Letters on the French Revolution.

I have thought it best to throw into one chapter the extracts from Mr. Jefferson's Letters and Memoir which relate to the scenes that he witnessed at the beginning of the Revolution. These are so interesting as almost to make us regret, with himself, that he should have been recalled from France at that most fearfully interesting period of her history. What pictures his pen would have preserved to us of scenes, of many of which he would have been an eye-witness, and how the student of history would revel in his dispatches home, which, like those he has left us, must have abounded in interesting details and sketches of character!

In giving these extracts, I shall merely indicate the date of the letters, and the persons to whom they were addressed:

To John Jay, February 23d, 1787.

The AssemblÉe des Notables being an event in the history of this country which excites notice, I have supposed it would not be disagreeable to you to learn its immediate objects, though no way connected with our interests. The Assembly met yesterday; the King, in a short but affectionate speech, informed them of his wish to consult with them on the plans he had digested, and on the general good of his people, and his desire to imitate the head of his family, Henry IV., whose memory is so dear to the nation. The Garde des Sceaux then spoke about twenty minutes, chiefly in compliment to the orders present. The Comptroller-general, in a speech of about an hour, opened the budjet, and enlarged on the several subjects which will be under their deliberation.

To James Madison, June 20th, 1787.

The King loves business, economy, order, and justice, and wishes sincerely the good of his people; but he is irascible, rude, very limited in his understanding, and religious bordering on bigotry. He has no mistress, loves his queen, and is too much governed by her. She is capricious, like her brother, and governed by him; devoted to pleasure and expense, and not remarkable for any other vices or virtues. Unhappily, the King shows a propensity for the pleasures of the table. That for drink has increased lately, or, at least, it has become more known.

To John Jay, August 7th, 1787.

The Parliament were received yesterday very harshly by the King. He obliged them to register the two edicts for the impÔt, territorial, and stamp-tax. When speaking in my letter of the reiterated orders and refusals to register, which passed between the King and Parliament, I omitted to insert the King's answer to a deputation of Parliament, which attended him at Versailles. It may serve to show the spirit which exists between them. It was in these words, and these only: "Je vous ferai savoir mes intentions. Allez-vous-en. Qu'on ferme la porte!"

To John Adams, August 30th, 1787.

It is urged principally against the King, that his revenue is one hundred and thirty millions more than that of his predecessor was, and yet he demands one hundred and twenty millions further.... In the mean time, all tongues in Paris (and in France, as it is said) have been let loose, and never was a license of speaking against the Government exercised in London more freely or more universally. Caricatures, placards, bons-mots, have been indulged in by all ranks of people, and I know of no well-attested instance of a single punishment. For some time mobs of ten, twenty, and thirty thousand people collected daily, surrounded the Parliament-house, huzzaed the members, even entered the doors and examined into their conduct, took the horses out of the carriages of those who did well, and drew them home. The Government thought it prudent to prevent these, drew some regiments into the neighborhood, multiplied the guards, had the streets constantly patrolled by strong parties, suspended privileged places, forbade all clubs, etc. The mobs have ceased: perhaps this may be partly owing to the absence of Parliament. The Count d'Artois, sent to hold a bed of justice in the Cour des Aides, was hissed and hooted without reserve by the populace; the carriage of Madame de (I forget the name), in the Queen's livery, was stopped by the populace, under the belief that it was Madame de Polignac, whom they would have insulted; the Queen going to the theatre at Versailles with Madame de Polignac, was received with a general hiss. The King, long in the habit of drowning his cares in wine, plunges deeper and deeper. The Queen cries, but sins on. The Count d'Artois is detested, and Monsieur the general favorite. The Archbishop of Toulouse is made minister principal—a virtuous, patriotic, and able character. The Marechal de Castries retired yesterday, notwithstanding strong solicitations to remain in office. The Marechal de Segur retired at the same time, prompted to it by the court.

To John Jay, October 8th, 1787.

There has long been a division in the Council here on the question of war and peace. Monsieur de Montmorin and Monsieur de Breteuil have been constantly for war. They are supported in this by the Queen. The King goes for nothing. He hunts one-half the day, is drunk the other, and signs whatever he is bid. The Archbishop of Toulouse desires peace. Though brought in by the Queen, he is opposed to her in this capital object, which would produce an alliance with her brother. Whether the Archbishop will yield or not, I know not. But an intrigue is already begun for ousting him from his place, and it is rather probable it will succeed. He is a good and patriotic minister for peace, and very capable in the department of finance. At least, he is so in theory. I have heard his talents for execution censured.

To John Jay, November 3d, 1787.

It may not be uninstructive to give you the origin and nature of his (the Archbishop of Toulouse) influence with the Queen. When the Duke de Choiseul proposed the marriage of the Dauphin with this lady, he thought it proper to send a person to Vienna to perfect her in the language. He asked his friend, the Archbishop of Toulouse, to recommend to him a proper person. He recommended a certain AbbÉ. The AbbÉ, from his first arrival at Vienna, either tutored by his patron or prompted by gratitude, impressed on the Queen's mind the exalted talents and merit of the Archbishop, and continually represented him as the only man fit to be placed at the helm of affairs. On his return to Paris, being retained near the person of the Queen, he kept him constantly in her view. The Archbishop was named of the AssemblÉe des Notables, had occasion enough there to prove his talents, and Count de Vergennes, his great enemy, dying opportunely, the Queen got him into place.

Writing to Mr. Jay on September 3d, 1788, Mr. Jefferson, after alluding to the public bankruptcy and the moneyless condition of the treasury, goes on to say:

To John Jay, September 3d, 1788.

The Archbishop was hereupon removed, with Monsieur Lambert, the Comptroller-general; and M. Necker was called in as Director-general of the finance. To soften the Archbishop's dismission, a cardinal's hat is asked for him from Rome, and his nephew promised the succession to the Archbishopric of Sens. The public joy on this change of administration was very great indeed. The people of Paris were amusing themselves with trying and burning the Archbishop in effigy, and rejoicing in the appointment of M. Necker. The commanding officer of the City Guards undertook to forbid this, and, not being obeyed, he charged the mob with fixed bayonets, killed two or three, and wounded many. This stopped their rejoicings for that day; but, enraged at being thus obstructed in amusements wherein they had committed no disorder whatever, they collected in great numbers the next day, attacked the Guards in various places, burnt ten or twelve guard-houses, killed two or three of the guards, and had about six or eight of their own number killed. The city was hereupon put under martial law, and after a while the tumult subsided, and peace was restored.

To George Washington, December 21st, 1788.

In my opinion, a kind of influence which none of their plans of reform take into account, will elude them all—I mean the influence of women in the Government. The manners of the nation allow them to visit, alone, all persons in office, to solicit the affairs of the husband, family, or friends, and their solicitations bid defiance to laws and regulations. This obstacle may seem less to those who, like our countrymen, are in the precious habit of considering right as a barrier against all solicitation. Nor can such an one, without the evidence of his own eyes, believe in the desperate state to which things are reduced in this country, from the omnipotence of an influence which, fortunately for the happiness of the sex itself, does not endeavor to extend itself, in our country, beyond the domestic line.

To Colonel Humphreys, March 18th, 1789.

The change in this country, since you left it, is such as you can form no idea of. The frivolities of conversation have given way entirely to politics. Men, women, and children talk nothing else; and all, you know, talk a great deal. The press groans with daily productions which, in point of boldness, make an Englishman stare, who hitherto has thought himself the boldest of men. A complete revolution in this Government has, within the space of two years (for it began with the Notables of 1787), been effected merely by the force of public opinion, aided, indeed, by the want of money, which the dissipations of the court had brought on. And this revolution has not cost a single life, unless we charge to it a little riot lately in Bretagne, which began about the price of bread, became afterwards political, and ended in the loss of four or five lives. The Assembly of the States General begins the 27th of April. The representation of the people will be perfect; but they will be alloyed by an equal number of the nobility and clergy. The first great question they will have to decide will be, whether they shall vote by orders or persons. And I have hopes that the majority of the nobles are already disposed to join the Tiers Etat in deciding that the vote shall be by persons. This is the opinion À la mode at present, and mode has acted a wonderful part in the present instance. All the handsome young women, for example, are for the Tiers Etat, and this is an army more powerful in France than the two hundred thousand men of the King.

To William Carmichael, May 8th, 1789.

The States General were opened day before yesterday. Viewing it as an opera, it was imposing; as a scene of business, the King's speech was exactly what it should have been, and very well delivered; not a word of the Chancellor's was heard by any body, so that, as yet, I have never heard a single guess at what it was about. M. Necker's was as good as such a number of details would permit it to be. The picture of their resources was consoling, and generally plausible. I could have wished him to have dwelt more on those great constitutional reformations, which his "Rapport au Roi" had prepared us to expect. But they observe that these points were proper for the speech of the Chancellor.

To John Jay, May 9th, 1789.

The revolution of this country has advanced thus far without encountering any thing which deserves to be called a difficulty. There have been riots in a few instances, in three or four different places, in which there may have been a dozen or twenty lives lost. The exact truth is not to be got at. A few days ago a much more serious riot took place in this city, in which it became necessary for the troops to engage in regular action with the mob, and probably about one hundred of the latter were killed. Accounts vary from twenty to two hundred. They were the most abandoned banditti of Paris, and never was a riot more unprovoked and unpitied. They began, under a pretense that a paper manufacturer had proposed, in an assembly, to reduce their wages to fifteen sous a day. They rifled his house, destroyed every thing in his magazines and shops, and were only stopped in their career of mischief by the carnage above mentioned. Neither this nor any other of the riots have had a professed connection with the great national reformation going on. They are such as have happened every year since I have been here, and as will continue to be produced by common incidents.

In the same letter, in speaking of the King, he says:

Happy that he is an honest, unambitious man, who desires neither money nor power for himself; and that his most operative minister, though he has appeared to trim a little, is still, in the main, a friend to public liberty.

In a letter to Mr. Jay, June 17, 1789, after alluding to the continued disagreement between the orders composing the States General, as to whether they should vote by persons or orders, he says:

To John Jay, June 17th, 1789.

The Noblesse adhered to their former resolutions, and even the minority, well disposed to the Commons, thought they could do more good in their own chamber, by endeavoring to increase their numbers and fettering the measures of the majority, than by joining the Commons. An intrigue was set on foot between the leaders of the majority in that House, the Queen and Princes. They persuaded the King to go for some time to Marly; he went. On the same day the leaders moved, in the Chamber of Nobles, that they should address the King to declare his own sentiments on the great question between the orders. It was intended that this address should be delivered to him at Marly, where, separated from his ministers, and surrounded by the Queen and Princes, he might be surprised into a declaration for the Nobles. The motion was lost, however, by a very great majority, that Chamber being not yet quite ripe for throwing themselves into the arms of despotism. Necker and Monmorin, who had discovered this intrigue, had warned some of the minority to defeat it, or they could not answer for what would happen.... The Commons (Tiers Etat) having verified their powers, a motion was made, the day before yesterday, to declare themselves constituted, and to proceed to business. I left them at two o'clock yesterday; the debates not then finished....

It is a tremendous cloud, indeed, which hovers over this nation, and he (Necker) at the helm has neither the courage nor the skill necessary to weather it. Eloquence in a high degree, knowledge in matters of account, and order, are distinguishing traits in his character. Ambition is his first passion, virtue his second. He has not discovered that sublime truth, that a bold, unequivocal virtue is the best handmaid even to ambition, and would carry him farther, in the end, than the temporizing, wavering policy he pursues. His judgment is not of the first order, scarcely even of the second; his resolution frail; and, upon the whole, it is rare to meet an instance of a person so much below the reputation he has obtained.

To John Jay, June 24th, 1789.

My letter of the 17th and 18th instant gave you the progress of the States General to the 17th, when the Tiers had declared the illegality of all the existing taxes, and their discontinuance from the end of their present session. The next day being a jour de fÊte, could furnish no indication of the impression that vote was likely to make on the Government. On the 19th, a Council was held at Marly, in the afternoon. It was there proposed that the King should interpose by a declaration of his sentiments in a seance royale. The declaration prepared by M. Necker, while it censured, in general, the proceedings both of the Nobles and Commons, announced the King's views, such as substantially to coincide with the Commons. It was agreed to in Council, as also that the seance royale should be held on the 22d, and the meetings till then be suspended. While the Council was engaged in this deliberation at Marly, the Chamber of the Clergy was in debate, whether they should accept the invitation of the Tiers to unite with them in the common chamber. On the first question, to unite simply and unconditionally, it was decided in the negative by a very small majority. As it was known, however, that some members who had voted in the negative would be for the affirmative, with some modifications, the question was put with these modifications, and it was determined, by a majority of eleven members, that their body should join the Tiers.

These proceedings of the Clergy were unknown to the Council at Marly, and those of the Council were kept secret from every body. The next morning (the 20th) the members repaired to the House, as usual, found the doors shut and guarded, and a proclamation posted up for holding a seance royale on the 22d, and a suspension of their meetings till then. They presumed, in the first moment, that their dissolution was decided, and repaired to another place, where they proceeded to business. They there bound themselves to each other by an oath never to separate of their own accord till they had settled a Constitution for the nation on a solid basis, and, if separated by force, that they would reassemble in some other place. It was intimated to them, however, that day, privately, that the proceedings of the seance royale would be favorable to them. The next day they met in a church, and were joined by a majority of the Clergy. The heads of the aristocracy saw that all was lost without some violent exertion. The King was still at Marly. Nobody was permitted to approach him but their friends. He was assailed by lies in all shapes. He was made to believe that the Commons were going to absolve the army from their oath of fidelity to him, and to raise their pay.... They procured a committee to be held, consisting of the King and his ministers, to which Monsieur and the Count d'Artois should be admitted. At this committee the latter attacked M. Necker personally, arraigned his plans, and proposed one which some of his engines had put into his hands. M. Necker, whose characteristic is the want of firmness, was browbeaten and intimidated, and the King shaken.

He determined that the two plans should be deliberated on the next day, and the seance royale put off a day longer. This encouraged a fiercer attack on M. Necker the next day; his plan was totally dislocated, and that of the Count d'Artois inserted into it. Himself and Monsieur de Montmorin offered their resignation, which was refused; the Count d'Artois saying to M. Necker, "No, Sir, you must be kept as the hostage; we hold you responsible for all the ill which shall happen." This change of plan was immediately whispered without doors. The nobility were in triumph, the people in consternation. When the King passed, the next day, through the lane they formed from the ChÂteau to the HÔtel des Etats (about half a mile), there was a dead silence. He was about an hour in the House delivering his speech and declaration, copies of which I inclose you. On his coming out, a feeble cry of "Vive le Roi" was raised by some children, but the people remained silent and sullen. When the Duke of Orleans followed, however, their applauses were excessive. This must have been sensible to the King. He had ordered, in the close of his speech, that the members should follow him, and resume their deliberations the next day. The Noblesse followed him, and so did the Clergy, except about thirty, who, with the Tiers, remained in the room and entered into deliberation. They protested against what the King had done, adhered to all their former proceedings, and resolved the inviolability of their own persons. An officer came twice to order them out of the room, in the King's name, but they refused to obey.

In the afternoon, the people, uneasy, began to assemble in great numbers in the courts and vicinities of the palace. The Queen was alarmed, and sent for M. Necker. He was conducted amidst the shouts and acclamations of the multitude, who filled all the apartments of the palace. He was a few minutes only with the Queen, and about three-quarters of an hour with the King. Not a word has transpired of what passed at these interviews. The King was just going to ride out. He passed through the crowd to his carriage, and into it, without being in the least noticed. As M. Necker followed him, universal acclamations were raised of "Vive Monsieur Necker, vive le sauveur de la France opprimÉe." He was conducted back to his house with the same demonstrations of affection and anxiety.... These circumstances must wound the heart of the King, desirous as he is to possess the affections of his subjects....

June 25th.—Just returned from Versailles, I am enabled to continue my narration. On the 24th nothing remarkable passed, except an attack by the mob of Versailles on the Archbishop of Paris, who had been one of the instigators of the court to the proceedings of the seance royale. They threw mud and stones at his carriage, broke the windows of it, and he in a fright promised to join the Tiers.

To John Jay, June 29th, 1789.

I have before mentioned to you the ferment into which the proceedings at the seance royale of the 23d had thrown the people. The soldiery also were affected by it. It began in the French Guards, extended to those of every other denomination (except the Swiss), and even to the bodyguards of the King. They began to quit their barracks, to assemble in squads, to declare they would defend the life of the King, but would not cut the throats of their fellow-citizens. They were treated and caressed by the people, carried in triumph through the streets, called themselves the soldiers of the nation, and left no doubt on which side they would be in case of a rupture.

In his Memoir Jefferson writes, in allusion to the spirit among the soldiery above noticed:

Extract from Memoir.

The operation of this medicine at Versailles was as sudden as it was powerful. The alarm there was so complete, that in the afternoon of the 27th the King wrote, with his own hand, letters to the Presidents of the Clergy and Nobles, engaging them immediately to join the Tiers. These two bodies were debating and hesitating, when notes from the Count d'Artois decided their compliance. They went in a body, and took their seats with the Tiers, and thus rendered the union of the orders in one Chamber complete.... But the quiet of their march was soon disturbed by information that troops, and particularly the foreign troops, were advancing on Paris from various quarters. The King had probably been advised to this, on the pretext of preserving peace in Paris. But his advisers were believed to have other things in contemplation. The Marshal de Broglio was appointed to their command—a high-flying aristocrat, cool, and capable of every thing. Some of the French Guards were soon arrested under other pretexts, but really on account of their dispositions in favor of the national cause. The people of Paris forced their prison, liberated them, and sent a deputation to the Assembly to solicit a pardon. The Assembly recommended peace and order to the people of Paris, the prisoners to the King, and asked from him the removal of the troops. His answer was negative and dry, saying they might remove themselves, if they pleased, to Noyons or Soissons. In the mean time, these troops, to the number of twenty or thirty thousand, had arrived, and were posted in and between Paris and Versailles. The bridges and passes were guarded. At three o'clock in the afternoon of the 11th of July, the Count de la Luzerne was sent to notify M. Necker of his dismission, and to enjoin him to retire instantly, without saying a word of it to any body. He went home, dined, and proposed to his wife a visit to a friend, but went in fact to his country-house at St. Ouen, and at midnight set out for Brussels. This was not known till the next day (the 12th), when the whole ministry was changed, except Villederril, of the domestic department, and Barenton, Garde des Sceaux....

The news of this change began to be known at Paris about one or two o'clock. In the afternoon a body of about one hundred German cavalry were advanced and drawn up in the Place Louis XV., and about two hundred Swiss posted at a little distance in their rear. This drew people to the spot, who thus accidentally found themselves in front of the troops, merely at first as spectators; but, as their numbers increased, their indignation rose. They retired a few steps, and posted themselves on and behind large piles of stones, large and small, collected in that place for a bridge, which was to be built adjacent to it. In this position, happening to be in my carriage on a visit, I passed through the lane they had formed without interruption. But the moment after I had passed the people attacked the cavalry with stones. They charged, but the advantageous position of the people, and the showers of stones, obliged the horses to retire and quit the field altogether, leaving one of their number on the ground, and the Swiss in their rear not moving to their aid. This was the signal for universal insurrection, and this body of cavalry, to avoid being massacred, retired towards Versailles.

After describing the events of the 13th and 14th, and of the imperfect report of them which reached the King, he says:

But at night the Duke de Liancourt forced his way into the King's bed-chamber, and obliged him to hear a full and animated detail of the disasters of the day in Paris. He went to bed fearfully impressed.

After alluding to the demolition of the Bastile, he says:

The alarm at Versailles increased. The foreign troops were ordered off instantly. Every minister resigned. The King confirmed Bailly as PrÉvÔt des Marchands, wrote to M. Necker to recall him, sent his letter open to the Assembly, to be forwarded by them, and invited them to go with him to Paris the next day, to satisfy the city of his dispositions. [Then comes a list of the Court favorites who fled that night.] The King came to Paris, leaving the Queen in consternation for his return. Omitting the less important figures of the procession, the King's carriage was in the centre; on each side of it, the Assembly, in two ranks, afoot; at their head the Marquis de Lafayette, as commander-in-chief, on horseback, and Bourgeois guards before and behind. About sixty thousand citizens, of all forms and conditions, armed with the conquests of the Bastile and Invalides, as far as they would go, the rest with pistols, swords, pikes, pruning-hooks, scythes, etc., lined all the streets through which the procession passed, and with the crowds of the people in the streets, doors, and windows, saluted them everywhere with the cries of "Vive la nation," but not a single "Vive le roi" was heard. The King stopped at the HÔtel de Ville. There M. Bailly presented, and put into his hat, the popular cockade, and addressed him. The King being unprepared, and unable to answer, Bailly went to him, gathered some scraps of sentences, and made out an answer, which he delivered to the audience as from the King. On their return, the popular cries were, "Vive le roi et la nation!" He was conducted by a garde Bourgeoise to his palace at Versailles, and thus concluded such an "amende honorable" as no sovereign ever made, and no people ever received.

After speaking of the precious occasion that was here lost, of sparing to France the crimes and cruelties through which she afterwards passed, and of the good disposition of the young King, he says:

But he had a queen of absolute sway over his weak mind and timid virtue, and of a character the reverse of his in all points. This angel, so gaudily painted in the rhapsodies of Burke, with some smartness of fancy but no sound sense, was proud, disdainful of restraint, indignant at all obstacles to her will, eager in the pursuit of pleasure, and firm enough to hold to her desires, or perish in their wreck. Her inordinate gambling and dissipations, with those of the Count d'Artois and others of her clique, had been a sensible item in the exhaustion of the treasury, which called into action the reforming hand of the nation; and her opposition to it, her inflexible perverseness, and dauntless spirit, led herself to the guillotine, drew the King on with her, and plunged the world into crimes and calamities which will forever stain the pages of modern history. I have ever believed that, had there been no queen, there would have been no revolution. No force would have been provoked nor exercised. The King would have gone hand in hand with the wisdom of his sounder counsellors, who, guided by the increased lights of the age, wished only with the same pace to advance the principles of their social constitution. The deed which closed the mortal course of these sovereigns I shall neither approve nor condemn. I am not prepared to say that the first magistrate of a nation can not commit treason against his country, or is unamenable to its punishment; nor yet that, where there is no written law, no regulated tribunal, there is not a law in our hearts and a power in our hands, given for righteous employment in maintaining right and redressing wrong....

I should have shut up the Queen in a convent, putting harm out of her power, and placed the King in his station, investing him with limited powers, which, I verily believe, he would have honestly exercised, according to the measure of his understanding.

After giving further details, he goes on to say:

In this uneasy state of things, I received one day a note from the Marquis de Lafayette, informing me that he should bring a party of six or eight friends to ask a dinner of me the next day. I assured him of their welcome. When they arrived they were Lafayette himself, Duport, Barnave, Alexander la Meth, Blacon, Mounier, Maubourg, and Dagout. These were leading patriots of honest but differing opinions, sensible of the necessity of effecting a coalition by mutual sacrifices, knowing each other, and not afraid, therefore, to unbosom themselves mutually. This last was a material principle in the selection. With this view the Marquis had invited the conference, and had fixed the time and place inadvertently, as to the embarrassment under which it might place me. The cloth being removed, and wine set on the table, after the American manner, the Marquis introduced the objects of the conference.... The discussions began at the hour of four, and were continued till ten o'clock in the evening; during which time I was a silent witness to a coolness and candor of argument unusual in the conflicts of political opinion—to a logical reasoning and chaste eloquence disfigured by no gaudy tinsel of rhetoric or declamation, and truly worthy of being placed in parallel with the finest dialogues of antiquity, as handed to us by Xenophon, by Plato, and Cicero....

But duties of exculpation were now incumbent on me. I waited on Count Montmorin the next morning, and explained to him, with truth and candor, how it had happened that my house had been made the scene of conferences of such a character. He told me he already knew every thing which had passed; that, so far from taking umbrage at the use made of my house on that occasion, he earnestly wished I would habitually assist at such conferences, being sure I should be useful in moderating the warmer spirits, and promoting a wholesome and practicable reformation.

Nothing of further interest as regards the French Revolution appears in Jefferson's Memoir.

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