The French Revolution A History Chapter 1.6.III. - The General Overturn.
by Thomas Carlyle
Of the King's Court, for the present, there is almost nothing whatever to
be said. Silent, deserted are these halls; Royalty languishes forsaken of
its war-god and all its hopes, till once the Oeil-de-Boeuf rally again.
The sceptre is departed from King Louis; is gone over to the Salles des
Menus, to the Paris Townhall, or one knows not whither. In the July days,
while all ears were yet deafened by the crash of the Bastille, and
Ministers and Princes were scattered to the four winds, it seemed as if the
very Valets had grown heavy of hearing. Besenval, also in flight towards
Infinite Space, but hovering a little at Versailles, was addressing his
Majesty personally for an Order about post-horses; when, lo, 'the Valet in
waiting places himself familiarly between his Majesty and me,' stretching
out his rascal neck to learn what it was! His Majesty, in sudden choler,
whirled round; made a clutch at the tongs: 'I gently prevented him; he
grasped my hand in thankfulness; and I noticed tears in his eyes.'
(Besenval, iii. 419.)
Poor King; for French Kings also are men! Louis Fourteenth himself once
clutched the tongs, and even smote with them; but then it was at Louvois,
and Dame Maintenon ran up.--The Queen sits weeping in her inner apartments,
surrounded by weak women: she is 'at the height of unpopularity;'
universally regarded as the evil genius of France. Her friends and
familiar counsellors have all fled; and fled, surely, on the foolishest
errand. The Chateau Polignac still frowns aloft, on its 'bold and
enormous' cubical rock, amid the blooming champaigns, amid the blue
girdling mountains of Auvergne: (Arthur Young, i. 165.) but no Duke and
Duchess Polignac look forth from it; they have fled, they have 'met Necker
at Bale;' they shall not return. That France should see her Nobles resist
the Irresistible, Inevitable, with the face of angry men, was unhappy, not
unexpected: but with the face and sense of pettish children? This was her
peculiarity. They understood nothing; would understand nothing. Does not,
at this hour, a new Polignac, first-born of these Two, sit reflective in
the Castle of Ham; (A.D. 1835.) in an astonishment he will never recover
from; the most confused of existing mortals?
King Louis has his new Ministry: mere Popularities; Old-President
Pompignan; Necker, coming back in triumph; and other such. (Montgaillard,
ii. 108.) But what will it avail him? As was said, the sceptre, all but
the wooden gilt sceptre, has departed elsewhither. Volition, determination
is not in this man: only innocence, indolence; dependence on all persons
but himself, on all circumstances but the circumstances he were lord of.
So troublous internally is our Versailles and its work. Beautiful, if seen
from afar, resplendent like a Sun; seen near at hand, a mere Sun's-
Atmosphere, hiding darkness, confused ferment of ruin!
But over France, there goes on the indisputablest 'destruction of
formulas;' transaction of realities that follow therefrom. So many
millions of persons, all gyved, and nigh strangled, with formulas; whose
Life nevertheless, at least the digestion and hunger of it, was real
enough! Heaven has at length sent an abundant harvest; but what profits it
the poor man, when Earth with her formulas interposes? Industry, in these
times of Insurrection, must needs lie dormant; capital, as usual, not
circulating, but stagnating timorously in nooks. The poor man is short of
work, is therefore short of money; nay even had he money, bread is not to
be bought for it. Were it plotting of Aristocrats, plotting of d'Orleans;
were it Brigands, preternatural terror, and the clang of Phoebus Apollo's
silver bow,--enough, the markets are scarce of grain, plentiful only in
tumult. Farmers seem lazy to thresh;--being either 'bribed;' or needing no
bribe, with prices ever rising, with perhaps rent itself no longer so
pressing. Neither, what is singular, do municipal enactments, 'That along
with so many measures of wheat you shall sell so many of rye,' and other
the like, much mend the matter. Dragoons with drawn swords stand ranked
among the corn-sacks, often more dragoons than sacks. (Arthur Young, i.
129, &c.) Meal-mobs abound; growing into mobs of a still darker quality.
Starvation has been known among the French Commonalty before this; known
and familiar. Did we not see them, in the year 1775, presenting, in sallow
faces, in wretchedness and raggedness, their Petition of Grievances; and,
for answer, getting a brand-new Gallows forty feet high? Hunger and
Darkness, through long years! For look back on that earlier Paris Riot,
when a Great Personage, worn out by debauchery, was believed to be in want
of Blood-baths; and Mothers, in worn raiment, yet with living hearts under
it, 'filled the public places' with their wild Rachel-cries,--stilled also
by the Gallows. Twenty years ago, the Friend of Men (preaching to the
deaf) described the Limousin Peasants as wearing a pain-stricken (souffre-
douleur) look, a look past complaint, 'as if the oppression of the great
were like the hail and the thunder, a thing irremediable, the ordinance of
Nature.' (Fils Adoptif: Memoires de Mirabeau, i. 364-394.) And now, if
in some great hour, the shock of a falling Bastille should awaken you; and
it were found to be the ordinance of Art merely; and remediable,
reversible!
Or has the Reader forgotten that 'flood of savages,' which, in sight of the
same Friend of Men, descended from the mountains at Mont d'Or? Lank-haired
haggard faces; shapes rawboned, in high sabots; in woollen jupes, with
leather girdles studded with copper-nails! They rocked from foot to foot,
and beat time with their elbows too, as the quarrel and battle which was
not long in beginning went on; shouting fiercely; the lank faces distorted
into the similitude of a cruel laugh. For they were darkened and hardened:
long had they been the prey of excise-men and tax-men; of 'clerks with the
cold spurt of their pen.' It was the fixed prophecy of our old Marquis,
which no man would listen to, that 'such Government by Blind-man's-buff,
stumbling along too far, would end by the General Overturn, the Culbute
Generale!'
No man would listen, each went his thoughtless way;--and Time and Destiny
also travelled on. The Government by Blind-man's-buff, stumbling along,
has reached the precipice inevitable for it. Dull Drudgery, driven on, by
clerks with the cold dastard spurt of their pen, has been driven--into a
Communion of Drudges! For now, moreover, there have come the strangest
confused tidings; by Paris Journals with their paper wings; or still more
portentous, where no Journals are, (See Arthur Young, i. 137, 150, &c.) by
rumour and conjecture: Oppression not inevitable; a Bastille prostrate,
and the Constitution fast getting ready! Which Constitution, if it be
something and not nothing, what can it be but bread to eat?
The Traveller, 'walking up hill bridle in hand,' overtakes 'a poor woman;'
the image, as such commonly are, of drudgery and scarcity; 'looking sixty
years of age, though she is not yet twenty-eight.' They have seven
children, her poor drudge and she: a farm, with one cow, which helps to
make the children soup; also one little horse, or garron. They have rents
and quit-rents, Hens to pay to this Seigneur, Oat-sacks to that; King's
taxes, Statute-labour, Church-taxes, taxes enough;--and think the times
inexpressible. She has heard that somewhere, in some manner, something is
to be done for the poor: "God send it soon; for the dues and taxes crush
us down (nous ecrasent)!" (Ibid. i. 134.)
Fair prophecies are spoken, but they are not fulfilled. There have been
Notables, Assemblages, turnings out and comings in. Intriguing and
manoeuvring; Parliamentary eloquence and arguing, Greek meeting Greek in
high places, has long gone on; yet still bread comes not. The harvest is
reaped and garnered; yet still we have no bread. Urged by despair and by
hope, what can Drudgery do, but rise, as predicted, and produce the General
Overturn?
Fancy, then, some Five full-grown Millions of such gaunt figures, with
their haggard faces (figures haves); in woollen jupes, with copper-studded
leather girths, and high sabots,--starting up to ask, as in forest-
roarings, their washed Upper-Classes, after long unreviewed centuries,
virtually this question: How have ye treated us; how have ye taught us,
fed us, and led us, while we toiled for you? The answer can be read in
flames, over the nightly summer sky. This is the feeding and leading we
have had of you: EMPTINESS,--of pocket, of stomach, of head, and of heart.
Behold there is nothing in us; nothing but what Nature gives her wild
children of the desert: Ferocity and Appetite; Strength grounded on
Hunger. Did ye mark among your Rights of Man, that man was not to die of
starvation, while there was bread reaped by him? It is among the Mights of
Man.
Seventy-two Chateaus have flamed aloft in the Maconnais and Beaujolais
alone: this seems the centre of the conflagration; but it has spread over
Dauphine, Alsace, the Lyonnais; the whole South-East is in a blaze. All
over the North, from Rouen to Metz, disorder is abroad: smugglers of salt
go openly in armed bands: the barriers of towns are burnt; toll-gatherers,
tax-gatherers, official persons put to flight. 'It was thought,' says
Young, 'the people, from hunger, would revolt;' and we see they have done
it. Desperate Lackalls, long prowling aimless, now finding hope in
desperation itself, everywhere form a nucleus. They ring the Church bell
by way of tocsin: and the Parish turns out to the work. (See Hist. Parl.
ii. 243-6.) Ferocity, atrocity; hunger and revenge: such work as we can
imagine!
Ill stands it now with the Seigneur, who, for example, 'has walled up the
only Fountain of the Township;' who has ridden high on his chartier and
parchments; who has preserved Game not wisely but too well. Churches also,
and Canonries, are sacked, without mercy; which have shorn the flock too
close, forgetting to feed it. Wo to the land over which Sansculottism, in
its day of vengeance, tramps roughshod,--shod in sabots! Highbred
Seigneurs, with their delicate women and little ones, had to 'fly half-
naked,' under cloud of night; glad to escape the flames, and even worse.
You meet them at the tables-d'hote of inns; making wise reflections or
foolish that 'rank is destroyed;' uncertain whither they shall now wend.
(See Young, i. 149, &c.) The metayer will find it convenient to be slack
in paying rent. As for the Tax-gatherer, he, long hunting as a biped of
prey, may now get hunted as one; his Majesty's Exchequer will not 'fill up
the Deficit,' this season: it is the notion of many that a Patriot
Majesty, being the Restorer of French Liberty, has abolished most taxes,
though, for their private ends, some men make a secret of it.
Where this will end? In the Abyss, one may prophecy; whither all Delusions
are, at all moments, travelling; where this Delusion has now arrived. For
if there be a Faith, from of old, it is this, as we often repeat, that no
Lie can live for ever. The very Truth has to change its vesture, from time
to time; and be born again. But all Lies have sentence of death written
down against them, and Heaven's Chancery itself; and, slowly or fast,
advance incessantly towards their hour. 'The sign of a Grand Seigneur
being landlord,' says the vehement plain-spoken Arthur Young, 'are wastes,
landes, deserts, ling: go to his residence, you will find it in the middle
of a forest, peopled with deer, wild boars and wolves. The fields are
scenes of pitiable management, as the houses are of misery. To see so many
millions of hands, that would be industrious, all idle and starving: Oh,
if I were legislator of France, for one day, I would make these great lords
skip again!' (Arthur Young, i. 12, 48, 84, &c.) O Arthur, thou now
actually beholdest them skip:--wilt thou grow to grumble at that too?
For long years and generations it lasted, but the time came. Featherbrain,
whom no reasoning and no pleading could touch, the glare of the firebrand
had to illuminate: there remained but that method. Consider it, look at
it! The widow is gathering nettles for her children's dinner; a perfumed
Seigneur, delicately lounging in the Oeil-de-Boeuf, has an alchemy whereby
he will extract from her the third nettle, and name it Rent and Law: such
an arrangement must end. Ought it? But, O most fearful is such an ending!
Let those, to whom God, in His great mercy, has granted time and space,
prepare another and milder one.
To women it is a matter of wonder that the Seigneurs did not do something
to help themselves; say, combine, and arm: for there were a 'hundred and
fifty thousand of them,' all violent enough. Unhappily, a hundred and
fifty thousand, scattered over wide Provinces, divided by mutual ill-will,
cannot combine. The highest Seigneurs, as we have seen, had already
emigrated,--with a view of putting France to the blush. Neither are arms
now the peculiar property of Seigneurs; but of every mortal who has ten
shillings, wherewith to buy a secondhand firelock.
Besides, those starving Peasants, after all, have not four feet and claws,
that you could keep them down permanently in that manner. They are not
even of black colour; they are mere Unwashed Seigneurs; and a Seigneur too
has human bowels!--The Seigneurs did what they could; enrolled in National
Guards; fled, with shrieks, complaining to Heaven and Earth. One Seigneur,
famed Memmay of Quincey, near Vesoul, invited all the rustics of his
neighbourhood to a banquet; blew up his Chateau and them with gunpowder;
and instantaneously vanished, no man yet knows whither. (Hist. Parl. ii.
161.) Some half dozen years after, he came back; and demonstrated that it
was by accident.
Nor are the authorities idle: though unluckily, all Authorities,
Municipalities and such like, are in the uncertain transitionary state;
getting regenerated from old Monarchic to new Democratic; no Official yet
knows clearly what he is. Nevertheless, Mayors old or new do gather
Marechaussees, National Guards, Troops of the line; justice, of the most
summary sort, is not wanting. The Electoral Committee of Macon, though but
a Committee, goes the length of hanging, for its own behoof, as many as
twenty. The Prevot of Dauphine traverses the country 'with a movable
column,' with tipstaves, gallows-ropes; for gallows any tree will serve,
and suspend its culprit, or 'thirteen' culprits.
Unhappy country! How is the fair gold-and-green of the ripe bright Year
defaced with horrid blackness: black ashes of Chateaus, black bodies of
gibetted Men! Industry has ceased in it; not sounds of the hammer and saw,
but of the tocsin and alarm-drum. The sceptre has departed, whither one
knows not;--breaking itself in pieces: here impotent, there tyrannous.
National Guards are unskilful, and of doubtful purpose; Soldiers are
inclined to mutiny: there is danger that they two may quarrel, danger that
they may agree. Strasburg has seen riots: a Townhall torn to shreds, its
archives scattered white on the winds; drunk soldiers embracing drunk
citizens for three days, and Mayor Dietrich and Marshal Rochambeau reduced
nigh to desperation. (Arthur Young, i. 141.--Dampmartin: Evenemens qui se
sont passes sous mes yeux, i. 105-127.)
Through the middle of all which phenomena, is seen, on his triumphant
transit, 'escorted,' through Befort for instance, 'by fifty National
Horsemen and all the military music of the place,'--M. Necker, returning
from Bale! Glorious as the meridian; though poor Necker himself partly
guesses whither it is leading. (Biographie Universelle, para Necker (by
Lally-Tollendal).) One highest culminating day, at the Paris Townhall;
with immortal vivats, with wife and daughter kneeling publicly to kiss his
hand; with Besenval's pardon granted,--but indeed revoked before sunset:
one highest day, but then lower days, and ever lower, down even to lowest!
Such magic is in a name; and in the want of a name. Like some enchanted
Mambrino's Helmet, essential to victory, comes this 'Saviour of France;'
beshouted, becymballed by the world:--alas, so soon, to be disenchanted, to
be pitched shamefully over the lists as a Barber's Bason! Gibbon 'could
wish to shew him' (in this ejected, Barber's-Bason state) to any man of
solidity, who were minded to have the soul burnt out of him, and become a
caput mortuum, by Ambition, unsuccessful or successful. (Gibbon's
Letters.)
Another small phasis we add, and no more: how, in the Autumn months, our
sharp-tempered Arthur has been 'pestered for some days past,' by shot,
lead-drops and slugs, 'rattling five or six times into my chaise and about
my ears;' all the mob of the country gone out to kill game! (Young, i.
176.) It is even so. On the Cliffs of Dover, over all the Marches of
France, there appear, this autumn, two Signs on the Earth: emigrant
flights of French Seigneurs; emigrant winged flights of French Game!
Finished, one may say, or as good as finished, is the Preservation of Game
on this Earth; completed for endless Time. What part it had to play in the
History of Civilisation is played plaudite; exeat!
In this manner does Sansculottism blaze up, illustrating many things;--
producing, among the rest, as we saw, on the Fourth of August, that semi-
miraculous Night of Pentecost in the National Assembly; semi miraculous,
which had its causes, and its effects. Feudalism is struck dead; not on
parchment only, and by ink; but in very fact, by fire; say, by self-
combustion. This conflagration of the South-East will abate; will be got
scattered, to the West, or elsewhither: extinguish it will not, till the
fuel be all done.
