VII. 1791. 1 Burke, viii. 72. CHAP. greatest degree to unhinge the public mind; and proved perhaps, in the end, the chief cause of the subsequent miseries of the Revolution. The number of these emigrants amounted by this time, with their families, to nearly one hundred thousand, of the most wealthy and influential Lac. i. 191. body in France. All the roads to the Rhine were covered by haughty fugitives, whose inability for action was equalled only by the presumption of their language. They set their faces from the first against every species of improvement; would admit of no compromise with the popular party; and threatened their adversaries with the whole weight of European vengeance, if they persisted in demanding it. Coblentz became the centre of the anti-revolutionary party; and to men accustomed to measure the strength of their force by the number of titles which it contained, a more formidable array could hardly be imagined. But it was totally deficient in the real weight of aristocratic assemblies-the number and spirit of their followers. The young and presumptuous nobility, possessing no estimable quality but their valour, and their generous adherence to royalty in misfortune, were altogether unfit to cope with the moral energy and practical talent which had arisen among the middle orders of France. The corps of the emigrants, though always forward and gallant, was too deficient in discipline and subordination to be of much importance in the subsequent campaigns, while their impetuous counsels too often betrayed their allies into unfortunate measures. Except in La Vendée, rashness of advice, and inefficiency of conduct, characterised all the military efforts of the Royalist party in France, from the commencement to the termination of the Revolution. 8. trous effects. In thus deserting their country at the most critical Its disas period of its history, the French nobility manifested equal baseness and imprudence: baseness, because it was their duty, under all hazards, to have stood by their sovereign, and not delivered him in fetters to a rebellious people; VII. 1791. imprudence, because, by joining the ranks of the stranger, CHAP. and combating against their native land, they detached their own cause from that of France, and subjected themselves to the eternal reproach of bringing their country into danger for the sake of their separate and exclusive interests. The subsequent strength of the Jacobins was mainly owing to the successful appeals which they were always able to make to the patriotism of the people, and to the foreign wars which identified their rule with a career of glory; the Royalists have never recovered the disgrace of having joined the armies of the enemy, and regained the throne at the expense of national independence. How different might have been the issue of events, if, instead of rousing fruitless invasions from the German states, the French nobility had put themselves at the head of the generous efforts of their own country; if they had shared in the glories of La Vendée, or combated under the walls of Lyons! Defeat, in such circumstances, would1 Madame have been respected, success unsullied; by acting as they 1, 9. did, overthrow became ruin, and victory humiliation.1 de Stael, ii. the Legisla Oct. 1. The new Assembly opened its sittings on the 1st of 9. October. An event occurred at the very outset which opening of demonstrated how much the crown had been deprived of tive Assemits lustre, and which interrupted the harmony between bly: them and the King. A deputation of sixty members was appointed to wait on Louis; but he did not receive them, as the ceremonial had not been expected, and merely sent intimation by the minister of justice that he would admit them on the following day at twelve o'clock. The meeting was cold and unsatisfactory on both sides. Shortly after, the King came in form to the Assembly; he was received with the greatest enthusiasm. His speech was directed chiefly to conciliation and the maintenance of harmony between the different branches of the government. But in the very outset Louis experienced the strength of the republican principles, which, under the fostering hand of the Constituent Assembly, had made VII. 1791. Oct. 4. Oct. 5. CHAP. such rapid progress in France. They first decreed that the title of Sire and your Majesty should be dropped at the ensuing ceremonial; next, that the King should be seated on a chair similar in every respect to that of the president. When the monarch refused to come to the Assembly on these conditions, they yielded that point, but 1 Hist. Parl. insisted on sitting down when he sat, which was actually 77. Deux done at its opening. The King was so much affected by 337, 341. this circumstance, that when he returned to the Queen he Madame threw himself on a chair, and burst into tears. He was Campan, ii. 169. Mig.i. deadly pale, and the expression of his countenance so 18, 19. mournful that the Queen was in the greatest alarm. "All Oc. 7, 1791. is lost: ah! madam, and you have beheld that humiliation. Is it this you have come into France to witness?"1 xii. 52, 74, Amis, vi. 147. Th. ii. Moniteur, 10. character of bly. Though not anarchical, the Assembly was decidedly General attached to the principles of democracy. The court and the Assem- the nobles had exercised no sort of influence on the elections; the authority of the first was in abeyance, the latter had deserted their country. Hence the parties in the Legislative Assembly were different from those in the Constituent. None were attached to the royal or aristocratical interests; the only question that remained was, the maintenance or overthrow of the constitutional throne. "Et nous aussi, nous voulons faire une révolution," said one of the revolutionary members shortly after his election ; and this, in truth, was the feeling of a large proportion of the electors, and a considerable portion of the deputies. The desire of novelty, the ambition of power, and a restless anxiety for change, had seized the minds of most of those who had enjoyed a share in the formation of the first constitution. The object of the original supporters of the Revolution had already become, not to destroy the work of others, but to preserve their own. According to the natural progress of revolutionary changes, the democratic part of the first Assembly was the aristocratic of the second. And this appeared, accordingly, even in the places which the parties respectively occupied in the VII. 1791. Assembly; for the Côté droit, or friends of the constitu- CHAP. tion, was composed of men holding views identical with those who had formed the Côté gauche, or democrats, in the Constituent Assembly; and the Côté gauche of, the New Assembly consisted of a party so republican, Amis, vi. that, with the exception of Robespierre, and a few of his Toul. ii. 89. associates in the Jacobin Club, they were unknown in Th. i. 10, 11. the first.1 341, 343. Lac. i. 192. the Assem Feuillants. Stael. The members of the right, or the friends of the consti- 11. tution, were called the Feuillants, from the club which Parties in formed the centre of their power. Lameth, Barnave, bly-the Duport, Damas, and Vaublanc, formed the leaders of this Character of party, who, although for the most part excluded from Madame de seats in the legislature, by the self-denying ordinance passed by the Constituent Assembly, yet, by their influence in the clubs and saloons, in reality directed its movements. The national guard, the army, the magistrates of the departments, in general all the constituted authorities, were in their interest. But they had not the brilliant orators in their ranks who formed the strength of their adversaries; and the support of the people rapidly passed over to the attacking and ultra-democratic party. Their principal strength consisted in the extraordinary talents and powerful influence in the intellectual circles of Paris, of a young woman who had already become interwoven with the history of France. The daughter of M. Necker, and his not less gifted wife, the first love of Gibbon, Madame de Stael had inhaled the breath of genius, and lived in the society of talent, from her very earliest years. From her infancy she had heard the conversation of Necker, Rousseau, Buffon, D'Alembert, Diderot, and St Pierre. But it was from nature, not education, that she derived her transcendent powers. Her genius was great, her soul elevated, her feelings impassioned-masculine in energy, but feminine in heart. She was impelled into the career of intellect by the denial by nature of what, she confessed, she would CHAP. VII. 1791. more have prized-the gift of beauty. By her family she was connected with the popular party; by her talents, with the aristocracy of intellect; by her father's rank as minister, and her own predilections as a woman, with that of rank. In the abstract, her principles were entirely for the advocates of freedom; but, like most other women, her partialities inclined strongly to the elegance of manners, and elevation of mind, which in general are to be found only in connection with ancient descent. Her genius resembled the chorus of antiquity, where all the strong voices and vehement passions of the drama united in one harmonious swell. Her thought was inspiration, her words eloquence, her sway irresistible, to such as were capable of appreciating her powers. Her views of society, and the progress of literature, are more profound than ever, with a few exceptions, were formed by men; but nevertheless it was not in them that she felt her chief interest, nor in their development that her greatest excellence has been attained. It was in the delineations of the inmost recesses of the heart that she was unrivalled, because none felt with such intensity the most overpowering of its passions. Her great works on Germany and the French Revolution will live as long as des Girond. the French language; but the time will never come in Mig. i. 150. any country, that Corinne will not warm the hearts of the generous, and refine the taste of the cultivated.1 1 Lam. Hist. i. 341, 342. 12. the Giron dists. The Girondists, so called from the district near BorCharacter of deaux called the Gironde, from whence the most able of their party were elected, comprehended the republicans of the Assembly, and represented that numerous and enthusiastic body in the State who longed for institutions on the model of those of antiquity. Vergniaud, Guadet, Gensonné, Isnard, and Brissot, were the splendid leaders of that party, and, from their powers of eloquence and habits of declamation, rapidly rose to celebrity. Brissot was at first the most popular of these, from the in |