The French Revolution - Volume 3

1164 (return)
[ Archives Nationales, Letter of Robert Lindet, June 16, AF. II., 43. The correspondence of Lindet, which is very interesting, well shows the sentiments of the Lyonnese and the policy of the "Mountain." "However agitated Lyons may be, order prevails; nobody wants either king or tyrant; all use the same language: the words republic, union, are in everybody's mouth." (Eight letters.) He always gives the same advice to the Committee of Public Safety: "Publish a constitution, publish the motives of the bills of arrest," which are indispensable to rally everybody to the Convention, (June 15).]

1165 (return)
[ Guillon de Montléon, I., 309 (July 24).]

1166 (return)
[ Sauzay, IV., 268.—Paul Thibaud, 50.—Marcelin Boudet, 185.—Archives Nationales AF. II., 46. Extract from the registers of the Council of the department of Loire-Inferieure, July 14. The department protests that its decree of July 5 was not "a rupture with the Convention, an open rebellion against the laws of the State, an idea very remote from the sentiments and intentions of the citizens present." Now, "the plan of a Constitution is offered to the acceptance of the sovereign. This fortunate circumstance should bring people to one mind, and, with hope thus renewed, let us at once seize on the means of salvation thus presented to us."—Moniteur, XVII., 102. (Speech of Cambon, July 11.)]

1167 (return)
[ Louvet, 119, 128, 150, 193.—Meillan, 130, 141. (On the disposition and sentiments of the provinces and of the public in general, the reader will find ample and authentic details in the narratives of the fugitives who scattered themselves in all directions, and especially those of Louvet, Meillan, Dulaure, and Vaublanc.) Cf. the "Mémoires de Hua" and "Un Séjour en France in 1792 and 1795."—Mallet-du-Pan already states this disposition before 1789 (MS. Journal). "June, 1785: The French live simply in a crowd; they must all cling together. On the promenades they huddle together and jostle each other in one alley; the same when there is more space." "Aug., 1787, (after the first riots): I have remarked in general more curiosity than excitement in the multitude.... One can judge, at this moment, the national character; a good deal of bravado and nonsense; neither reason, rule nor method; rebellious in crowds, and not a soul that does not tremble in the presence of a corporal."]

1168 (return)
[ Meillan, 143.—Mortimer-Ternaux, VIII., 203. (Session of August 10).—Mallet-du-Pan, "Mémoires," II., 9.]

1169 (return)
[ Ernest Daudet, "His. des Conspirations royalistes dans le midi." (Books II. And III.)]

1170 (return)
[ Guillon de Montléon, I., 313. (Address of a Lyonais to the patriot soldiers under Kellerman.)]

1171 (return)
[ Mortimer-Ternaux, VIII., 222.—The insurrection of Toulon, Girondist at the start, dates July 1st.—Letter of the new administrators of Toulon to the Convention. "W desire the Republic, one and indivisible; there is no sign of rebellion with us... Representatives Barras and Fréron lie shamefully in depicting us as anti-revolutionaries, on good terms with the English and the families of Vendée."—The Toulon administrators continue furnishing the Italian army with supplies. July 19, an English boat, sent to parley, had to lower the white flag and hoist the tri-color flag. The entry of the English into Toulon did not take place before the 29th of August.]

1172 (return)
[ Guillon de Montléon, II., 67. (Letter of the Lyonnese to the representatives of the people, Sep. 20): "The people of Lyons have constantly respected the laws, and if, as in some departments, that of Rhone-et-Loire was for a moment mistaken in the events of May 31, they hastened, as soon as they believed that the Convention was not oppressed, to recognize and execute its decrees. Every day, now that these reach it, they are published and observed within its walls."]

1173 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVII., 269. (Session of July 28). (Letter of the administrators of the department of Rhone-et-Loire to the Convention, Lyons, July 24). "We present to the Convention our individual recantation and declaration; in conforming to the law we are entitled to its protection. We petition the court to decide on our declaration, and to repeal the acts which relate to us or make an exception in our favor... We have always professed ourselves to be true republicans."]

1174 (return)
[ Guillon de Montléon, I., 309, 311, 315, 335.—Mortimer-Ternaux, VIII., 197.]

1175 (return)
[ Mortimer-Ternaux, VIII., 141.]

1176 (return)
[ Mallet du Pan, I., 379 and following pages; I., 408; II., 10.]

1177 (return)
[ Entry of the Republican troops into Lyons, October 9th, into Toulon, December 19th.—Bordeaux had submitted on the 2nd of August. Exasperated by the decree of the 6th which proscribed all the abettors of the insurrection, the city drives out, on the 19th, the representatives Baudot and Ysabeau. It submits again on the 19th of September. But so great is the indignation of the citizens, Tallien and his three colleagues dare not enter before the 16th of October. (Mortimer-Ternaux, VIII., 197 and following pages.)]

1178 (return)
[ Seventy thousand men were required to reduce Lyons, (Guillon de Montléon, II., 226) and sixty thousand men to reduce Toulon.]

1179 (return)
[ Archives des Affaires étrangères, vol. CCCXXIX. (Letter of Chépy, political agent, Grenoble, July 26, 1793). "I say it unhesitatingly, I had rather reduce Lyons than save Valenciennes."]

1180 (return)
[ Ibid., vol. CCCXXIX. (Letter of Chépy, Grenoble, August 24, 1793): "The Piedmontese are masters of Cluse. A large body of mountaineers have joined them. At Annecy the women have cut down the liberty pole and burnt the archives of the club and commune. At Chambéry, the people wanted to do the same, but they forced the sick in the hospitals to take arms and thus kept them down."]

1181 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVIII, 474. (Report of Billaud-Varennes, October 18, 1793). "The combined efforts of all the powers of Europe have not compromised liberty and the country so much as the federalist factions; the assassin the most to be dreaded is the one that lives in the house."]

1182 (return)
[ The convention purposely reinstates incendiaries and assassins. (Moniteur, XVIII., 483. Session of Breumaire 28, year II.): XVII., 176. (Session of July 19, 1793). Rehabilitation of Bordier and Jourdain, hung in August, 1789. Cancelling of the proceedings begun against the authors of the massacre of Melun (September, 1792) and release of the accused.—Cf. Albert Babeau, (I., 277.) Rehabilitation, with indemnities distributed in Messidor, year II, to their relatives.—"Archives des Affaires étrangères," vol. 331. (Letter of Chépy, Grenoble, Frimaire 8, year II). "The criminal court and jury of the department have just risen to the height of the situation; they have acquitted the castle-burners."]

1183 (return)
[ Mortimer-Ternaux, VIII., 593. (Deputation of twenty-four sections sent from Bordeaux to the Convention, August 30).—Buchez et Roux, XXVIII., 494. (Report of the representatives on mission in Bouches-du-Rhône, September 2nd).—Ibid., XXX., 386. (Letter of Rousin, commandant of the revolutionary army at Lyons. "A population of one hundred twenty thousand souls..... There are not amongst all these, one thousand five hundred patriots, even one thousand five hundred persons that one could spare."—Guillon de Montléon, I., 355, 374. (Signatures of twenty thousand Lyonnese of all classes, August 17th).]

1184 (return)
[ Guillon de Montléon, I., 394. (Letter of Dubois-Crancé to the Lyonnese, August 19th.)]

1185 (return)
[ Mortimer-Ternaux, VIII., 198. (Decree of Aug. 6.)—Buchez et Roux, XXVIII. 297, (Decree of July 12.).—Guillon de Montléon, I., 342. Summons of Dubois-Crancé, Aug. 8.)]

1186 (return)
[ Meillan, 142.).—"Archives des Affaires Etrangéres," vol. CCCXXXII. (Letter of Desgranges, Bordeaux, Brumaire 8, year II.): "The execution of Mayor Saige, who was much loved by the people for his benefactions, caused much sorrow: but no guilty murmur was heard."]

1187 (return)
[ Archives Nationales, AF. II., 46. (Letter of Julien to the Committee of Public Safety Messidor 11, year II). "Some time ago a solemn silence prevailed at the sessions of the military commission, the people's response to the death-sentences against conspirators; the same silence attended them to the scaffold; the whole commune seemed to sob in secret at their fate."]

1188 (return)
[ Berryat Saint-Prix, "La Justice Révolutionaire," pp. 277-299.—Archives Nationales, AF. II., 46. (Registers of the Com. Of Surveillance, Bordeaux). The number of prisoners between Prairial 21 and 28, varies from 1504 to 1529. Number of the guillotined, 882. (Memoirs of Sénart).]

1189 (return)
[ Archives Nationales, AF. II., 46. Letter of Julien, Messidor 12, year II. "A good deal has been stolen here; the mayor, now in prison, is informed of considerable losses. The former Committee of surveillance came under serious suspicion; many people who were outlawed only escaped by paying: it is a fact that... Of a number of those who have thus purchased their lives there are some who did not deserve to die and who, nevertheless, were threatened with death."—Buchez et Roux, XXXII., 428. (Extracts from the Memoirs of Sénart). "The president of the military commission was a man named Lacombe, already banished from the city on account of a judgment against him for robbery. The other individuals employed by Tallien comprised a lot of valets, bankrupts and sharpers."]

1190 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XXVIII., 493. (Speech by Danton, August 31, and decree in conformity therewith by the Convention).]

1191 (return)
[ Mallet-Dupan, II., 17. "Thousands of traders in Marseilles and Bordeaux, here the respectable Gradis and there the Tarteron, have been assassinated and their goods sold. I have seen the thirty-second list only of the Marseilles emigres, whose property has been confiscated.... There are twelve thousand of them and the lists are not yet complete." (Feb. 1, 1794.)—Anne Plumptre.2A Narrative of Three years' Residence in France, from 1802 to 1805." "During this period the streets of Marseilles were almost those of a deserted town. One could go from one end of the town to the other without meeting any one he could call an inhabitant. The great terrorists, of whom scarcely one was a Marseillaise, the soldiers and roughs as they called themselves, were almost the only persons encountered. The latter, to the number of fifty or sixty, in jackets with leather straps, fell upon all whom they did not like, and especially on anybody with a clean shirt and white cravat. Many persons on the "Cours" were thus whipped to death. No women went out-doors without a basket, while every man wore a jacket, without which they were taken for aristocrats." (II., 94.)]

1192 (return)
[ "Mémoires de Fréron." (Collection Barrière and Berville). Letters of Fréron to Moise Bayle, Brumaire 23, Pluviose 5 and 11, Novose 16, II, published by Moise Bayle, also details furnished by Huard, pp. 350-365.—Archives Nationales, AF. II., 144. (Order of representatives Fréron, Barras, Salicetti and Richard, Novose 17, year II.)]

1193 (return)
[ Mallet-Dupan, II., 17.—Guillon de Montléon, II., 259.]

1194 (return)
[ Ibid., II., 281. (Decree of the Convention, Oct. 12); II. 312. (Orders of Couthon and his colleagues, Oct. 25); II., 366-372 (Instructions of the temporary commission, Brumaire 26).]

1195 (return)
[ Ibid. III., 153-156. Letter of Laporte to Couthon, April 13, 1794.]

1196 (return)
[ The contemporary French Encyclopedia "QUID" ed. Lafont, 1996 states on page 755 that according to Louis Marie Prudhomme there were 31 000 victims at Lyons. (SR.)]

1197 (return)
[ Ibid. II. 135-137. (Resolutions of the Revolutionary Commission, Germinal 17.) and Letters of Cadillot to Robespierre, Floréal, year II). III., 63.]

1198 (return)
[ Guillon de Montléon, II., 399. (Letter of Perrotin, member of the temporary commission to the revolutionary committee of Moulin.) "The work before the new commission may be considered as an Organization of the Septembrisade; the process will be the same but legalized by an act passed."]

1199 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XXIX., 192. (Decree of October 12).]

11100 (return)
[ Ibid., XXX., 457. (Decree of November 23).]

11101 (return)
[ "Mémoires de Fréron." (Letter of Fréron, Nivose 6).—Guillon de Montléon, II., 391.]

11102 (return)
[ Decrees of October 12 and December 24.—Archives Nationales, AF. II., 44. The representatives on mission wanted to do the same thing with Marseilles. (Orders of Fréron, Barras, Salicetti, and Ricard, Nivôse 17, year II.) "The name of Marseilles, still borne by this criminal city, shall be changed. The National Convention shall be requested to give it another name. Meanwhile it shall remain nameless and be thus known." In effect, in several subsequent documents, Marseilles is called the nameless commune.]

11103 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XXVIII., 204. (Session of June 24: "Strong expressions of dissent are heard on the right." Legendre, "I demand that the first rebel, the first man there (pointing to the "Right" party) who interrupts the speaker, be sent to the Abbaye." Couhey, indeed, was sent to the Abbaye for applauding a Federalist speech.—Cf. on these three months.—Mortimer-Ternaux, vol. VIII.]

11104 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XXIX., 175.—Dauban: "La Démagogie à Paris en 1793," 436 (Narrative by Dulaure, an eye-witness).]

11105 (return)
[ There were really only twenty-two brought before the revolutionary tribunal.]

11106 (return)
[ Dauban, XXVI., p. 440. (Narrative of Blanqui, one of the seventy-three.)]

11107 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux. XXIX., 178, 179. Osselin: "I demand the decree of accusation against them all."—Amar: "The apparently negative conduct of the minority of the Convention since the 2nd of June, was a new plot devised by Barbaroux." Robespierre: "If there are other criminals among those you have placed under arrest the Committee of General Security will present to you the nomenclature of them and you will always be at liberty to strike."]

11108 (return)
[ Ibid., XXIX., 432, 437, 447.—Report by Amar. (this report served as the bill of indictment against them, "cowardly satellites of royal despotism, vile agents of foreign tyrants."—Wallon, II., 407, 409. (Letter of Fouquier-Tinville to the convention). "After the special debates, will not each of the accused demand a general prosecution? The trial, accordingly, will be interminable. Besides, one may ask why should there be witnesses? The convention, all France, accuses those on trial. The evidence of their crimes is plain; everybody is convinced of their guilt.... It is the Convention which must remove all formalities that interfere with the course pursued by the tribunal."—Moniteur, XVII., (Session of October 28), 291. The decree provoked by a petition of Jacobins, is passed on motion of Osselin, aggravated by Robespierre.]

11109 (return)
[ Louvet, "Mémoires," 321. (List of the Girondists who perished or who were proscribed. Twenty-four fugitives survived.)]

11110 (return)
[ Mortimer-Ternaux, VIII., 395, 416, 435. The terror and disgust of the majority is seen in the small number of voters. Their abstention from voting is the more significant in relation to the election of the dictators. The members of the Committee of Public Safety, elected on the 16th of July, obtain from one hundred to one hundred and ninety-two votes. The members of the Committee of Security obtain from twenty-two to one hundred and thirteen votes. The members of the same committee, renewed on the 11th of September, obtain from fifty-two to one hundred and eight votes. The judges of the revolutionary tribunal, completed on the 3rd of August, obtain from forty-seven to sixty-five votes.—Meillan, 85. (In relation to the institution of the revolutionary government, on motion of Bazire, Aug. 28). "Sixty or eighty deputies passed this decree... it was preceded by another passed by a plurality of thirty against ten. .. For two months the session the best attended, contains but one hundred deputies. The Montagnards overran the departments to deceive or intimidate the people. The rest, discouraged, keep away from the meetings or take no part in the proceedings."]

11111 (return)
[ The meaning and motives of this declaration are clearly indicated in Bazire's speech. "Since the adoption of the Constitution," he says, "Feuillantism has raised its head; a struggle has arisen between energetic and moderate patriots. At the end of the Constituent Assembly, the Feuillants possessed themselves of the words law, order, public, peace, security, to enchain the zeal of the friends of freedom; the same manoeuvres are practiced to-day. You must shatter the weapon in your enemies' hands, which they use against you."—Durand-Maillane, 154. "The simple execution of constitutional laws," said Bazire, "made for peaceable times, would be impotent among the conspiracies that surround you."—Meillan, 108.]

11112 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVIII, 106. (Report of Saint-Just on the organization of the revolutionary government, October 10th, and the decree in conformity therewith.) Ibid., 473. (Report of Billaud-Varennes on a mode of provisional and revolutionary government, Nov. 18th, and decree in conformity therewith.)—Ib., 479 (session of Nov. 22nd, 1793,.—Speech of Hébrard, spokesman of a deputation from Cantal). "A central committee of surveillance, a revolutionary army, has been established in our department. Aristocrats, suspects, the doubtful, moderates, egoists, all gentlemen without distinguishing those who have done nothing for the revolution from those who have acted against it, await in retirement the ulterior measures required by the interests of the Republic. I have said without distinction of the indifferent from the suspects; for we hold to these words of Solon's: 'He who is not with us is against us.'"]

11113 (return)
[ The trousers used in pre-Revolutionary France by the nobility was called culottes, they terminated just below the knee where the long cotton or silken stockings would begin. The less affluent used long trousers and no socks and became known as the Sans-culottes which became, as mentioned in vol. II. a nickname for the revolutionary proletariat. (SR.)]

11114 (return)
[ Moniteur, (Speech by Danton, March 26, 1794.) "In creating revolutionary committees the desire was to establish a species of dictatorship of citizens the most devoted to liberty over those who rendered themselves suspects."]

11115 (return)
[ Mallet-Dupan, II., 8. (February, 1794). "At this moment the entire people is disarmed. Not a gun can be found either in town or country. If anything attests the super-natural power which the leaders of the Convention enjoy, it is to see, in one instant, through one act of the will and nobody offering any resistance, or complaining of it, the nation from Perpignan to Lille, deprived of every means of defense against oppression, with a facility still more unprecedented than that which attended the universal arming of the nation in 1789."—"A Residence in France," II., 409. "The National Guard as a regular institution was in great part suppressed after the summer of 1793, those who composed it being gradually disarmed. Guard-mounting was continued, but the citizens performing this service were, with very few exceptions, armed with pikes, and these again were not fully entrusted to them; each man, on quitting his post, gave up his arms more punctually than if he had been bound to do so through capitulation with a victorious enemy."]

11116 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVIII., 106. (Report by Saint-Just, Oct. 10th).]

11117 (return)
[ Ibid., 473. (Report of Billaud-Varennes, Nov. 13th).]

11118 (return)
[ Ibid., XVIII., 591. (Speech by Couthon, December 4th). Ibid., Barère: "Electoral assemblies are monarchical institutions, they attach to royalism, they must be specially avoided in revolutionary times."]

11119 (return)
[ Mortimer-Ternaux, VIII., 40. (Decree passed on the proposition of Danton, session of September 13th). The motive alleged by Danton is that "members are still found on the committees whose opinions, at least, approach federalism." Consequently the committees are purified, and particularly the Committee of General Security. Six of its members are stricken off (Sept. 14), and the list sent in by the Committee of Public safety passes without discussion.]

11120 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVIII., 592. (Session of December 4, speech by Robespierre).]

11121 (return)
[ Miot de Melito, "Mémoires," I., 47.]

11122 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XXVIII., 153. Mortimer-Ternaux, VIII., 443. (Decree of September 28th).—Wallon, "Histoire du Tribunal Révolutionaire de Paris," IV., 112.]

11123 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XXXIV., 300. (Trial of Fouquier-Tinville and associates). Bill of indictment: "One of these publicly boasted of always having voted death. Others state that they were content to see people to give their judgment; physical inspection alone determined them to vote death. Another said, that when there was no offense committed it was necessary to imagine one. Another is a regular sot and has never sat in judgment but in a state of intoxication. Others came to the bench only to fire their volleys." Etc. (Supporting evidence.)—"Observe, moreover, that judges and juries are bound to kill under penalty of death (Ibid.,30)." Fouquier-Tinville states that on the 22nd of Prairial he took the same step (to resign) with Chatelet, Brochet and Lerry, when they met Robespierre, returning to the National Convention arm-in-arm with Barère. Fouquier adds, that they were treated as aristocrats and anti-revolutionaries, and threatened with death if they refused to remain on their posts." Analogous declarations by Pigeot, Ganne, Girard, Dupley, Foucault, Nollin and Madre. "Sellier adds, that the tribunal having remonstrated against the law of Prairial 22, he was threatened with arrest by Dumas. Had we resigned, he says, Dumas would have guillotined us.]

11124 (return)
[ Moniteur, XXIV., 12. (Session of Ventôse 29, year III., speech by Baileul). "Terror subdued all minds, suppressed all emotions; it was the force of the government, while such was this government that the numerous inhabitants of a vast territory seemed to have lost the qualities which distinguish man from a domestic animal. They seemed even to have no life except what the government accorded to them. Human personality no longer existed; each individual was simply a machine, going, coming, thinking or not thinking as he was impelled or stimulated by tyranny."]

11125 (return)
[ Decree of Frimaire 14, year II., Dec. 4, 1793.]

11126 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVII., 473, 474, 478. (Speech by Billaud-Varennes). "The sword of Damocles must henceforth be brandished over the entire surface." This expression of Billaud sums up the spirit of every new institution.]

11127 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVIII., 275. (Session of Oct. 26. 1793, speech by Barère.) "This is the most revolutionary step you can take." (Applause.)]

11128 (return)
[ Ibid., 520. (Report of Barère and decree in conformity). "The representatives sent on mission are required to conform strictly to the acts of the Committee of Public Safety. Generals and other agents of the executive power will, under no pretext, obey any special order, that they may refuse to carry out the said acts."—Moniteur, XVIII., 291. (Report by Barère, Oct. 29, 1793.) At this date one hundred and forty representatives are on mission.]

11129 (return)
[ Archives Nationales, AF. II., 22. (Papers of the 'Committee of Public Safety. Note on the results of the revolutionary government without either date or signature.) "The law of Frimaire 14 created two centers of influence from which action spread, in the sense of the Committee, and which affected the authorities. These two pivots of revolutionary rule outside the Committee were the representatives of the people on missions and the national agents controlling the district committees. The word revolutionary government alone exercised an incalculable magical influence."—Mallet-Dupan, "Mémoires," II., p. 2, and following pages.]

BOOK SECOND. THE JACOBIN PROGRAM.

CHAPTER I. THE JACOBIN PARTY

I. The Doctrine.

Nothing is more dangerous than a general idea in narrow and empty minds: as they are empty, it finds no knowledge there to interfere with it; as they are narrow it is not long before it occupies the place entirely. Henceforth they no longer belong to themselves but are mastered by it; it works in them and through them, the man, in the true sense of the word, being possessed. Something which is not himself, a monstrous parasite, a foreign and disproportionate conception, lives within him, developing and giving birth to the evil purposes with which it is pregnant. He did not foresee that he would have them; he did not know what his dogma contained, what venomous and murderous consequences were to issue from it. They issue from it fatally, each in its turn, and under the pressure of circumstances, at first anarchical consequences and now despotic consequences. Having obtained power, the Jacobin brings his fixed idea along with him; whether at the head of the government or in opposition to it, this idea is fruitful, and the all-powerful dogma projects over a new domain the innumerable links of its endless chain.

II. A Communist State.

Let us trace this inward development and go back, along with the Jacobin, to first principles, to the original pact, to the first organization of society. There is but one just and sound society, the one founded on the "contrat-social," and

"the clauses of this contract, fully understood, reduce themselves to one, the total transfer of each individual, with all his rights, to the community,.... each surrendering himself up absolutely, just as he actually stands, he and all his forces, of which the property he possesses forms a part."2101

There must be no exception or reservation. Nothing of what he previously was, or had, now belongs to him in his own right; henceforth, what he is, or has, devolves upon him only through delegation. His property and his person now form a portion of the commonwealth. If he is in possession of these, his ownership is at second hand; if he derives any benefit there from, it is as a concession. He is their depository, trustee and administrator, and nothing more.2102 In other words, with respect to these he is simply a managing director, that is to say a functionary like others, with a precarious appointment and always revocable by the State which has appointed him.

"As nature gives to every man absolute power over the members of his body the social pact gives the social body absolute power over all its members."

The State, as omnipotent sovereign and universal proprietor, exercises at discretion, its boundless rights over persons and things; consequently we, its representatives, take all things and persons into our hands; as they belong to it, so do they belong to us.

We have confiscated the possessions of the clergy, amounting to about four billion livres; we confiscate the property of the emigrés, amounting to three billion livres;2103 we confiscate the property of the guillotined and deported: all this amounts to some hundreds of millions; later on, the count will be made, because the list remains open and is being daily added to. We will sequestrate the property of "suspects," which gives us the right to use it: here are many hundred millions more; after the war and the banishment of "suspects," we shall seize the property along with its income: here, again, are billions of capital.2104 Meanwhile we take the property of hospitals and of other benevolent institutions, about eight hundred million livres; we take the property of factories, of endowments, of educational institutions, and of literary and scientific associations: another lot of millions.2105 We take back the domains rented or surrendered by the State for the past three centuries and more, which gives again about a couple of billions.2106 We take the possessions of the communes up to the amount of their indebtedness. We have already received as inheritance the ancient domains of the crown, also the later domain of the civil list. More than three-fifths2107 of the soil thus falls into our hands, which three-fifths are much the best stocked; they comprise almost all the large and fine edifices, châteaux, abbeys, mansions, houses of superintendents and nearly all the royal, episcopal, seigniorial and bourgeois stock of rich and elegant furniture; all plate, libraries, pictures and artistic objects accumulated for centuries.—Remark, again, the seizure of specie and all other articles of gold and silver; in the months alone of November and December, 1793, this swoop puts into our coffers three or four hundred millions,2108 not assignats, but ringing coin. In short, whatever the form of established capital may be we take all we can get hold of, probably more than three-fourths of it.—There remains the portion which is not fixed capital, that which disappears in use, namely, all that is consumed, all the fruits of the soil, every description of provision, all the products of human art and labor which contribute the maintenance of existence. Through "the right of pre-emption" and through the right of "requisition," "the Republic becomes temporary proprietor of whatever commerce, manufacture and agriculture have produced and added to the soil of France: "all food and merchandise is ours before being owned by their holder. We carry out of his house whatever suits us; we pay him for this with worthless paper; we frequently do not pay him at all. For greater convenience, we seize objects directly and wherever we find them, grain in the farmer's barn, hay in the reaper's shed, cattle in the fold, wine in the vats, hides at the butcher's, leather in the tanneries, soap, tallow, sugar, brandy, cloths, linens and the rest, in stores, depots and ware-houses. We stop vehicles and the horses in the street. We enter the premises of mail or coach contractors and empty their stables. We carry away kitchen utensils to obtain the copper; we turn people out of their rooms to get their beds; we strip them of their coats and shirts; in one day, we make ten thousand individuals in one town go barefoot.2109

"When public needs require it," says representative Isoré, "all belongs to the people and nothing to individuals."

By virtue of the same right we dispose of persons as we do of things. We decree the levy en masse and, stranger still, we carry it out, at least in many parts of the country, and we keep it up for months: in Vendée, and in the northern and eastern departments, it is the entire male, able-bodied population, up to fifty years of age, which we drive in herds against the enemy.2110 We afterwards sign an entire generation on, all young men between eighteen and twenty-five, almost a million of men:2111 whoever fails to appear is put in irons for ten years; he is regarded as a deserter; his property is confiscated, and his family is punished as well; later he is classed with the emigrants, condemned to death, and his father, mother and progenitors, treated as "suspects," imprisoned and their possessions taken.—To clothe, shoe and equip our recruits, we must have workmen; we summon to head-quarters all gunsmiths, blacksmiths and locksmiths, all the tailors and shoemakers of the district, "foremen, apprentices and boys;"2112 we imprison those who do not come; we install the rest in squads in public buildings and assign them their tasks; they are forbidden to furnish anything to private individuals. Henceforth, French shoemakers must work only for us, and each must deliver to us, under penalty, so many pairs of shoes per decade.2113—But, the civil service is no less important than the military service, and to feed the people is as urgent as it is to defend them. Hence we put "in requisition all who have anything to do with handling, transporting or selling provisions and articles of prime necessity,"2114 especially combustibles and food—wood-choppers, carters, raftsmen, millers, reapers, threshers, wine-growers, movers, field-hands, "country people" of every kind and degree. Their hands belong to us: we make them bestir themselves and work under the penalty of fine and imprisonment. There shall be no idlers, especially in crop time: we take the entire population of a commune or canton into the fields, comprising "the lazy of both sexes;"2115 willingly or not, they shall do the harvesting under our eyes, banded together in fields belonging to others as well as in their own, and they shall put the sheaves indiscriminately into the public granary.

But in labor all hangs together, from the initial undertaking to the final result, from the raw material to the most finished production, from the great manufacturer down to the pettiest jobber; grasping the first link of the chain involves grasping the last one. The requisition here again answers the purpose: we apply it to all pursuits; each is bound to continue his own; the manufacturer to manufacture, the trader to trade, even to his own detriment, because, if he works at a loss, the public profits, and every good citizen ought to prefer public profit to his own profit.2116 In effect, let his office be what it will, he is an employee of the community; therefore, the community may not only prescribe task-work to him, but select his task; it need not consult him in the matter, for he has no right to refuse. Hence it is that we appoint or maintain people in spite of themselves, in the magistracy, in the army and in every other species of employment. In vain may they excuse themselves or try get out of the way; they must remain or become generals, judges, mayors, national agents, town councilors, commissioners of public welfare or administration,2117 even against their will. Too bad for them if the responsibility is expensive or dangerous, if they have no time for leisure, if they do not feel themselves qualified for it, if the rank or services seems to them to lead to a prison or the guillotine; when they declare that the work is forced labor we reply that they liable to work for the State.—Such is, henceforth, the condition of all Frenchmen, and likewise of all French women. We force mothers to take their daughters to the meetings of popular clubs. We oblige women to parade in companies, and march in procession at republican festivals; we invade the family and select the most beautiful to be draped as antique goddesses, and publicly promenaded on a chariot; we sometimes even designate those among the rich who must wed patriots2118: there is no reason why marriage, which is the most important of all services, should not be put in requisition like the others.—Accordingly, we enter families, we carry of the child, we subject him to a civic education. We are schoolmasters, philanthropists, theologians, and moralists. We impose by force our religion and our ritual, our morality and our social customs. We lord it over private lives and consciences; we dictate ideas, we scrutinize and punish secret inclinations, we tax, imprison and guillotine not only the evil-disposed, but again "the indifferent, the moderate and the egoists."2119 Over and above his visible acts we dictate to the individual his ideas and his deepest feelings; we prescribe to him his affections as well as his beliefs, and, according to a preconceived type, we refashion his intellect, his conscience and his sensibilities.