The French Revolution (Vol.1-3). Taine Hippolyte

The departments and districts summon the municipality in vain; it disobeys or pays no attention to the summons.

      "Since the session began," writes the directory of Saône-et-Loire; "the municipality of Maçon has taken no step in relation to us which has not been an encroachment. It has not uttered a word, which has not been an insult. It has not entered upon a deliberation which has not been an outrage."

      "If the regiment of Aunis is not ordered here immediately," writes the directory of Calvados, "if prompt and efficient measures are not taken to provide us with an armed force, we shall abandon a post which we can not longer hold due to insubordination, license, contempt for all the authorities. We shall in this case be unable to perform the duties which were imposed upon us."

The directory of the Bouches-du-Rhone, on being attacked, flies before the bayonets of Marseilles. The members of the directory of Gers, in conflict with the municipality of Auch, are almost beaten to death. As to the ministers, who are distrusted by virtue of their office, they are still less respected than the directories, They are constantly denounced to the Assembly, while the municipalities send back their dispatches without deigning to open them,3125 and, towards the end of 1791, their increasing powerlessness ends in complete annihilation. We can judge of this by one example. In the month of December 1791, Limoges is not allowed to carry away the grain, which it had just purchased in Indre, a force of sixty horsemen being necessary to protect its transportation. The directory of Indre at once calls upon the ministers to furnish them with this small troop.3126 After trying for three weeks, the minister replies that it is out of his power; he has knocked at all doors in vain. "I have pointed out one way," he says, "to the deputies of your department in the National Assembly, namely, to withdraw the 20th regiment of cavalry from Orleans, and I have recommended them to broach the matter to the deputies of Loiret." The answer is still delayed: the deputies of the two departments have to come to an agreement, for, otherwise, the minister dares not displace sixty men to protect a convoy of grain. It is plain enough that there is no longer any executive power. There is no longer a central authority. There is no longer a France, but merely so many disintegrated and independent communes, like Orleans and Limoges, which, through their representatives, carry on negotiations with each other, one to secure itself from a deficiency of troops, and the other to secure itself from a want of bread.

Let us consider this general dissolution on the spot, and take up a case in detail. On the 18th of January 1790, the new municipal authorities of Marseilles enter upon their duties. As is generally the case, the majority of the electors have had nothing to do with the balloting. The mayor, Martin, having been elected by only an eighth of the active citizens.3127 If, however, the dominant minority is a small one, it is resolute and not inclined to stop at trifles. "Scarcely is it organized,"3128 when it sends deputies to the King to have him withdraw his troops from Marseilles. The King, always weak and accommodating, finally consents; and, the orders to march being prepared, the municipality is duly advised of them. But the municipality will tolerate no delay, and immediately "draws up, prints, and issues a denunciation to the National Assembly" against the commandant and the two ministers who, according to it, are guilty of having forged or suppressed the King's orders. In the meantime it equips and fortifies itself as for a combat. At its first establishment the municipality broke up the bourgeois guard, which was too great a lover of order, and organized a National Guard, in which those who have no property are soon to be admitted. "Daily additions are made to its military apparatus;3129 entrenchments and barricades at the Hôtel-de-Ville, are increasing, the artillery is increased; the town is filled with the excitement of a military camp in the immediate presence of an enemy." Thus, in possession of force, it makes use of it, and in the first place against justice.—A popular insurrection had been suppressed in the month of August 1789, and the three principal leaders, Rebecqui, Pascal, and Granet, had been imprisoned in the Chateau d'If. They are the friends of the municipal authorities, and they must be set free. At the demand of this body the affair is taken out of the hands of the grand-prévôt and put into those of the sénéchaussée, the former, meanwhile, together with his councilors, undergoing punishment for having performed their duty. The municipality, on its own authority, forbids them from further exercise of their functions. They are publicly denounced, "threatened with poniards, the scaffold, and every species of assassination." 3130 No printer dares publish their defense, for fear of "municipal annoyances." It is not long before the royal procureur and a councillor are reduced to seeking refuge in Fort Saint-Jean, while the grand-prévôt after having resisted a little longer, leaves Marseilles in order to save his life. As to the three imprisoned men, the municipal authorities visit them in a body and demand their provisional release. One of them having made his escape, they refuse to give the commandant the order for his re-arrest. The other two triumphantly leave the chateau on the 11th of April, escorted by eight hundred National Guards. They go, for form's sake, to the prisons of the sénéchaussée but the next day are set at liberty, and further prosecution ceases. As an offset to this, M. d'Ambert, colonel in the Royal Marine, guilty of expressing himself too warmly against the National Guard, although acquitted by the tribunal before which he was brought, can be set at liberty only in secret and under the protection of two thousand soldiers. The populace want to burn the house of the criminal lieutenant that dared absolve him. The magistrate himself is in danger, and is forced to take refuge in the house of the military commander.3131 Meanwhile, printed and written papers, insulting libels by the municipal body and the club, the seditious or violent discussions of the district assemblies, and a lot of pamphlets, are freely distributed among the people and the soldiers: the latter are purposely stirred up in advance against their chiefs.—In vain are the officers mild, conciliatory, and cautious. In vain does the commander-in-chief depart with a portion of the troops. The object now is to dislodge the regiment occupying the three forts. The club sets the ball in motion, and, forcibly or otherwise, the will of the people must be carried out. On the 29th of April, two actors, supported by fifty volunteers, surprise a sentinel and get possession of Notre-Dame de la Garde. On the same day, six thousand National Guards invest the forts of Saint-Jean and Saint-Nicolas. The municipal authorities, summoned to respect the fortresses, reply by demanding the opening of the gates to the National Guard, that it may do duty jointly with the soldiers. The commandants hesitate, refer to the law, and demand time to consult their superiors. A second requisition, more urgent, is made; the commandants are held responsible for the disturbances they provoke by their refusal. If they resist they are declared promoters of civil war.3132 They accordingly yield and sign a capitulation. One among them, the Chevalier de Beausset, major in Fort Saint-Jean, is opposed to this, and refuses his signature. On the following day he is seized as he is about to enter the Hôtel-de-Ville, and massacred, his head being borne about on the end of a pike, while the band of assassins, the soldiers, and the rabble dance about and shout over his remains.—" It is a sad accident," writes the municipality.3133 How does it happen that, "after having thus far merited and obtained all praise, a Beausset, whom we were unable to protect against the decrees of Providence, should sully our laurels? Having had nothing to do with this tragic affair, it is not for us to prosecute the authors of it." Moreover, he was "culpable … rebellious, condemned by public opinion, and Providence itself seems to have abandoned him to the irrevocable decrees of its vengeance."—As to the taking of the forts, nothing is more legitimate. "These places were in the hands of the enemies of the State, while now they are in the hands of the defenders of the Constitution of the empire. Woe to whoever would take them from us again, to convert them into a focus of counter-revolution "—M. de Miran, commandant of the province, has, it is true, made a demand for them. But, "is it not somewhat pitiable to see the requisition of a Sieur de Miran, made in the name of the King he betrays, to surrender to his Majesty's