The French Revolution A volume In THE DOCUMENTARY HISTORY of WESTERN CIVILIZATION - The French Revolution Edited by PAUL H. BEIK PALGRA VE MACMILLAN ISBN 978-1-349-00528-4 ISBN 978-1-349-00526-0 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-00526-0 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION English translation copyright © 1970 by Paul H. Beik Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1970 978-0-333-07911-9 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission. First published in the United States 1970 First published in the United Kingdom by The Macmillan Press Ltd. 1971 Published by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Associated companies in New York Toronto Dublin Melbourne Johannesburg and Madras SBN 333 07911 6 Contents Introduction x PART I. CROWN, PARLEMENT, AND ARISTOCRACY 1. November 19, 1787: Chretien Fran~ois de Lamoignon on Principles of the French Monarchy 1 2. April 17, 1788: Louis XVI to a Deputation from the Parlement of Paris 3 3. May 4, 1788: Repeated Remonstrances of the Parlement of Paris in Response to the King's Statement of April 17 5 4. December 12,1788: Memoir of the Princes 10 PART II. THE SURGE OF OPINION 5. January, 1789: Sieyes, What Is the Third Estate? 16 6. February, 1789: Mounier on the Estates General 37 7. March 1, 1789: Parish Cahiers of Ecommoy and Mansigne 45 8. March 14, 1789: Cahier of the Nobility of Crepy 51 9. March 26,1789: Cahier of the Clergy of Troyes 56 PART III. THE Loss OF ROYAL INITIATIVE 10. June 16, 1789: Barentin's Memorandum on the Crisis in the Estates General 64 11. June 22, 1789: Montmorin's Testimony in Support of Necker 69 12 . June 23, 1789: Louis XVI at the Royal Session of the Estates General 72 13. August 2, 1789: Rivarol on the Meaning of July 14 80 PART IV. THE DEFEAT OF A MODERATE CoALITION 14. August 4, 1789: Night Session of the National Assembly 86 15. August 20-26,1789: Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen 94 Vlll CONTENTS 16. September 1,1789: Mirabeau on Royal Authority 97 17. September 4, 1789: Abbe Gregoire on the Royal Veto and the Legislature of Two Chambers 107 PART V. THE POWER OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY 18. October 10, 1789: Talleyrand on Ecclesiastical Property 113 19. October 15, 1789: Mirabeau, a Secret Memoir 120 20. January 28, 1790: A Petition to the National Assembly from Leaders of Jewish Communities ] 30 21. May 29, 30, 1790: Debate on the Civil Constitution of the Clergy "I 36 PART VI. THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY BETWEEN CoUNTERREVOLUTION AND DEMOCRACY 22. April, 1791: Robespierre on the Suffrage 143 23. June 14, 1791: Chapelier on Organizations of Workers 15 5 24. June 20, 1791: Louis XVI on the Subject of His Flight 158 25. August 11,1791: Barnave on Representative Govern- ment and the Social Order 168 26. September 8, 1791: Marie Antoinette on Ending the Revol ution 176 PART VII. WAR AND REVOLUTION 27. January 11, 1792: Robespierre on War 186 28. January 20, 1792: Brissot on War 196 29. April 27, 1792: Malouet, a Conservative View of the Revolution 207 30. July 7,1792: Marat, a Radical View of the Revolution 215 PART VIII. THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE CONVENTION 31. November 19, 1792: Petitioners vs. Roland on Price- Fixing 222 32. December 12, 1792: An Attack on the Slave Trade 228 33. February 15, 1793: Condorcet Presents His Constitution to the Convention 236 34. March 10, 1793: Danton on Crisis Measures 250 35. May 10, 1793: Robespierre on Constitutional Principles 255 CONTENTS ix PART IX. THE CONVENTION AND THE SANS-CULOTTES 36. June 25, 1793: Roux Before the Convention 260 37. September 2, 1793: Section des Sans-Culottes, Social Views 263 38. November 7,10,1793: Dechristianizing 266 39. November, 1793: Pere Duchesne, His Plebeian Appeal 271 40. February 5, 1794 (17 Pluviase, An II): Robespierre's Report on the Principles of Political Morality 276 41. February 26, March 3, 1794: Saint-Just on the Ventase Decrees 288 42. May 7, 1794 (18 Floreal, An II): Robespierre's Report on Religious and Moral Ideas and Republican Princi- ples 299 PART X. THE SEARCH FOR STABILITY AFTER THERMIDOR 43. June 23, 1795: Boissy d'Anglas on a New Constitution 313 44. July, 1795: Louis XVIII, Declaration of Verona 324 45. November 30, 1795: Babeuf's Le Tribun du peuple, No. 35 329 46. December 6, 1795: Mallet du Pan After Vendemiaire 339 47. 1794, 1795, 1796: Joseph de Maistre on Reason, Monarchy, and Aristocracy 343 48. September, 1796: TheoanthropophiIe Manual 352 49. September 19, 1797: Bonaparte to Talleyrand About Sieyes 358 50. February or March, 1799: Mme. de Stael on Constitu- tionalism and Dictatorship 361 The Republican and Gregorian Calendars 372 Chronology 374 Selected References 386 Index 391 Int roduction THE FRENCH REVOLUTION lives in the consciousness of world opinion as a reference point for change. It retains a remarkable contemporaneity, product of the passage from a traditionalistic, aristocratic society toward one whose contours are the focus of today's contestations. What began to be visible in the wreckage of the old regime at the end of the eighteenth century was not yet today's world; one may not ask of one era that it be another. Many of the projections of the revolution did not come to pass­ for example, the vision of a society of small independent producers­ and although our political and social vocabulary owes much to the revolutionary era its terms have been buffeted since then by many contexts. Yet the evolution, even distortion, of terms was to do honor to the importance of the issues raised but not solved at the end of the eighteenth century, and some of the revolution's principles-for example, the sovereignty of the people and national self-determination-have gone from triumph to triumph. What the revolution possessed, owing to the breakdown of authority and the struggle for the succession on the part of contending groups and programs, was intensity, seriousness, and variety. The revolution never spoke with one voice except in the claims of its competing children and their descendants. It was a collective experience, un­ planned, a clashing of wills and purposes. It remains a point of reference because of this, because the attackers and defenders brought out problems of political organization and social justice and, when these needed backing, propositions about the nature and prospects of man. Such a revolution could not fail to be an international event, a "challenge" to the institutions and conceptions of Europe and, to a lesser degree, of America, and a "struggle" over their future­ to use the metaphors of Robert R. Palmer. The French were not alone in making this challenge, nor were they the first to do so, INTRODUCTION xi and they never claimed that the principles at stake in the struggle applied only to France. Where the French Revolution was unique was in its combinations of men and circumstances, its timing, its stages, and its methods. And since France was by many indexes the most powerful, advanced, and influential country in Europe, the French experience in all its intensity became the model that overshadowed the others and gave its name to the era. The earliest decision in the making of this book of documents about the revolution was to concentrate on this French experience rather than on the international, in order to make room for the fullest possible expression of what the French thought was happen­ ing to them or ought to happen. These events and prospects were long considered, and for some are still thought to have been, primarily political. Certainly the revolution was a political effort of great staying power, brought on by the failure of those in charge of the absolute monarchy to make reforms without losing the initiative and authority essential to government; it became a political effort to replace absolutism by some form of representative institu­ tions, an effort that lasted for ten years before its temporary diversion into other channels by Napoleon. This central theme encompassed many technical problems of a growing political sci­ ence; but what is most interesting in the experience is its core, the linking of government to society, which in the given circumstances produced some half-dozen possibilities. The least drastic change would have been a representative system guaranteeing the old social system as long as its defenders, preponderant in the Estates General, wished to preserve it. The next possibility, recommended by men such as Jean Joseph Mounier and his fellow Anglophiles, featured strong royal authority and a legislature of two chambers in an effort to conciliate the aristocracy and contain the lower classes; the Anglophiles, while hoping for the support of all prop­ ertied and educated people, including nobles and clergy, in reality deprived the aristocracy of the guarantees that most of them wanted. Other positions followed, both logically and as the prod­ ucts of events. There were Constitutionalists, followers of La­ fayette or of Antoine Barnave and his friends, two wings that came together as Feuillants in later, adverse times in a futile effort to check the democratic avalanche before its weight became ON"er­ whelming. The Constitutionalists at first opposed some of the Anglophile brakes on popular enthusiasm, although they agreed with the Anglophiles in wanting to liInit the suffrage and in regard- xii INTRODUCTION ing representation as a political function best reserved for persons of tested capacity, the most obvious test being possession of prop­ erty.