French Revolution - Volume 1 , livre ebook

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pubOne.info present you this new edition. This second part of "Les Origines de la France Contemporaine" will consist of two volumes. - Popular insurrections and the laws of the Constituent Assembly end in destroying all government in France; this forms the subject of the present volume. - A party arises around an extreme doctrine, grabs control of the government, and rules in conformity with its doctrine. This will form the subject of the second volume.

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History of Europe

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Publié par	Pub One Info
Date de parution	06 novembre 2010
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9782819941781
Langue	English

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THE ORIGINS OF CONTEMPORARY FRANCE, VOLUME 2
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, VOLUME 1.
by Hippolyte A. Taine
Text Transcriber's Note: The numbering of Volumes,Books, Chapters
and Sections are as in the French not the Americanedition.
Annotations by the transcriber are initialledSR.
Svend Rom, April 2000.
HTML Producer's Note: Footnote numbering has beenchanged to
include as a prefix to the original footnote number,the book and
chapter numbers. A table of contents has been addedwith active
links.
David Widger, June 2008
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, VOLUME 1.
PREFACE
This second part of “Les Origines de la FranceContemporaine” will consist of two volumes. — Popular insurrectionsand the laws of the Constituent Assembly end in destroying allgovernment in France; this forms the subject of the present volume.— A party arises around an extreme doctrine, grabs control of thegovernment, and rules in conformity with its doctrine. This willform the subject of the second volume.
A third volume would be required to criticize andevaluate the source material. I lack the necessary space: I merelystate the rule that I have observed. The trustworthiest testimonywill always be that of an eyewitness, especially
* When this witness is an honorable, attentive, andintelligent man,
* When he is writing on the spot, at the moment, andunder the dictate of the facts themselves,
* When it is obvious that his sole object is topreserve or furnish information,
* When his work instead of a piece of polemicsplanned for the needs of a cause, or a passage of eloquencearranged for popular effect is a legal deposition, a secret report,a confidential dispatch, a private letter, or a personalmemento.
The nearer a document approaches this type, the moreit merits confidence, and supplies superior material. — I havefound many of this kind in the national archives, principally inthe manuscript correspondence of ministers, intendants,sub-delegates, magistrates, and other functionaries; of militarycommanders, officers in the army, and gendarmerie; of royalcommissioners, and of the Assembly; of administrators ofdepartments, districts, and municipalities, besides persons inprivate life who address the King, the National Assembly, or theministry. Among these are men of every rank, profession, education,and party. They are distributed by hundreds and thousands over thewhole surface of the territory. They write apart, without beingable to consult each other, and without even knowing each other. Noone is so well placed for collecting and transmitting accurateinformation. None of them seek literary effect, or even imaginethat what they write will ever be published. They draw up theirstatements at once, under the direct impression of local events.Testimony of this character, of the highest order, and at firsthand, provides the means by which all other testimony ought to beverified. — The footnotes at the bottom of the pages indicate thecondition, office, name, and address of those decisive witnesses.For greater certainty I have transcribed as often as possible theirown words. In this way the reader, confronting the texts, caninterpret them for himself, and form his own opinions; he will havethe same documents as myself for arriving at his conclusions, and,if he is pleased to do so, he may conclude otherwise. As forallusions, if he finds any, he himself will have introduced them,and if he applies them he is alone responsible for them. To mymind, the past has features of its own, and the portrait herepresented resembles only the France of the past. I have drawn itwithout concerning myself with the discussions of the day; I havewritten as if my subject were the revolutions of Florence orAthens. This is history, and nothing more, and, if I may fullyexpress myself, I esteem my vocation of historian too highly tomake a cloak of it for the concealment of another. (December1877).
BOOK FIRST. SPONTANEOUS ANARCHY.
CHAPTER I. THE BEGINNINGS OF ANARCHY.
I.—Dearth the first cause.
Bad crops. The winter of 1788 and 1789. — High priceand poor
quality of bread. — In the provinces. — AtParis.
During the night of July 14-15, 1789, the Duc de laRochefoucauld-Liancourt caused Louis XVI to be aroused to informhim of the taking of the Bastille. “It is a revolt, then? ”exclaimed the King. “Sire! ” replied the Duke; “it is a revolution!” The event was even more serious. Not only had power slipped fromthe hands of the King, but also it had not fallen into those of theAssembly. It now lay on the ground, ready to the hands of theunchained populace, the violent and over-excited crowd, the mobs,which picked it up like some weapon that had been thrown away inthe street. In fact, there was no longer any government; theartificial structure of human society was giving way entirely;things were returning to a state of nature. This was not arevolution, but a dissolution.
Two causes excite and maintain the universalupheaval. The first one is food shortages and dearth, which beingconstant, lasting for ten years, and aggravated by the verydisturbances which it excites, bids fair to inflame the popularpassions to madness, and change the whole course of the Revolutioninto a series of spasmodic stumbles.
When a stream is brimful, a slight rise suffices tocause an overflow. So was it with the extreme distress of theeighteenth century. A poor man, who finds it difficult to live whenbread is cheap, sees death staring him in the face when it is dear.In this state of suffering the animal instinct revolts, and theuniversal obedience which constitutes public peace depends on adegree more or less of dryness or damp, heat or cold. In 1788, ayear of severe drought, the crops had been poor. In addition tothis, on the eve of the harvest, 1101 a terrible hail-storm burstover the region around Paris, from Normandy to Champagne,devastating sixty leagues of the most fertile territory, andcausing damage to the amount of one hundred millions of francs.Winter came on, the severest that had been seen since 1709. At theclose of December the Seine was frozen over from Paris to Havre,while the thermometer stood at 180 below zero. A third of theolive-trees died in Provence, and the rest suffered to such anextent that they were considered incapable of bearing fruit for twoyears to come. The same disaster befell Languedoc. In Vivarais, andin the Cevennes, whole forests of chestnuts had perished, alongwith all the grain and grass crops on the uplands. On the plain theRhone remained in a state of overflow for two months. After thespring of 1789 the famine spread everywhere, and it increased frommonth to month like a rising flood. In vain did the Governmentorder the farmers, proprietors, and corn-dealers to keep themarkets supplied. In vain did it double the bounty on imports,resort to all sorts of expedients, involve itself in debt, andexpend over forty millions of francs to furnish France with wheat.In vain do individuals, princes, noblemen, bishops, chapters, andcommunities multiply their charities. The Archbishop of Parisincurring a debt of 400, 000 livres, one rich man distributing 40,000 francs the morning after the hailstorm, and a convent ofBernardines feeding twelve hundred poor persons for six weeks1102.But it had been too devastating. Neither public measures norprivate charity could meet the overwhelming need. In Normandy,where the last commercial treaty had ruined the manufacture oflinen and of lace trimmings, forty thousand workmen were out ofwork. In many parishes one-fourth of the population1103 arebeggars. Here, “nearly all the inhabitants, not excepting thefarmers and landowners, are eating barley bread and drinking water;” there, “many poor creatures have to eat oat bread, and otherssoaked bran, which has caused the death of several children. ”—“Above all, ” writes the Rouen Parliament, “let help be sent to aperishing people. . . . Sire, most of your subjects are unable topay the price of bread, and what bread is given to those who do buyit ”— Arthur Young, 1104 who was traveling through France at thistime, heard of nothing but the high cost of bread and the distressof the people. At Troyes bread costs four sous a pound— that is tosay, eight sous of the present day; and unemployed artisans flockto the relief works, where they can earn only twelve sous a day. InLorraine, according to the testimony of all observers, “the peopleare half dead with hunger. ” In Paris the number of paupers hasbeen trebled; there are thirty thousand in the FaubourgSaint-Antoine alone. Around Paris there is a short supply of grain,or it is spoilt1105. In the beginning of July, at Montereau, themarket is empty. “The bakers could not have baked” if the policeofficers had not increased the price of bread to five sous perpound; the rye and barley which the intendant is able to send “areof the worst possible quality, rotten and in a condition to producedangerous diseases. Nevertheless, most of the small consumers arereduced to the hard necessity of using this spoilt grain. ” AtVilleneuve-le-Roi, writes the mayor, “the rye of the two lots lastsent is so black and poor that it cannot be retailed without wheat.” At Sens the barley “tastes musty” to such an extent that buyersof it throw the detestable bread, which it makes in the face of thesub-delegate. At Chevreuse the barley has sprouted and smells bad;the “poor wretches, ” says an employee, “must be hard pressed withhunger to put up with it. ” At Fontainebleau “the barley, halfeaten away, produces more bran than flour, and to make bread of it,one is obliged to work it over several times. ” This bread, such asit is, is an object of savage greed; “it has come to this, that itis impossible to distribute it except through wickets. ” And thosewho thus obtain their ration, “are often attacked on the road androbbed of it by the more vigorous of the famished people. ” AtNangis “the magistrates prohibit the same person from buying morethan two bushels in the same market. ” In shor