For the same reason, as far as the notables, properly so-called, are concerned, it bears down still more heavily, not merely on the nobles because of ancient privileges, not merely on ecclesiastics on the score of being insubordinate Catholics, but on nobles, ecclesiastics and bourgeois in their capacity of notables, that is to say, born and bred above others, and respected by the masses on account of their superior condition.—In the eyes of the genuine Jacobin, the notables of the third class are no less criminal than the members of the two superior classes. "The bourgeois,41113 the merchants, the large proprietors," writes a popular club in the South, "all have the pretension of the old set (des ci-dévants)." And the club complains of "the law not providing means for opening the eyes of the people with respect to these new tyrants." It is horrible! The stand they take is an offense against equality and they are proud of it! And what is worse, this stand attracts public consideration! Consequently, "the club requests that the revolutionary Tribunal be empowered to consign this proud class to temporary confinement," and then "the people would see the crime it had committed and recover from the sort of esteem in which they had held it."—Incorrigible and contemptuous heretics against the new creed, they are only too lucky to be treated somewhat like infidel Jews in the middle-ages. Accordingly, if they are tolerated, it is on the condition that they let themselves be pillaged at discretion, covered with opprobrium and subdued through fear.—At one time, with insulting irony, they are called upon to prove their dubious civism by forced donations. "Whereas,"41114 says Representative Milhaud, "all the citizens and citoyennes of Narbonne being in requisition for the discharge and transport of forage; whereas, this morning, the Representative, in person, having inspected the performance of this duty," and having observed on the canal "none but sans-culottes and a few young citizens; whereas, not finding at their posts any muscadin and no muscadine; whereas, the persons, whose hands are no doubt too delicate, even temporarily, for the glorious work of robust sans-culottes, have, on the other hand, greater resources in their fortune, and, desiring to afford to the rich of Narbonne the precious advantage of being equally useful to the republic," hereby orders that "the richest citizens of Narbonne pay within twenty-four hours" a patriotic donation of one hundred thousand livres, one-half to be assigned to the military hospitals, and the other half, on the designation thereof by a "Committee of Charity, composed of three reliable revolutionary sans-culottes," to be distributed among the poor of the Commune. Should any "rich egoist refuse to contribute his contingent he is to be immediately transferred to the jail at Perpignan."—Not to labor with one's own hands, to be disqualified for work demanding physical strength, is of itself a democratic stain, and the man who is sullied by this draws down on himself, not alone an augmentation of pecuniary taxation, but frequently an augmentation of personal compulsory labor. At Villeneuve, Aveyron, and throughout the department of Cantal,41115 Representative Taillefer and his delegate Deltheil, instruct the Revolutionary Committees to "place under military requisition and conscription all muscadins above the first class," that is to say, all between twenty-five and forty years of age who are not reached by the law. "By muscadins is meant all citizens of that age not married, and exercising no useful profession," in other words, those who live on their income. And, that none of the middle or upper class may escape, the edict subjects to special rigor, supplementary taxes, and arbitrary arrest, not alone property-holders and fund-holders, but again all persons designated under the following heads,—aristocrats, Feuillants, moderates, Girondists, federalists, muscadins, the superstitious, fanatics the abettors of royalism, of superstition and of federation, monopolists, jobbers, egoists, "suspects" of incivism, and, generally, all who are indifferent to the Revolution, of which local committees are to draw up the lists.
Occasionally, in a town, some steps taken collectively, either a vote or petition, furnish a ready-made list;41116 it suffices to read this to know who are notables, the most upright people of the place; henceforth, under the pretext of political repression, the levellers may give free play to their social hatred.—At Montargis, nine days after the attempt of June 20, 1792,41117 two hundred and twenty-eight notables sign an address in testimony of their respectful sympathy for the King; a year and nine months later, in consequence of a retroactive stroke, all are hit, and, with the more satisfaction, inasmuch as in their persons the most respected in the town fall beneath the blow, all whom flight and banishment had left there belonging to the noble, ecclesiastic, bourgeois or popular aristocracy. Already, "on the purification of the constituted authorities of Montargis, the representative had withdrawn every signer from places of public trust and kept them out of all offices." But this is not sufficient; the punishment must be more exemplary. Four of them, the ex-mayor, an ex-collector, a district administrator and a notable are sent to the revolutionary Tribunal in Paris, to be guillotined in deference to principles. Thirty-two former officers—chevaliers of St. Louis, mousquetaires, nobles, priests, an ex-procureur-royal, an ex-treasurer of France, a former administrator of the department, and two ladies, one of them designated as "calling herself a former marchioness"—are confined, until peace is secured, in the jail at Montargis. Other former municipal officers and officers in the National Guard—men of the law, notaries and advocates, physicians, surgeons, former collectors, police commissioners, postmasters, merchants and manufacturers, men and women, married or widows and widowers—are to make public apology and be summoned to the Temple of Reason to undergo there the humiliation of a public penance on the 20th of Ventôse at three o'clock in the afternoon. They all go, for the summons says, "whoever does not present himself on the day and hour named will be arrested and confined until peace is declared." On reaching the church, purified by Jacobin adoration, "in the presence of the constituted authorities of the popular club and of the citizens convoked in general assembly," they mount one by one into a tribune raised three steps above the floor," in such a way as to be in full sight. One by one the national agent, or the mayor, reprimands them in the following language:
"You have been base enough to sign a fawning address to Louis XVI., the most odious and the vilest of tyrants, an ogre of the human species guilty of every sort of crime and debauchery. You are hereby censured by the people. You are moreover warned that on committing the first act of incivism, or manifesting any anti-revolutionary conduct, the surveillance of the constituted authorities will be extended to you in the most energetic manner; the tribunals will show you less leniency and the guillotine will insure prompt and imposing justice."
Each, called by name, receives in turn the threatened admonition, and, descending from the tribune amidst hues and cries, all sign the procès-verbal. But shame and guilt are often absent, and some of them do not seem to be sufficiently penitent. Consequently, at the close of the ceremony, the National Agent calls the attention of the assembly to "the impudence manifested by certain aristocrats, so degraded that even national justice fails to make them blush;" and the Revolutionary Committee, "considering the indifference and derisive conduct of four women and three men, just manifested in this assembly; considering the necessity of punishing an inveterate aristocracy which seems to make sport of corrective acts that bear only (sic) on morals, in a most exemplary manner, decides that the seven delinquents "shall be put under arrest, and confined in the jail of Sainte-Marie." The three who have shown indifference, are to be confined three months; the four who have shown derision, are to be confined until peace is restored. Besides this, the decree of the National Agent and the minutes of the meeting are to be printed and six thousand impressions struck off at the expense of the signers, "the richest and most 'suspect,' "—a former treasurer of France, a notary, a grocer, the wife of the former commandant of the gendarmerie, a widow and another woman,—all, says the agent, "of very solid wealth and aristocracy." "Bravo!" shouts the assembly, at this witticism; applause is given and it sings "the national hymn." It is nine o'clock in the evening. This public penitence lasts six hours and the Jacobins of Montargis retire, proud of their work; having punished as a public affront, an old and legal manifestation of respect for the public magistrate; having sent either to the scaffold or to prison, and fined or disgraced the small local élite; having degraded to the level of prostitutes and felons under surveillance, reputable women and honorable men who are, by law, most esteemed under a normal system of government and who, under the revolutionary system are, by law, the least so.41118
Two advantages, fortune and education, each involving the other, cause a man to be ranked in the upper class; hence, one or the other, whether each by itself or both together, mark a man out for spoliation, imprisonment and death.—In vain may he have demonstrated his Jacobinism, and Jacobinism of the ultra sort. Hérault-Séchelles, who voted for murdering the King, who belongs to the Committee of Public Safety, who, in the Upper-Rhine, has just carried out the worst revolutionary ordinances,41119 but who has the misfortune to be rich and a man of the world, is led to the scaffold, and those devoted to the guillotine readily explain his condemnation: he is no patriot,—how could he be, enjoying an income of two hundred thousand livres, and, moreover, is he not a general-advocate?41120 One of these offenses is sufficient.—Alone and by itself, "opulence," writes Saint-Just, "is a disgrace," and, according to him, a man is opulent "who supports fewer children than he has thousands of livres income; in effect, among the persons confined as "rich and egoists" we find, according to the very declaration of the Revolutionary Committee, persons with incomes of only 4,000, 3,700, 1,500, and even 500 livres.41121 Moreover, a fortune or a competence, inspires its possessor with anti-revolutionary sentiments; consequently, he is for the moment an obstruction; "You are rich," says Cambon, making use of a personification, "you cherish an opinion, which compels us to be on the defensive; pay then, so as to indemnify us and be thankful for our indulgence which, precautionary and until peace is declared, keeps you under bolt and bar."41122 Rich, anti-revolutionary, and vicious," according to Robespierre,41123 "these three traits depend on each other, and, therefore, the possession of the superfluous is an infallible sign of aristocracy, a visible mark of incivism" and, as Fouché says, "a stamp of reprobation." "The superfluous is an evident and unwarrantable violation of the people's rights; every man who has more than his wants call for, cannot use, and therefore he must only abuse."41124 Whoever does not make over to the masses the excess of what is strictly necessary.... places himself in the rank of 'suspects.' Rich egoists, you are the cause of our misfortunes!"41125 "You dared to smile contemptuously on the appellation of sans-culottes;41126 you have enjoyed much more than your brethren alongside of you dying with hunger; you are not fit to associate with them, and since you have disdained to have them eat at your table, they cast you out eternally from their bosom and condemn you, in turn, to wear the shackles prepared for them by your indifference or your maneuvers." In other words, whoever has a good roof over his head, or wears good clothes, man or woman, idler or industrious, noble or commoner, is available for the prison or the guillotine, or, at the very least, he is a taxable and workable serf at pleasure; his capital and accumulations, if not spontaneously and immediately handed over, form a criminal basis and proof of conviction.—The orders of arrest are generally issued against him on account of his wealth; in order to drain a town of these offenders one by one, all are penned together according to their resources; at Strasbourg,41127 193 persons are taxed, each from 6,000 to 300,000 livres, in all 9 million livres, payable within twenty-four hours, by the leading men of each profession or trade, bankers, brokers, merchants, manufacturers, professors, pastors, lawyers, physicians, surgeons, publishers, printers, upholsterers, glass-dealers, rope-makers, master-masons, coffee-house and tavern keepers. And let there be no delay in responding to these orders within the prescribed time! Otherwise the delinquents will be placed in the stocks, on the scaffold, face to face with the guillotine. "One of the best citizens in the commune, who had steadily manifested his attachment to the Revolution, being unable to realize a sum of 250,000 livres in one day, was fastened in the pillory."41128 Sometimes the orders affected an entire class, not alone nobles or priests, but all the members of any bourgeois profession or even of any handicraft. At Strasbourg, a little later, "considering that the thirst for gold has always controlled the brewers of the commune," they are condemned to 250,000 livres fine, to be paid in three days under penalty of being declared rebels, with the confiscation of their possessions;" then, upon another similar consideration, the bakers and flour dealers are taxed three hundred thousand livres.41129 In addition to this, writes Representative Milhaud, at Guyardin,41130 "We have ordered the arrest of all bankers, stock-brokers and notaries.... All their wealth is confiscated; we estimate the sums under seal at 2 or 3 millions in coin, and 15 or 16 in assignats." There is the same haul of the net at Paris. By order of Lhuillier, procureur of the department, "seals are placed in the offices of all the bankers, stock-brokers, silversmiths, etc.," and they themselves are shut up in the Madelonettes; a few days after, that they may pay their drafts, they are let out as a favor, but on condition that they remain under arrest in their homes, at their own expense, under guard of two good sans-culottes.41131 In like manner, at Nantes,41132 Lyons, Marseilles and Bordeaux, the prisons are filled and the guillotine works according to the categories. At one time they are "all of the Grand Théatre," or the principal merchants, "to the number of more than 200," are incarcerated at Bordeaux in one night.41133 At another time, Paris provides a haul of farmer-generals or parliamentarians. Carts leave Toulouse conveying its parliamentarians to Paris to undergo capital punishment. At Aix, writes an agent,41134
"the guillotine is going to work on former lawyers a few hundred heads legally taken off will do the greatest good."
And, as new crimes require new terms to designate them, they add to "incivisme" and "moderantisme," the term "negociantisme," all of which are easily stated and widespread crimes.
"The rich and the merchants," writes an observer,41135 "are here, as elsewhere, born enemies of equality and lovers of hideous federalism, the only aristocracy that remains to be crushed out."
Barras, with still greater precision, declares in the tribune that, "commerce is usurious, monarchical and anti-revolutionary."41136 Considered in itself, it may be defined as an appeal to bad instincts; it seems a corrupting, incivique, anti-fraternal institution, many Jacobins having proposed either to interdict it to private persons and attribute it wholly to the State, or suppress it along with the arts and manufactures which nourish it, in order that only a population of agriculturists and soldiers may be left in France.41137
The second advantage and the second crime of the notables is superiority of education. "In all respectable assemblages," writes a Dutch traveler in 1795,41138 "you may be sure that one-half of those present have been in prison. Add the absent, the guillotined, the exiled, emigrés, the deported, and note this, that, in the other favored half, those who did not quaff the prison cup had had a foretaste of it for, each expected daily to receive his warrant of arrest; "the worst thing under Robespierre, as several old gentlemen have told me, was that one never knew in the morning whether one would sleep in one's own bed at night." There was not a well-bred man who did not live in dread of this; examine the lists of "suspects," of the arrested, of exiles, of those executed, in any town, district or department,41139 and you will see immediately, through their quality and occupations, first, that three-quarters of the cultivated are inscribed on it, and next, that intellectual culture in itself is suspect. "They were equally criminal,"41140 write the Strasbourg administrators, "whether rich or cultivated.... The (Jacobin) municipality declared the University federalist; it proscribed public instruction and, consequently, the professors, regents, and heads of schools, with all instructors, public as well as private, even those provided with certificates of civism, were arrested;.... every Protestant minister and teacher in the Lower-Rhine department was incarcerated, with a threat of being transferred to the citadel at Besançon."—Fourcroy, in the Jacobin Club at Paris, excusing himself for being a savant, for giving lectures on chemistry, for not devoting his time to the rantings of the Convention and of the clubs, is obliged to declare that he is poor, that he lives by his work, that he supports "his father, a sans-culotte, and his sans-culotte sisters;" although a good republican, he barely escapes, and the same with others like him. All educated men were persecuted," he states a month after Thermidor 9;41141 "to have acquaintances, to be literary, sufficed for arrest, as an aristocrat.... Robespierre... with devilish ingenuity, abused, calumniated and overwhelmed with gall and bitterness all who were devoted to serious studies, all who professed extensive knowledge;... he felt that cultivated men would never bend the knee to him 41142..... Instruction was paralyzed; they wanted to burn the libraries..... Must I tell you that at the very door of your assembly errors in orthography are seen? Nobody learns how to read or write."—At Nantes, Carrier boasts of having "dispersed the literary chambers," while in his enumeration of the evil-minded he adds "to the rich and merchants," "all gens d'esprit."41143 Sometimes on the turnkey's register we read that such an one was confined "for being clever and able to do mischief," another for saying "good-day, gentlemen, to the municipal councillors."41144
Politeness has, like other signs of a good education, become a stigma; good manners are considered, not only as a remnant of the ancient régime, but as a revolt against the new institutions; now, as the governing principle of these is, theoretically, abstract equality and, practically, the ascendancy of the low class, one rebels against the established order of things when one repudiates coarse companions, familiar oaths, and the indecent expressions of the common workman and the soldier. In sum, Jacobinism, through its doctrines and deeds, its dungeons and executioners, proclaims to the nation over which it holds the rod:41145
"Be rude, that you may become republican, return to barbarism that you may show the superiority of your genius; abandon the customs of civilized people that you may adopt those of galley slaves; mar your language with a view to improve it; use that of the populace under penalty of death. Spanish beggars treat each other in a dignified way; they show respect for humanity although in tatters. We, on the contrary, order you to assume our rags, our patois, our terms of intimacy. Don the carmagnole and tremble; become rustics and dolts, and prove your civism by the absence of all education."
This is true to the letter.
"Education,41146" says another contemporary, "amiable qualities, gentle ways, a mild physiognomy, bodily graces, a cultivated mind, all natural endowments are henceforth the inevitable causes of proscription."
One is self-condemned if one has not converted oneself into a sans-culotte and proletarian, in accordance with affected modes, air, language and dress. Hence,
"through a hypocritical contest hitherto unknown men who were not vicious deemed it necessary to appear so."
And worse still,
"one was even afraid to be oneself; one changed one's name, one went in disguise, wearing a vulgar and tasteless attire; everybody shrunk from being what he was."
For, according to the Jacobin program, all Frenchmen must be recast41147 in one uniform mold; they must be taken when small; all must be subject to the same enforced education, that of a mechanic, rustic and soldier's boy. Be warned, ye adults, by the guillotine, reform yourselves beforehand according to the prescribed pattern! No more costly, elegant or delicate crystal or gold vases! All are shattered or are still being shattered. Henceforth, only common ware is to be tolerated or ordered to be made, all alike in substance, shape and color, manufactured by thousands at wholesale and in public factories, for the common and plain uses of rural and military life; all original and superior forms are to be rejected.
"The masters of the day," writes Daunou,41148 "deliberately aimed their sword thrusts at superior talent, at energetic characters; they mowed down as well as they could in so short a time, the flower and hope of the nation."
In this respect they were consistent; equality-socialism41149 allows none but automatic citizens, mere tools in the hands of the State, all alike, of a rudimentary fashion and easily managed, without personal conscience, spontaneity, curiosity or integrity; whoever has cultivated himself, whoever has thought for himself and exercised his own will and judgment rises above the level and shakes off the yoke; to obtain consideration, to be intelligent and honorable, to belong to the élite, is to be anti-revolutionary. In the popular club of Bourg-en-Bresse,41150 Representative Javogues declared that,
"the Republic could be established only on the corpse of the last of the respectable men."
Here we have, on one side, the élite of France, almost every person of rank, fortune, family, and merit, those eminent for intelligence, culture, talent and virtue, all deprived of common rights, in exile, in prison, under pikes, and on the scaffold. On the other side, those above common law, possessing every office and omnipotent in the irresponsible dictatorship, in the despotic proconsulships, in the sovereignty of justice, a horde of the outcasts of all classes, the parvenus of fanaticism, charlatanism, imbecility and crime. Often, when these personalities meet, one sees the contrast between the governed and the governors in such strong relief that one almost regards it as calculated and arranged beforehand; the colors and brush of the painter, rather than words, are necessary to represent it. In the western section of Paris, in the prisons of the rue de Sévres41151 the prisoners consist of the most distinguished personages of the Quartier Saint Germain, prelates, officers, grand-seigniors, and noble ladies,—Monseigneur de Clermont-Tonnerre, Monseigneur de Crussol d'Amboise, Monseigneur de Hersaint, Monseigneur de Saint Simon, bishop of Agde, the Comtesse de Narbonne-Pelet, the Duchesse de Choiseul, the Princesse de Chimay, the Comtesse de Raymond-Narbonne and her daughter, two years of age, in short, the flower of that refined society which Europe admired and imitated and which, in its exquisite perfection, equalled or surpassed all that Greece, Rome and Italy had produced in brilliancy, polish and amiability. Contrast with these the arbiters of their lives and deaths, the potentates of the same quarter who issue the warrants of arrest against them, who pen them in to speculate on them, and who revel at their expense and before their eyes: these consist of the members of the revolutionary committee of the Croix-Rouge, the eighteen convicted rogues and debauchees previously described,41152 ex-cab-drivers, porters, cobblers, street-messengers, stevedores, bankrupts, counterfeiters, former or future jail-birds, all clients of the police or alms-house riff-raff.—At the other end of Paris, in the east, in the tower of the Temple, separated from his sister and torn from his mother, still lives the little Dauphin: no one in France merits more pity or respect than him. For, if France exists, it is owing to the thirty-five military chiefs and crowned kings of which he is the last direct scion; without their thousand years of hereditary rule and preserving policy the intruders into the Tuileries who have just profaned their tombs at St. Denis and thrown their bones into a common ditch,41153 would not be Frenchmen. At this moment, were suffrages free, the immense majority of the people, nineteen Frenchmen out of twenty, would recognize this innocent and precious child for their King, the heir of the people of which their nation and country is formed, a child of eight years, of rare precociousness, as intelligent as he is good, and of a gentle and winning expression. Look at the other figure alongside of him, his fist raised and with insults on his lips, with a hang-dog face, bloated with brandy, titular governor, official preceptor, and absolute master of this child, the cobbler Simon, malignant, foul-mouthed, mean in every way, forcing him to become intoxicated, starving him, preventing him from sleeping, thrashing him, and who, obeying orders, instinctively visits on him all his brutality and corruption that he may pervert, degrade and deprave him.41154—In the Palais de Justice, midway between the tower of the Temple and the prison in the rue de Sèvres, an almost similar contrast, transposing the merits and demerits, daily brings together in opposition the innocent with the vile. There are days when the contrast, still more striking, seats criminals on the judges' bench and judges on the bench of criminals. On the first and second of Floréal, the old representatives and trustees of liberty under the monarchy, twenty-five magistrates of the Paris and Toulouse parliaments, many of them being eminent intellects of the highest culture and noblest character, embracing the greatest historical names of the French magistracy,—Etienne Pasquier, Lefèvre d'Ormesson, Molé de Champlatreux, De Lamoignon, de Malesherbes,—are sent to the guillotine41155 by the judges and juries familiar to us, assassins or brutes who do not take the trouble, or who have not the capacity, to give proper color to their sentences. M. de Malesherbes exclaims, after reading his indictment, "If that were only common-sense!"—In effect those who pronounce judgment are, by their own admission, "substantial jurymen, good sans-culottes, natural people." And such a nature! One of these, Trenchard, an Auvergnat carpenter, portrays himself accurately in the following note addressed to his wife before the trial comes on:
"If you are not alone, and the companion can work, you may come, my dear, and see the twenty-four gentlemen condemned, all of them former presidents or councillors in the parliaments of Toulouse and Paris. I recommend you to bring something along with you (to eat), it will be three hours before we finish. I embrace you, my dear friend and wife."41156
In the same court, Lavoisier, the founder and organizer of chemistry, the great discoverer, and condemned to death, asks for a reprieve of his sentence for a fortnight to complete an experiment, and the president, Coffinhal, another Auvergnat, replies,
"The Republic has no need of savants."41157
And it has no need of poets. The first poet of the epoch, André Chénier, the delicate and superior artist who reopens antique sources of inspiration and starts the modern current, is guillotined; we possess the original manuscript indictment of his examination, a veritable master-piece of gibberish and barbarism, of which a full copy is necessary to convey an idea of its "turpitudes of sense and orthography."41158 The reader may there see, if he pleases, a man of genius delivered up to brutes, coarse, angry, despotic animals, who listen to nothing, who comprehend nothing, who do not even understand terms in common use, who stumble through their queries, and who, to ape intelligence, draggle their pens along in supreme stupidity.
The overthrow is complete. France, subject to the Revolutionary Government, resembles a human being forced to walk with his head down and to think with his feet.
4101 (return)
[ Cf. "The Revolution,"
book I., ch. 3, and book III., chs. 9 and 10.]
4102 (return)
[ Grégoire, "Memoires,"
II., 172. "About eighteen thousand ecclesiastics are enumerated among the
émigrés of the first epoch. About eighteen thousand more took themselves
off, or were sent off, after the 2nd of September."]
4103 (return)
[ Ibid., 26. "The chief
of the émigré bureau in the police department (May 9, 1805) enumerates
about two hundred thousand persons reached, or affected, by the laws
concerning emigration."—Lally-Tolendal, "Défense des Emigrés," (2nd
part, p. 62 and passim). Several thousand persons inscribed as émigrés did
not leave France. The local administration recorded them on its lists
either because they lived in another department, and could not obtain the
numerous certificates exacted by the law in proof of residence, or because
those who made up the lists treated these certificates with contempt. It
was found convenient to manufacture an émigré in order to confiscate his
possessions legally, and even to guillotine him, not less legally, as a
returned émigré.—Message of the Directory to the "Five Hundred,"
Ventôse 3, year V.: "According to a rough estimate, obtained at the
Ministry of Finances, the number enrolled on the general list of émigres
amounts to over one hundred and twenty thousand; and, again, the lists
from some of the departments have not come in."—Lafayette,
"Mémoires," vol. II., 181. (Letters to M. de Maubourg, Oct. 17, 1799
(noté) Oct. 19, 1800.) According to the report of the Minister of Police,
the list of émigrés, in nine vols., still embraced one hundred and
forty-five thousand persons, notwithstanding that thirteen thousand were
struck off by the Directory, and twelve hundred by the consular
government.]
4104 (return)
[ Cf. Mémoires of
Louvet, Dulaure and Vaublanc.—Mallet-Dupan, "Mémoires," II., 7.
"Several, to whom I have spoken, literally made the tour of France in
various disguises, without having been able to find an outlet; it was only
after a series of romantic adventures that they finally succeeded in
gaining the Swiss frontier, the only one at all accessible."—Sauzay,
V., 210, 220, 226, 276. (Emigration of fifty-four inhabitants of
Charquemont, setting out for Hungary.)]
4105 (return)
[ Ibid., vols. IV., V.,
VI., VII. (On the banished priests remaining and still continuing their
ministrations, and on those who returned to resume them.)—To obtain
an idea of the situation of the emigrés and their relations and friends,
it is necessary to read the law of Sep.15, 1794 (Brumaire 25, year III.),
which renews and generalizes previous laws; children of fourteen years and
ten years are affected by it. It was with the greatest difficulty, even if
one did not leave France, that a person could prove that he had not
emigrated.]
4106 (return)
[ Pandour, an 18th
century Croatian foot-soldier in the Austrian service: a robber. (SR)]
4107 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVIII.,
215. (Letter of Brigadier-general Vandamme to the convention, Ferney,
Brumaire I, year II.) The reading of this letter calls forth "reiterated
applause."]
4108 (return)
[ Sauzay, V., 196. (The
total is five thousand two hundred. Some hundreds of names might be added,
inasmuch as many of the village lists are wanting.)]
4109 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXXIV., 434. (Trial of Fouquier-Tinville, deposition of Therriet-Grandpré,
one of the heads of the commission on civil Police and Judicial
Administration, 51st witness.)]
4110 (return)
[ Report by Saladin,
March 4, 1795.]
4111 (return)
[ Wallon, "La Terreur,"
II., 202.]
4112 (return)
[ Duchatelier, "Brest
Pendant la Terreur," p. 105.—Paris, "Histoire de Joseph Lebon," II.,
370.—"Tableau des Prisons de Toulouse," by Pescayre, p. 409.—"Recueil
de Pièces Authentiques sur la Révolution à Strasbourg," I., 65. (List of
arrests after Prairial 7, year II.) "When the following arrests were made
there were already over three thousand persons confined in Strasbourg."—Alfred
Lallier, "Les Noyades de Nantes," p.90.—Berryat Saint-Prix, p.436.
(Letter of Maignet to Couthon, Avignon, Floreal 4, year II.)]
4113 (return)
[ Baulieu, "Essais,"
V., 283. At the end of December, 1793, Camille Desmoulins wrote: "Open the
prison doors to those two hundred thousand citizens whom you call
'suspects'!"—The number of prisoners largely increased during the
seven following months. ("Le Vieux Cordelier," No. IV., Frimaire 30, year
II.)—Beaulieu does not state precisely what the committee of General
Security meant by the word déténu. Does it merely relate to those
incarcerated? Or must all who were confined at their own houses be
included?—We are able to verify his statement and determine the
number, at least approximatively, by taking one department in which the
rigor of the revolutionary system was average and where the lists handed
in were complete. According to the census of 1791, Doubs contained two
hundred and twenty-one thousand inhabitants; France had a population of 26
millions, and we have just seen the number of each category that were
under confinement; the proportion for France gives 258 000 persons
incarcerated, and 175 000 confined to their houses, and 175 000 persons
besides these on the limits in their communes, or ajournées, that is to
say, 608 000 persons deprived of their liberty. The first two categories
form a total of 433 000 persons, sufficiently near Beaulieu's figures.]
4114 (return)
[ Paris, "Histoire de
Joseph Lebon," II., 371, 372, 375, 377, 379, 380.—"Les Angoisses de
la Mort," by Poirier and Monjay of Dunkirk (second edition, year III.).
"Their children and trusty agents still remained in prison; they were
treated no better than ourselves... . we saw children coming in from all
quarters, infants of five years, and, to withdraw them from paternal
authority, they had sent to them from time to time, commissioners who used
immoral language with them."]
4115 (return)
[ Mémoires sur les
Prisons," (Barrière et Berville collection), II., 354, and appendix F.
Ibid., II., 2262.—The women were the first to pass under rapiotage."
(Prisons of Arras and that of Plessis, at Paris.)]
4116 (return)
[ "Documents on
Daunou," by Taillandier. (Narrative by Daunou, who was imprisoned in turn
in La Force, in the Madelonettes, in the English Benedictine
establishment, in the Hotel des Fermes, and in Port-Libre.)—On
prison management cf., for the provinces, "Tableaux des Prisons de
Toulouse," by Pescayre; "Un Sejour en France," and "Les Horreurs des
Prisons d'Arras," for Arras and Amiens; Alexandrines des Echerolles, "Une
Famille noble sous la Terreur," for Lyons; the trial of Carrier for
Nantes; for Paris, "Histoire des Prisons" by Nougaret, 4 vols., and the
"Mémoires sur les Prisons," 2 vols.]
4117 (return)
[ Testimony of
Representative Blanqui, imprisoned at La Force, and of Representative
Beaulieu, imprisoned in the Luxembourg and at the Madelonettes.—Beaulieu,
"Essais," V., 290: "The conciergerie was still full of wretches held for
robbery and assassination, poverty-stricken and repulsive.—It was
with these that counts, marquises, voluptuous financiers, elegant dandies,
and more than one wretched philosopher, were shut up, pell-mell, in the
foulest cells, waiting until the guillotine could make room in the
chambers filled with camp-bedsteads. They were generally put with those on
the straw, on entering, where they sometimes remained a fortnight... It
was necessary to drink brandy with these persons; in the evening, after
having dropped their excrement near their straw, they went to sleep in
their filth.... I passed those three nights half-sitting, half-stretched
out on a bench, one leg on the ground and leaning against the wall."—Wallon,
"La Terreur," II., 87. (Report of Grandpré on the Conciergerie, March 17,
1793. "Twenty-six men collected into one room, sleeping on twenty-one
mattresses, breathing the foulest air and covered with half-rotten rags."
In another room forty-five men and ten straw-beds; in a third, thirty-nine
poor creatures dying in nine bunks; in three other rooms, eighty miserable
creatures on sixteen mattresses filled with vermin, and, as to the women,
fifty-four having nine mattresses and standing up alternately.—The
worst prisons in Paris were the Conciergerie, La Force, Le Plessis and
Bicêtre.—"Tableau des Prisons de Toulouse," p. 316. "Dying with
hunger, we contended with the dogs for the bones intended for them, and we
pounded them up to make soup with."]
4118 (return)
[ "Recueil de Pièces,
etc.," i., p.3. (Letter of Frédéric Burger, Prairial 2, year II.)]
4119 (return)
[ Alfred Lallier, "Les
Noyades de Nantes," p. 90.—Campardon, "Histoire de Tribunal
Révolutionnaire de Paris," (trial of Carrier), II., 55. (Deposition of the
health-officer, Thomas.) "I saw perish in the revolutionary hospital (at
Nantes) seventy-five prisoners in two days. None but rotten mattresses
were found there, on each of which the epidemic had consumed more than
fifty persons. At the Entrepot, I found a number of corpses scattered
about here and there. I saw children, still breathing, drowned in tubs
full of human excrement."]
4120 (return)
[ Narrative of the
sufferings of unsworn priests, deported in 1794, in the roadstead of Aix,
passim.]
4121 (return)
[ "Histoire des
Prisons," I., 10. "Go and visit," says a contemporary, (at the
Conciergerie), "the dungeons called 'the great Cæsar,' 'Bombie,' 'St.
Vincent.' 'Bel Air,' etc., and say whether death is not preferable to such
an abode." Some persons, indeed, the sooner to end the matter, wrote to
the public prosecutor, accusing themselves, demanding a king and priests,
and are at once guillotined, as they hoped to be.—Cf. the narrative
of "La Translation des 132 à Nantois Paris," and Riouffe, "Mémoires," on
the sufferings of prisoners on their way to their last prison.]
4122 (return)
[ Berryat Saint-Prix,
p. IX., passim.]
4123 (return)
[ Campardon, II., 224.]
4124 (return)
[ Berryat Saint-Prix,
445.—Paris, "Histoire de Joseph Lebon," II., 352.—Alfred
Lallier, p. 90.—Buchez et Roux, XXXII., 394.]
4125 (return)
[ Berryat Saint-Prix,
pp.23, 24.]
4126 (return)
[ Berryat Saint-Prix,
p.458. "At Orange, Madame de Latour-Vidan, aged eighty and idiotic for
many years, was executed with her son. It is stated that, on being led to
the scaffold, she thought she was entering a carriage to pay visits and so
told her son."—Ibid., 471. After Thermidor, the judges of the Orange
commission having been put on trial, the jury declared that "they refused
to hear testimony for the defense and did not allow the accused even
informal lawyers to defend them."]
4127 (return)
[ Camille Boursier," La
Terreur en Anjou," p.228. (Deposition of Widow Edin.) "La Persac, a nun
ill and infirm, was ready to take the oath. Nicolas, Vacheron's agent,
assisted by several other persons, dragged her out of bed and put her on a
cart; from ninety to ninety-four others were shot along with her."]
4128 (return)
[ Berryat Saint-Prix,
p. 161. The following are samples of these warrants: "S. (shot), Germinal
13, Widow Menard, seventy-two years old, an old aristocrat, liking nobody,
habitually living by herself."—"Warrant of the Marseilles committee,
Germinal 28, year II., condemning one Cousinéri for having continually
strayed off as if to escape popular vengeance, to which he was liable on
account of his conduct and for having detested the Revolution."—Camille
Boursier, p.72, Floréal 15, year II., execution of "Gerard, guilty of
having scorned to assist at the planting of a Liberty-pole, in the commune
of Vouille, Sep., 1792, and inducing several municipal officers to join
him in his insolent and liberticide contempt."]
4129 (return)
[ Wallon, "Histoire du
Tribunal Révolutionnaire de Paris," V., 145.]
4130 (return)
[ Ibid., v., 109.
(Deposition of Madame de Maillé.)—V., 189. (Deposition of Lhullier.)—Cf.
Campardon, in the same affairs.]
4131 (return)
[ Campardon, II., 189,
190, 193, 197. (Depositions of Beaulieu, Duclos, Tirard, Ducray, etc.)]
4132 (return)
[ Berryat Saint-Prix,
395. (Letter of Representative Moyse Bayle,)—Ibid., 216. (Words of
Representative Lecarpentier at Saint-Malo.) "Why such delays? Of what use
are these eternal examinations? What need is there of going so deep into
this matter? The name, profession and the upshot, and the trial is over."—"He
publicly stated to the informers: You don't know what facts you require to
denounce the Moderates? Well, a gesture, one single gesture, suffices."]
4133 (return)
[ Letter of Payan to
Roman Formosa, judge at Orange: "In the commissions charged with punishing
the conspirators, no formalities should exist; the conscience of the judge
is there as a substitute for these... The commissions must serve as
political courts; they must remember that all the men who have not been on
the side of the Revolution are against it, since they have done nothing
for the country... I say to all judges, in the name of the country, do not
risk saving a guilty man."—Robespierre made the same declaration in
the Jacobin Club. Frimaire 19, year II.: "We judge, in politics, with the
suspicions of an enlightened patriotism."]
4134 (return)
[ "Mémoires de Fréron"
and on Fréron, (collection Barrière et Berville,) p.364. Letter of Fréron,
Toulon, Nivôse 16. "More than eight hundred Toulonese have already been
shot."]
4135 (return)
[ Lallier, p.90. (The
eleven distinct drownings ascertained by M. Lallier extend up to Pluviôse
12, year II.)]
4136 (return)
[ Moniteur, XXII., 227.
(Official documents read in the Convention, Ventôse 21, year III.) These
documents authenticate an ulterior drowning. Ventôse 9, year II., by order
of Lefévre, adjutant general, forty-one persons were drowned, among whom
were two men seventy-eight years of age and blind, twelve women, twelve
young girls, fifteen children, of which ten were between six and ten years
old, and five at the breast. The drowning took place in the Bourgneuf
bay.-Carrier says in the Convention, (Moniteur, XXII., p.578), in relation
to the drowning of pregnant women: "At Laval, Angers, Saumur,
Chaban-Gontier, everywhere the same things took place as at Nantes."]
4137 (return)
[ Camille Boursier,
p.159.]
4138 (return)
[ Ibid., 203.
Representative Francastel announces "the firm determination to purge, to
bleed freely this Vendean question." This same Francastel wrote to General
Grignon: "Make those brigands tremble! Give them no quarter! The prisons
in Vendée are overflowing with prisoners!... The conversion of this
country into a desert must be completed. Show no weakness and no mercy...
These are the views of the Convention.... I swear that Vendée shall be
depopulated."]
4139 (return)
[ Granier de Cassagnac,
"His. du Directoire," II., 241.—(Letter of General Hoche to the
Minister of the Interior, Feb. 2, 1796.) "Only one out of five remains of
the population of 1789."]
4140 (return)
[ Campardon, II., 247,
249, 251, 261, 321. (Examination of Fouquier-Tinville, Cambon's words.)]
4141 (return)
[ Article by Guffroy,
in his journal Le Rougiff: "Down with the nobles, and so much the worse
for the good ones, if there are any! Let the guillotine stand permanently
throughout the Republic. Five millions of inhabitants are enough for
France!"—Berryat Saint-Prix, 445. (Letter of Fauvety, Orange,
Prairial 14, year II.) "We have but two confined in our arrondissement.
What a trifle!"—Ibid., 447. (Letter of the Orange Committee to the
Committee of Public Safety, Messidor 3.) "As soon as the Committee gets
fully agoing it is to try all the priests, rich merchants and ex-nobles."—(Letter
of Juge, Messidor 2.) "Judging by appearances more than three thousand
heads will fall in the department."—Ibid., 311. At Bordeaux, a huge
scaffold is put up, authorized by the Military Committee, with seven
doors, two of which are large and like barn-doors, called a four-bladed
guillotine, so as to work faster and do more. The warrant and orders for
its construction bear date Thermidor 3 and 8, year II.—Berryat
Saint-Prix, 285. Letter of Representative Blutel, on mission at Rochefort,
after Thermidor: "A few men, sunk in debauchery and crime, dared proscribe
(here) virtues, patriotism, because it was not associated with their
sanguinary excitement: the tree of Liberty, they said, required for its
roots ten feet of human gore."]
4142 (return)
[ "Recueil de Pièces
Authentiques, concernant le Revolution à Strasbourg," I., 174, 178.
Examples of revolutionary taxes.—Orders of Representatives Milhaud,
Ruamps, Guyadin, approving of the following contributions, Brumaire 20,
year II.