It is a tragicomic drama in three acts, each winding up with a coup de théâtre, always the same and always foreseen. Legendre, one of the principal stage hands, has taken care to announce beforehand that,
"If this lasts any longer," said he, at the Cordeliers club,34128 "if the 'Mountain' remains quiet any longer, I shall call in the people, and tell the galleries to come down and take part with us in the deliberations."
At first, on the 27th of May, in relation to the arrest of Hébert and his companions, the "Mountain," supported by the galleries, becomes furious.34129 In vain does the majority again and again demonstrate its numerical superiority. "We shall resist," says Danton, "so long as there are a hundred true citizens to help us."—"President," exclaims Marat to Isnard, you are a tyrant! a despicable tyrant!"—"I demand," says Couthon, "that the President be impeached!"—"Off with the President to the Abbaye!"—The "Mountain" has decided that he shall not preside; it springs from the benches and rushes at him, shouts "death to him," becomes hoarse with its vociferations, and compels him to leave the chair through weariness and exhaustion. It drives out his successor, Fonfrède, in the same manner, and ends by putting Hérault-Séchelles, one of its own accomplices, in the chair.—Meanwhile, at the entrance of the Convention, "the regulations have been violated"; a crowd of armed men "have spread through the passages and obstructed the approaches"; the deputies, Meillan, Chiappe and Lydon, on attempting to leave, are arrested, Lydon being stopped "by the point of a saber at his breast,"34130 while the leaders on the inside encourage, protect and justify their trusty aids outdoors.—Marat, with his usual audacity, on learning that Raffet, the commandant, was clearing the passages, comes to him "with a pistol in his hand and puts him under arrest,"34131 on the ground that the people and its sacred rights of petition and the petitioners must be respected. There are "five or six hundred, almost all of them armed,"34132 stationed for three hours at the doors of the hall; at the last moment, two other troops, dispatched by the Gravilliers and Croix-Rouge sections, arrive and bring them their final afflux. Thus strengthened, they spring over the benches assigned to them, spread through the hall, and mingle with the deputies who still remain in their seats. It is after midnight; many of the representatives, worn out with fatigue and disgust, have left; Pétion, Lasource, and a few others, who wish to get in, "cannot penetrate the threatening crowd." To compensate themselves, and in the places of the absent, the petitioners, constituting themselves representatives of France, vote with the "Mountain," while the Jacobin president, far from turning them out, himself invites them "to set aside all obstacles prejudicial to the welfare of the people.." In this gesticulating crowd, in the half-light of smoky lamps, amidst the uproar of the galleries, it is difficult to hear well what motion is put to vote; it is not easy to see who rises or sits down, and two decrees pass, or seem to pass, one releasing Hébert and his accomplices, and the other revoking the commission of the Twelve.34133 Forthwith the messengers who await the issue run out and carry the good news to the Hôtel-de-ville, the Commune celebrating its triumph with an explosion of applause.
The next morning, however, notwithstanding the terrors of a call of the House and the fury of the "Mountain," the majority, as a defensive stroke, revokes the decree by which it is disarmed, while a new decree maintains the commission of the Twelve; the operation, accordingly, is to be done over again, but not the whole of it; for Hébert and the others imprisoned remain at liberty, while the majority, which, through a sense of propriety or the instinct of self-preservation, had again placed its sentinels on the outposts, consents, either through weakness or hopes of conciliation, to let the prisoners remain free. The result is they have had the worst of the fight. Their adversaries, accordingly, are encouraged, and at once renew the attack, their tactics, very simple, being those which have already proved so successful on the 10th of August.
The matter now in hand is to invoke against the derived and provisional rights of the government, the superior and inalienable right of the people; also, to substitute for legal authority, which, in its nature, is limited, revolutionary power, which, in its essence, is absolute. To this end the section of the City, under the vice-presidency of Maillard, the "Septemberizer," invites the other forty-seven sections each to elect two commissaries, with "unlimited powers." In thirty-three sections, purged, terrified, or deserted, the Jacobins, alone, or almost alone,34134 elect the most determined of their band, particularly strangers and rascals, in all sixty-six commissaries, who, on the evening of the 29th, meet at the Evêché, and select nine from their midst to form, under the presidency of Dobsen, a central and revolutionary executive committee. These nine persons are entirely unknown;34135 all are obscure subordinates,34136 mere puppets and manikins; eight days later, on finishing their performance, when they are no longer needed, they will be withdrawn behind the scenes. In the mean time they pass for the mandatories of the popular sovereign, with full power in all directions, because he has delegated his omnipotence to them, and the sole power, because their investiture is the most recent; under this sanction, they stalk around somewhat like supernumeraries at the Opera, dressed in purple and gold, representing a conclave of cardinals or the Diet of the Holy Empire. Never has the political drama degenerated into such an impudent farce!—On the 31st, at half-past six in the morning, Dobsen and his bullies present themselves at the council-general of the Commune, tender their credentials, and make known to it its deposition. The Council, with edifying complacency, accepts the fiat and leaves the department. With no less grateful readiness Dobsen summons it back, and reinstates it in all its functions, in the name of the people, and declares that it merits the esteem of the country.34137 At the same time another demagogue, Varlet, performs the same ceremony with the Council of the department, and both bodies, consecrated by a new baptism, join the sixty-six commissaries to share the dictatorship.—What could be more legitimate? The Convention would err in making any opposition:
"It was elected merely to condemn the tyrant and to frame a constitution; the sovereign people has invested it with no other power;34138 accordingly, the other acts, its warrants of arrest, are simply usurpations and despotism. Paris, moreover, represents France better than it does, for Paris is "the extract of all the departments, the mirror of opinion,"34139 the advance-guard of patriotism. "Remember the 10th of August;34140 previous to that time, the opinions in the Republic were divided; but, scarcely had you struck the decisive blow when all subsided into silence. Have no fear of the departments; with a little terror and a few instructions, we shall turn all minds in our favor." Grumblers persist in demanding the convocation of primary assemblies. "Was not the 10th of August necessary? Did not the departments then endorse what Paris did? They will do so this time. It is Paris which saved them."34141
Consequently, the new government places Henriot, a reliable man, and one of the September slaughterers, in full command of the armed force; then, through a violation by law declared as a capital offense, it orders the alarm gun to be fired; then, on the other hand, it beats a general call to arms, sounds the tocsin and closes the barriers; the post office managers are put in arrest, and letters are intercepted and opened; the order is given to disarm the suspected and hand their arms over to patriots; "forty sous a day are allowed to citizens with small means while under arms."34142 Notice is given without fail the preceding evening to the trusty men of the quarter; accordingly, early in the morning, the Committee of Supervision has already selected from the Jacobin sections "the most needy companies in order to arm those the most worthy of combating for liberty," while all its guns are distributed "to the good republican workmen." 34143—From hour to hour as the day advances, we see in the refractory sections all authority passing over to the side of force; at the Finistère, Butte-des-Moulins, Lombards, Fraternité, and Marais34144 sections, the encouraged sans-culottes obtain the ascendancy, nullify the deliberations of the moderates, and, in the afternoon, their delegates go and take the oath at the Hôtel-de-ville.
Meanwhile the Commune, dragging behind it the semblance of popular unanimity, besieges the Convention with multiplied and threatening petitions. As on the 27th of May, the petitioners invade the hall, and "mix in fraternally with the members of the 'Left."' Forthwith, on the motion of Levasseur, the "Mountain," "confident of its place being well guarded," leaves it and passes over to the "Right."34145 Invaded in its turn, the "Right" refuses to join in the deliberations; Vergniaud demands that "the Assembly join the armed force on the square, and put itself under its protection"; he and his friends leave the hall, and the decapitated majority falls back upon its usual hesitating course. All is hubbub and uproar around it. In the hall the clamors of the "Mountain," the petitioners, and the galleries, seem like the constant roar of a tempest. Outside, twenty or thirty thousand men will probably clash in the streets;34146 the battalion of Butte-des-Moulins, with detachments sent by neighboring sections, is entrenched in the Palais-Royal, and Henriot, spreading the report that the rich sections of the center have displayed the white cockade, send against it the sans-culottes of the faubourgs Saint-Antoine and Saint-Marceau; cannon are pointed on both sides.—These loaded cannon must not be discharged; the signal of civil war must not be given; it is simply necessary "to forestall the consequences of a movement which could be only disastrous to liberty,"34147 and it is important to ensure public order. The majority, accordingly, think that it is acting courageously in refusing to the Commune the arrest of the Twenty-two, and of the Ministers, Lebrun and Clavière; in exchange for this it consents to suppress its commission of Twelve; it confirms the act of the Commune which allows forty sous a day to the workmen under arms; it declares freedom of entry into its tribunes, and, thanking all the sections, those who defended as well as those who attacked it, it maintains the National Guard on permanent call, announces a general federation for the 10th of August following, and goes off to fraternize with the battalions in the PalaisRoyal, in battle array against each other through the calumnies of the Commune, and which, set right at the last moment, now embrace instead of cutting each other's throats.
This time, again, the advantage is on the side of the Commune. Not only have many of its requirements been converted into decrees, but again, its revolutionary baptism remains in full force; its executive committee is tacitly recognized, the new government performs its functions, its usurpations are endorsed, its general, Henriot, keeps command of the entire armed force, and all its dictatorial measures are carried out without let or hindrance.—There is another reason why they should be maintained and aggravated. "Your victory is only half-won," writes Hébert in his Père Duchesne, "all those bastards of intriguers still live!"—On the evening of the 31st of May the Commune issues warrants of arrest against the ministers Clavière and Lebrun, and against Roland and his wife. That same evening and throughout the following day and night, and again the day after, the Committees of Supervision of the forty-eight sections, according to instructions from the Hôtel-de-ville34148 study the lists of their quarters,34149 add new names to these, and send commissaries to disarm and arrest the suspected. Whoever has spoken against revolutionary committees, or disapproved of the assaults of the 31st of May, or not openly shown himself on the 10th of August, or voted on the wrong side in the old Legislative Assembly, might be arrested. It is a general, simultaneous raid; in all the streets we see nothing but people seized and under escort sent to prison, or put before the section committee. "Anti-patriotic" journalists are arrested first of all, the entire impression of their journals being additionally confiscated, and the journal suppressed; the printing-rooms of Gorsas are sacked, seals placed on his presses,34150 and Prudhomme himself is locked up. All resistance is overcome in the Contrat-Social, Fraternity, Marais and Marseilles sections, leaving the Commune free, as far as the street is concerned, to recommence its attack on the Convention. "Lists of sans-culottes workmen" have been drawn up in each section, and six francs a head is allowed them, payable by the Convention, as indemnity for their temporary suspension from work;34151 this is a premium offered to voters, and as nothing is more potent than cash in hand, Pache provides the funds by diverting 150,000 francs intended for the colonists in San Domingo; the whole day on the 2nd of June, trusted men go about among the ranks distributing five-franc assignats.34152 Vehicles loaded with supplies accompany each battalion, the better to keep the men under arms;34153 the stomach needs filling up, and a pint of wine is excellent for strengthening patriotic sentiment. Henriot has ordered back from Courbevoie the battalions of volunteers which a few days before had been enlisted for La Vendée,34154 crooked adventurers and looters, later known as "the heroes of the 500 francs." Besides these he has under his thumb Rosenthal's hussars, a body of German veterans who do not understand French, and will remain deaf to any legal summons. Finally, he surrounds the Convention with a circle of picked sans-culottes, especially the artillerists, the best of Jacobins,34155 who drag along with them the most formidable park of artillery, 163 cannons, with grates and charcoal to heat the balls. The Tuileries is thus encircled by bands of roughs and fanatics; the National Guard, five or six times as many,34156 brought out "to give an appearance of a popular movement to the proceedings of five or six thousand bandits," cannot come to the aid of the Convention, it being stationed out of reach, beyond the Pont Tournant, which is raised, and behind the wooden fence separating the Carrousel from the palace. Kept in its position by its orders, merely serving as a stationary piece of scenery, employed against itself unbeknown to itself,34157 it can do no more than let the factionists act who serve as its advanced guard.—Early in the morning the vestibules, stairs and passages in the hall of the convention have been invaded by the frequenters of the galleries and the women under pay. The commandant of the post, with his officers, have been confined by "men with moustaches," armed with sabers and pistols; the legal guard has been replaced with an extraordinary guard,34158 and the deputies are prisoners. If one of them is obliged to go out for a moment, it is under the supervision of four fusiliers, "who conduct him, wait for him, and bring him back."34159 Others, in trying to look out the windows, are aimed at; the venerable Dussaulx is struck, and Boissy d'Anglas, seized by the throat, returns with his cravat and shirt all in shreds. For six hours by the clock the Convention is under arrest, and when the decree is passed, ordering the removal of the armed force bearing upon it, Henriot replies to the officer who notifies him of it: "Tell your damned president that he and his Assembly may go to hell. If he don't surrender the Twenty-two in an hour, I'll send him there!"34160
In the hall the majority, abandoned by its recognized guides and its favorite spokesmen, grows more and more feeble from hour to hour. Brissot, Pétion, Guadet, Gensonné, Buzot, Salle, Grangeneuve, and others, two-thirds of the Twenty-two, kept away by their friends, remain at home.34161 Vergniaud, who had come, remains silent, and then leaves; the "Mountain," probably, gaining by his absence, allows him to pass out. Four other Girondists who remain in the Assembly to the end, Isnard, Dussaulx, Lauthenas, and Fauchet, consent to resign; when the generals give up their swords, the soldiers soon lay down their arms. Lanjuinais, alone, who is not a Girondist, but a Catholic and Breton, speaks like a man against this outrageous attack on the nation's representatives They rush at him and assail him in the tribune; the butcher, Legendre, simulating "the cleaver's blow," cries out to him, "Come down or I'll knock you down! A group of Montagnards spring forward to help Legendre, and one of them claps a pistol to his throat;34162 he clings fast to the tribune and strives in vain, for his party around him are losing courage.—At this moment Barrère, remarkable for expedients, proposes to the Convention to adjourn, and hold the session "amidst the armed force that will afford it protection."34163 All other things failing, the majority avails itself of this last straw. It rises in a body, in spite of the vociferations in the galleries, descends the great staircase, and proceeds to the entrance of the Carrousel. There the Montagnard president, Hérault-Séchelles, reads the decree of Henriot, which enjoins him to withdraw, and he officially and correctly summons him in the usual way. But a large number of the Montagnards have followed the majority, and are there to encourage the insurrection; Danton takes Henriot's hand and tells him, in a low voice, "Go ahead, don't be afraid; we want to show that the Assembly is free, be firm."34164 At this the tall bedizened gawky recovers his assurance, and in his husky voice, he addresses the president: "Hérault, the people have not come here to listen to big words. You are a good patriot... Do you promise on your head that the Twenty-two shall be given up in twenty-four hours?"—"No."—"Then, in that case, I am not responsible. To arms, cannoneers, make your guns ready!" The cannoneers take their lighted matches, "the cavalry draw their sabers, and the infantry aim at the deputies."34165 Forced back on this side, the unhappy Convention turns to the left, passes through the archway, follows the broad avenue through the garden, and advances to the Pont-Tournant to find an outlet. There is no outlet; the bridge is raised, and everywhere the barrier of pikes and bayonets remains impenetrable; shouts of "Vive la Montagne! vive Marat! To the guillotine with Brissot, Vergniaud, Guadet and Gensonné! Away with bad blood!" greet the deputies on all sides, and the Convention, similar to a flock of sheep, in vain turns round and round in its pen. At this moment, to get them back into the fold, Marat, like a barking dog, runs up as fast as his short legs will allow, followed by his troop of tatterdemalions, and exclaims: "Let all loyal deputies return to their posts!" With bowed heads, they mechanically return to the hall; it is immediately closed, and they are once more in confinement. To assist them in their deliberations a crowd of the well-disposed entered pell-mell along with them. To watch them and hurry on the matter, the sans-culottes, with fixed bayonets, gesticulate and threaten them from the galleries. Outside and inside, necessity, with its iron hand, has seized them and holds them fast. There is a dead silence. Couthon, a paralytic, tries to stand up; his friends carry him in their arms to the tribune; an intimate friend of Robespierre's, he is a grave and important personage; he sits down, and in his mild tone of voice, he speaks: "Citizens, all members of the Convention must now be satisfied of their freedom.... You are now aware that there is no restraint on your deliberations."34166
The comedy is at an end. Even in Molière there is none like it. The sentimental cripple in the tribune winds up by demanding that the Twenty-two, the Twelve, and the Ministers, Clavière and Lebrun be placed in arrest. Nobody opposes the motion,34167 "because physical necessities begin to be felt, and an impression of terror pervades the Assembly." Several say to themselves, "Well, after all, those who are proscribed will be as well off at home, where they will be safe.... It is better to put up with a lesser evil than encounter a greater one." Another exclaims: "It is better not to vote than to betray one's trust." The salvo being found, all consciences are easy. Two-thirds of the Assembly declare that they will no longer take part in the discussions, hold aloof; and remain in their seats at each calling of the vote. With the exception of about fifty members of the "Right," who rise on the side of the Girondists, the "Mountain," whose forces are increased by the insurgents and amateurs sitting fraternally in its midst, alone votes for, and finally passes the decree.—Now that the Convention has mutilated itself; it is check-mated, and is about to become a governing machine in the service of a clique; the Jacobin conquest is completed, and in the hands of the victors, the grand operations of the guillotine are going to commence.
Let us observe them at this decisive moment. I doubt if any such contrast ever presented itself in any country or in any age.—Through a series of purifications in an inverse sense, the faction has become reduced to its dregs; nothing remains of the vast surging wave of 1789 but its froth and its slime; the rest has been cast off or has withdrawn to one side; at first the highest class, the clergy, the nobles, and the parliamentarians; next the middle class of traders, manufacturers, and the bourgeois; and finally the best of the inferior class, small proprietors, farmers,34168 and master-workmen—in short, the prominent in every pursuit, profession, state, or occupation, whoever possesses capital, a revenue, an establishment, respectability, public esteem, education and mental and moral culture. The party in June, 1793, is composed of little more than unreliable workmen, town and country vagabonds, the habitués of hospices34169, sluts of the gutter, degraded and dangerous persons,34170 the déclassé, the corrupt, the perverted, the maniacs of all sorts. In Paris, from which they command the rest of France, their troop, an insignificant minority, is recruited from that refuse of humanity infesting all capitals, amongst the epileptic and scrofulous rabble which, heirs of vitiated blood and, further degrading this by its misconduct, introduces into civilization the degeneracy, imbecility, and infatuations of shattered temperaments, retrograde instincts, and deformed brains.34171 What it did with the powers of the State is narrated by three or four contemporary witnesses; we see it face to face, in itself, and in its chiefs, we contemplate the true nature of the men of action and of enterprise who have led the last attack and who represent it the best.
Since the 2nd of June "nearly one-half of the deputies in the Convention refrain from taking any part in its deliberations; more than one hundred and fifty have even fled or disappeared34172"; the silent, the fugitives, the incarcerated, and the convicted, all this has been accomplished by the party. On the evening of June 2nd its bosom friend, its conscience, the filthy monstrosity, charlatan, monomaniac and murderer, who regularly every morning, effuses his political poison into its bosom, Marat, has at last obtained the discretionary powers craved by him for the last four years, that of Marius and Sylla, that of Octavius, Antony, and Lepidus; the power of adding or removing names from lists of proscription:
"while the reading was going on he indicated cancellations or additions, the secretary effacing or adding names as he suggested them, without any consultation whatever with the Assembly."34173
At the Hôtel-de-ville on the 3rd of June, in the Salle de la Reine, Pétion and Guadet, under arrest, see with their own eyes this Central Committee which has just started the insurrection, and which through its singular delegation sits enthroned over all other established authorities.
"They were snoring,34174 some stretched out on the benches and others leaning on the tables with their elbows, some were barefoot others were wearing their shoes slipshod like slippers; almost all were dirty and poorly clad; their clothes were unbuttoned, their hair uncombed, and their faces frightful; they wore pistols in their belts, and sabers, with scarves turned into shoulder-straps. Bottles, bits of bread, fragments of meat and bones lay strewn around on the floor, and smell was rotten."
It looks like a tapestry of a middle age battle field. The chief of the band here is not Chaumette, who has legal qualms,34175 nor Pache, who cunningly tacks under his mask of Swiss phlegm, but Hébert, another Marat, yet more brutal and depraved, and who profits by the opportunity to "put more coal into the furnace of his Père Duchesne," striking off 600,000 copies of it, pocketing 135,000 francs for the numbers sent to the armies, and gaining seventy-five per cent on the contract.34176—In the street the active body of supporters consists of two bands, one military and other civil, the former composed of roughs who are soon to furnish the revolutionary army. "This army,34177 considered to be a recent institution, has actually existed since 1789. The agents of the Duke of Orleans formed its first nucleus. It grew, became organized, had officers appointed to it, mustering points, orders of the day, and a peculiar slang.... All the revolutions were carried out by its aid; it gave impetus to popular violence wherever it did not appear en masse. On the 12th of July, 1789, it had Necker's bust carried in public and the theaters closed; on the 5th of October it started the populace off to Versailles; on the 20th of April, 1791, it caused the king's arrest in the court of the Tuileries... Led by Westermann and Fournier, it formed the central battalion in the attack of August 10, 1792; it carried out the September massacres; it protected the Maratists on the 31st of May, 1793,... its composition is in keeping with its exploits and its functions. It contains the most determined scoundrels, the brigands of Avignon, the scum of Marseilles, Brabant, Liège, Switzerland and the shores of Genoa." Through a careful sifting,34178 it is to be inspected, strengthened, aggravated, and converted into a legal body of Janissaries on triple pay; once "enlarged with idle hairdressers, unemployed lackeys, designers of mad schemes, and other scoundrels unable to earn their keep in an honest manner," it will supply the detachments needed for garrison at Bordeaux, Lyons, Dijon and Nantes, still leaving "ten thousand of these Mamelukes to keep down the capital."
The civilian body of supporters comprises, first, those who haunt the sections, and are about to receive 40 sous for attending each meeting; next; the troop of figure-heads who, in other public places, are to represent the people, about 1,000 bawlers and claqueurs, "two-thirds of which are women." "While I was free," says Beaulieu,34179 "I closely observed their movements. It was a magic-lantern constantly in operation. They traveled to and from the Convention to the Revolutionary Tribunal, and from this to the Jacobin Club, or to the Commune, which held its meetings in the evening.... They scarcely took time for their natural requirements; they were often seen dining and supping at their posts when some action or an important murder was in the offing. Henriot, the commander-in-chief of both hordes, was at one time a swindler, then a police-informer, then imprisoned at Bicêtre for robbery, and then one of the September murderers. His military bearing and popularity are due to parading the streets in the uniform of a general, and appearing in humbug performances; he is the type of a swaggerer, always drunk or soaked with brandy. A blockhead, with a beery voice, blinking eyes, and a face distorted by nervous twitching, he possesses all the external characteristics of his employment. In talking, he vociferates like men with the scurvy; his voice is sepulchral, and when he stops talking his features come to rest only after repeated agitations; he blinks three times, after which his face recovers its equilibrium."34180
Marat, Hébert, and Henriot, the maniac, the thief and the brute. Were it not for the dagger of Charlotte Corday,34181 it is probable that this trio, master of the press and of the armed force, aided by Jacques Roux, Leclerc, Vincent, Ronsin, and other madmen of the slums, would have put aside Danton, suppressed Robespierre, and governed France. Such are the counselors, the favorites, and the leaders of the ruling revolutionary class; did one not know what was to occur during the next fourteen months, one might form an idea of its government from the quality of these men.
And yet, such as this government is, France accepts or submits to it. In fact, Lyons, Marseilles, Toulon, Nîmes, Bordeaux, Caen, and other cities, feeling the knife at their throats,34182 turn aside the stroke with a movement of horror. They rise against their local Jacobins; but it is nothing more than an instinctive movement. They do not think of forming States within the State, as the "Mountain" pretends that they do, nor of usurping the central authority, as the "Mountain" actually does. Lyons cries, "Long live the Republic, one and indivisible," receives with honor the commissioners of the Convention, permits convoys of arms and horses destined for the army of the Alps to pass. To excite a revolt there, requires the insane demands of Parisian despotism just as it requires the brutal persistence of religious persecution to render the province of la Vendée insurgent. Without the prolonged oppression that weighs down consciences, and the danger to life always imminent, no city or province would have attempted secession. Even under this government of inquisitors and butchers no community, save those of Lyons and La Vendée, makes any sustained effort to break up the State, withdraw from it and live by itself. The national sheaf has been too strongly bound together by secular centralization. One's country exists; and when that country is in danger, when the armed stranger attacks the frontier, one follows the flag-bearer, whoever he may be, whether usurper, adventurer, blackguard, or cut-throat, provided only that he marches in the van and holds the banner with a firm hand.34183 To tear that flag from him, to contest his pretended right, to expel him and replace him by another, would be a complete destruction of the common weal. Brave men sacrifice their own repugnance for the sake of the common good; in order to serve France, they serve her unworthy government. In the committee of war, the engineering and staff officers who give their days to the study of military maps, think of nothing else than of knowing it thoroughly; one of them, d'Arcon, "managed the raising of the siege of Dunkirk, and of the blockade of Maubeuge;34184 nobody excels him in penetration, in practical knowledge, in quick perception and in imagination; it is a spirit of flame, a brain compact of resources. I speak of him, says Mallet du Pan, "from an intimate acquaintance of ten years. He is no more a revolutionnaire than I am." Carnot34185 does even more than this: he gives up his honor when, with his colleagues on the Committee of Public Safety, Billaud-Varennes, Couthon, Saint-Just, Robespierre, he puts his name to decrees which are assassinations. A similar devotion brings recruits into the armies by hundreds of thousands, bourgeois34186 and peasants, from the volunteers of 1791 to the levies of 1793; and the latter class fight not only for France, but also, and more than all, for the Revolution. For, now that the sword is drawn, the mutual and growing exasperation leaves only the extreme parties in the field. Since the 10th of August, and more especially since the 21st of January, it has no longer been a question how to deal with the ancient regime, of cutting away its dead portions or its troublesome thorns, of accommodating it to modern requirements, of establishing civil equality, a limited monarchy, a parliamentary government. The question is how to escape conquest by armed force to avert the military executions of Brunswick,34187 the vengeance of the proscribed émigrés, the restoration and the aggravation of the old feudal and fiscal order of things. Both through their traditions and their experience, the mass of the country people hate this ancient order, and with all the accumulated hatred which an unceasing and secular spoliation has caused. Irrespective of costs, the rural masses will never again suffer the tax-collector among them, nor the excise man in the cellar, nor the fiscal agent on the frontier. For them the ancient regime is nothing more than these things; and, in fact, they have paid no taxes, or scarcely any, since the beginning of the Revolution. On this matter the people's idea is fixed, positive, unalterable; and as soon as they perceive in the distant future the possible re-establishment of the taille, the tithe, and the seignorial rights, they choose their side; they will fight to the death.—As to the artisans and lesser bourgeois, their spur is the magnificent prospect of careers, to which the doors are thrown open, of unbounded advancement, of promotion offered to merit; more than all, their illusions are still intact.
Camped out there, facing the enemy, those noble ideals, which in the hands of the Parisian demagogues had turned into sanguinary harlots, remain pure and virginal in the minds of the soldiers and their officers. Liberty, equality, the rights of man, the reign of reason—all these vague and sublime images moved before their eyes when they climbed the escarpment of Jemmapes under a storm of grapeshot, or when they wintered, with naked feet, among the snows of the Vosges. These ideas, in descending from heaven to earth, were not dishonored and distorted under their feet, they did not see them transformed in their hands to frightful caricatures. These men are not pillars of clubs, nor brawlers in the sections, nor the inquisitors of a committee, nor hired informers, nor providers for the scaffold. Apart from the sabbath revolutionaire, brought back to earth by their danger, and having understood the inequality of talents and the need for discipline, they do the work of men; they suffer, they fast, they face bullets, they are conscious of their generosity and their sacrifices; they are heroes, and they look upon themselves as liberators.34188 They are proud of this. According to an astute observer34189 who knew their survivors,
"many of them believed that the French alone were reasonable beings. .. In our eyes the people in the rest of Europe, who were fighting to keep their chains, were only pitiable imbeciles or knaves sold to the despots who were attacking us. Pitt and Cobourg seemed to us the chiefs of these knaves and the personification of all the treachery and stupidity in the world... In 1794 our inmost, serious sentiment was wholly contained in this idea: to be useful to our country; all other things, our clothes, our food, advancement, were poor ephemeral details. As society did not exist, there was no such thing for us as social success, that leading element in the character of our nation. Our only gatherings were national festivals, moving ceremonies which nourished in us the love of our country. In the streets our eyes filled with tears when we saw an inscription in honor of the young drummer, Barra... This sentiment was the only religion we had."34190
But it was a religion. When the heart of a nation is so high it will deliver itself, in spite of its rulers, whatever their excesses may be, whatever their crimes; for the nation atones for their follies by its courage; it hides their crimes beneath its great achievements.
3401 (return)
[ "Archives
Nationales," AF II, 45, May 6, 1793 (in English).]
3402 (return)
[ Moore, II. 185
(October 20). "It is evident that all the departments of France are in
theory allowed to have an equal share in the government; yet in fact the
single department of Paris has the whole power of the government." Through
the pressure of the mob Paris makes the law for the Convention and for all
France.—Ibid., II. 534 (during the king's trial). "All the
departments of France, including that of Paris, are in reality often
obliged to submit to the clamorous tyranny of a set of hired ruffians in
the tribunes who usurp the name and functions of the sovereign people,
and, secretly direct by a few demagogues, govern this unhappy nation." Cf.
Ibid., II. (Nov. 13).]
3403 (return)
[ Schmidt, I. 96.
Letter of Lauchou to the president of the Convention, Oct. 11, 1792: "The
section of 1792 on its own authority decreed on the 5th of this month that
all persons in a menial service could be allowed to vote in our primary
assemblies... It would be well for the National Convention to convince the
inhabitants of Paris that they alone do not constitute the entire
republic. However absurd this idea may be, it is gaining ground every
day."—Ibid., Letter of Damour, vice-president of the Pantheon
section, Oct. 29: "The citizen Paris... has said that when the law is in
conflict with general opinion no attention must be paid to it... These
disturbers of the public peace who desire to monopolize all places, either
in the municipality or elsewhere, are themselves the cause of the greatest
tumult."]
3404 (return)
[ Schmidt, I. 223
(report by Dutard, May 14).]
3405 (return)
[ Mortimer-Ternaux, VI.
117; VII. 59 (balloting of Dec. 2 and 4). In most of these and the
following elections the number of voters is but one-twentieth of those
registered. Chaumette is elected in his section by 53 votes; Hébert by 56;
Gency, a master-cooper, by 34; Lechenard, a tailor, by 39; Douce, a
building-hand, by 24.—Pache is elected mayor Feb. 15, 1793, by
11,881 votes, out of 160,000 registered.]
3406 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XVII.
101. (Decree of Aug. 19, 1792).—Mortimer-Ternaux, IV. 223.—Beaulieu,
"Essais," III. 454. "The National Guard ceased to exist after the 10th of
August."—Buzot, 454.—Schmidt, I. 533 (Dutard, May 29). "It is
certain that the armed forces of Paris is nonexistent."]
3407 (return)
[ Beaulieu, Ibid., IV.
6.—"Archives Nationales," F7, 3249 (Oise).—Letters of the Oise
administrators, Aug. 24, Sept. 12 and 20, 1792. Letters of the
administrators of the district of Clermont, Sept. 14, etc.]
3408 (return)
[ Cf. above, ch.
IX.-"Archives Nationales," F7, 3249. Letter of the administrators of the
district of Senlis, Oct. 31, 1792. Two of the administrators of the Senlis
hospital were arrested by Paris commissaries and conducted "before the
pretended Committee of Public Safety in Paris, with all that they
possessed in money, jewels, and assignats." The same commissaries carry
off two of the hospital sisters of charity, with all the silver plate in
the establishment; the sisters are released, but the plate is not
returned.—Buchez et Roux, XXVI. 209 (Patriote Français). Session of
April 30, 1793, the final report of the commission appointed to examine
the accounts of the old Committee of Supervision: "Panis and Sergent are
convicted of breaking seals."... "67,580 francs found in Septenil's
domicile have disappeared, as well as many articles of value."]
3409 (return)
[ Schmidt, I, 270.]
3410 (return)
[ Mortimer-Ternaux, IV.
221 to 229, 242 to 260; VI. 43 to 52.]
3411 (return)
[ De Sybel, "Histoire
de l'Europe pendant la Révolution Française," II 76.—Madame Roland,
II.152. "It was not only impossible to make out the accounts, but to
imagine where 130,000,000 had gone... The day he was dismissed he made
sixty appointments,... from his son-in-law, who, a vicar, was made a
director at 19,000 francs salary, to his hair-dresser, a young scapegrace
of nineteen, whom he makes a commissary of war".. "It was proved that he
paid in full regiments that were actually reduced to a few men.—Meillan,
20. "The faction became the master of Paris through hired brigands, aided
by the millions placed at its disposition by the municipality, under the
pretext of ensuring supplies."]
3412 (return)
[ See in the "Memoirs
of Mme. Elliot," the particulars of this vote.—Beaulieu, I.445. "I
saw a placard signed by Marat posted on the corners of the streets,
stating that he had demanded 15,000 francs of the Duke of Orleans as
compensation for what he had done for him. Gouverneur Morris, I. 260
(Letter of Dec. 21, 1792). The galleries force the Convention to revoke
its decree against the expulsion of the Bourbons.—On the 22nd of
December the sections present a petition in the same sense, while there is
a sort of riot in the suburbs in favor of Philippe-Egalité.]
3413 (return)
[ Schmidt, I. 246
(Dutard, May 13). "The Convention cannot count in all Paris thirty persons
ready to side with them.]
3414 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XXV.
463. On the call of the houses, April 13, 1793, ninety-two deputies vote
for Marat.]
3415 (return)
[ Prudhomme, "Crimes de
la Révolution," V. 133. Conversation with Danton, December, 1792.—De
Barante, III.123. The same conversation, probably after another verbal
tradition.—I am obliged to substitute less coarse terms for those of
the quotation.]
3416 (return)
[ He is the first
speaker on the part of the "Mountain" in the king's trial, and at once
becomes president of the Jacobin Club. His speech against Louis XVI. is
significant. "Louis is another Catiline." He should be executed, first as
traitor taken in the act, and next as king; that is to say, as a natural
enemy and wild beast taken in a net.]
3417 (return)
[ Vatel, "Charlotte
Corday and the Girondists," I. preface, CXLI. (with all the documents, the
letters of Madame de Saint-Just, the examination on the 6th of October,
1786, etc.) The articles stolen consisted of six pieces of plate, a fine
ring, gold-mounted pistols, packets of silver lace, etc.—The youth
declares that he is "about to enter the Comte d'Artois' regiment of guards
until he is old enough to enter the king's guards." He also had an idea of
entering the Oratoire.]
3418 (return)
[ Cf. his speech
against the king, his report on Danton, on the Girondists, etc. If the
reader would comprehend Saint-Just's character he has only to read his
letter to d'Aubigny, July 20, 1792: "Since I came here I am consumed with
a republican fury, which is wasting me away... It is unfortunate that I
cannot remain in Paris. I feel something within me which tells me that I
shall float on the waves of this century... You dastards, you have not
appreciated me! My renown will yet blaze forth and cast yours in the
shade. Wretches that you are, you call me a thief, a villain, because I
can give you no money. Tear my heart out of my body and eat it, and you
will become what you are not now—great!"]
3419 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XXIV.
296, 363; XXV. 323; XXVII. 144, 145.—Moniteur, XIV 80 (terms
employed by Danton, David, Legendre, and Marat).]
3420 (return)
[ Moniteur, XV. 74.—Buchez
et Roux, XXVII. 254, 257, sessions of Jan. 6 and May 27.]
3421 (return)
[ Moniteur, XIV. 851.
(Session of Dec.26, 1792. Speech by Julien.)]
3422 (return)
[ Moniteur, XIV. 768
(session of Dec. 16). The president says: "I have called Calon to order
three times, and three times has he resisted. "—Vergnieud declares
that "The majority of the Assembly is under the yoke of a seditious
minority."—Ibid, XIV. 851, 853, 865 (session of Dec. 26 and 27).—Buchez
et Roux, XXV. 396 (session of April 11.)]
3423 (return)
[ Louvet, 72]
3424 (return)
[ Meillan, 24: "We were
for some time all armed with sabres, pistols, and blunderbusses."—Moore,
II. 235 (October, 1792). A number of deputies already at this date carried
sword canes and pocket-pistols.]
3425 (return)
[ Dauban, "La Demagogie
en 1793," p.101. Description of the hall by Prudhomme, with illustrations.—Ibid.,
199. Letter of Brissot to his constituents: "The brigands and the
bacchantes have found their way into the new hall.—According to
Prudhomme the galleries hold 1,400 persons in all, and according to
Dulaure, 20,000 or 3,000.]
3426 (return)
[ Moore, I.44 (Oct.
10), and II. 534.]
3427 (return)
[ Moniteur. XIV. 795.
Speech by Lanjuinais, Dec. 19, 1792.]
3428 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XX.
5, 396. Speech by Duperret, session of April 11, 1793.]
3429 (return)
[ Dauban, 143. Letter
of Valazé, April 14.—Cf. Moniteur, XIV. 746, session of Dec. 14.—Ibid.,
800, session of Dec. 20.—Ibid., 853, session of Dec. 26.]
3430 (return)
[ Speech by Salles.—Lanjuinais
also says: "One seems to deliberate here in a free Convention; but it is
only under the dagger and cannon of the factions."—Moniteur. XV.
180, session of Jan. 16. Speech by N—, deputy, its delivery insisted
on by Charles Vilette.]
3431 (return)
[ Meillan, 24-32
"Archives Nationales," AF, II.45. Police reports, May 16, 18, 19. "There
is fear of a bloody scene the first day."—Buchez et Roux, XXVII.
125. Report of Gamon inspector of the Convention hall.]
3433 (return)
[ Moniteur, XIV. 362
(Nov. 1, 1792).—Ibid., 387, session of Nov. 4. Speech by Royer and
Gorsas.-Ibid., 382. Letter by Roland, Nov. 5.]
3434 (return)
[ Moniteur, XIV. 699.
Letter of Roland, Nov. 28.]
3435 (return)
[ Moniteur, XIV. 697,
number for Dec. 11.]
3436 (return)
[ Moniteur, XV. 180,
session of Jan. 16. Speech by Lehardy, Hugues, and Thibaut.—Meillan,
14: "A line of separation between the two sides of the Assembly was then
traced. Several deputies which the faction wished to put out of the way
had voted for death (of the king). Almost all of these were down on the
list of those in favor of the appeal to the people, which was the basis
preferred. We were then known as appellants."]
3437 (return)
[ Moniteur, XV. 8.
Speech by Rabaut-Saint-Ètienne.—Buchez et Roux, XXIII 24.
Mortimer-Ternaux, V. 418.—Moniteur, XV.180, session of Jan. 16.—Buchez
et Roux, XXIV. 292.—Moniteur, XV. 182. Letter of the mayor of Paris,
Jan. 16.—Ibid., 179. Letter of Roland, Jan. 16.—Buchez et
Roux, XXIV. 448. Report by Santerre.]
3438 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XXV.
23 to 26.—Mortimer-Ternaux, VI. 184 (Manifesto of the central
committee, March 9, 2 o'clock in the morning).-Ibid. 193. Narrative of
Fournier at the bar of the Convention, March 12.—Report of the mayor
of Paris, March 10.—Report of the Minister of Justice, March 13.—Meillan,
24.—Louvet, 72, 74.]
3439 (return)
[ Pétion, "Mémoires,"
106 (Ed. Dauban): "How many times I heard, 'You rascal, we'll have your
head!' And I have no doubt that they often planned my assassination."]
3440 (return)
[ Taillandier,
"Documents biographiques," on Daunou (Narrative by Daunou), p. 38.—Doulcet
de Pontécoulant, "Mémoires," I. 139: "It was then that the 'Mountain' used
all the means of intimidation it knew so well how to bring into play,
filling the galleries with its satellites, who shouted out to each other
the name of each deputy as he stepped up to the president's table to give
his vote, and yelling savagely at every one who did not vote for immediate
and unconditional death.—Carnot, "Mémoires," I.293. Carnot voted for
the death of the king; yet afterward he avowed that "Louis XVI. would have
been saved, if the Convention had not held its deliberations under the
dagger."]
3441 (return)
[ Durand-Maillane, 35,
38, 57.]
3442 (return)
[ An expression by
Dussaulx, in his "Fragments pour servir à l'histoire de la Convention."]
3443 (return)
[ Madame Roland,
"Mémoires," ed. Barrière et Berville, II. 52.—(Note by Roland.)]
3444 (return)
[ Moniteur, XV, 187.
Cambacérès votes: "Louis has incurred the penalties established in the
penal code against conspirators... The execution to be postponed until
hostilities cease. In case of invasion of the French territory by the
enemies of the republic, the decree to be enforced."—On Barrère, see
Macaulay's crushing article in "Biographical Essays."]
3445 (return)
[ Sainte-Beuve,
"Causeries du Lundi," V. 209. ("Sièyes," according to his unpublished
manuscripts.)]
3446 (return)
[ Madame Roland, II.56.
Note by Roland.]
3447 (return)
[ Mortimer-Ternaux, V.
476.]
3448 (return)
[ Mortimer-Ternaux, V.
513.]
3449 (return)
[ Comte de Ségur,
"Mémoires." I. 13.]
3450 (return)
[ Harmand de la Meuse
(member of the Convention), "Anecdotes relative à la Révolution," 83, 85.]
3451 (return)
[ Meissner, 148,
"Voyage à Paris" (last months of 1795). Testimony of the regicide
Audrein.]
3452 (return)
[ Louvet, 775.]
3453 (return)
[ Meillan, 16.]
3454 (return)
[ Remark by M. Guirot
("Mémoires"), II. 73.]
3455 (return)
[ Moniteur, XIV. 432,
session of Nov. 10, 1792. Speech by Cambon: "That is the reason why I
shall always detest the 2nd of September; for never will I approve of
assassinations." In the same speech he justifies the Girondists against
any reproach of federalism.]
3456 (return)
[ "Le Maréchal
Davoust," by Madame de Bocqueville. Letter of Davoust, battalion officer,
June 2, 1793: "We are animated with the spirit of Lepelletier, which is
all that need be said with respect to our opinions and what we will do in
the coming crisis, in which, perhaps, a faction will try to plunge us anew
into a civil war between the departments and Paris. Perfidious
eloquence... conservative Tartufes."]
3457 (return)
[ Moniteur, XIV. 738.
Report by Cambon, Dec. 15. "On the way French generals are to act in
countries occupied by the armies of the republic." This important document
is a true manifesto of the Revolution.—Buchez et Roux, XXVII 140,
session of May 20, and XXVI. 177, session of April 27, speech by Cambon:
"The department of Hérault says to this or that individual: 'You are rich;
your opinions cause us expenditure.. I mean to fix you to the Revolution
in spite of yourself. You shall lend your fortune to the republic, and
when liberty is established the republic will return your capital to you.—"I
should like, then, following the example of the department of Hérault,
that the Convention should organize a civic loan of one billion, to be
supplied by egoists and the indifferent.—Decree of May 20, "passed
almost unanimously. A forced loan of one billion shall be made on wealthy
citizens."]