The French Revolution - Volume 2

Month by month the majority relents under this pressure.—Some are simply overcome by physical fear. On the King's trial, at the third call of the House, as the deputies on the upper benches voted one by one for his death, the deputy alongside Daunou "showed in a most energetic manner his disapproval of this." On his turn coming, "the galleries, which had undoubtedly noticed his attitude," burst out in such violent threats that for some minutes his voice could not be heard; "silence was at length restored, and he voted—death."3440—Others, like Durand-Maillane, "warned by Robespierre that the strongest party is the safest," say to themselves "that it is prudent, and necessary not to annoy the people in their furor," make up their minds "to keep aloof shielded by their silence and insignificance."3441 Among the five hundred deputies of the Plain, many are of this stamp. They begin to be called "the Marsh Frogs." In six months they settle down of themselves into so many silent onlookers, or, rather, homicidal puppets, "whose hearts, shrunk through fear, rise in their throats"3442 every time that Robespierre looks at them. Long before the fall of the Girondists, "downcast at the present state of things, and no longer finding any inspiration in their heart," their faces already disclosing "the pallor of fear or the resignation of despair.3443 Cambacérès hedges to find shelter in his Committee on Legislation.3444 Barrère, born a valet, and a valet ready for anything, places his southern mode of doing things at the service of the probable majority, up to the time of devoting his cruel rhetoric to the service of the dominant minority. Sièyes, after casting his vote for death, maintains an obstinate silence, as much through disgust as through prudence:

"What does my glass of wine matter in this torrent of booze?"3445

Many, even among the Girondists, use sophistry to color their concessions in their own eyes. Some among these "think that they enjoy some degree of popularity, and fear that this will be compromised.3446 Again, they put forth the pretext of the necessity of maintaining one's influence for important occasions. Occasionally, they affect to say, or say it in good faith, Let them (the extravagant) keep on, they will find each other out and use themselves up."—Frequently, the motives alleged are scandalous or grotesque. According to Barbaroux, immediate execution must be voted, because that is the best way to exculpate the Gironde and shut the mouths of their Jacobin calumniators.3447 According to Berlier, it is essential to vote death for, why vote for exile? Louis XVI. would be torn to pieces before reaching the frontier.3448—On the eve of the verdict, Vergniaud says to M. de Ségur: "I vote Death? It is an insult to suppose me capable of such a disgraceful act!" And, "he sets forth the frightful iniquity of such a course, its uselessness, and even its danger." "I would rather stand alone in my opinion than vote Death!"3449 The next day, having voted Death, he excuses himself by saying "that he did not think he ought to put the life of one man in the scale against the public welfare."3450 Fifteen or twenty deputies, influenced by his example, voted as he did, which was enough to turn the majority.3451 The same weakness is found at other decisive moments. Charged with the denunciation of the conspiracy of the 10th of March, Vergniaud attributes it to the aristocrats, and admits to Louvet that "he did not wish to name the real conspirators for fear of embittering violent men already pushing things to excess."3452 The truth is, the Girondists, as formerly the Constitutionalists, are too civilized for their adversaries, and submit to force for lack of resolution to employ it themselves.

"To put down the faction," says one of them,3453 "can be done only by cutting its throat, which, perhaps, would not be difficult to do. All Paris is as weary as we are of its yoke, and if we had any liking for or knowledge how to deal with insurrections, we could soon throw it off. But how can we make men adopt such necessary atrocious measures when they are criticizing their adversaries for taking these? And yet they would have saved the country." Consequently, incapable of action, able only to talk, reduced to protests, to barring the way to revolutionary decrees, to making appeals to the department against Paris, they stand as an obstacle to all the practical people who are heartily engaged in the brunt of the action.—"There is no doubt that Carnot is as honest as they are, as honest as a fanatic spectator can be."3454 Cambon, undoubtedly with as much integrity as Roland, spoke as loudly up as he against the 2nd of September, the Commune, and anarchy.3455—But, to Carnot and Cambon, who pass their nights, one in establishing his budgets, and the other in studying his military maps, they require, first of all, a government which will provide them with money and with soldiers, and, therefore, an unscrupulous and unanimous Convention; that is to say, there being no other expedient, a Convention under compulsion, i.e. a Convention purged of troublesome some, dissentient speakers;3456 in other words, the dictatorship of the Parisian proletariat. After the 15th of December, 1792, Cambon completely accepts this, and even erects the dictatorship of the proletariat into an European system. From that time3457 he preaches universal sans-culotterie, a form of government in which the poor will rule and the rich will pay, in short, the restoration of privileges in an inverse sense. The later expression of Siéyès which has already come true: the problem is no longer how to apply the principles of the Revolution, but the salvation of its men. Faced with this more and more distressing imperative, many of undecided deputies go with the tide, letting the Montagnards have their own way and separate themselves from the Girondists.

And, what is graver still, the Girondists, apart from all these defections, are untrue to themselves. Not only are they ignorant of how to draw a line, of how to form themselves into a compact body: not only "is the very idea of a collective proceeding repulsive, each member desiring to keep himself independent. and act as he thinks best,"3458 make motions without consulting others, and vote as the occasion calls for against his party, but, through its abstract principle, they are in accord with their adversaries, and, on the fatal declivity whereon their honorable and humane instincts still retain them, this common dogma, like a concealed weight, causes them to sink lower and lower down, even into the bottomless pit, where the State, according to the formula of Jean Jacques, omnipotent, philosophic, anti-Catholic, anti-Christian, despotic, leveling, intolerant, and propagandist, seizes education, levels fortunes, persecutes the Church, oppresses consciences, crushes out the individual, and, by military foice, imposes its structures abroad.3459 Basically, apart from the Jacobin excess of brutality and of precipitation, the Girondists, setting out from the same principles as the Jacobin "Mountain," march forward to the same end along with them. Hence the effect of ideological prejudice on them in weakening their moral attitudes. Secretly, in their hearts, revolutionary desires conspire with those of their enemies, and, on many occasions, make them betray themselves.—Through these devices and multiplied weaknesses, on the one hand, the majority diminishes so as to present but 279 votes against 228.3460 And, on the other hand, through frequent failures, it surrenders to the besiegers one by one every commanding post of the public citadel. Now, at the first attack, nothing remains but to fly, or to beg for mercy.

IV. Jacobin victory over Girondin majority.

The Convention had voted, on principle, for the establishment of a military departmental guard, but, owing to the opposition of the Montagnards, it fails to put the principle into operation.—For six months it is protected, and, on the 10th of March, saved, through the spontaneous aid of provincial federates, but, far from organizing these passing auxiliaries into a permanent body of faithful defenders, it allows them to be dispersed or corrupted by Pache and the Jacobins.—It passes decrees frequently for the punishment of the abettors of the September crime, but, on their menacing petition, the trials are indefinitely postponed.3461—It has summoned to its bar Fournier, Lazowski, Deffieux, and other leaders, who, on the 10th of March, were disposed to throw it out of the windows, but, on making their impudent apology, it sends them away acquitted, free, and ready to begin over again.3462 At the War Department it raises up in turn two cunning Jacobins, Pache and Bouchotte, who are to work against it unceasingly. At the Department of the Interior it allows the fall of its firmest support, Roland, and appoints Garat in his place, an ideologist, whose mind, composed of glittering generalities, with a character made up of contradictory inclinations, fritters itself away in reticences, in falsehoods and in half-way treachery, under the burden of his too onerous duties.—It votes the murder of the King, which places an insurmountable barrier of blood between it and all honest persons.—It plunges the nation into a war in behalf of principles,3463 and excites an European league against France, which league, in transferring the perils arising from the September crime to the frontier, permanently establishes the September régime in the interior.—It forges in advance the vilest instruments of the forthcoming Reign of Terror,

* through the decree which establishes the revolutionary tribune, with Fouquier-Tinville as public prosecutor, and the obligation for each juryman to utter his verdict aloud;3464

* through the decree condemning every émigré to civil death, and the confiscation of his property "of either sex," even a simple fugitive, even returned within six months;3465

* through the decree which "outlaws aristocrats and enemies of the Revolution";3466

* through the decree which, in each commune, establishes a tax on the wealth of the commune in order to adapt the price of bread to wages;3467

* through the decree which subjects every bag of grain to declaration and to the maximum (price control);3468

* through the decree which awards six years in irons for any traffic in the currency;3469

* through the decree which orders a forced loan of a billion, extorted from the rich;3470

* through the decree which raises in each town a paid army of sans-culottes "to hold aristocrats under their pikes "3471 and at last,

* through the decree which, instituting the Committee of Public Safety,3472 fashions a central motor to set these sharp scythes agoing and mow down fortunes and lives with the utmost rapidity.—

To these engines of general destruction it adds one more, which is special and operates against itself. Not only does it furnish its rivals of the Commune with the millions they need to pay their bands; not only does it advance to the different sections,3473 in the form of a loan, the hundreds of thousands of francs which are needed to satisfy the thirst of their yelpers; but again, at the end of March, just at the moment when it happens to escape the first Jacobin invasion, it provides for the election by each section of a Committee of Supervision, authorized to make domiciliary visits and to disarm the suspected;3474 it allows this committee to make arrests and inflict special taxes; to facilitate its operations it orders a list of the inmates of each house, legibly "stating names, surnames, ages and professions," to be affixed to the entrance,3475 a copy of which must be left with the committee, and which is subject to its control.

To end the matter, it submits itself; and, "regardless of the inviolability of a representative of the French nation,"3476 it decides that, in case of political denunciation, its own members may be brought to trial.

V. Jacobin violence against the people.

"I seem to hear you," writes a sarcastic observer,3477 "addressing the (Jacobin) faction in these terms:

'Now, look here, we have the means, but we are not disposed to make use of them against you; it would be unfair to attack you unarmed. Public power emanates from two sources, legal authority and armed force. Now we will at once create committees of supervision, of which you shall appoint the heads, for the reason that, with a whip of this kind, you can lash every honest man in Paris, and thus regulate public opinion. We will do more than this, because our sacrifice is not yet complete; we are disposed to make you a present of our armed force, with authority to disarm anybody that you may suspect. As far as we are concerned, we are ready to surrender even our pocketknives,3478 and remain apart, content with our virtues and talents.—But mind what you are about. Should you be so ungrateful as to attack our sacred persons, we shall find avengers in the departments.'

'What good will the departments do you, let loose against each other, after you are out of the way?' (was the imaginary Jacobin reply!)

No summary could be more exact nor any prediction more accurately based. Henceforth, and by virtue of the Convention's own decrees, not only have the Jacobins the whole of the executive power in their hands, as this is found in civilized countries, but likewise the discretionary power of the antique tyrant or modern pasha, that arbitrary, strong arm which, singling out the individual, falls upon him and takes from him his arms, his freedom, and his money. After the 28th of March, we see in Paris a resumption of the system which, instituted by the 10th of August, was completed by the 2nd of September. In the morning, drums beat to arms; at noon, the barriers are shut, the bridges and passages guarded, and sentinels stand on the corners of the streets; no one is allowed "to pass outside the limits of his section," or circulate within them without showing his certificate of civism; houses are invested, numbers of persons are arrested,3479 and, during the succeeding months, this operation is carried on under the sway of the Committee of Supervision. Now, this Committee, in almost all the sections, "is made up of sans-culottes," not fathers of families, men of judgment and experience, people living a long time in the quarter, but "strangers, or young men trying to be something,"3480 ambitious underlings, ignorant daredevils, despotic intruders, fierce, touchy and inexperienced inquisitors".

The first thing is the disarmament of the suspected. "It is enough that any citizen shall be denounced, and that the case is made known to the Committee";3481 or that his certificate of civism is less than one month old,3482 to make a delegate, accompanied by ten armed men, search his house. In the section of the Réunion alone, on the first day, 57 denounced persons are thus disarmed for "acts of incivism or expressions adverse to the Republic," not merely lawyers, notaries, architects, and other prominent men, but petty tradesmen and shop-keepers, hatters, dyers, locksmiths, mechanics, gilders, and bar-keepers. One section; in defiance of the law, adds to these in block the signers of the petition of the eight thousand and that of the twenty thousand. "Through such schemes," says an observer,3483 "all the guns in Paris, numbering more than a hundred thousand, pass into the hands of the faction. None remain for its adversaries, even in the gunshops; for, through an ordinance of the Commune, no one may purchase a gun without a certificate issued by the Committee of Supervision of the section.3484—On the other hand, owing to the power of granting or refusing certificates of civism, each Committee, on its own authority, interposes barriers as it pleases in all directions, public or private, to every inhabitant within its bounds. It is impossible for any person who has not obtained his certificate3485 to have a passport for traveling, although a tradesman; no public employee, no clerk of the administration, advocate or notary can keep his place without it; no one can go out of Paris or return late at night. If one goes out to take a walk, there is danger of being arrested and brought back between two soldiers to the committee of the section; if one stays at home, it is with the chance of being inspected as a harbourer of priests or nobles. Any Parisian opening his windows in the morning may find his house surrounded by a company of carmagnoles, if he has not the indispensable certificate in his pocket.3486 In the eyes of a Jacobin committee, there is no civism but in Jacobinism, and we can imagine whether this patent would be willingly conferred on opponents, or even on the lukewarm; what examinations they would have to undergo; what questions they would be obliged to answer; how many goings and comings, solicitations, appearances and waitings would be imposed on them; with what persistency it would excite delay, and with what satisfaction it would be refused. Buzot presented himself four times at the Committee of Quatre-Nations to obtain a certificate for his domestic, and failed to get it.3487 There is another still more effective expedient for keeping the ill-disposed in check The committee of each section, aided by a member of the Commune,3488 designates the twelve thousand men drafted for the expedition into La Vendée, and picks them by name, one by one, as it may select them; the effect of this is to purge Paris of twelve thousand anti-Jacobins, and tranquilize the section assemblies, where opposition is often objectionable. To this end the committee selects first, and gives the preference to, the clerks of lawyers and notaries, those of banking-houses, the administration, and of merchants, the unmarried in all offices and counting-rooms, in short, all the Parisian middle class bachelors, of which there are more than twenty-five thousand.3489 The ordinance stipulates that one out of two should be taken, undoubtedly those with the poorest reputation with the Committee, this proceeding will silence the others and prevent them from speaking up in their sections.3490

While one hand clutches the collar, the other rummages the pocket. The Committee of Supervision of each section, always aided by a member of the Commune,3491 designates all persons in easy circumstances, estimates their incomes as it pleases, or according to common report, and sends them an order to pay a particular sum in proportion to their surplus, and according to a progressive tax. The allowance which is exempt for the head of a family is 1,500 francs per annum, besides 1,000 francs for his wife and 1,000 francs for each child; if the excess is over 15,000 or 20,000 francs, they assess it 5,000 francs; if more than 40,000 or 50,000 francs, they assess it 20,000; in no case may the surplus retained exceed 30,000 francs; all above this amount goes to the State. The first third of this sudden contribution to the public funds is required in forty-eight hours, the second in a fortnight, and the remaining third in a month, under serious penalties. If the tax happens to be exaggerated, if an income is uncertain or imaginary, if receipts are yet to come in, if there is no ready money, if; like Francoeur, the opera manager, a man "has nothing but debts," so much the worse. "In case of refusal," writes the section of Bon-Conseil, "his personal and real property shall be sold by the revolutionary committee, and his person declared suspected."3492—Even this is simply an installment on account:

"There is no desire on the part of the Committee at the present moment to demand more than a portion of your surplus," that which rest will be taken later. Desfieux, the bankrupt,3493 has already, in the tribune of the Jacobin club, estimated the fortunes of one hundred of the wealthiest notaries and financiers in Paris at 640,000,000 francs; the municipality sent a list of their names to the sections to have it completed; if only one-tenth was taken from them, it would amount to 64,000,000, which "big sponges," thoroughly squeezed, would disgorge a much larger amount.

"The richest of Frenchmen," says Robespierre, "should not have more than 3,000 francs a year."3494

The contributions of "these gentlemen" suffice to arm the sans-culottes, "remunerate artisans for their attendance in the section meetings, and support laborers without work."3495 Already through the sovereign virtue of summary requisitions, everything is spoil; carriage-horses are seized in their stables, while vehicles belonging to aged ladies, mostly widows, and the last of the berlins and elegant carriages still remaining in Paris, are taken out of the livery-stables.3496

With such powers used in this way, the section makes the most of the old deep-seated enmity of the poor against the rich;3497 it secures the firm loyalty of the needy and of vagabonds; thanks to the vigorous arms of its active clients, it completely overcomes the feeble, transient, poorly-contrived resistance which the National Convention and the Parisian population still oppose to its rule.

On the 13th of April Marat, accused three months before and daily becoming bolder in his fractiousness, is finally indicted through a decree of the incensed majority;3498 on the 24th he appears before the revolutionary tribunal. But the revolutionary tribunal, like other newly organized institutions, is composed of pure Jacobins, and, moreover, the party has taken its precautions. Marat, for his escort to the court-room has "the municipal commissaries, envoys from the various sections, delegates from all the patriotic clubs"; besides these, "a multitude of good patriots" fill the hall beforehand; "early in the morning the other chambers of the Palais de Justice, the corridors, the courts and adjacent streets" overflow with "sans-culottes ready to avenge any outrage that may be perpetrated on their favorite defender."3499 Naturally, excessively conceited, he speaks not like an accused, but "as an apostle and martyr." He is overwhelmed with applause, unanimously acquitted, crowned with laurel, borne in triumph to the Convention, where he thunders a song of victory, while the Girondist majority is obliged to suffer his presence awaiting to be subjected to their banishments.—Equally as impotent as the moderates of the Legislative Assembly are the moderates in the street who recover themselves only again to be felled to the ground. On the 4th and 5th of May, five or six hundred young fellows, well-dressed and without arms, have assembled in the Champs-Elysées and at the Luxembourg to protest against the ordinance of the Commune, which drafts them for the expedition to La Vendée;34100 they shout, "Vive la Republique! Vive la Loi! Down with anarchists! Send Marat, Danton and Robespierre to the Devil!" Naturally, Santerre's paid guard disperses these young sparks; about a thousand are arrested, and henceforth the rest will be careful not to make any open demonstration on the public thoroughfares.—Again, for lack of something better to do, we see them frequently returning to the section assemblies, especially early in May; they find themselves in a majority, and enter on discussions against Jacobin tyranny; at the Bon-Conseil section, and at those of Marseilles and l'Unité, Lhuillier is hooted at, Marat threatened, and Chaumette denounced.34101—But these are only flashes in the pan; to be firmly in charge in these permanent assemblies, the moderates, like the sans-culottes, would have to be in constant attendance, and use their fists every night. Unfortunately, the young men of 1793 have not yet arrived at that painful experience, that implacable hate, that athletic ruggedness which is to sustain them in 1795. "After one evening, in which the seats everywhere were broken "34102 on the backs of the contestants, they falter, and never recover themselves, the professional roughs, at the end of a fortnight, being victorious all along the line.—The better to put resistance down, the roughs form a special league amongst themselves, and go around from section to section to give each other help.34103 Under the title of a deputation, under the pretext of preventing disturbance, a troop of sturdy fellows, dispatched by the neighboring section, arrives at the meeting, and suddenly transforms the minority into a majority, or controls the vote by force of clamor. Sometimes, at a late hour, when the hall is nearly empty, they declare themselves a general meeting, and about twenty or thirty will cancel the discussions of the day. At other times, being, through the municipality, in possession of the police, they summon an armed force to their aid, and oblige the refractory to decamp. And, as examples are necessary to secure perfect silence, the fifteen or twenty who have formed themselves into a full meeting, with the five or six who form the Committee of Supervision, issue warrants of arrest against the most prominent of their opponents. The vice-president of the Bon-Conseil section, and the juge-de-paix of the Unité section, learn in prison that it is dangerous to present to the Convention an address against anarchists or sign a debate against Chaumette.34104—Towards the end of May, in the section assemblies, nobody dares open his mouth against a Jacobin motion; often, even, there are none present but Jacobins; for example, at the Gravilliers, they have driven out all not of their band, and henceforth no "intriguer"34105 is imprudent enough to present himself there.—Having become the sovereign People assembled in Council, with full power to

* disarm,

* put on the index,

* displace,

* tax,

* send off to the army, and

* imprison whoever gives them umbrage,

they are able now, with the municipality at their back and as guides, to turn the armament which they have obtained from the Convention against it, attack the Girondists in their last refuge, and possess themselves of the only fort not yet surrendered.

VI. Jacobin tactics.

To conquer the last bastion of the Girondists all they have to do is simultaneously in all sections to do what they used to do separately in each section: substituting themselves, by fraud and by force, for the Veritable people, they are able to conjure up before the Convention the phantom of popular disapproval.—From the municipality, holding its sessions at the Hôtel-de-ville, and from the conventicle established at the Evêché, emissaries are sent forth who present the same formal communication in writing at the same time in every section in Paris.34106 "Here is a petition for signatures."—"Read it."—"But that is unnecessary—it is already adopted by a majority of the sections."—This lie is accepted by some and several sign in good faith without reading it. In others they read it and refuse to sign it; in others, again, it is read and they pass to the order of the day. What happens? The plotters and ringleaders remain behind until all conscientious citizens have withdrawn; then, masters of the debate, they decide that the petition must be signed, and they accordingly affix their signatures. The next day, on the arrival of citizens at the section, the petition is handed to them for their names, and the debate of the previous evening is advanced against them. If they offer any remarks, they are met with these terrifying words:

Sign, or no certificate of civism!

And, as if approving this threat, several of the sections which are mastered by those who draw up the lists of proscriptions, decide that the certificates of civism must be renewed, new ones being refused to those refusing to sign the petition. They do not rest content with these moves; men armed with pikes are posted in the streets to force the signatures of those who pass."34107—The whole weight of municipal authority has been publicly cast into the scale. "Commissaries of the Commune, accompanied by municipal secretaries, with tables, inkstands, paper and registers, promenade about Paris preceded by drums and a body of militia." From time to time, they make "a solemn halt," and declaim against Brissot, Vergniaud, Guadet, and then "demand and obtain signatures."34108—Thus extorted and borne to the Convention by the mayor, in the name of the council-general of the Commune and of the thirty-five sections, the imperious petition denounces twenty-two Girondists as traitors, and insolently demands their expulsion.—Another day it is found that a similar summons and similarly presented, in the name of the forty-eight sections, is authorized only by thirteen or fourteen.34109—Sometimes the political parade is still more incautious. Pretended deputies of the Faubourg St. Antoine appear before the Convention and assert the revolutionary program. "If you do not adopt it," they say, "we will declare ourselves in a state of insurrection; there are 40,000 men at the door."34110 The truth is, "about fifty bandits, scarcely known in the Faubourg," and led by a former upholsterer, now a commissary of police, "have gathered together on their route" all they could find in the workshops "and in the stores," the multitude packed into the Place Vendôme not knowing what was demanded in their name.34111—These dummy tumults are, however, useful; they show the Convention its master, and prepare the way for a more efficient invasion. The day Marat was acquitted, the whole of his sewer, male and female, came along with him; under pretext of parading before the Convention, they invaded the hall, scattered themselves over the benches and steps, and, supported by the galleries, installed anew in the tribune, amidst a tempest of applause and of tumult, the usual promoter of insurrection, pillage and assassination.34112—And yet, however energetic and however persistent the pressure, the Convention, which has yielded on so many points, will not consent to mutilate itself. It pronounces the petition presented against the Twenty-two calumnious; it institutes a special commission of twelve members to search the papers of the Commune and the sections for legal proofs of the plot openly and steadily maintained by the Jacobins against the national representation; Mayor Pache is summoned to the bar of the house; warrants of arrest are issued against Hébert, Dobsen and Varlet.—Since popular manifestations have not answered the purpose, and the Convention, instead of obeying, is rebellious, nothing is left but to employ force.

"Since the 10th of March," says Vergniaud, in the tribune,34113 "murder is openly and unceasingly fomented against you."—"It is a terrible time," says an observer, "strongly resembling that preceding the 2nd of September."34114—That same evening, at the Jacobin club, a member proposes to "exterminate the scoundrels before leaving. "I have studied the Convention," he says34115 "it is composed in part of scoundrels who ought to be punished. All the supporters of Dumouriez and the other conspirators should be put out of the way; fire the alarm gun and close the barriers!" The following forenoon, "all the walls in Paris are covered with posters," calling on the Parisians to "hurry up and slit the throats of the statesmen."34116—" We must do something to put an end to this!" is the slogan of the sans-culottes.—The following week, at the Jacobin club, as elsewhere, "immediate insurrection is the order of the day.... What we formerly called the sacred enthusiasm of freedom and patriotism, is now metamorphosed into the fury of an excited populace, which can no longer be regulated or disciplined except by force. There is not one of these scoundrels who would not accept a counter-revolution, provided they could be allowed to crush and stamp on the most noted conservatives.34117.. . The conclusion is that the day, the hour, the minute that the faction believes that it can usefully and without risk bring into play all the brigands in Paris,34118 then the insurrection will undoubtedly take place." Already the plan of the massacre is under consideration by the lowest class of fanatics at the mayoralty, the Evêché, and the Jacobin club.34119

Some isolated house is to be selected, with a suite of three rooms on the ground floor, and a small court in the rear; the twenty-two Girondists are to be caught in the night and brought to this slaughter-house arranged beforehand; each in turn is to be passed along to the last room, where he is to be killed and his body tumbled into a hole dug in the middle of the court, and then the whole covered over with quick-lime; it will be supposed that they have emigrated, and, to establish the fact, false correspondence will be printed.34120 A member of the Committee on the Municipal Police declares that the plan is feasible:

"We will Septemberize(kill) them—not we ourselves, but men who are ready, and who will be well paid for it."

The Montagnards present Léonard Bourdon and Legendre, make no objection. The latter simply remarks that the Girondists should not be seized in the Convention; outside the Convention "they are scoundrels whose death would save the Republic," and the act is lawful; he would like to see "with them every rascal on the 'black' side perish without interfering."—Several, instead of 22 deputies, demand 30 or 32, and some 300; the suspected of each district may be added, while ten or a dozen proscription lists are already made out. Through a clean sweep, executed the same night, at the same hour, they may be conducted to the Carmelites, near the Luxembourg, and, "if there is not room enough there," to Bicêtre; here, "they will disappear from the surface of the globe."34121 Certain leaders desired to entrust the purification of Paris to the sagacity of popular instinct. "In loose and disconnected phrases" they address the people: "Rouse yourselves, and act according to your inclinations, as my indications might only startle those you should strike down and thereby allow them to escape!" Varlet proposes, on the contrary, a plan of public safety, very full and explicit, in fifteen articles:

"Sweep away the deputies of the 'Plain,' and other deputies of the Constituent and Legislative Assemblies, all nobles, priests, pettifoggers, etc.; exterminate the whole of that race, and the Bourbons, too, with entire suppression of the Ministers."

Hébert, for his part, alluding to the Girondists, writes in his gazette that "the last hour of their death is going to strike," and that, "when their foul blood shall have been spilled, aristocratic brawlers will return to their holes, the same as on the 10th of August. "Naturally, the professional slaughterers are notified. A certain Laforet, an old-clothes dealer on the Quai-du-Louvre, who, with his wife, had already distinguished themselves on the 2nd of September, reckons that "there are in Paris 6,000 sans-culottes ready to massacre at the first sign all dangerous deputies, and eight thousand petitioners," undoubtedly those who, in the several sections, signed the addresses to the Convention against the Commune.—Another "Septemberizer,"34122 commanding the battalion of the Jardin des Plantes, Henriot, on meeting a gang of men working on the wharves, exclaims in his rough voice:

"Good morning, my good fellows, we shall need you soon, and at better work. You won't have wood to carry in your carts—you'll have to carry dead bodies."

"All right," replies one of the hands, half tipsy, "we'll do it as we did the 2nd of September. We'll turn a penny by it."—

Cheynard, a locksmith and machinist at the mint, is manufacturing daggers, and the women of the tribunes are already supplied with two hundred of them."—

Finally, on the 29th of May, Hébert proposes, in the Jacobin club,34123 "to pounce down on the Commission of Twelve," and another Jacobin declares that "those who have usurped dictatorial power," meaning by that the Girondists, "are outlawed."

All this is extreme, clumsily done, useless and dangerous, or, at least, premature, and the chiefs of the "Mountain," Danton, Robespierre, and Marat himself; better informed and less shortsighted, are well aware that brutal murder would be revolting to the already half-aroused departments.34124 The legislative machinery is not to be shattered, but made use of; it must be employed against itself to effect the required injury; in this way the operation at a distance will appear legal, and, garnished with the usual high-flown speeches, impose on the provincial mind.34125 From the 3rd of April, Robespierre, in the Jacobin club, always circumspect and considerate, had limited and defined in advance the coming insurrection. "Let all good citizens," he says, "meet in their sections, and come and force us to place the disloyal deputies under arrest." Nothing can be more moderate, and, if they refer to principles, nothing can be more correct. The people always reserves the right to cooperate with its mandatories, which right it practices daily in the galleries. Through extreme precaution, which well describes the man,34126 Robespierre refuses to go any further in his interference. "I am incapable of advising the people what steps to take for its salvation. That is not given to one man alone. I, who am exhausted by four years of revolution, and by the heart-rending spectacle of the triumph of tyranny, am not thus favored.... I, who am wasted by a slow fever, and, above all by the fever of patriotism. As I have said, there remains for me no other duty to fulfill at the present moment." What's more, he enjoins the municipality "to unite with the people, and form a close alliance with it."—In other words, the blow must be struck by the Commune, the "Mountain" must appear to have nothing to do with it. But, "it is privy to the secret";34127 its chiefs pull the wires which set the brutal dancing-jacks in motion on the public trestles of the Hôtel-de-ville. Danton and Lacroix wrote in the bureau of the Committee of "Public Safety," the insolent summons which the procureur of the Commune is to read to the Convention on the 31st of May, and, during seven days of crisis, Danton, Robespierre and Marat are the counselors, directors and moderators of all proceedings, and lead, push on or restrain their stooges of the insurrection within the limits of this program.