Yet all such proposals immediately posed an array of difficulties. Could the Assembly itself simply declare Louis deposed, as the citizens of Nantes seemed to advocate, or would he first have to be formally tried, presumably before the new supreme court established in Orleans? What would happen if such a tribunal found the king not guilty? And if the king were removed, who would take his place? The king's legal successor, the young dauphin Louis-Charles, was only five years old, and the problem of choosing a trustworthy regent seemed altogether daunting. The most likely such regent would have been the duke d'Orleans, the king's prorevolutionary cousin. But many patriots distrusted the duke almost as much as they distrusted Louis. Perhaps, in the face of such difficulties, it would be preferable to modify the constitution itself. And a small group of correspondents proposed various schemes for severely limiting the authority of the king, leaving him only "the ghost of his authority," as the officials of Brest proposed. "Never," wrote the town leaders in Lyon, "will you see Louis XVI regain the confidence that he has lost. If we must have a hereditary king sleeping on the throne, he must never have so much power that he could abuse it." Some suggested ending the king's right to veto legislation, a power unthinkable in the hands of "a cowardly and deceitful king." Others recommended giving all real authority to a cabinet of ministers, ministers to be chosen by the legislature or even by the people, moving France ever closer to the English parliamentary system. "If the monarchy is to be preserved," wrote the Jacobins of Dijon, "the French nation must so restrain its authority that the people will always be protected from the threat of despotism.""
But should France, in fact, conserve the monarchy? Clearly, a number of groups throughout the nation, like the club of Dole, were seriously considering the next step in the train of logic: to "cut the Gordian knot" and eliminate the monarchy altogether." In the context of eighteenth-century Europe, it was a stunning proposi tion, flying in the face of almost all contemporary thought, all common wisdom as to the danger and impracticality of a republic for so large and populous a territory as France. Only a handful of groups were prepared to take such a collective position. Those who did justified themselves with extraordinary rhetorical periods and angry denunciations against Louis XVI and the whole regime, often seeking inspiration from the classical heroes of republican Rome. None seems to have mentioned the nascent American republic, considered far too rural and sparsely populated to be comparable with France.
[To view this image, refer to the print version of this title.]
Henry IV Shocked by the Present State of Louis XVI. Good King Henry is appalled to find his descendant transformed into a pig. The caricaturist plays on the king's reputation for overdrinking, portraying him "drowning his shame" in a wine barrel. Empty bottles of the "wine of June 21," the "wine of the aristocracy," litter the ground.
National guardsmen in the small town of Saint-Claud, in southwestern France, thundered against their "barbarous king" who had "sold his trust, his glory, and his country to a race of foreigners," while "harboring in his breast the horrible plan of overseeing the massacre of the French people." They then enumerated the twelve centuries of "scourges with which the scepters of kings have devastated the earth," before urging the National Assembly to overthrow the modern-day Tarquins-the last kings of Rome-and to establish a republic. Club members in the nearby town of Niort appealed to a contract theory. Louis XVI "has violated the treaty he had contracted with the nation; he betrayed his oath, thus the pact is broken and henceforth the nation has the incontestable right to end his political existence." "If we must do battle with the Tarquins," they concluded, "never forget that all true Frenchmen have already pronounced the oath of Brutus"-the Roman leader who had led their overthrow. "Citizens and compatriots," intoned the national guard of Arras, "the book of destiny is now open! Great events have brought forth great treason; but an atrocious crime, secretly plotted, can yield unexpected good fortune. Let us now forget that we have a king and he will be a thing of the past."32
How patriots in a small number of French provincial towns arrived at such positions is by no means clear. In the case of Clermont-Ferrand, Marie-Jeanne Roland, the Parisian patriot with ties to the Cordeliers Club, is known to have sent regular advice on fostering support for a republic to one of the local patriot leaders.33 It is not impossible that partisans of republicanism in Arras and Chartres had been influenced by the rhetoric of their own radical deputies, Robespierre and Petion respectively. But other townspeople seem to have adopted such positions independently, before letters and petitions could have arrived from Paris. And indeed, the single most important inspiration in the provinces for the destruction of the monarchy came not from Paris at all, but from Montpellier.
The origins of republicanism in this small provincial capital and university town near the Mediterranean remain rather mysterious. In their 1789 statement of grievances, signed by several of the future radicals, townsmen had revealed themselves unusually fervent in their support of the king.3" The first motion to abolish the mon archy came on June 27, only one day after the town had learned of Louis' arrest in Varennes and almost certainly before the arrival of republican petitions from Paris. The proposal was presented to the local patriotic society by Jacques Goguet, a twenty-four-yearold physician, only recently graduated from Montpellier's medical school. But it was enthusiastically adopted by much of the local leadership, not only by the club, but by the town, district, and departmental administrators as well35 In its final version, approved on June 29, the petition to the National Assembly was tightly argued and succinct. The present monarch, the members of the club argued, "is debased, and we despise him too much to hate him or fear him. We leave to the law courts the sword of vengeance. We ask only that henceforth the French might have no other king but themselves." And once again, the demand was buttressed with a reference to antiquity: "All that remains, for us to become true Romans, is the hatred and the expulsion of kings. The first of these is already a fact. We await your actions to ensure the second." "Today," they concluded, "all prejudices have been destroyed and the people are enlightened. Popular opinion allows you, requires you to deliver us up from the evil of kings."36
Not only was the petition sent to Paris, where it was read before the Jacobins on July 6, but dozens of copies were circulated directly through the national network of patriotic clubs. Wherever it was received, it seems to have been the subject of serious and spirited debate. Bordeaux took it up as early as July z; Toulouse and Aixen-Provence read it on July 4 and 5. By July io it had reached Strasbourg, in the far northeastern corner of the country. Poitiers, in western France, began debating it two days later; while Bar-leDuc, near Varennes, read it on July 13, and Limoges on July 15. In the end, only five clubs are known to have fully endorsed the petition." Several adhered initially, but then reconsidered and decided to await the National Assembly's decision or opted to reject the present king but not the monarchy itself. But even when the majority rejected the Montpellier petition, a strong minority frequently emerged in favor of a republic. In both Poitiers and Bordeaux re publican contingents argued their case vigorously, and these contingents might well have prevailed if debate had not been cut short by the arrival of the Assembly's decrees exonerating the king.38
Our Duty to Obey
News of the Assembly's decision and the Champ de Mars shootings put an abrupt end to the period of intense political reevaluation. Faced with this new crisis, local elites affirmed their adherence to the July decrees almost without exception. Nowhere outside Paris did the decrees become the target of mass demonstrations or violence. The deputies who had launched the Revolution and who had led the nation successfully through so many previous difficulties continued to command enormous respect and prestige among the provincial patriots-much to the frustration of the Parisian radicals and the Cordeliers Club.
Yet a great many citizens had clearly agonized over the issues at stake. In their letters to the Assembly, townsmen and local administrators often referred to th
e speeches of individual deputies, speeches that had been read, compared, and carefully weighed. "Robespierre, Vadier, Salle, Duport, and Barnave" was one town's list-indicating by the choice of speakers that both sides of the debate had been duly considered. Some groups recounted step by step their entire reasoning process, examining all the possible solutions to the crisis, eliminating those that seemed unworkable, and then offering their own reflections on the Assembly's final decision. "There were so many complications!" wrote the electors of one small town, as they pondered the unprecedented predicament. "The king seemed guilty, and nevertheless he had legal immunity. How could he then be accused? How could he be judged?"39
And acceptance of the Assembly's decision was by no means synonymous with support for the king. Indications of sympathy for Louis continued to decline precipitously, dropping from 31 percent of those writing at the beginning of the crisis, to 17 percent during the interregnum, to a mere 7 percent in the second half of July. By the final period scarcely anyone mentioned the old excuse of "a good king badly advised." Only a single letter-from a small town in central France-made reference to the "sacred" character of the king. To be sure, only one letter in five written after mid-July explicitly condemned Louis. But nearly three-fourths made no mention of him whatsoever.40 Many provincial leaders clearly preferred to "cover with a veil of silence the sad episode of his flight." The principal objective of the vast majority of letter writers was to reaffirm their allegiance to the Assembly as the sovereign authority in the land, the supreme representative of the general will. The deputies were once again praised to the heavens as "fathers of the country" or as heroes modeling themselves on the Romans. Whatever the previous views of the local patriots-as they announced again and again-they now felt duty bound to follow the National Assembly: "Obedience is the duty of any good citizen," wrote the Jacobins from a town in northern Brittany, "and we will all now give the example." Almost everywhere their compatriots agreed: "You have spoken, and a single cry is heard throughout the land: `It is the law!' And for this, we are all prepared to die." Even if they had earlier argued for stronger action against the king, "the general will" had now been determined by the Assembly, and "what had previously been an error, would now become a crime.""
When they did offer commentaries on the political situation and the Assembly's decision, most correspondents spoke far less of their love for the monarch or the monarchy than of their fear of a republic and of their anger over the "seditious" actions of the republicans in Paris. They returned repeatedly to the arguments of the National Assembly itself-many of them attributed to various philosophers from Montesquieu to Rousseau-that a republic would be impractical and unworkable in France. Such a government was perhaps feasible in small city-states, like those in Switzerland or ancient Greece; but in a large nation it might easily lead to disorganization and chaos. "This country is too vast ever to be turned into a republic. Sooner or later the neighboring powers would attempt to pick away at its pieces." Those proposing a republic had considered "neither the lessons of experience, nor the moral of history, nor the possible results, nor the facts of French customs, population, geography, and attitudes." "We believe that in a nation weighed down with an immense population, there must be a center of unity, a single site of supreme executive authority, from which, with the lever of the kingship-like a new Archimedes-all the vast estates of the nation can be moved.""
Many French citizens seemed fearful of the internal chaos that might arise in France if the Assembly were to tamper with the monarchy. For the most part, the Parisian protest movements received a decidedly negative reception in the provinces. There were numerous references to the sedition of the Parisian crowds, events that seemed to demonstrate only too clearly the dangers of placing power in the hands of the people in the absence of a single central authority. "The petition of the citizens of Paris made us tremble with indignation"; "Our hearts were filled with anxiety. We feared that under the pressure of this tumultuous crowd, incorrectly called `the voice of the nation,' you might have been forced to sacrifice your principles." There were endless condemnations of "the abyss of anarchy," of "the frightful scourge of anarchy," of "the fury of the common people who have gone astray."43 Many provincials shared the deputies' suspicions that protest in the capital was being incited by counterrevolutionaries or foreign powers, conspiring to bring down the constitution. "Hidden behind the mask of patriotism, such conspirators seek only to infect us with the disease of discord." "The license of anarchy" had been promoted by "monsters," by "traitors and refractory priests," by enemies of the state who were "clothing themselves in the mantle of patriotism in order to overthrow the constitution and push the nation into chaos. "14
A small minority of the provincial groups sending in lettersperhaps one in eight-suggested that they were not entirely happy with the Assembly's decision, even though they were ultimately persuaded to adhere to that decision.45 In some cases local citizens had initially opposed the decrees and had been won over only after carefully reading the debates. "If we had followed our hearts," wrote one corps of officials with disarming frankness, "a decision to act against the king would have been clear. But Legislators are compelled to resist the emotions to which ordinary men so easily succumb." In the end, the Assembly had convinced them that a constitutional monarchy was the only system capable of "maintaining the energy and unity necessary for the stability of a large nation and providing an insurmountable wall against the influence of factions." Another group of citizens agreed: "After the king had responded to our love and confidence with the violation of his most sacred commitments, we all hoped the tribunal of the nation would rule against the crime." But the Assembly "has risen above the considerations and the passions of the moment and has delivered, through its decree of July 15, a new pronouncement on the fundamental laws of the nation." The leaders of a small village near Bordeaux were more blunt: "At first we disapproved of your decree, considering it to be at odds with your principles." But after long reflection, they concluded that "we would rather be burdened with a king who is worthless and deceitful, than be forced to face the horrors of civil and foreign war."46
Others declared their adherence to the laws even while emphasizing their profound skepticism with regard to the Assembly's decision. In the view of officials in the Breton seaport of Brest, the country would now be placed in the hands of "someone who, through his flight and his declaration, has revealed himself to be our greatest enemy." Another town in Brittany agreed to accept Louis as their king "only because we are ordered to do so by the law." And leaders in Montpellier, who had so vigorously pushed a republic, accepted the decrees with a touch of cynicism: "In society," they reflected, "man can choose only between different sets of chains." In the present situation, they had no option but to place themselves "beneath the honorable and salutary yoke of the law." A few groups made it clear that their adherence to the Assembly's decrees was conditional and contingent on the good behavior of the king. They would accept Louis "only as long as he continues to use his powers to maintain the constitution," only as long as he recog nizes that a king "is intended to serve the people and not the people him." And a handful sharply criticized the Assembly. The Jacobins of Perigueux were far from certain that the recent decrees "conform to the cry of conscience and to the general will of the nation." They warned the deputies never to forget that "you are only the organ of the people's will." If they wished to be obeyed in the future, they must not lose sight of the importance of "maintaining the universal confidence" of the people. Indeed, close to a dozen groups of respondents agreed to accept the decrees only if the Assembly would immediately see to its own replacement. It was high time that the deputies returned home and let others take their place. Otherwise, as one town warned bluntly, "your persistence might be mistaken for obstination."47
Louis XVI's FLIGHT to Varennes had shaken French provincial society to its very roots. By the end of the interregnum period, and after intense debates, opinion had turned decisively ag
ainst the reigning monarch. Rhetoric at least as virulent as that emanating from Paris had spread across the land. Although only a small minority of towns had taken a collective stance in favor of deposing the king or creating a republic, individual converts to such positions had emerged and had pushed their views in almost every region of the kingdom. Everywhere people had debated the idea and considered the possibility of a fundamental change in the basis of government-even when such a change was ultimately rejected by the majority. A large proportion of all groups sending in statements of adherence indicated, implicitly or explicitly, that they were prepared to abide by the deputies' decision, even if that decision involved the permanent assumption of power by the Assembly itself. Indeed, not a single letter condemned the Assembly's suspension of the king on June 21. When, fourteen months later, a new National Convention would create a republic, a great many French people, in the provinces as in Paris, would already have reflected on the possibility of living in a France without the present king, and perhaps without any king at all.
CHAPTER 8
The Months and Years After
As FRENCH MEN AND WOMEN in the provinces ended their debates on the fate of the king, a wave of repression was engulfing the city of Paris. For more than a week after the shootings at the Champ de Mars, the red flag of martial law continued to fly above the city hall. The moderate patriots dominating the National Assembly pursued their attack against all those perceived as republican "troublemakers." To strengthen the repression, the deputies rushed through a new antiriot decree. Harsh penalties were imposed on anyone thought to have incited violence through their words or their writings. The law was even drafted to take effect retroactively, targeting actions committed during and before the July 17 demonstration.' Only three days earlier, many of the same legislators had argued the illegality of retroactive penalties proposed against the king.
When the King Took Flight Page 21