France - Stephen P. Halbrook

1662 FORDHAM URB. L.J. [Vol. XXXIX
to bear arms, for otherwise arms will only be in the hands of those
who could use them wrongly. 155
“I live next to a large forest,”
retorted a deputy from Brittany, “anyone can hunt, and no one
abuses it.” 156
Mr. Target argued that, in abolishing the exclusive right to hunt,
the Assembly did not intend to determine the kind of arms which
could be used to hunt; that bearing arms must be the subject of a
separate debate. 157
Mr. de Clermont-Tonnerre agreed, but added:
“Do not be afraid of the consequences of the liberty of having arms.
Do not be surprised that the spring of liberty, compressed for many
centuries by arbitrary power, is now in a time of impetuous
slackening.” 158
He added that the special courts that tried hunting
offenses should be abolished, and that persons imprisoned for hunting
offenses should be released. 159
A clergyman added that the demand
should include the pardon of poor wretches convicted to galleys or
banishment for hunting. 160
C. The Declaration of Rights
On August 12 the Assembly appointed a Comité des cinqs
(Committee of Five) to draft a declaration of rights, with the Comte
de Mirabeau as chairman. 161
Lord Acton would write that “Mirabeau
was not only a friend of freedom, . . . but a friend of federalism,” and
that “he deserves the great place he holds in the memory of his
countrymen.” 162
Mirabeau presented the Committee of Five’s draft to the Assembly
for discussion on August 18. 163
Similar to the First and Second
Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, it proposed a right to assembly
155. Id.
156. Id.
157. Id.
158. Id.
159. Id.
160. Id.
161. KEITH MICHAEL BAKER, The Idea of a Declaration of Rights, in THE FRENCH
IDEA OF FREEDOM: THE OLD REGIME AND THE DECLARATION OF RIGHTS OF 1789, at
392 n.83 (Dale Van Kley ed., 1994).
162. DALBERG-ACTON, supra note 137, at 157-58. Mirabeau, whose actual name
was Honoré-Gabriel Riqueti, has been called “The Most Symbolic Figure of the
Revolution.” François Furet, Mirabeau, in A CRITICAL DICTIONARY OF THE FRENCH
REVOLUTION 268 (François Furet & Mona Ozouf eds., Arthur Goldhammer trans.,
1989); see also BARBARA LUTTRELL, MIRABEAU 147-58 (1990).
163. See Assemblée nationale, séance du mardi 18 août, GAZETTE NATIONALE OU
LE MONITEUR UNIVERSEL (Fr.), Aug. 18, 1789, at 351 42.