, your faction will consist of two to eight players, as follows: • Sieyès, juring clergy • Bailly, Mayor of Paris (and your faction’s candidate for President of the National Assembly) • Barère • Barnave • Lameth • Ducos • Mounier During the past two years, you have supported most of the initiatives of the French Revolution: the transformation of the Third Estate into a National Assembly; the nationalization of the Catholic Church and seizure of its lands (Civil Constitution of the Clergy), and the advance of the constitutional monarchy, which you hope to soon ratify (in the Constitution of 1791). But during the past spring (of 1791), you have been alarmed by the waves of violence that have swept through Paris—​­and across France. You winced at the human consequences of this violence— bodies dangling from lampposts and heads jammed upon pikes—​­but you understood that, given the obstinacy of the conservatives, violence was necessary. You often attended meetings of the Jacobin Club and usually applauded their speakers. But in the past few months, the Jacobin Club has been taken over by radicals such as Robespierre, Grégoire, Hérault, Buzot, and other extremists. They have endorsed the crazy policies of demagogues such as Marat and Desmoulins. Riots break out in the Saint- ​­Antoine and Saint- ​­Marcel districts of Paris nearly every day. Personal safety has become a daily concern, and the right to property is challenged at every corner by drunken louts. The violence of the mobs has become as great a danger as the anti-​­revolutionary groups within France and the monarchs beyond its borders. VICTORY OBJECTIVES As a leader of the Feuillant faction, you believe that France must preserve the gains of the Revolution without slipping into bloody anarchy and chaos (especially in Paris). In other words, you seek to limit the power of the king, but not destroy it altogether; you seek to restrain the mob, but not abandon the principles of freedom that animated the Revolution from the outset. You want the proposed constitu- tion (the Constitution of 1791) to be passed as is, for the most part (see pp. 136–45 of the game book). This will create a constitutional monarchy, which amounts to a compromise between the conservatives on the right and the Jacobins on the left. By acknowledging the value of conservatives’ as well as rev- olutionaries’ beliefs, you hope to build a political system in France that truly reflects the wishes of all French men and women. Your compromise will build a unified, strong, and progressive French nation. ROLE SHEET: Jean-Sylvain Bailly, Feuillant Faction 3 OF 12 214935_RS04_Jean-Sylvain_Bailly_001-012_r2_el.indd 3 13/01/16 3:46 PM ROUSSEAU, BURKE AND REVOLUTION IN FRANCE, 1791 Some of the provisions of the proposed constitution have already been approved by the National Assembly, but the whole document has not. You seek to achieve the following objectives in the National Assembly: 1 Deprive the Catholic Church of much of its land (Decree on Church Lands). The Catholic Church has paid too little attention to the souls of parishioners and too much to its vast, wealth-​­producing property. The Decree on Church Lands takes the Catholic Church’s land, to which it was never entitled, and redistributes it among the productive people of France. Their payments for the land provide desperately needed revenue for the new government you have built. As the decree explains: “Property intended . ​for all services of public utility belongs to the nation and is at all times at its disposal.” (This decree was passed nearly two years ago but you must not revoke it for the simple reason that, without that stream of income, France cannot pay for its army and navy, ensure adequate grain supplies for cities, or provide basic government services.) 2 Endorse the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. The Civil Constitution of the Clergy nationalizes the Catholic Church and prevents the pope in Rome from controlling French priests and bishops. It enables every community to elect its own priests and arranges for them to be paid by the French government. The Civil Constitution also promises to end many of the abuses of the old Catholic church in France. 3 Outlaw the feudal regime and all “hereditary distinctions” while retaining the king as an expression of French traditions and culture. This is consistent with the moderate principle of adapting the past to fit new circumstances. 4 Insist on the ultimate sovereignty of the people while protecting them from rash decisions by empowering the king to use a suspensive veto (Royal Sanction). This constitutional device empowers the king to delay unwise legislation and force subsequent leg- islatures to reconsider it.
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