The French Revolution of 1789, as Viewed in the Light of Republican InstitutionsAbbott, John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot)
History
The French Revolution of 1789, as Viewed in the Light of Republican Institutions
Abbott, John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot)
France -- History -- Revolution, 1789-1799
The Marquis of Ferrières, a deputy of the nobles and an earnest
advocate of aristocratic assumption, writes in his Mémoires: "The
court, unable any longer to hide from themselves the real truth that
all their petty expedients to separate the orders served only to
bring on their union, resolved to dissolve the States-General. It
was necessary to remove the king from Versailles, to get Necker and
the ministers attached to him out of the way. A journey to Marly was
arranged. The pretext was the death of the dauphin. The mind of the
king was successfully worked upon. He was told it was high time to stop
the unheard-of enterprises of the Third Estate; that he would soon have
only the name of a king. The Cardinal Rochefoucault and the Archbishop
of Paris threw themselves at the feet of the king and supplicated him
to save the clergy and protect religion. The Parliament sent a secret
deputation proposing a scheme for getting rid of the States-General.
The keeper of the seals, the Count d'Artois, the queen, all united.
All was therefore settled, and an order from the king announced a
royal sitting and suspended the States under the pretense of making
arrangements in the hall."]
[Footnote 115: "The deputies stand grouped on the Paris road, on this
umbrageous _Avenue de Versailles_, complaining aloud of the indignity
done them. Courtiers, it is supposed, look from their windows and
giggle."--_Carlyle_, vol. i., p. 156.
"Is it decent," writes M. Bailly in his Memoirs, "that the members
of the National Assembly, or even the deputies of the Commons, as
you may still please to consider them, should thus be apprised of
the intentions of the king, of the suspension of their own sittings,
only by the public criers and by notices posted on the wall, as the
inhabitants of a town would be made acquainted with the shutting up of
a theatre?"]
[Footnote 116: "It is quite certain that, mixed with a little personal
vanity, the most sincere wish for the happiness of France, and the
happiness of mankind, was the ruling motive with Necker."--_Lectures on
the French Revolution, by Wm. Smyth_, vol. i., p. 287.
"Let us not forget that at that period the whole Assembly was Royalist,
without excepting a single member."--_Michelet_, vol. i., p. 108.]
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