John Stevens Cabot Abbott - The History of French Revolution

Yielding to their importunities he consented to shut up the hall of Assembly the next day, and to guard the entrance with soldiers, so that there might be no meeting. As an excuse for this act of violence it was to be alleged that the hall was needed for workmen to put up decorations, in preparation for a royal sitting which was to be held on Monday. The king thus gained time to decide upon the measures which he would announce at the royal sitting. 114

At six o'clock in the morning of Saturday, placards were posted through the streets of Versailles announcing this decree. At seven o'clock, M. Bailly, president of the Assembly, received a note from one of the officers of the king's household, informing him of the decision. The Assembly had adjourned the evening before to meet at eight o'clock in the morning. It was, of course, proper that such a communication should have been made, not to the president at his lodgings, but to the assembled body. It was a stormy morning; sheets of rain, driven by a fierce wind, flooded the streets. At the appointed hour the president, accompanied by several deputies, approached the hall. They found the door guarded by a detachment of the royal troops, and a large number of the representatives assembled before it. Admission was positively refused, and it was declared that any attempt to force an entrance would be repelled by the bayonet. 115

THE DOORS OF THE ASSEMBLY CLOSED AND GUARDED.

The Assembly and the people were greatly alarmed: measures of violence were already commenced. Their immediate dissolution was menaced, and thus were to perish all hopes of reform. The rain still fell in torrents. There was no hall in Versailles to which they could resort. Some proposed immediately adjourning to Paris, where they could throw themselves upon the protection of the masses. This measure, however, was rejected as too revolutionary in its aspect. One suggested that there was in the city an old dilapidated tennis-court, and it was immediately resolved to assemble upon its pavements. The six hundred deputies, now roused to the highest pitch of excitement and followed by a vast concourse of sympathizing and applauding people, passed through the streets to the unfurnished tennis-court. Here, with not even a seat for the president, the Assembly was organized, and Bailly, in a firm voice, administered the following oath, which was instantly repeated in tones so full and strong, by every lip, as to reach the vast concourse which surrounded the building:

"We solemnly swear never to separate, and to assemble wherever circumstances shall require, until the constitution of the kingdom is established, and founded on a solemn basis."

Every deputy then signed this declaration excepting one man; and this Assembly so nobly respected private liberty as to allow him to enter his protest upon the declaration.

It was now four o'clock in the afternoon, and the Assembly, having immortalized the place as the cradle of liberty, adjourned.

The next day was the Sabbath, and Monday had been appointed for the royal sitting. The excitement of the court at Marly now amounted almost to a tumult of consternation. Necker, the minister, was proposing measures of conciliation, and had drawn up a plan which would probably have been accepted by the people, for none then wished for the overthrow of the monarchy. 116All the leaders in the Assembly were united in the desire to preserve the monarchical form of government. Surrounded as they were by thrones, England, not America, was their model. They wished for a constitutional monarchy where the voice of the people should be heard, and where all the citizens should live in the enjoyment of equal rights. Their wishes were wise and noble. Necker, closeted in council with the king and his cabinet, had at last brought the king and the majority of the cabinet over to his views, when an officer of the household came in and whispered to the king. The king immediately arose, and, requesting the council to await his return, left the room.

"This can only be a message from the queen," said M. de Montmorin to Necker; "the princes of the blood have got her to interfere, and persuade the king to adjourn his decision."

It was so. After half an hour the king returned, declined giving his assent to the plan till after another meeting, and dismissed the council. The royal sitting was also postponed until Tuesday.

On Monday, the 22d, the king held another council at Versailles. His two brothers, Count of Provence (Louis XVIII.) and Count d'Artois (Charles X.), with four other dignitaries of the privileged class, met with the council and took an active part in their deliberations. The project of Necker was here discussed and almost indignantly rejected. And yet the most earnest Royalists admit that it was extremely favorable to the privileged class, and no Republican can read it without being surprised that so much could then have been yielded by the people to aristocratic assumption. 117But still this plan, in which Necker had gone to the utmost extreme of concession to propitiate the court, was peremptorily rejected, and another, insulting in its tone, imperious in its exactments, and utterly despotic in its principles, was adopted, and the Assembly was to be sternly dissolved. Necker remonstrated in vain, and at last, in mortification and despair, declared that he could not countenance such a message by his presence, and that he should be under the necessity of resigning his ministry. The feeble, vacillating king was in judgment and in heart with Necker, as were also one or two other of the ministers; but the queen, inheriting the spirit of Austrian despotism, acting through the two brothers of the king and the majority of the court, carried her point. This agitated discussion continued until midnight of Sunday, and then it was too late to propose the defiant message for the next day. The royal sitting was consequently postponed until Tuesday. 118

To prevent the Assembly from meeting in the tennis-court on Monday, where the curates could join them, the Count d'Artois sent word to the keeper that he wished for the tennis-court on that day to play. On Monday morning, when the Assembly, according to its adjournment, met at the door, they found the entrance guarded, and they were excluded under the plea that the Count d'Artois wished for the room for his own amusement. Thus an Assembly, now consisting of seven or eight hundred of the most illustrious men of France, the representatives of twenty-five millions of people, were driven again into the streets, because a young nobleman wished for their room that he might play a game of ball.

Some of the younger deputies, exasperated by such treatment, were in favor of forcing an entrance. But armed bands, all under aristocratic officers, were parading the streets, bayonets glittered around the hall, and fifty thousand troops were within summons. The court did not disguise its merriment as it again contemplated the Assembly wandering houseless like vagabonds in the street. The nobles now felt exultant. They had compelled the king to adopt their plan. The Assembly was to be dismissed in disgrace, and an ample force of infantry, cavalry, and artillery was at hand to carry out their arrogant decree. They no longer feared the Assembly. They no longer hesitated openly to deride them. 119

These representatives of the people, thus insulted beyond all endurance, were for a time in great perplexity. It so happened, however, that the curates who had voted to unite with the Third Estate, about one hundred and forty in number, 120with the Archbishop of Vienne at their head, had met in the Church of St. Louis, intending to go from there in procession to join the Assembly. They immediately sent to the Commons an invitation to repair to the church where they were assembled, and, taking themselves the choir, left the nave for their guests. The clergy then descended and united with the Commons, where they were received with shouts, embracings, and tears. It was a solemn hour, and emotions too deep for utterance agitated all hearts. Fearful perils were now accumulating. Rumors had reached the ears of the deputies that the court intended the violent dissolution and dispersion of the Assembly. Thus would end all hopes of reform. The troops marching and countermarching, the new regiments entering the city, the hundred pieces of field artillery approaching, the cannon frowning before the door of their hall, the exultant looks and defiant bearing of their foes, all were portents of some decisive act. 121