The French Revolution A History Chapter 1.3.VIII. - Lomenie's Death-throes.
by Thomas Carlyle
On the morrow, which is the 3rd of May, 1788, an astonished Parlement sits
convoked; listens speechless to the speech of D'Espremenil, unfolding the
infinite misdeed. Deed of treachery; of unhallowed darkness, such as
Despotism loves! Denounce it, O Parlement of Paris; awaken France and the
Universe; roll what thunder-barrels of forensic eloquence thou hast: with
thee too it is verily Now or never!
The Parlement is not wanting, at such juncture. In the hour of his extreme
jeopardy, the lion first incites himself by roaring, by lashing his sides.
So here the Parlement of Paris. On the motion of D'Espremenil, a most
patriotic Oath, of the One-and-all sort, is sworn, with united throat;--an
excellent new-idea, which, in these coming years, shall not remain
unimitated. Next comes indomitable Declaration, almost of the rights of
man, at least of the rights of Parlement; Invocation to the friends of
French Freedom, in this and in subsequent time. All which, or the essence
of all which, is brought to paper; in a tone wherein something of
plaintiveness blends with, and tempers, heroic valour. And thus, having
sounded the storm-bell,--which Paris hears, which all France will hear; and
hurled such defiance in the teeth of Lomenie and Despotism, the Parlement
retires as from a tolerable first day's work.
But how Lomenie felt to see his cockatrice-egg (so essential to the
salvation of France) broken in this premature manner, let readers fancy!
Indignant he clutches at his thunderbolts (de Cachet, of the Seal); and
launches two of them: a bolt for D'Espremenil; a bolt for that busy
Goeslard, whose service in the Second Twentieth and 'strict valuation' is
not forgotten. Such bolts clutched promptly overnight, and launched with
the early new morning, shall strike agitated Paris if not into
requiescence, yet into wholesome astonishment.
Ministerial thunderbolts may be launched; but if they do not hit?
D'Espremenil and Goeslard, warned, both of them, as is thought, by the
singing of some friendly bird, elude the Lomenie Tipstaves; escape
disguised through skywindows, over roofs, to their own Palais de Justice:
the thunderbolts have missed. Paris (for the buzz flies abroad) is struck
into astonishment not wholesome. The two martyrs of Liberty doff their
disguises; don their long gowns; behold, in the space of an hour, by aid of
ushers and swift runners, the Parlement, with its Counsellors, Presidents,
even Peers, sits anew assembled. The assembled Parlement declares that
these its two martyrs cannot be given up, to any sublunary authority;
moreover that the 'session is permanent,' admitting of no adjournment, till
pursuit of them has been relinquished.
And so, with forensic eloquence, denunciation and protest, with couriers
going and returning, the Parlement, in this state of continual explosion
that shall cease neither night nor day, waits the issue. Awakened Paris
once more inundates those outer courts; boils, in floods wilder than ever,
through all avenues. Dissonant hubbub there is; jargon as of Babel, in the
hour when they were first smitten (as here) with mutual unintelligibilty,
and the people had not yet dispersed!
Paris City goes through its diurnal epochs, of working and slumbering; and
now, for the second time, most European and African mortals are asleep.
But here, in this Whirlpool of Words, sleep falls not; the Night spreads
her coverlid of Darkness over it in vain. Within is the sound of mere
martyr invincibility; tempered with the due tone of plaintiveness. Without
is the infinite expectant hum,--growing drowsier a little. So has it
lasted for six-and-thirty hours.
But hark, through the dead of midnight, what tramp is this? Tramp as of
armed men, foot and horse; Gardes Francaises, Gardes Suisses: marching
hither; in silent regularity; in the flare of torchlight! There are
Sappers, too, with axes and crowbars: apparently, if the doors open not,
they will be forced!--It is Captain D'Agoust, missioned from Versailles.
D'Agoust, a man of known firmness;--who once forced Prince Conde himself,
by mere incessant looking at him, to give satisfaction and fight; (Weber,
i. 283.) he now, with axes and torches is advancing on the very sanctuary
of Justice. Sacrilegious; yet what help? The man is a soldier; looks
merely at his orders; impassive, moves forward like an inanimate engine.
The doors open on summons, there need no axes; door after door. And now
the innermost door opens; discloses the long-gowned Senators of France: a
hundred and sixty-seven by tale, seventeen of them Peers; sitting there,
majestic, 'in permanent session.' Were not the men military, and of cast-
iron, this sight, this silence reechoing the clank of his own boots, might
stagger him! For the hundred and sixty-seven receive him in perfect
silence; which some liken to that of the Roman Senate overfallen by
Brennus; some to that of a nest of coiners surprised by officers of the
Police. (Besenval, iii. 355.) Messieurs, said D'Agoust, De par le Roi!
Express order has charged D'Agoust with the sad duty of arresting two
individuals: M. Duval d'Espremenil and M. Goeslard de Monsabert. Which
respectable individuals, as he has not the honour of knowing them, are
hereby invited, in the King's name, to surrender themselves.--Profound
silence! Buzz, which grows a murmur: "We are all D'Espremenils!" ventures
a voice; which other voices repeat. The President inquires, Whether he
will employ violence? Captain D'Agoust, honoured with his Majesty's
commission, has to execute his Majesty's order; would so gladly do it
without violence, will in any case do it; grants an august Senate space to
deliberate which method they prefer. And thereupon D'Agoust, with grave
military courtesy, has withdrawn for the moment.
What boots it, august Senators? All avenues are closed with fixed
bayonets. Your Courier gallops to Versailles, through the dewy Night; but
also gallops back again, with tidings that the order is authentic, that it
is irrevocable. The outer courts simmer with idle population; but
D'Agoust's grenadier-ranks stand there as immovable floodgates: there will
be no revolting to deliver you. "Messieurs!" thus spoke D'Espremenil,
"when the victorious Gauls entered Rome, which they had carried by assault,
the Roman Senators, clothed in their purple, sat there, in their curule
chairs, with a proud and tranquil countenance, awaiting slavery or death.
Such too is the lofty spectacle, which you, in this hour, offer to the
universe (a l'univers), after having generously"--with much more of the
like, as can still be read. (Toulongeon, i. App. 20.)
In vain, O D'Espremenil! Here is this cast-iron Captain D'Agoust, with his
cast-iron military air, come back. Despotism, constraint, destruction sit
waving in his plumes. D'Espremenil must fall silent; heroically give
himself up, lest worst befall. Him Goeslard heroically imitates. With
spoken and speechless emotion, they fling themselves into the arms of their
Parlementary brethren, for a last embrace: and so amid plaudits and
plaints, from a hundred and sixty-five throats; amid wavings, sobbings, a
whole forest-sigh of Parlementary pathos,--they are led through winding
passages, to the rear-gate; where, in the gray of the morning, two Coaches
with Exempts stand waiting. There must the victims mount; bayonets
menacing behind. D'Espremenil's stern question to the populace, 'Whether
they have courage?' is answered by silence. They mount, and roll; and
neither the rising of the May sun (it is the 6th morning), nor its setting
shall lighten their heart: but they fare forward continually; D'Espremenil
towards the utmost Isles of Sainte Marguerite, or Hieres (supposed by some,
if that is any comfort, to be Calypso's Island); Goeslard towards the land-
fortress of Pierre-en-Cize, extant then, near the City of Lyons.
Captain D'Agoust may now therefore look forward to Majorship, to
Commandantship of the Tuilleries; (Montgaillard, i. 404.)--and withal
vanish from History; where nevertheless he has been fated to do a notable
thing. For not only are D'Espremenil and Goeslard safe whirling southward,
but the Parlement itself has straightway to march out: to that also his
inexorable order reaches. Gathering up their long skirts, they file out,
the whole Hundred and Sixty-five of them, through two rows of unsympathetic
grenadiers: a spectacle to gods and men. The people revolt not; they only
wonder and grumble: also, we remark, these unsympathetic grenadiers are
Gardes Francaises,--who, one day, will sympathise! In a word, the Palais
de Justice is swept clear, the doors of it are locked; and D'Agoust returns
to Versailles with the key in his pocket,--having, as was said, merited
preferment.
As for this Parlement of Paris, now turned out to the street, we will
without reluctance leave it there. The Beds of Justice it had to undergo,
in the coming fortnight, at Versailles, in registering, or rather refusing
to register, those new-hatched Edicts; and how it assembled in taverns and
tap-rooms there, for the purpose of Protesting, (Weber, i. 299-303.) or
hovered disconsolate, with outspread skirts, not knowing where to assemble;
and was reduced to lodge Protest 'with a Notary;' and in the end, to sit
still (in a state of forced 'vacation'), and do nothing; all this, natural
now, as the burying of the dead after battle, shall not concern us. The
Parlement of Paris has as good as performed its part; doing and misdoing,
so far, but hardly further, could it stir the world.
Lomenie has removed the evil then? Not at all: not so much as the symptom
of the evil; scarcely the twelfth part of the symptom, and exasperated the
other eleven! The Intendants of Provinces, the Military Commandants are at
their posts, on the appointed 8th of May: but in no Parlement, if not in
the single one of Douai, can these new Edicts get registered. Not
peaceable signing with ink; but browbeating, bloodshedding, appeal to
primary club-law! Against these Bailliages, against this Plenary Court,
exasperated Themis everywhere shows face of battle; the Provincial Noblesse
are of her party, and whoever hates Lomenie and the evil time; with her
attorneys and Tipstaves, she enlists and operates down even to the
populace. At Rennes in Brittany, where the historical Bertrand de
Moleville is Intendant, it has passed from fatal continual duelling,
between the military and gentry, to street-fighting; to stone-volleys and
musket-shot: and still the Edicts remained unregistered. The afflicted
Bretons send remonstrance to Lomenie, by a Deputation of Twelve; whom,
however, Lomenie, having heard them, shuts up in the Bastille. A second
larger deputation he meets, by his scouts, on the road, and persuades or
frightens back. But now a third largest Deputation is indignantly sent by
many roads: refused audience on arriving, it meets to take council;
invites Lafayette and all Patriot Bretons in Paris to assist; agitates
itself; becomes the Breton Club, first germ of--the Jacobins' Society. (A.
F. de Bertrand-Moleville, Memoires Particuliers (Paris, 1816), I. ch. i.
Marmontel, Memoires, iv. 27.)
So many as eight Parlements get exiled: (Montgaillard, i. 308.) others
might need that remedy, but it is one not always easy of appliance. At
Grenoble, for instance, where a Mounier, a Barnave have not been idle, the
Parlement had due order (by Lettres-de-Cachet) to depart, and exile itself:
but on the morrow, instead of coaches getting yoked, the alarm-bell bursts
forth, ominous; and peals and booms all day: crowds of mountaineers rush
down, with axes, even with firelocks,--whom (most ominous of all!) the
soldiery shows no eagerness to deal with. 'Axe over head,' the poor
General has to sign capitulation; to engage that the Lettres-de-Cachet
shall remain unexecuted, and a beloved Parlement stay where it is.
Besancon, Dijon, Rouen, Bourdeaux, are not what they should be! At Pau in
Bearn, where the old Commandant had failed, the new one (a Grammont, native
to them) is met by a Procession of townsmen with the Cradle of Henri
Quatre, the Palladium of their Town; is conjured as he venerates this old
Tortoise-shell, in which the great Henri was rocked, not to trample on
Bearnese liberty; is informed, withal, that his Majesty's cannon are all
safe--in the keeping of his Majesty's faithful Burghers of Pau, and do now
lie pointed on the walls there; ready for action! (Besenval, iii. 348.)
At this rate, your Grand Bailliages are like to have a stormy infancy. As
for the Plenary Court, it has literally expired in the birth. The very
Courtiers looked shy at it; old Marshal Broglie declined the honour of
sitting therein. Assaulted by a universal storm of mingled ridicule and
execration, (La Cour Pleniere, heroi-tragi-comedie en trois actes et en
prose; jouee le 14 Juillet 1788, par une societe d'amateurs dans un Chateau
aux environs de Versailles; par M. l'Abbe de Vermond, Lecteur de la Reine:
A Baville (Lamoignon's Country-house), et se trouve a Paris, chez la Veuve
Liberte, a l'enseigne de la Revolution, 1788.--La Passion, la Mort et la
Resurrection du Peuple: Imprime a Jerusalem, &c. &c.--See Montgaillard, i.
407.) this poor Plenary Court met once, and never any second time.
Distracted country! Contention hisses up, with forked hydra-tongues,
wheresoever poor Lomenie sets his foot. 'Let a Commandant, a Commissioner
of the King,' says Weber, 'enter one of these Parlements to have an Edict
registered, the whole Tribunal will disappear, and leave the Commandant
alone with the Clerk and First President. The Edict registered and the
Commandant gone, the whole Tribunal hastens back, to declare such
registration null. The highways are covered with Grand Deputations of
Parlements, proceeding to Versailles, to have their registers expunged by
the King's hand; or returning home, to cover a new page with a new
resolution still more audacious.' (Weber, i. 275.)
Such is the France of this year 1788. Not now a Golden or Paper Age of
Hope; with its horse-racings, balloon-flyings, and finer sensibilities of
the heart: ah, gone is that; its golden effulgence paled, bedarkened in
this singular manner,--brewing towards preternatural weather! For, as in
that wreck-storm of Paul et Virginie and Saint-Pierre,--'One huge
motionless cloud' (say, of Sorrow and Indignation) 'girdles our whole
horizon; streams up, hairy, copper-edged, over a sky of the colour of
lead.' Motionless itself; but 'small clouds' (as exiled Parlements and
suchlike), 'parting from it, fly over the zenith, with the velocity of
birds:'--till at last, with one loud howl, the whole Four Winds be dashed
together, and all the world exclaim, There is the tornado! Tout le monde
s'ecria, Voila l'ouragan!
For the rest, in such circumstances, the Successive Loan, very naturally,
remains unfilled; neither, indeed, can that impost of the Second Twentieth,
at least not on 'strict valuation,' be levied to good purpose: 'Lenders,'
says Weber, in his hysterical vehement manner, 'are afraid of ruin; tax-
gatherers of hanging.' The very Clergy turn away their face: convoked in
Extraordinary Assembly, they afford no gratuitous gift (don gratuit),--if
it be not that of advice; here too instead of cash is clamour for States-
General. (Lameth, Assemb. Const. (Introd.) p. 87.)
O Lomenie-Brienne, with thy poor flimsy mind all bewildered, and now 'three
actual cauteries' on thy worn-out body; who art like to die of inflamation,
provocation, milk-diet, dartres vives and maladie--(best untranslated);
(Montgaillard, i. 424.) and presidest over a France with innumerable actual
cauteries, which also is dying of inflammation and the rest! Was it wise
to quit the bosky verdures of Brienne, and thy new ashlar Chateau there,
and what it held, for this? Soft were those shades and lawns; sweet the
hymns of Poetasters, the blandishments of high-rouged Graces: (See Memoires
de Morellet.) and always this and the other Philosophe Morellet (nothing
deeming himself or thee a questionable Sham-Priest) could be so happy in
making happy:--and also (hadst thou known it), in the Military School hard
by there sat, studying mathematics, a dusky-complexioned taciturn Boy,
under the name of: NAPOLEON BONAPARTE!--With fifty years of effort, and
one final dead-lift struggle, thou hast made an exchange! Thou hast got
thy robe of office,--as Hercules had his Nessus'-shirt.
On the 13th of July of this 1788, there fell, on the very edge of harvest,
the most frightful hailstorm; scattering into wild waste the Fruits of the
Year; which had otherwise suffered grievously by drought. For sixty
leagues round Paris especially, the ruin was almost total. (Marmontel, iv.
30.) To so many other evils, then, there is to be added, that of dearth,
perhaps of famine.
Some days before this hailstorm, on the 5th of July; and still more
decisively some days after it, on the 8th of August,--Lomenie announces
that the States-General are actually to meet in the following month of May.
Till after which period, this of the Plenary Court, and the rest, shall
remain postponed. Further, as in Lomenie there is no plan of forming or
holding these most desirable States-General, 'thinkers are invited' to
furnish him with one,--through the medium of discussion by the public
press!
What could a poor Minister do? There are still ten months of respite
reserved: a sinking pilot will fling out all things, his very biscuit-
bags, lead, log, compass and quadrant, before flinging out himself. It is
on this principle, of sinking, and the incipient delirium of despair, that
we explain likewise the almost miraculous 'invitation to thinkers.'
Invitation to Chaos to be so kind as build, out of its tumultuous drift-
wood, an Ark of Escape for him! In these cases, not invitation but command
has usually proved serviceable.--The Queen stood, that evening, pensive, in
a window, with her face turned towards the Garden. The Chef de Gobelet had
followed her with an obsequious cup of coffee; and then retired till it
were sipped. Her Majesty beckoned Dame Campan to approach: "Grand Dieu!"
murmured she, with the cup in her hand, "what a piece of news will be made
public to-day! The King grants States-General." Then raising her eyes to
Heaven (if Campan were not mistaken), she added: "'Tis a first beat of the
drum, of ill-omen for France. This Noblesse will ruin us." (Campan, iii.
104, 111.)
During all that hatching of the Plenary Court, while Lamoignon looked so
mysterious, Besenval had kept asking him one question: Whether they had
cash? To which as Lamoignon always answered (on the faith of Lomenie) that
the cash was safe, judicious Besenval rejoined that then all was safe.
Nevertheless, the melancholy fact is, that the royal coffers are almost
getting literally void of coin. Indeed, apart from all other things this
'invitation to thinkers,' and the great change now at hand are enough to
'arrest the circulation of capital,' and forward only that of pamphlets. A
few thousand gold louis are now all of money or money's worth that remains
in the King's Treasury. With another movement as of desperation, Lomenie
invites Necker to come and be Controller of Finances! Necker has other
work in view than controlling Finances for Lomenie: with a dry refusal he
stands taciturn; awaiting his time.
What shall a desperate Prime Minister do? He has grasped at the strongbox
of the King's Theatre: some Lottery had been set on foot for those
sufferers by the hailstorm; in his extreme necessity, Lomenie lays hands
even on this. (Besenval, iii. 360.) To make provision for the passing
day, on any terms, will soon be impossible.--On the 16th of August, poor
Weber heard, at Paris and Versailles, hawkers, 'with a hoarse stifled tone
of voice (voix etouffee, sourde)' drawling and snuffling, through the
streets, an Edict concerning Payments (such was the soft title Rivarol had
contrived for it): all payments at the Royal Treasury shall be made
henceforth, three-fifths in Cash, and the remaining two-fifths--in Paper
bearing interest! Poor Weber almost swooned at the sound of these cracked
voices, with their bodeful raven-note; and will never forget the effect it
had on him. (Weber, i. 339.)
But the effect on Paris, on the world generally? From the dens of Stock-
brokerage, from the heights of Political Economy, of Neckerism and
Philosophism; from all articulate and inarticulate throats, rise hootings
and howlings, such as ear had not yet heard. Sedition itself may be
imminent! Monseigneur d'Artois, moved by Duchess Polignac, feels called to
wait upon her Majesty; and explain frankly what crisis matters stand in.
'The Queen wept;' Brienne himself wept;--for it is now visible and palpable
that he must go.
Remains only that the Court, to whom his manners and garrulities were
always agreeable, shall make his fall soft. The grasping old man has
already got his Archbishopship of Toulouse exchanged for the richer one of
Sens: and now, in this hour of pity, he shall have the Coadjutorship for
his nephew (hardly yet of due age); a Dameship of the Palace for his niece;
a Regiment for her husband; for himself a red Cardinal's-hat, a Coupe de
Bois (cutting from the royal forests), and on the whole 'from five to six
hundred thousand livres of revenue:' (Weber, i. 341.) finally, his
Brother, the Comte de Brienne, shall still continue War-minister. Buckled-
round with such bolsters and huge featherbeds of Promotion, let him now
fall as soft as he can!
And so Lomenie departs: rich if Court-titles and Money-bonds can enrich
him; but if these cannot, perhaps the poorest of all extant men. 'Hissed
at by the people of Versailles,' he drives forth to Jardi; southward to
Brienne,--for recovery of health. Then to Nice, to Italy; but shall
return; shall glide to and fro, tremulous, faint-twinkling, fallen on awful
times: till the Guillotine--snuff out his weak existence? Alas, worse:
for it is blown out, or choked out, foully, pitiably, on the way to the
Guillotine! In his Palace of Sens, rude Jacobin Bailiffs made him drink
with them from his own wine-cellars, feast with them from his own larder;
and on the morrow morning, the miserable old man lies dead. This is the
end of Prime Minister, Cardinal Archbishop Lomenie de Brienne. Flimsier
mortal was seldom fated to do as weighty a mischief; to have a life as
despicable-envied, an exit as frightful. Fired, as the phrase is, with
ambition: blown, like a kindled rag, the sport of winds, not this way, not
that way, but of all ways, straight towards such a powder-mine,--which he
kindled! Let us pity the hapless Lomenie; and forgive him; and, as soon as
possible, forget him.
