John Stevens Cabot Abbott - The History of French Revolution

The Abbé Sièyes had written a pamphlet which had produced a profound impression throughout France. He thus asked, and answered, three questions: "What is the Third Estate? The whole people. What has it hitherto been in our form of government? Nothing. What does it want? To become something."

But the Notables were now alarmed, and a warm discussion ensued between the advocates of ancient traditions and of national justice. One alone of the several committees into which the Notables were divided voted in favor of allowing the people an equal representation with the privileged classes. Monsieur, afterward Louis XVIII., was chairman of that committee. When the king was informed of this vote he remarked, "Let them add my vote: I give it willingly." 80After a month's session, the Notables, on the 12th of December, having accomplished nothing, vanished, to appear no more forever.

The question was still unsettled, and the clamor was growing louder and more exciting. It was a vital struggle. To give the people an equal voice was death to aristocratic usurpation. To give the privileged class two votes, to the people one, hopelessly perpetuated abuses. The question could only be settled by the authority of the king. On the 27th of December Necker made a report to the king recommending that the unprivileged class should send the same number of delegates as the privileged. 81In accordance with this report, on the 24th of January, 1789, the royal edict was issued. 82The dissatisfaction on the part of the nobles amounted almost to rebellion. In Brittany the nobles, who had sent in a strong protest, refused to send any delegates to the States-General, hoping probably that the nobles and the clergy generally would follow their example, and that thus the measure might be frustrated.

But events ran onward like the sweep of ocean tides. Nothing could retard them. Preparations were made for the elections. Among the people every man over twenty-five years of age who paid a tax was allowed to vote. 83A more sublime spectacle earth has rarely witnessed. Twenty-five millions of people suddenly gained the right of popular suffrage. Between five and six millions of votes were cast. The city of Paris was divided into sixty districts, each of which chose two electors, and these electors were to choose twenty deputies. The people were also enjoined to send in a written statement of their grievances, with instructions to the deputies respecting the reforms which they wished to have introduced. These statements of grievances, now existing in thirty-six compact folio volumes, present appalling testimony to the outrages which the people had for ages been enduring. With propriety, dignity, and marvelous unanimity of purpose the people assembled at the polls. 84

There were a few of the nobles who were in favor of reform. In Provence the nobility in their provincial parliament protested against the royal edict, declaring that such innovations as were contemplated tended to "impair the dignity of the nobility." One of their number, Count Mirabeau, ventured to remonstrate against this arrogance, and to advocate the rights of the people. He was a man of extraordinary genius and courage, and before no mortal or assemblage of mortals could his eye be compelled to quail. He persisted and stood at bay, the whole Parliament, in a tumult of rage, assailing him. With amazing powers of vituperative eloquence he hurled back their denunciations, and glared upon them fiercely and unconquerably. He was a man of Herculean frame, with a gigantic head, thickly covered with shaggy locks, and he would have been an exceedingly handsome man had not his face been horribly scarred with the small-pox. He was a man of iron nerve and soul, and knew not what it was to fear any thing. Like most of the noblesse and the higher clergy, he had lived a dissolute life. The parliamentary assembly, in a storm of wrath, expelled him from their body. He left the house, but in departing, in portentous menace, exclaimed:

"In all countries and in all times the aristocrats have implacably pursued every friend of the people; and with tenfold implacability if such were himself born of the aristocracy. It was thus that the last of the Gracchi perished by the hands of the Patricians. But he, being struck with the mortal stab, flung dust toward heaven and called on the avenging deities; and from this dust there was born Marius—Marius, not so illustrious for exterminating the Cimbri, as for overturning in Rome the tyranny of the nobles." 85

Mirabeau now threw himself into the arms of the Third Estate. That he might more perfectly identify himself with them, he hired a shop, it is said, in Marseilles, and put up his sign— Mirabeau, Woolen-draper . By such influences he was elected deputy by the Third Estate both at Aix and at Marseilles. With enthusiasm was he elected—with ringing of bells, booming of cannon, and popular acclaim. He decided to accept the election of Aix. His measureless audacity was soon called into requisition to repel the haughtiness of the court. 86

The nobles had obtained the decision that the people should not be allowed the secret ballot, but should vote with an audible voice. They cherished the hope that inferior people so dependent upon the higher and wealthy classes, would not venture openly to vote in opposition to the wishes of their superiors. 87It was thought that the nobles might thus be able to control the popular election. To render this more certain, the people, in their primary assemblies, were only to choose electors ; and these electors were to choose the delegates. Thus then was a double chance for intimidation and bribery.

But the people had made progress in intelligence far beyond the conceptions of the nobles. They had an instinctive perception of their rights, and, in the presence of their frowning lords, unawed, yet respectfully, they chose electors who would be true to the popular cause. 88Thus the nobles not only failed in introducing an aristocratic element into the popular branch, but, much to their chagrin, they found a very powerful popular party thrown into the order of the clergy. 89The higher offices in the ecclesiastical hierarchy, which gave the possessor vast revenue and no labor, were generally in the hands of nobles, haughty, intolerant, united in all their sympathies with their brethren of the privileged class. But the curates, the pastors of the churches, who preached, and visited the rich, and instructed the children, working hard and living in penury, came from the firesides of the people. They were familiar with the sufferings of their parishioners, and their sympathies were warmly with them. Many of these curates were men of unaffected piety. Nearly every writer upon the Revolution is compelled to do them justice. 90

It had been decided that the States-General should consist of twelve hundred members. The people were consequently to choose six hundred, and the clergy and nobility six hundred. But, as the three orders held their elections separately, the two privileged classes were entitled to three hundred each. Two hundred curates were chosen as representatives of the clergy. And though these parish ministers were much overawed by their ecclesiastical superiors, and would hardly venture openly to vote in contradiction to their wishes, still both nobles and bishops understood that they were in heart with the people. There was also a very small minority among the nobles who were advocates of the popular cause, some from noble impulses, like La Fayette, and some from ignoble motives, like the Duke of Orleans. Thomas Jefferson, who was at this time in Paris, wrote four days after the opening of the States-General to Mr. Jay, "It was imagined the ecclesiastical elections would have been generally in favor of the higher clergy; on the contrary, the lower clergy have obtained five sixths of these deputations. These are the sons of peasants, who have done all the drudgery of the service for ten, twenty, and thirty guineas a year, and whose oppressions and penury, contrasted with the pride and luxury of the higher clergy, have rendered them perfectly disposed to humble the latter."