Louis
XVI had been suspended August 10 on account of the misgivings which
his conduct inspired. The debate carried on six weeks later, during
the opening session of the Convention, September 21, 1792, well illustrates
the attitude of the new Assembly toward the ancient monarchy and serves
to introduce some of the men who were soon to be most active during
the Reign of Terror.
The citizens chosen by the French people to form the National Convention
having assembled to the number of three hundred and seventy one, and
having examined the credentials of the members, declare that the National
Convention is organized . . .
M.
Manuel. Representatives of the sovereign people: the task which
devolves upon you demands the power and wisdom of gods themselves. When
Cineas entered the Roman senate he thought he beheld an assembly of
kings. Such a comparison would be an insult to you. Here we see an assembly
of philosophers occupied in preparing the way for the happiness of the
world. I move that the president of France have his residence in the
national palace, that the symbols of law and power be always at his
side, and that every time that he opens a session all the citizens shall
rise. This act of homage to the sovereignty of the people will constantly
recall to us our rights and duties.
M.
Simon. I move that the Assembly declare that they will never deliberate
except in the presence of the people.
The
President. Your motion, having no relation to the previous motion,
I cannot give the floor to those who wish to support or oppose your
proposition until the Assembly has passed upon the motion of Monsieur
Manuel.
M.
Mathieu. I am doubtful whether the discussion suggested by Monsieur
Manuel should take precedence in our deliberations. Our predecessors
lost much time in determining the exact dimensions of the chair of the
former king. We do not wish to commit the same error. . .
M.
Chabot. Representatives of the people: I oppose the motion made
by Citizen Manuel. I am astonished that Citizen Manuel, after having
repudiated every idea of any comparison with kings, should propose to
make one of our members like a king. The French nation, by sending to
the Convention two hundred members of the legislative body who have
individually taken an oath to combat both kings and royalty, has made
itself quite clear as to its desire to establish a popular government.
It is not only the name of king that it would abolish but everything
which suggests preeminence, so that there will be no president of France.
You cannot look for any other kind of dignity than associating with
the sans-culottes who compose the majority of the nation. Only by making
yourselves like your fellow-citizens will you acquire the necessary
dignity to cause your decrees to be respected. . .
M.
Tallien. I am much astonished to hear this discussion about ceremonials.
. . . Outside of this hall the president of the Convention is a simple
citizen. If you want to speak to him, you can go and look for him on
the third or the fifth floor. There is where virtue has its lodging.
. . .
The Assembly
unanimously rejected the motion of Monsieur Manuel.
M.
Tallien. I move that before everything else the Assembly take a
solemn pledge not to separate till it has given the French people a
government established on the foundations of liberty and equality. I
move that the members take an oath to make no laws which depart from
this standard, and that this oath shall constantly guide the representatives
of the people in their work. Those who shall perjure themselves shall
be immolated to the just vengeance of the people. . . [Applause.]
M.
Merlin. I move that we do not take any oaths. Let us promise the
people to save them. Let us go to work. M. Couthon. . . . I am not afraid
that, in the discussion which is about to take place, any-one will dare
to speak of royalty again; it is fit only for slaves, and the French
would be unworthy of the liberty which they have acquired should [Page
448] they dream of retaining a form of government branded by fourteen
centuries of crime. But it is not royalty alone that must be eliminated
from our constitution, but every kind of individual power which tends
to restrict the rights of the people and violate the principles of equality.
. . .
M.
Philippeaux. There is a still more pressing subject; that is, to
furnish the organs of the law the necessary power to maintain public
tranquillity. I move that you maintain provisionally in power all the
authorities now in existence. . . M. Camus. The most essential thing
is to order that the taxes continue to be collected, for you know that
they have to be voted at the opening of every new legislature.
The motions
of Messieurs Philippaux and Camus were unanimously passed. . . .
M.
Collot d’Herbois. You have just taken a wise resolution,
but there is one which you cannot postpone until the morrow, or even
until this evening, or indeed for a single instant, without being faithless
to the wish of the nation, - that is the abolition of royalty. [Unanimous
applause.]
M.
Quinette. We are not the judges of royalty; that belongs to the
people. Our business is to make a concrete government, and the people
will then choose between the old form where there was royalty and that
which we shall submit to them. . . .
M.
Gregoire. Assuredly no one of us would ever propose to retain in
France the fatal race of kings; we all know but too well that dynasties
have never been anything else than rapacious tribes who lived on nothing,
but human flesh. It is necessary completely to reassure the friends
of liberty. We must destroy this talisman, whose magic power is still
sufficient to stupefy many a man. I move accordingly that you sanction
by a solemn law the abolition of royalty.
The entire
Assembly rose by a spontaneous movement and passed the motion of Monsieur
Gregoire by acclamation.
M.
Bazire. I rise to a point of order. . . . It would be a frightful
example for the people to see an Assembly commissioned with its dearest
interests voting in a moment of enthusiasm. I move that the question
be discussed.
M.
Gregoire. Surely it is quite unnecessary to discuss what everybody
agrees on. Kings are in the moral order what monsters are in the physical.
Courts are the workshops of crimes, the lair of tyrants. The history
of kings is the martyrology of nations. Since we are all convinced of
the truth of this, why discuss it? I demand that my motion be put to
vote, and that later it be supplied with a formal justification worthy
of the solemnity of the decree.
M.
Ducos. The form of your decree would be only the history of the
crimes of Louis XVI, a history already but too well known to the French
people. I demand that it be drawn up in the simplest terms. There is
no need of explanation after the knowledge which has been spread abroad
by the events of August 10.
The discussion
was closed. There was a profound silence. The motion of Monsieur Gregoire,
put to vote, was adopted amidst the liveliest applause:
"The
National Convention decrees that royalty is abolished in France."