In January, 1789, the elections began,—the real beginning of the French Revolution in the opinion of Carlyle, and indeed, of most writers.
On the 13th of July, 1788, there had been a most destructive hail-storm throughout France, and the growing crops were literally destroyed; whereby the extreme destitution which had come to be the natural condition of the lower classes had been accentuated. In addition, the winter of 1788-89 was one of extreme rigor, so that it seemed almost as if God himself were openly manifesting his will that the general overturn should come.
The riot in which Réveillon, the paper manufacturer, was concerned occurred in April, 1789, just prior to the assembling of the States-General on May 4.
The clergy and nobility at once exhibited their purpose to act as separate bodies; and the Third Estate, led by Mirabeau and others, decided that it must be the mainspring of the whole, and that it would remain “inert” until the other two estates should join with it; under which circumstances it could outvote them and do what it chose. For seven weeks this state of “inertia” endured, until the court decided to intervene and the assembly hall was found closed against the representatives of the people on June 20. Thereupon they met in the old tennis-court (Jeu de Paume), and there the celebrated “Oath of the Tennis-Court” was taken by every man of them but one,—an oath “that they will not separate for man below, but will meet in all places, under all circumstances, wheresoever two or three can get together, till they have made the Constitution.”
One subsequent attempt was made by the king to intimidate this ominously persistent body; but the messenger whom he despatched to command them to separate (“Mercury” de Brézé, Carlyle calls him) was addressed in very plain language by the lion-headed Mirabeau, and retired in confusion. The court recoiled before the spectacle of “all France on the edge of blazing out;” the other two estates joined the Third, which triumphed in every particular. Henceforth the States-General are the “National Assembly,” sometimes called the “Constituent Assembly,” or assembly met to make the constitution.
This cursory sketch of the leading events of the early years of the reign of Louis XVI. is offered as a sort of supplement to that presented by Dumas before he takes his readers into the “thick of the business” in Paris.
The badly veiled military preparations to which the terror of the queen and the court led the king to consent, kept the Parisian populace in a constant state of fermentation, which was powerfully helped on by the continued scarcity of food and the consequent influx of starving provincials into the metropolis. The Gardes Françaises gave indubitable symptoms of popular leanings, which perhaps emboldened the effervescent spirits of the mob more than a little.
The news of the dismissal of Necker, circulated on Sunday, July 12, kindled the first panic terror of Paris into a wild frenzy, and resulted in the siege of the Bastille, “perhaps the most momentous known to history.”
The course of events immediately preceding the descent upon that “stronghold of tyranny, called Bastille, or ‘building,’ as if there were no other building,” as well as those of the siege itself, is traced with marvellous fidelity by Dumas, due allowance being made, of course, for the necessities of the romance. He closely follows Michelet; but the details are told, with substantial unanimity, by all historians of the fateful event.
The part assigned to Billot in the narrative before us was in reality played by several persons. It was Thuriot, an elector from the Hôtel de Ville, who gained admission to the fortress and investigated its condition; who ascended with De Launay to the battlements and showed himself to the mob to quiet their fears that he had been foully dealt with. This same Thuriot, as president of the convention, refused to allow Robespierre to speak in his own defence on the 10th Thermidor, year II. (July 28, 1794). It was Louis Tournay, a blacksmith and old soldier of the Regiment Dauphiné, who hacked away the chain which upheld the first drawbridge. It was an unknown man who first essayed to cross the ditch to take the note dictating terms and fell to the bottom (and was killed); but it was Stanislas Maillard who followed and made the passage in safety.