sows the bread and reaps it has a right to eat it, and he who supports the government ought to have a voice in its management. In this juncture, while the Åssembly was expending all its energies in self-defence, and hence could give no attention to the state of the country an armed force began to assemble in Paris. The report soon reached the Deputies at Versailles, and it was whispered about, that the bayonet was to be employed in effecting what the royal authority and the overbearing action of the higher orders had been unable to do, viz: the dissolution of the National Assembly. Let it be remembered, this was the first conspiracy in which resort was had to arms. But the people could conspire as well as the aristocracy, and since the latter had had the madness to bring bayonets into the conflict, they could not complain if they were found in other hands besides the soldiers of the guard. Thus we see, that the first legislative revolution in France was brought about by the folly and injustice of the aristocracy, and the first appeal to arms was also made by them in their conflict with the people. It will be well to remember this when we hear the wild ça ira sung by the fierce multitude in the midst of massacre and blood. The troops occupied Paris, while the indignant and excited populace swarmed hither and thither, scarce knowing what it did. Consternation reigned in the Assembly at Versailles, and every thing seemed on the brink of ruin from the excitement caused by the parading of soldiers through the streets of the capital. But, true to itself and true to the nation, the Assembly rose above fear and passion, and passed a resolution requesting the king to withdraw the troops and establish the civic guard, and charging on him and his counsellors the guilt of all the blood and distress that would follow if he refused. The Assembly declared itself permanent, and appointed La Fayette its Vice-President. The night of the 13th and 14th of July passed in fear and dread, for it was known that the next night was the one appointed for an attack by the troops on the Assembly, and the dispersion of the deputies. Towards evening of the fatal night a silent terror reigned in the Assembly, yet still not a member stirred from his seat. Each one was determined to fall at his post. The booming of cannon came at intervals on the ear, shaking the hall where they sat, telling of scenes of violence and blood at Paris. The Prince de Lembsée was seen spurring by, on a wild gallop, to the king. Twilight deepened over the hall, giving a still more sombre hue to the countenances of the deputies. Another deputation had been sent to the king, and all waited with anxiety the answer. At this moment, two electors, riding in hot haste from Paris, were announced to the Assembly. A solemn and prophetic silence filled the room. Not a voice broke the stillness that was more awful than solitude. Darkness covered the Assembly, that sat like statues, waiting the issue. Those electors came stalking through the gloom, while every footfall was distinctly heard, as they slowly marched up the hall. Their report was brief, but full of terro The people were in arms, blood had been shed, and the Bastile was attacked. In Paris, all day long, previous to the night appointed by the higher orders for the attack on the city and the National Assembly, fierce cries had rung from the multitude, till " To the Bastile," drowned all other voices, and the living stream poured round the gloomy walls of that stronghold of tyranny. It fell, and at midnight the news reached the Assembly. Their danger was over-the people had triumphed--and the plot laid against their liberty had been sprung upon its authors. The king was astonished, and his counsellors overwhelmed, at this exhibition of boldness by the people. A reconciliation was the consequence; the orders were amalgamated in the National Assembly, and legislation at length began to take place. But during the three months the higher orders had been attempting to trample on, fetter, then destroy the deputies of the people, nothing had been done to relieve the distress of the country. Suffering had not remained stationary because the National Assembly had. There was a scarcity of provisions in the capital and in the provinces. Men and women wandered about for bread, and the evils that might have been checked if met sooner, were now almost past remedy. The utmost efforts of the government could not supply the demand. Fear reigned on every side, and even the adored Lafayette, now at the head of the National Guard, could not always prevent the violence of the people. Foulon had said the people might eat hay-the people, in return, had seized him, put a collar of nettles round his neck, a bunch of thistles in his hand, and a truss of hay on his back," and then hung him at a lamp-post. His head was carried on a pike through the streets. This first public execution pointed significantly to the cause of the evils, and the course the revolution would take. At this point first begins the division in the National Assembly. The popular party having acquired the power, began to disagree among themselves. The more conservative part, fearing the result of these rapid strides to liberty, thought it was time to stop. The other part looked upon the reformation as just begun. But something must be done immediately, to relieve the deplorable state of France. Money must be raised, and bread furnished; but from whence? The lower orders had been taxed to the utmost, and the money raised all squandered by the Court and aristocracy. Funds must now come from the higher orders or nowhere. Driven to this crisis, the representatives of the people made the first attack on the property and incomes of the clergy and the privileges of the nobility. The writers of this period have usually been subjects of a monarchical government, and hence burst forth into exclamations of horror at this bold encroachment of democracy, as it is called. But will they tell us what else could be done? We will not entrench ourselves here on the principle of right, and declare what is true, that strict justice required the higher orders to im poverish themselves to relieve the country. They had not only lived for centuries in luxury at the expense of the poor man's table, and in sloth by the poor man's sweat, but had made him also support the government at home and abroad, till, reduced to famine, he had no longer anything to give to supply the imperious and every hour more pressing demands of the state. In every emergency he had been called on and forced to administer relief. But now there was no longer anything to force, while a more pressing emergency than had ever before occurred called loudly for aid. Something must be done at once, and strict justice required that the upper classes should disgorge their ill-gotten wealth to save the state to render back for the common good a part of that they had so long used for their own pleasure. But there was something stronger than justice here-necessity. The people could not give, and money must be had. The higher orders must furnish it or precipi tate a national bankruptcy. But the struggle and delay expected to accompany any action of the Assembly on this subject seemed, to the inexpressible joy of all, suddenly overcome by the voluntary surrender, by each order, of its privilege. The 9th of August had been spent in discussing the famous declaration of rights to be placed at the head of the Constitution. In the evening the question of the popular disturbances, and the means to allay them, came up. The Viscount de Noailles and the Duke d'Anguillon both ascended the tribune, and with a clear-sightedness and justice that, had they been possessed by the rest of the nobility, would have saved the nation, declared that it was foolish to attempt to force the people into tranquility, that the best method was to remove the cause of the disturbances:-they proposed to abolish at once all those feudal rights which irritated and oppressed the country people. Following them a landholder took the tribune, and gave a graphic and fearful picture of the effect of the feudal system in the country. A sudden enthusiasm seized the assembly, and one after another rushed forward to renounce his privileges. Each was eager to anticipate and rival the other in the sacrifice he made, and amid the general excitement, the relation of serf, the seignorial jurisdictions, the game laws, and the redemption of tithes, and sale of offices, were all abolished. Equality of taxes, and the admission of all citizens to civil and military employments, and the suppression of privileges of the towns and provinces, were decreed amid the most unbounded joy. A Te Deum was proclaimed, and Louis was to be entitled the Restorer of French liberty. everything had been passed in a general form, and when the separate points came up for discussion, the higher orders repented their sudden concessions, and began to struggle again for their old privileges, thus destroying the gratitude they had awakened. But it was too late-the minds of the deputies had become enlightened, and the feudal system, with all its power to plunder and oppress, was abolished. But this also came too late, for the act could not at once bring bread to the million starving mouths, or allay the madness of want. France was rocking to the smothered fires that had been kindling into strength for ages, and the shriek for bread was more awful than the thunder of hostile cannon; still the But state was not beyond redemption, were the spirit of feudalism dead. But after the form was slain, the soul lived and exhibited itself in plots and resistance, that kept the people fighting for liberty when they should have been seeking for food. The discussion of the Constitution that followed was needed, but flour was still more needed. Men felt for their plundered rights, but they felt still deeper for their empty stomachs. Added to this, the people of Paris took a deep interest in the debates on the Constitution which was to fix the amount of personal freedom. At length the Constitution was ready, and waited, with the bold declaration of rights at its head, the signature of the king. He vacillated and delayed, but the people were rapidly becoming firm on one point-relief. From May till October, had the National representatives struggled to save France. Met at every turn by the court and aristocracy, surrounded with obstacles their enemies had constantly thrown in their path, and compelled to spend months on the plainest principles of human liberty and justice, they had been utterly unable to relieve the public distress. For this they were not to blame, but the selfish, blind, higher orders. Every thing had been compelled to wait but famine. That had never wavered nor faltered, but, with ever increasing proportions and frightful mien, had stalked over the land, turning women into tigers, and men into fiends. Suddenly there is a strange and confused uproar on the road from Paris to Versailles. An army of women is on the march for the king's palace. All efforts to disband them have been powerless. Armed with pikes, hatchets, and sticks pointed with iron, they have marched on foot through the drenching rain, measuring the weary leagues with aching limbs, and at length stream around the magnificent palace of Versailles. Wild faces look out from dishevelled hair, and haggard features, more fearful than the swaying pikes, move amid this confusion of sexes and hurricane of passion. With eyes upturned to where their monarch dwells, they suddenly shriek out in wild concord-"BREAD!" God in heaven! what a cry from women to their king! Regardless of the falling rain and approaching night, and their toilsome journey, those strange faces are still turned to him who alone can relieve their distress. At length, twelve are conducted as deputies, into the presence of the king. One, young and beautiful, overwhelmed at her own boldness, in thus approaching her monarch, could only faintly utter the word "bread." Here was wo, here was suffering, sufficient to bring tears from stones. In What distress had been borne, what torture endured, before this multitude could thus unsex themselves and string their feelings to this desperate tone. the midst of the tumult the Assembly send the Constitution to the king, praying his acceptance. It was given, and the announcement was made to the crowd of women to appease their rage. "Will it give us bread" they inquired. "Yes," says Mounier, and they retired. Bread was ordered to be distributed, but was not; and the famished multitude wandered about searching in vain for means to alleviate their hunger, till at length they came upon a dead horse and began in savage ferocity to tear out his entrails, and devour his flesh. Tumult is again abroad, and shots are fired from the palace on the crowd, which rush in return up the marble steps, and stream through the royal apartments, demanding blood. But the adored Lafayette is seen moving amid the multitude, and the storm is stayed, and the king is saved. The next morning, the shout, "To Paris!" was heard, and Louis was compelled with his family, to take this wild escort to the capital. The tiger was changed into the fiend. The excitement of the day before-the hunger and murder of the night, and the strange spectacle of the morning had completely unsettled what little reason the rabble had left, and the procession they form for the king-their furious shouts and bacchanal songs, and disorderly movement as they carry a gory head aloft on a pike, making it nod and bow to the multitude in grim salutation, are enough to appal the stoutest heart. Kingship is endedreverence is gone, and all after-respect and loyalty will be but the spasmodic flame of the dying lamp-Vive le roi! Vive la nation! Vive La Fayette! are alike incoherent and trustless. The nobility heretofore so blind, begin at length to see more clearly, and flock in crowds from France. Having helped to bring the king into this inextricable peril, they leave him to fight it out alone, and hereafter the combat is to be between the court and the people. Thus far we are able still to fix the guilt. A banquet which the body guard had given, and at which the queen was present, had exasperated the famishing people by its luxury and wastefulness. The rumours of the intended flight of the king had also filled them with consternation, for civil war and all its horrors hung over their heads, while famine turned their fears into ferocity. These things, and these alone, drove Paris on Versailles, scattered the nobility in affright, and forced the king and Assembly to the capital into the very midst of the popular excitement. The appropriation of the property of the clergy at this time by the Assembly, for the use of the state, exasperated still more all the higher orders against the popular movement, and began that struggle which ended in national atheism. The future course of the revolution from this point, must be plain to every calm thinker. The popular party possessing the power, must move on till a republic is established. One extreme must succeed another. The rate of progress and the degree of violence, must depend on collateral causes. Such commotions as now shook Paris, must bring strange and powerful beings to the surface. The pressure of an artificial system was removed, and the untamed spirit was allowed to go forth in its strength, aroused and excited by the new field opened to its untried powers. From amid the chaos, are dimly seen the forms of Robes pierre, Marat, Danton, Camille Desmoulins and others, who as yet dream not of the fate before them Robespierre has been underrated by some, and too highly extolled as a man of intellect by others. He was one of those the Revolution developed. At the outset, ignorant and narrow-minded, and impelled onward only by a low ambition, he was educated into a shrewd politician-a clear-headed reasoner, and a really powerful man amid popular assemblies. Marat was a coldblooded villain, who acquired power among intelligent men, by terror alone. Danton was ambitious and patriotic at first, afterwards ferocious; but when he saw to what issue the Republic he had hoped to establish was tending, he became disgusted, and attempted to retire from the scene. But these men and their like represent a class which, in the dominance of the popular party, obtain power by forming a radical party. Among the clubs, that at this time were organized in Paris, the Jacobin Club was the most powerful, and gradually swallowed up all the rest, and was the cause of the unparalleled atrocities of the French Revolution. How much Mirabeau could have done, had he lived,after he saw the chaotic tendency of things, and went over to royalty and openly declared war against the violence and mobocracy of the more popular party, it is not easy to say. With his profound knowledge of the human heart-his thrilling eloquence and undaunted firmness, he might have overwhelmed such men as Robespierre, and with his powerful arm on the throne, steadied its overthrow, if not prevented the fall. He was no democrat, and never dreamed of establishing a republic in France. His attacks on monarchy and the nobility, were prompted more by personal feeling than patriotism. Still, he was a strong man, and the party which possessed him had a legion on their side. Yet we doubt whether he could have done much beside such an imbecile king as Louis. He would have striven for a while with his impetuous courage, to force him to some decision and firmness, and when he found it all of no avail, and all his measures defeated by child-like vacillation, he would have left him to his fate, and retired in disgust from his country. During the period that intervened between the movement of the mob on Versailles and the dethronement of Louis, the Assembly continued to act with vigor, and prosecute the reforms so loudly called for in the state. There were also spasmodic exhibitions of returning loyalty by the people. The anniversary of the overthrow of the Bastile was an exhiFition of popular enthusiasm unparalleled in the history of the world; and when, in the vast amphitheatre erected in the Champs de Mars, those three hundred thousand French people on the one hand, and the king with the queen in the background, holding the royal heir in her arms on the other, swore under the open heavens together, to render faithful adhererce to the Constitution decreed by the National Assemb'y, the conflicts and miseries of France seemed ended. But the general joy that followed, was of only few days' duration. The quarrels with the ministry, that must be inefficient from the circumstances in which it was placed, and the party spirit of the different factions, and the ambition of separate leaders, soon brought back all the agitation that had only been suspended, not removed. Besides, in taking away the privileges of the nobility and clergy, and restricting the power of the king, the popular party had gained enough, and the king and higher orders lost enough to render them implacable enemies for ever, and there could be no peace till one or the other was entirely crushed and removed beyond fear. But the popular party was in the ascendency, and the principles it promulgated soon found way into every part of the kingdom and finally penetrated the army. Bouillé might carry a few devoted hearts in the army with him, but the die was cast and royalty must disappear. Most of the nobility had anticipated this and emigrated. Louis at last also saw it and fled. Arrested and brought back to Paris, he was afterward the mere shadow of power, and his doom hastened to its fulfillment. The spirit of liberty which first exhibited itself in the tiers etat in the refusal to verify but in common with the higher orders, and afterwards in the declaration of rights and the constitution, in the abolishment of the feudal system-in the power given to the lower orders-in the disrespect and afterwards contempt of the king, now took a bolder stand and shouted "no king.” The closing up of the Constituent, or in other words, National Assembly which had now been in session three years, produced a momentary change in the state of affairs. By a motion of Robespierre a resolution was passed, prohibiting the reelection to the new Assembly of any member of the old one. This resolution was introduced through pique, but its passage had a serious effect on France. The deputies that had watched the progress of events for three years, and understood more perfectly than fresh delegates could be supposed to understand, the nature and wants of the new government were thus kept out of the National councils. A new set of men composed the new Legislative Assembly whose election, many of them, had been influenced by the various clubs, that were mere branches of those at Paris. That miserable article in the Constitution making the Assembly to consist of one chamber only, also increased the difficulty. This heterogeneous mass were brought into one body, and amid the tumults of the capital, the frenzy of faction, and violence of passion, were compelled to legislate for the state. Constitutionalists who were conservatives in politics-enthusiastic republicans who dreamed of restoring the palmy days of Greece and Rome-radicals who thought only of retributive justice to aristocrats, and a middle indifferent class, were thus thrown together to split into two great parties, as patriotism, passion, or interest might lead. The result was, the old Assembly was completely reversed. In that the constitutionalists occupied the left side, and the privileged orders the right. In the new, there was no party of the higher orders, and the constitutionalists or the more conservative party became the right, and the enthusiasts and radicals the left side. The deputies from La Gironde were the ablest men among this motley class, and soon drew around them a large party which were called Girondins. Condorcet as a writer, and Vergniaud as an orator, stood at the head of these. The radicals, seated on the highest benches in the hall, were called the Mountain. The Jacobin Club, with the others which, under the old Assembly, only agitated, ruled under the new. its head stood Robespierre. At The Legislative Assembly, sitting in Paris, did not commence its labors under very favorable auspices, and the veto placed by the king on measures adopted against the clergy, who were stirring up a civil war, together with the plotting of the emigrants in favor of royalty, opened and widened the breach between him and. his subjects. The thousand acts and suspicions that must occur, when parties occupy this hostile attitude, increased the irritation, and brought down fresh insults on the king. The pressure of every thing was towards a republic during the winter and spring, until the 20th of June, when a fresh outbreak in Paris exhibited by its contempt of the king, and the insults heaped upon him, to what a mere shadow his power was reduced. A mob of 30,000 persons came streaming into the Assembly, bearing before them the declaration of rights, and above their heads, on a pike, a calf's heart, with the inscription-"Heart of an aristocrat." Moving from thence around the Tuileries, they insulted the king, and finally penetrated into his apartments. It needed then but one word to turn that palace into a place of massacre. La Fayette, the brave, the spotless La Fayette, when he heard of this disgraceful scene, hastened from his post at the head of the army, to Paris, to interpose the shield of his person before that of the king. Here, every one who has watched the progress of the Assembly, will say that a republic is inevitable. The writers of this period, educated under a monarchical |