The French Revolution A History Chapter 2.2.IV. - Arrears at Nanci.
by Thomas Carlyle
We are to remark, however, that of all districts, this of Bouille's seems
the inflammablest. It was always to Bouille and Metz that Royalty would
fly: Austria lies near; here more than elsewhere must the disunited People
look over the borders, into a dim sea of Foreign Politics and Diplomacies,
with hope or apprehension, with mutual exasperation.
It was but in these days that certain Austrian troops, marching peaceably
across an angle of this region, seemed an Invasion realised; and there
rushed towards Stenai, with musket on shoulder, from all the winds, some
thirty thousand National Guards, to inquire what the matter was.
(Moniteur, Seance du 9 Aout 1790.) A matter of mere diplomacy it proved;
the Austrian Kaiser, in haste to get to Belgium, had bargained for this
short cut. The infinite dim movement of European Politics waved a skirt
over these spaces, passing on its way; like the passing shadow of a condor;
and such a winged flight of thirty thousand, with mixed cackling and
crowing, rose in consequence! For, in addition to all, this people, as we
said, is much divided: Aristocrats abound; Patriotism has both Aristocrats
and Austrians to watch. It is Lorraine, this region; not so illuminated as
old France: it remembers ancient Feudalisms; nay, within man's memory, it
had a Court and King of its own, or indeed the splendour of a Court and
King, without the burden. Then, contrariwise, the Mother Society, which
sits in the Jacobins Church at Paris, has Daughters in the Towns here;
shrill-tongued, driven acrid: consider how the memory of good King
Stanislaus, and ages of Imperial Feudalism, may comport with this New acrid
Evangel, and what a virulence of discord there may be! In all which, the
Soldiery, officers on one side, private men on the other, takes part, and
now indeed principal part; a Soldiery, moreover, all the hotter here as it
lies the denser, the frontier Province requiring more of it.
So stands Lorraine: but the capital City, more especially so. The
pleasant City of Nanci, which faded Feudalism loves, where King Stanislaus
personally dwelt and shone, has an Aristocrat Municipality, and then also a
Daughter Society: it has some forty thousand divided souls of population;
and three large Regiments, one of which is Swiss Chateau-Vieux, dear to
Patriotism ever since it refused fighting, or was thought to refuse, in the
Bastille days. Here unhappily all evil influences seem to meet
concentered; here, of all places, may jealousy and heat evolve itself.
These many months, accordingly, man has been set against man, Washed
against Unwashed; Patriot Soldier against Aristocrat Captain, ever the more
bitterly; and a long score of grudges has been running up.
Nameable grudges, and likewise unnameable: for there is a punctual nature
in Wrath; and daily, were there but glances of the eye, tones of the voice,
and minutest commissions or omissions, it will jot down somewhat, to
account, under the head of sundries, which always swells the sum-total.
For example, in April last, in those times of preliminary Federation, when
National Guards and Soldiers were every where swearing brotherhood, and all
France was locally federating, preparing for the grand National Feast of
Pikes, it was observed that these Nanci Officers threw cold water on the
whole brotherly business; that they first hung back from appearing at the
Nanci Federation; then did appear, but in mere redingote and undress, with
scarcely a clean shirt on; nay that one of them, as the National Colours
flaunted by in that solemn moment, did, without visible necessity, take
occasion to spit. (Deux Amis, v. 217.)
Small 'sundries as per journal,' but then incessant ones! The Aristocrat
Municipality, pretending to be Constitutional, keeps mostly quiet; not so
the Daughter Society, the five thousand adult male Patriots of the place,
still less the five thousand female: not so the young, whiskered or
whiskerless, four-generation Noblesse in epaulettes; the grim Patriot Swiss
of Chateau-Vieux, effervescent infantry of Regiment du Roi, hot troopers of
Mestre-de-Camp! Walled Nanci, which stands so bright and trim, with its
straight streets, spacious squares, and Stanislaus' Architecture, on the
fruitful alluvium of the Meurthe; so bright, amid the yellow cornfields in
these Reaper-Months,--is inwardly but a den of discord, anxiety,
inflammability, not far from exploding. Let Bouille look to it. If that
universal military heat, which we liken to a vast continent of smoking
flax, do any where take fire, his beard, here in Lorraine and Nanci, may
the most readily of all get singed by it.
Bouille, for his part, is busy enough, but only with the general
superintendence; getting his pacified Salm, and all other still tolerable
Regiments, marched out of Metz, to southward towns and villages; to rural
Cantonments as at Vic, Marsal and thereabout, by the still waters; where is
plenty of horse-forage, sequestered parade-ground, and the soldier's
speculative faculty can be stilled by drilling. Salm, as we said, received
only half payment of arrears; naturally not without grumbling.
Nevertheless that scene of the drawn sword may, after all, have raised
Bouille in the mind of Salm; for men and soldiers love intrepidity and
swift inflexible decision, even when they suffer by it. As indeed is not
this fundamentally the quality of qualities for a man? A quality which by
itself is next to nothing, since inferior animals, asses, dogs, even mules
have it; yet, in due combination, it is the indispensable basis of all.
Of Nanci and its heats, Bouille, commander of the whole, knows nothing
special; understands generally that the troops in that City are perhaps the
worst. (Bouille, i. c. 9.) The Officers there have it all, as they have
long had it, to themselves; and unhappily seem to manage it ill. 'Fifty
yellow furloughs,' given out in one batch, do surely betoken difficulties.
But what was Patriotism to think of certain light-fencing Fusileers 'set
on,' or supposed to be set on, 'to insult the Grenadier-club,' considerate
speculative Grenadiers, and that reading-room of theirs? With shoutings,
with hootings; till the speculative Grenadier drew his side-arms too; and
there ensued battery and duels! Nay more, are not swashbucklers of the
same stamp 'sent out' visibly, or sent out presumably, now in the dress of
Soldiers to pick quarrels with the Citizens; now, disguised as Citizens, to
pick quarrels with the Soldiers? For a certain Roussiere, expert in fence,
was taken in the very fact; four Officers (presumably of tender years)
hounding him on, who thereupon fled precipitately! Fence-master Roussiere,
haled to the guardhouse, had sentence of three months' imprisonment: but
his comrades demanded 'yellow furlough' for him of all persons; nay,
thereafter they produced him on parade; capped him in paper-helmet
inscribed, Iscariot; marched him to the gate of City; and there sternly
commanded him to vanish for evermore.
On all which suspicions, accusations and noisy procedure, and on enough of
the like continually accumulating, the Officer could not but look with
disdainful indignation; perhaps disdainfully express the same in words, and
'soon after fly over to the Austrians.'
So that when it here as elsewhere comes to the question of Arrears, the
humour and procedure is of the bitterest: Regiment Mestre-de-Camp getting,
amid loud clamour, some three gold louis a-man,--which have, as usual, to
be borrowed from the Municipality; Swiss Chateau-Vieux applying for the
like, but getting instead instantaneous courrois, or cat-o'-nine-tails,
with subsequent unsufferable hisses from the women and children; Regiment
du Roi, sick of hope deferred, at length seizing its military chest, and
marching it to quarters, but next day marching it back again, through
streets all struck silent:--unordered paradings and clamours, not without
strong liquor; objurgation, insubordination; your military ranked
Arrangement going all (as the Typographers say of set types, in a similar
case) rapidly to pie! (Deux Amis, v. c. 8.) Such is Nanci in these early
days of August; the sublime Feast of Pikes not yet a month old.
Constitutional Patriotism, at Paris and elsewhere, may well quake at the
news. War-Minister Latour du Pin runs breathless to the National Assembly,
with a written message that 'all is burning, tout brule, tout presse.' The
National Assembly, on spur of the instant, renders such Decret, and 'order
to submit and repent,' as he requires; if it will avail any thing. On the
other hand, Journalism, through all its throats, gives hoarse outcry,
condemnatory, elegiac-applausive. The Forty-eight Sections, lift up
voices; sonorous Brewer, or call him now Colonel Santerre, is not silent,
in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. For, meanwhile, the Nanci Soldiers have
sent a Deputation of Ten, furnished with documents and proofs; who will
tell another story than the 'all-is-burning' one. Which deputed Ten,
before ever they reach the Assembly Hall, assiduous Latour du Pin picks up,
and on warrant of Mayor Bailly, claps in prison! Most unconstitutionally;
for they had officers' furloughs. Whereupon Saint-Antoine, in indignant
uncertainty of the future, closes its shops. Is Bouille a traitor then,
sold to Austria? In that case, these poor private sentinels have revolted
mainly out of Patriotism?
New Deputation, Deputation of National Guardsmen now, sets forth from Nanci
to enlighten the Assembly. It meets the old deputed Ten returning, quite
unexpectedly unhanged; and proceeds thereupon with better prospects; but
effects nothing. Deputations, Government Messengers, Orderlies at hand-
gallops, Alarms, thousand-voiced Rumours, go vibrating continually;
backwards and forwards,--scattering distraction. Not till the last week of
August does M. de Malseigne, selected as Inspector, get down to the scene
of mutiny; with Authority, with cash, and 'Decree of the Sixth of August.'
He now shall see these Arrears liquidated, justice done, or at least tumult
quashed.
