the clubs obtained over him occasional and impermanent advantages, and the agents of sedition sold a pamphlet in the streets, which they recommended by announcing it to contain "the great treachery of Count "Mirabeau." CHAP. LXX. 1791. At this period the King was attacked with a fever, The King ill. attended with aggravating symptoms; the people ex- March 4th. pressed great solicitude, and celebrated his recovery 17th. by illuminations, and a Te Deum at the cathedral. Debates were commenced on the establishment of a Regency proRegency in case of his decease, during the minority of vided for. his successor; and it was decided, that the next male heir of full age, being a native and resident in France, 22nd. might claim it of right; and in default of such relative, the regency was to be elective. The guardianship of the minor's person was confided to his mother, provided she remained unmarried; but if she took a second husband, a guardian was to be elected by the legislature. decreed. As a foundation for a decree respecting the resi- Residence of dence of public functionaries, the committee presented the King a report, in which the King was called the first public 21st. functionary; and it was ordered that all should dwell in whatever place might be the proper scene of their employments; the King to be always resident, during the session, within twenty leagues of the legislative body; and his quitting the kingdom without their permission, was to be considered an abdication. law was also enacted establishing a provisional tribunal at Orléans, to try crimes against the state, instead of the Chatelet, until the formation of a high national court. A In the recent debates, Mirabeau had taken but Illness; little share. While occupied in his more important arrangements, he was seized with spasms in the chest; and had recourse, as on former occasions, to the warm bath, which produced a temporary effect; but contemning his disease, and relying on the strength of his constitution, he attended too little to his health, and probably, by his exertions, accelerated his death. When greatly exhausted, a short retreat into the СНАР. 1791. country afforded him hopes of recovery; on his return to Paris, however, he found himself much worse; and, after enduring for two days excruciating tortures, exand death of pired, lamenting, with his latest breath, the French monarchy, which with him would descend, he said, into the grave. 2nd April. Mirabeau. 30th. March. Honours paid him. Proceedings with respect to religion. When his illness was announced, the whole capital was in alarm; his door was crowded with enquirers, and messengers from the King augmented the number. His death was ascribed, by the surgeons who opened him, to the stoppage of an issue; his heart, they said, was dried up, and his intestines mortified. Suspicions were entertained that his days were abridged by poison; which neither the above report, nor all the reasonings on the subject, have been able entirely to remove: probability points strongly toward that conjecture, but positive proof is wanting*. His death was regarded as a public calamity; the theatres were shut, the fleets lowered their top-sails, the Assembly, the municipality, and the directory of the department, went into mourning, and all France followed the example. He was buried in the church of Sainte Geneviève, which was, on his death, decreed to be a receptacle for the ashes of illustrious men; and, as Christianity declined in France, received the heathen name of Pantheon. The election of priests who would take the oaths, and the appointment of bishops, engaged much attention. Talleyrand, although he conformed to the oaths, renounced his see, but assisted in the consecration of others, particularly of Gobet, who was elected Archbishop of Paris; and for this and other parts of his conduct, the recreant ecclesiastic was excommunicated by the Pope. The Assembly, in revenge, decreed that all bulls and other edicts of his holiness should be deemed void, unless sanctioned by the legis lature, and that divine service should not, in any of its parts, be performed by any priests who had not taken This subject is amply and fairly discussed in Mémoires Biographiques, littéraires et politiques, de Mirabeau, écrits par lui-même, par son pere, son oncle, et son fils adoptif, tom. xi. p. 139, p. 172, et seqq. the oaths. The populace assisted the Assembly, by persecuting all who attended divine worship in hospitals or chapels, where the hated priesthood were employed, beating the men and indecently scourging the women who dared to be religious. That the Pantheon might not be unpeopled with the deities of philosophical adoration, it was decreed that the remains of Voltaire and Rousseau should be transferred to that repository, and the ceremony was pompously performed. CHAP. LXX. 1791. To the sufferings of the clergy, the King could not Resistance of be indifferent, although he had been forced to sanction the King. the decree respecting them. The attainment of liberty or power on the plan suggested by Mirabeau, was not now to be contemplated: another project was recommended; but its speedy execution was not to be hoped. The exertions of the demagogues, and of Lafayette in particular, were daily directed to the object of compelling the King to attend divine service, and receive the holy sacrament from a constitutional priest at Easter; but the King, by advice of the Bishop of Clermont, resolved to postpone the pascal communion; and, that he might avoid importunities and insults, to pass that week at St. Cloud. St. Cloud Lafayette, apprehensive that this excursion would 18th April. be opposed by the populace, took the precaution of in- His journey to creasing the national guards, and endeavoured to pro- prevented. tect the King in this exercise of his natural and even constitutional right; but the clubs, particularly that of the Cordeliers*, had made arrangements for detaining him by force. As soon as the royal family had taken their seats in their carriages, they were surrounded by an innumerable mob, who clamorously insisted that the coaches should not be permitted to pass, mingling with their vociferations the grossest abuse and obscenity; and even insulting the Queen by actions of horrible immodesty. Lafayette attempted to clear the way, but his troops refused to act against the A society formed from the most profane, base, and unprincipled of the Jacobins. Like them, they took their name from the place of their sitting: a suppressed convent of Franciscan friars. CHAP. 19th. 1791. The King's ineffectual complaint to people; and he was furiously insulted by Danton, who encouraged and in some degree directed the rabble. Lafayette offered to put himself at the head of a few officers, and clear the way, at the hazard of his life; but the King would not permit the dangerous and unprofitable attempt; and, after enduring every species of licentious insult, during an hour and a half, the royal family returned to their prison, for so, notwithstanding the rhetoric of popular orators, and all the studied misrepresentations of the municipality and the Assembly, the palace must be considered. The King, in person, carried his complaints to the Assembly, and declared his unaltered resolution to visit St. Cloud; but the legislature, although they the Assembly. applauded those parts of his speech which promised to maintain the civil constitution of the clergy, adopted no resolution for facilitating his journey, and it was renounced in silence. Lafayette, indignant at the conduct of his troops, resigned the command; but, after two days, resumed it, on the earnest solicitations of Bailly, and a deputation of the Commune. He dismissed fourteen of the most refractory soldiers, and attempted to impose on the whole corps a new oath ; but the men he had discharged were hailed as martyrs of liberty, and the oath was declared superfluous and illegal. The King yields his objections to constitutional priests. His letter. 23rd April. Elated by their triumph, the popular faction renewed their violence against the nonjuring priests; and the King, feeling heartily for their situation, accepted, in an evil hour, the tender of counsel and assistance from the Lameths. To save the unfortunate ecclesiastics from danger and persecution, he dismissed them from about his person; and even did violence to his conscience, by hearing mass performed on Easter-day, at the church of St. Germain l'Auxerre, by a constitutional priest. In compliance with the advice of the Lameths, and, in contradiction to that of his older and better friends, he adopted the fatal and dishonourable measure of writing to all his ministers at foreign courts a letter of instructions, enabling them to declare his entire ap probation of the revolution, his desire to maintain the constitution, and an avowal that he considered himself perfectly free and happy. In vain did Montmorin oppose the transmission of this disgraceful scroll; it was resolved on and executed too suddenly for his arguments to prevail: the Assembly heard it read with expressions of rapture, and sent a deputation to congratulate the King; but the royalists took no share in these transports; and Louis himself had the mortification, the next day, to find Montmorin's prophecy verified, the enthusiasm of the moment entirely exhausted, and a party gaining credit by declaring that the professions were too extensive to be sincere. These events were often referred to, and had a material influence on some proceedings in Parliament, which are now to be detailed. СНАР. LXX. 1791. these events Parliament. In opening the session, the King had pointed the Influence of attention of both Houses to the situation of the province on the of Quebec, and recommended the establishment of English necessary regulations. Since the year 1774, Canada Canada. had been governed under the provisions of the act which was so much debated*, and had increased so largely in wealth and population, that a new system was obviously required. In the last session†, Mr. Fox had mentioned a vote of the preceding year, and reproached ministers for their tardiness and violation of a pledge. Mr. Secretary Grenville lamented and accounted for the delay, but denied that any pledge had been given. Similar conversations were repeated; but no measures could, for the time, be introduced. message. At length the King announced, by a message, his Feb. 25th. intention, when enabled by Parliament to establish King's necessary regulations, to divide the province, and to make a permanent and proportionate appropriation of lands for the support of à Protestant clergy. Mr. Pitt moved to bring in a bill for repealing a March 4th. portion of the existing statute, and making further Mr. Pitt's provision for the government of Quebec. As he did motions. |