The Countess De Charny - Volume II (3 page)

In person he was short, rather than tall, though he possessed the robust frame of an athlete. His hair was long, and when he spoke he had a way of shaking it back as a lion shakes his mane. His forehead was broad, and his

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black e3’es were overshadowed by heavy, bushy e3”ebrows. His nose was short, but rather large, with flaring nostrils. His lips were thick, and words gushed from his mouth in torrents, as water gushes from an abundant spring when it is opened.

Thickly pitted with smallpox, his skin looked like marble roughly hewed out by the hand of an apprentice, but not yet polished by the sculptor’s chisel; and his complexion was pale, purple, or livid, according as the blood mounted to his face or receded to his heart.

In repose or in a crowd, Vergniaud was a very ordinary looking man, in whom the keenest eye could discern no marks of genius; but when passion set his blood on lire, when his nostrils quivered, when the muscles of his face palpitated, and when his uplifted hand commanded silence and dominated the crowd, the man became a demi-god, the orator was transfigured, and the rostrum became his Mount Tabor.

This was the man who came to the Assembly with his hand filled with thunderbolts ; and the applause that greeted him on his entrance showed him how eagerly he was expected.

He did not ask for the right to speak, but walked straight to the tribune, ascended it in the midst of a breathless silence, and immediately began his speech.

His first words were almost inaudible, but his voice soon became deep and sonorous.

“Citizens,” he said, “I come to you and ask what is the meaning of the strange situation in Avhich the Assembly finds itself? What strange fatality pursues you, and sig-nalises each day with events which overthrow all our plans and hurl us back into a seething whirlpool of dread, anxiety, and passion? What has brought about this marvellous state of effervescence, in which one is at a loss to decide whether the Eevolution is retrograding or progressing towards its proper termination?

“At the very moment our army seemed to be making

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some progress in Belgium, we see it turn and flee before the enemy, thus bringing the war into our own territory ; and the only recollections that the unfortunate Belgians will retain of us will be of the conflagrations which lighted our retreat.

“Along the Rhine the Prussians are massing their troops upon our defenceless borders. How happens it, that, at such an important crisis in our national existence, the movements of our troops should be entirely suspended, and that by a sudden dissolution of the cabinet the interests of the kingdom should be intrusted to inexperienced hands?

” Can it be that the success of our arms is not desired at home? Can it be that the blood of the army of Coblentz is more precious to our rulers than that of our own army? When priestly fanaticism seems likely to deliver us over to the horrors of civil war and of invasion, what can be the motives of those persons who obstinately refuse to sanction edicts directed against the prime movers in these disturbances ? Do our rulers desire to reign over deserted cities and devastated fields ? How much misery and blood and suffering and death will be required to satisfy their desire for vengeance? In short, where do we stand?

“And you, gentlemen, whose courage the enemies of the Constitution are incessantly striving to weaken by arousing a spirit of contention in among you — you, whose consciences they are continually endeavouring to alarm by terming your love of liberty a spirit of sedition — you, wlio are slandered only because you do not belong to the class that the Revolution has humbled in the dust, and because the degraded men who regret the loss of the infamous privilege of cringing and grovelling cannot hope to find accomplices in you — you, whom they are trying to alienate from the people, because they know the people are your only dependence and support, and because if, by reason of an abandonment of their cause, you in turn deserve to be abandoned, it will be an easy matter to dissolve

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the Assembly — you, Avhom they are doing their best to divide and estrange, but who will surely postpone your quarrels until the war is over, and who certainly do not take such delight in bickering and hating that you prefer it to the salvation of the country — you, whom they have endeavoured to terrify by predictions of another invasion of armed petitioners, when you know only too well that at the beginning of the Revolution the sanctuary of liberty was surrounded by the satellites of despotism, that Paris was filled with court troops, and that those days of peril were the most glorious days of our first Assembly, — I wish to call your attention to the present crisis.

“Our domestic troubles are unquestionably caused by the plotting and scheming of the aristocrats and priests, both of whom are striving to achieve the same result, — a counter-revolution.

” The king refuses to sanction an edict that will put an end to the religious disturbances. I know not whether the grim spirit of the Medicis and of Cardinal Lorraine still haunts the Tuileries, and the king’s mind is disturbed by the ghostly ideas their presence might create; but unless we insult the king by believing him to be the Revolution’s most dangerous enemy, we certainly cannot believe he will encourage these efforts of priestly ambition, and restore the power wherewith these arrogant supporters of the Tiara have oppressed both monarchs and people in the past; nor can we believe, without doing the king injustice and declaring him to be the most bitter of his country’s enemies, that he delights in encouraging dissensions and per-petuating disorders which will eventually lead to ruin through the agency of a civil war.

“I conclude, consequently, that the king opposes your laws because he believes himself strong enough to maintain public peace and order without your aid; but if public peace is not maintained, if the torch of fanaticism still threatens to kindle widespread conflagrations throughout the kingdom, if religious dissensions still continue to

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devastate our land, then whom are we to regard as the cause of all these evils? Is it not the agents of royal authority who should be held responsible? Are not they themselves the real cause of all our troubles?

“Very well; then let them answer with their heads for all disturbances of the public peace and all the outrages of which religion will be the pretext! Only by thus placing this terrible responsibility where it really belongs can you hope to put an end to the turmoil that everywhere prevails.

“In your solicitude for the adequate protection of the empire from foreign foes, you passed a decree for the establishment of a military camp near Paris, in which city the confederates of France are to assemble on the 14th of July to renew their oath to live free or die. The poison-ous breath of calumny has killed this project, and the king has refused to sanction that also.

“I respect this exercise of a constitutional prerogative too much to suggest that his ministers should be considered responsible for this refusal on his part; but if the sacred soil of liberty is profaned before a suitable army can be raised to defend it, you must regard these men as traitors, and punish them as such, by hurling them into the pit which their indifference or malevolence has created m the pathway of liberty.

“We should tear off the bandage which flattery and intrigue have placed over the king’s eyes, and show him the goal to which perfidious friends are endeavouring to lead him.

“It is in the king’s name that refugee princes are stirring up the courts of Europe against us ; it is to avenge the king’s dignity that the treaty of Piluitz has been concluded ; it is to defend the king that we see the members of his former bodyguard fleeing to Germany to enroll themselves under a foreign flag; it is to come to the king’s aid that émigrés are enlisting in Austrian armies, and preparing to wage a relentless war upon their native land ; and it

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is to assist these champions of royal prerogative that others desert their posts iu the face of the eueiuy, break their oaths, steal the funds intrusted to their charge, and corrupt their men, — thus to all appearance priding themselves upon their cowardice, insubordination, perjury, theft, and murder. And the king’s name has been made the pretext for all this.

“Now, in the Constitution I read as follows: —

” ‘ If the king places himself at the head of an army, and directs its forces against the nation, or if he does not oppose by formal act any such enterprise undertaken in his name, he shall be regarded as having abdicated his throne.’

“It Avill be useless for the king to say in reply: ‘The enemies of the nation pretend to be acting in my behalf, but I have proved that I am not their accomplice. I have obeyed the Constitution, I have put troops in the field. It is true that the armies were too weak, but the Constitution does not specify how strong the army is to be. It is true they may have been put in the field too late, but the Constitution does not state how much time is to be allowed me for their organisation. It is true some troops might have been placed in reserve to relieve those in the field, but the Constitution does not oblige me to organise these reserve camps. It is true that when the generals were advancing unhindered into the enemy’s country, I ordered them to be recalled, but the Constitution does not compel me to win victories. It is true that my ministers have deceived the National Assembly with regard to the number, disposal, and equipments of our troops, but the Constitution gives me the right to select my own counsellors, and nowhere commands me to bestow my confidence on patriots, or drive counter-revolutionists from me. It is true that the Assembly has passed several decrees essential to the welfare of our beloved country, and I have refused to sanction them, but the Constitution gives me this power. Finalh^, it is true that a counter-revolution is at work, that des-YERGXIAUD SPEAKS. 31

potism is striving to re-invest me with its sceptre of iron, in order that I may crush you with it, that I may punish you for having the insolence to desire to be free, and that I may compel you to grovel before me; but I am doing all this constitutionally. Xo act that the Constitution condemns has emanated from me ; so no one has any right to doubt my fidelity towards the Constitution, or my zeal in its defence.’

“If it were possible for the king to use such derisive language as this amid the misfortunes that now environ us, and to prate of his respect for the Constitution in such terms of insulting irony, should we not have a perfect right to reply : —

“‘You believe, perhaps, O king, like the tyrant Lysan-der, that truth is no better than falsehood, and that it is perfectly right and proper to amuse men with promises and oaths, as you amuse children with jackstraws. You have made a pretence of loving the laws, merely for the sake of retaining the power to defy them. You have accepted the Constitution, merely to retain your seat upon the throne, where you needed to remain in order that you might be able to destroy this same Constitution. You profess to love the nation, merely to win the confidence of the people, and so insure the success of your perfidious schemes.

‘“Do you still think to deceive us with such hypocritical protestations? Do you hope to blind us to the real cause of our misfortunes by your artifices and sophistries?

“‘Was it really with the hope of defending us that you sent such an insignificant force to resist the invader as to prevent a possibility of anything save defeat? Was it for the purpose of defending us that you jDaid no attention to plans for fortifying the interior of the kingdom, and neglected to make any preparations for resistance? Was it to defend us that you failed to reprimand a general who violated the Constitution, and did his best to weaken the courage of the men who were serving under him? Is it to defend us that you are paralysing the government by

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continuai changes in your cabinet? Does the Constitution empower you to choose your ministers for our weal or for our woe? Does it make you commander-in-chief of our armies for our glory or our shame? Does it give you a large civil list, and so many valuable prerogatives, — among them the right of veto, — in order that you may em-ploy these advantages to the detriment of the Constitution and the kingdom?

“‘You have not kept the oath you took to support the Constitution. The Constitution may be overthrown, but you shall not profit by your perjury. You have uttered no protest against the victories which have been achieved over liberty in your name, nor have you ever repudiated them, either directly or indirectly; but you shall not profit by these unworthy triumphs. Henceforth you are naught to this Constitution which you have so basely violated, or to the people whom you have so shamefully betrayed.’

‘“As a close connection -is apparent between many of these facts which I have recalled to your mind, and certain acts of the king’s; as it is certain that the false friends who surround him are in league with those conspirators at Coblentz who were striving to lure the king on to his ruin in order to place the crown upon the head of one of their own chief conspirators; as it is needful for his personal safety as well as for the safety of the kingdom that his conduct should be above suspicion, — I suggest an address in which he be reminded of the truths I have just mentioned, and of the fact that the state of neutralit}- which he maintains between this country and Coblentz is nothing more nor less than treason towards France.

“I demand, moreover, that you declare the country in danger. You will see all citizens rallying to her support at this cry of alarm. The land will be covered with soldiers who will repeat the deeds of valour that covered the nations of antiquity with glory.

“For what are we waiting? For the military government some persons desire to establish? The Court is

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suspected of treasonable projects. There is much talk of military movements and of martial law. The imagination is becoming familiar with the idea of bloodshed. The palace of the king of the French is being transformed into a fortress.