Part I, 4

In every European country there is a large class of people of the kind called the “mob” in England. It was people of this class who committed the burnings and devastation in London in 1780, and people of this class who carried heads on iron spikes in Paris. Foulon and Berthier were seized in the countryside and sent to Paris for examination at the Hotel de Ville. For the National Assembly, immediately after the new ministry took office, had passed a decree and communicated it to the King and Cabinet: it would hold that ministry, of which Foulon was a member, responsible for the measures it advised and pursued. But the mob, enraged at the sight of Foulon and Berthier, tore them from their escorts before they could be brought to the Hotel de Ville, and killed them on the spot. Why, then, does Mr. Burke lay outrages of this kind at the door of an entire people? He might as well charge every Londoner with the riots and outrages of 1780, or every one of his countrymen with those in Ireland.

Yet everything we see or hear that offends our feelings and demeans human nature ought to prompt more than reproach. Even those who commit such acts have some claim on our consideration. Why, then, are the great classes of humanity called the vulgar or the ignorant mob so numerous in every old country? The moment we ask, reflection supplies an answer. They are the inevitable product of the faulty construction of all Europe's old governments, England included. Some men are unnaturally exalted, and so others are unnaturally brought low, until the whole is out of nature. A vast portion of humanity is pushed, in degradation, into the background of the human picture, to throw the puppet show of state and aristocracy into more dazzling relief. At the beginning of a revolution, these people follow the camp rather than the standard of liberty; they have yet to learn how to revere it.

I grant Mr. Burke every one of his theatrical exaggerations as fact, and ask him whether they do not establish the truth of what I have said. If we admit them, they prove the necessity of the French Revolution as forcefully as anything he could have asserted. These outrages arose not from the principles of the Revolution but from a degradation of mind that existed before it, and that the Revolution is designed to reform. Assign them, then, to their proper cause, and take the reproach upon your own side.

It is to the honor of the National Assembly and the city of Paris that, amid so tremendous a scene of armed confusion, beyond the control of any authority, they could restrain so much by example and exhortation. Never has more effort been spent on teaching and enlightening people, on showing them that their interest lies in virtue rather than revenge, than during the Revolution in France. I turn now to Mr. Burke's account of the expedition to Versailles on October the 5th and 6th.

I can scarcely regard Mr. Burke's book as anything other than a dramatic performance; indeed, the poetic license with which he omits some facts, twists others, and makes the whole machinery serve a theatrical effect suggests that he sees it that way himself. His account of the expedition to Versailles is an example. He begins by leaving out the only facts known to be true as causes; all else is conjecture, even in Paris. He then builds a tale fitted to his own passions and prejudices.

Throughout his book, it is worth observing, Mr. Burke never mentions plots against the Revolution; yet from those plots all the mischief has arisen. It suits him to show consequences without causes. That is one of the tricks of the theater. Show men's crimes alongside their sufferings, and the dramatic effect may be lost: the audience might approve where it was meant to pity.

After all the investigations into this tangled affair—the expedition to Versailles—it remains shrouded in the kind of mystery that always attends events produced more by a convergence of awkward circumstances than by settled design. While men's allegiances are taking shape, as they always do during revolutions, suspicion is mutual and each side is inclined to misconstrue the other. Even parties directly opposed in principle may sometimes help drive the same movement forward, though they pursue utterly different ends and hope for utterly different results. Much of this can be seen in this confused affair; yet the final outcome was one that nobody intended.

What is certainly known is that Paris was then deeply troubled by the King's delay in sanctioning and transmitting the National Assembly's decrees, especially the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the decrees of the fourth of August, which laid the foundational principles for the constitution. The kindest, and perhaps fairest, conjecture is that some ministers wished to offer remarks on certain parts before the decrees received final approval and went to the provinces. Whatever the case, the delay gave hope to the Revolution's enemies and unease to its friends.

Amid this suspense the Garde du Corps, composed, as such regiments generally are, of people closely tied to the Court, gave an entertainment at Versailles (October 1) for some recently arrived foreign regiments. At its height, on a signal, the Garde du Corps tore the national cockades from their hats, trampled them, and put on opposing cockades prepared for the purpose. Such an insult amounted to defiance. It was like a declaration of war; those who issue challenges must expect consequences. But Mr. Burke carefully conceals all this. He opens his account by saying: “History will record that on the morning of the 6th October, 1789, the King and Queen of France, after a day of confusion, alarm, dismay, and slaughter, lay down under the pledged security of public faith to indulge nature in a few hours of respite, and troubled melancholy repose.” This is neither the sober manner nor the purpose of history. It leaves everything open to guesswork and error. One might at least imagine a battle had taken place; and there probably would have been one but for the measured prudence of the very people Mr. Burke condemns. By hiding the Garde du Corps, he gives himself the dramatic license to put the King and Queen in its place, as though the expedition were aimed at them. But let me return to my account. The Garde du Corps's conduct, as one might expect, alarmed and infuriated the Partisans. The colors of the cause had become too closely bound to the cause itself for anyone to mistake the purpose of the insult; the Partisans resolved to call the Garde du Corps to account. There was surely nothing of the cowardice of assassination in marching openly by day to demand satisfaction, if that phrase may be used, from armed men who had freely issued a challenge. What makes this affair difficult to untangle, however, is that the Revolution's enemies seem to have encouraged it no less than its friends. The friends hoped to avert civil war by stopping it in time; the enemies hoped to bring one about. Those opposed to the Revolution hoped to win the King to their side and take him from Versailles to Metz, where they expected to gather an army and raise a standard. Thus two different aims presented themselves at once, to be pursued by the same means: the Partisans aimed to chastise the Garde du Corps; their opponents aimed to use the disorder as a reason for the King to depart for Metz.

On the 5th of October a very large body of women, and men disguised as women, gathered around the Hotel de Ville, or town hall, in Paris and set off for Versailles. They declared the Garde du Corps to be their object; but prudent people knew how much easier trouble is to start than to stop. Their concern was sharpened by the suspicions already described and by the unruly character of this procession. As soon as a sufficient force could be assembled, therefore, M. de la Fayette, under orders from the civil authority of Paris, set out after them at the head of twenty thousand Paris militiamen. Confusion offered the Revolution no advantage, though its opponents might profit from it. By an engaging and spirited manner of speaking he had thus far succeeded in calming unrest, and on this occasion succeeded extraordinarily well. To frustrate the hopes of anyone seeking to turn the scene into an apparently unavoidable reason for the King to leave Versailles and withdraw to Metz, and at the same time to forestall the consequences of a clash between the Garde du Corps and this mass of men and women, he sent express messages ahead to the King. They announced that, by order of the civil authority of Paris, he was marching to Versailles to preserve peace and protect the people; they also urged the need to prevent the Garde du Corps from firing on them.*3

He reached Versailles between ten and eleven at night. The Garde du Corps stood in formation, and the people had arrived some time earlier, but everything remained at a standstill. Wisdom and good judgment now lay in turning a dangerous scene into a happy outcome. M. de la Fayette mediated between the enraged parties; and the King, to allay the anxiety produced by the delay already described, summoned the President of the National Assembly and signed the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the other parts of the constitution that were ready.

It was now about one in the morning. Everything seemed settled, and congratulations passed all around. At the beat of a drum, a proclamation announced that the citizens of Versailles would open their homes to their fellow citizens of Paris. Those for whom no lodging could be found stayed in the streets or settled in the churches; at two o'clock the King and Queen retired.

Things remained so until daybreak, when misconduct on both sides provoked fresh disorder; such people appear in every scene of this kind. One of the Garde du Corps appeared at a palace window, and the people who had spent the night in the streets greeted him with abuse and provocation. Rather than withdraw, as prudence would have counseled, he raised his musket, fired, and killed a member of the Paris militia. With the peace thus broken, the people rushed into the palace in search of the offender. They attacked the Garde du Corps in its quarters inside the palace and chased its members through the passages as far as the King's apartments. The tumult woke and alarmed not only the Queen, as Mr. Burke represents it, but everyone in the palace. M. de la Fayette had to intervene between the parties a second time. In the end, the Garde du Corps put on the national cockade and the matter passed into oblivion, after two or three lives had been lost.

During the latter part of this confusion, the King and Queen appeared publicly on the balcony; neither hid for safety, as Mr. Burke insinuates. Once the trouble was quieted and calm restored, a general cry rose: Le Roi a Paris—Le Roi a Paris—The King to Paris. It was a cry of peace, and the King accepted it at once. This measure prevented any further schemes to lure the King to Metz and raise a standard against the constitution, and put the suspicions to rest. The King and his family reached Paris that evening, where M. Bailly, the Mayor of Paris, congratulated them on behalf of the citizens. Mr. Burke, who throughout his book confuses things, people, and principles—as in his comments on M. Bailly's address—confuses time as well. He reproaches M. Bailly for calling it “un bon jour,” a good day. Mr. Burke ought to have learned that the events occupied two days: the first began with every appearance of danger and disaster; the second ended without the disasters that had threatened. It was to this peaceful conclusion, and to the King's arrival in Paris, that M. Bailly referred. No fewer than three hundred thousand people took their places in the procession from Versailles to Paris, and not a single act of harassment occurred throughout the march.

On the authority of M. Lally Tollendal, a deserter from the National Assembly, Mr. Burke says the people shouted on entering Paris, “Tous les eveques a la lanterne.” All Bishops to be hanged from the lanterns or lamp posts. It is remarkable that no one but Lally Tollendal heard it, and no one but Mr. Burke believed it. It has not the slightest connection with any part of the affair; it is alien to every circumstance of it. Bishops have never appeared before in any scene of Mr. Burke's drama: why, then, introduce them all at once, all together—tout a coup, et tous ensemble—now? Mr. Burke brings out his Bishops and his lantern-like figures as if in a magic lantern show, arranging his scenes for contrast rather than connection. Like the rest of his book, this shows how little credit is due an account that defies even probability in its effort to defame. With that reflection, rather than a soliloquy praising chivalry as Mr. Burke has offered, I close my account of the expedition to Versailles.*4

Every European country has a large group of people of the kind called the “mob” in England. People from this group carried out the fires and destruction in London in 1780. People from this group also carried heads on iron spikes in Paris. Foulon and Berthier were seized in the countryside and sent to Paris to be questioned at the Hotel de Ville. As soon as the new ministry took office, the National Assembly passed a decree and sent it to the King and Cabinet. It said the Assembly would hold the ministry, which included Foulon, responsible for the policies it advised and carried out. But the mob was furious at the sight of Foulon and Berthier. Before their escorts could take them to the Hotel de Ville, the mob seized and killed them there. Why does Mr. Burke blame a whole people for such acts? He might as well blame all Londoners for the riots and violence of 1780, or all his fellow Irish people for riots in Ireland.

When we see or hear something that offends us and reflects badly on humanity, we should think about more than whom to blame. Even the people who do such things deserve some consideration. Why, then, are the people called the common crowd or the ignorant mob so numerous in every old country? As soon as we ask, the answer becomes clear. They are the inevitable result of the badly designed governments of old Europe, including England. When some people are raised unnaturally high, others are pushed unnaturally low. The whole arrangement becomes unnatural. A huge part of humanity is pushed into the background so that the show put on by the state and the aristocracy will look brighter. At the start of a revolution, these people follow the crowd more than the banner of liberty. They still have to learn to respect liberty.

Let us accept all Mr. Burke’s theatrical exaggerations as facts. Do they not prove the point I am making? If they are true, they show how necessary the French Revolution was, just as surely as anything else he could have said. These outrages did not come from the Revolution’s principles. They came from the degraded state of mind that existed before it, a condition the Revolution is meant to change. Put the blame where it belongs, then, and take it on your own side.

The National Assembly and the city of Paris deserve credit. In a terrifying scene of armed disorder beyond anyone’s control, their example and appeals managed to prevent so much violence. No one has tried harder than the people of the French Revolution to teach and inform people, and to show them that their own interests depend on virtue rather than revenge. I will now comment on Mr. Burke’s account of the march to Versailles on October the 5th and 6th.

I can hardly see Mr. Burke’s book as anything but a play. He must have seen it that way too. He takes the writer’s liberty of leaving out some facts, twisting others, and arranging everything to create an effect onstage. His account of the march to Versailles is one example. He leaves out the only known facts that explain what caused it. Everything beyond those facts is guesswork, even in Paris. Then he makes a story to suit his own feelings and prejudices.

Throughout his book, Mr. Burke never talks about plots against the Revolution. Yet those plots have caused all the trouble. He wants to show the effects without the causes. That is a theatrical trick. If a play showed people’s crimes alongside their suffering, it might lose its dramatic effect. The audience might approve of what happened to them when the writer wanted it to feel pity.

Even after all the investigations into the complicated march to Versailles, much about it remains a mystery. That is often true of events caused by several badly timed circumstances rather than a firm plan. In revolutions, people’s roles are still taking shape. They suspect one another and tend to misread one another’s actions. Groups with directly opposing principles sometimes push for the same action, each expecting a very different result. We can see a great deal of that in this confusing affair. Yet its final result was what no one had planned.

Here is what we know for certain. At that time, people in Paris were very uneasy because the King had delayed approving and sending out the National Assembly’s decrees. They were especially concerned about the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the decrees of the fourth of August. Those decrees laid down the basic principles for the constitution. The most generous, and perhaps fairest, guess is that some ministers wanted to comment on parts of these measures before the King finally approved them and sent them to the provinces. Whatever the reason, the delay encouraged the Revolution’s enemies and worried its supporters.

While people waited, the Garde du Corps held a dinner at Versailles (October 1) for some newly arrived foreign regiments. Like such regiments generally, the Garde du Corps was made up of people closely tied to the Court. At the height of the dinner, someone gave a signal. The Garde du Corps tore the national cockade from their hats, trampled it, and put on opposing cockades they had prepared. Such an insult was a challenge. It was like declaring war. People who issue challenges must expect a response. Mr. Burke carefully leaves all this out. He begins: “History will record that on the morning of the 6th October, 1789, the King and Queen of France, after a day of confusion, alarm, dismay, and slaughter, lay down under the pledged security of public faith to indulge nature in a few hours of respite, and troubled melancholy repose.” That is not the clear, factual language or purpose of history. It leaves readers to guess and get things wrong. They might at least suppose a battle had taken place. There probably would have been a battle without the careful restraint of the very people Mr. Burke condemns. By hiding the Garde du Corps, Mr. Burke can put the King and Queen in their place, as though the march targeted them. But let me return to what happened. The behavior of the Garde du Corps understandably frightened and angered the Revolution’s supporters. By then, the colors of their cause and the cause itself were too closely linked for anyone to mistake the meaning of the insult. The supporters decided to confront the Garde du Corps. There was certainly nothing like a cowardly assassination in marching openly in daylight to demand an answer, if that is the right phrase, from armed men who had chosen to issue a challenge. What makes the affair confusing is that the Revolution’s enemies seem to have encouraged this march too. Its friends hoped to stop a civil war before it began; its enemies hoped to start one. Opponents of the Revolution hoped to win the King to their side and get him from Versailles to Metz. They expected to gather an army there and raise a banner of opposition. So two different goals were pursued at the same time by the same means. The Revolution’s supporters wanted to punish the Garde du Corps. Their opponents wanted the confusion to persuade the King to leave for Metz.

On the 5th of October, a very large group of women and men dressed as women gathered at the Hotel de Ville, or town hall, in Paris and set off for Versailles. They said they were going after the Garde du Corps. But careful people knew how much easier it is to start trouble than to stop it. The suspicions I have described, along with the disorderly nature of this procession, made that risk seem still greater. So, as soon as enough men could be gathered, M. de la Fayette followed them with twenty thousand of the Paris militia, on the orders of the civil authorities of Paris. Disorder could do nothing for the Revolution but might help its opponents. Until then, his warm and spirited way of speaking to people had helped calm unrest. Here he was especially successful. He wanted to stop anyone from using the disorder as an excuse for the King to leave Versailles for Metz. He also wanted to prevent a clash between the Garde du Corps and this large group of men and women. He therefore sent messengers ahead to the King. They said he was marching to Versailles under orders from the civil authorities of Paris to keep the peace and protect people. They also said it was essential to prevent the Garde du Corps from firing on the people.*3

He reached Versailles between ten and eleven that night. The Garde du Corps was lined up, and the people had arrived earlier, but nothing had yet happened. The wise course now was to turn a dangerous situation into a happy outcome. M. de la Fayette stepped in between the angry groups. The King wanted to ease the worry caused by his delay. He sent for the President of the National Assembly and signed the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the other parts of the constitution that were ready.

It was about one in the morning. Everything seemed calm, and people congratulated one another. At the beat of a drum, an announcement said that the people of Versailles would welcome their fellow citizens from Paris into their homes. Those who could not stay in homes remained in the streets or slept in churches. At two o’clock the King and Queen went to bed.

Things stayed that way until dawn. Then some people on both sides behaved badly, as people always do in such situations, and new trouble began. A member of the Garde du Corps appeared at a palace window. The people who had spent the night in the streets shouted insults and challenges at him. He should have stepped away. Instead, he aimed his musket, fired, and killed a member of the Paris militia. With the peace broken, the people rushed into the palace to find him. They attacked the rooms of the Garde du Corps inside the palace and chased them through its passages as far as the King’s rooms. The disturbance woke and alarmed everyone in the palace, not just the Queen, as Mr. Burke claims. M. de la Fayette had to intervene a second time. In the end, the Garde du Corps put on the national cockade, and the affair was effectively put behind them, though two or three people had died.

During the later part of the disorder, the King and Queen stood in public on the balcony. Neither was hidden for safety, as Mr. Burke suggests. Once calm returned, the crowd began to shout, “Le Roi a Paris—Le Roi a Paris—The King to Paris.” It was a peaceful call, and the King immediately agreed. This prevented any future plan to trick him into going to Metz and raising a banner against the constitution. It also ended the suspicions. The King and his family reached Paris that evening. M. Bailly, the Mayor of Paris, congratulated them on behalf of its citizens. Mr. Burke confuses events, people, and principles throughout his book. In his comments on M. Bailly’s address, he even confuses the dates. He criticizes M. Bailly for calling it “un bon jour,” a good day. But the events took two days. The first began with every sign of danger and possible harm; the second ended without the harm people had feared. M. Bailly meant that peaceful ending and the King’s arrival in Paris. At least three hundred thousand people joined the procession from Versailles to Paris, and nobody was harassed during the entire march.

Citing M. Lally Tollendal, who had deserted the National Assembly, Mr. Burke says the people shouted “Tous les eveques a la lanterne” as they entered Paris: all Bishops should be hanged at the lanthorn or lamp-posts. It is strange that only Lally Tollendal heard this and only Mr. Burke believed it. It has no connection with anything that happened and has nothing to do with the circumstances. Bishops had never appeared earlier in Mr. Burke’s play. Why bring them all in suddenly, tout a coup, et tous ensemble? Mr. Burke brings in his Bishops and images of hanging from lantern posts as if showing pictures in a magic lantern. He builds his scenes out of contrasts rather than connections. This claim, like the rest of his book, shows how little trust to place in someone who ignores even what is likely so that he can smear others. With that thought, rather than Mr. Burke’s speech praising chivalry, I end my account of the march to Versailles.*4