very moment of the crisis, the king had estranged himself from the national cause, by dismissing the popular ministers, by committing the empire to inexperienced hands, and by rejecting the measures of safety proposed by the National Assembly. "Can it be true, that the king feels a dread of the triumphs of his country?" exclaimed Vergniaud. Is it the blood of Coblentz, or yours, that there is a desire to spare ?" As the speaker kindled up into enthusiasm, and became absorbed in the grandeur of his theme, spontaneous and deafening shouts of applause arose on every side. The classic periods of a Ciceronean eloquence, clothed with the rich melody of a voice that, in its flexibility and wonderful powers, has been pronounced unequalled in the deliberative assemblies of those times, fell upon the ear of the charmed listener clear as the sound of a trumpet upon the night air, while the impassioned and soui-stirring appeals of that potent eloquence roused every heart, like the peal of the alarm cannon which summons the soldier to the battle field. Having sketched the gloomy state of public affairs, Vergniaud proceeded to speak of the rejected decrees of the assembly, and to attack the ministers of the king. From this topic, amid the redoubled interest and the profound attention of his audience, he boldly advanced to attack the king himself, and spoke, though in hypothetical terms, of the forfeiture of the crown, on the ground that the king had violated the constitution. The argument of Vergniaud was something more than ingenious, it was logical and unanswerable. * * "Listen to me calmly," said the speaker; "be in no hurry to anticipate what I am about to say. It is in the name of the king that the French princes have endeavored to raise Europe against us. It is to avenge the dignity of the king that the treaty of Pilnitz has been concluded. It is to come to the aid of the king, that the sovereign of Hungary and Bohemia makes war upon us, and Prussia is marching towards our frontier. Now I read in the constitution, If the king puts himself at the head of an army and directs its forces against the nation, or if he does not oppose by a formal act an enterprize of this kind, that may be executed in his name, he shall be considered as having abdicated royalty.' What is a formal act of opposition? If one hundred thousand Austrians were marching towards Flanders, and one hundred thousand Prussians towards Alsace, and the king were to oppose to them ten or twenty thousand men, would he have done a formal act of opposition? "If the king, whose duty it is to notify imminent hostilities, apprised of the movements of the Prussian army, were not to communicate any information on the subject to the National Assembly; if a camp of reserve necessary for stopping the progress of the enemy into the interior were proposed, and the king were to substitute in its stead an uncertain plan which it would take a long time to execute; if the king were to leave the command of the army to an intriguing general of whom the nation was suspicious; if another general, bred afar from the corruption of courts and familiar with victory, were to demand a reinforcement, and the king were by a refusal to say to him, I forbid thee to conquer,' could it be asserted that the king had committed a formal act of opposition? "And if, while France was swimming in blood, the king were to say to you, it is true that the enemies pretend to be acting for me, for my dignity, for my rights, but I have proved that I am not their accomplice. I have sent armies into the field; these armies were too weak, but the constitution does not fix the degree of their force. I have assembled them too late, but 1849.] Vergniaud. the constitution does not fix the time for collecting them. I have stopped "If, then, the king were to hold this language, should you not have a right to say to him, O king, who, like Lysander the tyrant, have believed that truth was not worth more than falsehood-who have feigned a love for the the power which enabled you to defy them—was it laws merely to preserve defending us to oppose to the foreign soldiers forces whose inferiority left not even uncertainty as to their defeat? Was it defending us to thwart plans tending to fortify the interior? Did the constitution leave you the choice of the ministers for our prosperity or for our ruin? Did it make you the Did it confer on you the head of the army for our glory or our disgrace? right of the veto, a civil list, and so many prerogatives, in order constitutionally to undo the empire? No, no! Man, in whom the generosity of the French has excited no corresponding feeling, insensible to everything but the love of despotism, you are henceforth nothing to that constitution which you have so unworthily violated-to that people whom you have so basely betrayed!" The deepest emotion pervaded the Assembly; the members flocked around Vergniaud as he took his seat to offer their congratulations. Since the death of Mirabeau, no voice of equal power had been heard from that tribune. The triumph of the orator was complete, and from that moment the fate of the monarchy was sealed. The insurrection of the 10th of August was not the work of the Girondins; it was brought about by Danton and his associates. The result of that day was the dethronement of the king-precisely what the Girondins aimed at but the means by which it was brought about were not of their contriving. They designed, by a decree of the Assembly, to have deposed the king, and would have done so, but that they were anticipated by the impatience of the people. No one of all the Girondins was less capable than Verguiaud of instigating the people to revolt or violence. On the 20th of June, when the mob besieged the king in his palace, Vergniaud, from the great staircase of the Tuilleries, addressed the insurgents, urging them to disperse, to maintain order, and to respect the laws and the constitution. On the 3d of August, when the sections petitioned for the dethronement of the king, and when one of them bolder than the rest not only demanded the dethronement, but pronounced it in the name of the people, Vergniaud, with the lofty independence of his character, and regardless of his popularity, denounced this act of usurpation, and caused the Assembly to annul the resolution of the section. And afterwards, when the September massacres had cast their bloody stain upon the Revolution, to the honor of Vergniaud be it recorded, that some of his noblest efforts were made, even to the shipwreck of his popularity and the loss of his life, in denouncing the authors of these fiendish atrocities. That the Girondins were not connected with the insurrection of the 10th of August, is evident from the fact that the very same day was fixed by them for the discussion of the dethronement of the king. That day came, and with it passed away the necessity of a discussion. The people took the matter out of the hands of their representatives. The tocsin and the generale were heard in the street, and the tramp of armed men and the rumbling of artillery over the pavements. Vergniaud presided that day in the Assembly. He was in the chair when the king and royal family appeared at the bar as suppliants and fugitives-driven out from the halls of their ancestors by an infuriated people, seeking to wreak upon the head of the most honest monarch who had ever filled the French throne the long arrears of vengeance rolled up by his ancestors. The generous heart of Vergniaud melted as he gazed upon the royal suppliants, and heard the dignified words of the king: "I have come to prevent the commission of a great crime. I think I cannot be safer, gentlemen, than in the midst of you"-and his voice faltered with emotion as he replied, "Sire, you may rely on the firmness of the National Assembly; we have sworn to die in defence of the constituted authorities." What a day was that for Louis-shut up in the reporter's box in the Assembly with his family, awaiting the issue of the fearful struggle! The roar of cannon and the rattling of musketry shook the walls of the Assembly. No need of discussion now on the dethronement of the king. His sceptre already lay shivered on the blood-stained floor of his ancestral palace; the wing of the destroying angel was hovering over the capital; the edifice of the constitution was rocking to its base beneath the wild whirlwind of the popular wrath; and, amid the thunder of artillery and the wail of dying men-amid the flames of insurrection and the carnage of battlethe throne of the Bourbons went down! Vergniaud, who had left the president's chair for a few moments, returned with the decree of dethronement which he had hastily drawn up. Ascending the tribune he addressed the Assembly:-" I am about to propose to you. citizens, a very rigorous measure I appeal to the affection of our hearts, to judge how necessary it is to adopt it immediately." The Assembly at once passed the decree. It suspended Louis XVI. from royalty; directed a plan of education for the Dauphin, and convoked a NATIONAL CONVENTION. Vergniaud was elected a member of the National Convention. It met on the 21st of September, 1792. One brief year had made him famous; his eloquence had already won for him a name, and he had risen to the place where Mirabeau had stood in the Constituent Assembly. The Convention at once decreed the Republic; it swept away the last shreds of the monarchy; it proceeded to prepare the plan for a new constitution; and finally it brought the king himself to trial for high treason. The trial of the king is intimately connected with the history and fate of the Girondins. Vergniaud acted a conspicuous part in it as their orator, and as President of the Convention. History records but a solitary instance of a parallel scene-the trial of Charles I. by the republicans of England. These two examples of high judicial sentence passed upon royalty by the representatives of a people who had each subverted the throne of their monarch, though differing in some respects, are strikingly similar in their main features. Nor have they been without their benefits in teaching the world that one great truth of all free governments is, that political power originates, and is derived from the people; and that kings rule, not by divine right, but by the will of the nation. It is not now necessary to discuss the question, whether Louis or Charles deserved death at the hands of their subjects. One thing, however, may be said. that more innocent men than either of them have perished on the scaffold under regal despotism, for crimes of less magnitude than were charged and proved against the king of France, as well as the king of Eng 1849.] Vergniaud. land. If the records of the Star Chamber, and the dark history of the Bastille could be all brought to light, how many instances of wanton cruelty and despotic injustice would be exhibited, to divide with these unfortunate monarchs the sympathy of the world. The wrongs of the humble subject live not in the memory of men, while the sufferings of Louis and Charles are remembered, because the accident of birth placed them upon a throne and not in a hovel. A prisoner named Gordon, was confined in the dungeons of the Bastille for thirty years, without even knowing the cause of his imprisonment! What comparison of suffering can be made between his living death and the momentary pang of Louis upon the scaffold? And yet how many tears have been shed for the "martyred king "-how few for poor Gordon! Ever since the opening of the Convention, the absorbing question among the populace and at the clubs, had been the expediency of bringing the king to trial. His fate hung quivering in the balance long before the day of final judgment. The people, so long humbled, crushed, trodden in the dust beneath the iron foot of royalty, now, in the day of their newly gained power, seemed to have lost every feeling of generosity, and prepared to wrest away the life of their vanquished and powerless monarch, with the same cold and remorseless instinct which prompts a man to set his heel upon the head of a wounded and fangless viper. one. The debate commenced in the Convention on the 13th of November, upon the preliminary question, whether the king could be brought to trial, and if so, by what tribunal? The generosity and humanity of the Girondins prompted them to save the life of the king, but, in the excited state of public feeling in the capital, such an undertaking was a difficult and a delicate In this preliminary discussion they took no part. One or two deputies contended for the inviolability of the king, and that the Convention possessed no power to try him; but upon this point the mouths of the Girondins were shut, for they had heretofore recognized and advocated the king's responsibility. The more determined members of the Mountain insisted upon the immediate condemnation of Louis without trial. This the Girondins openly and firmly opposed. Finally, they adopted a middle course, and voted with the majority that Louis be tried by the Convention. The king was brought to the bar of the National Convention on the 11th of December, 1792, and the articles of impeachment were read to him. Some of these charges were frivolous, and could scarcely be tortured into state crimes; some were unjust, and could not be charged against the king personally, as, for example, the fusillade in the Champ de Mars; and some absolutely false, as the charge of shedding the blood of the people on the 10th of August. The great crime of the king, if crime it can be called, unquestionably was, his attachment to the new order of things, and his desire and past efforts to regain a portion of his lost authority in opposition to the Assembly and the people. According to the language of a later day, he was guilty of incivism. For this he was really tried, and for this he suffered. Whether such a crime deserved death at the hands of a great and magnanimous people, now that the king was powerless and the prisoner of his subjects, may well be doubted. The question had ceased to be one of abstract justice, or even of expediency, and had become simply a question of generosity and mercy; and as such the Girondins viewed it in their efforts to save the fallen monarch. The trial of the king was postponed until the 26th of December, at which time he appeared again at the bar of the Convention, and interposed his de fence by his eloquent counsel, M. Deseze.* Then commenced that stormy debate, which lasted twenty days, and convulsed the Convention. The Girondin Lanjuinais first spoke, and with the fearless intrepidity of his character, demanded that the whole proceedings be annulled, but he was not sustained even by his own party. St. Just and Robespierre followed him, and declaimed, with great effect, against the king; and several other deputies spoke on the same side. Still the leading Girondins were silent. They were in the most cruel perplexity. Earnestly desirous to save the king, they saw no way of doing so in the state of the popular excitement, except at the price of their own ruin and a civil war. They conceded the guilt of Louis-no man in that Convention ventured to deny it; but how to admit the guilt and yet save the guilty was the grand problem. In the emergency they again adopted a middle course, and proposed an "appeal to the people," hoping thus indirectly to save the king, by invoking the generosity and humanity of the French nation. Here lay the grand error of the party. Had they at once boldly taken the responsibility, and, after voting the guilt of the king, passed sentence of banishment upon him, they might have saved his life, and have crushed their terrible adversaries. But they chose another course, and it involved both the king and themselves in ruin. Their efforts to save Louis was unavailing, and it brought down upon their heads the same hatred and odium that would have followed a more decided course, and increased, to an equal degree, the power of their opponents. The wife of Roland alone, prompted by a lofty and generous nature, seconded the efforts of Lanjuinais, and entreated her friends, by bold measures, to save the life of the king. But false views of discretion and policy had got the better of their judgment, and these entreaties were unavailing. The Girondins determined to sustain the appeal to the people as the only means left of saving the king. On the 1st of January, Vergniaud ascended the tribune, to answer the speech of Robespierre, who had contended that the appeal to the people would involve the nation in a civil war, and had urged an immediate condemnation of the king. An unusual interest was manifested to hear the first orator in France upon this great question. The interest was increased from the fact that the Girondins had not yet fully expressed their sentiments, and it was conceded that their final action might decide the fate of the king. Their policy was now about to be disclosed by Vergniaud. The theme was a noble one for eloquence like his. His humane heart had been melted with pity at the misfortunes of the deposed sovereign, and he now roused himself to plead the cause of mercy and humanity before the assembled representatives of the Republic. As on the 3d of July, the galleries and every avenue to the hall, were choked up with a dense throng of spectators; but how widely different the tone of feeling which pervaded that throng! Not now was the speaker raised aloft upon the swelling wave of the popular enthusiasm; nor was that eloquent voice, which reverberated through the vaulted arches, now answered by the thunders of popular applause. Suppressed mutterings, mingled with curses, were heard in the crowd; ragged Jacobinism scowled in wrathful vengeance from the galleries; and the gloomy visage of St. Just grew darker, and the maniac glance of Marat wilder, while Vergniaud was pleading for mercy, not justice, to the fallen and hapless king. No analysis can do justice to this masterly speech of Vergniaud-perhaps *Deseze died in 1826, a Peer of France. + Such was the opinion of Napoleon. See Las Cases. |