The Marquis
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“pikes, pruning hooks, scythes”: Jefferson to John Jay, July 19, 1789, Diplomatic Correspondence, 2:308.
“the utmost of his Wishes”: Morris to Washington, July 31, 1789, Morris, Diary, 1:171.
“turned himself over”: July 24 or 25, 1789, Mémoires, 2:322.
“If the king refuses”: Ibid., 2:321–22.
Jacques-Pierre Brissot: For two different interpretations of Brissot’s prerevolutionary career, see Robert Darnton, The Literary Underground of the Old Regime (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982), 41–70; Frederick A. de Luna, “The Dean Street Style of Revolution: J.-P. Brissot, Jeune Philosophe,” French Historical Studies 17, no. 1 (Spring 1991): 159–90; and Darnton’s reply to de Luna, “The Brissot Dossier,” French Historical Studies 17, no. 1 (Spring 1991): 191–205.
“without the Gazettes”: “Prospectus,” Patriote français (April 1, 1789): 2.
praise of Lafayette’s plans: For example, “Hôtel-de-Ville,” Patriote français (July 28, 1789): 4; “Suite du plan d’organisation du milice de Paris,” Patriote français (August 4, 1789): 1.
“a stunning fortune”: “Détails. Du Mercredi, 23 juillet,” Révolutions de Paris: 22. The summary execution of Foulon and his son-in-law are recounted with remarkably little variation by Jean-Sylvain Bailly, Mémoires, 2:276–305; Ferrières, Correspondance, 155–60; Mémoires, 2:274–79, and Révolutions de Paris.
“obliges me to speak”: Lafayette’s speech as reported by Bailly, Mémoires, 2:290–91.
“the justice of the ideas”: Journal de Paris (July 25, 1789): 924.
“turn into fury”: Bailly, Mémoires, 2:293.
“it was reattached”: Révolutions de Paris, 1, no. 11 (July 18–July 25, 1789): 20.
omitted from the series of prints: Charlotte Hould, ed., La Révolution par la gravure: Les Tableaux historiques de la Révolution française; une entreprise éditoriale d’information et sa diffusion en Europe (1791–1817), exhibit catalog (Vizille: Musée de la Révolution française, 2002).
“Passive discontent”: Lafayette to Washington, May 25, 1788, PGWC, 6:292.
“the people did not heed”: Mémoires, 2:281.
“What to do?”: Mémoires, 2:320.
“the night the Old Regime”: See Michael P. Fitzsimmons, The Night the Old Regime Ended: August 4, 1789, and the French Revolution (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002), for a full account of the day’s events and significance.
sweeping resolutions: AP, 8:420.
Vicomte de Noailles and the Duc d’Aiguillon: Ibid., 8:413–14.
Vicomte de Beauharnais: The representative from Orléans, he was the first husband of Joséphine Tascher de la Pagerie, who, as the wife of Napoleon Bonaparte, reigned as empress of France. On Beauharnais’s political career, see Lemay, Dictionnaire, 1:69–71.
“all ecclesiastical, civil, and military posts”: AP, 8:346.
“a curse”: Jean-Baptiste-Joseph de Lubersac, bishop of Chartres, AP, 8:346; Lemay, Dictionnaire, 2:608–9.
“It would have been useless”: Ferrierès to Monsieur de Rabreuil, August 7, 1789, Ferrières, Correspondance, 116.
“Restorer of French liberty”: AP, 8:350.
the Parisian bakers’ guild: Morris, Diary, 1:230.
“casting about for the Ways and Means”: Ibid., 1:237.
“plunging himself into Debts”: Ibid., 1:229.
“All hell has conspired”: Lafayette to [Madame de Simiane?], August [?] 1789, Mémoires, 2:322.
“rainy disagreeable Day”: Morris, Diary, 1:240.
“canine appetite for popularity”: Jefferson to James Madison, January 30, 1787. The Thomas Jefferson Papers, Series 1, General Correspondence, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
“orgy”: See, for example, Révolutions de Paris 1, no. 13 (October 3–10): 6 and Patriote français (October 6, 1789): 2.
broke bread together: Campan, Mémoires, 287.
“joy and jubilation”: The following discussion of events involving black cockades is given in Révolutions de Paris 1, no. 13 (October 3–10): 5–6. All quotations are from these pages.
Lafayette refused to sanction: This paragraph presents the events as recounted in Gottschalk and Maddox, Lafayette in the French Revolution: Through the October Days, 329–51; Sigismond Lacroix, ed., Actes de la Commune de Paris pendant la Révolution (New York: AMS, 1973), 2:165–82; and Mémoires, 2:329–46. There are nearly as many accounts of the day as there were people present. Although details vary, the broad outlines given here are consistent with other credible versions.
thirty thousand armed: Barry M. Shapiro, Revolutionary Justice in Paris, 1789–1790 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 86, places the number of protesters between 30,000 and 35,000. The day’s weather is described in Morris, Diary, 1:244.
Madame Campan: Except where noted, my description of the events as seen from Versailles is based on Campan, Mémoires, 289–98.
royal household leapt into action: Campan, Mémoires, 562, note 144.
the first Parisian women: The number of women is given in Henriette Lucie Dillon, Marquise de La Tour du Pin Gouvernet, Mémoires de la marquise de La Tour du Pin: Journal d’une femme de cinquante ans, 1778–1815: Suivis d’extraits inédits (Paris: Mercure de France, 1989), 136.
“the moment to flee was lost”: Campan, Mémoires, 291.
“marched by Compulsion”: Morris, Diary, 1:243.
drums and the flicker of torches: Gottschalk and Maddox, Lafayette in the French Revolution: Through the October Days, 349.
“the nation, the law, and the king”: Mémoires, 2:339.
“saw his approach with pleasure”: Ibid., 2:338.
“Long live the King!”: Courrier de Versailles (October 8, 1789): 109.
Place d’Armes around midnight: La Tour du Pin Gouvernet, Mémoires, 139.
“instead of being a guardian”: Mémoires, 2:339.
“Sire, I thought it better”: La Tour du Pin Gouvernet, Mémoires, 140.
Daybreak found Lafayette: The following description comes from Mémoires, 2:341. It is the only source that places Lafayette on the balcony with the queen; Madame Campan, for instance, has Marie Antoinette appearing alone, her “eyes and hands lifted toward the sky” as she steps onto the balcony “like a sacrificial victim” (Campan, Mémoires, 295). Gottschalk and Maddox address the discrepancy in Appendix IV, “Did Lafayette Kiss the Queen’s Hand?”; they conclude that the balcony scene probably did unfold more or less as Lafayette described it (Gottschalk and Maddox, Lafayette in the French Revolution: Through the October Days, 398–99).
CHAPTER 15: TRIUMPH
“Many people averred”: Campan, Mémoires, 294.
A pamphlet spelled out: On the rumor, see “Nouveaux indices de conjuration. D’un libelle intitulé: Domine salvum sac regem. Avis au peuple,” Révolutions de Paris, 15:29–30.
“charged by His Majesty”: “Versailles,” Patriote français (October 15, 1789): 1.
“I would have denounced”: Lafayette to Mounier, October 23, 1789, Mémoires, 2:416.
Orléans did not call his bluff: Shapiro, Revolutionary Justice, 84–96, esp. 96.
decamped for England: “Paris,” Patriote français (October 16, 1789): 2.
weighed heavily on Lafayette: Mémoires, 2:427–29, 431–32, 475–79.
“as his enemy”: Ibid., 2:430.
“provisioning of the capital”: Reported in “Paris,” Patriote français (October 10, 1789): 4. As translated by Louis Gottschalk and Margaret Maddox, Lafayette in the French Revolution: From the October Days Through the Federation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973), 6–7.
“Lafayette and Liberty”: Courrier de Versailles (October 8, 1789): 109.
“the champion of liberty”: Ibid., October 12, 1789, 158.
English-language books: Two commissioners appointed by the municipality to inventory the books in the library of “the émigré Lafayette” on May 2, 1794, found these, among some 230 books and map
s. This is in pointed contrast to the books inventoried in Lafayette’s office at the Hôtel de Ville, which were almost entirely in French or Latin, with the majority on religious subjects. One study of the libraries seized from twenty-six key figures found books on American topics in several collections but termed Lafayette’s library “the extreme illustration.” Agnès Marcetteau-Paul and Dominique Varry, “Les bibliothèques de quelques acteurs de la Révolution, de Louis XVI à Robespierre,” Mélanges de la Bibliothèque de la Sorbonne 9 (1989), 200–201.
“Minister and Soldier”: Morris, Diary, 1:252.
“Men do not go into Administration”: Ibid., 1:252–53.
1785 Salon: On the painting, see Laura Auricchio, Adélaïde Labille-Guiard: Artist in the Age of Revolution (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2009), 39–40. On the Comtesse de Flahaut, see Marie-José Fassiotto, “La Comtesse de Flahaut et son cercle: un exemple de salon politique sous la Révolution,” Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century 303 (1992): 344–48.
“La Fayette has no fixed Plan”: Morris, Diary, 1:283.
“whole army was devoted to him”: Campan, Mémoires, 291.
“Why, Citizens!”: Extract from the pamphlet Quand aurons-nous du pain? as quoted in Courrier de Versailles à Paris et de Paris à Versailles (October 12, 1789), 95:151–53.
“inciting an ignorant, cowardly”: Popkin, Revolutionary News, 146–51; quotes as translated on 146–47.
“a vile and accursed man”: Courrier de Versailles, 136.
“no man may be disturbed”: As quoted and translated by Gottschalk and Maddox, Lafayette in the French Revolution: Through the October Days, 86.
“the communications of his thoughts”: Mémoires, 2:252–53.
Marat had gone so far: On freedom of the press in September and October 1789, see Shapiro, Revolutionary Justice, 99–103, and Charles Walton, Policing Public Opinion in the French Revolution (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 97–99.
He responded in his favorite venue: Charles Vellay, ed., La correspondance de Marat: Recueillie et annotée (Paris: Eugène Fasquelle, 1908), 118–19.
“festivals of federation”: The most thorough account of the event is provided by Mona Ozouf, Festivals and the French Revolution, trans. Alan Sheridan (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988), 33–60. My understanding of the day is equally indebted to Schama, Citizens, 500–513.
“Messieurs”: AP, 16:117.
“our brothers to come, as deputies”: Ibid., 16:118.
“citizens of all ages”: Ibid., 16:119.
the citizens of Paris were unable to tame: The following description is based on Louis-Sébastien Mercier, Paris pendant la Révolution (1789–1798); ou, Le nouveau Paris, 2 vols. (Paris: Poulet-Malassis, 1862), 1:66–72; the quotes are on p. 69.
anonymous society of artists: Affiches, annonces, et avis divers (July 12, 1790): 2038.
Advertisements for products: Ibid., July 17, 1790, 2097–98.
“large and comfortable house”: Ibid., July 11, 1790, 2025.
no-frills seats: Ibid., July 12, 1790, 2038.
“Paris, like Boston”: “Comédie Française,” Révolutions de Paris (July 10–17, 1790), 53:40.
“musical drama”: Affiches, annonces, et avis divers (July 10, 1790): 2019.
priced at double the usual cost: “Fédération du 14 juillet,” Révolutions de Paris (July 10–17 1790), 53:11.
sodden affair: “Variétés,” Chronique de Paris (July 16, 1790): 785.
opening procession alone: The order of ceremonies, including the list of groups participating in the procession, is published as “Proclamation du roi, concernant l’ordre à observer le 14 juillet, jour de la Fédération générale,” Chronique de Paris (July 13, 1790): 773–74.
“triumph of human kind”: Helen Maria Williams, Letters Written in France, in the Summer of 1790, to a Friend in England (London: T. Cadell, 1791), 14.
“Ten thousand of them”: “Fêtes publiques,” Révolutions de Paris 5, no. 54 (July 17–24, 1790): 52.
due to the rain: “Fédération du 14 juillet,” Ibid. 5, no. 53 (July 10–17, 1790): 8–9.
“seemed to have taken full possession”: William Short to Gouverneur Morris, July 27, 1790, as published in Morris, Diary, 1:565–67.
opened the ground floor: William Short to Thomas Jefferson, July 16, 1790, Thomas Jefferson Papers.
“who is so justly the idol”: Williams believed that “aristocrats” may have wheedled into the crowd of admirers with the intention of harming Lafayette under cover of the crowd. Williams, Letters, 17. Révolutions de Paris reports the same event without the sinister overtones.
“the air of the general”: The description of the Palais-Royal is from Short to Morris, July 27, 1790, Morris, Diary, 1:565. The quote about Lafayette is from “Détails du 10 au 17 juillet 1790,” Révolutions de Paris 5, no. 53 (July 10–17, 1790): 13.
transparency of his likeness: Williams, Letters, 21.
“all the editions”: “Détails du 10 au 17 juillet 1790,” Révolutions de Paris 5, no. 53 (July 10–17, 1790): 13.
CHAPTER 16: UNFLATTERING PORTRAITS
“the zenith”: William Short to Gouverneur Morris, July 27, 1790, as published in Morris, Diary, 1:565–67.
Bouillé had sworn allegiance: See François-Claude-Amour de Bouillé, Mémoires du Marquis de Bouillé (Paris: Baudouin Frères, 1821), 122.
“If I love liberty”: Lafayette to Bouillé, May 20, 1790, Mémoires, 2:461.
“let us serve it”: Ibid.
“Revolts among the Regiments”: Lafayette to Washington, August 23, 1790, PGWP.
pamphlet: The full French title of the pamphlet, which is available at the Archives Nationales, the New York Public Library, and elsewhere, is Vie Privée, Impartiale, Politique, Militaire et Domestique, du Marquis de La Fayette, Général des Bleuets, Pour servir de Supplément à la Nécrologie des Hommes célèbres du dix-huitième siècle, et de clef aux Révolutions Françaises et Américaines. Dédiée aux soixante districts de Paris. Ornée de son Portrait. À Paris, de l’Imprimerie particulière de M. de Bastide, Président du District de Saint-Roch, en 1790.
bookseller was arrested: “Le Procès encommencé contre le S Le Normand, Imprimeur prévenu d’avoir imprimé en partie l’écrit intitulé Vie privée et impartiale, politique, militaire et domestique du Marquis de La Fayette,” Archives Nationales Y/10509. Inventaires des procès pour crimes de lèse-nation instruits au Châtelet 1789–90. “Procédure au sujet du libelle intitulé Vie privée et impartiale, politique, militaire et domestique du Marquis de La Fayette,” Archives Nationales, BB/30/160.
“Continue to adore”: Cloquet, Souvenirs sur la vie privée, iv–v.
he expressed hope: Mémoires, 3:137–40.
“a Declaration that”: Morris, Diary, 1:570.
“agree to consult”: “Lettre du Roi au Général Lafayette,” as published in Mémoires, 2:496.
“without discussion and unanimously”: AP 18, 93.
garrison town of Nancy: My understanding of the affaire de Nancy is indebted to Samuel F. Scott, “Problems of Law and Order During 1790, the ‘Peaceful’ Year of the French Revolution,” American Historical Review 80, no. 4 (October 1975): 865–71. Except where noted, the following discussion is based on Scott’s work.
assembly authorized Bouillé: The affaire de Nancy receives little attention in the English-language literature on Lafayette. Gottschalk’s final volume ends with the federation, and more recent American texts tend to minimize the event. For a fuller discussion of Lafayette’s role in the affaire de Nancy, see the French literature, especially Charavay, La Fayette, 240–47.
“The decree concerning Nancy”: Lafayette to Bouillé, August 18, 1790, Bouillé, Mémoires, 134.
called for an inquiry: See Charavay, La Fayette, 243–44.
ninety-four bodies: These figures are based on the report presented to the National Assembly by a royal commission charged with investigating the matter on October 14, 1790, and pub
lished in AP, 19:616–35. For Bouillé’s version of events, see Bouillé, Mémoires, 145–72. Bouillé declines to estimate the number of dead at Nancy but is in rough agreement with the commissioners in his summary of the soldiers’ punishment.
Marat reached the peak: Charavay, La Fayette, 245.
“pretending to pass”: “Lettre à Lafayette,” L’ami du peuple (September 15, 1790): 222, reprinted in Vellay, Correspondance, 182.
“That you, a mature and educated man”: Vellay, Correspondance, 183.
“the name of Lafayette”: As quoted in Charavay, La Fayette, 246. Charavay, in turn, quotes from François-Alphonse Aulard, La société des Jacobins: Recueil de documents pour l’histoire du club des Jacobins de Paris (Paris: 1888–97; repr., New York: AMS Press, 1973), 1:295.
“the art of circumspection”: Brissot to Lafayette, April 30, 1787, as quoted and translated by Shapiro, Revolutionary Justice, 18–19.
“with regret”: Patriote français, September 1, 1790, 2.
“swear a new oath”: Révolutions de Paris 5, no. 61 (September 4–11): 419.
“It is M. de Lafayette”: Révolutions de Paris 5, no. 62 (September 11–18, 1790): 489.
Lafayette’s maneuvers: Révolutions de Paris 5, no. 62 (September 11–18, 1790): 487.
Black draperies: This description is based on Patriote français (September 22, 1790): 4, and Révolutions de Paris 5, no. 63 (September 18–25, 1790): 531.
“seeming to accuse”: Révolutions de Paris 5, no. 63 (September 18–25, 1790): 532.
“Everything goes from bad to worse”: Marie Antoinette to Comte de Mercy, July 12, 1790, as reproduced in Maxime de la Rocheterie and Marquis de Beaucourt, eds., Lettres de Marie-Antoinette: recueil des lettres authentiques de la reine, 2 vols. (Paris: Picard, 1895), 2:177–79, quote on p. 178. First-person accounts of Marie Antoinette are notoriously unreliable, as are compilations of her letters, which are filled with fictions and forgeries. However, the volumes cited here are generally considered authentic.