The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3: The French Revolution, Volume 2 by Hippolyte A. Taine

     Its alarms and fury.—The second revolutionary outburst and
     its characteristics.—Alliance of the Girondists with the
     mob.—The red cap and pikes.—Universal substitution of
     government by force for government by law.

Just the contrary with war; the aspect of things changes, and the alternative is the other way. It is no longer a choice between order and disorder, but between the new and the old regime, for, behind foreign opponents on the frontier, there stand the émigrés. The commotion is terrible, especially amongst the lower classes which mainly bore the whole weight of the old establishment; among the millions who live by the sweat of their brow, artisans, small farmers, métayers, day-laborers and soldiers, also the smugglers of salt and other articles, poachers, vagabonds, beggars and half-beggars, who, taxed, plundered, and harshly treated for centuries, have to endure, from father to son, poverty, oppression and disdain. They know through their own experience the difference between their late and their present condition. They have only to fall back on personal knowledge to revive in their imaginations the enormous royal, ecclesiastical, and seignorial taxes, the direct tax of eighty-one per cent., the bailiffs in charge, the seizures and the husbandry service, the inquisition of excise men, of inspectors of the salt tax, wine tax (rats de cave) and game-keepers, the ravages of wild birds and of pigeons, the extortions of the collector and his clerk, the delay and partiality in obtaining justice, the rashness and brutality of the police, the kicks and cuffs of the constabulary, the poor wretches gathered like heaps of dirt and filth, the promiscuousness, the over-crowding, the filth and the starvation of the prisons.2377 They have simply to open their eyes to see their immense deliverance; all direct or indirect taxes for the past two years legally abolished or practically suppressed, beer at two pennies a pot, wine at six, pigeons in their meat-safes, game on their turn-spits, the wood of the national forests in their lofts, the gendarmerie timid, the police absent, in many places the crops all theirs, the owner not daring to claim his share, the judge avoiding condemning them, the constable refusing to serve papers on them, privileges restored in their favor, the public authorities cringing to the crowds and yielding to their exactions, remaining quiet or unarmed in the face of their misdeeds, their outrages excused or tolerated, their superior good sense and deep feeling lauded in thousands of speeches, the jacket and the blouse considered as symbols of patriotism, and supremacy in the State claimed for the sans-culottes2378 in the name their merits and their virtues.—And now the overthrow of all this is announced to them, a league against them of foreign kings, the emigrants in arms, an invasion imminent, the Croats and Pandours in the field, hordes of mercenaries and barbarians crowding down on them again to put them in chains.—From the workshop to the cottage there rolls along a formidable outburst of anger, accompanied with national songs, denouncing the plots of tyrants and summoning the people to arms.2379 This is the second wave of the Revolution, fast swelling and roaring, less general than the first, since it bears along with it but little more than the lower class, but higher and much more destructive.

Not only, indeed, is the mass now launched forth coarse and crude, but a new sentiment animates it, the force of which is incalculable, that of plebeian pride, that of the poor man, the subject, who, suddenly erect after ages of debasement, relishes, far beyond his hopes and unstintedly, the delights of equality, independence, and dominion. "Fifteen millions white Negroes," says Mallet du Pan,2380 worse fed, more miserable than those of St. Domingo, like them rebelled and freed from all authority by their revolt, accustomed like them, through thirty months of license, to ruling over all that is left of their former masters, proud like them of the restoration of their caste and exulting in their horny hands. One may imagine their transports of rage on hearing the trumpet-blast which awakens them, showing them on the horizon the returning planters, bringing with them new whips and heavier manacles?—Nothing is more distrustful than such a sentiment in such breasts—quickly alarmed, ready to strike, ready for any act of violence, blindly credulous, headlong and easily impelled, not merely against real enemies on the outside, but at first against imaginary enemies on the inside,2381 but also against the King, the ministers, the gentry, priests, parliamentarians, orthodox Catholics; against all administrators and magistrates imprudent enough to have appealed to the law; all manufacturers, merchants, and owners of property who condemn disorder;the wealthy whose egotism keeps them at home; all those who are well-off, well-bred and well-dressed.

They are all under suspicion because they have lost by the new regime, or because they have not adopted its ways.—Such is the colossal brute which the Girondins introduce into the political arena.2382 For six months they shake red flags before its eyes, goad it on, work it up into a rage and drive it forward by decrees and proclamations,

* against the whole government to which they impute the anarchy they excite, and the war of which they themselves are the instigators.2383

Thus over-excited and topsy-turvy, the proletariat require only arms and a rallying-point. The Girondins furnish both. Through a striking coincidence, one which shows that the plan was concerted,2384 they start three political engines at the same time. Just at the moment when, through their deliberate saber-rattling, they made war inevitable, they invented popular insignia and armed the poor. At the end of January, 1792, almost during one week, they announced their ultimatum to Austria using a fixed deadline, they adopted the red woolen cap and began the manufacture of pikes.—It is evident that pikes are of no use in the open field against cannon and a regular army; accordingly the are intended for use in the interior and in towns. Let the national-guard who can pay for his uniform, and the active citizen whose three francs of direct tax gives him a privilege, own their guns; the stevedore, the market-porter, the lodger, the passive citizen, whose poverty excludes them from voting must have their pikes, and, in these insurrectionary times, a ballot is not worth a good pike wielded by brawny arms.—The magistrate in his robes may issue any summons he pleases, but it will be rammed down his throat, and, lest he should be in doubt of this he is made to know it beforehand. "The Revolution began with pikes and pikes will finish it."2385 "Ah," say the regulars of the Tuileries gardens, "if the good patriots of the Champs de Mars only had had pikes like these the blue-coats (Lafayette's guards) would not have had such a good hand!"—"They are to be used everywhere, wherever there are enemies of the people, to the Château, if any can be found there!" They will override the veto and make sure that the National Assembly will approve the good laws. To this purpose, the Faubourg St. Antoine volunteers its pikes, and, to mark the use made of them, it complains that "efforts are made to substitute an aristocracy of wealth for the omnipotence of inherited rank." It demands "severe measures against the rascally hypocrites who, with the Constitution in their hands, slaughter the people." It declares that "kings, ministers and a civil list will pass away, but that the rights of man, national sovereignty and pikes will not pass away," and, by order of the president, the National Assembly thanks the petitioners, "for the advice their zeal prompts them to give.

The leaders of the Assembly and the people armed with pikes unite against the rich, against Constitutionalists, against the government, and henceforth, the Jacobin extremists march side by side with the Girondins, both reconciled for the attack but reserved their right to disagree until after the victory.

"The object of the Girondists2386 is not a republic in name, but an actual republic through a reduction of the civil lists to five millions, through the curtailment of most of the royal prerogatives, through a change of dynasty of which the new head would be a sort of honorary president of the republic to which they would assign an executive council appointed by the Assembly, that is to say, by themselves." As to the Jacobin extremists we find no principle with them but "that of a rigorous, absolute application of the Rights of Man. With the aid of such a charter they aim at changing the laws and public officers every six months, at extending their leveling process to every constituted authority, to all legal pre-eminence and to property. The only regime they long for is the democracy of a contentious rabble... The vilest instruments, professional agitators, brigands, fanatics, every sort of wretch, the hardened and armed poverty-stricken, who, in wild disorder" march to the attack of property and to "universal pillage" in short, barbarians of town and country "who form their ordinary army and never leave it inactive one single day."—Under their universal, concerted and growing usurpation the substance of power melts wholly away in the hand of the legal authorities; little by little, these are reduced to vain counterfeits, while from one end of France, to the other, long before the final collapse, the party, in the provinces as well as at Paris, substitutes, under the cry of public danger, a government of might for the government of law.

2301 (return)
[ Mercure de France, September 24, 1791.—Cf. Report of M. Alquier (session of Sept. 23).]

2302 (return)
[ Mercure de France, Oct. 15, 1792 (the treaty with England was dated Sep. 26, 1786).—Ibid., Letter of M. Walsh, superior of the Irish college, to the municipality of Paris. Those who use the whips, come out of a neighboring grog-shop. The commissary of police, who arrives with the National Guard, "addresses the people, and promises them satisfaction," requiring M. Walsh to dismiss all who are in the chapel, without waiting for the end of the mass.—M. Walsh refers to the law and to treaties.—The commissary replies that he knows nothing about treaties, while the commandant of the national guard says to those who laving the chapel, "In the name of human justice, I order you to follow me to the church of Saint-Etienne, or I shall abandon you to the people."]

2303 (return)
[ "The French Revolution," Vol. I. pp.261, 263.—"Archives Nationales," F7, 3185 and 3186 (numerous documents on the rural disturbances in Aisne).—Mercure de France, Nov. 5 and 26, Dec. 10, 1791.—Moniteur, X. 426 (Nov.22, 1791).]

2304 (return)
[ Moniteur, X. 449, Nov. 23, 1791. (Official report of the crew of the Ambuscade, dated Sep. 30). The captain, M. d'Orléans, stationed at the Windward Islands, is obliged to return to Rochefort and is detained there on board his ship: "Considering the uncertainty of his mission, and the fear of being ordered to use the same hostilities against brethren for which he is already denounced in every club in the kingdom, the crew has forced the captain to return to France."]

2305 (return)
[ Mercure de France, Dec. 17, address of the colonists to the king.]

2306 (return)
[ Moniteur, XIII. 200. Report of Sautereau, July 20, on the affair of Corporal Lebreton. (Nov. 11, 1791).]

2307 (return)
[ Saint Huruge is first tenor. Justine (Sado-machosistic book by de Sade) makes her appearance in the Palais-Royal about the middle of 1791. They exhibit two pretended savages there, who, before a paying audience, revive the customs of Tahiti. ("Souvenirs of chancelier Pasquier." Ed. Plon, 1893)]

2308 (return)
[ Mercure de France, Nov. 5, 1791.—Buchez et Roux, XII. 338. Report by Pétion, mayor, Dec. 9, 1791. "Every branch of the police is in a state of complete neglect. The streets are dirty, and full of rubbish; robbery, and crimes of every kind, are increasing to a frightful degree." "Correspondance de M. de Staël" (manuscript), Jan. 22, 1792. "As the police is almost worthless, freedom from punishment, added to poverty, brings on disorder."]

2309 (return)
[ Moniteur, XI. 517 (session of Feb. 29, 1792). Speeches by de Lacépède and de Mulot.]

2310 (return)
[ Lacretelle, "Dix ans d'Epreuves." "I know no more dismal and discouraging aspect than the interval between the departure of the National Assembly, on the 10th August consummated by that of September 2."]

2312 (return)
[ Moniteur, XI. 317 (session of Feb. 6, 1792). Speech by M. Cahier, a minister. "Many of the emigrants belong to the class formerly called the Third-Estate. No reason for emigrating, on their part, can be supposed but that of religious anxieties."]

2313 (return)
[ Decree of Nov. 9, 1791. The first decree seems to be aimed only at the armed gatherings on the frontier. We see, however, by the debates, that it affects all emigrants. The decrees of Feb. 9 and March 30, 1792, bear upon all, without exception.—"Correspondance de Mirabeau et du Comte de la Marck," III. 264 (letter by M. Pellenc, Nov. 12, 1791) "The decree (against the emigrants) was prepared in committee; it was expected that the emigrants would return, but there was fear of them. It was feared that the nobles, associated with the unsworn priests in the rural districts, might add strength to a troublesome resistance. The decree, as it was passed, seemed to be the most suitable for keeping the emigrants beyond the frontiers."]

2314 (return)
[ Decree of Feb. 1, 1792.—Moniteur, XI. 412 (session of Feb. 17). Speech by Goupilleau. "Since the decree of the National Assembly on passports, emigrations have redoubled." People evidently escaped from France as from a prison.]

2316 (return)
[ Decree of June 19.—Moniteur, XIII. 331. "In execution of the law... there will be burnt, on Tuesday, August 7, on the Place Vendôme, at 2 o'clock: 1st, 600, more or less, of files of papers, forming the last of genealogical collections, titles and proofs of nobility; 2nd, about 200 files, forming part of a work composed of 263 volumes, on the Order of the Holy Ghost."]

2317 (return)
[ Decree of Nov. 29, 1791. (This decree is not in Duvergier's collection~)—Moniteur, XII. 59, 247 (sessions of April 5 and 28, 1792).]

2318 (return)
[ At the Jacobin Club, Legendre proposes a much a more expeditious measure for getting rid of the priests. "At Brest, he says, boats are found which are called Marie-Salopes, so constructed that, on being loaded with dirt, they go out of the harbor themselves. Let us have a similar arrangement for priests; but, instead of sending them out of the harbor, let us send them out to sea, and, if necessary, let them go down." ("Journal de Amis de la Constitution," number 194, May 15, 1792.)]

2320 (return)
[ Decrees of July 19 and Aug. 4, completed by those of Aug. 16 and 19.]

2321 (return)
[ Moniteur, XII. 59, 61 (session of April 3); X. 374 (session of Nov. 13; XII 230), (session of April 26).—The last sentence quoted was uttered by François de Nantes.]

2325 (return)
[ When I was a child the socialists etc. had substituted aristocracy with capitalists and today, in France, when the capitalists have largely disappeared, a great many evils are caused by the 'patronat'. (SR).]

2327 (return)
[ The words of Brissot (Patriote Français), number 887.—Letter addressed Jan. 5 to the club of Brest, by Messrs. Cavalier and Malassis, deputies to the National Assembly: "As to the matter of the sieur Lajaille, even though we would have taken an interest in him, that decorated aristocrat only deserved what he got... We shall not remain idle until all these traitors, these perjurers, whom we have spared so long, shall be exterminated" (Mercure de France, Feb. 4).—This Jaille affair is one of the most instructive, and the best supported by documents (Mercure de France, Dec.10 and 17).—"Archives Nationales," F7, 3215, official report of the district administrators, and of the municipal officers of Brest, Nov. 27, 1791.—Letter by M. de Marigny, commissary in the navy, at Brest, Nov. 28.—Letters by M. de la Jaille, etc.—M. de la Jaille, sent to Brest to take command of the Dugay-Trouin, arrives there Nov.27. While at dinner, twenty persons enter the room, and announce to him, "in the name of many others," that his presence in Brest is causing trouble, that he must leave, and that "he will not be allowed to take command of a vessel." He replies, that he will leave the town, as soon as he has finished his dinner. Another deputation follows, more numerous than the first one, and insists on his leaving at once; and they act as his escort. He submits, is conducted to the city gates, and there the escort leaves him. A mob attacks him, and "his body is covered with contusions. He is rescued, with great difficulty, by six brave fellows, of whom one is a pork-dealer, sent to bleed him on the spot. "This insurrection is due to an extra meeting of 'The Friends of the constitution,' held the evening before in the theater, to which the public were invited." M. de la Jaille, it must be stated, is not a proud aristocrat, but a sensible man, in the style of Florian's and Berquin's heroes. But just pounded to a jelly, he writes to the president of the "Friends of the Constitution," that, "could he have flown into the bosom of the club, he would have gladly done so, to convey to it his grateful feelings. He had accepted his command only at the solicitation of the Americans in Paris, and of the six commissioners recently arrived from St. Domingo."—Mercure de France, April 14, article by Mallet du Pan "I have asked in vain for the vengeance of the law against the assassins of M. de la Jaille. The names of the authors of this assault in full daylight, to which thousands can bear witness, are known to everybody in Brest. Proceedings have been ordered and begun, but the execution of the orders is suspended. More potent than the law, the motionnaires, protectors of assassins, frighten or paralyze its ministrants."]

2329 (return)
[ Decree of Feb. 8, and others like it, on the details, as, for instance, that of Feb. 7.]

2330 (return)
[ April 9, at the Jacobin Club, Vergniaud, the president, welcomes and compliments the convicts of Chateau-vieux.]

2331 (return)
[ Mortimer-Ternaux, book I, vol. I. (especially the session of April 15).]

2332 (return)
[ Comtat (or comtat Venaisssin) ancient region in France under papal authority from 1274 to 1791.(SR)]

2333 (return)
[ Moniteur, XII. 335.—Decree of March 20 (the triumphal entry of Jourdan and his associates belongs to the next month).]

2338 (return)
[ 150 years later these rights were written into the International Declaration of Human Rights in Paris in 1948. (SR).]

2340 (return)
[ Moniteur, X. 178 (session of Oct. 20, 1791). Information supplied by the deputies of the Upper and Lower Rhine departments.—M. Koch says: "An army of émigrés never existed, unless it be a petty gathering, which took place at Ettenheim, a few leagues from Strasbourg... (This troop) encamped in tents, but only because it lacked barracks and houses."—M.—, deputy of the lower Rhine, says: "This army at Ettenheim is composed of about five or six hundred poorly-clad, half-paid men, deserters of all nations, sleeping in tents, for lack of other shelter, and armed with clubs, for lack of fire-arms and deserting every day, because money is getting scarce. The second army, at Worms, under the command of a Condé, is composed of three hundred gentlemen, and as many valets and grooms. I have to add, that the letters which reach me from Strasbourg, containing extracts of inside information from Frankfort, Munich, Regensburg, and Vienna, announce the most pacific intentions on the part of the different courts, since receiving the notification of the king's submission." The number of armed emigrants increases, but always remain very small (Moniteur, X. 678, letter of M. Delatouche, an eyewitness, Dec. 10). "I suppose that the number of emigrants scattered around on the territories of the grand-duke of Baden, the bishop of Spires, the electorates, etc., amounts to scarcely 4,000 men."]

2341 (return)
[ Moniteur, X. 418 (session of Nov. 15, 1791). Report by the minister Delessart. In August, the emperor issued orders against enlistments, and to send out of the country all Frenchmen under suspicion; also, in October, to send away the French who formed too numerous a body at Ath and at Tournay (Now in Belgium).—Buchez et Roux, XII. 395, demands of the king, Dec. 14,—Ibid., XIII. 15, 16, 19, 52, complete satisfaction given by the Elector of Trèves, Jan. 1, 1792, communicated to the Assembly Jan. 6; publication of the elector's orders in the electorate, Jan. 3. The French envoy reports that they are fully executed, which news with the documents, are communicated to the Assembly, on the 8th, 16, and 19th of January.—" Correspondance de Mirabeau et M. de la Marck," III.287. Letter of M. de Mercy-Argenteau, Jan. 9, 1792. "The emperor has promised aid to the elector, under the express stipulation that he should begin by yielding to the demands of the French, as otherwise no assistance would be given to him in case of attack."]

2342 (return)
[ Mallet du Pan, "Mémoires," I. 254 (February, 1792).—" Correspondance de Mirabeau et du M. de la Marck," III. 232 (note of M. de Bacourt). On the very day and at the moment of signing the treaty at Pilnitz, at eleven o'clock in the evening, the Emperor Leopold wrote to his prime minister, M. de Kaunitz, "that the convention which he had just signed does not really bind him to anything; that it only contains insignificant declarations, extorted by the Count d'Artois." He ends by assuring him that "neither himself nor his government is in any way bound by this instrument."]

2343 (return)
[ Words of M. de Kaunitz, Sept. 4, 1791 ("Recueil," by Vivenot, I. 242).]

2344 (return)
[ Moniteur, XI. 142 (session of Jan. 17).—Speech by M. Delessart.—Decree of accusation against him March 10.—Declaration of war, April 20.—On the real intentions of the King, cf. Malouet, "Malouet, Mémoires" II. 199-209; Lafayette, "Mémoires," I. 441 (note 3); Bertrand de Molleville, "Mémoires," VI. 22; Governor Morris, II. 242, letter of Oct. 23, 1792.]

2345 (return)
[ Moniteur, X. 172 (session of Oct. 20, 1791). Speech by Brissot.——Lafayette, I. 441. "It is the Girondists who, at this time, wanted a war at any price"—Malouet, II. 209. "As Brissot has since boasted, it was the republican party which wanted war, and which provoked it by insulting all the powers."]

2346 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XII. 402 (session of the Jacobin Club, Nov. 28, 1791).]

2347 (return)
[ Gustave III., King of Sweden, assassinated by Ankerstrom, says: "I should like to know what Brissot will say."]

2348 (return)
[ On Brissot's antecedents, cf. Edmond Biré, "La Légende des Girondins." Personally, Brissot was honest, and remained poor. But he had passed through a good deal of filth, and bore the marks of it. He had lent himself to the diffusion of an obscene book, "Le Diable dans un bénitier," and, in 1783, having received 13,355 francs to found a Lyceum in London, not only did not found it, but was unable to return the money.]

2349 (return)
[ Moniteur, XI. 147. Speech by Brissot, Jan. 17. Examples from whom he borrows authority, Charles XII., Louis XIV., Admiral Blake, Frederic II., etc.]

2350 (return)
[ Moniteur. X. 174. "This Venetian government, which is nothing but a farce... Those petty German princes, whose insolence in the last century despotism crushed out... Geneva, that atom of a republic...That bishop of Liège, whose yoke bows down a people that ought to be free... I disdain to speak of other princes... That King of Sweden, who has only twenty-five millions income, and who spends two-thirds of it in poor pay for an army of generals and a small number of discontented soldiers... As to that princess (Catherine II.), whose dislike of the French constitution is well known, and who is about as good looking as Elizabeth, she cannot expect greater success than Elizabeth in the Dutch revolution." (Brissot, in this last passage, tries to appear at once witty and well read.)]

2351 (return)
[ Letter of Roland to the king, June 10, 1792, and letter of the executive council to the pope, Nov. 25, 1792. Letter of Madame Roland to Brissot, Jan. 7, 1791. "Briefly, adieu. Cato's wife need not gratify herself by complimenting Brutus."]

2352 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XII. 410 (meeting of the Jacobin club, Dec. 10, 1791). "A Louis XIV. declares war against Spain, because his ambassador had been insulted by the Spanish ambassador. And we, who are free, might hesitate for an instant!"]

2353 (return)
[ Moniteur, X, 503 (session of Nov.29). The Assembly orders this speech to be printed and distributed in the departments.]

2355 (return)
[ Moniteur, XI. 147, 149 (session of Jan.17); X. 759 (session of Dec. 28).—Already, on the 10th of December, he had declared at the Jacobin club: "A people that has conquered its freedom, after ten centuries of slavery, needs war. War is essential to it for its consolidation." (Buchez et Roux, XII. 410).—On the 17th of January, in the tribune, he again repeats: "I have only one fear, and that is, that we may not have war."]

2356 (return)
[ Moniteur, XI. 119 (session of Jan.13). Speech by Gensonné, in the name of the diplomatic committee, of which he is the reporter.]

2357 (return)
[ Moniteur, XI. 158 (session of Jan. 18). The Assembly orders the printing of this speech.]

2360 (return)
[ Moniteur, XI. 178 (session of Jan.20). Fauchet proposes the following decree: "All partial treaties actually existent are declared void. The National Assembly substitutes in their place alliances with the English, the Anglo-American, the Swiss, Polish, and Dutch nations, as long as they will be free.. When other nations want our alliance, they have only to conquer their freedom to have it. Meanwhile, this will not prevent us from having relations with them, as with good natured savages... Let us occupy the towns in the neighborhood which bring our adversaries too near us... Mayence, Coblentz, and Worms are sufficient"—Ibid.,, p.215 (session of Jan.25). One of the members, supporting himself with the authority of Gélon, King of Syracuse, proposes an additional article: "We declare that we will not lay down our arms until we shall have established the freedom of all peoples." These stupidities show the mental condition of the Jacobin party.]

2361 (return)
[ The decree is passed Jan. 25. The alliance between Prussia and Austria takes place Feb. 7 (De Bourgoing, "Histoire diplomatique de l'Europe pendant la Révolution Française," I. 457).]

2362 (return)
[ Albert Sorel, "La Mission du Comte de Ségur à Berlin" (published in the Temps, Oct. 15, 1878). Dispatch of M. de Ségur to M. Delessart, Feb. 24, 1792. "Count Schulemburg repeated to me that they had no desire whatever to meddle with our constitution. But, said he with singular animation, we must guard against gangrene. Prussia is, perhaps, the country which should fear it least; nevertheless, however remote a gangrened member may be, it is better to it off than risk one's life. How can you expect to secure tranquility, when thousands of writers every day... mayors, office-holders, insult kings, and publish that the Christian religion has always supported despotism, and that we shall be free only by destroying it, and that all princes must be exterminated because they are all tyrants?"]

2363 (return)
[ A popular jig of these revolutionary times, danced in the streets and on the public squares.—TR.]

2364 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XXV. 203 (session of April 3, 1793). Speech by Brissot.—Ibid., XX. 127. "A tous les Républicains de France, par Brissot," Oct. 24, 1792. "In declaring war, I had in view the abolition of royalty." He refers, in this connection, to his speech of Dec. 30, 1791, where he says, "I fear only one thing, and that is, that we shall not be betrayed. We need treachery, for strong doses of poison still exist in the heart of France, and heavy explosions are necessary to clear it out."]

2365 (return)
[ Mallet du Pan, "Mémoires," I. 260 (April, 1792), and I. 439 (July, 1792).]

2366 (return)
[ Any revolutionary leader, from Lenin, through Stalin to Andropov may confirm the advantage of acting in secret. (SR).]

2368 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XIII. 92-99 (January, 1792); (February).—Coral, "Lettres inédites," 33. (One of these days, out of curiosity, he walked along as far as the Rue des Lombards.) "Witness of such crying injustice, and indignant at not being able to seize any of the thieves that were running along the street, loaded with sugar and coffee to sell again, I suddenly felt a feverish chill over all my body." (The letter is not dated. The editors conjectures that the year was 1791. I rather think that it was 1792.)]

2369 (return)
[ Moniteur, XI. 45 and 46 (session of Jan. 5). The whole of Isnard's speech should be read.]

2371 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XIII. 252. Letter of André Chénier, in the Journal de Paris, Feb. 26.—Schmidt, "Tableaux de la Révolution Franaise," I. 76. Reply of the Directory of the Department of the Seine to a circular by Roland, June 12, 1792. The contrast between the two classes is here clearly defined. "We have not resorted to those assemblages of men, most of them foreigners, for the opinion of the people, among the enemies of labor and repose standing by themselves and having no part in common interests, already inclined to vice through idleness, and who prefer the risks of disorder to the honorable resources of indigence. This class of men, always large in large cities, is that whose noisy harangues fill the streets, Squares, and public gardens of the capital, that which excites seditious gatherings, that which constantly fosters anarchy and contempt for the laws—that, in fine, whose clamor, far from reflecting public Opinion, indicates the extreme effort made to prevent the expression of public opinion... We have studied the opinion of the people of Paris among those useful and laborious men warmly attached to the State at all points of their existence through every object of their affection, among owners of property, tillers of the soil, tradesmen and workers... An inviolable attachment... to the constitution, and mainly to national Sovereignty, to political equality and constitutional monarchy, which are its most important characteristics and their almost unanimous sentiment."]

2373 (return)
[ "Souvenirs", by Pasquier (Etienne-Dennis, duc), chancelier de France. in VI volumes, Librarie Plon, Paris 1893. Vol. I. page 84.]

2374 (return)
[ Malouet, II. 203. "Every report that came in from the provinces announced (to the King and Queen) a perceptible amelioration of public opinion, which was becoming more and more perverted. That which reached them was uninfluenced, whilst the opinions of clubs, taverns, and street-corners gained enormous power, the time being at hand when there was to be no other power." The figures given above are by Mallet du Pan, "Mémoires," II. 120.]

2375 (return)
[ Moniteur, XII. 776 (session of June 28). Speech by M. Lamarque, in a district court: "The incivism of the district courts in general is well known."]

2376 (return)
[ Bertand de Molleville, "Mémoires," VI. 22.—After having received the above instructions from the King, Bertrand calls on the Queen, who makes the same remark: "Do you not think that fidelity to one's oath is the only plan to pursue?" "Yes, Madame, certainly." "Very well; rest assured that we shall not waver. Come, M. Bertrand, take courage; I hope that with firmness, patience, and what comes of that, all is not yet lost."]

2377 (return)
[ M. de Lavalette, "Mémoires," I. 100.—Lavalette, in the beginning of September, 1792, enlists as a volunteer and sets out, along with two friends, carrying his knapsack on his back, dressed in a short and wearing a forage cap. The following shows the sentiments of the peasantry: In a village of makers of wooden shoes, near Vermanton (in the vicinity of Autun), "two days before our arrival a bishop and two vicars, who were escaping in a carriage, were stopped by them. They rummaged the vehicle and found some hundreds of francs, and, to avoid returning these, they thought it best to massacre their unfortunate owners. This sort of occupation seeming more lucrative to these good people than the other one, they were on the look-out for all wayfarers." The three volunteers are stopped by a little hump-backed official and conducted to the municipality, a sort of market, where their passports are read and their knapsacks are about to be examined. "We were lost, when d'Aubonnes, who was very tall jumped on the table... and began with a volley of imprecations and market slang which took his hearers by surprise. Soon raising his style, he launched out in patriotic terms, liberty, sovereignty of the people, with such vehemence and in so loud a voice, as to suddenly effect a great change and bring down thunders of applause. But the crazy fellow did not stop there. Ordering Leclerc de la Ronde imperiously to mount on the table, he addressed the assemblage: "You shall see whether we are not Paris republicans. Now, sir, say your republican catechism—'What is God? what are the People? and what is a King?' His friend, with an air of contrition and in a nasal tone of voice, twisting himself about like a harlequin, replies: 'God is matter, the People are the poor, and the King is a lion, a tiger, an elephant who tears to pieces, devours, and crushes the people down.'"—"They could no longer restrain themselves. The shouts, cries, and enthusiasm were unbounded. They embraced the actors, hugged them, and bore them away. Each strove to carry us home with him, and we had to drink all round."]

2378 (return)
[ The reader will meet the French expression sans-culottes again and again in Taine's or any other book about the French revolution. The nobles wore a kind of breeches terminating under the knee while tight long stockings, fastened to the trousers, exposed their calves. The male leg was as important an adornment for the nobles as it was to be for the women in the 20th Century. The poor, on the other hand, wore crude long trousers, mostly without a crease, often without socks or shoes, barefoot in the summer and wooden shoed in the winter. (SR).]

2379 (return)
[ The song of "Veillons au salut de l'empire" belongs to the end of 1791. The "Marseillaise" was composed in April, 1792.]

2381 (return)
[ Philippe de Ségur, "Mémoires," I. (at Fresnes, a village situated about seven leagues from Paris, a few days after Sep. 2, 1792). "A band of these demagogues pursued a large farmer of this place, suspected of royalism and denounced as a monopoliser because he was rich. These madmen had seized him, and, without any other form of trial, were about to put an end to him, when my father ran up to them. He addressed them, and so successfully as to change their rage into a no less exaggerated enthusiasm for humanity. Animated by their new transports, they obliged the poor farmer, still pale and trembling, and whom they were just going to hang on its branches, to drink and dance along with them around the tree of liberty."]

2382 (return)
[ Lacretelle, "Dix ans d'Epreuves," 78. "The Girondists wanted to fashion a Roman people out of the dregs of Romulus, and, what is worse, out of the brigands of the 5th of October."]

2383 (return)
[ These pages must have made a strong impression upon Lenin when he read them in the National Library in Paris around 1907. (SR).]

2384 (return)
[ Lafayette, I. 442. "The Girondists sought in the war an opportunity for attacking with advantage, the constitutionalists of 1791 and their institutions."—Brissot (Address to my constituents). "We sought in the war an opportunity to set traps for the king, to expose his bad faith and his relationship with the emigrant princes."—Moniteur, (session of April 3, 1793). Speech by Brissot: "'I had told the Jacobins what my opinion was, and had proved to them that war was the sole means of unveiling the perfidy of Louis XVI. The event has justified my opinion."—Buchez et Roux, VIII. 60, 216, 217. The decree of the Legislative Assembly is dated Jan. 25, the first money voted by a club for the making of pikes is on Jan. 31, and the first article by Brissot, on the red cap, is on Feb. 6.]

2385 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XIII. 217 (proposal of a woman, member of the club of l'Evêché, Jan. 31, 1792).—Articles in the Gazette Universelle, Feb.11, and in the Patriote Français, Feb. 13.—Moniteur, XI. 576 (session of March 6).—Buchez et Roux, XV. (session of June 10). Petition of 8,000 national guards in Paris: "This faction which stirs up popular vengeance... which seeks to put the caps of labor in conflict with the military casques, the pike with the gun, the rustic's dress with the uniform."]

2386 (return)
[ Mallet du Pan, "Mémoires," II 429 (note of July, 1792).—Mercure de France, March 10, 1792, article by Mallet du Pan.]

V.—Effects of the war on the common people.