Produced by Svend Rom





THE ORIGINS OF CONTEMPORARY FRANCE, VOLUME 3

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, VOLUME 2


by Hippolyte A. Taine



     Transcriber's Note: The numbering of Volumes, Books,
     Chapters and Sections are as in the French not the
     American edition. Annotations by the transcriber
     are initialled SR.

     Svend Rom, April 2000.



THE REVOLUTION. Volume II. THE JACOBIN CONQUEST.

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION VOLUME II.

     BOOK FIRST. THE JACOBINS.
     CHAPTER I. The Establishment of the new political organ. 6
     I. The Revolutionary Party.
     II. The Jacobins.
     III. Jacobin Mentality.
     IV. What the Theory Promises.

     CHAPTER II. The Party.
     I. Formation of the Party
     II. Jacobin and other Associations
     III. The Press.
     IV. The Clubs.
     V. Jacobin Power.

     BOOK SECOND. THE FIRST STAGE OF THE CONQUEST.
     CHAPTER I. The Jacobins in Power.
     I. Manipulating the Vote.
     II. Danger of holding Public Office.
     III. Pursuit of the Opponents.
     IV. Turmoil.
     V. Tactics of Intimidation.

     CHAPTER II. The Legislative Assembly.
     I. New Incompetent Assembly.
     II. Jacobin Intelligence and Culture.
     III. Their Sessions.
     IV. The political Parties.
     V. Means and Ways.
     VI. Political Tactics.
     CHAPTER III. Policy of the Assembly.
     I. Lawlessness.
     II. Revolutionary Laws.
     III. War.
     IV. Dictatorship of the Proletariat.
     V. Citoyens! Aux Armes!!
     CHAPTER IV. The Departments.
     I. Provence in 1792.
     II. The expedition to Aix.
     III. Marseilles against Arles.
     IV. The Jacobins of Avignon.
     V. The Class Struggle.
     CHAPTER V. PARIS.
     I. Weakening of the King.
     II. The Armed Revolutionaries.
     III. Jacobin Rabble-rousers.
     IV. The King in front of the people.
     CHAPTER VI. The Birth of the Terrible Paris Commune.
     I. The Plan of the Girondists.
     II. Girondists Foiled.
     III. Preparations for the Coup.
     IV. The Commune in Action.
     V. Purging the Assembly.
     VI. Take-over.
     VII. The King's Submission.
     VIII. Paris and its Jacobin leaders.

     BOOK THIRD. THE SECOND STAGE OF THE CONQUEST.
     CHAPTER I. Mob rule in times of anarchy.
     I. Brigands.
     II. Homicidal Part of Revolutionary Creed.
     III. Terror is their Salvation.
     IV. Carnage.
     V. Abasement and Stupor.
     VI. Jacobin Massacre.
     CHAPTER II. THE DEPARTMENTS.
     I. The Sovereignty of the People..
     II. Robbers and Victims.
     III. Local Dictature.
     IV. Jacobin Violence, Rape and Pillage.
     V. The Roving Gangs.
     VI. The Programme of the Party.
     CHAPTER III. The New Sovereigns..
     I. Sharing the Spoils.
     II. Doctoring the Elections
     III Electoral Control..
     IV: The New Republican Assembly.
     V. The Jacobins forming alone the Sovereign People.
     VI. Composition of the Jacobin Party.
     VII. The Jacobin Chieftains.
     CHAPTER IV. TAKEN HOSTAGE.
     I. Jacobin tactics and power.
     II. Jacobin characters and minds.
     III. Physical fear and moral cowardice.
     IV. Jacobin victory over Girondist majority.
     V. Jacobin violence against the people.
     VI. Jacobin tactics.
     VII. The central Jacobin committee in power.
     VIII. Right or Wrong, my Country.




PREFACE:

In this volume, as in those preceding it and in those to come, there
will be found only the history of Public Authorities. Others will write
that of diplomacy, of war, of the finances, of the Church; my subject
is a limited one. To my great regret, however, this new part fills an
entire volume; and the last part, on the revolutionary government, will
be as long.

I have again to regret the dissatisfaction I foresee this work will
cause to many of my countrymen. My excuse is, that almost all of them,
more fortunate than myself, have political principles which serve them
in forming their judgments of the past. I had none; if indeed, I had
any motive in undertaking this work, it was to seek for political
principles. Thus far I have attained to scarcely more than one; and this
is so simple that will seem puerile, and that I hardly dare express it.
Nevertheless I have adhered to it, and in what the reader is about to
peruse my judgments are all derived from that; its truth is the measure
of theirs. It consists wholly in this observation: that

HUMAN SOCIETY, ESPECIALLY A MODERN SOCIETY, IS A VAST AND COMPLICATED
THING.

Hence the difficulty in knowing and comprehending it. For the same
reason it is not easy to handle the subject well. It follows that a
cultivated mind is much better able to do this than an uncultivated
mind, and a man specially qualified than one who is not. From these two
last truths flow many other consequences, which, if the reader deigns to
reflect on them, he will have no trouble in defining.

H. A. Taine, Paris 1881.


*****




BOOK FIRST. THE JACOBINS.




CHAPTER I. THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE NEW POLITICAL ORGAN.


In this disorganized society, in which the passions of the people are
the sole real force, authority belongs to the party that understands
how to flatter and take advantage of these. As the legal government can
neither repress nor gratify them, an illegal government arises which
sanctions, excites, and directs these passions. While the former
totters and falls to pieces, the latter grows stronger and improves its
organization, until, becoming legal in its turn, it takes the other's
place.




I.--Principle of the revolutionary party.

     Its applications.

As a justification of these popular outbreaks and assaults, we discover
at the outset a theory, which is neither improvised, added to, nor
superficial, but now firmly fixed in the public mind. It has for a
long time been nourished by philosophical discussions. It is a sort of
enduring, long-lived root out of which the new constitutional tree has
arisen. It is the dogma of popular sovereignty.--Literally interpreted,
it means that the government is merely an inferior clerk or
servant.[1101] We, the people, have established the government; and ever
since, as well as before its organization, we are its masters. Between
it and us no infinite or long lasting "contract". "None which cannot be
done away with by mutual consent or through the unfaithfulness of one
of the two parties." Whatever it may be, or provide for, we are nowise
bound by it; it depends wholly on us. We remain free to "modify,
restrict, and resume as we please the power of which we have made it
the depository." Through a primordial and inalienable title deed the
commonwealth belongs to us and to us only. If we put this into the hands
of the government it is as when kings delegate authority for the time
being to a minister He is always tempted to abuse; it is our business
to watch him, warn him, check him, curb him, and, if necessary, displace
him. We must especially guard ourselves against the craft and maneuvers
by which, under the pretext of preserving law and order, he would tie
our hands. A law, superior to any he can make, forbids him to interfere
with our sovereignty; and he does interfere with it when he undertakes
to forestall, obstruct, or impede its exercise. The Assembly, even the
Constituent, usurps when it treats the people like a lazybones (roi
fainéant), when it subjects them to laws, which they have not
ratified, and when it deprives them of action except through their
representatives.[1102] The people themselves must act directly, must
assemble together and deliberate on public affairs. They must control
and censure the acts of those they elect; they must influence these with
their resolutions, correct their mistakes with their good sense, atone
for their weakness by their energy, stand at the helm alongside of them,
and even employ force and throw them overboard, so that the ship may
be saved, which, in their hands, is drifting on a rock.[1103] Such, in
fact, is the doctrine of the popular party. This doctrine is carried
into effect July 14 and October 5 and 6, 1789. Loustalot, Camille
Desmoulins, Fréron, Danton, Marat, Pétion, Robespierre proclaim it
untiringly in the political clubs, in the newspapers, and in the
assembly. The government, according to them, whether local or central,
trespasses everywhere. Why, after having overthrown one despotism,
should we install another? We are freed from the yoke of a privileged
aristocracy, but we still suffer from "the aristocracy of our
representatives."[1104] Already at Paris, "the population is
nothing, while the municipality is everything". It encroaches on our
imprescriptible rights in refusing to let a district revoke at will the
five members elected to represent it at the Hôtel-de-Ville, in passing
ordinances without obtaining the approval of voters, in preventing
citizens from assembling where they please, in interrupting the out-door
meetings of the clubs in the Palais Royal where "Patriots are driven
away be the patrol." Mayor Bailly, "who keeps liveried servants, who
gives himself a salary of 110,000 livres," who distributes captains'
commissions, who forces peddlers to wear metallic badges, and who
compels newspapers to have signatures to their articles is not only a
tyrant, but a crook, thief and "guilty of lése-nation."--Worse are the
abuses of the National Assembly. To swear fidelity to the constitution,
as this body has just done, to impose its work on us, forcing us to take
a similar oath, disregarding our superior rights to veto or ratify
their decisions,[1105] is to "slight and scorn our sovereignty". By
substituting the will of 1200 individuals for that of the people, "our
representatives have failed to treat us with respect." This is not the
first time, and it is not to be the last. Often do they exceed their
mandate, they disarm, mutilate, and gag their legitimate sovereign and
they pass decrees against the people in the people's name. Such is
their martial law, specially devised for "suppressing the uprising
of citizens", that is to say, the only means left to us against
conspirators, monopolists, and traitors. Such a decree against
publishing any kind of joint placard or petition, is a decree "null
and void," and "constitutes a most flagrant attack on the nation's
rights."[1106] Especially is the electoral law one of these, a law
which, requiring a small qualification tax for electors and a larger one
for those who are eligible, "consecrates the aristocracy of wealth."
The poor, who are excluded by the decree, must regard it as invalid;
register themselves as they please and vote without scruple, because
natural law has precedence over written law. It would simply be "fair
reprisal" if, at the end of the session, the millions of citizens lately
deprived of their vote unjustly, should seize the usurping majority by
the threat and tell them:

"You cut us off from society in your chamber, because you are the
strongest there; we, in our turn, cut you off from the living society,
because we are strongest in the street. You have killed us civilly--we
kill you physically."

Accordingly, from this point of view, all riots are legitimate.
Robespierre from the rostrum[1107] excuses jacqueries, refuses to call
castle-burners brigands, and justifies the insurgents of Soissons,
Nancy, Avignon, and the colonies. Desmoulins, alluding to two men hung
at Douai, states that it was done by the people and soldiers combined,
and declares that: "Henceforth,--I have no hesitation in saying it--they
have legitimated the insurrection;" they were guilty, and it was well
to hang them.[1108] Not only do the party leaders excuse assassinations,
but they provoke them. Desmoulins, "attorney-general of the Lantern,
insists on each of the 83 departments being threatened with at least one
lamppost hanging." (This sobriquet is bestowed on Desmoulins on account
of his advocacy of street executions, the victims of revolutionary
passions being often hung at the nearest lanterne, or street lamp,
at that time in Paris suspended across the street by ropes or
chains.--(Tr.)) Meanwhile Marat, in the name of principle, constantly
sounds the alarm in his journal:

"When public safety is in peril, the people must take power out of the
hands of those whom it is entrusted... Put that Austrian woman and her
brother-in-law in prison... Seize the ministers and their clerks and put
them in irons... Make sure of the mayor and his lieutenants; keep the
general in sight, and arrests his staff... The heir to the throne has no
rights to a dinner while you want bread. Organize bodies of armed men.
March to the National Assembly and demand food at once, supplied to
you out of the national stocks... Demand that the nation's poor have
a future secured to them out of the national contribution. If you are
refused join the army, take the land, as well as gold which the rascals
who want to force you to come to terms by hunger have buried and
share it amongst you. Off with the heads of the ministers and their
underlings, for now is the time; that of Lafayette and of every rascal
on his staff, and of every unpatriotic battalion officer, including
Bailly and those municipal reactionaries--all the traitors in the
National Assembly!"

Marat, indeed, still passes for a furious ranter among people of some
intelligence. But for all that, this is the sum and substance of his
theory: It installs in the political establishment, over the heads
of delegated, regular, and legal powers an anonymous, imbecile,
and terrific power whose decisions are absolute, whose projects are
constantly adopted, and whose intervention is sanguinary. This power is
that of the crowd, of a ferocious, suspicious sultan, who, appointing
his viziers, keeps his hands free to direct them and his scimitar ready
sharpened to cut of their heads.




II.--The Jacobins.

     Formation of the Jacobins.--The common human elements of his
     character.--Conceit and dogmatism are sensitive and
     rebellious in every community.--How kept down in all
     well-founded societies.--Their development in the new order
     of things.--Effect of milieu on imagination and
     ambitions.--The stimulants of Utopianism, abuses of speech, and
     derangement of ideas.--Changes in office; interests playing
     upon and perverted feeling.

That a speculator in his closet should have concocted such a theory is
comprehensible; paper will take all that is put upon it, while abstract
beings, the hollow simulacra and philosophic puppets he concocts, are
adapted to every sort of combination.--That a lunatic in his cell should
adopt and preach this theory is also comprehensible; he is beset with
phantoms and lives outside the actual world, and, moreover in this
ever-agitated democracy he is the eternal informer and instigator of
every riot and murder that takes place; he it is who under the name of
"the people's friend" becomes the arbiter of lives and the veritable
sovereign.--That a people borne down with taxes, wretched and starving,
indoctrinated by public speakers and sophists, should have welcomed this
theory and acted under it is again comprehensible; necessity knows no
law, and where the is oppression, that doctrine is true which serves to
throw oppression off.

But that public men, legislators and statesmen, with, at last, ministers
and heads of the government, should have made this theory their own;

* that they should have more fondly clung to it as it became more
destructive;

* that, daily for three years they should have seen social order
crumbling away piecemeal under its blows and not have recognized it as
the instrument of such vast ruin;

* that, in the light of the most disastrous experience, instead of
regarding it as a curse they should have glorified it as a boon;

* that many of them--an entire party; almost all of the Assembly--should
have venerated it as a religious dogma and carried it to extremes with
enthusiasm and rigor of faith;

* that, driven by it into a narrow strait, ever getting narrower and
narrower, they should have continued to crush each other at every step;

* that, finally, on reaching the visionary temple of their so-called
liberty, they should have found themselves in a slaughter-house, and,
within its precincts, should have become in turn butcher and brute;

* that, through their maxims of a universal and perfect liberty they
should have inaugurated a despotism worthy of Dahomey, a tribunal
like that of the Inquisition, and raised human hecatombs like those of
ancient Mexico;

* that amidst their prisons and scaffolds they should persist in
believing in the righteousness of their cause, in their own humanity, in
their virtue, and, on their fall, have regarded themselves as martyrs--

is certainly strange. Such intellectual aberration, such excessive
conceit are rarely encountered, and a concurrence of circumstances, the
like of which has never been seen in the world but once, was necessary
to produce it.[1108]

Extravagant conceit and dogmatism, however, are not rare in the
human species. These two roots of the Jacobin intellect exist in all
countries, underground and indestructible. Everywhere they are kept
from sprouting by the established order of things; everywhere are they
striving to overturn old historic foundations, which press them down.
Now, as in the past, students live in garrets, bohemians in lodgings,
physicians without patients and lawyers without clients in lonely
offices, so many Brissots, Dantons, Marats, Robespierres, and St.
Justs in embryo; only, for lack of air and sunshine, they never come
to maturity. At twenty, on entering society, a young man's judgment
and pride are extremely sensitive.--Firstly, let his society be what it
will, it is for him a scandal to pure reason: for it was not organized
by a legislative philosopher in accordance with a sound principle, but
is the work of one generation after another, according to manifold and
changing necessities. It is not a product of logic, but of history, and
the new-fledged thinker shrugs his shoulders as he looks up and sees
what the ancient tenement is, the foundations of which are arbitrary,
its architecture confused, and its many repairs plainly visible.--In
the second place, whatever degree of perfection preceding institutions,
laws, and customs have reached, these have not received his approval;
others, his predecessors, have chosen for him, he is being subjected
beforehand to moral, political, and social forms which pleased them.
Whether they please him or not is of no consequence. Like a horse
trotting along between the poles of a wagon in the harness that happens
to have been put on his back, he has to make best of it.--Besides,
whatever its organization, as it is essentially a hierarchy, he is
nearly always subaltern in it, and must ever remain so, either soldier,
corporal or sergeant. Even under the most liberal system, that in which
the highest grades are accessible to all, for every five or six men who
take the lead or command others, one hundred thousand must follow or be
commanded. This makes it vain to tell every conscript that he carriers
a marshal's baton in his sack, when, nine hundred and ninety-nine times
out of a thousand, he discovers too late, on rummaging his sack, that
the baton is not there.--It is not surprising that he is tempted to kick
against social barriers within which, willing or not, he is enrolled,
and which predestine him to subordination. It is not surprising that on
emerging from traditional influences he should accept a theory, which
subjects these arrangements to his judgment and gives him authority over
his superiors. And all the more because there is no doctrine more
simple and better adapted to his inexperience, it is the only one he can
comprehend and manage off-hand. Hence it is that young men on leaving
college, especially those who have their way to make in the world, are
more or less Jacobin,--it is a disorder of growing up.[1109]--In well
organized communities this ailment is beneficial, and soon cured.
The public establishment being substantial and carefully guarded,
malcontents soon discover that they have not enough strength to pull it
down, and that on contending with its guardians they gain nothing but
blows. After some grumbling, they too enter at one or the other of its
doors, find a place for themselves, and enjoy its advantages or become
reconciled to their lot. Finally, either through imitation, or habit,
or calculation, they willingly form part of that garrison which, in
protecting public interests, protects their own private interests
as well. Generally, after ten years have gone by, the young man has
obtained his rank in the file, where he advances step by step in his own
compartment, which he no longer thinks of tearing to pieces, and under
the eye of a policeman who he no longer thinks of condemning. He even
sometimes thinks that policeman and compartment are useful to him.
Should he consider the millions of individuals who are trying to mount
the social ladder, each striving to get ahead of the other, it may dawn
upon him that the worst of calamities would be a lack of barriers and of
guardians.

Here the worm-eaten barriers have cracked all at once, their easy-going,
timid, incapable guardians having allowed things to take their course.
Society, accordingly, disintegrated and a pell-mell, is turned into
a turbulent, shouting crowd, each pushing and being pushed, all alike
over-excited and congratulating each other on having finally obtained
elbow-room, and all demanding the new barriers shall be as fragile and
the new guardians as feeble, as defenseless, and as inert as possible.
This is what has been done. As a natural consequence, those who were
foremost in the rank have been relegated to the last; many have been
struck down in the fray, while in this permanent state of disorder,
which goes under the name of lasting order, elegant footwear continue
to be stamped upon by hobnailed boots and wooden shoes.--The fanatic and
the intemperate egoists can now let themselves go. They are no longer
subject to any ancient institutions, nor any armed might which can
restrain them. On the contrary, the new constitution, through its
theoretical declarations and the practical application of these, invites
them to let themselves go.--For, on the one hand, legally, it declares
to be based upon pure reason, beginning with a long string of abstract
dogmas from which its positive prescriptions are assumed to be
rigorously deduced. As a consequence all laws are submitted to the
shallow comments of reasoners and quibblers who will both interpret and
break them according to the principles.[1110]--On the other hand, as a
matter of fact, it hands over all government powers to the elections and
confers on the clubs the control of the authorities: which is to offer
a premium to the presumption of the ambitious who put themselves forward
because they think themselves capable, and who defame their rulers
purposely to displace them.--Every government department, organization
or administrative system is like a hothouse which serves to favor some
species of the human plant and wither others. This one is the best one
for the propagation and rapid increase of the coffee-house politician,
club haranguer, the stump-speaker, the street-rioter, the committee
dictator--in short, the revolutionary and the tyrant. In this political
hothouse wild dreams and conceit will assume monstrous proportions, and,
in a few months, brains that are now only ardent become hotheads.

Let us trace the effect of this excessive, unhealthy temperature on
imaginations and ambitions. The old tenement is down; the foundations of
the new one are not yet laid; society has to be made over again from top
to bottom. All willing men are asked to come and help, and, as one
plain principle suffices in drawing a plan, the first comer may succeed.
Henceforth political fancies swarm in the district meetings, in
the clubs, in the newspapers, in pamphlets, and in every head-long,
venturesome brain.

"There is not a merchant's clerk educated by reading the 'Nouvelle
Héloise,'[1111] not a school teacher that has translated ten pages of
Livy, not an artist that has leafed through Rollin, not an aesthete
converted into journalists by committing to memory the riddles of the
'Contrat Social,' who does not draft a constitution... As nothing is
easier than to perfect a daydream, all perturbed minds gather, and
become excited, in this ideal realm. They start out with curiosity and
end up with enthusiasm. The man in the street rushes to the enterprise
in the same manner as a miser to a conjurer promising treasures, and,
thus childishly attracted, each hopes to find at once, what has never
been seen under even the most liberal governments: perpetual perfection,
universal brotherhood, the power of acquiring what one lacks, and a life
composed wholly of enjoyment."

One of these pleasures, and a keen one, is to daydream. One soars in
space. By means of eight or ten ready-made sentences, found in the
six-penny catechisms circulated by thousands in the country and in the
suburbs of the towns and cities,[1112] a village attorney, a customs
clerk, a theater attendant, a sergeant of a soldier's mess, becomes
a legislator and philosopher. He criticizes Malouet, Mirabeau, the
Ministry, the King, the Assembly, the Church, foreign Cabinets, France,
and all Europe. Consequently, on these important subjects, which always
seemed forever forbidden to him, he offers resolutions, reads addresses,
makes harangues, obtains applause, and congratulates himself on having
argued so well and with such big words. To hold fort on questions that
are not understood is now an occupation, a matter of pride and profit.

"More is uttered in one day," says an eye-witness,[1113] "in one section
of Paris than in one year in all the Swiss political assemblies put
together. An Englishman would give six weeks of study to what we dispose
of in a quarter of an hour."

Everywhere, in the town halls, in popular meetings, in the sectional
assemblies, in the wine shops, on the public promenades, on street
corners vanity erects a tribune of verbosity.

"Contemplate the incalculable activity of such a machine in a loquacious
nation where the passion for being something dominates all other
affections, where vanity has more phases than there are starts in the
firmament, where reputations already cost no more than the trouble of
insisting on their being deserved, where society is divided between
mediocrities and their trumpeters who laud them as divinities; where
so few people are content with their lot, where the corner grocer is
prouder of his epaulette than the Grand Condé of his Marshal's baton,
where agitation without object or resources is perpetual, where,
from the floor-scrubber to the dramatist, from the academician to the
simpleton who gets muddled over the evening newspaper, from the witty
courtier down to his philosophic lackey, each one revises Montesquieu
with the self-sufficiency of a child which, because it is learning to
read, deems itself wise; where self-esteem, in disputation, caviling and
sophistication, destroys all sensible conversation; where no one utters
a word, but to teach, never imagining that to learn one must keep quiet;
where the triumphs of a few lunatics entice every crackbrain from his
den; where, with two nonsensical ideas put together out of a book that
is not understood, a man assumes to have principles; where swindlers
talk about morality, women of easy virtue about civism, and the
most infamous of beings about the dignity of the species; where the
discharged valet of a grand seignior calls himself Brutus!" --In
reality, he is Brutus in his own eyes. Let the time come and he will be
so in earnest, especially against his late master; all he has to do is
to give him a thrust with his pike. Until he acts out the part he spouts
it, and grows excited over his own tirades; his common sense gives way
to the bombastic jargon of the revolution and to declamation, which
completes the Utopian performance and eases his brain of its last
modicum of ballast.

It is not merely ideas which the new regime has disturbed, but it has
also disordered sentiments. "Authority is transferred from the Château
of Versailles and the courtier's antechamber, with no intermediary or
counterpoise, to the proletariat and its flatterers."[1114] The whole of
the staff of the old government is brusquely set aside, while a general
election has brusquely installed another in is place, offices not being
given to capacity, seniority, and experience, but to self-sufficiency,
intrigue, and exaggeration. Not only are legal rights reduced to a
common level, but natural grades are transposed; the social ladder,
overthrown, is set up again bottom upwards; the first effect of the
promised regeneration is "to substitute in the administration of public
affairs pettifoggers for magistrates, ordinary citizens for cabinet
ministers, ex-commoners for ex-nobles, rustics for soldiers, soldiers
for captains, captains for generals, curés for bishops, vicars for
curés, monks for vicars, brokers for financiers, empiricists for
administrators, journalists for political economists, stump-orators for
legislators, and the poor for the rich."--Every species of covetousness
is stimulated by this spectacle. The profusion of offices and the
anticipation of vacancies "has excited the thirst for command,
stimulated self-esteem, and inflamed the hopes of the most inept. A rude
and grim presumption renders the fool and the ignoramus unconscious of
their insignificance. They have deemed themselves capable of anything,
because the law granted public functions merely to capacity. There has
appeared in front of one and all an ambitious perspective; the soldier
thinks only of displacing his captain, the captain of becoming general,
the clerk of supplanting the chief of his department, the new-fledged
attorney of being admitted to the high court, the curé of being ordained
a bishop, the shallow scribbler of seating himself on the legislative
bench. Offices and professions vacated by the appointment of so many
upstarts afford in their turn a vast field for the ambition of the
lower classes."--Thus, step by step, owing to the reversal of social
positions, is brought about a general intellectual fever.

"France is transformed into a gaming-table, where, alongside of the
discontented citizen offering his stakes, sits, bold, blustering,
and with fermenting brain, the pretentious subaltern rattling his
dice-box... At the sight of a public official rising from nowhere, even
the soul of a bootblack will bound with emulation."--He has merely to
push himself ahead and elbow his way to secure a ticket "in this immense
lottery of popular luck, of preferment without merit, of success
without talent, of apotheoses without virtues, of an infinity of places
distributed by the people wholesale, and enjoyed by the people in
detail."--Political charlatans flock thither from every quarters, those
taking the lead who, being most in earnest, believe in the virtue of
their nostrum, and need power to impose its recipe on the community; all
being saviors, all places belong to them, and especially the highest.
They lay siege to these conscientiously and philanthropically; if
necessary, they will take them by assault, hold them through force, and,
forcibly or otherwise, administer their cure-all to the human species.




III.--Psychology of the Jacobin.

     His intellectual method.--Tyranny of formulae and
     suppression of facts.--Mental balance disturbed.--Signs of
     this in the revolutionary language.--Scope and expression of
     the Jacobin intellect.--In what respect his method is
     mischievous.--How it is successful.--Illusions produced by
     it.

Such are our Jacobins, born out of social decomposition like mushrooms
out of compost. Let us consider their inner organization, for they have
one as formerly the Puritans; we have only to follow their dogma down to
its depths, as with a sounding-line, to reach the psychological stratum
in which the normal balance of faculty and sentiment is overthrown.

When a statesman, who is not wholly unworthy of that great name, finds
an abstract principle in his way, as, for instance, that of popular
sovereignty, he accepts it, if he accepts it at all, according to
his conception of its practical bearings. He begins, accordingly, by
imagining it applied and in operation. From personal recollections and
such information as he can obtain, he forms an idea of some village or
town, some community of moderate size in the north, in the south, or
in the center of the country, for which he has to make laws. He then
imagines its inhabitants acting according to his principle, that is to
say, voting, mounting guard, levying taxes, and administering their
own affairs. Familiar with ten or a dozen groups of this sort, which he
regards as examples, he concludes by analogy as to others and the rest
on the territory. Evidently it is a difficult and uncertain process; to
be exact, or nearly so, requires rare powers of observation and, at each
step, a great deal of tact, for a nice calculation has to be made on
given quantities imperfectly ascertained and imperfectly noted![1115]
Any political leader who does this successfully, does it through the
ripest experience associated with genius. And even then he keeps his
hand on the check-rein in pushing his innovation or reform; he is
almost always tentative; he applies his law only in part, gradually and
provisionally; he wishes to ascertain its effect; he is always ready to
stay its operation, amend it, or modify it, according to the good or ill
results of experiment; the state of the human material he has to deal
with is never clear to his mind, even when superior, until after many
and repeated gropings.--Now the Jacobin pursues just the opposite
course. His principle is an axiom of political geometry, which always
carries its own proof along with it; for, like the axioms of common
geometry, it is formed out of the combination of a few simple ideas, and
its evidence imposes itself at once on all minds capable of embracing
in one conception the two terms of which it is the aggregate expression.
Man in general, the rights of Man, the social contract, liberty,
equality, reason, nature, the people, tyrants, are examples of these
basic concepts: whether precise or not, they fill the brain of the new
sectarian. Often these terms are merely vague and grandiose words, but
that makes no difference; as soon as they meet in his brain an axiom
springs out of them that can be instantly and absolutely applied on
every occasion and to excess. Mankind as it is does not concern him. He
does not observe them; he does not require to observe them; with closed
eyes he imposes a pattern of his own on the human substance manipulated
by him; the idea never enters his head of forming any previous
conception of this complex, multiform, swaying material--contemporary
peasants, artisans, townspeople, curés and nobles, behind their plows,
in their homes, in their shops, in their parsonages, in their mansions,
with their inveterate beliefs, persistent inclinations, and powerful
wills. Nothing of this enters into or lodges in his mind; all its
avenues are stopped by the abstract principle which flourishes there
and fills it completely. Should actual experience through the eye or
ear plant some unwelcome truth forcibly in his mind, it cannot subsist
there; however noisy and relentless it may be, the abstract principle
drives it out;[1116] if need be it will distort and strangle it,
considering it a slanderer since it refutes a principle which is true
and undeniable in itself. Obviously, a mind of this kind is not sound;
of the two faculties which should pull together harmoniously, one is
degenerated and the other overgrown; facts cannot turn the scale against
the theory. Charged on one side and empty on the other, the Jacobin mind
turns violently over on that side to which it leans, and such is its
incurable infirmity.

Consider, indeed, the authentic monuments of Jacobin thought, the
"Journal des Amis de la Constitution," the gazettes of Loustalot,
Desmoulins, Brissot, Condorcet, Fréron and Marat, Robespierre's, and St.
Just's pamphlets and speeches, the debates in the Legislative Assembly
and in the Convention, the harangues, addresses and reports of the
Girondins and Montagnards, in brief, the forty volumes of extracts
compiled by Buchez and Roux. Never has so much been said to so little
purpose; all the truth that is uttered is drowned in the monotony and
inflation of empty verbiage and vociferous bombast. One experience in
this direction is sufficient.[1117] The historian who resorts this mass
of rubbish for accurate information finds none of any account; in vain
will he read kilometers of it: hardly will he there meet one fact, one
instructive detail, one document which brings before his eyes a distinct
personality, which shows him the real sentiments of a villager or of a
gentleman, which vividly portrays the interior of a hôtel-de-ville, of
a soldier's barracks, of a municipal chamber, or the character of an
insurrection. To define fifteen or twenty types and situations which sum
up the history of the period, we have been and shall be obliged to
seek them elsewhere--in the correspondence of local administrators,
in affidavits on criminal records, in confidential reports of the
police,[1118] and in the narratives of foreigners,[1119] who, prepared
for it by a different education, look behind words for things, and see
France beyond the "Contrat Social." This teeming France, this grand
tragedy which twenty-six millions of players are performing on a stage
of 26 000 square leagues, is lost to the Jacobin. His literature, as
well as his brain, contain only insubstantial generalizations like those
above cited, rolling out in a mere play of ideas, sometimes in concise
terms when the writer happens to be a professional reasoner like
Condorcet, but most frequently in a tangled, knotty style full of loose
and disconnected meshes when the spokesman happens to be an improvised
politician or a philosophic tyro like the ordinary deputies of the
Assembly and the speakers of the clubs. It is a pedantic scholasticism
set forth with fanatical rant. Its entire vocabulary consists of about
a hundred words, while all ideas are reduced to one, that of man in
himself: human units, all alike equal and independent, contracting
together for the first time. This is their concept of society. None
could be briefer, for, to arrive at it, man had to be reduced to a
minimum. Never were political brains so willfully dried up. For it
is the attempt to systematize and to simplify which causes their
impoverishment. In that respect they go by the methods of their time
and in the track of Jean-Jacques Rousseau: their outlook on life is the
classic view, which, already narrow in the late philosophers, has now
become even more narrow and hardened. The best representatives of the
type are Condorcet,[1120] among the Girondins, and Robespierre, among
the Montagnards, both mere dogmatists and pure logicians, the latter the
most remarkable and with a perfection of intellectual sterility never
surpassed.--Unquestionably, as far as the formulation of durable laws
is concerned, i.e. adapting the social machinery to personalities,
conditions, and circumstances; their mentality is certainly the
most impotent and harmful. It is organically short-sighted, and by
interposing their principles between it and reality, they shut off the
horizon. Beyond their crowd and the club it distinguishes nothing, while
in the vagueness and confusion of the distance it erects the hollow
idols of its own Utopia.--But when power is to be seized by assault, and
a dictatorship arbitrarily exercised, the mechanical inflexibility of
such a mind is useful rather than detrimental. It is not embarrassed
or slowed down, like that of a statesman, by the obligation to make
inquiries, to respect precedents, of looking into statistics, of
calculating and tracing beforehand in different directions the near and
remote consequences of its work as this affects the interests,
habits, and passions of diverse classes. All this is now obsolete
and superfluous: the Jacobin knows on the spot the correct form of
government and the good laws. For both construction as well as for
destruction, his rectilinear method is the quickest and most vigorous.
For, if calm reflection is required to get at what suits twenty-six
millions of living Frenchmen, a mere glance suffices to understand the
desires of the abstract men of their theory. Indeed, according to the
theory, men are all shaped to one pattern, nothing being left to them
but an elementary will; thus defined, the philosophic robot demands
liberty, equality and popular sovereignty, the maintenance of the rights
of man and adhesion to the "Contrat Social." That is enough: from now
on the will of the people is known, and known beforehand; a consultation
among citizens previous to action is not essential; there is no
obligation to await their votes. In any events, a ratification by the
people is sure; and should this not be forthcoming it is owing to their
ignorance, disdain or malice, in which case their response deserves
to be considered as null. The best thing to do, consequently, through
precaution and to protect the people from what is bad for them, is
to dictate to them what is good for them.--Here, the Jacobin might
be sincere; for the men in whose behalf he claims rights are not
flesh-and-blood Frenchmen, as we see them in the streets and in the
fields, but men in general, as they ought to be on leaving the hands of
Nature, or after the teachings of Reason. As to the former, there is no
need of being scrupulous because they are infatuated with prejudices
and their opinions are mere drivel; as for the latter, it is just the
opposite: full of respect for the vainglorious images of his own theory,
of ghosts produced by his own intellectual device, the Jacobin will
always bow down to responses that he himself has provided, for, the
beings that he has created are more real in his eyes than living ones
and it is their suffrage on which he counts. Accordingly, viewing
things in the worst lights, he has nothing against him but the momentary
antipathy of a purblind generation. To offset this, he enjoys the
approval of humanity, self-obtained; that of a posterity which his acts
have regenerated; that of men who, thanks to him, who are again become
what they should never have ceased to be. Hence, far from looking upon
himself as an usurper or a tyrant, he considers himself the natural
mandatory of a veritable people, the authorized executor of the common
will. Marching along in the procession formed for him by this imaginary
crowd, sustained by millions of metaphysical wills created by himself
in his own image, he has their unanimous assent, and, like a chorus of
triumphant shouts, he will fill the outward world with the inward echo
of his own voice.




IV.--What the theory promises.

     How it flatters wounded self-esteem.--The ruling passion of
     the Jacobin.--Apparent both in style and conduct.--He alone
     is virtuous in his own estimation, while his adversaries are
     vile.--They must accordingly be put out of the way.--
     Perfection of this character.--Common sense and moral sense
     both perverted.

When an ideology attracts people, it is less due to its sophistication
than to the promises it holds out. It appeals more to their desires than
to their intelligence; for, if the heart sometimes may be the dupe of
the head, the latter is much more frequently the dupe of the former. We
do not accept a system because we deem it a true one, but because the
truth we find in it suits us. Political or religious fanaticism, any
theological or philosophical channel in which truth flows, always
has its source in some ardent longing, some secret passion, some
accumulation of intense, painful desire to which a theory affords
and outlet. In the Jacobin, as well as in the Puritan, there is a
fountain-head of this description. What feeds this source with the
Puritan is the anxieties of a disturbed conscience which, forming for
itself some idea of perfect justice, becomes rigid and multiplies the
commandments it believes that God has promulgated; on being constrained
to disobey these it rebels, and, to impose them on others, it becomes
tyrannical even to despotism. The first effort of the Puritan, however,
wholly internal, is self-control; before becoming political he becomes
moral. With the Jacobin, on the contrary, the first precept is not
moral, political; it is not his duties which he exaggerates but his
rights, while his doctrine, instead of being a prick to his conscience,
flatters his pride.[1121] However vast and insatiate human pride may
be, now it is satisfied, for never before has it had so much to feed
upon.--In the program of the sect, do not look for the restricted
prerogatives growing out of self-respect which the proud-spirited man
claims for himself, such as civil rights accompanied by those liberties
that serve as sentinels and guardians of these rights--security for
life and property, the stability of the law, the integrity of courts,
equality of citizens before the law and under taxation, the abolition
of privileges and arbitrary proceedings, the election of representatives
and the administration of public funds. Summing it up, the precious
guarantees which render each citizen an inviolable sovereign on his
limited domain, which protect his person and property against all
species of public or private oppression and exaction, which maintain him
calm and erect before competitors as well as adversaries, upright and
respectful in the presence of magistrates and in the presence of the
government.

A Malouet, a Mounier, a Mallet du Pan, partisans of the English
Constitution and Parliament, may be content with such trifling gifts,
but the Jacobin theory holds them all cheap, and, if need be, will
trample them in the dust. Independence and security for the private
citizen is not what it promises, not the right to vote every two years,
not a moderate exercise of influence, not an indirect, limited and
intermittent control of the commonwealth, but political dominion in the
full and complete possession of France and the French people. There is
no doubt on this point. In Rousseau's own words, the "Contrat Social"
prescribes "the complete alienation to the community of each associate
and all his rights," every individual surrendering himself wholly,
"just as he may actually be, he himself and all his powers of which
his possessions form a part," so that the state not only the recognized
owner of property, but of minds and bodies as well, may forcibly and
legitimately impose on every member of it such education, form
of worship, religious faith, opinions and sympathies as it deems
best.[1122] Now each man, solely because he is a man, is by right a
member of this despotic sovereignty. Whatever, accordingly, my condition
may be, my incompetence, my ignorance, my insignificance in the career
in which I have plodded along, I have full control over the fortunes,
lives, and consciences of twenty-six million French people, being
accordingly Czar and Pope, according to my share of authority.----But
if I adhere strictly to this doctrine, I am yet more so than my quota
warrants. This royal prerogative with which I am endowed is only
conferred on those who, like myself, sign the Social Contract in
full; others, merely because they reject some clause of it, incur a
forfeiture; no one must enjoy the advantages of a pact of which some of
the conditions are repudiated.--Even better, as this pact is based on
natural right and is obligatory, he who rejects it or withdraws from it,
becomes by that act a miscreant, a public wrong-doer and an enemy of
the people. There were once crimes of royal lèse-majesty; now there are
crimes of popular lèse-majesty. Such crimes are committed when by deed,
word, or thought, any portion whatever of the more than royal authority
belonging to the people is denied or contested. The dogma through which
popular sovereignty is proclaimed thus actually ends in a dictatorship
of the few, and a proscription of the many. Outside of the sect you are
outside of the laws. We, the five or six thousand Jacobins of Paris,
are the legitimate monarch, the infallible Pontiff, and woe betide the
refractory and the lukewarm, all government agents, all private persons,
the clergy, the nobles, the rich, merchants, traders, the indifferent
among all classes, who, steadily opposing or yielding uncertain
adhesion, dare to throw doubt on our unquestionable right.

One by one these consequences are to come into light, and it is evident
that, let the logical machinery by which they unfold themselves be what
it may, no ordinary person, unless of consummate vanity, will fully
adopt them. He must have an exalted opinion of himself to consider
himself sovereign otherwise than by his vote, to conduct public business
with no more misgivings than his private business, to directly and
forcibly interfere with this, to set himself up, he and his clique, as
guides, censors and rulers of his government, to persuade himself that,
with his mediocre education and average intellect, with his few
scraps of Latin and such information as is obtained in reading-rooms,
coffee-houses, and newspapers, with no other experience than that of a
club, or a municipal council, he could discourse wisely and well on the
vast, complex questions which superior men, specially devoted to them,
hesitate to take up. At first this presumption existed in him only
in germ, and, in ordinary times, it would have remained, for lack of
nourishment, as dry-rot or creeping mold, But the heart knows not
what strange seeds it contains! Any of these, feeble and seemingly
inoffensive, needs only air and sunshine to become a noxious excrescence
and a colossal plant. Whether third or fourth rate attorney, counselor,
surgeon, journalist, curé, artist, or author, the Jacobin is like the
shepherd that has just found, in one corner of his hut, a lot of old
parchments which entitle him to the throne. What a contrasts between the
meanness of his calling and the importance with which the theory invests
him! With what rapture he accepts a dogma that raises him so high in
his own estimation! Diligently conning the Declaration of Rights,
the Constitution, all the official documents that confer on him
such glorious prerogatives, charging his imagination with them, he
immediately assumes a tone befitting his new position.[1123]--Nothing
surpasses the haughtiness and arrogance of this tone. It declares itself
at the outset in the harangues of the clubs and in the petitions to the
Constituent Assembly. Loustalot, Fréron, Danton, Marat, Robespierre, St.
Just, always employ dictatorial language, that of the sect, and
which finally becomes the jargon of their meanest valets. Courtesy or
toleration, anything that denotes regard or respect for others, find no
place in their utterances nor in their acts; a swaggering, tyrannical
conceit creates for itself a language in its own image, and we see not
only the foremost actors, but their minor associates, enthroned on their
grandiloquent platform. Each in his own eyes is Roman, savior, hero, and
great man.

"I stood in the tribune of the palace," writes Anarcharsis Clootz,[1124]
"at the head of the foreigners, acting as ambassador of the human
species, while the ministers of the tyrants regarded me with a jealous
and disconcerted air."

A schoolmaster at Troyes, on the opening of the club in that town,
advises the women "to teach their children, as soon as they can utter
a word, that they are free and have equal rights with the mightiest
potentates of the universe."[1125] Pétion's account of the journey in
the king's carriage, on the return from Varennes, must be read to see
how far self-importance of a pedant and the self-conceit of a lout can
be carried.[1126] In their memoirs and even down to their epitaphs,
Barbaroux, Buzot, Pétion, Roland, and Madame Roland[1127] give
themselves certificates of virtue and, if we could take their word for
it, they would pass for Plutarch's model characters.--This infatuation,
from the Girondins to the Montagnards, continues to grow. St. Just,
at the age of twenty-four, and merely a private individual, is already
consumed with suppressed ambition. Marat says:

"I believe that I have exhausted every combination of the human
intellect in relation to morality, philosophy and political science."

Robespierre, from the beginning to the end of the Revolution, is
always, in his own eyes, Robespierre the unique, the one pure man, the
infallible and the impeccable; no man ever burnt to himself the incense
of his own praise so constantly and so directly.--At this level, conceit
may drink the theory to the bottom, however revolting the dregs and
however fatal its poison even to those defy its nausea for the sake of
swallowing it. And, since it is virtue, no one may refuse it without
committing a crime. Thus construed, the theory divides Frenchmen into
two groups: one consisting of aristocrats, fanatics, egoists, the
corrupt, bad citizens in short, and the other patriots, philosophers,
and the virtuous, that is to say, those belonging to the sect.[1128]
Thanks to this reduction, the vast moral and social world with which
they deal finds its definition, expression, and representation in a
ready-made antithesis. The aim of the government is now clear: the
wicked must submit to the good, or, which is briefer, the wicked must be
suppressed. To this end let us employ confiscation, imprisonment, exile,
drowning and the guillotine and a large scale. All means are justifiable
and meritorious against these traitors; now that the Jacobin has
canonized his slaughter, he slays through philanthropy.--Thus is the
forming of his personality completed like that of a theologian who
becomes inquisitor. Extraordinary contrasts are gathered to construct
it:--a lunatic that is logical, and a monster that pretends to have
a conscience. Under the pressure of his faith and egotism, he has
developed two deformities, one of the head and the other of the heart;
his common sense is gone, and his moral sense is utterly perverted. In
fixing his mind on abstract formulas, he is no longer able to see men
as they are. His self-admiration makes him consider his adversaries, and
even his rivals, as miscreants deserving of death. On this downhill road
nothing stops him, for, in qualifying things inversely to their true
meaning, he has violated within himself the precious concepts which
brings us back to truth and justice. No light reaches eyes which regard
blindness as clear-sightedness; no remorse affects a soul which erects
barbarism into patriotism, and which sanctions murder with duty.


*****


[Footnote 1101: Cf. "The Ancient Régime," p. 242. Citations from the
"Contrat Social."--Buchez et Roux, "Histoire Parlementaire," XXVI. 96.
Declaration of rights read by Robespierre in the Jacobin club, April 21,
1793, and adopted by the club as its own. "The people is sovereign, the
government is its work and its property, and public functionaries are
its clerks. The people can displace its mandatories and change its
government when it pleases."]

[Footnote 1102: Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and other dictators that
like that also organized elections and saw themselves as being the
people, speaking and acting on their behalf and therefore entitled to do
anything they pleased.(SR).]

[Footnote 1103: Rightly so, might Lenin have thought when he first read
this text. Later, under his and Stalin's leadership the Party, guided
by the first secretary of its central committee, aided by the secret
police, should penetrate all affairs slowly extending their power
or influence to the entire world through their secret party members,
mutually ensuring their promotion into the highest posts, the party will
eventually come to govern the world. (SR).]

[Footnote 1104: Buchez and Roux, III, 324.. (An article by Loustalot,
Sept. 8, 1789). Ibid. 331 Motion of the District of Cordéliers,
presided over by Danton.--Ibid 239.. Denunciation of the municipality by
Marat.--V., 128, Vi. 24-41 (March, 1790). The majority of the districts
demand the permanent authority of the districts, that is to say, of the
sovereign political assemblies]

[Footnote 1105: Buchez et Roux. IV. 458. Meeting of Feb. 24, 1790, an
article by Loustalot.--III 202. Speech by Robespierre, meeting of Oct.
21, 1789. Ibid. 219. Resolution of the district of St. Martin
declaring that martial law shall not be enforced. Ibid. 222. Article by
Loustalot.]

[Footnote 1106: Buchez et Roux, X. 124, an article by Marat.--X. 1-22,
speech by Robespierre at the meeting of May 9, 1791.-III. an article
by Loustalot. III. 217, speech by Robespierre, meeting of Oct.22, 1789.
Ibid. 431, article by Loustalot and Desmoulins, Nov., 1789.--VI. 336,
articles by Loustalot and Marat, July, 1790.]

[Footnote 1107: Ernest Hamel, "Histoire de Robespierre", passim,
(I.436). Robespierre proposed to confer political rights on the
blacks.--Buchez et Roux, IX. 264 (March, 1791).]

[Footnote 1108: Buchez et Roux, V. 146 (March, 1790); VI. 436 (July 26,
1790); VIII. 247 (Dec 1790); X. 224 (June, 1791).]

[Footnote 1109: Gustave Flaubert. "Tout notaire a rêvé des
sultanes." (All barristers have dreams of being sultans!) (Madame
Bovary").--"Frédéric trouvait que le bonheur mérité par l'excellence de
son âme tardait à venir." (Frédéric found that the happiness he
deserved due to his brilliancy was a long time coming.) ("L'Education
sentimentale.)]

[Footnote 1110: Such has also been the effect of similar declarations
set forth in the Constitutions of the United Nations, the European
Community, as well as many individual nations. All that was required
for the international Communist movement was then to await the slow
promotion of the secret party members directed to seek a career inside
the various legal administrations for, one day, to see all superior
courts staffed by their men. (SR).]

[Footnote 1111: Mallet du Pan, "Correspondance politique." 1796.]

[Footnote 1112: "Entretiens du Père Gérard," by Collot d'Herbois.--"Les
Etrennes au Peuple," by Barrère.-"La Constitution française pour les
habitants des campagnes," etc.--Later "L'Alphabet des Sans-Culottes, le
Nouveau Catéchisme républicain, les Commandements de la Patrie et de la
République (in verse), etc."]

[Footnote 1113: Mercure de France, an article by Mallet du Pan, April 7,
1792. (Summing up of the year 1791.)]

[Footnote 1114: Mercure de France, see the numbers of Dec. 30, 1791, and
April 7, 1792. (Note the phrase, it is close to Marx statement in 1850
'that the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the
proletariat.' SR.)]

[Footnote 1115: Fox, before deciding on any measure, consulted a Mr.
H.--, one of the most uninfluential, and even narrow-minded members
of the House of Commons. Some astonishment being expressed at this, he
replied that he regarded Mr. H.---as a perfect type of the faculties
and prejudices of a country gentleman, and he used him as a thermometer.
Napoleon likewise stated that before framing an important law, he
imagined to himself the impression it would make on the mind of a burly
peasant.]

[Footnote 1116: Just like the strong influence which the current
fashionable principles and buzz-words introduced by the media have over
today's audiences. (SR).]

[Footnote 1117: Alas! This phenomenon should be repeated with the
interminable speeches held by Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Castro, Mao and all
the other inheritors of the Jacobin creed. (SR).]

[Footnote 1118: "Tableaux de la Révolution Française," by Schmidt
(especially the reports by Dutard), 3 vols.]

[Footnote 1119: "Correspondence of Gouverneur Morris,"--"Memoirs of
Mallet du Pan," John Moore']

[Footnote 1120: See, in "Progrès de l'esprit humaine," the superiority
awarded to the republican constitution of 1793. (Book IX.) "The
principles from which the constitution and laws of France have been
combined are purer, more exact, and deeper than those which governed the
Americans: they have more completely escaped the influence of every sort
of prejudice, etc."]

[Footnote 1121: Camille Desmoulins, the enfant terrible of the
Revolution, confesses this, as well as other truths. After citing the
Revolutions of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, "which derived
their virtue from and had their roots in conscience, which were
sustained by fanaticism and the hopes of another world," he thus
concludes: "Our Revolution, purely political, is wholly rooted in
egotism, in everybody's amour propre, in the combinations of which is
found the common interest." ("Brissot dévoilé," by Camille Desmoulins,
January, 1792)--Bouchez et Roux, XIII, 207.)]

[Footnote 1122: Rousseau's idea of the omnipotence of the State is also
that of Louis XIV and Napoleon... It is curious to see the development
of the same idea in the mind of a contemporary bourgeois, like Rétif de
la Bretonne, half literary and half one of the people ("Nuits de Paris,"
XVe nuit, 377, on the September Massacres) "No, I do not pity those
fanatical priests; they have done the country too much mischief.
Whatever a society, or a majority of it, desires, that is right. He
who opposes this, who calls down war and vengeance on the Nation, is
a monster. Order is always found in the agreement of the majority. The
minority is always guilty, I repeat it, even if it is morally right.
Nothing but common sense is needed to see that truth."--Ibid. (On the
execution of Louis XVI.), p. 447. "Had the nation the right to condemn
and execute him? No thinking person can ask such a question. The nation
is everything in itself; its power is that which the whole human kind
would have if but one nation, one single government governed the
globe. Who would dare then dispute the power of humanity? It is this
indisputable power that a nation has, to hang even an innocent man,
felt by the ancient Greeks, which led them to exile Aristoteles and put
Phocion to death. 'Oh truth, unrecognized by our contemporaries, what
evil has arisen through forgetting it!'"]

[Footnote 1123: Moniteur, XI. 46. Speech by Isnard in the Assembly,
Jan. 5, 1792. "The people are now conscious of their dignity. They know,
according to the constitution, that every Frenchman's motto is: 'Live
free, the equal of all, and one of the common sovereignty.'"--Guillon
de Montléon, I. 445. Speech by Chalier, in the Lyons Central Club, March
21, 1793. "Know that you are kings, and more than kings. Do you not feel
sovereignty circulating in your veins?"]

[Footnote 1124: Moniteur, V. 136. (Celebration of the Federation, July
14, 1790.)]

[Footnote 1125: Albert Babeau, "Histoire de Troyes pendant la
Révolution," I. 436 (April 10, 1790).]

[Footnote 1126: Mortimer-Ternaux, "Histoire de la Terreur," I. 353.
(Pétion's own narrative of this journey.) This pert blockhead cannot
even spell: he writes aselle for aisselle, etc. He is convinced that
Madame Elizabeth, the king's sister, wants to seduce him, and that she
makes advances to him: "If we had been alone, I believe that she would
have fallen into my arms, and let the impulses of nature have their
way." He makes a display of virtue however, and becomes only the more
supercilious as he talks with the king, the young dauphin, and the
ladies he is fetching back.]

[Footnote 1127: The "Mémoires de Madame Roland" is a masterpiece of that
conceit supposed to be so careflilly concealed as not to be visible
and never off its stilts. "I am beautiful, I am affectionate, I am
sensitive, I inspire love, I reciprocate, I remain virtuous, my mind is
superior, and my courage indomitable. I am philosopher, statesman, and
writer, worthy of the highest success," is constantly in her mind, and
always perceptible in her phraseology. Real modesty never shows itself.
On the contrary, many indecorous things are said and done by her from
bravado, and to set herself above her sex. Cf. the "Memoirs of Mirs.
Hutchinson," which present a great contrast. Madame Roland wrote: "I
see no part in society which suits me but that of Providence."--The same
presumption shines out in others, with less refined pretensions. The
deputy Rouyer addresses the following letter, found among the papers of
the iron wardrobe, to the king, "I have compared, examined, and foreseen
everything. All I ask to carry out my noble purposes, is that direction
of forces, which the law confers on you. I am aware of and brave the
danger; weakness defers to this, while genius overcomes it I have turned
my attention to all the courts of Europe, and am sure that I can force
peace on them."--Robert, an obscure pamphleteer, asks Dumouriez to make
him ambassador to Constantinople, while Louvet, the author of "Faublas,"
declares in his memoirs that liberty perished in 1792, because he was
not appointed Minister of Justice.]

[Footnote 1128: Moniteur, p. 189. Speech by Collot d'Herbois, on the
mitraillades at Lyons. "We too, possess sensibility! The Jacobins
have every virtue; they are compassionate, humane, and generous. These
virtues, however, are reserved for patriots, who are their brethren, but
never for aristocrats."--Meillan, "Mémoires," p. 4. "Robespierre was
one day eulogizing a man named Desfieux, well known for his lack of
integrity, and whom he finally sacrificed. 'But, I said to him, your man
Desfieux is known to be a rascal.'--'No matter,' he replied, 'he is
a good patriot.'--'But he is a fraudulent bankrupt.'-'He is a good
patriot.'--'But he is a thief.'--'He is a good patriot.' I could not get
more than these three words out of him."]




CHAPTER II.




I.--Formation of the party.

     Its recruits--These are rare in the upper class and amongst
     the masses.--They are numerous in the low bourgeois class
     and in the upper stratum of the people.--The position and
     education which enroll a man in the party.

Personalities like these are found in all classes of society; no
situation or position in life protects one from wild Utopia or frantic
ambition. We find among the Jacobins a Barras and a Châteauneuf-Randon,
two nobles of the oldest families; Condorcet, a marquis, mathematician,
philosopher and member of two renowned academies; Gobel, bishop of Lydda
and suffragan to the bishop of Bâle; Hérault de Séchellles, a protégé of
the Queen's and attorney-general to the Paris parliament; Lepelletier de
St. Fargeau, chief-justice and one of the richest land-owners in France;
Charles de Hesse, major-general, born in the royal family; and, last of
all, a prince of the blood and fourth personage in the realm, the Duke
of Orleans.--But, with the exception of these rare deserters, neither
the hereditary aristocracy nor the upper magistracy, nor the highest of
the middle class, none of the land-owners who live on their estates, or
the leaders of industrial and commercial enterprises, no one belonging
to the administration, none of those, in general, who are or deserve to
be considered social authorities, furnish the party with recruits. All
have too much at stake in the political establishment, shattered as it
is, to wish its entire demolition. Their political experience, brief as
it is, enables them to see at once that a habitable house is not built
by merely tracing a plan of it on paper according the theorems of school
geometry.--On the other hand, among the ordinary rural population the
ideology finds, unless it can be changed into a legend, no listeners.
Share croppers, small holders and farmers looking after their own plots
of ground, peasants and craftsmen who work too hard to think and whose
minds never range beyond a village horizon, busy only with that which
brings in their daily bread, find abstract doctrines unintelligible;
should the dogmas of the new catechism arrest their attention the same
thing happens as with the old one, they do not understand them; that
mental faculty by which an abstraction is reached is not yet formed in
them. On being taken to a political club they fall asleep; they
open their eyes only when some one announces that tithes and feudal
privileges are to be restored; they can be depended on for nothing more
than a brawl and a jacquerie; later on, when their grain comes to be
taxed or is taken, they prove as unruly under the republic as under the
monarchy.

The believers in this theory come from other quarters, from the two
extremes of the lower stratum of the middle class and the upper stratum
of the low class. Again, in these two contiguous groups, which merge
into each other, those must be left out who, absorbed in their daily
occupations or professions, have no time or thought to give to public
matters, who have reached a fair position in the social hierarchy and
are not disposed to run risks, almost all of them well-established,
steady-going, mature, married folks who have sown their wild oats and
whom experience in life has rendered distrustful of themselves and of
theories. Overweening conceit is, most of the time, only average in the
average human being, so speculative ideas will with most people only
obtain a loose, transient and feeble hold. Moreover, in this society
which, for many centuries consists of people accustomed to being ruled,
the hereditary spirit is bourgeois that is to say, used to discipline,
fond of order, peaceable and even timid.--There remains a minority, a
very small one,[1201] innovating and restless. This consisted, on
the one hand, of people who were discontented with their calling
or profession, because they were of secondary or subaltern rank in
it.[1202] Some were debutantes not fully employed and others aspirants
for careers not yet entered upon. Then, on the other hand, there were
the men of unstable character and all those who were uprooted by the
immense upheaval of things: in the Church, through the suppression of
convents and through schism; in the judiciary, in the administration,
in the financial departments, in the army, and in various private and
public careers, through the reorganization of institutions, through the
novelty of fresh resources and occupations, and through the disturbance
caused by the changed relationships of patrons and clients. Many who, in
ordinary times, would otherwise remain quiet, become in this way nomadic
and extravagant in politics. Among the foremost of these are found those
who, through a classical education, can take in an abstract proposition
and deduce its consequences, but who, for lack of special preparation
for it, and confined to the narrow circle of local affairs, are
incapable of forming accurate conceptions of a vast, complex social
organization, and of the conditions which enable it to subsist.
Their talent lies in making a speech, in dashing off an editorial, in
composing a pamphlet, and in drawing up reports in more or less pompous
and dogmatic style; the genre admitted, a few of them who are gifted
become eloquent, but that is all. Among those are the lawyers, notaries,
bailiffs and former petty provincial judges and attorneys who furnish
the leading actors and two-thirds of the members of the Legislative
Assembly and of the Convention: There are surgeons and doctors in small
towns, like Bo, Levasseur, and Baudot, second and third-rate literary
characters, like Barrère, Louvet, Garat, Manuel, and Ronsin, college
professors like Louchet and Romme, schoolmasters like Leonard Bourdon,
journalists like Brissot, Desmoulins and Freron, actors like Collot
d'Herbois, artists like Sergent, Oratoriens[1203] like Fouché, capuchins
like Chabot, more or less secularized priests like Lebon, Chasles,
Lakanal, and Grégoire, students scarcely out of school like St.
Just, Monet of Strasbourg, Rousseline of St. Albin, and Julien of the
Drôme--in short, the poorly sown and badly cultivated minds, and on
which the theory had only to fall to smother the good grain and thrive
like a nettle. Add to these charlatans and others who live by their
wits, the visionary and morbid of all sorts, from Fanchet and Klootz
to Châlier or Marat, the whole of that needy, chattering, irresponsible
crowd, ever swarming about large cities ventilating its shallow conceits
and abortive pretensions. Farther in the background appear those whose
scanty education qualifies them to half understand an abstract principle
and imperfectly deduce its consequences, but whose roughly-polished
instinct atones for the feebleness of a coarse argumentation. Through
cupidity, envy and rancor, they divine a rich pasture-ground behind
the theory, and Jacobin dogmas become dearer to them, because the
imagination sees untold treasures beyond the mists in which they are
shrouded. They can listen to a club harangue without falling asleep,
applaud its tirades in the rights place, offer a resolution in a public
garden, shout in the tribunes, pen affidavits for arrests, compose
orders-of-the-day for the national guard, and lend their lungs, arms,
and sabers to whoever bids for them. But here their capacity ends.
In this group merchants' and notaries' clerks abound, like Hébert and
Henriot, Vincent and Chaumette, butchers like Legendre, postmasters like
Drouet, boss-joiners like Duplay, school-teachers like that Buchot who
becomes a minister, and many others of the same sort, accustomed to
jotting down ideas, with vague notions of orthography and who are apt
in speech-making,[1204] foremen, sub-officers, former begging friars,
peddlers, tavern-keepers, retailers, market-porters, and city-journeymen
from Gouchon, the orator of the faubourg St. Antoine, down to Simon, the
cobbler of the Temple, from Trinchard, the juryman of the Revolutionary
Tribunal, down to grocers, tailors, shoemakers, tapster, waiters,
barbers, and other shopkeepers or artisans who do their work at home,
and who are yet to do the work of the September massacres. Add to these
the foul remnants of every popular insurrection and dictatorship, beasts
of prey like Jourdain of Avignon, and Fournier the American, women like
Théroigne, Rose Lacombe, and the tricoteuses of the Convention who have
unsexed themselves, the amnestied bandits and other gallows birds who,
for lack of a police, have a wide range, street-rollers and vagabonds,
rebels against labor and discipline, the whole of that class in the
center of civilization which preserves the instincts of savages, and
asserts the sovereignty of the people to glut a natural appetite for
license, laziness, and ferocity.--Thus is the party recruited through an
enlisting process that gleans its subjects from every station in life,
but which reaps them down in great swaths, and gathers them together
in the two groups to which dogmatism and presumption naturally belong.
Here, education has brought man to the threshold, even to the heart of
general ideas; consequently, he feels hampered within the narrow bounds
of his profession or occupation, and aspires to something beyond. But
as his education has remained superficial or rudimentary, consequently,
outside of his narrow circle he feels out of his place. He has a
perception or obtains a glimpse of political ideas and, therefore,
assumes that he has capacity. But his perception is confided to a
formula, and he sees them dimly through a cloud; hence his incapacity,
and the reason why his mental lacunae as well as his attainments both
contribute to make him a Jacobin.




II.--Spontaneous associations after July 14, 1789.

     How these dissolve.--Withdrawal of people of sense and
     occupation.--Number of those absent at elections.--Birth and
     multiplication of Jacobin societies.--Their influence over
     their adherents--Their maneuvers and despotism.

Men thus disposed cannot fail to draw near each other, to understand
each other, and combine together; for, in the principle of popular
sovereignty, they have a common dogma, and, in the conquest of political
supremacy, a common aim. Through a common aim they form a faction, and
through a common dogma they constitute a sect, the league between them
being more easily effected because they are a faction and sect at the
same time.

At first their association is not distinguishable in the multitude of
other associations. Political societies spring up on all sides after the
taking of the Bastille. Some kind of organization had to be substituted
for the deposed or tottering government, in order to provide for urgent
public needs, to secure protection against ruffians, to obtain supplies
of provisions, and to guard against the probably machinations of
the court. Committees installed themselves in the town halls, while
volunteers formed bodies of militia: hundreds of local governments,
almost independent, arose in the place of the central government, almost
destroyed.[1205] For six months everybody attended to matters of common
interest, each individual getting to be a public personage and bearing
his quota of the government load: a heavy load at all times, but heavier
in times of anarchy; this, at least, is the opinion of the majority but
not of all of them. Consequently, a division arises amongst those who
had assumed this load, and two groups are formed, one huge, inert and
disintegrating, and the other small, compact and energetic, each
taking one of two ways which diverge from each other, and which keep on
diverging more and more.

On one hand are the ordinary, sensible people, those who are busy, and
who are, to some extent, not over-conscientious, and not over-conceited.
The power is in their hands because they find it prostrate, lying
abandoned in the street; they hold it provisionally only, for they knew
beforehand, or soon discover, that they are not qualified for the
post, it being one of those which, to be properly filled, needs some
preparation and fitness for it. A man does not become legislator or
administrator in one day, any more than he suddenly becomes a physician
or surgeon. If an accident obliges me to act in the latter capacity, I
yield, but against my will, and I do no more than is necessary to save
my patients from hurting themselves, My fear of their dying under the
operation is very great, and, as soon as some other person can be found
to take my place, I go home.[1206]--I should be glad, like everybody
else, to have my vote in the selection of this person, and, among the
candidates. I should designate, to the best of my ability, one who
seemed to me the ablest and most conscientious. Once selected, however,
and installed, I should not attempt to dictate to him; his cabinet is
private, and I have no right to run there constantly and cross-question
him, as if he were a child or under suspicion. It does not become me to
tell him what to do; he probably knows more about the case than I do;
in any event, to keep a steady hand, he must not be threatened, and, to
keep a clear head, he must not be disturbed. Nor must I be disturbed;
my office and books, my shop, my customers must be attended to as well.
Everybody has to mind his own business, and whoever would attend to his
own and another's too, spoils both.--This way of thinking prevails with
most healthy minds towards the beginning of the year 1790, all whose
heads are not turned by insane ambition and the mania for theorizing,
especially after six months of practical experience and knowing the
dangers, miscalculation, and vexations to which one is exposed in trying
to lead an eager, over-excited population.--Just at this time, December
1789, municipal law becomes established throughout the country; all the
mayors and municipal officers are elected almost immediately, and in the
following months, all administrators of districts and departments. The
interregnum has a length come to an end. Legal authorities now exist,
with legitimate and clearly-determined functions. Reasonable, honest
people gladly turn power over to those to whom it belongs, and certainly
do not dream of resuming it. All associations for temporary purposes are
at once disbanded for lack of an object, and if others are formed, it
is for the purpose of defending established institutions. This is the
object of the Federation, and, for six months, people embrace each other
and exchange oaths of fidelity.--After this, July 14, 1790, they
retire into private life, and I have no doubt that, from this date,
the political ambition of a large plurality of the French people is
satisfied, for, although Rousseau's denunciation of the social hierarchy
are still cited by them, they, at bottom, desire but little more than
the suppression of administrative brutality and state favoritism.[1207]
All this is obtained, and plenty of other things besides; the august
title of sovereign, the respect of the public authorities, honors to all
who wield a pen or make a speech, and, better still, actual sovereignty
in the appointment to office of all local land national administrators;
not only do the people elect their deputies, but every species of
functionary of every degree, those of commune, district, and department,
officers in the national guard, civil and criminal magistrates, bishops
and priests. Again, to ensure the responsibility of the elected to their
electors, the term of office fixed by law is a short one,[1208]
the electoral machine which summons the sovereign to exercise his
sovereignty being set agoing about every four months.--This was a good
deal, and too much, as the sovereign himself soon discovers. Voting so
frequently becomes unendurable; so many prerogatives end in getting to
be drudgery. Early in 1790, and after this date, the majority forego
the privilege of voting and the number of absentees becomes enormous.
At Chartres, in May, 1790,[1209] 1,447 out of 1,551 voters do not attend
preliminary meetings. At Besançon, in January, 1790, on the election of
mayor and municipal officers, 2,141 out of 3,200 registered electors are
recorded as absent from the polls, and 2,900 in the following month of
November.[1210] At Grenoble, in August and November of this year, out of
2,500 registered voters, more than 2,000 are noted as absent.[1211] At
Limoges, out of about the same number, there are only 150 voters. At
Paris, out of 81,400 electors, in August, 1790, 67,200 do not vote, and,
three months later, the number of absentees is 71,408.[1212]

Thus for every elector that votes, there are four, six, eight, ten, and
even sixteen that abstain from voting.--In the election of deputies,
the case is the same. At the primary meetings of 1791, in Paris, out of
81,200 registered names more than 74,000 fail to respond. In the Doubs,
three out of four voters stay away. In one of the cantons of the Côte
d'Or, at the close of the polls, only one-eighth of the electors remain
at the counting of the votes, while in the secondary meetings the
desertion is not less. At Paris, out of 946 electors chosen only 200 are
found to give their suffrage; at Rouen, out of 700 there are but
160, and on the last day of the ballot, only 60. In short, "in all
departments," says an orator in the tribune, "scarcely one out of five
electors of the second degree discharges his duty."

In this manner the majority hands in its resignation. Through inertia,
want of forethought, lassitude, aversion to the electoral hubbub, lack
of political preferences, or dislike of all the political candidates, it
shirks the task which the constitution imposes on it. Most certainly is
has no taste for the painstaking burden of being involved in a league
(of human rights). Men who cannot find time once in three months to
drop a ballot in the box, will not come three times a week to attend
the meetings of a club. Far from meddling with the government, they
abdicate, and as they refuse to elect it, they cannot undertake to
control it.

It is, on the other hand, just the opposite with the upstarts and
dogmatists who regard their royal privileges seriously. They not only
vote at the elections, but they mean to keep the authority they delegate
in their own hands. In their eyes every official is one of their
creatures, and remains accountable to them, for, in point of law, the
people may not part with their sovereignty, while, in fact, power has
proved so sweet that they are not disposed to part with it.[1213] During
six months preceding the regular elections, they have come to know,
comprehend, and test each other; they have held secret meetings;
a mutual understanding is arrived at, and henceforth, as other
associations disappear like fleeting bloom, theirs[1214] rise vigorously
on the abandoned soil. A club is established at Marseilles before the
end of 1789; each large town has one within the first six months of
1790, Aix in February, Montpellier in March, Nîmes in April, Lyons in
May, and Bordeaux in June.[1215] But their greatest increase takes place
after the Federation festival. Just when local gatherings merge into
that of the whole country, the sectarian Jacobins keep aloof, and form
leagues of their own. At Rouen, July 14, 1790, two surgeons, a printer,
a chaplain at the prison, a widowed Jewess, and four women or children
living in the house,--eight persons in all, pure and not to be
confounded with the mass,[1216] bind themselves together, and form a
distinct association. Their patriotism is of superior quality, and they
take a special view of the social compact;[1217] in swearing fealty to
the constitution they reserve to themselves the Rights of Man, and they
mean to maintain not only the reforms already effected, but to complete
the Revolution just begun.--During the Federation they have welcomed
and indoctrinated their fellows who, on quitting the capital or large
cities, become bearers of instructions to the small towns and hamlets;
they are told what the object of a club is, and how to form one, and,
everywhere, popular associations arise on the same plan, for the same
purpose, and bearing the same name. A month later, sixty of these
associations are in operation; three months later, one hundred; in
March, 1791, two hundred and twenty-nine, and in August, 1791, nearly
four hundred.[1218] After this date a sudden increase takes place, owing
to two simultaneous impulses, which scatter their seeds over the entire
territory.--On the one hand, at then end of July, 1791, all moderate
men, the friends of law and order, who still hold the clubs in check,
all constitutionalists, or Feuillants, withdraw from them and leave them
to exaggeration or the triviality of proposing motions; the political
tone immediately falls to that of the tavern and guard-house, so that
wherever one or the other is found, there is a political club. On the
other hand, a convocation of the electoral body is held at the same
date for the election of a new National Assembly, and for the renewal
of local governments; the prey being in sight, hunting-parties are
everywhere formed to capture it. In two months,[1219] six hundred new
clubs spring up; by the end of September they amount to one thousand,
and in June, 1792, to twelve hundred--as many as there are towns and
walled boroughs. On the fall of the throne, and at the panic caused by
the Prussian invasion, during a period of anarchy which equaled that of
July, 1789, there were, according to Roederer, almost as many clubs as
there were communes, 26,000, one for every village containing five or
six hot-headed, boisterous fellows, or roughs, (tape-durs), with a clerk
able to pen a petition.

After November, 1790,[1220] "every street in every town and hamlet,"
says a Journal of large circulation, "must have a club of its own. Let
some honest craftsman invite his neighbors to his house, where, with
using a shared candle, he may read aloud the decrees of the National
Assembly, on which he and his neighbors may comment. Before the meeting
closes, in order to enliven the company, which may feel a little
disturbed on account of Marat's articles, let him read the patriotic
oaths in 'Pêre Duchesne.'"[1221]--The advice is followed. At the
meetings in the club are read aloud pamphlets, newspapers, and
catechisms dispatched from Paris, the "Gazette Villageoise," the
"Journal du Soir," the "Journal de la Montagne," "Pêre Duchesne," the
"Révolutions de Paris," and "Laclos' Gazette." Revolutionary songs
are sung, and, if a good speaker happens to be present, a former
monk (oratorien), lawyer, or school-master, he pours out his stock of
phrases, speaking of the Greeks and Romans, proclaiming the regeneration
of the human species. One of them, appealing to the women, wants to see

"the declaration of the Rights of Man suspended on the walls of their
bedrooms as their principal ornament, and, should war break out,
these virtuous supporters, marching at the head of our armies like new
bacchantes with flowing hair, the wand of Bacchus in their hand."

Shouts of applause greet this sentiment. The minds of the listeners,
swept away by this gale of declamation, become overheated and ignite
through mutual contact; like half-consumed embers that would die out
if let alone, they kindle into a blaze when gathered together in a
heap.--Their convictions, at the same time, gain strength. There is
nothing like a coterie to make these take root. In politics, as
in religion, faith generating the church, the latter, in its turn,
nourishes faith. In the club, as in the private religious meeting, each
derives authority from the common unanimity, every word and action of
the whole tending to prove each in the right. And all the more because
a dogma which remains uncontested, ends in seeming incontestable; as
the Jacobin lives in a narrow circle, carefully guarded, no contrary
opinions find their way to him. The public, in his eyes, seems two
hundred persons; their opinion weighs on him without any counterpoise,
and, outside of their belief, which is his also, every other belief is
absurd and even culpable. Moreover, he discovers through this constant
system of preaching, which is nothing but flattery, that he is
patriotic, intelligent, virtuous, of which he can have no doubt,
because, before being admitted into the club, his civic virtues have
been verified and he carries a printed certificate of them in his
pocket.--Accordingly, he is one of an élite corps, a corps which,
enjoying a monopoly of patriotism, holds itself aloof, talks loud,
and is distinguished from ordinary citizens by its tone and way of
conducting things. The club of Pontarlier,[1222] from the first,
prohibits its members from using the common forms of politeness.

"Members are to abstain from saluting their fellow-citizens by removing
the hat, and are to avoid the phrase, 'I have the honor to be,' and
others of like import, in addressing persons."

A proper idea of one's importance is indispensable.

"Does not the famous tribune of the Jacobins in Paris inspire traitors
and impostors with fear? And do not anti-Revolutionaries return to dust
on beholding it?"

All this is true, in the provinces as well as at the capital, for,
scarcely is a club organized before it sets to work on the population.
In may of the large cities, in Paris, Lyons, Aix and Bordeaux, there
are two clubs in partnership,[1223] one, more or less respectable and
parliamentary, "composed partly of the members of the different branches
of the administration and specially devoted to purposes of general
utility," and the other, practical and active, made up of bar-room
politicians and club-haranguers, who indoctrinate workmen,
market-gardeners and the rest of the lower bourgeois class. The latter
is a branch of the former, and, in urgent cases, supplies it with
rioters.

"We are placed amongst the people," says one of these subaltern clubs,
"we read to them the decrees, and, through lectures and counsel, we
warn them against the publications and intrigues of the aristocrats.
We ferret out and track plotters and their machinations. We welcome and
advise all complainants; we enforce their demands, when just; finally,
we, in some way, attend to all details."

Thanks to these vulgar auxiliaries, but whose lungs and arms are strong,
the party soon becomes dominant; it has force and uses it, and,
denying that its adversaries have any rights, it re-establishes all the
privileges for its own advantage.[1224]




III.--How they view the liberty of the press.

     Their political doings.

Let us consider its mode of procedure in one instance and upon a limited
field, the freedom of the press.[1225] In December, 1790, M. Etienne,
an engineer, whom Marat and Fréron had denounced as a spy in their
periodicals, brought a suit against them in the police court. The
numbers containing the libel were seized, the printers summoned to
appear, and M. Etienne claimed a public retraction or 25,000 francs
damages with costs. At this the two journalists, considering themselves
infallible as well as exempt from arrest, are indignant.

"It is of the utmost importance," writes Marat, "that the informer
should not be liable to prosecution as he is accountable only to the
public for what he says and does for the public good."

M. Etienne (surnamed Languedoc), therefore, is a traitor: "Monsieur
Languedoc, I advise you to keep your mouth shut; if I can have you hung
I will." M. Etienne, nevertheless, persists and obtains a first decision
in his favor. Fire and flame are at once belched forth by Marat and
Fréon:

"Master Thorillon," exclaims Fréron to the commissary of police, "you
shall be punished and held up to the people as an example; this infamous
decision must be canceled."--"Citizens," writes Marat, "go in a body
to the Hôtel-de-Ville and do not allow one of the guards to enter the
court-room. "--On the day of the trial, and in the most condescending
spirit, but two grenadiers are let in. Even these, however, are too many
and shouts from the Jacobin crowd arise "Turn 'em out! We rule here,"
upon which the two grenadiers withdraw. On the other hand, says Fréron
triumphantly, that there were in the court-room "sixty of the victors at
the Bastille led by the brave Santerre, who intended to interfere in
the trial."--They intervene, indeed, and first against the plaintiff. M.
Etienne is attacked at the entrance of the court-room and nearly knocked
down He is so maltreated that he is obliged to seek shelter in the
guard-room. He is spit upon, and they "move to cut off his ears." His
friends receive "hundreds of kicks," while he runs away, and the case is
postponed.--It is called up again several times, so no the judges
have to be restrained. A certain Mandart in the audience, author of a
pamphlet on "Popular Sovereignty," springs to his feet and, addressing
Bailly, mayor of Paris, and president of the tribunal, challenges the
court. As usual Bailly yields, attempting to cover up his weakness with
an honorable pretext: "Although a judge can be challenged only by the
parties to a suit, the appeal of one citizen is sufficient for me and
I leave the bench." The other judges, who are likewise insulted and
menaced, yield also, and, through a sophism which admirably illustrates
the times, they discover in the oppression to which the plaintiff is
subject a legal device by which they can give a fair color to their
denial of justice. M. Etienne having signified to them that neither
he nor his counsel could attend in court, because their lives were in
danger, the court decides that M. Etienne, "failing to appear in person,
or by counsel, is non-suited."--Victorious shouts at once proceed from
the two journalists, while their articles on the case disseminated
throughout France set a precedence contained in the ruling. Any Jacobin
may after this with impunity denounce, insult, and calumniate whomsoever
he pleases, sheltered as he is from the action of courts, and held
superior to the law.

Let us see, on the other hand, what liberty they allow their
adversaries. A fortnight before this, Mallet du Pan, a writer of great
ability, who, in the best periodical of the day, discusses questions
week after week free of all personalities, the most independent,
straight-forward, and honorable of men, the most eloquent and judicious
advocate of public order and true liberty, is waited upon by a
deputation from the Palais-Royal,[1226] consisting of about a dozen
well-dressed individuals, civil enough and not too ill-disposed, but
quite satisfied that they have a right to interfere. The conversation
which ensues shows to what extent the current political creed had turned
peoples' heads.

"One of the party, addressing me, informed me that he and his associates
were deputies of the Palais-Royal clubs, and that they had called
to notify me that I would do well to change my principles and stop
attacking the constitution, otherwise extreme violence would be brought
to bear on me. I replied that I recognized no authority but the law and
that of the courts; the law is your master and mine, and no respect is
shown to the constitution by assailing the freedom of the press."

"The constitution is the common will, resumed the spokesman. The law, is
the authority of the strongest. You are subject to the strongest and you
ought to submit. We notify you of the will of the nation and that is the
law.'"

Mallet du Pan stated to them that he was not in favor of the ancient
régime, but that he did approve of royal authority.

"Oh!" exclaimed all together, "we should be sorry not to have a king.
We respect the King and maintain his authority. But you are forbidden
to oppose the dominant opinion and the liberty which is decreed by the
National Assembly."

Mallet du Pan, apparently, knows more about this than they do, for he is
a Swiss by birth, and has lived under a republic for twenty years.
But this does not concern them. They persist all the same, five or six
talking at once, misconstruing the sense the words they use, and each
contradicting the other in point of detail, but all agreeing to impose
silence on him:

"You should not run counter to the popular will, for in doing this
you preach civil war, bring the assembly's decrees into contempt, and
irritate the nation."

Evidently, for them, they constitute the nation, or, more or less,
they represent it. Through this self-investiture they are at once
magistrates, censors, and police, while the scolded journalist is only
too glad, in his case, to have them stop at injunctions.--Three days
before this he is advised that a body of rioters in his neighborhood
"threatened to treat his house like that of M. de Castries," in which
everything had been smashed and thrown out the windows. At another time,
apropos of the suspensive or absolute veto; "four savage fellows came
to his domicile to warn him, showing him their pistols, that if he dared
write in behalf of M. Mounier he should answer for it with his life."
Thus, from the outset,

"just as the nation begins to enjoy the inestimable right of free
thought and free speech, factional tyrants lose no time in depriving
citizens of these, proclaiming to all that would maintain the integrity
of their consciences: Tremble, die, or believe as we do!"

After this, to impose silence on those who express what is offensive,
the crowd, the club, the section, decree and execute, each on its
own authority,[1227] searches, arrests, assaults, and, at length,
assassinations. During the month of June, 1792, "three decrees of
arrest and fifteen denunciations, two acts of affixing seals, four civic
invasions of his premises, and the confiscation of whatever belonged to
him in France" is the experience of Mallet du Pan. He passes four years
"without knowing with any certainty on going to bed whether he should
get out of it in the morning alive and free." Later on, if he escapes
the guillotine and the lantern, it is owing to exile. On the 10th
of August, Suleau, a conservative journalist, is massacred in the
street.--This shows how the party regards the freedom of the press.
Other liberties may be judged of by its encroachments on this domain.
Law, in its eyes, is null when it proves an obstacle, and when it
affords protection to adversaries; consequently there is no excess which
it does not sanction for itself; and no right which it does not refuse
to others.

There is no escape from the tyranny of the clubs. "That of Marseilles
has forced the city officials to resign;[1228] it has summoned the
municipal body to appear before it; it has ignored the authority of the
department, and has insulted the administrators of the law. Members of
the Orleans club have kept the national Supreme Court under supervision,
and taken part in its proceedings. Those of the Caen club have insulted
the magistrates, and seized and burnt the records of the proceedings
commenced against the destroyers of the statue of Louis XIV. At Alby
they have forcibly abstracted from the record-office the papers relating
to an assassin's trial, and burnt them." The club at Coutance gives the
deputies of its district to understand that "no reflections must be
cast on the laws of the people." That of Lyons stops an artillery
train, under the pretext that the ministry in office does not enjoy the
nation's confidence.--Thus does the club everywhere govern, or prepare
to govern. On the one hand, at the elections, it sets aside or supports
candidates; it alone votes, or, at least, controls the voting. In short,
the club is the elective power, and practically, if not legally, enjoys
the privileges of a political aristocracy. On the other hand, it assumes
to be a spontaneous police-board; it prepares and circulates the lists
which designate the ill-disposed, suspected, and lukewarm; it lodges
information against nobles whose sons have emigrated; against unsworn
priests who still reside in their former parishes, and against nuns,
"whose conduct is unconstitutional". It prompts, directs, and rebukes
local authorities; it is itself a supplemental, superior, and usurping
authority.--All at once, sensible men realize its character, and protest
against it.

"A body thus organized," says a petition,[1229] "exists solely for
arming one citizen against another.... Discussions take place there, and
denunciations are made under the seal of inviolable secrecy..... Honest
citizens, surrendered to the most atrocious calumny, are destroyed
without an opportunity of defending themselves. It is a veritable
Inquisition. It is the center of seditious publications, a school of
cabals and intrigue. If the citizens have to blush at the selection of
unworthy candidates, they are all due to this class of associations...
Composed of the excited and the incendiary, of those who aim to rule the
State," the club everywhere tends

"to a mastery of the popular opinion, to thwarting the municipalities,
to an intrusion of itself between these and the people," to an
usurpation of legal forms and to become a "colossus of despotism."

Vain complaints! The National Assembly, ever in alarm on its own
account, shields the popular club and accords it its favor or
indulgence. A journal of the party had recommended "the people to
form themselves into small platoons." These platoons, one by one,
are growing. Each borough now has a local oligarchy, an enlisted and
governing band. To create an army out of these scattered bands, simply
requires a staff and a central rallying-point. The central point and
the staff have both for a long time been ready in Paris, it is the
association of the "Friends of the Constitution."




IV.--Their rallying-points.

     Origin and composition of the Paris Jacobin club.--It
     affiliates with provincial clubs.--Its leaders.--The
     fanatics.--The Intriguers.--Their object.--Their means.

No association in France, indeed, dates farther back, and has an equal
prestige. It was born before the Revolution, April 30, 1789.[1230]
At the assembly of the States-General in Brittany, the deputies from
Quimper, Hennebon, and Pontivy saw how important it was to vote in
concert, and they had scarcely reached Versailles when, in common with
others, they hired a hall, and, along with Mounier, secretary of the
States-General of Dauphiny, and other deputies from the provinces, at
once organized a union which was destined to last. Up to the 6th of
October, none but deputies were comprised in it; after that date, on
removing to Paris, in the library of the Jacobins, a convent in the
Rue St. Honoré, many well-known eminent men were admitted, such as
Condorcet, and then Laharpe, Chénier, Champfort, David, and Talma, among
the most prominent, with other authors and artists, the whole amounting
to about a thousand notable personages.--No assemblage could be more
imposing--two or three hundred deputies are on its benches, while its
rules and by-laws seem specially designed to gather a superior body
of men. Candidates for admission were proposed by ten members and
afterwards voted on by ballot. To be present at one of its meetings
required a card of admission. On one occasion, a member of the committee
of two, appointed to verify these cards, happens to be the young Duke
of Chartres. There is a committee on administration and a president.
Discussions took place with parliamentary formalities, and, according
to its status, the questions considered there were those under debate
in the National Assembly.[1231] In the lower hall, at certain hours,
workmen received instruction and the constitution was explained to them.
Seen from afar, no society seems worthier of directing public opinion;
near by, the case is different. In the departments, however, where
distance lends enchantment, and where old customs prevail implanted by
centralization, it is accepted as a guide because its seat is at the
capital. Its statutes, its regulations, its spirit, are all imitated;
it becomes the alma mater of other associations and they its adopted
daughters. It publishes, accordingly, a list of all clubs conspicuously
in its journal, together with their denunciations; it insists on their
demands; henceforth, every Jacobin in the remotest borough feels the
support and endorsement, not only of his local, club, but again of the
great club whose numerous offshoots reached the entire territory and
which extends its all-powerful protection to the least of its adherents.
In return for this protection, each associated club obeys the word
of command given at Paris, and to and from, from the center to the
extremities, a constant correspondence maintains the established
harmony. A vast political machine is thus set agoing, a machine with
thousands of arms, all working at once under one impulsion, and the
lever which the motions is in the hands of a few master spirits in the
Rue St. Honoré.

No machine could be more effective; never was one seen so well contrived
for manufacturing artificial, violent public opinion, for making this
appear to be national, spontaneous sentiment, for conferring the
rights of the silent majority on a vociferous minority, for forcing the
surrender of the government.

"Our tactics were very simple," says Grégoire[1232]. "It was understood
that one of us should take advantage of the first favorable opportunity
to propose some measure in the National Assembly that was sure to be
applauded by a small minority and cried down by the majority. But that
made no difference. The proposer demanded, which was granted, that the
measure should be referred to a committee in which its opponents hoped
to see it buried. Then the Paris Jacobins took hold of it. A circular
was issued, after which an article on the measure was printed in their
journal and discussed in three or four hundred clubs that were leagued
together. Three weeks after this the Assembly was flooded with petitions
from every quarter, demanding a decree of which the first proposal had
been rejected, and which is now passed by a great majority because a
discussion of it had ripened public opinion."

In other words, the Assembly must go ahead or it will be driven along,
in which process the worst expedients are the best. Those who conduct
the club, whether fanatics or intriguers, are fully agreed on this
point.

At the head of the former class is Duport, once a counselor in the
parliament, who, after 1788, knew how to turn riots to account. The
first revolutionary consultations were held in his house. He wants to
plough deep, and his devices for burying the ploughshare are such
that Sieyès, a radical, if there ever was one, dubbed it a "cavernous
policy."[1233] Duport, on the 28th of July, 1789, is the organizer of
the Committee on Searches, by which all favorably disposed informers
or spies form in his hands a supervisory police, which fast becomes
a police of provocation. He finds recruits in the lower hall of the
Jacobin club, where workmen come to be catechized every morning, while
his two lieutenants, the brothers Laurette, have only to draw on
the same source for a zealous staff in a choice selection of their
instruments. "Ten reliable men receive orders there daily;[1234] each
of these in turn gives his orders to ten more, belonging to different
battalions in Paris. In this way each battalion and section receives the
same insurrectionary orders, the same denunciations of the constituted
authorities, of the mayor of Paris, of the president of the department,
and of the commander of the National Guard," everything taking place
secretly. These are dark deeds: the leaders themselves call it 'the
Sabbath' and, along with fanatics they enlist ruffians. "They spread
the rumor that, on a certain day, there will be a great commotion with
assassinations and pillage, preceded by the payment of money distributed
from hand to hand by subaltern officers among those that can be relied
on, and that these bands are to assemble, as advertised, within a radius
of thirty or forty leagues."[1235]--One day, to provoke a riot, "half a
dozen men, who have arranged the thing, form a small group, in which one
of them holds forth vehemently; at once a crowd of about sixty others
gathers around them. Then the six men move on from place to place,
to form fresh groups making their apparent excitement pass for popular
irritation.--Another day, "about forty fanatics, with powerful lungs,
and four or five hundred paid men," scatter themselves around the
Tuileries, "yelling furiously," and, gathering under the windows of
the Assembly, "move resolutions to assassinate."--"Our ushers," says a
deputy to the Assembly, "whom you ordered to suppress this tumult, heard
reiterated threats of bringing you the heads of those the crowd wished
to proscribe. That very evening, in the Palais-Royal, "I heard a
subordinate leader of this factious band boast of having charged your
ushers to take this answer back, adding that there was time enough yet
for all good citizens to follow his advice."--The watchword of these
agitators is, are you true and the response is, a true man. Their pay
is twelve francs a day, and when in action they make engagements on the
spot at that rate. "From several depositions taken by officers of the
National Guard and at the mayoralty," it is ascertained that twelve
francs a day were tendered to "honest people to join in with those you
may have heard shouting, and some of them actually had the twelve francs
put into their hands."--The money comes from the coffers of the Duke of
Orleans, and they are freely drawn upon; at his death, with a property
amounting to 114,000,000 francs, his debts amount to 74,000,000.[1236]
Being one of the faction, he contributes to its expenses, and, being
the richest man in the kingdom, he contributes proportionately to his
wealth. Not because he is a party leader, for he is too effeminate,
too nervous; but "his petty council,"[1237] and especially one of his
private secretaries, Laclos, cherishes great designs for him, their
object being to make him lieutenant-general of the kingdom, afterwards
regent, and even king,[1238] so that they may rule in his name and
"share the profits."----In the mean time they turn his whims to the best
account, particularly Laclos, who is a kind of subordinate Macchiavelli,
capable of anything, profound, depraved, and long indulging his
fondness for monstrous combinations; nobody ever so coolly delighted in
indescribable compounds of human wickedness and debauchery. In politics,
as in romance, his department is "Les Liaisons Dangereuses." Formerly
he maneuvered as an amateur with prostitutes and ruffians in the
fashionable world; now he maneuvers in earnest with the prostitutes
and ruffians of the sidewalks. On the 5th of October 1789, he is seen,
"dressed in a brown coat,"[1239] foremost among the women starting for
Versailles, while his hand[1240] is visible "in the Réveillon affair,
also in the burning of barriers and Châteaux," and in the widespread
panic which aroused all France against imaginary bandits. His
operations, says Malouet, "were all paid for by the Duke of Orleans";
he entered into them "for his own account, and the Jacobins for
theirs."--At this time their alliance is plain to everybody. On the 21st
of November, 1790, Laclos becomes secretary of the club, chief of the
department of correspondence, titular editor of its journal, and the
invisible, active, and permanent director of all its enterprises.
Whether actual demagogues or prompted by ambition, whether paid agents
or earnest revolutionaries, each group works on its own account, both
in concert, both in the same direction, and both devoted to the same
undertaking, which is the conquest of power by every possible means.




V.--Small number of Jacobins.

     Sources of their power.--They form a league.--They have
     faith.--Their unscrupulousness.--The power of the party
     vested in the group which best fulfills these conditions.

At first sight their success seems doubtful, for they are in a
minority, and a very small one. At Besançon, in November, 1791, the
revolutionaries of every shade of opinion and degree, whether Girondists
or Montagnards, consist of about 500 or 600 out of 3,000 electors, and,
in November, 1792, of not more than the same number out of 6,000 and
7,000.[1241] At Paris, in November, 1791, there are 6,700 out of more
than 81,000 on the rolls; in October, 1792, there are less than 14,000
out of 160,000.[1242] At Troyes, in 1792, there are found only 400 or
500 out of 7,000 electors, and at Strasbourg the same number out of
8,000 electors.[1243] Accordingly only about one-tenth of the electoral
population are revolutionaries, and if we leave out the Girondists and
the semi-conservatives, the number is reduced by one-half. Towards the
end of 1792, at Besançon, scarcely more than 300 pure Jacobins are found
in a population of from 25,000 to 30,000, while at Paris, out of 700,000
inhabitants only 5,000 are Jacobins. It is certain that in the capital,
where the most excitement prevails, and where more of them are found
than elsewhere, never, even in a crisis and when vagabonds are paid and
bandits recruited, are there more than 10,000.[1244] In a large town
like Toulouse a representative of the people on missionary service wins
over only about 400 persons.[1245] Counting fifty or so in each small
town, twenty in each large borough, and five or six in each village, we
find, on an average, but one Jacobin to fifteen electors and National
Guards, while, taking the whole of France, all the Jacobins put
together do not amount to 300,000.[1246]--This is a small number for the
enslavement of six millions of able-bodied men, and for installing in
a country of twenty-six millions inhabitants a more absolute despotism
than that of an Asiatic sovereign. Force, however, is not measured
by numbers; they form a band in the midst of a crowd and, in this
disorganized, inert crowd, a band that is determined to push its way
like an iron wedge splitting a log.

And against sedition from within as well as conquest from without a
nation may only defend itself through the activities of its government,
which provides the indispensable instruments of common action. Let
it fail or falter and the great majority, undecided about what to do,
lukewarm and busy elsewhere, ceases to be a corps and disintegrates into
dust. Of the two governments around which the nation might have rallied,
the first one, after July 14, 1789, lies prostrate on the ground where
it slowly crumbles away. Now its ghost, which returns, is still
more odious because it brings with it the same senseless abuses and
intolerable burdens, and, in addition to these, a yelping pack of
claimants and recriminators. After 1790 it appears on the frontier more
arbitrary than ever at the head of a coming invasion of angry émigrés
and grasping foreigners.--The other government, that just constructed
by the Constituent Assembly, is so badly put together that the majority
cannot use it. It is not adapted to its hand; no political instrument at
once so ponderous and so helpless was ever seen. An enormous effort is
needed to set it in motion; every citizen is obliged to give it about
two days labor per week.[1247] Thus laboriously started but half
in motion, it poorly meets the various tasks imposed upon it--the
collection of taxes, public order in the streets, the circulation of
supplies, and security for consciences, lives and property. Toppled over
by its own action, another rises out of it, illegal and serviceable,
which takes its place and stands.--In a great centralized state whoever
possesses the head possesses the body. By virtue of being led, the
French have contracted the habit of letting themselves be led.[1248]
People in the provinces involuntarily turn their eyes to the capital,
and, on a crisis occurring, run out to stop the mailman to know what
government happens to have fallen, the majority accepts or submits to
it.--Because, in the first place, most of the isolated groups which
would like to overthrow it dare not engage in the struggle: it seems too
strong; through inveterate routine they imagine behind it that great,
distant France which, under its impulsion, will crush them with its
mass.[1249] In the second place, should a few isolated groups undertake
to overthrow it, they are not in a condition to keep up the struggle: it
is too strong. They are, indeed, not yet organized while it is fully
so, owing to the docile set of officials inherited from the government
overthrown. Under monarchy or republic the government clerk comes to
his office regularly every morning to dispatch the orders transmitted
to him.[1250] Under monarchy or republic the policeman daily makes
his round to arrest those against who he has a warrant. So long as
instructions come from above in the hierarchical order of things, they
are obeyed. From one end of the territory to the other, therefore, the
machine, with its hundred thousand arms, works efficiently in the hands
of those who have seized the lever at the central point. Resolution,
audacity, rude energy, are all that are needed to make the lever act,
and none of these are wanting in the Jacobin. [1251]

First, he has faith, and faith at all times "moves mountains.[1252]
"Take any ordinary party recruit, an attorney, a second-rate lawyer,
a shopkeeper, an artisan, and conceive, if you can, the extraordinary
effect of this doctrine on a mind so poorly prepared for it, so narrow,
so out of proportion with the gigantic conception which has mastered it.
Formed for the routine and the limited views of one in his position, he
is suddenly carried away by a complete system of philosophy, a theory
of nature and of man, a theory of society and of religion, a theory of
universal history,[1253] conclusions about the past, the present, and
the future of humanity, axioms of absolute right, a system of perfect
and final truth, the whole concentrated in a few rigid formulae as, for
example:

"Religion is superstition, monarchy is usurpation, priests are
impostors, aristocrats are vampires, and kings are so many tyrants and
monsters."

These ideas flood a mind of his stamp like a vast torrent precipitating
itself into a narrow gorge; they upset it, and, no longer under
self-direction, they sweep it away. The man is beside himself. A plain
bourgeois, a common laborer is not transformed with impunity into an
apostle or liberator of the human species.--For, it is not his country
that he would save, but the entire race. Roland, just before the 10th of
August, exclaims "with tears in his eyes, should liberty die in France,
she is lost the rest of the world forever! The hopes of philosophers
will perish! The whole earth will succumb to the cruelest
tyranny!"[1254]--Grégoire, on the meeting of the Convention, obtained a
decree abolishing royalty, and seemed overcome with the thought of the
immense benefit he had conferred on the human race.

"I must confess," said he, "that for days I could neither eat nor sleep
for excess of joy!"

One day a Jacobin in the tribune declared: "We shall be a nation of
gods!"--Fancies like these bring on lunacy, or, at all events, they
create disease. "Some men are in a fever all day long," said a companion
of St. Just; "I had it for twelve years..."[1255] Later on, "when
advanced in life and trying to analyze their experiences, they cannot
comprehend it."[1256] Another tells that, in his case, on a "crisis
occurring, there was only a hair's breadth between reason and
madness."--"When St. Just and myself," says Baudot, "discharged the
batteries at Wissenbourg, we were most liberally thanked for it. Well,
there was no merit in that; we knew perfectly well that the shot could
not do us any harm."--Man, in this exalted state, is unconscious of
obstacles, and, according to circumstances, rise above or falls below
himself, freely spilling his own blood as well as the blood of others,
heroic as a soldier and atrocious as a civilian; he is not to be
resisted in either direction for his strength increases a hundredfold
through his fury, and, on his tearing wildly through the streets, people
get out of his way as on the approach of a mad bull.

If they do not jump aside of their own accord, he will run at them,
for he is unscrupulous as well as furious.--In every political struggle
certain kinds of actions are prohibited; at all events, if the majority
is sensible and wishes to act fairly, it repudiates them for itself.
It will not violate any particular law, for, if one law is broken,
this tends to the breaking of others. It is opposed to overthrowing
an established government because every interregnum is a return to
barbarism. It is opposed to the element of popular insurrection because,
in such a resort, public power is surrendered to the irrationality of
brutal passion. It is opposed to a conversion of the government into
a machine for confiscation and murder because it deems the natural
function of government to be the protection of life and property.--The
majority, accordingly, in confronting the Jacobin, who allows
himself all this,[1257] is like a unarmed man facing one who is fully
armed.[1258] The Jacobin, on principle, holds the law in contempt,
for the only law, which he accepts is arbitrary mob rule. He has no
hesitation in proceeding against the government because, in his eyes,
the government is a clerk which the people always has the right to
remove. He welcomes insurrection because, through it, the people recover
their sovereignty with no limitations.--Moreover, as with casuists, "the
end justifies the means."[1259] "Let the colonies perish," exclaims
a Jacobin in the Constituent Assembly, "rather than sacrifice a
principle." "Should the day come," says St. Just, "when I become
convinced that it is impossible to endow the French with mild, vigorous,
and rational ways, inflexible against tyranny and injustice, that day
I will stab myself." Meanwhile he guillotines the others. "We will make
France a graveyard," exclaimed Carrier, "rather than not regenerating
it our own way!"[1260] They are ready to risk the ship in order to seize
the helm. From the first, they organize street riots and jacqueries in
the rural districts, they let loose on society prostitutes and ruffians,
vile and savage beasts. Throughout the struggle they take advantage of
the coarsest and most destructive passions, of the blindness, credulity,
and rage of an infatuated crowd, of dearth, of fear of bandits, of
rumors of conspiracy, and of threats of invasion. At last, having seized
power through a general upheaval, they hold on to it through terror and
executions.--Straining will to the utmost, with no curb to check it,
steadfastly believing in its own right and with utter contempt for
the rights of others, with fanatical energy and the expedients of
scoundrels, a minority may, in employing such forces, easily master and
subdue a majority. So true is that, with faction itself, that victory is
always on the side of the group with the strongest faith and the least
scruples. Four times between 1789 and 1794, political gamblers take
their seats at a table where the stake is supreme power, and four times
in succession the "Impartiaux," the "Feuillants," the "Girondins," and
the "Dantonists," form the majority and lose the game. Four times in
succession the majority has no desire to break customary rules, or, at
the very least, to infringe on any rule universally accepted, to wholly
disregard the teachings of experience, the letter of the law, the
precepts of humanity, or the suggestions of pity.--The minority, on the
contrary, is determined beforehand to win at any price; its views and
opinion are correct, and if rules are opposed to that, so much the
worse for the rules. At the decisive moment, it claps a pistol to its
adversary's head, overturns the table, and collects the stakes.


*****


[Footnote 1201: See the figures further on.]

[Footnote 1202: Mallet du Pan, II. 491. Danton, in 1793, said one day to
one of his former brethren an advocate to the Council.: "The old régime
made a great mistake. It brought me up on a scholarship in Plessis
College. I was brought up with nobles, who were my comrades, and with
whom I lived on familiar terms. On completing my studies, I had nothing;
I was poor and tried to get a place. The Paris bar was very expensive,
and it required extensive efforts to be accepted. I could not get into
the army, having neither rank nor patronage. There was no opening for me
in the Church. I could purchase no employment, for I hadn't a cent. My
old companions turned their backs on me. I remained without a situation,
and only after many long years did I succeed in buying the post of
advocate in the Royal Council. The Revolution came, when I, and all like
me, threw themselves into it. The ancient régime forced us to do so, by
providing a good education for us, without providing an opening for
our talents." This applies to Robespierre, C. Desmoulins, Brissot,
Vergniaud, and others.]

[Footnote 1203: Religious order founded in Rome in 1654 by saint
Philippe Neri and who dedicated their efforts to preaching and the
education of children. (SR)]

[Footnote 1204: Dauban, "La Demagogie à Paris en 1793," and "Paris in
1794." Read General Henriot's orders of the day in these two works.
Comparton, "Histoire du Tribunal Révolutionaire de Paris," a letter by
Trinchard, I. 306 (which is here given in the original, on account of
the ortography): "Si tu nest pas toute seulle et que le compagnion soit
a travailler tu peus ma chaire amie ventir voir juger 24 mesieurs tous
si devent président ou conselier au parlement de Paris et de Toulouse.
Je t'ainvite a prendre quelque chose aven de venir parcheque
nous naurons pas fini de 3 hurres. Je t'embrase ma chaire amie et
épouge."-Ibid. II. 350, examination of André Chenier.--Wallon, "Hist. Du
Trib. Rév.", I, 316. Letter by Simon. "Je te coitte le bonjour mois est
mon est pousse."]

[Footnote 1205: Cf. "The Revolution," page 60.]

[Footnote 1206: Cf. On this point the admissions of the honest Bailly
("Mémoires," passim)]

[Footnote 1207: Rétif de la Bretonne: "Nuits de Paris," 11éme nuit, p.
36. "I lived in Paris twenty-five years as free as air. All could enjoy
as much freedom as myself in two ways--by living uprightly, and by
not writing pamphlets against the ministry. All else was permitted, my
freedom never being interfered with. It is only since the Revolution
that a scoundrel could succeed in having me arrested twice."]

[Footnote 1208: Cf. "The Revolution," vol. I. p.264.]

[Footnote 1209: Moniteur, IV. 495. (Letter from Chartres, May 27,
1790.)]

[Footnote 1210: Sauzay, I.147, 195 218, 711.]

[Footnote 1211: Mercure de France, numbers of August 7, 14, 26, and Dec.
18, 1790.]

[Footnote 1212: Ibid. number of November 26, 1790. Pétion is elected
mayor of Paris by 6,728 out of 10,632 voters. "Only 7,000 voters
are found at the election of the electors who elect deputies to the
legislature. Primary and municipal meetings are deserted in the same
proportion."---Moniteur, X. 529 (Number of Dec. 4, 1791). Manuel is
elected Attorney of the Commune by 3,770 out of 5,311 voters.--Ibid.
XI. 378. At the election of municipal officers for Paris, Feb.10 and 11,
1792, only 3,787 voters present themselves; Dussault, who obtains the
most votes, has 2,588; Sergent receives 1,648.--Buchez et Roux, XI. 238
(session of Aug.12, 1791). Speech by Chapelier; "Archives Nationales,"
F.6 (carton), 21. Primary meeting of June 13, 1791, canton of Bèze (Cote
d'Or). Out of 460 active citizens, 157 are present, and, on the final
ballot, 58.--Ibid., F7, 3235, (January, 1792). Lozerre: "1,000 citizens,
at most, out of 25,000, voted in the primary meetings. At. Saint-Chèly,
capital of the district, a few armed ruffians succeed in forming the
primary meeting and in substituting their own election for that of eight
parishes, whose frightened citizens who withdrew from it... At Langogne,
chief town of the canton and district, out of more than 400 active
citizens, 22 or 23 at most--just what one would suppose them to be when
their presence drove away the rest--alone formed the meeting."]

[Footnote 1213: This power, with its gratifications, is thus shown,
Beugnot, I. 140, 147. "On the publication of the decrees of August
4, the committee of surveillance of Montigny, reinforced by all the
patriots of the country, came down like a torrent on the barony of
Choiseul, and exterminated all the hares and partridges... They fished
out the ponds. At Mandres we find, in the best room of the inn, a dozen
peasants gathered around a table decked with tumblers and bottles,
amongst which we noticed an inkstand, pens, and something resembling a
register.--'I don't know what they are about,' said the landlady,
'but there they are, from morning till night, drinking, swearing, and
storming away at everybody, and they say that they are a committee.'"]

[Footnote 1214: Albert Babeau, I. 206, 242.--The first meeting of the
revolutionary committee of Troyes in the cemetery of St. Jules, August,
1789. This committee becomes the only authority in the town, after the
assassination of the mayor, M. Huez (Sept 10, 1790).]

[Footnote 1215: "The French Revolution," Vol.I. pp. 235, 242,
251.--Buchez et Roux, VI, 179.--Guillon de Montléon, "Histoire de la
Ville de Lyon pendant la Revolution," I. 87.--Guadet, "Les Girondins."]

[Footnote 1216: Michelet, "Histoire de la Révolution," II.47.]

[Footnote 1217: The rules of the Paris club state that members must
"labor to establish and strengthen the Constitution, according to the
spirit of the club."]

[Footnote 1218: Mercure de France, Aug.11, 1790.--"Journal de la Société
des Amis la Constitution," Nov.21, 1790.--Ibid., March, 1791.--Ibid.,
March, 1791.--Ibid., Aug.14, 1791 (speech by Roederer)--Buchez et Roux,
XI. 481.]

[Footnote 1219: Michelet, II. 407.--Moniteur, XII 347 (May 11, 1792),
article by Marie-Joseph Chénier, according to whom 800 Jacobin clubs
exist at this date.--Ibid., XII. 753 (speech by M. Delfaux session of
June 25, 1792).--Roederer, preface to his translation of Hobbes.]

[Footnote 1220: "Les Révolutions de Paris," by Prudhomme, number 173.]

[Footnote 1221: Constant, "Histoire d'un Club Jacobin en province,
"passim (Fontainbleau Club, founded May 5, 1791).--Albert Babeau, I.434
and following pages (foundation of the Troyes Club, Oct 1790).--Sauzay,
I 206 and following pages (foundation of the Besançon Club Aug. 28,
1790).--Ibid., 214 (foundation of the Pontarlier Club, March, 1791)]

[Footnote 1222: Sauzay, I. 214 (April 2, 1791)]

[Footnote 1223: "Journal des Amis de la Constitution," I. 534 (Letter
of the "Café National" Club of Bordeaux, Jan.29, 1791). Guillon de
Monthléon, I. 88.-"The French Revolution," vol. I. 128, 242.]

[Footnote 1224: Here we have a complete system of propaganda and
organizational tactics identical to those used by the NAZIS,
the Marxist-Leninists and other 'children' of the original
communist-Jacobins. (SR.)]

[Footnote 1225: Eugène Hatin, "Histoire politique et littéraire de la
presse," IV. 210 (with Marat's text in "L'Ami L'Ami du peuple," and
Fréron's in "l'Orateur du peuple").]

[Footnote 1226: Mercure de France, Nov. 27, 1790.]

[Footnote 1227: Mercure de France, Sept. 3, 1791 (article by Mallet du
Pan). "On the strength of a denunciation, the authors of which I knew,
the Luxembourg section on the 21st of June, the day of the king's
departure, sent commissaries and a military detachment to my domicile.
There was no judicial verdict, no legal order, either of police-court,
or justice of the peace, no examination whatever preceding this
mission... The employees of the section overhauled my papers, books and
letters, transcribing some of the latter, and carried away copies and
the originals, putting seals on the rest, which were left in charge of
two fusiliers."]

[Footnote 1228: Mercure de France, Aug. 27, 1791 (report by
Duport-Dutertre, Minister of Justice).--Ibid., Cf. numbers of Sept. 8,
1790, and March 12, 1791.]

[Footnote 1229: Sauzay, I.208. (Petition of the officers of the National
Guard of Besançon, and observations of the municipal body, Sept. 15,
1790.--Petition of 500 national guards, Dec. 15, 1790).--Observations
of the district directory, which directory, having authorized the club,
avows that "three-quarters" of the national guard and a portion of
other citizens "are quite hostile to it."--Similar petitions at Dax,
Chalons-sur-Saône, etc., against the local club.]

[Footnote 1230: "Lettres" (manuscript) of M. Roullé, deputy from
Pontivy, to his constituents (May 1, 1789).]

[Footnote 1231: A rule of the association says: "The object of the
association is to discuss questions beforehand which are to be decided
by the National Assembly,... and to correspond with associations of the
same character which may be formed in the kingdom."]

[Footnote 1232: Grégoires, "Mémoires," I. 387.]

[Footnote 1233: Malouet, II. 248. "I saw counselor Duport, who was a
fanatic, and not a bad man, with two or three others like him, exclaim:
'Terror! Terror! What a pity that it has become necessary!'"]

[Footnote 1234: Lafayette, "Mémoires" (in relation to Messieurs de
Lameth and their friends).--According to a squib of the day: "What
Duport thinks, Barnave says and Lameth does"--This trio was named
the Triumvirate. Mirabeau, a government man, and a man to whom brutal
disorder was repugnant, called it the Triumgueusat. (A trinity of shabby
fellows)]

[Footnote 1235: Moniteur, V.212, 583. (Report and speech of Dupont de
Nemours, sessions of July 31 and September 7, 1790.)--Vagabonds and
ruffians begin to play their parts in Paris on the 27th of April, 1789
(the Réveillon affair).--Already on the 30th of July, 1789, Rivarol
wrote: "Woe to whoever stirs up the dregs of a nation! The century
Enlightenment has not touched the populace!"--In the preface of his
future dictionary, he refers to his articles of this period: "There may
be seen the precautions I took to prevent Europe from attributing to the
French nation the horrors committed by the crowd of ruffians which
the Revolution and the gold of a great personage had attracted to
the capital."--"Letter of a deputy to his constituents," published by
Duprez, Paris, in the beginning of 1790 (cited by M. de Ségur, in the
Revue de France, September 1, 1880). It relates to the maneuvers for
forcing a vote in favor of confiscating clerical property. "Throughout
All-Saints' day (November 1, 1789), drums were beaten to call together
the band known here as the Coadjutors of the Revolution. On the morning
of November 2, when the deputies went to the Assembly, they found the
cathedral square and all the avenues to the archbishop's palace, where
the sessions were held, filled with an innumerable crowd of people. This
army was composed of from 20,000 to 25,000 men, of which the greater
number had no shoes or stockings; woollen caps and rags formed their
uniform and they had clubs instead of guns. They overwhelmed the
ecclesiastical deputies with insults, as they passed on their way, and
shouted that they would massacre without mercy all who would not vote
for stripping the clergy... Near 300 deputies who were opposed to the
motion did not dare attend the Assembly... The rush of ruffians in the
vicinity of the hall, their comments and threats, excited fears of this
atrocious project being carried out. All who did not feel courageous
enough to sacrifice themselves, avoided going to the Assembly." (The
decree was adopted by 378 votes against 346.)]

[Footnote 1236: Cf. "The Ancient Régime," p. 51.]

[Footnote 1237: Malouet, 1.247, 248.--"Correspondence (manuscript) of M.
de Staël," Swedish Ambassador, with his court, copied from the archives
at Stockholm by M. Léouzon-le-Duc. Letter from M. Staël of April 21,
1791: "M. Laclos, secret agent of this wretched prince, (is a) clever
and subtle intriguer." April 24: "His agents are more to be feared
than himself. Through his bad conduct, he is more of a nuisance than a
benefit to his party."]

[Footnote 1238: Especially after the king's flight to Varennes, and
at the time of the affair in the Champ de Mars. The petition of the
Jacobins was drawn up by Laclos and Brissot.]

[Footnote 1239: Investigations at the Chatelet, testimony of Count
d'Absac de Ternay.]

[Footnote 1240: Malouet I. 247, 248. This evidence is conclusive. "Apart
from what I saw myself," says Malouet, "M. de Montmorin and M. Delessart
communicated to me all the police reports of 1789 and 1790."]

[Footnote 1241: Sauzay, II.79 (municipal election, Nov.15, 1791).--III.
221 (mayoralty election, November, 1792). The half-way moderates had 237
votes, and the sans-culottes, 310.]

[Footnote 1242: Mercure de France, Nov. 26, 1791 (Pétion was elected
mayor, Nov.17, by 6,728 votes out of 10,682 voters).--Mortimer-Ternaux,
V. 95. (Oct 4, 1792, Pétion was elected mayor by 13,746 votes out
of 14,137 voters. He declines.--Oct. 21, d'Ormessan, a moderate, who
declines to stand, has nevertheless, 4,910 votes. His competitor,
Lhuillier, a pure Jacobin, obtains only 4,896.)]

[Footnote 1243: Albert Babeau, II. 15. (The 32,000 inhabitants of Troyes
indicate about 7,000 electors. In December, 1792, Jacquet is elected
mayor by 400 votes out of 555 voters. A striking coincidence is found
in there being 400 members of the Troyes club at this time.)--Carnot,
Mémoires," I. 181. "Dr. Bollmann, who passed through Strasbourg in 1792,
relates that out of 8,000 qualified citizens, only 400 voters presented
themselves.]

[Footnote 1244: Mortimer-Ternaux, VI. 21. In February, 1793, Pache is
elected mayor of Paris by 11,881 votes.--Journal de Paris, number
185. Henriot, July 2, 1793, is elected commander-in-chief of the Paris
national guard, by 9,084, against 6,095 votes given for his competitor,
Raffet. The national guard comprises at this time 110,000 registered
members, besides 10,000 gendarmes and federates. Many of Henriot's
partisans, again, voted twice. (Cf. on the elections and the number of
Jacobins at Paris, chapters XI. and XII. of this volume.)]

[Footnote 1245: Michelet, VI. 95. "Almost all (the missionary
representatives) were supported by only, the smallest minority. Baudot,
for instance, at Toulouse, in 1793, had but 400 men for him."]

[Footnote 1246: For example, "Archives Nationales," Fl 6, carton 3.
Petition of the inhabitants of Arnay-le-Duc to the king (April, 1792),
very insulting, employing the most familiar language; about fifty
signatures.--Sauzay, III. ch. XXXV. and XXXIV. (details of
local elections).--Ibid., VII. 687 (letter of Grégoire, Dec. 24,
1796).--Malouet, II. 531 (letter by Malouet, July 22, 1779). Malouet and
Grégoire agree on the number 300,000. Marie-Joseph Chénier (Moniteur,
XII, 695, 20 avril 1792) carries it up to 400,000.]

[Footnote 1247: Cf. "The French Revolution," Vol. I. book II. Ch. III.]

[Footnote 1248: Cf. "The Ancient Régime," p.352.]

[Footnote 1249: "Memoires de Madame de Sapinaud," p. 18. Reply of M. de
Sapinaud to the peasants of La Vendée, who wished him to act as their
general: "My friends, it is the earthen pot against the iron pot. What
could we do? One department against eighty-two--we should be smashed!"]

[Footnote 1250: Malouet, II. 241. "I knew a clerk in one of the bureaus,
who, during these sad days, September, 1792), never missed going. as
usual, to copy and add up his registers. Ministerial correspondence
with the armies and the provinces followed its regular course in regular
forms. The Paris police looked after supplies and kept its eye on
sharpers, while blood ran in the streets."--Cf. on this mechanical need
and inveterate habit of receiving orders from the central authority,
Mallet du Pan, "Mémoires," 490: "Dumouriez' soldiers said to him: 'F--,
papa general, get the Convention to order us to march on Paris and
you'll see how we will make mince-meat of those b--in the Assembly!'"]

[Footnote 1251: With want great interest did any aspiring radical
politicians read these lines, whether the German socialist from Hitler
learned so much or Lenin during his long stay in Paris around 1906.
Taine maybe thought that he was arming decent men to better understand
and defend the republic against a new Jacobin onslaught while, in fact,
he provided them with an accurate recipe for repeating the revolution.
(SR).]

[Footnote 1252: At. Matthew, 17:20. (SR.)]

[Footnote 1253: Buchez et Roux, XXVIII 55. Letter by Brun-Lafond, a
grenadier in the national guard, July 14, 1793, to a friend in the
provinces, in justification of the 31st of May. The whole of this letter
requires to be read. In it are found the ordinary ideas of a Jacobin in
relation to history: "Can we ignore, that it is ever the people of Paris
which, through its murmurings and righteous insurrections against the
oppressive system of many of our kings, has forced them to entertain
milder sentiments regarding the relief of the French people, and
principally of the tiller of the soil?.. Without the energy of Paris,
Paris and France would now be inhabited solely by slaves, while this
beautiful soil would present an aspect as wild and deserted as that
of the Turkish empire or that of Germany," which has led us "to confer
still greater lustre on this Revolution, by re-establishing on earth
the ancient Athenian and other Grecian republics in all their purity.
Distinctions among the early people of the earth did not exist; early
family ties bound people together who had no ancient founders or origin;
they had no other laws in their republics but those which, so to say,
inspired them with those sentiments of fraternity experienced by them in
the cradle of primitive populations."]

[Footnote 1254: Barbaroux, "Mémoires" (Ed. Dauban), 336.--Grégoire,
"Mémoires," I. 410.]

[Footnote 1255: "La Révolution Française," by Quinet (extracts from the
unpublished "Mémoires" of Baudot), II. 209, 211, 421, 620.--Guillon de
Montléon I. 445 (speech by Chalier, in the Lyons Central Club, March 23,
1793). "They say that the sans-culottes will go on spilling their blood.
This is only the talk of aristocrats. Can a sans-culotte be reached in
that quarter? Is he not invulnerable, like the gods whom he replaces on
this earth?"--Speech by David, in the Convention, on Barra and
Viala: "Under so fine a government woman will bring forth without
pain."--Mercier "Le Nouveau Paris," I. 13. "I heard (an orator) exclaim
in one of the sections, to which I bear witness: 'Yes, I would take my
own head by the hair, cut it off, and, presenting it to the despot, I
would say to him: Tyrant, behold the act of a free man!'"]

[Footnote 1256: Now, one hundred years later, I consider the tens of
thousands of western intellectuals, who, in their old age, seem unable
to understand their longtime fascination with Lenin, Stalin and Mao,
I cannot help to think that history might be holding similar future
surprises in store for us. (SR).]

[Footnote 1257: And my lifetime, our Jacobins the communists, have
including in their register the distortion, the lie and slander as a
regular tool of their trade. (SR).]

[Footnote 1258: Lafayette, "Mémoires," I.467 (on the Jacobins of
August 10, 1792). "This sect, the destruction of which was desired by
nineteen-twentieths of France."--Durand-Maillan, 49. The aversion to
the Jacobins after June 20, 1792, was general. "The communes of France,
everywhere wearied and dissatisfied with popular clubs, would gladly
have got rid of them, that they might no longer be under their
control."]

[Footnote 1259: The words of Leclerc, a deputy of the Lyons committee in
the Jacobin Club at Paris May 12, 1793. "Popular machiavelianism must be
established... Everything impure must disappear off the French soil...
I shall doubtless be regarded as a brigand, but there is one way to get
ahead of calumny, and that is to exterminate the calumniators."]

[Footnote 1260: Buchez et Roux, XXXIV. 204 (testimony of François
Lameyrie). "Collection of authentic documents for the History of the
Revolution at Strasbourg," II. 210 (speech by Baudot, Frimaire 19, year
II., in the Jacobin club at Strasbourg). "Egoists, the heedless, the
enemies of liberty, the enemies of all nature should not be regarded
as her children. Are not all who oppose the public good, or who do not
share it, in the same case? Let us, then, utterly destroy them... Were
they a million, would not one sacrifice the twenty-fourth part of
one's self to get rid of a gangrene which might infect the rest of the
body?..."For these reasons, the orator thinks that every man who is not
wholly devoted to the Republic must be put to death. He states that the
Republic should at one blow cause the instant disappearance of
every friend to kings and feudalism.--Beaulieu, "Essai," V. 200. M.
d'Antonelle thought, "like most of the revolutionary clubs, that, to
constitute a republic, an approximate equality of property should
be established; and to do this, a third of the population should be
suppressed."--"This was the general idea among the fanatics of the
Revolution. "--Larevellière-Lépaux, "Mémoires," I.150 "Jean Bon St.
André... suggested that for the solid foundation of the Republic in
France, the population should be reduced one-half." He is violently
interrupted by Larevellière-Lépeaux, but continues and insists on
this.--Guffroy, deputy of the Pas-de-Calais, proposed in his journal a
still larger amputation; he wanted to reduce France to five millions of
inhabitants.]





BOOK SECOND. THE FIRST STAGE OF THE CONQUEST.




CHAPTER I. THE JACOBINS COME INTO IN POWER.

     The Elections Of 1791.--Proportion Of Places Gained By Them.

In June, 1791, and during the five following months, the class of active
citizens[2101] are convoked to elect their representatives, which, as we
know, according to the law, are of every kind and degree. In the first
place, there are 40,000 members of electoral colleges of the second
degree and 745 deputies. Next, there are one-half of the administrators
of 83 departments, one-half of the administrators of 544 districts,
one-half of the administrators of 41,000 communes, and finally, in each
municipality, the mayor and syndic-attorney. Then in each department
they have to elect the president of the criminal court and the
prosecuting-attorney, and, throughout France, officers of the National
Guard; in short, almost the entire body of the agents and depositories
of legal authority. The garrison of the public citadel is to be renewed,
which is the second and even the third time since 1789.--At each time
the Jacobins have crept into the place, in small bands, but this time
they enter in large bodies. Pétion becomes mayor of Paris, Manual,
syndic-attorney, and Danton the deputy of Manuel. Robespierre is elected
prosecuting-attorney in criminal cases. The very first week,[2102] 136
new deputies enter their names on the club's register. In the Assembly
the party numbers about 250 members. On passing all the posts of the
fortress in review, we may estimate the besiegers as occupying one-third
of them, and perhaps more. Their siege for two years has been carried on
with unerring instinct, the extraordinary spectacle presenting itself of
an entire nation legally overcome by a troop of insurgents.[2103]




I.--Their siege operations.

     Means used by them to discourage the majority of electors
     and conservative candidates.--Frequency of elections.--
     Obligation to take the oath.

First of all, they clear the ground, and through the decrees forced out
of the Constituent Assembly, they keep most of the majority away from
the polls.--On the one hand, under the pretext of better ensuring
popular sovereignty, the elections are so multiplied, and held so near
together, as to demand of each active citizen one-sixth of his time;
such an exaction is very great for hard-working people who have a trade
or any occupation,[2104] which is the case with the great mass; at all
events, with the useful and sane portion of the population. Accordingly,
as we have seen, it stays away from the polls, leaving the field open
to idlers or fanatics.[2105]--On the other hand, by virtue of the
constitution, the civic oath, which includes the ecclesiastical oath, is
imposed on all electors, for, if any one takes the former and reserves
the latter, his vote is thrown out: in November, in the Doubs, the
municipal elections of thirty-three communes are invalidated solely
on this pretext.[2106] Not only forty thousand ecclesiastics are thus
rendered unsworn (insermentés), but again, all scrupulous Catholics lose
the right of suffrage, these being by far the most numerous in Artois,
Doubs and the Jura, in the Lower and Upper Rhine district,[2107] in the
two Sévres and la Vendée, in the Lower Loire, Morbihan, Finisterre and
Côtes du Nord, in Lozère and Ardèche, without mentioning the southern
departments.[2108] Thus, aided by the law which they have rendered
impracticable, the Jacobins, on the one hand, are rid of all sensible
voters in advance, counting by millions; and, on the other, aided by a
law which they have rendered intolerant, they are rid of the Catholic
vote which counts by hundreds of thousands. On entering the electoral
lists, consequently, thanks to this double exclusion, they find
themselves confronted by only the smallest number of electors.




II.--Annoyances and dangers of public elections.

     The constituents excluded from the Legislative body.

Operations must now be commenced against these, and a first expedient
consists in depriving them of their candidates. The obligation of
taking the oath has already partly provided for this, in Lozère all the
officials send in their resignations rather than take the oath;[2109]
here are men who will not be candidates at the coming elections, for
nobody covets a place which he was forced to abandon; in general, the
suppression of all party candidatures is effected in no other way than
by making the post of a magistrate distasteful.--The Jacobins have
successfully adhered to this principle by promoting and taking the lead
in innumerable riots against the King, the officials and the clerks,
against nobles, ecclesiastics, corn-dealers and land-owners, against
every species of public authority whatever its origin. Everywhere the
authorities are constrained to tolerate or excuse murders, pillage and
arson, or, at the very least, insurrections and disobedience. For two
years a mayor runs the risk of being hung on proclaiming martial law;
a captain is not sure of his men on marching to protect a tax levy;
a judge on the bench is threatened if he condemns the marauders who
devastate the national forests. The magistrate, whose duty it is to see
that the law is respected, is constantly obliged to strain the law,
or allow it to be strained; if refractory, a summary blow dealt by the
local Jacobins forces his legal authority to yield to their illegal
dictate, so that he has to resign himself to being either their
accomplice or their puppet. Such a rôle is intolerable to a man of
feeling or conscience. Hence, in 1790 and 1791, nearly all the prominent
and reputable men who, in 1789, had seats in the Hôtels-de-villes, or
held command in the National Guard, all country-gentlemen, chevaliers
of St. Louis, old parliamentarians, the upper bourgeoisie and large
landed-proprietors, retire into private life and renounce public
functions which are no longer tenable. Instead of offering themselves to
public suffrage they avoid it, and the party of order, far from electing
the magistracy, no longer even finds candidates for it.

Through an excess of precaution, its natural leaders have been legally
disqualified, the principal offices, especially those of deputy and
minister, being interdicted beforehand to the influential men in whom we
find the little common sense gained by the French people during the past
two years.-In the month of June, 1779, even after the irreconcilables
had parted company with the "Right," there still remained in the
Assembly about 700 members who, adhering to the constitution but
determined to repress disorder, would have formed a sensible legislature
had they been re-elected. All of these, except a very small group of
revolutionaries, had learned something by experience, and, in the last
days of their session, two serious events, the king's flight and the
riot in the Champ de Mars, had made them acquainted with the defects of
their machinery. With this executive instrument in their hands for three
months, they see that it is racked, that things are tottering, and
that they themselves are being run over by fanatics and the crowd.
They accordingly attempt to put on a drag, and several even think of
retracing their steps.[2110] They cut loose from the Jacobins; of
the three or four hundred deputies on the club list in the Rue St.
Honoré[2111] but seven remain; the rest form at the Feuillants a
distinct opposition club, and at their head are the first founders,
Duport, the two Lameths, Barnave, the authors of the constitution,
all the fathers of the new régime.[2112] In the last decree of the
Constituent Assembly they loudly condemn the usurpations of popular
associations, and not only interdict to these all meddling in
administrative or political matters, but likewise any collective
petition or deputation.[2113]--Here may the friends of order find
candidates whose chances are good, for, during two years and more, each
in his own district is the most conspicuous, the best accredited, and
the most influential man there; he stands well with his electors on
account of the popularity of the constitution he has made, and it is
very probable that his name would rally to it a majority of votes.-The
Jacobins, however, have foreseen this danger: Four months earlier,[2114]
with the aid of the Court, which never missed an opportunity to ruin
itself and everything else,[2115] they made the most of the grudges
of the conservatives and the weariness of the Assembly. Tired and
disgusted, in a fit of mistaken selflessness, the Assembly, through
enthusiasm and taken by surprise, passes an act declaring all its
members ineligible for election to the next Assembly dismissing in
advance the leaders of the gentlemen's party.




III.--The friends of order deprived of the right of free assemblage.

     Violent treatment of their clubs in Paris and the
     provinces.--Legal prevention of conservative associations.

If the latter (the honest men of the Right), in spite of so many
drawbacks, attempt a struggle, they are arrested at the very first step.
For, to enter upon an electoral campaign, requires preliminary meetings
for conference and to understand each other, while the faculty of
forming an association, which the law grants them as a right, is
actually withheld from them by their adversaries. As a beginning, the
Jacobins hooted at and "stone" the members of the "Right"[2116] holding
their meetings in the Salon français of the Rue Royale, and, according
to the prevailing rule, the police tribunal, "considering that this
assemblage is a cause of disturbance, that it produces gatherings in the
street, that only violent means can be employed to protect it," orders
its dissolution.[2117]--Towards the month of August, 1790, a second club
is organized, and, this time, composed of the wisest and most liberal
men. Malouet and Count Clermont-Tonnerre are at the head of it. It takes
the name of "Friends of a Monarchical Constitution," and is desirous
of restoring public order by maintaining the reforms which have been
reached. All formalities on its part have been complied with. There
are already about 800 members in Paris. Subscriptions flow into its
treasury. The provinces send in numerous adhesions, and, what is worse
than all, bread is distributed by them at a reduced price, by which the
people, probably, will be conciliated. Here is a center of opinion and
influence, analogous to that of the Jacobin club, which the Jacobins
cannot tolerate.[2118] M. de Clermont-Tonnerre having leased the summer
Vauxhall, a captain in the National Guard notifies the proprietor of it
that if he rents it, the patriots of the Palais-Royal will march to it
in a body, and close it; fearing that the building will be damaged,
he cancels the lease, while the municipality, which fears skirmishes,
orders a suspension of the meetings. The club makes a complaint and
follows it up, while the letter of the law is so plain that an official
authorization of the club is finally granted. Thereupon the Jacobin
newspapers and stump--speakers let loose their fury against a future
rival that threatens to dispute their empire. On the 23rd of January,
1791, Barnave, in the National Assembly, employing metaphorical language
apt to be used as a death-shout, accuses the members of the new club "of
giving the people bread that carries poison with it." Four days after
this, M. Clermont-Tonnerre's dwelling is assailed by an armed throng.
Malouet, on leaving it, is almost dragged from his carriage, and the
crowd around him cry out, "There goes the bastard who denounced the
people!"--At length, its founders, who, out of consideration for the
municipality, have waited two months, hire another hall in the Rue des
Petites-Ecuries, and on the 28th of March begin their sessions. "On
reaching it," writes one of them, "we found a mob composed of drunkards,
screaming boys, ragged women, soldiers exciting them on, and especially
those frightful hounds, armed with stout, knotty cudgels, two feet
long, which are excellent skull-crackers."[2119] The thing was made up
beforehand. At first there were only three or four hundred of them, and,
ten minutes after, five or six hundred; in a quarter of an hour, there
are perhaps four thousand flocking in from all sides; in short, the
usual make-up of an insurrection. "The people of the quarter certified
that they did not recognize one of the faces." Jokes, insults, cuffs,
clubbings, and saber-cuts,--the members of the club "who agreed to come
unarmed" being dispersed, while several are knocked down, dragged by the
hair, and a dozen or fifteen more are wounded. To justify the attack,
white cockades are shown, which, it is pretended, were found in their
pockets. Mayor Bailly arrives only when it is all over, and, as a
measure of "public order," the municipal authorities have the club of
Constitutional Monarchists closed for good.

Owing to these outrages by the faction, with the connivance of the
authorities, other similar clubs are suppressed in the same way. There
are a good many of them, and in the principal towns--"Friends of
Peace," "Friends of the Country," "Friends of the King, of Peace, and of
Religion," "Defenders of Religion, Persons, and Property". Magistrates
and officers, the most cultivated and polished people, are generally
members; in short, the élite of the place. Formerly, meetings took
place for conversation and debate, and, being long-established, the
club naturally passes over from literature to politics.--The
watch-word against all these provincial clubs is given from the Rue St.
Honoré.[2120] "They are centers of conspiracy, and must be looked after"
forthwith, and be at once trodden out.--At one time, as at Cahors,[2121]
a squad of the National Guard, on its return from an expedition against
the neighboring gentry, and to finish its task breaks in on the club,
"throws its furniture out of the windows and demolishes the house."--At
another time, as at Perpignan, the excited mob surrounds the club,
dancing a fandango, and yell out, to the lantern! The club-house is
sacked, while eighty of its members, covered with bruises, are shut up
in the citadel for their safety.[2122]--At another time, as at Aix, the
Jacobin club insults its adversaries on their own premises and provokes
a scuffle, whereupon the municipality causes the doors of the assailed
club to be walled up and issues warrants of arrest against its
members.--Always punishment awaits them for whatever violence they have
to submit to. Their mere existence seems an offense. At Grenoble, they
scarcely assemble before they are dispersed. The fact is, they are
suspected of "incivism;" their intentions may not be right; in any
event, they cause a division of the place into two camps, and that is
enough. In the department of Gard, their clubs are all broken up, by
order of the department, because "they are centers of malevolence."
At Bordeaux, the municipality, considering that "alarming reports are
current of priests and privileged persons returning to town," prohibits
all reunions, except that of the Jacobin club.--Thus, "under a system
of liberty of the most exalted kind, in the presence of the famous
Declaration of the Rights of Man which legitimates whatever is not
unlawful," and which postulates equality as the principle of the French
constitution, whoever is not a Jacobin is excluded from common rights.
An intolerant club sets itself up as a holy church, and proscribes
others which have not received from it "orthodox baptism, civic
inspiration, and the aptitude of languages." To her alone belongs the
right of assemblage, and the right of making proselytes. Conservative,
thoughtful men in all towns throughout the kingdom are forbidden to
form electoral committees, to possess a tribune, a fund, subscribers and
adherents, to cast the weight of their names and common strength into
the scale of public opinion, to gather around their permanent nucleus
the scattered multitude of sensible people, who would like to escape
from the Revolution without falling back into the ancient régime.
Let them whisper amongst themselves in corners, and they may still be
tolerated, but woe to them if they would leave their lonely retreat to
act in concert, to canvass voters, and support a candidate. Up to
the day of voting they must remain in the presence of their combined,
active, and obstreperous adversaries, scattered, inert, and mute.

IV. Turmoil of the elections of 1790.--Elections in 1791.--Effect of
the King's flight.--Domiciliary visits.--Montagne during the electoral
period.

Will they at least be able to vote freely on that day? They are not
sure of it, and, judging by occurrences during the past year, it is
doubtful.--In April, 1790, at Bois d'Aisy, in Burgundy, M. de Bois
d'Aisy, a deputy, who had returned from Paris to deposit his vote,[2123]
was publicly menaced. He was informed that nobles and priests must take
no part m the elections, while many were heard to say, in his hearing,
that in order to prevent this it would be better to hang him. Not far
off; at Ste. Colombe, M. de Viteaux was driven out of the electoral
assembly, and then put to death after three hours of torture. The same
thing occurred at Semur; two gentlemen were knocked down with clubs and
stones, another saved himself with difficulty, and a curé died after
being stabbed six times.--A warning for priests and for gentlemen: they
had better not vote, and the same good advice may be given to dealers in
grain, to land-owners, and every other suspected person. For this is the
day on which the people recover their sovereignty; the violent believe
that they have the right to do exactly what suits them, nothing being
more natural than to exclude candidates in advance who are
distrusted, or electors who do not vote as they ought to.--At
Villeneuve-St.-Georges, near Paris,[2124] a barrister, a man of austere
and energetic character, is about to be elected judge by the district
electors; the proletariat, however, mistrust a judge likely to condemn
marauders, and forty or fifty vagabonds collect together under the
windows and cry out: "We don't want him elected." The curé of Crosne,
president of the electoral assembly, informs them in vain that the
assembled electors represent 90 communes, nearly 100,000 inhabitants,
and that "40 persons should not prevail against 100,000. Shouts redouble
and the electors renounce their candidate.--At Pau, patriots among
the militia[2125] forcibly release one of their imprisoned leaders,
circulate a list for proscriptions, attack a poll-teller with their
fists and afterwards with sabers, until the proscribed hide themselves
away; on the following day "nobody is disposed to attend the electoral
assembly."----Things are much worse in 1791. In the month of June, just
at the time of the opening of the primary meetings, the king has fled to
Varennes, the Revolution seems compromised, civil war and a foreign
war loom up on the horizon like two ghosts; the National Guard had
everywhere taken up arms, and the Jacobins were making the most of the
universal panic for their own advantage. To dispute their votes is
no longer the question; it is not well to be visible: among so many
turbulent gatherings a popular execution is soon over. The best thing
now for royalists, constitutionalists, conservatives and moderates of
every kind, for the friends of law and of order, is to stay at home--too
happy if they may be allowed to remain there, to which the armed rabble
agrees; on the condition of frequently paying them visits.

Consider their situation during the whole of the electoral period, in a
calm district, and judge of the rest of France by this corner of it. At
Mortagne,[2126] a small town of 6,000 souls, the laudable spirit of 1789
still existed up to the journey to Varennes. Among the forty or fifty
noble families were a good many liberals. Here, as elsewhere among the
gentry, the clergy and the middle class, the philosophic education
of the eighteenth century had revived the old provincial spirit of
initiative, and the entire upper class had zealously and gratuitously
undertaken the public duties which it alone could perform well. District
presidents, mayors, and municipal officers, were all chosen from among
ecclesiastics and the nobles; the three principal officers of the
National Guard were chevaliers of St. Louis, while other grades were
filled by the leading people of the community. Thus had the free
elections placed authority in the hands of the socially superior, the
new order of things resting on the legitimate hierarchy of conditions,
educations, and capacities.--But for six months the club, formed out of
"a dozen hot-headed, turbulent fellows, under the presidency and in the
hands of a certain Rattier, formerly a cook," worked upon the population
and the rural districts. Immediately on the receipt of the news of
the King's flight, the Jacobins "give out that nobles and priests
had supplied him with money for his departure, to bring about a
counter-revolution." One family had given such an amount, and another
so much; there was no doubt about it; the precise figures are given, and
given for each family according to its known resources.--Forthwith, "the
principal clubbists, associated with the dubious part of the National
Guard," spread through the streets in squads: the houses of the nobles
and of other suspected persons are invaded. All the arms, "guns,
pistols, swords, hunting-knives, and sword-canes," are carried off.
Every hole and corner is ransacked; they make the inmates open, or they
force open, secretaries and clothes-presses in search of ammunition,
the search extending "even to the ladies' toilette-tables". By way
of precaution "they break sticks of pomatum in two, presuming that
musket-balls are concealed in them, and they take away hair-powder
under the pretext that it is either colored or masked gunpowder." Then,
without disbanding, the troop betakes itself to the environs and into
the country, where it operates with the same promptness in the chateaux,
so that "in one day all honest citizens, those with the most property
and furniture to protect, are left without arms at the mercy of the
first robber that comes along." All reputed aristocrats are disarmed. As
such are considered those who "disapprove of the enthusiasm of the day,
or who do not attend the club, or who harbor any unsworn ecclesiastic,"
and, first of all, "the officers of the National Guard who are nobles,
beginning with the commander and his entire staff."--The latter allow
their swords to be taken without resistance, and with a forbearance and
patriotic spirit of which their brethren everywhere furnish an example
"they are obliging enough to remain at their posts so as not to
disorganize the army, hoping that this frenzy will soon come to an
end," contenting themselves with making their complaint to the
department.--But in vain the department orders their arms to be restored
to them. The clubbists refuse to give them up so long as the king
refuses to accept the Constitution; meanwhile they do not hesitate
to say that "at the very first gun on the frontier, they will cut the
throats of all the nobles and unsworn priests."--After the royal oath
to the Constitution is taken, the department again insists, but no
attention is paid to it. On the contrary, the National Guard, dragging
cannons along with them, purposely station themselves before the
mansions of the unarmed gentry; the ladies of their families are
followed in the streets by urchins who sing ÇA IRA[2127] in their faces,
and, in the final refrain, they mention them by name and promise them
the lantern; "not one of them could invite a dozen of his friends to
supper without incurring the risk of an uproar."--On the strength of
this, the old chiefs of the National Guard resign, and the Jacobins turn
the opportunity to account. In contempt of the law the whole body of
officers is renewed, and, as peaceable folks dare not deposit their
votes, the new staff "is composed of maniacs, taken for the most part,
from the lowest class." With this purged militia the club expels nuns,
drives off unsworn priests, organizes expeditions in the neighborhood,
and goes so far as to purify suspected municipalities.[2128]--So many
acts of violence committed in town and country, render town and country
uninhabitable, and for the élite of the propriety owners, or for
well-bred persons, there is no longer any asylum but Paris. After the
first disarmament seven or eight families take refuge there, and a dozen
or fifteen more join them after a threat of having their throats cut;
after the religious persecution, unsworn ecclesiastics, the rest of
the nobles, and countless other townspeople, "even with little means,"
betake themselves there in a mass. There, at least, one is lost in the
crowd; one is protected by an incognito against the outrages of the
commonalty; one can live there as a private individual. In the provinces
even civil rights do not exist; how could any one there exercise
political rights? "All honest citizens are kept away from the primary
meetings by threats or maltreatment.. . The electoral battlefield is
left for those who pay forty-five sous of taxes, more than one-half of
them being registered on the poor list."--Thus the elections are
decided beforehand! The former cook is the one who authorizes or creates
candidatures, and on the election of the department deputies at
the county town, the electors elected are, like himself, true
Jacobins.[2129]




V.--Intimidation and withdrawal of the Conservatives.

     Popular outbreaks in Burgundy, Lyonnais, Provence, and the
     large cities.--Electoral proceedings of the Jacobins;
     examples at Aix, Dax, and Montpellier.--Agitators go
     unpunished--Denunciations by name.--Manoeuvres with the
     peasantry.--General tactics of the Jacobins.

Such is the pressure under which voting takes place in France during
the summer and fall of 1791. Domiciliary visits[2130] and disarmament
everywhere force nobles and ecclesiastics, landed proprietors and people
of culture, to abandon their homes, to seek refuge in the large towns
and to emigrate,[2131] or, at least, confine themselves strictly to
private life, to abstain from all propaganda, from every candidature,
and from all voting. It would be madness to be seen in so many cantons
where searches end in a riot; in Burgundy and the Lyonnais, where
castles are sacked, where aged gentlemen are mauled and left for dead,
where M. de Guillin has just been assassinated and cut to pieces; at
Marseilles, where conservative party leaders are imprisoned, where a
regiment of Swiss guards under arms scarcely suffices to enforce
the verdict of the court which sets them at liberty, where, if any
indiscreet person opposes Jacobin resolutions his mouth is closed
by being notified that he will be buried alive; at Toulon, where the
Jacobins shoot down all conservatives and the regular troops, where
M. de Beaucaire, captain in the navy, is killed by a shot in the back,
where the club, supported by the needy, by sailors, by navvies, and
"vagabond peddlers," maintains a dictatorship by right of conquest;
at Brest, at Tulle, at Cahors, where at this very moment gentlemen and
officers are massacred in the street. It is not surprising that
honest people turn away from the ballot-box as from a center of
cut-throats.--Nevertheless, let them come if they like; it will be easy
to get rid of them. At Aix, the assessor whose duty it is to read the
electors' names is informed that "the names should be called out by
an unsullied mouth, that, being an aristocrat and fanatical, he could
neither speak nor vote," and, without further ceremony, they put him
out of the room.[2132] The process is an admirable one for converting
a minority into a majority and yet here is another, still more
effective.--At Dax, the Feuillants, taking the title of "Friends of
the French Constitution," have split up with the Jacobins,[2133] and,
moreover, they insist on excluding from the National Guard "foreigners
without property or position," the passive citizens who are admitted
into it in spite of the law, who usurp the right of voting and who
"daily affront tranquil inhabitants." Consequently, on election day,
in the church where the primary meeting is held, two of the Feuillants,
Laurède, formerly collector of the vingtièmes,, and Brunache, a glazier,
propose to exclude an intruder, a servant on wages. The Jacobins at
once rush forward. Laurède is pressed back on the holy-water basin
and wounded on the head; on trying to escape he is seized by the hair,
thrown down, pierced in the arm with a bayonet, put in prison, and
Brunache along with him. Eight days afterwards, at the second meeting
none are present but Jacobins; naturally, "they are all elected". They
form the new municipality, which, notwithstanding the orders of the
department, not only refuses to liberate the two prisoners, but throws
them into a dungeon.--At Montpellier, the delay in the operation is
greater, but it is only the more complete. The votes are deposited,
the ballot-boxes closed and sealed up and the conservatives obtain
a majority. Thereupon the Jacobin club, with the Society of the
"iron-clubs," calling itself the Executive power, betake themselves in
force to the sectional meetings, burn one of the ballots, use firearms
and kill two men. To restore order the municipality stations each
company of the National Guard at its captain's door, The moderates among
them naturally obey orders, but the violent party do not. They overrun
the town, numbering about 2,000 inhabitants, enter the houses,
kill three men in the street or in their domiciles, and force the
administrative body to suspend its electoral assemblies. In addition
to this they require the disarmament "of the aristocrats," and this
not being done soon enough, they kill an artisan who is walking in the
street with his mother, cut off his head, bear it aloft in triumph, and
suspend it in front of his dwelling. The authorities are now convinced
and accordingly decree a disarmament, and the victors parade the streets
in a body. In exuberance or as a precaution, they fire, as they
pass along, at the windows of suspected houses and happen to kill an
additional man and woman. During the three following days six hundred
families emigrate, while the authorities report that everything is going
on well, and that order is restored. "The elections," they say, "are now
proceeding in the quietest manner since the ill-intentioned voluntarily
keeping away from them, a large number having left the town. "[2134] A
void is created around the ballot-box and this is called the unanimity
of voters.--The effect of such assassinations is great and only a few
are required; especially when they go unpunished, which is always the
case. Henceforth all that the Jacobins have to do is to threaten; people
no longer resist them for they know that it costs too much to face them
down. They do not care to attend electoral meetings where they meet
insult and danger; they acknowledge defeat at the start. Have not the
Jacobins irresistible arguments, without taking blows into account? At
Paris,[2135] Marat in three successive numbers of his paper has just
denounced by name "the rascals and thieves" who canvass for electoral
nominations, not the nobles and priests but ordinary citizens, lawyers,
architects, physicians, jewellers, stationers, printers, upholsterers
and other artisans, each name being given in full with the professions,
addresses and one of the following qualifications, "hypocrite (tartufe),
immoral, dishonest, bankrupt, informer, usurer, cheat," not to mention
others that I cannot write down. It must be noted that this slanderous
list may become a proscriptive list, and that in every town and village
in France similar lists are constantly drawn up and circulated by the
local dub, which enables us to judge whether the struggle between it
and its adversaries is a fair one.-As to rural electors, it has suitable
means for persuading them, especially in the innumerable cantons ravaged
or threatened by the jacqueries, (country-riots) or, for example, in
Corrèze, where "the whole department is smattered with insurrections
and devastation's, and where nobody talks of anything but of hanging the
officers who serve papers."[2136] Through-out the electoral operations
the sittings of the dub are permanent; "its electors are incessantly
summoned to its meetings;" at each of these "the main question is the
destruction of fish-ponds and rentals, their principal speakers summing
it all up by saying that none ought to be paid." The majority of
electors, composed of rustics, are found to be sensitive to speeches
like this; all its candidates are obliged to express themselves against
fishponds and rentals; its deputies and the public prosecuting attorney
are nominated on this profession of faith; in other words, to be
elected, the Jacobins promise to greedy tenants the incomes and property
of their owners.--We already see in the proceedings by which they secure
one-third of the offices in 1791 the germ of the methods by which they
will secure the whole of them in 1792; in this first electoral campaign
their acts indicate not merely their maxims and policy but, again, the
condition, education, spirit and character of the men whom they place in
power locally as well as at the capital.


*****


[Footnote 2101: Law of May 28, 29, 1791 (according to official
statements, the total of active citizens amounted to 4,288,360).--Laws
of July 23, Sept. 12, Sept. 29, 1791.--Buchez et Roux, XII. 310.]

[Footnote 2102: Bucher Ct Roux, XII. 33.--Mortimer-Ternaux, "Histoire de
la Terreur," II. 205, 348.--Sauzay, II. ch. XVIII--Albert Babeau, I. ch.
XX.]

[Footnote 2103: Lenin repeated this performance in 1917 and Stalin
attempted to do the same in the rest of the World. (SR)..]

[Footnote 2104: The following letter, by Camille Desmoulins (April 3,
1792), shows at once the time consumed by public affairs, the sort of
attraction they had, and the kind of men which they diverted from their
business. "I have gone back to my old profession of the law, to which I
give nearly all the time which my municipal or electoral functions, and
the Jacobins (club), allow me--that is to say, very little. It is very
disagreeable to me to come down to pleading bourgeois cases after having
managed interests of such importance, and the affairs of the government,
in the face of all Europe."]

[Footnote 2105: I cannot help but think of the willful proliferation of
idle functionaries, pensioners and other receivers of public funds which
today vote for the party which represents their interests. (SR.)]

[Footnote 2106: Sauzay, II. 83-89 and 123. A resolution of the
inhabitants of Chalèze, who, headed by their municipal officers, declare
themselves unanimously "non-conformists," and demand "the right of using
a temple for the exercise of their religious opinions, belonging to
them and built with their contributions" On the strength of this,
the municipal officers of Chalèze are soundly rated by the district
administration, which thus states what principles are: "Liberty,
indefinite for the private individual, must be restricted for the
public man whose opinions must conform to the law: otherwise,.. he must
renounce all public functions."]

[Footnote 2107: Archives Nationales," F7, 3,253 (letter of the
department directory, April 7, 1792). "On the 25th of January, in our
report to the National Assembly, we stated the almost general opposition
which the execution of the laws relating to the clergy has found in
this department... nine-tenths, at least, of the Catholics refusing to
recognize the sworn priests. The teachers, influenced by their old
curés or vicars, are willing to take the civic oath, but they refuse to
recognize their legitimate pastors and attend their services. We are,
therefore, obliged to remove them, and to look out for others to replace
them. The citizens of a large number of the communes, persisting in
trusting these, will lend no assistance whatever to the election of the
new ones; the result is, that we are obliged, in selecting these people,
to refer the matter to persons whom we scarcely know, and who are
scarcely better known to the directories of the district. As they
are elected against the will of the citizens, they do not gain their
confidence, and draw their salaries from the commune treasury, without
any advantage to public instruction,"]

[Footnote 2108: Mercure de France, Sep. 3, 1791. "The right of attending
primary meetings is that of every citizen who pays a tax of three
livres; owing to the violence to which opinions are subject, more than
one-half of the French are compelled to stay away from these reunions,
which are abandoned to persons who have the least interest in
maintaining public order and in securing stable laws, with the least
property, and who pay the fewest taxes."]

[Footnote 2109: "The French Revolution," Vol. I. p. 182 and following
pages.]

[Footnote 2110: "Correspondence of M. de Staël" (manuscript), Swedish
ambassador, with his court, Sept 4, 1791. "The change in the way of
thinking of the democrats is extraordinary; they now seem convinced
that it is impossible to make the Constitution work. Barnave, to my own
knowledge, has declared that the influence of assemblies in the future
should be limited to a council of notables, and that all power should be
in the government"]

[Footnote 2111: Ibid. Letter of July 17, 1791. "All the members of the
Assembly, with the exception of three or four, have passed a resolution
to separate from the Jacobins; they number about 300."--The seven
deputies who remain at the Jacobin Club, are Robespierre, Pétion,
Grégoire, Buzot, Coroller, and Abbé Royer.]

[Footnote 2112: "Les Feuillants" Was a political club consisting
of constitutional monarchists who held their meetings in the former
Feuillants monastery in Paris from 1791 to 1792. (SR).]

[Footnote 2113: Decree of Sept 29, 30, 1791, with report and
instructions of the Committee on the Constitution.]

[Footnote 2114: Decree of May 17, 1791.--Malouet, XII. 161. "There was
nothing left to us but to make one great mistake, which we did not fail
to do."]

[Footnote 2115: A few months after this, on the election of a mayor for
Paris, the court voted against Lafayette, and for Pétion]

[Footnote 2116: M. de Montlosier, "Mémoires," II. 309. "As far as
concerns myself, truth compels me to say, that I was stuck on the head
by three carrots and two cabbages only."--Archives of the prefecture of
police (decisions of the police court, May 15, 1790). Moniteur, V. 427.
"The prompt attendance of the members at the hour of meeting, in spite
of the hooting and murmurings of the crowd, seemed to convince the
people that this was yet another conspiracy against liberty."]

[Footnote 2117: This is what is, today in 1998, taking place whenever
any political faction, disliked by the Socialists, try to arrange a
meeting. (SR).]

[Footnote 2118: Malout, II. 50.--Mercure de France, Jan. 7, Feb. 5, and
April 9, 1791 (letter of a member of the Monarchical Club)]

[Footnote 2119: Ferrières, II. 222. "The Jacobin Club sent five or six
hundred trusty men, armed with clubs," besides "about a hundred national
guards, and some of the Palais-Royal prostitutes."]

[Footnote 2120: "Journal des Amis de la Constitution." Letter of the Café
National! Club at Bordeaux, Jan. 20, 1791.--Letters of the "Friends of
the Constitution," at Brives and Cambray, Jan. 19, 1791.]

[Footnote 2121: "The French Revolution," I. pp. 243, 324.]

[Footnote 2122: Mercure de France, Dec.18, 1790, Jan. 17, June 8, and
July 14, 1791.--Moniteur, VI. 697.--"Archives Nationales," F7, 3,193.
Letter from the Directory of the department of Aveyron, April 20, 1792.
Narrative of events after the end of 1790.--May 22, 1791, the club of
"The Friends of Order and Peace" is burned by the Jacobins, the fire
lasting all night and a part of the next day. (Official report of the
Directory of Milhau, May 22, 1791).]

[Footnote 2123: "The French Revolution," I. 256, 307.]

[Footnote 2124: Mercure de France, Dec. 14, 1790 (letter from
Villeneuve-St.-Georges, Nov.29).]

[Footnote 2125: "Archives Nationales," II. 1,453. Correspondence of M.
Bercheny. Letter from Pau, Feb. 7, 1790. "No one has any idea of the
actual state of things, in this once delightful town. People are cutting
each other's throats. Four duels have taken place within 48 hours, and
ten or a dozen good citizens have been obliged to hide themselves for
three days past"]

[Footnote 2126: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3,249. Memorial on the actual
condition of the town and district of Mortagne, department of Orne
(November, 1791).]

[Footnote 2127: Revolutionary song with the refrain: "Les aristocrates,
à la lanterne, tous les aristocrates on les pendra" (all the aristocrats
will hang). (SR)]

[Footnote 2128: On the 15th of August, 1791, the mother-superior of the
Hôtel-Dieu hospital is forcibly carried off and placed in a tavern, half
a league from the town, while the rest of the nuns are driven out and
replaced by eight young girls from the town. Among other motives that
require notice is the hostility of two pharmacists belonging to the
club; in the Hotel-Dieu the nuns, keeping a pharmacy from which they
sold drugs at cost and thereby brought themselves into competition with
the two pharmacists.]

[Footnote 2129: Cf. "Archives Nationales," DXXIX. 13. Letter of the
municipal officers and notables of Champoeuil to the administrators of
Seine-et-Oise, concerning elections, June 17, 1791.--Similar letters,
from various other parishes, among them that of Charcon, June 16: "They
have the honor to inform you that, at the time of the preceding primary
meetings, they were exposed to the greatest danger; that the curé of
Charcon, their pastor, was repeatedly stabbed with a bayonet, the
marks of which he will carry to his grave. The mayor, and several other
inhabitants of Charcon, escaped the same peril with difficulty."--Ibid.,
letters from the administrators of Hautes-Alpes to the National Assembly
(September, 1791), on the disturbances in the electoral assembly of Gap,
August 29, 1791.]

[Footnote 2130: Police searches of private homes. (SR).]

[Footnote 2131: "The French Revolution," pp. 159, 160, 310, 323,
324.--Lauvergne, "Histoire du département du Var," (August 23).]

[Footnote 2132: '"Archives Nationales," F7, 3,198, deposition of
Vérand-Icard, an elector at Arles, Sep. 8, 1791.--Ibid., F7, 3,195.
Letter of the administrators of the Tarascon district, Dec. 8, 1791. Two
parties confront each other at the municipal elections of Barbantane,
one headed by the Abbé Chabaud, brother of one of the Avignon brigands,
composed of three or four townsmen, and of "the most impoverished in
the country," and the other, three times as numerous, comprising all
the land-owners, the substantial métayers and artisans, and all "who are
most interested in a good administration" The question is, whether the
Abbé Chabaud is to be mayor. The elections took place Dec.5th, 1791.
Here is the official report of the acting mayor: mayor: "We, Pierre
Fontaine, mayor, addressed the rioters, to induce them to keep the
peace. At this very moment, the said Claude Gontier, alias Baoque,
struck us with his fist on the left eye, which bruised us considerably,
and on account of which we are almost blind, and, conjointly with
others, jumped upon us, threw us down, and dragged us by the hair,
continuing to strike us, from in front of the church door, till we came
in front of the door, the town hall."]

[Footnote 2133: Ibid., F7, 3,229. Letters of M. de Laurède, June 18,
1791; from the directory of the department, June 8, July 31, and Sept.
22, 1791; from the municipality, July 15, 1791. The municipality "leaves
the release of the prisoners in suspense," for six months, because,
it says, the people is disposed to "insurrectionise against their
discharge."--Letter of many of the national guard, stating that the
factions form only a part of it.]

[Footnote 2134: Mercure de France, Dec. 10, 1791, letter from
Montpellier, dated Nov. 17, 1791.--" Archives Nationales," F7, 3,223.
Extracts from letters, on the incidents of Oct. 9 and 12, 1791. Petition
by Messrs. Théri and Devon, Nov. 17, 1791. Letter addressed them to
the Minister, Oct. 25. Letters of M. Dupin, syndical attorney of the
department, to the Minister, Nov.14 and 15, and Dec. 26, 1791 (with
official reports).--Among those assassinated on the 14th and 15th of
November, we find a jeweler, an attorney, a carpenter, and a dyer. "This
painful Scene," writes the syndic attorney, "has restored quiet to the
town."]

[Footnote 2135: Buchez et Roux, X. 223 (l'Ami du Peuple, June 17, 19,
21, 1791)]

[Footnote 2136: "'Archives Nationales,' F7, 3204. letter by M. Melon de
Tradou, royal commissary at Tulle, Sept. 8, 1791]




CHAPTER II.




I.--Composition of the Legislative Assembly.

     Social rank of the Deputies. Their inexperience,
     incompetence, and prejudices.

If it be true that a nation should be represented by its superior
men, France was strangely represented during the Revolution. From one
Assembly to another we see the level steadily declining; especially is
the fall very great from the Constituent to the Legislative Assembly.
The actors entitled to perform withdraw just as they begin to understand
their parts; and yet more, they have excluded themselves from the
theatre, while the stage is surrendered to their substitutes.

"The preceding Assembly," writes an ambassador,[2201] "contained men of
great talent, large fortune, and honorable name, a combination which had
an imposing effect on the people, although violently opposed to personal
distinctions. The actual Assembly is but little more than a council of
lawyers, got together from every town and village in France."

In actual fact, out of 745 deputies, indeed, "400 lawyers belong, for
the most part, to the dregs of the profession"; there are about twenty
constitutional priests, "as many poets and literary men of but little
reputation, almost all without any fortune," the greater number being
less than thirty years old, sixty being less than twenty-six,[2202]
nearly all of them trained in the clubs and the popular assemblies".
There is not one noble or prelate belonging to the ancient régime,
no great landed proprietor,[2203] no head of a service, no eminent
specialist in diplomacy, in finance, in the administrative or military
arts. But three general officers are found there, and these are of the
lower rank,[2204] one of them having held his appointment but three
months, and the other two being wholly unknown.--At the head of the
diplomatic committee stands Brissot, itinerant journalist, lately
traveling about in England and the United States. He is supposed to be
competent in the affairs of both worlds; in reality he is one of those
presuming, threadbare, talkative fellows, who, living in a garret,
lecture foreign cabinets and reconstruct all Europe. Things, to them,
seem to be as easily worked out as words and sentences: one day,[2205]
to entice the English into an alliance with France, Brissot proposes to
place two towns, Dunkirk and Calais, in their hands as security; another
day, he proposes "to make a descent on Spain, and, at the same time, to
send a fleet to conquer Mexico."--The leading member on the committee on
finances is Cambon, a merchant from Montpellier, a good accountant,
who, at a later period, is to simplify accounting and regulate the Grand
Livre of the public debt, which means public bankruptcy. Mean-while,
he hastens this on with all his might by encouraging the Assembly to
undertake the ruinous and terrible war that is to last for twenty-three
years; according to him, "there is more money than is needed for
it."[2206] In actual fact, the guarantee of assignats is used up and the
taxes do not come in. They live only on the paper money they issue. The
assignats lose forty per centum, and the ascertained deficit for 1792
is four hundred millions.[2207] But this revolutionary financier relies
upon the confiscations which he instigates in France, and which are
to be set agoing in Belgium; here lies all his invention, a systematic
robbery on a grand scale within and without the kingdom.

As to the legislators and manufacturers of constitutions, we have
Condorcet, a cold-blooded fanatic and systematic leveler, satisfied that
a mathematical method suits the social sciences fed on abstractions,
blinded by formuloe, and the most chimerical of perverted intellects.
Never was a man versed in books more ignorant of mankind; never did a
lover of scientific precision better succeed in changing the character
of facts. It was he who, two days before the 20th of June, amidst the
most brutal public excitement, admired "the calmness" and rationality of
the multitude; "considering the way people interpret events, it might
be supposed that they had given some hours of each day to the study of
analysis." It is he who, two days after the 20th of June, extolled the
red cap in which the head of Louis XVI. had been muffled. "That crown
is as good as any other. Marcus Aurelius would not have despised
it."[2208]--Such is the discernment and practical judgment of the
leaders; from these one can form an opinion of the flock. It consists
of novices arriving from the provinces and bringing with them the
principles and prejudices of the newspaper. So remote from the center,
having no knowledge of general affairs or of their unity, they are
two years behind their brethren of the Constituent Assembly. They are
described in the following manner by Malouet,[2209]

"Most of them, without having decided against a monarchy, had decided
against the court, the aristocracy, and the clergy, ever imagining
conspiracies and believing that defense consisted solely in attack.
There were still many men of talent among them, but with no experience;
they even lacked that which we had obtained. Our patriot deputies, in
great part, were aware of their errors; the novices were not, they were
ready to begin all over again."

Moreover, they have their own political bent, for nearly all of them
are upstarts of the new régime. We find in their ranks 264 department
administrators, 109 district administrators, 125 justices and
prosecuting-attorneys, 68 mayors and town officers, besides about twenty
officers of the National Guard, constitutional bishops and curés. The
whole amounting to 566 of the elected functionaries, who, for the past
twenty months, have carried on the government under the direction
of their electors. We have seen how this was done and under what
conditions, with what compliances and with what complicity, with what
deference to clamorous opinion, with what docility in the presence of
rioters, with what submission to the orders of the mob, with what a
deluge of sentimental phrases and commonplace abstractions. Sent to
Paris as deputies, through the choice or toleration of the clubs, they
bear along with them their politics and their rhetoric. The result is
an assemblage of narrow, perverted, hasty, inflated and feeble minds; at
each daily session, twenty word-mills turn to no purpose, the greatest
of public powers at once becoming a manufactory of nonsense, a school of
extravagancies, and a theatre for declamation.




II.--Degree and quality of their intelligence and Culture.

Is it possible that serious men could have listened to such weird
nonsense until the bitter end?

"I am a tiller of the soil,"[2210] says one deputy, "I now dare speak
of the antique nobility of my plow. A yoke of oxen once constituted
the pure, incorruptible legal worthies before whom my good ancestors
executed their contracts, the authenticity of which, far better recorded
on the soil than on flimsy parchment, is protected from any species of
revolution whatever."

Is it conceivable that the reporter of a law, that is about to exile or
imprison forty thousand priests, should employ in an argument such silly
bombast as the following?[2211]

"I have seen in the rural districts the hymeneal torch diffusing only
pale and somber rays, or, transformed into the flambeaux of furies,
the hideous skeleton of superstition seated even on the nuptial couch,
placed between nature and the wedded, and arresting, etc.... Oh Rome,
art thou satisfied? Art thou then like Saturn, to whom fresh holocausts
were daily imperative?... Depart, ye creators of discord! The soil of
liberty is weary of bearing you. Would ye breathe the atmosphere of the
Aventine mount? The national ship is already prepared for you. I hear on
the shore the impatient cries of the crew; I see the breezes of liberty
swelling its sails. Like Telemachus, ye will go forth on the waters to
seek your father; but never will you have to dread the Sicilian rocks,
nor the seductions of a Eucharis."

Courtesies of pedants, rhetorical personifications, and the invective of
maniacs is the prevailing tone. The same defect characterizes the best
speeches, namely, an overexcited brain, a passion for high-sounding
terms, the constant use of stilts and an incapacity for seeing things
as they are and of so describing them. Men of talent, Isnard, Guadet,
Vergniaud himself, are carried away by hollow sonorous phrases like a
ship with too much canvas for its ballast. Their minds are stimulated by
souvenirs of their school lessons, the modern world revealing itself
to them only through their Latin reminiscences.--François de Nantes is
exasperated at the pope "who holds in servitude the posterity of Cato
and of Scoevola."--Isnard proposes to follow the example of the Roman
senate which, to allay discord at home, got up an outside war:
between old Rome and France of 1792, indeed, there is a striking
resemblance.--Roux insists that the Emperor (of Austria) should give
satisfaction before the 1st of March; "in a case like this the Roman
people would have fixed the term of delay; why shouldn't the French
people fix one?..." "The circle of Popilius" should be drawn around
those petty, hesitating German princes. When money is needed to
establish camps around Paris and the large towns, Lasource proposes to
dispose of the national forests and is amazed at any objection to the
measure. "Coesar's soldiers," he exclaims, "believing that an ancient
forest in Gaul was sacred, dared not lay the axe to it; are we to share
their superstitious respect?"[2212]--Add to this collegiate lore the
philosophic dregs deposited in all minds by the great sophist then in
vogue. Larivière reads in the tribune[2213] that page of the "Contrat
Social," where Rousseau declares that the sovereign may banish members
"of an unsocial religion," and punish with death "one who, having
publicly recognized the dogmas of civil religion, acts as if he did
not believe in them." On which, another hissing parrot, M. Filassier,
exclaims, "I put J. J. Rousseau's proposition into the form of a motion
and demand a vote on it."--In like manner it is proposed to grant very
young girls the right of marrying in spite of their parents by stating,
according to the "Nouvelle Héloise"

"that a girl thirteen or fourteen years old begins to sigh for the union
which nature dictates. She struggles between passion and duty, so that,
if she triumphs, she becomes a martyr, something that is rare in nature.
It may happen that a young person prefers the serene shame of defeat to
a wearisome eight year long struggle."

Divorce is inaugurated to "preserve in matrimony that happy peace of
mind which renders the sentiments livelier."[2214] Henceforth this will
no longer be a chain but "the acquittance of an agreeable debt which
every citizen owes to his country... Divorce is the protecting spirit of
marriage."[2215]

On a background of classic pedantry, with only vague and narrow notions
of ordinary instruction, lacking exact and substantial information, flow
obscenities and enlarged commonplaces enveloped in a mythological gauze,
spouting in long tirades as maxims from the revolutionary manual. Such
is the superficial culture and verbal argumentation from which vulgar
and dangerous ingredients the intelligence of the new legislators is
formed.[2216]




III.--Aspects of their sessions.

     Scenes and display at the club.--Co-operation of spectators.

From this we can imagine what their sessions were. "More in-coherent and
especially more passionate than those of the Constituent Assembly"[2217]
they present the same but intensified characteristics. The argument is
weaker, the invective more violent, and the dogmatism more intemperate.
Inflexibility degenerates into insolence, prejudice into fanaticism, and
near-sightedness into blindness. Disorder becomes a tumult and constant
din an uproar. Suppose, says an eye-witness,

"a classroom with hundreds of pupils quarreling and every instant on the
point of seizing each other by the hair. Their dress neglected, their
attitudes angry, with sudden transitions from shouting to hooting.. is a
sight hard to imagine and to which nothing can be compared."

It lacks nothing for making it a club of the lowest species. Here,
in advance, we contemplate the ways of the future revolutionary
inquisition. They welcome burlesque denunciations; enter into petty
police investigations; weigh the tittle-tattle of porters and the
gossip of servant-girls; devote an all-night session to the secrets of
a drunkard.[2218] They enter on their official report and without any
disapproval, the petition of M. Huré, "living at Pont-sur-Yonne, who,
over his own signature, offers one hundred francs and his arm to become
a killer of tyrants." Repeated and multiplied hurrahs and applause with
the felicitations of the president is the sanction of scandalous or
ridiculous private misconduct seeking to display itself under the
cover of public authority. Anacharsis Clootz, "a Mascarille officially
stamped," who proposes a general war and who hawks about maps of Europe
cut up in advance into departments beginning with Savoy, Belgium and
Holland "and thus onward to the Polar Sea," is thanked and given a seat
on the benches of the Assembly.[2219] Compliments are made to the Vicar
of Sainte-Marguerite and his wife is given a seat in the Assembly
and who, introducing "his new family," thunders against clerical
celibacy.[2220] Crowds of men and women are permitted to traverse the
hall letting out political cries. Every sort of indecent, childish and
seditious parade is admitted to the bar of the house.[2221] To-day it
consists of "citoyennes of Paris," desirous of being drilled in military
exercises and of having for their commandants "former French guardsmen;"
to-morrow children come and express their patriotism with "touching
simplicity," regretting that "their trembling feet do not permit them to
march, no, fly against the tyrants;" next to these come convicts of
the Château--Vieux escorted by a noisy crowd; at another time the
artillerymen of Paris, a thousand in number, with drums beating;
delegates from the provinces, the faubourgs and the clubs come
constantly, with their furious harangues, and imperious remonstrances,
their exactions, their threats and their summonses.--In the intervals
between the louder racket a continuous hubbub is heard in the clatter of
the tribunes.[2222] At each session "the representatives are chaffed by
the spectators; the nation in the gallery is judge of the nation on the
floor;" it interferes in the debates, silences the speakers, insults
the president and orders the reporter of a bill to quit the tribune. One
interruption, or a simple murmur, is not all; there are twenty, thirty,
fifty in an hour, clamoring, stamping, yells and personal abuse. After
countless useless entreaties, after repeated calls to order, "received
with hooting," after a dozen "regulations that are made, revised,
countermanded and posted up" as if better to prove the impotence of the
law, of the authorities and of the Assembly itself, the usurpations of
these intruders keep on increasing. They have shouted for ten months
"Down with the civil list! Down with the ministerials! Down with those
curs! Silence, slaves!' On the 26th of July, Brissot himself is to
appear lukewarm and be struck on the face with two plums. "Three or
four hundred individuals without either property, title, or means of
subsistence... have become the auxiliaries, petitioners and umpires of
the legislature," their paid violence completely destroying whatever is
still left of the Assembly's reason.[2223]




IV.--The Parties.

     The "Right."--"Center."--The "Left."--Opinions and
     sentiments of the Girondins.--Their Allies of the extreme
     "left."

In an assembly thus composed and surrounded, it is easy to foresee on
which side the balance will turn.--Through the meshes of the electoral
net which the Jacobins have spread over the whole country, about one
hundred well-meaning individuals of the common run, tolerably sensible
and sufficiently resolute, Mathieu Dumas, Dumolard, Becquet, Gorguereau,
Vaublanc, Beugnot, Girardin, Ramond, Jaucourt, were able to pass and
form the party of the "Right."[2224] They resist to as great an extent
as possible, and seem to have obtained a majority.--For, of the four
hundred deputies who have their seats in the center, one hundred and
sixty-four are inscribed on the rolls with them at the Feuillants club,
while the rest, under the title of "Independents," pretend to be of
no party.[2225] Besides, the whole of these four hundred, through
monarchical traditions, respect the King; timid and sensible, violence
is repugnant to them. They distrust the Jacobins, dread what is
unknown, desire to be loyal to the Constitution and to live in peace.
Nevertheless, the pompous dogmas of the revolutionary catechism
still have their prestige with them; they cannot comprehend how the
Constitution which they like produces the anarchy which they detest;
they are "foolish enough to bemoan the effects while swearing to
maintain their causes; totally deficient in spirit, in union and in
boldness," they float backwards and forwards between contradictory
desires, while their predisposition to order merely awaits the steady
impulsion of a vigorous will to turn it in the opposite direction.--On
such docile material the "Left" can work effectively. It comprises,
indeed, but one hundred and thirty-six registered Jacobins and about
a hundred others who, in almost all cases, vote with the party;[2226]
rigidity of opinion, however, more than compensates for lack of numbers.
In the front row are Guadet, Brissot, Gensonné, Veygniaud, Ducos, and
Condorcet, the future chiefs of the Girondists, all of them lawyers or
writers captivated by deductive politics, absolute in their convictions
and proud of their faith. According to them principles are true and must
be applied without reservation;[2227] whoever would stop half-way is
wanting in courage or intelligence. As for themselves their minds
are made up to push through. With the self-confidence of youth and of
theorists they draw their own conclusions and hug themselves with their
strong belief in them. "These gentlemen," says a keen observer,[2228]

"professed great disdain for their predecessors, the Constituents,
treating them as short-sighted and prejudiced people incapable of
profiting by circumstances."

"To the observations of wisdom, and disinterested wisdom,[2229] they
replied with a scornful smile, indicative of the aridity proceeding from
self-conceit. One exhausted himself in reminding them of events and in
deducing causes from these; one passed in turn from theory to experience
and from experience to theory to show them their identity and, when they
condescended to reply it was to deny the best authenticated facts and
contest the plainest observations by opposing to these a few trite
maxims although eloquently expressed. Each regarded the other as if they
alone were worthy of being heard, each encouraging the other with
the idea that all resistance to their way of looking at things was
pusillanimity."

In their own eyes they alone are capable and they alone are patriotic.
Because they have read Rousseau and Mably, because their tongue is
untied and their pen flowing, because they know how to handle the
formuloe of books and reason out an abstract proposition, they fancy that
they are statesmen.[2230] Because they have read Plutarch and "Le Jeune
Anacharsis," because they aim to construct a perfect society out of
metaphysical conceptions, because they are in a ferment about the coming
millennium, they imagine themselves so many exalted spirits. They have
no doubt whatever on these two points even after everything has fallen
in through their blunders, even after their obliging hands are sullied
by the foul grasp of robbers whom they were the first to instigate, and
by that of executioners of which they are partners in complicity.[2231]
To this extent is self-conceit the worst of sophists. Convinced of their
superior enlightenment and of the purity of their sentiments, they
put forth the theory that the government should be in their hands.
Consequently they lay hold of it in the Legislative body in ways that
are going to turn against them in the Convention. They accept for allies
the worst demagogues of the extreme "Left," Chabot, Couthon, Merlin,
Bazière, Thuriot, Lecointre, and outside of it, Danton, Robespierre,
Marat himself, all the levelers and destroyers whom they think of use to
them, but of whom they themselves are the instruments. The motions they
make must pass at any cost and, to ensure this, they let loose against
their adversaries the low, yelping mob which others, still more
factious, will to-morrow let loose on them.




V.--Their means of action.

     Dispersion of the Feuillants' club.--Pressure of the
     tribunes on the Assembly.--Street mobs.

Thus, for the second time, the pretended freedom fighters seek power by
boldly employing force.--They begin by suppressing the meetings of the
Feuillants club.[2232] The customary riot is instigated against these,
whereupon ensue tumult, violent outcries and scuffles; mayor Pétion
complains of his position "between opinion and law," and lets things
take their course; finally, the Feuillants are obliged to evacuate
their place of meeting.--Inside the Assembly they are abandoned to the
insolence of the galleries. In vain do they get exasperated and protest.
Ducastel, referring to the decree of the Constituent Assembly, which
forbids any manifestation of approbation or disapprobation, is greeted
with murmurs. He insists on the decree being read at the opening of each
session, and "the murmurs begin again."[2233] "Is it not scandalous,"
says Vaublanc, "that the nation's representatives speaking from the
tribune are subject to hootings like those bestowed upon an actor on
the stage!" whereupon the galleries give him three rounds more. "Will
posterity believe," says Quatremère, "that acts concerning the honor,
the lives, and the fortunes of citizens should be subject, like games in
the arena, to the applause and hisses of the spectators!" "Come to the
point!" shout the galleries. "If ever," resumes Quatremère, "the most
important of judicial acts (an act of capital indictment) can be exposed
to this scandalous prostitution of applause and menaces..." "The murmurs
break out afresh."--Every time that a sanguinary or incendiary measure
is to be carried, the most furious and prolonged clamor stops the
utterance of its opponents: "Down with the speaker! Send the reporter
of that bill to prison! Down! Down! Sometimes only about twenty of the
deputies will applaud or hoot with the galleries, and sometimes it
is the entire Assembly which is insulted. Fists are thrust in the
president's face. All that now remains is "to call down the galleries on
the floor to pass decrees," which proposition is ironically made by one
of the "Right."[2234]

Great, however, as this usurpation may be, the minority, in order to
suppress the majority, accommodate themselves to it, the Jacobins in
the chamber making common cause with the Jacobins in the galleries.
The disturbers should not be put out; "it would be excluding from our
deliberations," says Grangeneuve, "that which belongs essentially to the
people." On one of the deputies demanding measures to enforce silence,
"Torné demands that the proposition be referred to the Portugal
inquisition." Choudieu "declares that it can only emanate from deputies
who forget that respect which is due to the people, their sovereign
judge."[2235] "The action of the galleries," says Lecointe-Puyraiveaux,
"is an outburst of patriotism." Finally, this same Choudieu, twisting
and turning all rights about with incomparable audacity, wishes to
confer legislative privileges on the audience, and demands a decree
against the deputies who, guilty of popular lèse-majesté, presume
to complain of those who insult them.--Another piece of oppressive
machinery, still more energetic, operates outside on the approaches to
the Assembly. Like their predecessors of the Constituent Assembly, the
members of the "Right" "cannot leave the building without encountering
the threats and imprecations of enraged crowds. Cries of 'to the
lantern!' greet the ears of Dumolard, Vaublanc, Raucourd, and Lacretelle
as often as those of the Abbé Maury and Montlosier."[2236] After having
hurled abuse at the president, Mathieu Dumas, they insult his wife
who has been recognized in a reserved gallery.[2237] In the Tuileries,
crowds are always standing there listening to the brawlers who denounce
suspected deputies by name, and woe to any among them who takes that
path on his way to the chamber! A broadside of insults greets him as he
passes along. If the deputy happens to be a farmer, they exclaim: "Look
at that queer old aristocrat--an old peasant dog that used to watch
cows!" One day Hua, on going up the steps of the Tuileries terrace, is
seized by the hair by an old vixen who bids him "Bow your head to your
sovereigns, the people, you bastard of a deputy!" On the 20th of June
one of the patriots, who is crossing the Assembly room, whispers in his
ear, "You scamp of a deputy, you'll never die but by my hand!" Another
time, having defended the juge-de-paix Larivière, there awaits him at
the door, in the middle of the night, "a set of blackguards, who crowd
around him and thrust their fists and cudgels in his face;" happily,
his friends Dumas and Daverhoult, two military officers, foreseeing
the danger, present their pistols and set him free "although with
some difficulty."--As the 10th of August draws near there is more open
aggression. Vaublanc, for having defended Lafayette, just misses being
cut to pieces three times on leaving the Assembly; sixty of the deputies
are treated in the same fashion, being struck, covered with mud, and
threatened with death if they dare go back.[2238]--With such allies a
minority is very strong. Thanks to its two agencies of constraint it
will detach the votes it needs from the majority and, either through
terror or craft, secure the passage of all the decrees it needs.




VI.--Parliamentary maneuvers.

     Abuses of urgency.--Vote on the principle.--Call by name.
     --Intimidation of the "Center."--Opponents inactive.--The
     majority finally disposed of.

Sometimes it succeeds surreptitiously by rushing them through. As "there
is no order of the day circulated beforehand, and, in any event, none
which anybody is obliged to adhere to,"[2239] the Assembly is captured
by surprise. "The first knave amongst the 'Left,' (which expression,
says Hua, I do not strike out, because there were many among those
gentlemen), brought up a ready-made resolution, prepared the evening
before by a clique. We were not prepared for it and demanded that it
should be referred to a committee. Instead of doing this, however, the
resolution was declared urgent, and, whether we would or not, discussion
had to take place forthwith."[2240]--"There were other tactics equally
perfidious, which Thuriot, especially, made use of. This great rascal
got up and proposed, not the draft of a law, but what he called a
principle; for instance, a decree should be passed confiscating the
property of the émigrés,.. or that unsworn priests should be subject to
special surveillance.[2241]... In reply, he was told that his principle
was the core of a law, the very law itself; so let it be debated by
referring it to a committee to make a report on it.--Not at all--the
matter is urgent; a committee might fix the articles as it pleases;
they are worthless if the principle is not common sense." Through this
expeditious method discussion is stifled. The Jacobins purposely prevent
the Assembly from giving the matter any consideration. They count on its
bewilderment. In the name of reason, they discard reason as far as
they can, and hasten a vote because their decrees do not stand up to
analysis.--At other times, and especially on grand occasions, they
compel a vote. In general, votes are given by the members either sitting
down or standing up, and, for the four hundred deputies of the "Center,"
subject to the scolding of the exasperated galleries, it is a
tolerably hard trial. "Part of them do not arise, or they rise with
the 'Left'."[2242] If the "Right" happens to have a majority, "this is
contested in bad faith and a call of the house is demanded." Now, "the
calls of the house, through an intolerable abuse, are always published;
the Jacobins declaring that it is well for the people to know their
friends from their enemies." The meaning of this is that this list of
the opposition will soon serve as a list of the outlaws, on which
the timid are not disposed to inscribe themselves. The result is an
immediate defection in the heavy battalions of the "Centre"; "this is
a positive fact," says Hua, "of which we were all witnesses; we always
lost a hundred votes on the call of the house."--Towards the end they
give up, and protest no more, except by staying away: on the 14th of
June, when the abolishment of the whole system of feudal credit was
being dealt with, only the extreme left was attending; the rest of the
"Assembly hall was nearly empty"; out of 497 deputies in attendance, 200
had left the session.[2243] Encouraged for a moment by the appearance of
some possible protection, they twice exonerate General Lafayette, behind
whom they see an army,[2244] and brave the despots of the Assembly, the
clubs, and the streets. But, for lack of a military chief and base, the
visible majority is twice obliged to yield, to keep silent, and fly
or retreat under the dictatorship of the victorious faction, which
has strained and forced the legislative machine until it has become
disjointed and broken down.[2245]


*****


[Footnote 2201:"Correspondence (manuscript) of Baron de Staël," with his
Court in Sweden. Oct. 6, 1791.]

[Footnote 2202: "Souvenirs", by PASQUIER (Etienne-Dennis,
duc), chancelier de France, in VI volumes, Librarie Plon, Paris
1893.--Dumouriez, "Mémoires," III. ch. V: "The Jacobin party, having
branches all over the country, used its provincial clubs to control
the elections. Every crackbrain, every seditious scribbler, all the
agitators were elected ... very few enlightened or prudent men, and
still fewer of the nobles, were chosen."--Moniteur, XII. 199 (meeting of
April 23, 1792). Speech M. Lecointe-Puyravaux. "We need not dissimulate;
indeed, we are proud to say, that this legislature is composed of
persons who are not rich."]

[Footnote 2203: Mathieu Dumas, "Mémoires," I. 521. "The excitement in
the electoral assemblages was very great; the aristocrats and large
land-owners abstained from coming there."--Correspondance de Mirabeau
et du Comte de la Mark, III. 246, Oct.10, 1791. "Nineteen twentieths of
this legislature have no other transportation (turn-out) than galoshes
and umbrellas. It has been estimated, that all these deputies put
together do not possess 300,000 livres solid income. The majority of the
members of this Assembly have received no education whatever."]

[Footnote 2204: They rank as Maréchaux de camp, a grade corresponding to
that of brigadier-general. They are Dupuy-Montbrun (deceased in March,
1792), Descrots-d'Estrée, a weak and worn old man whom his children
forced into the Legislative Assembly, and, lastly, Mathieu Dumas, a
conservative, and the only prominent one.]

[Footnote 2205: "Correspondance du Baron de Staël," Jan.19,
1792.--Gouverneur Morris (II.162, Feb. 4, 1792) writes to Washington
that M. de Warville, on the diplomatic committee, proposed to cede
Dunkirk and Calais to England, as a pledge of fidelity by France, in any
engagement which she might enter into. You can judge, by this, of the
wisdom and virtue of the faction to which he belongs--Buchez et Roux,
XXX 89 (defense of Brissot, Jan. 5, 1793) "Brissot, like all noisy,
reckless, ambitious men, started in full blast with the strangest
paradoxes. In 1780. in his 'Recherches philosophiques sur le droit
de propriété,' he wrote as follows: 'If 40 crowns suffice to maintain
existence, the possession of 200,000 crowns is plainly unjust and a
robbery... Exclusive ownership is a veritable crime against nature...
The punishment of robbery in our institutions is an act of virtue which
nature herself commands.'"]

[Footnote 2206: Moniteur, speech by Cambon, sittings of Feb. 2 and April
20, 1792.]

[Footnote 2207: Ibid., (sitting of April 3). Speech by M. Cailliasson.
The property belonging to the nation, sold and to be sold, is valued
at 2,195 millions, while the assignats already issued amount to 2,100
millions.--Cf. Mercure de France, Dec. 17, 1791, p.201; Jan.28, 1792,
p. 215; May 19, 1792, p. 205.--Dumouriez, "Mémoires," III. 296, and 339,
340, 344, 346.--"Cambon, a raving lunatic, without education, humane
principle, or integrity (public) a meddler, an ignoramus, and very
giddy. He tells me that one resource remained to him, which is, to seize
all the coin in Belgium, all the plate belonging to the churches, and
all the cash deposits... that, on ruining the Belgians, on reducing them
to the same state of suffering as the French, they would necessarily
share their fate with them; that they would then be admitted members of
the Republic, with the prospect of always making headway, through the
same line of policy; that the decree of Dec. 15, 1792, admirably favored
this and, because it tended to a complete disorganization, and that the
luckiest thing that could happen to France was to disorganize all
its neighbors and reduce them to the same state of anarchy." (This
conversation between Cambon and Dumouriez occurs in the middle of
January, 1793.)--Moniteur, XIV. 758 (sitting of Dec. 15, 1792). Report
by Cambon.]

[Footnote 2208: Chronique de Paris, Sept. 4, 1792. "It is a sad
and terrible situation which forces a people, naturally amiable and
generous, to take such vengeance!"--Cf. the very acute article, by
St. Beuve, on Condorcet, in "Causeries du Lundi,"--Hua (a colleague of
Condorcet, in the Legislative Assembly), "Mémoires," 89. "Condorcet,
in his journal, regularly falsified things, with an audacity which
is unparelleled. The opinions of the 'Right' were so mutilated and
travestied the next day in his journal, that we, who had uttered them,
could scarcely recognise them. On complaining of this to him and on
charging him with perfidy, the philosopher only smiled."]

[Footnote 2209: Malouet, II. 215.--Dumouriez, III. ch. V. "They were
elected to represent the nation to defend, they say, its interests
against a perfidious court."]

[Footnote 2210: Moniteur, X. 223 (session of Oct. 26, 1791). Speech by
M. François Duval.--Grandiloquence is the order of the day at the very
first meeting. On the 1st of October, 1791, twelve old men, marching in
procession, go out to fetch the constitutional act. "M. Camus, keeper of
the records, with a composed air and downcast eyes, enters with measured
steps," bearing in both hands the sacred document which he holds against
his breast, while the deputies stand up and bare their heads. "People of
France," says an orator, "citizens of Paris, all generous Frenchmen,
and you, our fellow citizens--virtuous, intelligent women, bringing your
gentle influence into the sanctuary of the law--behold the guarantee of
peace which the legislature presents to you!"--We seem to be witnessing
the last act of an opera.]

[Footnote 2211: Ibid., XII. 230 (sessions of April 26 and May 5). Report
and speech by François de Nantes. The whole speech, a comic treasure
from the beginning to the end, ought to have been quoted: "Tell me,
pontiff of Rome, what your sentiments will be when you welcome your
worthy and faithful co-operators?.. I behold your sacred hands, ready to
launch those pontifical thunderbolts, which, etc... Let the brazier
of Scoevola be brought in, and, with our outstretched palms above the
burning coals, we will show that there is no species of torture, no
torment which can excite a frown on the brow of him whom the love of
country exalts above humanity!"--Suppose that, just at this moment, a
lighted candle had been placed under his hand!]

[Footnote 2212: Moniteur, XI. 179 (session of Jan. 20, 1792).--Ibid.,
216 (session of Jan. 24).--XII. 426 (May 9).]

[Footnote 2213: Ibid., XII. 479 (session of May 24).--XIII. 71 (session
of July 7, speech by Lasource).--Cf. XIV. 301 (session of July 31) a
quotation from Voltaire brought in for the suppression of the convents.]

[Footnote 2214: Moniteur. Speech by Aubert Dubayer, session of Aug. 30.]

[Footnote 2215: Speech by Chaumette, procureur of the commune, to the
newly married. (Mortimer-Ternaux, IV. 408).]

[Footnote 2216: The class to which they belonged has been portrayed, to
the life, by M. Roye-Collard (Sainte-Beuve, "Nouveaux Lundis," IV. 263):
"A young lawyer at Paris, at first received in a few houses on the Ile
St. Louis, he soon withdrew from this inferior world of attorneys
and pettyfoggers, whose tone oppressed him. The very thought of the
impression this gallant and intensely vulgar mediocrity made upon him,
still inspired disgust. He much preferred to talk with longshoremen, if
need be, than with these scented limbs of the law."]

[Footnote 2217: Etienne Dumont, "Mémoires," 40.--Mercure de France, Nov.
19, 1791; Feb. 11 and March 3, 1792. (articles by Mallet du Pan).]

[Footnote 2218: Moniteur, Dec. 17 (examination at the bar of the house
of Rauch, a pretended labor contractor, whom they are obliged to send
off acquitted). Rauch tells them: "I have no money, and cannot find
a place where I can sleep at less than 6 sous, because I pee in the
bed."--Moniteur, XII. 574. (session of June 4), report by Chabot: "A
peddler from Mortagne, says that a domestic coming from Coblentz told
him that there was a troop about to carry off the king and poison him,
so as to throw the odium of it on the National Assembly." Bernassais de
Poitiers writes: "A brave citizen told me last evening: 'I have been to
see a servant-girl, living with a noble. She assured me that her master
was going to-night to Paris, to join the 30,000, who, in about a month,
meant to cut the throats of the National Assembly and set fire to every
corner of Paris!'"--"M. Gerard, a saddler at Amiens, writes to us
that Louis XVI is to be aided in his flight by 5,000 relays, and that
afterwards they are going to fire red-hot bullets on the National
Assembly."]

[Footnote 2219: Mercure de France, Nov. 5, 1791 (session of Oct.
25).--Ibid., Dec. 23.-Moniteur, XII. 192 (session of April 21,
1792).--XII. 447 (address to the French, by Clootz): "God brought order
out of primitive chaos; the French will bring order out of feudal chaos.
God is mighty, and manifested his will; we are mighty, and we will
manifest our will... The more extensive the seat of war the sooner,
and more fortunately, will the suit of plebeians against the nobles be
decided... We require enemies,.. Savoy, Tuscany, and quickly, quickly!"]

[Footnote 2220: Cf. Moniteur, XI. 192 (sitting of Jan. 22, 1792). "M.
Burnet, chaplain of the national guard, presents himself at the bar of
the house with an English woman, named Lydia Kirkham, and three small
children, one of which is in her arms. M. Burnet announces that she is
his wife and that the child in her arms is the fruit of their affection.
After referring to the force of natural sentiments which he could not
resist, the petitioner thus continues: 'One day, I met one of those
sacred questioners. Unfortunate man, said he, of what are you guilty? Of
this child, sir; and I have married this woman, who is a Protestant, and
her religion has nothing to do with mine... Death or my wife! Such
is the cry that nature now and always will, inspire me with."--The
petitioner receives the honors of the Assembly.--(Ibid., XII 369).]

[Footnote 2221: The grotesque is often that of a farce. "M. Piorry, in
the name of poor; but virtuous citizens, tenders two pairs of buckles,
with this motto: 'They have served to hold the shoe-straps on my feet;
they will serve to reduce under them, with the imprint and character
of truth, all tyrants leagued against the constitution' (Moniteur, XII.
457, session of May 21)"--Ibid., XIII. 249 (session of July 25). "A
young citoyenne offers to combat, in person, against the enemies of her
country;" and the president, with a gallant air, replies: "Made rather
to soothe, than to combat tyrants, your offer, etc."]

[Footnote 2222: Moniteur, XL 576 (session of March 6); XII. 237, 314,
368 (sessions of April 27, May 5 and 14).]

[Footnote 2223: Mercure de France. Sept. 19,1791, Feb.11, and March 3,
1792.--Buchez et Roux, XVI 185 (session of July 26, 1792).]

[Footnote 2224: "Mémoires de Mallet du Pan," 1433 (tableau of the three
parties, with special information).]

[Footnote 2225: Buchez et Roux, XII. 348 (letter by the deputy Chéron,
president of the Feuillants Club). The deputies of the Legislative
Assembly, registered at the Feuillants Club, number 264 besides a large
number of deputies in the Constituent Assembly.--According to Mallet du
Pan the so-called Independents number 250.]

[Footnote 2226: These figures are verified by decisive ballottings
(Mortimer-Ternauz, II. 205, 348.)]

[Footnote 2227: Moniteur, XII. 393 (session of May 15, speech by
Isnard): "The Constituent Assembly only half dared do what it had the
power to do. It has left in the field of liberty, even around the very
roots of the young constitutional tree, the old roots of despotism and
of the aristocracy... It has bound us to the trunk of the constitutional
tree, like powerless victims given up to the rage of their
enemies."----Etienne Dumont saw truly the educational defects peculiar
to the party. He says, apropos of Madame Roland: "I found in her too
much of that distrustful despotism which belongs to ignorance of
the world.. . What her intellectual development lacked was a greater
knowledge of the world and intercourse with men of superior judgment to
her own. Roland himself had little intellectual breadth, while all
those who frequented her house never rose above the prejudices of the
vulgar."]

[Footnote 2228: "Souvenirs", by PASQUIER (Etienne-Dennis, duc),
chancelier de France. in VI volumes, Librarie Plon, Paris 1893.]

[Footnote 2229: Madame de Stael, "Considerations sur la Révolution
Française," IIIrd part, ch. III.-Madame de Staël conversed with them
and judges them according to the shrewd perceptions of a woman of the
world.]

[Footnote 2230: Louvet, "Mémoires" 32. "I belonged to the bold
philosophers who, before the end of 1791, lamented the fate of a great
nation, compelled to stop half-way in the career of freedom," and, on
page 38--"A minister of justice was needed. The four ministers (Roland,
Servane, etc.) cast their eyes on me... Duranthon was preferred to me.
This was the first mistake of the republican party. It paid dear for it.
That mistake cost my country a good deal of blood and many tears."
Later on, he thinks that he has the qualifications for ambassador to
Constantinople.]

[Footnote 2231: Buzot, "Mémoires" (Ed. Dauban), pp.31, 39. "Born with a
proud and independent spirit which never bowed at any one's command, how
could I accept the idea of a man being held sacred? With my heart and
head possessed by the great beings of the ancient republics, who are the
greatest honor to the human species, I practiced their maxims from my
earliest years, and nourished myself on a study of their virtues... The
pretended necessity of a monarchy... could not amalgamate, in my mind,
with the grand and noble conceptions formed by me, of the dignity of
the human species. Hope deceived me, it is true, but my error was too
glorious to allow me to repent of it."--Self-admiration is likewise the
mental substratum of Madame Roland, Roland, Pétion, Barbaroux, Louvet,
etc., (see their writings). Mallet du Pan well says: "On reading the
memoirs of Madame Roland, one detects the actress, rehearsing for the
stage. "--Roland is an administrative puppet and would-be orator, whose
wife pulls the strings. There is an odd, dull streak in him, peculiarly
his own. For example, in 1787 (Guillon de Montléon, "Histoire de la
ville de Lyon, pendant la Révolution," 1.58), he proposes to utilize
the dead, by converting them into oil and phosphoric acid. In 1788, he
proposes to the Villefranche Academy to inquire "whether it would not be
to the public advantage to institute tribunals for trying the dead?" in
imitation of the Egyptians. In his report of Jan. 5, 1792, he gives a
plan for establishing public festivals, "in imitation of the Spartans,"
and takes for a motto, Non omnis moriar (Baron de Girardot, "Roland and
Madame Roland". I. 83, 185)]

[Footnote 2232: Political club uniting moderate and constitutional
monarchists. They got their nickname because they held their meetings in
the old convent formerly used by the feullants, a branch of Cistercians
who, led by LaBarrière, broke away in 1577. The Feuillant Club was
dissolved in 1791. (SR).]

[Footnote 2233: Moniteur, XI. 61 (session of Jan 7, 1792).--Ibid., 204
(Jan. 25); 281 (Feb. 1); 310 (Feb. 4); 318 (Feb. 6); 343 (Feb. 9); 487
(Feb. 26).--XII. 22 (April 2). Reports of all the sessions must be read
to appreciate the force of the pressure. See, especially, the sessions
of April 9 and 16, May 15 and 29, June 8, 9, 15, and 25, July 1, 2,
5, 9, 11, 17, 18, and 21, and, after this date, all the
sessions.--Lacretelle, "Dix Ans d'Epreuves," p. 78-81. "The Legislative
Assembly served under the Jacobin Club while keeping up a counterfeit
air of independence. The progress which fear had made in the French
character was very great, at a time when everything was pitched in the
haughtiest key... The majority, as far as intentions go, was for the
conservatives; the actual majority was for the republicans."]

[Footnote 2234: Moniteur, XIII. 212, session of July 22.]

[Footnote 2235: Moniteur, XII. 22, session of April
2.--Mortimer-Ternaux, II. 95.--Moniteur, XIII. 222, session of July 22.]

[Footnote 2236: Lacretelle, "Dix Ans d'Epreuves," 80.]

[Footnote 2237: Mathieu Dumas, "Mémoires," II. 88 (Feb. 23).--Hua,
"Mémoires d'un Avocat au Parliament de Paris," 106, 121, 134, 154.
Moniteur, XIII. 212 (session of July 21), speech by M.---"The avenues
to this building are daily beset with a horde of people who insult the
representatives of the nation."]

[Footnote 2238: De Vaublanc, "Mémoires," 344.--Moniteur, XIII. 368
(letters and speeches of deputies, session of Aug. 9).]

[Footnote 2239: Hua, 115.--Ibid., 90. 3 out of 4 deputies of
Seine-et-Oise were Jacobins. "We met once a week to talk over the
affairs of the department. We were obliged to drive out the vagabonds
who, even at the table, talked of nothing but killing."]

[Footnote 2240: Moniteur, XII. 702. For example, on the 19th of
June, 1792, on a motion unexpectedly proposed by Condorcet, that the
departments be authorized to burn all titles (to nobility) in the
various depots.--Adopted at once, and unanimously.]

[Footnote 2241: Later Stalin and his successors should invest the United
Nations and other international organizations to indirectly propose and
ensure the acceptance of a new convention of human rights, children's
rights, the rights of refugees etc. In many cases these became the
base of national legislation which is now giving trouble to many of the
Western democracies. (SR).]

[Footnote 2242: Hua, 114.]

[Footnote 2243: Moniteur, XII. 664.--Mercure de France, June 23, 1792.]

[Footnote 2244: Hua, 141.--Mathieu Dumas, II. 399: "It is remarkable
that Lafond de Ladébat, one of our trustiest friends, was elected
president on the 23rd of July, 1792. This shows that the majority of the
Assembly was still sound; but it was only brought about by a secret vote
in the choice of candidates. The same men who obeyed their consciences,
through a sentiment of justice and of propriety, could not face the
danger which surrounded them in the threats of the factions when they
were called upon to vote by rising or sitting."]

[Footnote 2245: This description and others of the same period have
undoubtedly been studied carefully by thousands of socialists and
political hopefuls who, in any case, made use of similar tactics to take
over thousands of governing committees, institutions and organizations.
(SR).]




CHAPTER III.




I.--Policy of the Assembly.--State of France at the end of 1791.

     Powerlessness of the Law.

If the deputies who, on the 1st of October, 1791, so solemnly and
enthusiastically swore to the Constitution, had been willing to open
their eyes, they would have seen this Constitution constantly violated,
both in its letter and spirit, over the entire territory. As usual, and
through the vanity of authorship, M. Thouret, the last president of
the Constituent Assembly, had, in his final report, hidden disagreeable
truth underneath pompous and delusive phrases; but it was only necessary
to look over the monthly record to see whether, as guaranteed by him,
"the decrees were faithfully executed in all parts of the empire."--"
Where is this faithful execution to be found?" inquires Mallet du
Pan.[2301] "Is it at Toulon, in the midst of the dead and wounded, shot
in the very face of the amazed municipality and Directory? Is it at
Marseilles, where two private individuals are knocked down and massacred
as aristocrats," under the pretext "that they sold to children poisoned
sugar-plums with which to begin a counter-revolution?" Is it at Arles,
"against which 4,000 men from Marseilles, dispatched by the club, are at
this moment marching?" Is it at Bayeux, "where the sieur Fauchet
against whom a warrant for arrest is out, besides being under the ban
of political disability, has just been elected deputy to the Legislative
Assembly?" Is it at Blois, "where the commandant, doomed to death for
having tried to execute these decrees, is forced to send away a loyal
regiment and submit to licentious troops?" Is it at Nîmes, "where the
Dauphiny regiment, on leaving the town by the Minister's orders,
is ordered by the people" and the club "to disobey the Minister and
remain?" Is it in those regiments whose officers, with pistols at their
breasts, are obliged to leave and give place to amateurs? Is it at
Toulouse, "where, at the end of August, the administrative authorities
order all unsworn priests to leave the town in three days, and withdraw
to a distance of four leagues?" Is it in the outskirts of Toulouse,
"where, on the 28th of August, a municipal officer is hung at a
street-lamp after an affray with guns?" Is it at Paris, where, on
the 25th of September, the Irish college, vainly protected by an
international treaty, has just been assailed by the mob; where
Catholics, listening to the orthodox mass, are driven out and dragged
to the authorized mass in the vicinity; where one woman is torn from the
confessional, and another flogged with all their might?[2302]

These troubles, it is said, are transient; on the Constitution being
proclaimed, order will return of itself. Very well, the Constitution
is voted, accepted by the King, proclaimed, and entrusted to the
Legislative Assembly. Let the Legislative Assembly consider what is done
in the first few weeks. In the eight departments that surround
Paris, there are riots on every market-day; farms are invaded and the
cultivators of the soil are ransomed by bands of vagabonds; the mayor
of Melun is riddled with balls and dragged out from the hands of the
mob streaming with blood.[2303] At Belfort, a riot for the purpose of
retaining a convoy of coin, and the commissioner of the Upper-Rhine in
danger of death; at Bouxvillers, owners of property attacked by poor
National Guards, and by the soldiers of Salm-Salm, houses broken into
and cellars pillaged; at Mirecourt, a flock of women beating drums, and,
for three days, holding the Hôtel-de-Ville in a state of siege.----One
day Rochefort is in a state of insurrection, and the workmen of the
harbor compel the municipality to unfurl the red flag.[2304] On the
following day, it is Lille, the people of which, "unwilling to exchange
its money and assignats for paper-rags, called billets de confiance,
gather into mobs and threaten, while a whole garrison is necessary to
prevent an explosion." On the 16th of October, it is Avignon in the
power of bandits, with the abominable butchery of the Glacière. On the
5th of November, at Caen, there are eighty-two gentlemen, townsmen and
artisans, knocked down and dragged to prison, for having offered their
services to the municipality as special constables. On the 14th of
November, at Montpellier, the roughs triumph; eight men and women are
killed in the streets or in their houses, and all conservatives are
disarmed or put to flight. By the end of October, it is a gigantic
column of smoke and flame shooting upward suddenly from week to week and
spreading everywhere, growing, on the other side of the Atlantic, into
civil war in St. Domingo, where wild beasts are let loose against their
keepers; 50,000 blacks take the field, and, at the outset, 1,000 whites
are assassinated, 15,000 Negroes slain, 200 sugar-mills destroyed and
damage done to the amount of 600,000,000; "a colony of itself alone
worth ten provinces, is almost annihilated."[2305] At Paris, Condorcet
is busy writing in his journal that "this news is not reliable, there
being no object in it but to create a French empire beyond the seas for
the King, where there will be masters and slaves." A corporal of the
Paris National Guard, on his own authority, orders the King to remain
indoors, fearing that he may escape, and forbids a sentinel to let
him go out after nine o'clock in the evening;[2306] at the Tuileries,
stump-speakers in the open air denounce aristocrats and priests; at
the Palais-Royal, there is a pandemonium of public lust and incendiary
speeches.[2307] There are centers of riot in all quarters, "as many
robberies as there are quarter-hours, and no robbers punished; no
police; overcrowded courts; more delinquents than there are prisons
to hold them; nearly all the private mansions closed; the annual
consumption in the faubourg St. Germain alone diminished by 250
millions; 20,000 thieves, with branded backs, idling away time in houses
of bad repute, at the theaters, in the Palais-Royal, at the National
Assembly, and in the coffee-houses; thousands of beggars infesting
the streets, crossways, and public squares. Everywhere an image of the
deepest poverty which is not calling for one's pity as it is accompanied
with insolence. Swarms of tattered vendors are offering all sorts of
paper-money, issued by anybody that chose to put it in circulation,
cut up into bits, sold, given, and coming back in rags, fouler than the
miserable creatures who deal in it."[2308] Out of 700,000 inhabitants
there are 100,000 of the poor, of which 60,000 have flocked in from
the departments;[2309] among them are 30,000 needy artisans from the
national workshops, discharged and sent home in the preceding month of
June, but who, returning three months later, are again swallowed up in
the great sink of vagabondage, hurling their floating mass against
the crazy edifice of public authority and furnishing the forces
of sedition.--At Paris, and in the provinces, disobedience exists
throughout the hierarchy. Directories countermand ministerial orders.
Here, municipalities brave the commands of their Directory; there,
communities order around their mayor with a drawn sword. Elsewhere,
soldiers and sailors put their officers under arrest. The accused insult
the judge on the bench and force him to cancel his verdict; mobs tax or
plunder wheat in the market; National Guards prevent its distribution,
or seize it in the storehouses. There is no security for property,
lives, or consciences. The majority of Frenchmen are deprived of their
right to worship in their own faith, and of voting at the elections.
There is no safety, day or night, for the élite of the nation, for
ecclesiastics and the gentry, for army and navy officers, for rich
merchants and large landed proprietors; no protection in the courts, no
income from public funds; denunciations abound, expulsions, banishments
to the interior, attacks on private houses; there is no right of
free assemblage, even to enforce the law under the orders of legal
authorities.[2310] Opposed to this, and in contrast with it, is the
privilege and immunity of a sect formed into a political corporation,
"which extends its filiations over the whole kingdom, and even abroad;
which has its own treasury, its committees, and its by-laws; which rules
the government, which judges justice,"[2311] and which, from the capital
to the hamlet, usurps or directs the administration. Liberty, equality,
and the majesty of the law exist nowhere, except in words. Of the three
thousand decrees given birth to by the Constituent Assembly, the most
lauded, those the best set off by a philosophic baptism, form a mass of
stillborn abortions of which France is the burying-ground. That which
really subsists underneath the false appearances of right, proclaimed
and sworn to over and over again, is, on the one hand, an oppression of
the upper and cultivated classes, from which all the rights of man are
withdrawn, and, on the other hand, the tyranny of the fanatical and
brutal rabble which assumes to itself all the rights of sovereignty.




II.--The Assembly hostile to the oppressed and favoring oppressors.

     Decrees against the nobles and clergy.--Amnesty for
     deserters, convicts, and bandits.--Anarchical and leveling
     maxims.

In vain do the honest men of the Assembly protest against this scandal
and this overthrow. The Assembly, guided and forced by the Jacobins,
will only amend the law to damn the oppressed and to authorize their
oppressors.--Without making any distinction between armed assemblages at
Coblentz, which it had a right to punish, and refugees, three times
as numerous, old men, women and children, so many indifferent and
inoffensive people, not merely nobles but plebeians,[2312] who left the
soil only to escape popular outrages, it confiscates the property of all
emigrants and orders this to be sold.[2313] Through the new restriction
of the passport, those who remain are tied to their domiciles, their
freedom of movement, even in the interior, being subject to the decision
of each Jacobin municipality.[2314] It completes their ruin by depriving
them without indemnity of all income from their real estate, of all
the seignorial rights which the Constituent Assembly had declared to
be legitimate.[2315] It abolishes, as far as it can, their history
and their past, by burning in the public depots their genealogical
titles.[2316]--To all unsworn ecclesiastics, two-thirds of the French
clergy, it withholds bread, the small pension allowed them for food,
which is the ransom of their confiscated possessions;[2317] it declares
them "suspected of revolt against the law and of bad intentions against
the country;" it subjects them to special surveillance; it authorizes
their expulsion without trial by local rulers in case of disturbances;
it decrees that in such cases they shall be banished.[2318] It
suppresses "all secular congregations of men and women ecclesiastic or
laic, even those wholly devoted to hospital service will take away from
600,000 children the means of learning to read and write."[2319] It lays
injunctions on their dress; it places episcopal palaces in the market
for sale, also the buildings still occupied by monks and nuns.[2320]
It welcomes with rounds of applause a married priest who introduces his
wife to the Assembly.--Not only is the Assembly destructive but it
is insulting; the authors of each decree passed by it add to its
thunderbolt the rattling hail of their own abuse and slander.

"Children," says a deputy, "have the poison of aristocracy and
fanaticism injected into them by the congregations."[2321]

"Purge the rural districts of the vermin which is devouring
them!"--"Everybody knows," says Isnard, "that the priest is as cowardly
as he is vindictive... Let these pestiferous fellows be sent back to
Roman and Italian lazarettos.. What religion is that which, in its
nature, is unsocial and rebellious in principle?"

Whether unsworn, whether immigrants actually or in feeling, "large
proprietors, rich merchants, false conservatives,"[2322] are all
outspoken conspirators or concealed enemies. All public disasters are
imputed to them. "The cause of the troubles," says Brissot,[2323] "which
lay waste the colonies, is the infernal vanity of the whites who have
three times violated an engagement which they have three times sworn to
maintain." Scarcity of work and short crops are accounted for through
their cunning malevolence.

"A large number of rich men, "says François de Nantes,[2324] "allow
their property to run down and their fields to lie fallow, so as to
enjoy seeing the suffering of the people."

France is divided into two parties, on the one hand, the aristocracy to
which is attributed every vice, and, on the other hand, the people on
whom is conferred every virtue.[2325]

"The defense of liberty," says Lamarque,[2326] "is basely abandoned
every day by the rich and by the former nobility, who put on the mask of
patriotism only to cheat us. It is not in this class, but only in that
of citizens who are disdainfully called the people, that we find pure
beings, those ardent souls really worthy of liberty."--One step more
and everything will be permitted to the virtuous against the wicked;
if misfortune befalls the aristocrats so much the worse for them. Those
officers who are stoned, M. de la Jaille and others, "wouldn't they do
better not to deserve being sacrificed to popular fury?"[2327] Isnard
exclaims in the tribune, "it is the long-continued immunity enjoyed
by criminals which has rendered the people executioners. Yes, an angry
people, like an angry God, is only too often the terrible supplement
of silent laws."[2328]--In other words crimes are justified and
assassinations still provoked against those who have been assassinated
for the past two years.

By a forced conclusion, if the victims are criminals, their executioners
are honest, and the Assembly, which rigorously proceeds against the
former, reserves all its indulgence for the latter. It reinstates the
numerous deserters who abandoned their flags previous to the 1st of
January, 1789;[2329] it allows them three sous per league mileage, and
brings them back to their homes or to their regiments to become, along
with their brethren whose desertion is more recent, either leaders
or recruits for the mob. It releases from the galleys the forty Swiss
guards of Chateauroux whom their own cantons desired to have kept there;
it permits these "martyrs to Liberty" to promenade the streets of Paris
in a triumphal car;[2330] it admits them to the bar of the house,
and, taking a formal vote on it, extends to them the honors of the
session.[2331] Finally, as if it were their special business to let
loose on the public the most ferocious and foulest of the rabble, it
amnesties Jourdan, Mainvielle, Duprat, and Raphel, fugitive convicts,
jail-birds, the condottieri of all lands assuming the title of "the
brave brigands of Avignon," and who, for eighteen months, have pillaged
and plundered the Comtat[2332]; it stops the trial, almost over, of the
Glacière butchers; it tolerates the return of these as victors,[2333]
and their installation by their own act in the places of the fugitive
magistrates, allowing Avignon to be treated as a conquered city, and,
henceforth, to become their prey and their booty. This is a willful
restoration of the vermin to the social body, and, in this feverish
body, nothing is overlooked that will increase the fever. The most
anarchical and deleterious maxims emanate, like miasma, from the
Assembly benches. The reduction of things to an absolute level is
adopted as a principle; "equality of rights," says Lamarque,[2334] "is
to be maintained only by tending steadily to an equality of fortunes;"
this theory is practically applied on all sides since the proletariat
is pillaging all who own property.--"Let the communal possessions
be partitioned among the citizens of the surrounding villages," says
François de Nantes, "in an inverse ratio to their fortunes, and let
him who has the least inheritance take the largest share in the
divisions."[2335] Conceive the effect of this motion read at evening to
peasants who are at this very moment claiming their lord's forest for
their commune. M. Corneille prohibits any tax to be levied for the
public treasury on the wages of manual labor, because nature, and not
society, gives us the "right to live."[2336] On the other hand, he
confers on the public treasury the right of taking the whole of an
income, because it is society, and not nature, which institutes public
funds; hence, according to him, the poor majority must be relieved of
all taxation, and all taxes must fall on the rich minority. The system
is well-timed and the argument apt for convincing indigent or straitened
tax-payers, namely, the refractory majority, that its taxes are just,
and that it should not refuse to be taxed.--

"Under the reign of liberty," says President Daverhoult,[2337] "the
people have the right to insist not merely on subsistence, but again on
plenty and happiness."[2338]

Accordingly, being in a state of poverty they have been
betrayed.--"Elevated to the height achieved by the French people,"
says another president, "it looks down upon the tempests under its
feet."[2339] The tempest is at hand and bursts over its head. War, like
a black cloud, rises above the horizon, overspreads the sky, thunders
and wraps France filled with explosive materials in a circle of
lightening, and it is the Assembly which, through the greatest of its
mistakes, draws down the bolt on the nation's head.




III.--War.

     Disposition of foreign powers.--The King's dislikes.--
     Provocation of the Girondins.--Dates and causes of the
     rupture

It might have been turned aside with a little prudence. Two principal
grievances were alleged, one by France and the other by the Empire.--On
the one hand, and very justly, France complained of the gathering of
émigré's, which the Emperor and Electors tolerated against it on the
frontier. In the first place, however, a few thousand gentlemen, without
troops or stores, and nearly without money,[2340] were hardly to be
feared, and, besides this, long before the decisive hour came these
troops were dispersed, at once by the Emperor in his own dominions,
and, fifteen days afterwards, by the Elector of Trèves in his
electorate.[2341]--On the other hand, according to treaties, the German
princes, who owned estates in Alsace, made claims for the feudal rights
abolished on their French possessions and the Diet forbade them to
accept the offered indemnity. But, as far as the Diet is concerned,
nothing was easier nor more customary than to let negotiations drag
along, there being no risk or inconvenience attending the suit as,
during the delay, the claimants remained empty-handed.--If, now, behind
the ostensible motives, the real intentions are sought for, it is
certain that, up to January, 1792, the intentions of Austria were
pacific. The grants made to the Comte d'Artois, in the Declaration of
Pilnitz, were merely a court-sprinkling of holy-water, the semblance of
an illusory promise and subject to a European concert of action, that
is to say, annulled beforehand by an indefinite postponement, while this
pretended league of sovereigns is at once "placed by the politicians
in the class of august comedies.[2342]" Far from taking up arms against
"New France" in the name of old France, the emperor Leopold and his
prime minister Kaunitz, were delighted to see the constitution
completed and accepted by the King; it "got them out of an embarrassing
position,"[2343] and Prussia as well. In the running of governments,
political advantage is the great incentive and both powers needed all
their forces in another direction, in Poland. One for retarding, and the
other for accelerating the division of this country, and both, when the
partition took place, to get enough for themselves and prevent
Russia from getting too much.--The sovereigns of Prussia and Austria,
accordingly, did not have any idea of saving Louis XVI, nor of
conducting the émigrés back, nor of conquering French provinces. If
anything was to be expected from them on account of personal ill-will,
there was no fear of their armed intervention.--In France it is not the
King who urges a rupture; he knows too well that the hazards of war
will place him and his dependents in mortal danger. Secretly as well as
publicly, in writing to the émigrés, his wishes are to bring them
back or to restrain them. In his private correspondence he asks of the
European powers not physical but moral aid, the external support of a
congress which will permit moderate men, the partisans of order, all
owners of property, to raise their heads and rally around the throne
and the laws against anarchy. In his ministerial correspondence every
precaution is taken not to touch off or let someone touch off an
explosion. At the critical moment of the discussion[2344] he entreats
the deputies, through M. Delessart, his Minister of Foreign Affairs, to
weigh their words and especially not to send a demand containing a "dead
line." He resists, as far as his passive nature allows him, to the very
last. On being forced to declare war he requires beforehand the signed
advice of all his ministers. He does not utter the fatal words, until
he, "with tears in his eyes" and in the most dire straits, is dragged
on by an Assembly qualifying all caution as treason and which has just
dispatched M. Delessart to appear, under a capital charge, before the
supreme court at Orléans.

It is the Assembly then which launches the disabled ship on the roaring
abysses of an unknown sea, without a rudder and leaking at every seam.
It alone slips the cable which held it in port and which the foreign
powers neither dared nor desired to sever. Here, again, the Girondists
are the leaders and hold the axe; since the last of October they have
grasped it and struck repeated blows.[2345]--As an exception, the
extreme Jacobins, Couthon, Collot d'Herbois, Danton, Robespierre, do
not side with them. Robespierre, who at first proposed to confine the
Emperor "within the circle of Popilius,"[2346] fears the placing of too
great a power in the King's hands, and, growing mistrustful, preaches
distrust.--But the great mass of the party, led by clamorous public
opinion, impels on the timid marching in front. Of the many things of
which knowledge is necessary to conduct successfully such a complex and
delicate affair, they know nothing. They are ignorant about cabinets,
courts, populations, treaties, precedents, timely forms and requisite
style. Their guide and counselor in foreign relations is Brissot
whose pre-eminence is based on their ignorance and who, exalted into
a statesman, becomes for a few months the most conspicuous figure in
Europe.[2347] To whatever extent a European calamity may be attributed
to any one man, this one is to be attributed to him. It is this wretch,
born in a pastry-cook's shop, brought up in an attorney's office,
formerly a police agent at 150 francs per month, once in league with
scandal-mongers and black-mailers,[2348] a penny-a-liner, busybody, and
meddler, who, with the half-information of a nomad, scraps of newspaper
ideas and reading-room lore,[2349] added to his scribblings as a writer
and his club declamation, directs the destinies of France and starts a
war in Europe which is to destroy six millions of lives. In the attic
where his wife is washing his shirts, he enjoys rebuking rulers and, on
the 20th of October, in the tribune,[2350] he begins by insulting thirty
foreign sovereigns. Such keen, intense enjoyment is the stuff on which
the new fanaticism daily feeds itself. Madame Roland herself delights,
with evident complacency, in it, something which can be seen in the two
famous letters in which, with a supercilious tone, she first instructs
the King and next the Pope.[2351] Brissot, at bottom, regards himself as
a Louis XIV, and expressly invites the Jacobins to imitate the haughty
ways of the Great Monarch.[2352]--To the tactlessness of the intruder,
and the touchiness of the parvenu, we can add the rigidity of the
sectarian. The Jacobins, in the name of abstract rights, deny historic
rights; they impose from above, and by force, that truth of which they
are the apostles, and allow themselves every provocation which they
prohibit to others.

"Let us tell Europe," cries Isnard,[2353] "that ten millions of
Frenchmen, armed with the sword, with the pen, with reason, with
eloquence, might, if provoked, change the face of the world and make
tyrants tremble on their thrones of clay."

"Wherever a throne exists," says Hérault de Séchelles, "there is an
enemy."[2354]

"An honest peace between tyranny and liberty," says Brissot, "is
impossible. Our Constitution is an eternal anathema to absolute
monarchs... It places them on trial, it pronounces judgment on them; it
seems to say to each: to-morrow thou have ceased to be or shalt be king
only through the people... War is now a national benefit, and not to
have war is the only calamity to be dreaded." [2355]

"Tell the king," says Gensonné, "that the war is a must, that public
opinion demands it, that the safety of the empire makes it a law."[2356]

"The state we are in," concludes Vergniaud, "is a veritable state of
destruction that may lead us to disgrace and death. So then to arms! to
arms! Citizens, freemen, defend your liberty, confirm the hopes of that
of the human race... Lose not the advantage of your position. Attack
now that there is every sign of complete success... The spirits of past
generations seem to me crowding into this temple to conjure you, in the
name of the evils which slavery had compelled them to endure, to protect
the future generations whose destinies are in your hands! Let this
prayer be granted! Be for the future a new Providence! Ally yourselves
with eternal justice!"[2357]

Among the Marseilles speakers there is no longer any room for serious
discussion. Brissot, in reply to the claim made by the Emperor on behalf
of the princes' property in Alsatia, replies that "the sovereignty of
the people is not bound by the treaties of tyrants."[2358] As to the
gatherings of the émigrés, the Emperor having yielded on this point,
he will yield on the others.[2359] Let him formally renounce all
combinations against France.

"I want war on the 10th of February," says Brissot, "unless we have
received his renunciation."

No explanations; it is satisfaction we want; "to require satisfaction is
to put the Emperor at our mercy."[2360] The Assembly, so eager to start
the quarrel, usurps the King's right to take the first step and formally
declares war, fixing the date.[2361]--The die is now cast.

"They want war," says the Emperor, "and they shall have it."

Austria immediately forms an alliance with Prussia, threatened, like
herself, with revolutionary propaganda.[2362] By sounding the alarm
belles the Jacobins, masters of the Assembly, have succeeded in bringing
about that "monstrous alliance," and, from day to day, this alarm sounds
the louder. One year more, thanks to this policy, and France will have
all Europe for an enemy and as its only friend, the Regency of Algiers,
whose internal system of government is about the same as her own.




IV.--Secret motives of the leaders.

     Their control compromised by peace.--Discontent of the rich
     and cultivated class.--Formation and increase of the party
     of order.--The King and this party reconciled.

Behind their carmagnoles[2363] we can detect a design which they will
avow later on.

"We were always obstructed by the Constitution," Brissot is to say, "and
nothing but war could destroy the Constitution."[2364]

Diplomatic wrongs, consequently, of which they make parade, are simply
pretexts; if they urge war it is for the purpose of overthrowing the
legal order of things which annoys them; their real object is the
conquests of power, a second internal revolution, the application of
their system and a final state of equality.--Concealed behind them is
the most politic and absolute of theorists, a man "whose great art is
the attainment of his ends without showing himself, the preparation of
others for far-sighted views of which they have no suspicion, and that
of speaking but little in public and acting in secret."[2365] This
man is Sieyès, "the leader of everything without seeming to lead
anything."[2366] As infatuated as Rousseau with his own speculations,
but as unscrupulous and as clear-sighted as Macchiavelli in the
selection of practical means, he was, is, and will be, in decisive
moments, the consulting counsel of radical democracy.

"His pride tolerates no superiority. He causes nobility to be abolished
because he is not a noble; because he does not possess all he will
destroy all. His fundamental doctrine for the consolidation of the
Revolution is, that it is indispensable to change religion and to change
the dynasty."

Now, had peace been maintained all this was impossible; moreover the
ascendance of the party was compromised. Entire classes that had adhered
to the party when it launched insurrection against the privileged, broke
loose from it now that insurrection was directed against them; among
thoughtful men and among those with property, most were disgusted
with anarchy, and likewise disgusted with the abettors of it. Many
administrators, magistrates and functionaries recently elected,
loudly complained of their authority being subject to the mob.
Many cultivators, manufacturers and merchants have become silently
exasperated at the fruits of their labor and economy being surrendered
at discretion to robbers and the indigent. It was hard for the
flour-dealers of Etampes not to dare send away their wheat, to be
obliged to supply customers at night, to tremble in their own houses,
and to know that if they went out-doors they risked their lives.[2367]
It was hard for wholesale grocers in Paris to see their warehouses
invaded, their windows smashed, their bags of coffee and boxes of sugar
valued at a low price, parceled out and carried away by old hags or
taken gratis by scamps who ran off and sold them at the other end of
the street.[2368] It was hard in all places for the families of the old
bourgeoisie, for the formerly prominent men in each town and village,
for the eminent in each art, profession or trade, for reputable and
well-to-do people, in short, for the majority of men who had a good roof
over their heads and a good coat on their backs, to undergo the illegal
domination of a crowd led by a few hundred or dozens of stump-speakers
and firebrands.--Already, in the beginning of 1792, this dissatisfaction
was so great as to be denounced in the tribune and in the press.
Isnard[2369] railed against "that multitude of large property-holders,
those opulent merchants, those haughty, wealthy personages who,
advantageously placed in the social amphitheater, are unwilling to
have their seats changed." The bourgeoisie," wrote Pétion,[2370] "that
numerous class free of any anxiety, is separating itself from the
people; it considers itself above them,... they are the sole object
of its distrust. It is everywhere haunted by the one idea that the
revolution is a war between those who have and those who have not."--It
abstains, indeed, from the elections, it keeps away from patriotic
clubs, it demands the restoration of order and the reign of law; it
rallies to itself "the multitude of conservative, timid people, for whom
tranquility is the prime necessity," and especially, which is still more
serious, it charges the disturbances upon their veritable authors. With
suppressed indignation and a mass of undisputed evidence, André Chénier,
a man of feeling, starts up in the midst of the silent crowd and openly
tears off the mask from the Jacobins.[2371] He brings into full light
the daily sophism by which a mob, "some hundreds of idlers gathered in
a garden or at a theater, are impudently called the people." He portrays
those "three or four thousand usurpers of national sovereignty whom
their orators and writers daily intoxicate with grosser incense than any
adulation offered to the worst of despots;" those assemblies where "an
infinitely small number of French appears large, because they are united
and yell;" that Paris club from which honest, industrious, intelligent
people had withdrawn one by one to give place to intriguers in debt, to
persons of tarnished reputations, to the hypocrites of patriotism, to
the lovers of uproar, to abortive talents, to corrupted intellects,
to outcasts of every kind and degree who, unable to manage their own
business, indemnify themselves by managing that of the public. He shows
how, around the central factory and its twelve hundred branches of
insurrection, the twelve hundred affiliated clubs, which, "holding each
other's hands, form a sort of electric chain around all France" and
giving it a shock at every touch from the center; their confederation,
installed and enthroned, is not only as a State within the State,
but rather as a sovereign State in a vassal State; summoning their
administrative bodies to their bar, judicial verdicts set aside through
their intervention, private individuals searched, assessed and condemned
through their verdicts. All this constitutes a steady, systematic
defense of insubordination and revolt; as, "under the name of hoarding
and monopoly, commerce and industry are described as misdemeanors;"
property is unsettled and every rich man rendered suspicious, "talent
and integrity silenced." In short, a public conspiracy made against
society in the very name of society, "while the sacred symbol of liberty
is made use of as a seal" to exempt a few tyrants from punishment. Such
a protest said aloud what most Frenchmen muttered to themselves, and
from month to month, graver excesses exited greater censure.

"Anarchy exists[2372] to a degree scarcely to be paralleled, wrote the
ambassador of the United States. The horror and apprehension, which the
licentious associations have universally inspired, are such that there
is reason to believe that the great mass of the French population would
consider even despotism a blessing, if accompanied with that security
to persons and property, experienced even under the worst governments in
Europe."

Another observer, not less competent,[2373] says:

"it is plain to my eyes that when Louis XVI. finally succumbed, he had
more partisans in France than the year previous, at the time of his
flight to Varennes."

The truth of this, indeed, was frequently verified at the end of 1791
and beginning of 1792, by various investigations.[2374] "Eighteen
thousand officers of every grade, elected by the constitutionalists,
seventy-one department administrations out of eighty-two, most of the
tribunals,[2375] all traders and manufacturers, every chief and a large
portion of the National Guard of Paris," in short, the élite of the
nation, and among citizens generally, the great majority who lived from
day to day were for him, and for the "Right" of the Assembly against
the "Left". If internal trouble had not been complicated by external
difficulties, there would have been a change in opinion, and this
the King expected. In accepting the Constitution, he thought that its
defects would be revealed in practical operation and that they would
lead to a reform. In the mean time he scrupulously observed the
Constitution, and, through interest as well as conscience, kept his oath
to the letter. "The most faithful execution of the Constitution," he
said to one of his ministers, "is the surest way to make the nation
see the changes that ought to be made in it."[2376]--In other words, he
counted on experience, and it is very probable that if there had been
nothing to interfere with experience, his calculations would have
finally chosen between the defenders of order and the instigators of
disorder. It would have decided for the magistrates against the clubs,
for the police against rioters, for the king against the mob. In one or
two years more it would have learned that a restoration of the executive
power was indispensable for securing the execution of the laws; that the
chief of police, with his hands tied, could not do his duty; that it was
undoubtedly wise to give him his orders, but that if he was to be of any
use against knaves and fools, his hands should first be set free.




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

     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-culottes[2378] 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 their adversaries and against its keepers,

* against the nobles and the clergy,

* against aristocrats inside France in complicity with those of
Coblentz,

* against "the Austrian committee" the accomplice of Austria,

* against the King, whose caution they transform into treachery,

* 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 Girondists[2386] 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.


*****


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

[Footnote 2302: 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."]

[Footnote 2303: "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).]

[Footnote 2304: 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."]

[Footnote 2305: Mercure de France, Dec. 17, address of the colonists to
the king.]

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

[Footnote 2307: 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)]


[Footnote 2308: 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."]

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

[Footnote 2310: 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."]

[Footnote 2311: Mercure de France, Sept. 3, 1791, article by Mallet du
Pan.]

[Footnote 2312: 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."]

[Footnote 2313: 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."]

[Footnote 2314: 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.]

[Footnote 2315: Decrees of June 18 and August 25.]

[Footnote 2316: 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."]

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

[Footnote 2318: 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.)]

[Footnote 2319: Moniteur, XII. 560 (decree of June 3).]

[Footnote 2320: Decrees of July 19 and Aug. 4, completed by those of
Aug. 16 and 19.]

[Footnote 2321: 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.]

[Footnote 2322: Moniteur, XI. 43. (session of Jan. 5, speech by
Isnard).]

[Footnote 2323: Moniteur, XI. 356 (session of Feb. 10).]

[Footnote 2324: Moniteur, XI. 230 (session of April 26).]

[Footnote 2325: 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).]

[Footnote 2326: Moniteur (session of June 22).]

[Footnote 2327: 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."]

[Footnote 2328: Mercure de France, Nov. 12 (session of Oct. 31st,
1792).]

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

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 2334: Moniteur, XII. 730 (session of June 23).]

[Footnote 2335: Moniteur, XII. 230 (session of April 12).]

[Footnote 2336: Moniteur. XI. 6, (session of March 6).]

[Footnote 2337: Moniteur, XI. 123, (session of Jan. 14)]

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

[Footnote 2339: Mercure de France, Dec. 23 (session of Dec. 23), p.98.]

[Footnote 2340: 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."]

[Footnote 2341: 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."]

[Footnote 2342: 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."]

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

[Footnote 2344: 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.]

[Footnote 2345: 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."]

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

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

[Footnote 2348: 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.]

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

[Footnote 2350: 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.)]

[Footnote 2351: 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."]

[Footnote 2352: 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!"]

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

[Footnote 2354: Moniteur, X. 762 (session of Dec. 28).]

[Footnote 2355: 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."]

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

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

[Footnote 2358: Moniteur, XI. 760 (session of Dec. 28).]

[Footnote 2359: Moniteur, XI. 149 (session of Jan. 17). Speech by
Brissot.]

[Footnote 2360: 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.]

[Footnote 2361: 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).]

[Footnote 2362: 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?"]

[Footnote 2363: A popular jig of these revolutionary times, danced in
the streets and on the public squares.--TR.]

[Footnote 2364: 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."]

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

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

[Footnote 2367: "The French Revolution," I. 262 and following pages.]

[Footnote 2368: 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.)]

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

[Footnote 2370: Buchez et Roux, XIII. 177. Letter by Pétion, Feb. 10.]

[Footnote 2371: 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."]

[Footnote 2372: Governor Morris, letter of June 20, 1792.]

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

[Footnote 2374: 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.]

[Footnote 2375: 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."]

[Footnote 2376: 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."]

[Footnote 2377: 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."]

[Footnote 2378: 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).]

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

[Footnote 2380: Mercure de France, Nov. 23, 1791.]

[Footnote 2381: 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."]

[Footnote 2382: 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."]

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

[Footnote 2384: 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.]

[Footnote 2385: 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."]

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




CHAPTER IV. THE DEPARTMENTS.




I.--Provence in 1792.--Early supremacy of the Jacobins in Marseilles.

     Composition of the party.--The club and the municipality.
     --Expulsion of the "Earnest" regiment.

Should you like to see the revolutionary tree when, for the first time,
it came fully into leaf, it is in the department of the Bouches-du-Rhône
you have to look. Nowhere else had it been so precocious, nowhere were
local circumstances and native temperament so well adapted to enhance
its growth.--"A blistering sky, an excessive climate, an arid soil,
rocks,... savage rivers, torrential or dry or overburdened," blinding
dust, nerves upset by steady northern blasts or by the intermittent
gusts of the sirocco. A sensual race choleric and impetuous, with no
intellectual or moral ballast, in which the mixture of Celt and Latin
has destroyed the humane suavity of the Celt and the serious earnestness
of the Roman; "complete, tough, powerful, and restless men,"[2401] and
yet gay, spontaneous, eloquent, dupes of their own bombast, suddenly
carried away by a flow of words and superficial enthusiasm. Their
principal city numbering 120,000 souls, in which commercial and maritime
risks foster innovating and adventurous spirits; in which the sight of
suddenly-acquired fortunes expended on sensual enjoyments constantly
undermines all stability of Character; in which politics, like
speculation, is a lottery offering its prizes to audacity; besides all
this, a free port and a rendezvous for lawless nomads, disreputable
people, without steady trade,[2402] scoundrels, and blackguards, who,
like uprooted, decaying seaweed, drift from coast to coast around the
entire circle of the Mediterranean sea; a veritable sink filled with the
dregs of twenty corrupt and semi-barbarous civilizations, where the scum
of crime cast forth from the prisons of Genoa, Piedmont, Sicily, indeed,
of all Italy, of Spain, of the Archipelago, and of Barbary,3 accumulates
and ferments.2 No wonder that, in such a time the reign of the mob
should be established there sooner than elsewhere.[2403]--After many an
explosion, this reign is inaugurated August 17, 1790, by the removal of
M. Lieutaud, a sort of bourgeois, moderate Lafayette, who commands the
National Guard. Around him rally a majority of the population, all men
"honest or not, who have anything to lose."[2404] After he is driven
out, then proscribed, then imprisoned, they resign themselves, and
Marseilles belongs to the low class, to 40,000 destitute and rogues led
by the club.

The better to ensure their empire, the municipality, one month after the
expulsion of M. Lieutaud, declared every citizen "active" who had any
trade or profession[2405]; the consequence is that vagabonds attend
the meetings of the sections in contempt of constitutional law. The
consequence, was that property-owners and commercial men withdrew, which
was wise on their part, for the usual demagogic machinery is set in
motion without delay. "Each section-assembly is composed of a dozen
factious spirits, members of the club, who drive out honest people
by displaying cudgels and bayonets. The deliberations are prepared
beforehand at the club, in concert with the municipality, and woe to him
who refuses to adopt them at the meeting! They go so far as to threaten
citizens who wish to make any remarks with instant burial in the cellars
under the churches."[2406] The argument proved irresistible: "the
majority of honest people are so frightened and so timid" that not one
of them dare attend these meetings, unless protected by public force.
"More than 80,000 inhabitants do not sleep peacefully," while all
the political rights are vested in "five or six hundred individuals,"
legally disqualified. Behind them marches the armed rabble, "the horde
of brigands without a country,"[2407] always ready for plundering,
murder, and hanging. In front of them march the local authorities, who,
elected through their influence, carry on the administration under their
guidance. Patrons and clients, members of the club and its satellites,
they form a league which plays the part of a sovereign State,
scarcely recognizing, even in words, the authority of the central
government.[2408] The decree by which the National Assembly gives
full power to the Commissioners to re-establish order is denounced as
plébécide; these conscientious and cautious moderators are qualified
as "dictators"; they are denounced in circular letters to all the
municipalities of the department, and to all Jacobin clubs throughout
the kingdom;[2409] the club is somewhat disposed to go to Aix to cut off
their heads and send them in a trunk to the president of the National
Assembly, with a threat that the same penalty awaits himself and all the
deputies if they do not revoke their recent decrees. A few days after
this, four sections draw up an act before a notary, stating the measures
they had taken towards sending an army of 6,000 men from Marseilles to
Aix, to get rid of the three intruders. The commissioners dare not enter
Marseilles, where "gibbets are ready for them, and a price set on their
heads." It is as much as they can do to rescue from the faction M.
Lieutaud and his friends, who, accused of lése-nation, confined without
a shadow of proof, treated like mad dogs, put in chains,[2410] shut up
in privies and holes, and obliged to drink their own urine for lack of
water, impelled by despair to the brink of suicide, barely escape murder
a dozen times in the courtroom and in prison.[2411] Against the decree
of the National Assembly ordering their release, the municipality makes
reclamations, contrives delays, resists, and finally stirs up its usual
instruments. Just as the prisoners are about to be released a crowd of
"armed persons without uniform or officer," constantly increased "by
vagabonds and foreigners," gathers on the heights overlooking the Palais
de Justice, and makes ready to fire on M. Lieutaud. Summoned to proclaim
martial law, the municipality refuses, declaring that "the general
detestation of the accused is too manifest"; it demands the return of
the Swiss regiment to its barracks, and that the prisoners remain where
they are; the only thing which it grants them is a secret permission
to escape, as if they were guilty; they, accordingly, steal away
clandestinely and in disguise.[2412]--The Swiss regiment, however,
which prevents the magistrates from violating the law, must pay for its
insolence, and, as it is incorruptible, they decide to drive it out of
the town. For four months the municipality multiplies against it every
kind of annoyance,[2413] and, on the 16th of October, 1791, the Jacobins
provoke a row in the theater against its officers. The same night,
outside the theater, four of these are attacked by armed bands; the
post to which they retreat is nearly taken by assault; they are led to
a prison for safety, and there they still remain five days afterwards,
"although their innocence is admitted." Meanwhile, to ensure "public
tranquility," the municipality has required the commander of the post
to immediately replace the Swiss Guard with National Guards on all the
military posts; the latter yields to force, while the useless regiment,
insulted and threatened, has nothing to do but to pack off.[2414]
This being done, the new municipality, still more Jacobin than the old
one,[2415] separates Marseilles from France, erects the city into
a marauding republican government, gets up expeditions, levies
contributions, forms alliances, and undertakes an armed conquest of the
department.




II.--The expedition to Aix.

     The town of Marseilles send an expedition to Aix.--The
     regiment is disarmed.--The Directory driven out.--Pressure
     on the new Directory.

The first thing is to lay its hand on the district capital, Aix, where
the Swiss regiment is stationed in garrison and where the superior
authorities are installed. This operation is the more necessary inasmuch
as the Directory of the department loudly commends the loyalty of the
Swiss Guard and takes occasion to remind the Marseilles municipality
of the respect due to the law. Such remonstrance is an insult, and the
municipality, in a haughty tone, calls upon the Directory to avow or
disavow its letter; "if you did not write it, it is a foul report which
it is our duty to examine into, and if you did, it is a declaration
of war made by you against Marseilles."[2416] The Directory, in polite
terms and with great circumspection, affirms both its right and its
utterance, and remarks that "the prorata list of taxes of Marseilles for
1791 is not yet reported;" that the municipality is much more concerned
with saving the State than with paying its contribution and, in short,
it maintains its censure.--If it will not bend it must break, and on the
4th of February, 1792, the municipality sends Barbaroux, its secretary,
to Paris, that he may mitigate the outrages they are preparing. During
the night of the 25-26, the drums beat the general alarm, and three or
four thousand men gather and march to Aix with six pieces of cannon. As
a precaution they pretend to have no leaders, no captains or lieutenants
or even corporals; to quote them, all are equal, all volunteers, each
being summoned by the other; in this fashion, as all are responsible, no
one is.[2417] They reach Aix at eleven o'clock in the forenoon, find a
gate open through the connivance of those in league with them among the
populace of the town and its suburbs, and summon the municipality
to surrender the sentinels. In the mean time their emissaries have
announced in the neighboring villages that the town was menaced by the
Swiss regiment; consequently four hundred men from Aubagne arrive in
haste, while from hour to hour the National Guards from the surrounding
villages likewise rush in. The streets are full of armed men; shouts
arise and the tumult increases; the municipal body, in the universal
panic, loses its wits. This body is afraid of a nocturnal fight "between
troops of the line, citizens, National Guards and armed strangers, no
one being able to recognize one another or know who is an enemy." It
sends back a detachment of three hundred and fifty Swiss Guards, which
the Directory had ordered to its support, and consigns the regiment to
its quarters.--At this the Directory takes to flight. Military sentinels
of all kinds are disarmed while the Marseilles throng, turning its
advantages to account, announces to the municipality at two o'clock in
the morning that, "allow it or not" it is going to attack the barracks
immediately; in fact, cannon are planted, a few shots are fired, a
sentinel killed, and the hemmed-in regiment is compelled to evacuate the
town, the men without their guns and the officers without their swords.
Their arms are stolen, the people seize the suspected, the street-lamp
is hauled down and the noose is made ready. Cayol, the flower-girl,
is hung. The municipality, with great difficulty, saves one man who is
already lifted by the rope two feet from the ground, and obtains for
three others "a temporary refuge" in prison.

Henceforth there is no authority at the department headquarters,
or rather it has changed hands. Another Directory, more pliable, is
installed in the place of the fugitive Directory. Of the thirty-six
administrators who form the Council only twelve are present at the
election. Of the nine elected only six consent to sit, while often
only three are found at its sessions, which three, to recruit their
colleagues, are obliged to pay them.[2418] Hence, notwithstanding their
position is the best in the department, they are worse treated and more
unfortunate than their servants outside. The delegates of the club, with
the municipal officers of Marseilles seated alongside of them, oblige
them either to keep silent, or to utter what they dictate to them.[2419]
"Our arms are tied," writes one of them, "we are wholly under the yoke"
of these intruders. "We have twice in succession seen more than three
hundred men, many of them with guns and pistols, enter the hall and
threaten us with death if we refused them what they asked. We have seen
infuriate motionnaires, nearly all belonging to Avignon, mount the desks
of the Directory, harangue their comrades and excite them to rioting and
crime. "You must decide between life or death," they exclaimed to us,
"you have only a quarter of an hour to choose." "National guards have
offered their sabers through the windows, left open on account of the
extreme heat, to those around us and made signs to them to cut our
throats."--Thus fashioned, reduced and drilled, the Directory is simply
an instrument in the hands of the Marseilles demagogues. Camoïn, Bertin
and Rebecqui, the worst agitators and usurpers, rule there without
control. Rebecqui and Bertin, appointed delegates in connection with
matters in Arles, have themselves empowered to call for defensive
troops; they immediately demand them for attack, to which the Directory
vainly remonstrates; they declare to it that "not being under its
inspection, it has no authority over them; being independent of it, they
have no orders to receive from it nor to render to it any account of
their conduct." So much the worse for the Directory on attempting to
revoke their powers. Bertin informs its vice-president that, if it
dares do this he will cut off his head. They reply to the Minister's
observations with the utmost insolence.[2420] They glory in the boldness
of the stroke and prepare another, their march on Aix being only the
first halt in the long-meditated campaign which involves the possession
of Arles.




III.--The Constitutionalists of Arles.

     The Marseilles expedition against Arles.--Excesses committed
     by them in the town and its vicinity.--Invasion of "Apt,"
     the club and its volunteers.

No city, indeed, is more odious to them.--For two years, led or pushed
on by its mayor, M. d'Antonelle, it has marched along with them or
been dragged along in their wake. D'Antonelle, an ultra-revolutionary,
repeatedly visited and personally encouraged the bandits of Avignon. To
supply them with cannon and ammunition he stripped the Tour St. Louis of
its artillery, at the risk of abandoning the mouths of the Rhone to the
Barbary pirates.[2421] In concert with his allies of the Comtat, the
Marseilles club, and his henchmen from the neighboring boroughs, he
rules in Arles "by terror." Three hundred men recruited in the vicinity
of the Mint, artisans or sailors with strong arms and rough hands, serve
him as satellites. On the 6th of June 1791, they drive away, on
their own authority, the unsworn priests, who had taken refuge in the
town.[2422]--At this, however, the "property-owners and decent people,"
much more numerous and for a long time highly indignant, raise their
heads; twelve hundred of them assemble in the church of Saint-Honorat,
swore to maintain the constitution and public order,"[2423] and then
moved to the (Jacobin) club, where, in their quality of national guards
and active citizens and in conformity with its by-laws, they were
admitted en masse. At the same time, acting in concert with the
municipality, they reorganize the National Guard and form new companies,
the effect of which is to put an end to the Mint gang, thus depriving
the faction of all its strength. Thenceforth, without violence or
illegal acts, the majority of the club, as well as of the National
Guard, consists of constitutional monarchists, the elections of
November, 1791, giving to the partisans of order nearly all the
administrative offices of the commune and of the district. M. Loys,
a physician and a man of energy, is elected mayor in the place of M.
d'Antonelle; he is known as able to suppress a riot, "holding martial
law in one hand, and his saber in the other."--This is too much; so
Marseilles feel compelled to bring Arles under control "to atone for
the disgrace of having founded it."[2424] In this land of ancient cities
political hostility is embittered with old municipal grudges, similar
to those of Thebes against Platoee, of Rome against Veii, of Florence
against Pisa. The Guelphs of Marseilles brooded over the one idea of
crushing the Ghibellins of Arles.--Already, in the electoral assembly of
November, 1791, M. d'Antonelle, the president, had invited the communes
of the department to take up arms against this anti-jacobin city.[2425]
Six hundred Marseilles volunteers set out on the instant, install
themselves at Salon, seize the syndic-attorney of the hostile district,
and refuse to give him up, this being an advance-guard of 4,000 men
promised by the forty or fifty clubs of the party.[2426] To arrest their
operations requires the orders of the three commissioners, resolutions
passed by the Directory still intact, royal proclamations, a decree of
the Constituent Assembly, the firmness of the still loyal troops and the
firmer stand taken by the Arlesians who, putting down an insurrection of
the Mint band, had repaired their ramparts, cut away their bridges
and mounted guard with their guns loaded.[2427] But it is only a
postponement. Now that the commissioners have gone, and the king's
authority a phantom, now that the last loyal regiment is disarmed,
the terrified Directory recast and obeying like a servant, with
the Legislative Assembly allowing everywhere the oppression of the
Constitutionalists by the Jacobins, a fresh Jacobin expedition may be
started against the Constitutionalists with impunity. Accordingly, on
the 23rd of March, 1792, the Marseilles army of 4,500 men sets out on
its march with nineteen pieces of cannon.

In vain the commissioners of the neighboring departments, sent by the
Minister, represent to them that Arles submits, that she has laid
down her arms, and that the town is now garrisoned with troops of the
line;--the Marseilles army requires the withdrawal of this garrison.--In
vain the garrison departs. Rebecqui and his acolytes reply that "nothing
will divert them from their enterprise; they cannot defer to anybody's
decision but their own in relation to any precaution tending to ensure
the safety of the southern departments."--In vain the Minister renews
his injunctions and counter-orders. The Directory replies with a
flagrant falsehood, stating that it is ignorant of the affair
and refuses to give the government any assistance.--In vain M. de
Wittgenstein, commander-in-chief in the south, offers his services to
the Directory to repel the invaders. The Directory forbids him to take
his troops into the territory of the department.[2428]--Meanwhile, on
the 29th of March, the Marseilles army effects a breach with its cannon
in the walls of defenseless Arles; its fortifications are demolished
and a tax of 1,400,000 francs is levied on the owners of property.
In contempt of the National Assembly's decree the Mint bandits, the
longshoremen, the whole of the lowest class again take up their arms and
lord it over the disarmed population. Although "the King's commissioner
and most of the judges have fled, jury examinations are instituted
against absentees," the juries consisting of the members of the Mint
band.[2429] The conquerors imprison, smite and slaughter as they please.
Countless peaceable individuals are struck down and mauled, dragged to
prison and many of them are mortally wounded. An old soldier, eighty
years of age, retired to his country home three months earlier, dies
after twenty days' confinement in a dungeon, from a blow received in the
stomach by a rifle butt; women are flogged. "All citizens that with
an interest in law and order," nearly five thousand families, have
emigrated; their houses in town and in the country are pillaged, while
in the surrounding boroughs, along the road leading from Arles to
Marseilles, the villains forming the hard core of the Marseilles army,
rove about and gorge themselves as in a vanquished country.[2430]

They eat and drink voraciously, force the closets, carry off linen and
food, steal horses and valuables, smash the furniture, tear up books,
and burn papers.[2431] All this is only the appropriate punishment of
the aristocrats. Moreover, it is no more than right that patriots should
be indemnified for their toil, and a few blows too many are not out
of place in securing the rule of the right party.--For example, on the
false report of order being disturbed at Château-Renard, Bertin and
Rebecqui send off a detachment of men, while the municipal body in
uniform, followed by the National Guard, with music and flags, comes
forth to meet and salute it. Without uttering a word of warning, the
Marseilles troop falls upon the cortège, strikes down the flags, disarms
the National Guard, tears the epaulettes off the officers' shoulders,
drags the mayor to the ground by his scarf, pursues the counselors,
sword in hand, puts the mayor and syndic-attorney in arrest, and, during
the night, sacks four dwellings, the whole under the direction of
three Jacobins of the place under indictment for recent crimes or
misdemeanors. Henceforth at Château-Renard they will look twice before
subjecting patriots to indictment.[2432]--At Vélaux "the country house
of the late seignior is sacked, and everything is carried away, even
to the tiles and window-glass." A troop of two hundred men "overrun the
village, levy contributions, and put all citizens who are well-off under
bonds for considerable sums." Camoïn, the Marseille chief, one of the
new department administrators, who is in the neighborhood, lays his
hand on everything that is fit to be taken, and, a few days after this,
30,000 francs are found in his carpet-bag.-Taught by the example others
follow and the commotion spreads. In every borough or petty town the
club profits by these acts to satiate its ambition its greed, and its
hatred. That of Apt appeals to its neighbors, whereupon 1,500 National
Guards of Gordes, St. Saturnin, Gouls and Lacoste, with a thousand women
and children armed with clubs and scythes, arrive one morning before
the town. On being asked by whose orders they come in this fashion,
they reply, "by the orders which their patriotism has given them."--"The
fanatics," or partisans of the sworn priests, "are the cause of their
journey": they therefore "want lodgings at the expense of the fanatics
only." The three day's occupation results for the latter and for the
town in a cost of 20,000 livres.[2433] They begin by breaking everything
in the church of the Récollets, and wall up its doors. They then expel
unsworn ecclesiastics from the town, and disarm their partisans. The
club of Apt, which is the sole authority, remains in session three days:
"the municipal bodies in the vicinity appear before it, apologize for
themselves, protest their civism, and ask as a favor that no detachment
be sent to their places. Individuals are sent for to be interrogated";
several are proscribed, among whom are administrators, members of the
court, and the syndic-attorney. A number of citizens have fled;--the
town is purged, while the same purging is pursued in numbers of places
in and out of the district.[2434] It is, indeed, attractive business.
It empties the purses of the ill-disposed, and fills the stomachs of
patriots; it is agreeable to be well entertained, and especially at the
expense of one's adversaries; the Jacobin is quite content to save the
country through a round of feastings. Moreover, he has the satisfaction
of playing king among his neighbors, and not only do they feed him for
doing them this service, but, again, they pay him for it.[2435]--All
this is enlivening, and the expedition, which is a "sabbath," ends in
a carnival. Of the two Marseilles divisions, one, led back to Aix, sets
down to "a grand patriotic feast," and then dances fandangoes, of which
"the principal one is led off by the mayor and commandant";[2436] the
other makes its entry into Avignon the same day, with still greater pomp
and jollity.




IV.--The Jacobins of Avignon.

     How they obtain recruits.--Their robberies in the Comtat.
     --The Avignon municipality in flight or in prison.--Murder of
     Lécuyer and the Glacière massacre.--Entry of the murderers,
     supported by their Marseilles allies.--Jacobin dictatorship
     in Vaucluse and the Buches-du-Rhône.

Nowhere else in France was there another nest of brigands like it: not
that a great misery might have produced a more savage uprising; on the
contrary, the Comtat, before the Revolution, was a land of plenty.
There was no taxation by the Pope; the taxes were very light, and were
expended on the spot. "For one or two pennies, one here could have meat,
bread, and wine."[2437] But, under the mild and corrupt administration
of the Italian legates, the country had become "the safe asylum of all
the rogues in France, Italy, and Genoa, who by means of a trifling sum
paid to the Pope's agents, obtained protection and immunity." Smugglers
and receivers of stolen goods abounded here in order to break through
the lines of the French customs. "Bands of robbers and assassins were
formed, which the vigorous measures of the parliaments of Aix and
Grenoble could not wholly extirpate. Idlers, libertines, professional
gamblers,"[2438] kept-cicisbeos, schemers, parasites, and adventurers,
mingle with men with branded shoulders, the veterans "of vice and crime,
"the scapegraces of the Toulon and Marseilles galleys." Ferocity here is
hidden in debauchery, like a serpent hidden in its own slime, here
all that is required is some chance event and this bad place will be
transformed into a death trap.

The Jacobin leaders, Tournal, Rovère, the two Duprats, the two
Mainvielles, and Lécuyer, readily obtain recruits in this sink.--They
begin, aided by the rabble of the town and of its suburbs, peasants
enemies of the octroi, vagabonds opposed to order of any kind, porters
and watermen armed with scythes, turnspits and clubs, by exciting seven
or eight riots. Then they drive off the legate, force the Councils to
resign, hang the chiefs of the National Guard and of the conservative
party,[2439] and take possession of the municipal offices.--After this
their band increases to the dimensions of an army, which, with license
for its countersign and pillage for its pay, is the same as that of
Tilly and Wallenstein, "a veritable roving Sodom, at which the ancient
city would have stood aghast." Out of 3,000 men, only 200 belong in
Avignon; the rest are composed of French deserters, smugglers, fugitives
from justice, vagrant foreigners, marauders and criminals, who, scenting
a prey, come from afar, and even from Paris;[2440] along with them march
the women belonging to them, still more base and bloodthirsty. In order
to make it perfectly plain that with them murder and robbery are the
order of the day, they massacred their first general, Patrix, guilty
of having released a prisoner, and elected in his place an old highway
tramp named Jourdan, condemned to death by the court at Valence, but who
had escaped on the eve of his execution, and who bore the nickname of
Coupe-tête, because he is said to have cut off the heads at Versailles
of two of the King's guards.[2441]--Under such a commander the troop
increases until it forms a body of five or six thousand men, which
stops people in the streets and forcibly enrolls them; they are called
Mandrins, which is severe for Mandrin,[2442] because their war is
not merely on public persons and property, as his was, but on the
possessions, the proprieties, and the lives of private individuals. One
detachment alone, at one time, extorts in Cavaillon 25,000 francs, in
Baume 12,000, in Aubignon 15,000, in Pioline 4,800, while Caumont is
taxed 2,000 francs a week. At Sarrians, where the mayor gives them the
keys, they pillage houses from top to bottom, carry off their plunder in
carts, set fire, violate and slay with all the refinements of torture of
so many Hurons. An old lady of eighty, and a paralytic, is shot at arms
length, and left weltering in her blood in the midst of the flames. A
child five years of age is cut in two, its mother decapitated, and its
sister mutilated; they cut off the ears of the curé, set them on his
brow like a cockade, and then cut his throat, along with that of a pig,
and tear out the two hearts and dance around them.[2443] After this,
for fifty days around Carpentras, to which they lay siege in vain, the
unprovoked, cruel instincts of the chauffeurs manifested at a later
date, the ancient cannibalistic desires which sometimes reappear in
convicts, and the perverted and over-strained sensuality found in
maniacs, have full play.

On beholding the monster it has nourished, Avignon, in alarm, utters
cries of distress.[2444] But the brute, which feels its strength, turns
against its former abettors, shows its teeth, and exacts its daily
food. Ruined or not, Avignon must furnish its quota. "In the electoral
assembly, Mainvielle the younger, elected elector, although he is only
twenty-two, draws two pistols from his belt and struts around with a
threatening air."[2445] Duprat, the president, the better to master his
colleagues, proposes to them to leave Avignon and go to Sorgues, which
they refuse to do; upon this he orders cannon to be brought, promises to
pay those who will accompany him, drags along the timid, and denounces
the rest before an upper national court, of which he himself has
designated the members. Twenty of the electors thus denounced are
condemned and proscribed; Duprat threatens to enter by force and have
them executed on the spot, and, under his leadership, the army of
Mandrins advances against Avignon.--Its progress is arrested, and, for
two months, restrained by the two mediating commissioners for France;
they reduce its numbers, and it is on the point of being disbanded, when
the brute again boldly seizes its prey, about to make its escape. On the
21st of August, Jourdan, with his herd of miscreants, obtains possession
of the palace. The municipal body is driven out, the mayor escapes in
disguise, Tissot, the secretary, is cut down, four municipal officers
and forty other persons are thrown into prison, while a number of houses
belonging to the fugitives and to priests are pillaged, and thus supply
the bandits with their first financial returns.[2446]--Then begins the
great fiscal operation which is going to fill their pockets. Five front
men, chosen by Duprat and his associates, compose, with Lécuyer as
secretary, a provisional municipal body, which, taxing the town 300,000
francs and suppressing the convents, offers the spoils of the churches
for sale. The bells are taken down, and the hammers of the workmen
engaged in breaking them to pieces are heard all day long. A strong-box
full of plate, diamonds, and gold crosses, left with the director of the
Mont-de-Piété, on deposit, is taken and carried off to the commune; a
report is spread that the valuables pawned by the poor had been stolen
by the municipality, and that those "robbers had already sent away
eighteen trunks full of them." Upon this the women, exasperated at the
bare walls of the churches, together with the laborers in want of work
or bread, all the common class, become furious, assemble of their own
accord in the church of the Cordeliers, summon Lécuyer to appear before
them, drag him from the pulpit and massacre him.[2447]

This time there seems to be an end of the brigand party, for the entire
town, the populace and the better class, are against them, while the
peasants in the country shoot them down wherever they come across
them.--Terror, however, supplies the place of numbers, and, with the 350
hired killers bravos still left to them, the extreme Jacobins undertake
to overcome a city of 30,000 souls. Mainvielle the elder, dragging along
two cannon, arrives with a patrol, fires at random into the already
semi-abandoned church, and kills two men. Duprat assembles about thirty
of the towns-people, imprisoned by him on the 31st of August, and,
in addition to these, about forty artisans belonging to the Catholic
brotherhoods, porters, bakers, coopers, and day-laborers, two peasants,
a beggar, a few women seized haphazard and on vague denunciations, one
of them, "because she spoke ill of Madame Mainvielle." Jourdan supplies
the executioners; the apothecary Mende, brother-in-law of Duprat, plies
them with liquor, while a clerk of Tournal, the newsman, bids them
"kill all, so that there shall be no witnesses left." Whereupon, at the
reiterated orders of Mainvielle, Tournal, Duprat, and Jourdan, with a
complications of hilarious lewdness,[2448] the massacre develops itself
on the 16th of October and following days, during sixty-six hours, the
victims being a couple of priests, three children, an old man of eighty,
thirteen women, two of whom are pregnant, in all, sixty-one persons,
with their throats slit or knocked out and then cast one on top of each
other into the Glacière hole, a mother on the body of her infant, a son
on the body of his father, all finished off with rocks, the hole being
filled up with stones and covered over with quicklime on account of
the smell.[2449] In the meantime about a hundred more, killed in the
streets, are pitched into the Sorgues canal; five hundred families make
their escape. The ousted bandits return in a body, while the assassins
who are at the head of them, enthroned by murder, organize for the
benefit of their new band a legal system of brigandage, against which
nobody defends himself.[2450]

These are the friends of the Jacobins of Arles and Marseilles, the
respectable men whom M. d'Antonelle has come to address in the cathedral
at Avignon.[2451] These are the pure patriots, who, with their hands in
the till and their feet in gore, caught in the act by a French army, the
mask torn off through a scrupulous investigation, universally condemned
by the emancipated electors, also by the deliberate verdict of the new
mediating commissioners,[2452] are included in the amnesty proclaimed
by the Legislative Assembly a month before their last crime.--But the
sovereigns of the Bouches-du-Rhône do not regard the release of
their friends and allies as a pardon: something more than pardon and
forgetfulness must be awarded to the murderers of the Glacière. On the
29th of April, 1792, Rebecqui and Bertin, the vanquishers of Arles,
enter Avignon[2453] along with a cortége, at the head of which are from
thirty to forty of the principal murderers whom the Legislative Assembly
itself had ordered to be recommitted to prison, Duprat, Mainvielle,
Toumal, Mende, then Jourdan in the uniform of a commanding general
crowned with laurel and seated on a white horse, and, lastly, the dames
Duprat, Mainvielle and Tournal, in dashing style, standing on a sort of
triumphal chariot; during the procession the cry is heard, "The Glacière
will be full this time!"--On their approach the public functionaries
fly; twelve hundred persons abandon the town. Forthwith each terrorist,
under the protection of the Marseilles bayonets, resumes his office,
like a man at the head of his household. Raphel, the former judge, along
with his clerk, both with warrants of arrest against them, publicly
officiate, while the relatives of the poor victims slain on the 16th of
October, and the witnesses that appeared on the trial, are threatened in
the streets; one of them is killed, and Jourdan, king of the department
for an entire year, begins over again on a grand scale, at the head
of the National Guard, and afterwards of the police body, the same
performance which, on a small scale, he pursued under the ancient
régime, when, with a dozen "armed and mounted" brigands, he traversed
the highways, forced open lonely houses at night, and, in one château
alone, stole 24,000 francs.




V.--The other departments.

     Uniform process of the Jacobin conquest.--Preconceived
     formation of a Jacobin State.

The Jacobin conquest takes place like this: already in during April,
1792, through acts of violence almost equal to those we have just
described, it spreads over more than twenty departments and, to a
smaller degree, over the other sixty.[2454] The composition of the
parties is the same everywhere. On one side are the irresponsible of all
conditions,

"squanderers who, having consumed their own inheritance, cannot tolerate
that of another, men without property to whom disorder is a door open to
wealth and public office, the envious, the ungrateful whose obligations
to their benefactors the revolution cancels, the hot-headed, all those
enthusiastic innovators who preach reason with a dagger in their hand,
the poor, the brutal and the wretched of the lower class who, possessed
by one leading anarchical idea, one example of immunity, with the law
dumb and the sword in the scabbard, are stimulated to dare all things

On the other side are the steady-going, peaceable class, minding their
own business, upper and lower middle class in mind and spirit,

"weakened by being used to security and wealth, surprised at any
unforeseen disturbance and trying to find their way, isolated from
each other by diversity of interests, opposing only tact and caution to
persevering audacity in defiance of legitimate means, unable either to
make up their mind or to remain inactive, perplexed over sacrifices just
at the time when the enemy is going to render it impossible to make any
in the future, in a word, bringing weakness and egoism to bear against
the liberated passions, great poverty and hardened immorality."[2455]

The issue of the conflict is everywhere the same. In each town or canton
an aggressive squad of unscrupulous fanatics and resolute adventurers
imposes its rule over a sheep-like majority which, accustomed to the
regularity of an old civilization, dares neither disturb order for the
sake of putting and end to disorder, or get together a mob to put down
another mob. Everywhere the Jacobin principle is the same.

"Your system," says one of the department Directories to them,[2456]
"is to act imperturbably on all occasions, even after a constitution is
established, and the limitations to power are fixed, as if the empire
would always be in a state of insurrection, as if you were granted a
dictatorship essential for the city's salvation, as if you were given
such full power in the name of public safety."

Everywhere are Jacobin tactics the same. At the outset they assume to
have a monopoly of patriotism and, through the brutal destruction of
other associations, they are the only visible organ of public opinion.
Their voice, accordingly, seems to be the voice of the people; their
control is established on that of the legal authorities; they have taken
the lead through persistent and irresistible misdeeds; their crimes are
consecrated by exemption from punishment.

"Among officials and agents, good or bad, constituted or not
constituted, that alone governs which is inviolable. Now the club, for a
long time, has been too much accustomed to domineering, to annoying,
to persecuting, to wreaking vengeance, for any local administration to
regard it in any other light than as inviolable."[2457]

They accordingly govern and their indirect influence is promptly
transformed into direct authority.--Voting alone, or almost alone,
in the primary meetings, which are deserted or under constraint, the
Jacobins easily choose the municipal body and the officers of the
National Guard.[2458] After this, through the mayor, who is their tool
or their accomplice, they have the legal right to launch or arrest the
entire armed force and they avail themselves of it.--Two obstacles still
stand in their way. One the one hand, however conciliatory or timid
the Directory of the district or department may be, elected as it is by
electors of the second degree, it usually contains a fair proportion
of well-informed men, comfortably off, interested in keeping order, and
less inclined than the municipality to put up with gross violations of
the law. Consequently the Jacobins denounce it to the National
Assembly as an unpatriotic and anti-revolutionary center of "bourgeois
aristocracy." Sometimes, as at Brest,[2459] they shamefully disobey
orders which are perfectly legal and proper, often repeated and strictly
formal; afterward, still more shamefully, they demand of the Minister
if, "placed in the cruel alternative of giving offense to the hierarchy
of powers, or of leaving the commonwealth in danger, they ought to
hesitate." Sometimes, as at Arras, they impose themselves illegally on
the Directory in session and browbeat it so insolently as to make it
a point of honor with the latter to solicit its own suspension.[2460]
Sometimes, as a Figeac, they summon an administrator to their bar, keep
him standing three-quarters of an hour, seize his papers and oblige him,
for fear of something worse, to leave the town.[2461] Sometimes, as at
Auch, they invade the Directory's chambers, seize the administrators by
the throat, pound them with their fists and clubs, drag the president
by the hair, and, after a good deal of trouble, grant him his
life.[2462]--On the other hand, the gendarmerie and the troops brought
for the suppression of riots, are always in the way of those who stir
up the rioters. Consequently, they expel, corrupt and, especially purify
the gendarmerie together with the troops. At Cahors they drive out a
sergeant of the gendarmerie, "alleging that he keeps company with
none but aristocrats."[2463] At Toulouse, without mentioning the
lieutenant-colonel, whose life they threaten by anonymous letters and
oblige to leave the town, they transfer the whole corps to another
district under the pretense that "its principles are adverse to the
Constitution."[2464] At Auch, and at Rennes, through the insubordination
which they provoke among the men, they exhort resignations from their
officers. At Perpignan, by means of a riot which they foment, they
seize, beat and drag to prison, the commandant and staff whom
they accuse "of wanting to bombard the town with five pounds of
powder."[2465]--Meanwhile, through the jacquerie, which they let loose
from the Dordogne to Aveyron, from Cantal to the Pyrenees and the
Var, under the pretence of punishing the relatives of émigrés and the
abettors of unsworn priests, they create an army of their own made up
of robbers and the destitute who, in anticipation of the exploits of the
coming revolutionary army, freely kill, burn, pillage, hold to ransom
and prey at large on the defenseless flock of proprietors of every class
and degree.[2466]

In this operation each club has its neighbors for allies, offering
to them or receiving from them offers of men and money. That of Caen
tenders its assistance to the Bayeux association for expelling unsworn
priests, and to help the patriots of the place "to rid themselves of the
tyranny of their administrators."[2467] That of Besançon declares the
three administrative bodies of Strasbourg "unworthy of the confidence
with which they have been honored," and openly enters into a league
with all the clubs of the Upper and Lower Rhine, to set free a Jacobin
arrested as a fomenter of insurrections.[2468] Those of the Puy-de-Dôme
and neighboring departments depute to and establish at Clermont
a central club of direction and propaganda.[2469] Those of the
Bouches-du-Rhône treat with the commissioners of the departments of
Drôme, Gard, and Hérault, to watch the Spanish frontier, and send
delegates of their own to see the state of the fortifications of
Figuières.[2470]--There is no recourse to the criminal tribunals. In
forty departments, these are not yet installed, in the forty-three
others, they are cowed, silent, or lack money and men to enforce their
decisions.[2471]

Such is the foundation of the Jacobin State, a confederation of twelve
hundred oligarchies, which maneuver their proletariat clients in
obedience to the word of command dispatched from Paris. It is a
complete, organized, active State, with its central government, its
active force, its official journal, its regular correspondence, its
declared policy, its established authority, and its representative
and local agents; the latter are actual administrators alongside of
administrations which are abolished, or athwart administrations which
are brought under subjection.--In vain do the latest ministers, good
clerks and honest men, try to fulfill their duties; their injunctions
and remonstrances are only so much waste paper.[2472] They resign in
despair, declaring that,

"in this overthrow of all order,... in the present weakness of the
public forces, and in the degradation of the constituted authorities,...
it is impossible for them to maintain the life and energy of the vast
body, the members of which are paralyzed."--

When the roots of a tree are laid bare, it is easy to cut it down; now
that the Jacobins have severed them, a push on the trunk suffices to
bring the tree to the ground.


*****


[Footnote 2401: De Loménie, "Les Mirabeaus," I. 11. (Letter of the
Marquis de Mirabeau).]

[Footnote 2402: "Archives Nationales," F7, 7171, No. 7915. Report on the
situation in Marseilles, by Miollis, commissioner of the Directory in
the department, year V. Nivôse 15. "A good many strangers from France
and Italy are attracted there by the lust of gain, a love of pleasure,
the want of work, a desire to escape from the effects of ill conduct. ..
Individuals of both sexes and of every age, with no ties of country or
kindred, with no profession, no opinions, pressed by daily necessities
that are multiplied by debauched habit, seeking to indulge these without
too much effort, the means for this being formerly found in the many
manual operations of commerce, gone astray during the Revolution and,
subsequently, scared of the dominant party, accustomed unfortunately at
that time to receiving pay for taking part in political strife, and now
reduced to living on almost gratuitous distributions of food, to
dealing in small wares, to the menial occupations which chance rarely
presents--in short, to swindling. Such is what the observer finds in
that portion of the population of Marseilles most in sight; eager
to profit by whatever occurs, easily won over, active through its
necessities, flocking everywhere, and appearing very numerous... The
patriot Escalon had twenty rations a day; Féri, the journalist, had six;
etc... Civil officers and district commissioners still belong, for the
most part, to that class of men which the Revolution had accustomed
to live without work, to making those who shared their principles
the beneficiaries of the nation's favors, and finally, to receiving
contributions from gambling halls and brothels. These commissioners give
notice to their protégés, even the crooks, when warrants against them
are to be enforced."]

[Footnote 2403: Blanc-Gilly, "Réveil d'alarme d'un député de Marseilles"
(cited in the Memoirs" of Barbaroux, 40, 41). Blanc-Gilly must have been
acquainted with these characters, inasmuch as he made use of them in the
August riot, 1789, and for which he was indicted.--Cf. Fabre "Histoire
de Marseilles," II. 422.]

[Footnote 2404: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3197. Correspondence of
Messrs. Debourge, Gay, and Lafitte, commissioners sent to Provence to
restore order in accordance with an act of the National Assembly. Letter
of May 10, 1791. Letter of May 10. 1791, and passim.]

[Footnote 2405: Mayor Martin, says Juste, was a sort of Pétion, weak and
vain.--Barbaroux, clerk of the municipality, is the principal opponent
of M. Lieutaud.--The municipal decree referred to is dated Sept. 10,
1790.]

[Footnote 2406: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3197. Letters of three
commissioners, April 13, 17, 18, and May 10, 1791.]

[Footnote 2407: Blanc-Gilly, "Réveil d'Alarme." Ibid., "Every time that
the national guard marched outside the city walls, the horde of homeless
brigands never failed to close up in their rear and carry devastation
wherever they went."]

[Footnote 2408: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3197. Correspondence of
the three commissioners, letter of May 10,1791. "The municipality of
Marseilles obeys only the decrees it pleases, and for eighteen months
has not paid a cent into the city treasury.-Proclamation of April
13.--Letters of April 13 and 18.]

[Footnote 2409: "Archives Nationales," letter of the municipal officers
of Marseilles to the minister, June 11, 1791.--They demand the recall
of the three commissioners, one of their arguments being as follows:
"In China, every mandarin against whom public opinion is excited is
dismissed from his place; he is regarded as an ignorant instructor, who
is incapable of gaining the love of children for their parent."]

[Footnote 2410: "Archives Nationales," letter of the commissioners,
May 25, 1791. "It is evident, on recording the proceedings at Aix
and Marseilles, that only the accusers and the judges were
guilty."--Petition of the prisoners, Feb. 1. "The municipality, in
despair of our innocence and not knowing how to justify its conduct,
is trying to buy up witnesses. They say openly that it is better to
sacrifice one innocent man than disgrace a whole body. Such ale the
speeches of the sieur Rebecqui, leading man, and of Madame Elliou, wife
of a municipal officer, in the house of the sieur Rousset."]

[Footnote 2411: Letter of M. Lieutaud to the commissioners, May 11 and
18, 1791. "If I have not fallen under the assassin's dagger I owe my
preservation to your strict orders and to the good behavior of the
national guard and the regular troops... At the hearing of the case
today, the prosecutor on the part of the commune ventured to threaten
the court with popular opinion and its avenging fury... The people,
stirred up against us, and brought there, shouted, 'Let us seize
Lieutaud and take him there by force and if he will not go up the steps,
we will cut his head off!' The hall leading to the courtroom and the
stairways were filled with barefooted vagabonds."--Letter of Cabrol,
commander of the national guard, and of the municipal officers to the
commissioners, May 21. That picket-guard of fifty men on the great
square, is it not rather the cause of a riot than the means of
preventing one? A requisition to send four national guards inside the
prison, to remain there day and night, is it not insulting citizen
soldiers, whose function it is to see that the laws are maintained, and
not to do jail duty?"]

[Footnote 2412: Letter of M. d'Olivier, lieutenant-colonel of the Ernest
regiment, May 28.--Extracts from the papers of the secretary to
the municipality, May 28 (Barbaroux is the clerk).--Letter of the
commissions, May 29]

[Footnote 2413: Letter of the commissioners, June 29.]

[Footnote 2414: Letter of M. Laroque-Dourdan, naval commander at
Marseilles, Oct. 18, 1791. (in relation to the departure of the Swiss
regiment).]

[Footnote 2415: The elections are held on the 13th of November, 1791.
Martin, the former mayor, showed timidity, and Mouraille was elected in
his place.]

[Footnote 2416: "Archives Nationales." F 7 3197. Letter (printed) of
the Directory to the Minister of War, Jan. 4, 1792.--Letter of the
municipality of Marseilles to the Directory, Jan. 4, and the Directory's
reply.--Barbaroux, "Mémoires," 19.--Here we see the part played by
Barbaroux at Marseilles. Guadet played a similar part at Bordeaux.
This early political period is essential for a comprehension of the
Girondists.]

[Footnote 2417: "Archives Nationales." F7, 3195. Official report of the
municipality of Aix (on the events of Feb. 26). March 1st.--Letter of
M. Villardy, president of the directory, dated Avignon, March 10. (He
barely escaped assassination at Aix.)--Ibid., F7,3196. Report of the
district administrators of Arles, Feb. 28 (according to private letters
from Aix and Marseilles).--Barbaroux, "Mémoires" (collection of Berville
and Barrière), 106. (Narrative of M. Watteville, major in the Ernest
regiment. Ibid., 108) (Report from M. de Barbentane, commanding general).
These two documents show the liberalism, want of vigor, and the
usual indecision of the superior authorities, especially the military
authorities--Mercure de France, March 24, 1792 (letters from Aix).]

[Footnote 2418: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3196. Dispatches of the
new Directory to the Minister, March 24 and April 4, 1792. "Since the
departure of the Directory, our administrative assembly is composed of
only six members, notwithstanding our repeated summons to every member
of the Council... Only three members of the Council consent to act
with us; the reason is a lack of pecuniary means." The new Directory,
consequently, passes a resolution to indemnify members of the Council.
This, indeed, is contrary to a royal proclamation of Jan. 15; but "this
proclamation was wrested from the King, on account of his firm faith.
You must be aware that, in a free nation, the influence of a citizen on
his government must not be estimated by his fortune; such a principle
is false, and destructive of equality of rights. We trust that the King
will consent to revoke his proclamation."]

[Footnote 2419: Ib., Letters of Borelly, vice-president of the
Directory, to the Minister, April 10, 17, and 30, 1792.--Letter from
another administrator, March 10. "They absolutely want us to march
against Arles, and to force us to give the order."--Ibid., F7, 3195.
Letters from Aix, March 12 and 16, addressed to M. Verdet.]

[Footnote 2420: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3195. Letter of the
administrators of the department Council to the Minister, March 10,
"The Council of the administration is surprised, sir, at the fa1se
impressions given you of the city of Marseilles; it should be regarded
as the patriotic buckler of the department... If the people of Paris did
not wait for orders to destroy the Bastille and begin the Revolution,
can you wonder that in this fiery climate the impatience of good
citizens should make them anticipate legal orders, and that they cannot
comply with the slow forms of justice when their personal safety and the
safety of the country is in peril?"]

[Footnote 2421: "Archives Nationales." F7, 3197. Dispatches of the three
commissioners, passim, and especially those of May 11, June 10 and
19, 1791 (on affairs in Arles). "The property-owners were a long time
subject to oppression. A few of the factions maintained a reign of
terror over honest folks, who trembled in secret."]

[Footnote 2422: Ibid., Dispatch of the commissioners, June 19: "One of
the Mint gang causes notes to be publicly distributed (addressed to the
unsworn) in these words: 'If you don't "piss-off" you will have to deal
with the gang from the Mint.'"]

[Footnote 2423: "Archives Nationales." F7, 3198. Narration (printed)
of what occurred at Arles, June 9 and 10, 1791.--Dispatch of M. Ripert,
royal commissioner, Aug. 5, 1791.--F 7, 3197. Dispatch of the three
commissioners, June 19. "Since then, many of the farm laborers have
taken the same oath. It is this class of citizens which most eagerly
desires a return to order. "--Other dispatches to the same effect, Oct.
24 and 29, and Dec. 14, 1791.--Cf. "The French Revolution," I. 301,
302.]

[Footnote 2424: "Archives Nationales." F7, 3196. Dispatch of the members
of the Directory of Arles and the municipal officers to the Minister,
March 3, 1792 (with a printed diatribe of the Marseilles municipality)]

[Footnote 2425: Ibid., F7, 3198. Dispatches of the procureur--syndic of
the department to the Minister, Aix, Sept. 14, 15, 20, and 23, 1791.
The electoral assembly declared itself permanent, the constitutional
authorities being fettered and unrecognized.--Dispatch of the members
of the military bureau and correspondence with the Minister, Arles,
Sept.17, 1791.]

[Footnote 2426: Ibid., Dispatch of the commandant of the Marseilles
detachment to the Directory of the department, Sept. 22, 1791: "I feel
that our proceedings are not exactly legal, but I thought it prudent to
acquiesce in the general desire of the battalion."]

[Footnote 2427: "Archives Nationales." Official report of the municipal
officers of Arles on the insurrection of the Mint band, Sept. 2,
1791.--Dispatch of Ripert, royal commissioner, Oct. 2 and 8.--Letter of
M. d'Antonelle, to the Friends of the Constitution, Sept.22. "I cannot
believe in the counter-orders with which we are threatened. Such a
decision in the present crisis would be too inhuman and dangerous. Our
co-workers, who have had the courage to devote themselves to the
new law, would be deprived of their bread and shelter... The king's
proclamation has all the appearance of having been hastily prepared, and
every sign of having been secured unawares."]

[Footnote 2428: De Dampmartin (an eye-witness), II. 60-70.--" Archives
Nationales," F7, 3196.--Dispatch of the two delegated commissioners to
the Minister, Nimes, March 25, 1792.--Letter of M. Wittgenstein to the
Directory of the Bouche-du--Rhône, April 4, 1792.--Reply and act
passed by the Directory, April 5.--Report of Bertin and Rebecqui to the
administrators of the department, April 3.--Moniteur, XII. 379. Report
of the Minister of the Interior to the National Assembly, April 4.]

[Footnote 2429: Moniteur, XII. 408 (session of May 16). Petition of M.
Fossin, deputy from Arles.--"Archives Nationales," F7, 3196. Petition
of the Arlesians to the Minister, June 28.--Despatches of M. Lombard,
provisional royal commissioner, Arles, July 6 and 10. "Neither persons
nor property have been respected for three months by those who wear the
mask of patriotism."]

[Footnote 2430: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3196. Letter of M. Borelly,
vice-president of the Directory, to the Minister, Aix, April 30, 1792.
"The course pursued by the sieur: Bertin and Rébecqui is the cause of
all the disorders committed in these unhappy districts... Their sole
object is to levy contributions, as they did at Aries, to enrich
themselves and render the Comtat-Venaisson desolate."]

[Footnote 2431: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3196. Deposition of one of
the keepers of the sieur Coye, a proprietor at Mouriez-les-Baux, April
4.--Petition of Peyre, notary at Maussane, April 7.--Statement by
Manson, a resident of Mouriez-les-Baux, March 27.--Petition of Andrieu,
March 30.--Letter of the municipality of Maussane, April 4: "They watch
for a favorable opportunity to devastate property and especially country
villas."]

[Footnote 2432: "Archives Nationales," Claim of the national guard
presented to the district administrators of Tarascon by the national
guard of Château-Renard, April 6.--Petition of Juliat d'Eyguières,
district administrator of Tarascon, April 2 (in relation to
a requisition of 30,000 francs by Camoïn on the commune of
Eyguières).--Letter of M. Borelly, April 30. "Bertin and Rébecqui
have openly protected the infamous Camoïn, and have set him free.
"--Moniteur, XII. 408. Petition of M. Fossin, deputy from Arles.]

[Footnote 2433: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3195. Dispatch of M. Mérard,
royal commissioner at the district court of Apt, Apt, March 15, 1792
(with official report of the Apt municipality and debates of the
district, March 13).--Letter of M. Guillebert, syndic-attorney of
the district March 5.. (He has fled. )--Dispatches of the district
Directory, March 23 and 28. "It must not be supposed for a moment that
either the court or the juge-de-paix will take the least notice of this
circumstance. One step in this direction would, in a week, bring 10,000
men on our hands."]

[Footnote 2434: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3195. Letter of the district
Directory of Apt, March 28. "On the 26th of March 600 armed men,
belonging to the communes of Apt, Viens, Rustrel, etc. betook themselves
to St.-Martin-de-Castillon and, under the pretense of restoring
order, taxed the inhabitants, lodging and feeding themselves at their
charge"--The expeditions extend even to the neighboring departments, one
of them March 23, going to Sault, near Forcalquier, in the Upper-Alps.]

[Footnote 2435: Ib., F7, 3195. On the demand of a number of petitioning
soldiers who went to Aries on the 22d of March, 1792, the department
administration passes an act (September, 1793) granting them each
forty-five francs indemnity. There are 1,916 of them, which makes
86,200 francs "assessed on the goods and property of individuals for the
authors, abettors, and those guilty of the disturbances occasioned by
the party of Chiffonists in the commune of Arles." The municipality of
Aries designates fifty-one individuals, who pay the 86,200 livres,
plus 2,785 francs exchange, and 300 francs for the cost of sojourn and
delays.--Petition of the ransomed, Nov.21, 1792.]

[Footnote 2436: Ib., F7, 3165. Official report of the Directory on the
events which occurred in Aix, April 27, 28, and 29, 1792.]

[Footnote 2437: Michelet, "Histoire de la Révolution Française," III.56
(according to the narratives of aged peasants).--Mercure de France,
April 30, 1791 (letter from an inhabitant of the Comtat).--All public
dues put together (octrois and interest on the debt) did not go beyond
800,000 francs for 126,684 inhabitants. On the contrary, united
with France, it would pay 3,793,000 francs.--André, "Histoire de la
Révolution Avignonaise," I. 61.--The Comtat possessed representative
institutions, an armed general assembly, composed of three bishops,
the elected representative of the nobility, and thirteen consuls of
the leading towns.--Mercure de France, Oct. 15, 1791 (letter from an
inhabitant of the Comtat).--There were no bodies of militia in the
Comtat; the privileges of nobles were of little account. Nobody had the
exclusive right to hunt or fish, while people without property could own
guns and hunt anywhere.]

[Footnote 2438: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3272. Letter of M. Pelet de
la Lozère, prefect of Vaucluse; to the Minister, year VIII. Germinal
30.--Ibid., DXXIV. 3. Letter of M. Mulot, one of the mediating
commissioners, to the Minister, Oct. 10, 1791. "What a country you have
sent me to! It is the land of duplicity. Italianism has struck its roots
deep here, and I fear that they are very hardy."]

[Footnote 2439: The details of these occurrences may be found in André
and in Soulier, "Histoire de la Révolution Avignonaise." The murder of
their seven principal opponents, gentlemen, priests and artisans,
took place June 11, 1790.--"Archives Nationales," DXXIV. 3. The
starting-point of the riots is the hostility of the Jansenist Camus,
deputy to the Constituent Assembly. Several letters, the first from
April, 1790, may be found in this file, addressed to him from the
leading Jacobins of Avignon, Mainvielle, Raphel, Richard, and the rest,
and among others the following (3 July, 1790): "Do not abandon your work,
we entreat you. You, sir, were the first to inspire us with a desire to
be free and to demand our right to unite with a generous nation, from
which we have been severed by fraud."--As to the political means and
enticements, these are always the same. Cf., for instance, this letter
of a protégé, in Avignon, of Camus, addressed to him July 13, 1791: "I
have just obtained from the commune the use of a room inside the Palace,
where I can carry on my tavern business.. My fortune is based on your
kindness... what a distance between you and myself!"]

[Footnote 2440: "Archives Nationales," DXXIV. 3. Report on the events of
Oct.10, 1791.--Ibid., F7, 3197. Letter of the three commissioners to the
municipality of Avignon, April 21, and to the Minister, May 14, 1791.
"The deputies of Orange certify that there were at least 500 French
deserters in the Avignon army. "--In the same reports, May 21 and June
8: "It is not to be admitted that enrolled brigands should establish in
a small territory, surrounded by France on all sides, the most dangerous
school of brigandage that ever disgraced or preyed upon this human
species. "--Letter of M. Villardy, president of the Directory of
the Bouches-du-Rhône May 21. "More than two millions of the national
property is exposed to pillage and total destruction by the new Mandrins
who devastate this unfortunate country. "--Letter of Méglé, recruiting
sergeant of the La Mark regiment, arrested along with two of his
comrades. "The corps of Mandrins which arrested us set us at liberty...
We were arrested because we refused to join them, and on our refusal we
were daily threatened with the gallows."]

[Footnote 2441: Mortimer-Ternaux, I. 379 (note on Jourdan, by Faure,
deputy).--Barbaroux, "Mémoires"(Ed. Dauban), 392. "After the death of
Patrix a general had to be elected. Nobody wanted the place in an army
that had just shown so great a lack of discipline. Jourdan arose and
declared that as far as he was concerned, he was ready to accept
the position. No reply was made. He nominated himself, and asked the
soldiers if they wanted him for general. A drunkard is likely to please
other drunkards; they applauded him, and he was thus proclaimed."]

[Footnote 2442: After a famous brigand in Dauphiny, named Mandrin.--TR.
Mandrin, (Louis) (Saint Étienne-de--Saint-Geoirs, Isère,
1724--Valence, 1755). French smuggler who, after 1750, was active over
an enormous territory with the support of the population; hunted down
by the army, caught, condemned to death to be broken alive on the wheel.
See also Taine's explanation in Ancient Régime page 356 app. (SR).]

[Footnote 2443: Cf. André, passim, and Soulier, passim.--Mercure de
France, June 4, 1791.--"Archives Nationales," F7, 3197. Letter of Madame
de Gabrielli, March 14, 1791. (Her house is pillaged Jan. 10, and she
and her maid escape by the roof.)--Report of the municipal officers of
Tarascon, May 22. "The troop which has entered the district pillages
everything it can lay its hands on."--Letter of the syndic-attorney of
Orange, May 22. "Last Wednesday, a little girl ten years of age, on her
way from Châteauneuf to Courtheson, was violated by one on of them, and
the poor child is almost dead. "--Dispatch of the three commissioners to
the Minister, May 21. "It is now fully proved by men who are perfectly
reliable that the pretended patriots, said to have acted so gloriously
at Sarrians, are cannibals equally execrated both at Avignon and
Carpentras."]

[Footnote 2444: "Archives Nationales," letter of the Directory of
the Bouches-du-Rhône, May 21, 1791.--Deliberations of the Avignon
municipality, associated with the notables and the military committee,
May 15: "The enormous expense attending the pay and food for the
detachments.. .forced contributions... What is most revolting is that
those who are charged with the duty arbitrarily tax the inhabitants,
according as they arc deemed bad or good patriots... The municipality,
the military committee, and the club of the Friends of the Constitution
dared to make a protest; the proscription against them is their reward
for their attachment to the French constitution.]

[Footnote 2445: Letter of M. Boulet, formerly physician in the French
military hospitals and member of the electoral assembly, May 21.]

[Footnote 2446: "Archives Nationales," DXXIv. 16-23, No.3. Narrative of
what took place yesterday, August 21, in the town of Avignon.--Letters
by the mayor, Richard, and two others, Aug. 21.--Letter to the president
of the National Assembly, Aug.22 (with five signatures, in the name of
200 families that had taken refuge in the Ile de la Bartelasse).]

[Footnote 2447: "Archives Nationales," DXXIV. 3.--Letter of M. Laverne,
for M. Canonge, keeper of the Mont-de-Piété. (The electoral assembly of
Vaucluse and the juge-de-paix had forbidden him to give this box into
any other hands.)--Letters of M. Mulot, mediating commissioner, Gentilly
les Sorgues, Oct. 14, 15, 16, 1791.--Letter of M. Laverne, mayor, and
the municipal officers, Avignon, Jan. 6, 1792.--Statement of events
occurring at Avignon, Oct. 16, 17, and 18 (without a signature, but
written at once on the spot).--Official rapport of the provisional
administrators of Avignon, Oct. 16.--Certified copy of the notice
found posted in Avignon in different places this day, Oct. 16 (probably
written by one of the women of the lower class and showing what the
popular feeling was).--A letter written to M. Mulot, Oct. 13' already
contains this phrase: "Finally, even if they delay stopping their
robberies and pillage, misery and the miserable will still remain
"--Testimony of Joseph Sauton, a chasseur in the paid guard of Avignon,
Oct. 17 (an eye-witness of what passed at the Cordeliers).]

[Footnote 2448: André. II.62. Deposition of la Ratapiole.--Death of the
girl Ayme and of Mesdames Niel et Crouzet.--De Dampmartin, II. 2.]

[Footnote 2449: "Archives Nationales," DXXIV, 3. Report on the events
of Oct. 16: "Two sworn priests were killed, which proves that a
counter-revolution had nothing to do with it,.. Six of the municipal
officers were assassinated. They had been elected according to the terms
of the decree; they were the fruit of the popular will at the outbreak
of the Revolution; they were accordingly patriots."--Buchez et Roux,
XII. 420.--Official report of the Commune of Avignon, on the events of
Oct. 16.]

[Footnote 2450: "Archives Nationales," DXXIV. 3. Dispatch of the civil
Commissioners deputized by France (Messrs. Beauregard, Lecesne, and
Champion) to the Minister Jan. 8, 1792. (A long and admirable letter, in
which the difference between the two parties is exhibited, supported by
facts, in refutation of the calumnies of Duprat. The oppressed party is
composed not of royalists, but of Constitutionalists.)]

[Footnote 2451: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3177. Dispatches of the three
commissioners, April 27, May 4, 18, and 21.]

[Footnote 2452: Three hundred and thirty-five witnesses testified during
the trial.--De Dampmartin, I.266. Entry of the French army into Avignon,
Nov. 16, 1791: "All who were rich, except a very small number, had
taken flight or perished. The best houses were all empty or
closed."----Elections for a new municipality were held Nov.26, 1791. Out
of 2,287 active citizens Mayor Levieux de Laverne obtains 2,227
votes, while the municipal officer lowest on the list 1,800. All are
Constitutionalists and conservatives.]

[Footnote 2453: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3196. Official report of
Augier and Fabre, administrators of the Bouches-du-Rhône, Avignon, May
11, 1792.--Moniteur, XII. 313. Report of the Minister of Justice, May
5.--XII. 324. Petition of forty inhabitants of Avignon, May 7.--XII
334. Official report of Pinet, commissioner of the Drôme, sent to
Avignon.--XII. 354 Report of M. Chassaignac and other papers, May
10.--XI. 741 Letter of the civil commissioners, also of the Avignon
municipality, March 23.]

[Footnote 2454: "The French Revolution," vol. I. pp. 344-352, on the
sixth jacquerie, everywhere managed by the Jacobins. Two or three traits
show its spirit and course of action. ("Archives Nationales," F7, 3202.
Letter of the Directory of the district of Aurillac, March 27, 1792,
with official reports.) "On the 20th of March, about forty brigands,
calling themselves patriots and friends of the constitution, force
honest and worthy but very poor citizens in nine or ten of the houses of
Capelle-Viscamp to give them money, generally five francs each person,
and sometimes ten, twenty, and forty francs." Others tear down or
pillage the châteaux of Rouesque, Rode, Marcolès, and Vitrac and drag
the municipal officers along with them. "We, the mayor and municipal
officers of the parish of Vitrac, held a meeting yesterday, March 22,
following the example of our neighboring parishes on the occasion of the
demolition of the châteaux. We marched at the head of our national guard
and that of Salvetat to the said châteaux. We began by hoisting the
national flag and to demolish... The national guard of Boisset, eating
and drinking without stint, entered the château and behaved in the most
brutal manner; for whatever they found in their way, whether clocks,
mirrors, doors, closets, and finally documents, all were made way
with. They even sent off forty of the men to a patriotic village in the
vicinity. They forced the inmates of every house to give them money, and
those who refused were threatened with death." Besides this the national
guard of Boisset carried off the furniture of the château.--There is
something burlesque in the conflicts of the municipalities with the
Jacobin expeditions (letter of the municipal officers of Cottines to the
Directory of St. Louis, March 26). "We are very glad to inform you that
there is a crowd in our parish, amongst which are many belonging to
neighboring parishes; and that they have visited the house of sieur
Tossy and a sum of money of which we do not know the amount is demanded,
and that they will not leave without that sum so that they cam have
something to live on, these people being assembled solely to maintain
the constitution and give greater éclat to the law."]

[Footnote 2455: Mercure de France, numbers for Jan. 1 and 14, 1792
(articles by Mallet du Pan).--" Archives Nationales," F7, 3185, 3186.
Letter of the president of the district of Laon (Aisne) to the Minister,
Feb. 8, 1792: "With respect to the nobles and priests, any mention of
them as trying to sow discord among us indicates a desire to spread
fear. All they ask is tranquility and the regular payment of their
pensions."--De Dampmartin, II. 63 (on the evacuation of Arles, April,
1792). On the illegal approach of the Marseilles army, M. de Dampmartin,
military commander, orders the Arlesians to rise in a body. Nobody comes
forward. Wives hide away their husbands' guns in the night. Only one
hundred volunteers are found to act with the regular troops.]

[Footnote 2456: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3224. Speech of M.
Saint-Amans, vice-president of the Directory of Lot-et-Garonne,
to the mayor of Tonneins, April 20 and the letter of the
syndic-attorney-general to M. Roland, minister, April 22: "According
to the principles of the mayor of Tonneins, all resistance to him
is aristocratic, his doctrine being that all property-owners are
aristocrats. You can readily perceive, sir, that he is not one
of them."--Dubois, formerly a Benedictine and now a Protestant
minister.--Act of the Directory against the municipality of Tonneins,
April 13. The latter appeals to the Legislative Assembly. The mayor and
one of the municipal counselors appear in its name (May 19) at the bar
of the Assembly.]

[Footnote 2457: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3198. Letter of M. Debourges,
one of the three commissioners sent by the National Assembly and the
king, Nov. 2, 1791 (apropos of the Marseilles club). "This club has
quite recently obtained from the Directory of the department, on the
most contemptible allegation, an order requiring of M. de Coincy,
lieutenant-general at Toulon, to send the admirable Ernest regiment out
of Marseilles, and M. de Coincy has yielded."]

[Footnote 2458: For instance (Guillon de Montléon, "Mémoires pour servir
à l'histoire de Lyon," I. 109), the general in command of the national
guard of this large town in 1792 is Juillard, a poor silk-weaver of the
faubourg of the Grande Côte, a former soldier.]

[Footnote 2459: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3215, affair of Plabennec
(very curious, showing the tyrannical spirit of the Jacobins and the
good disposition at bottom of the Catholic peasantry)--The commune of
Brest dispatches against that of Plabennec 400 men, with two cannon and
commissioners chosen by the club.--Many documents, among them: Petition
of 150 active citizens of Brest, May 16, 1791. Deliberations of the
council-general and commune of Brest, May 17. Letter of the Directory of
the district, May 17 (very eloquent). Deliberations of the municipality
of Plabennec, May 20. Letter of the municipality of Brest to the
minister, May 21. Deliberations of the department Directory, June 13.]

[Footnote 2460: Mortimer-Ternaux, II. 376 (session of the Directory
of the Pas-du-Calais, July 4, 1792). The petition, signed by 127
inhabitants of Arras, is presented to the Directory by Robespierre
the younger and Geoffroy. The administrators are treated as impostors,
conspirators, etc., while the president, listening to these refinements,
says to his colleagues: "Gentlemen, let us sit down; we can attend to
insults sitting as well as standing."]

[Footnote 2461: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3223. Letter of M. Valéry,
syndic-attorney of the department, April 4, 1792.]

[Footnote 2462: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3220. Extract from the
deliberations of the department Directory and letter to the king,
Jan.28, 1792.--Letter of M. Lafiteau, president of the Directory,
Jan. 30. (The mob is composed of from five to six hundred persons. The
president is wounded on the forehead by a sword-cut and obliged to leave
the town.) Feb. 20, following this, a deputy of the department denounces
the Directory as unpatriotic.]

[Footnote 2463: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3223. Letter of M. de Riolle,
colonel of the gendarmerie, Jan. 19, 1792.--"One hundred members of the
club Friends of Liberty" come and request the brigadier's discharge.
On the following day, after a meeting of the same club, "four hundred
persons move to the barracks to send off or exterminate the brigadier."]

[Footnote 2464: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3219. Letter of M. Sainfal,
Toulouse, March 4, 1792.--Letter of the department Directory, March 14.]

[Footnote 2465: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3229. Letter of M. de
Narbonne, minister, to his colleague M. Cahier, Feb. 3, 1792.--"The
municipality of Auch has persuaded the under-officers and soldiers
of the 1st battalion that their chiefs were making preparation to
withdraw."--The same with the municipality and club of the Navarreins.
"All the officers except three have been obliged to leave and send in
their resignations."--F7, 3225. The same to the same, March 8.--The
municipality of Rennes orders the arrest of Col. de Savignac, and four
other officers. Mercure de France, Feb. 18, 1792. De Dampmartin, I. 230;
II. 70 (affairs of Landau, Lauterbourg, and Avignon).]

[Footnote 2466: "'The French Revolution," I. 344 and following
pages. Many other facts could be added to those cited in this
volume.--"Archives Nationales," F7, 3219. Letter of M. Neil,
administrator of Haute-Garonne, Feb. 27, 1792. "The constitutional
priests and the club of the canton of Montestruc suggested to the
inhabitants that all the abettors of unsworn priests and of aristocrats
should be put to ransom and laid under contribution."--Cf. 7, 3193,
(Aveyron), F7, 3271 (Tarn), etc.]

[Footnote 2467: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3200. Letter of the
syndic-attorney of Bayeux, May 14, 1792, and letter of the Bayeux
Directory, May 21. "The dubs should be schools of patriotism; they have
become the terror of it. If this scandalous struggle against the law and
legitimate authority does not soon cease liberty, a constitution, and
safeguards for the French people will no longer exist"]

[Footnote 2468: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3253. Letter, of the
Directory of the Bas-Rhin, April 26, 1792, and of Dietrich, Mayor
of Strasbourg, May 8. (The Strasbourg club had publicly invited
the citizens to take up arms, "to vigorously pursue priests and
administrators." )--Letter of the Besançon club to M. Dietrich, May 3.
"If the constitution depended on the patriotism or the perfidy of a few
magistrates in one department, like that of the Bas-Rhin, for instance,
we might pay you some attention, and all the freemen of the empire would
then stoop to crush you. "--Therefore the Jacobin clubs of the Upper and
Lower Rhine send three deputies to the Paris club.]

[Footnote 2469: Moniteur, XII. 558, May 19, 1792. "Letter addressed
through patriotic journalists to all clubs of the Friends of
the Constitution by the patriotic central society, formed at
Clermont-Ferrand." (there is the same centralization between Lyons and
Bordeaux.)]

[Footnote 2470: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3198. Report of Commissioners
Bertin and Rebecqui, April 3, 1792.--Cf. Dumouriez, book II. ch. V. The
club at Nantes wants to send commissioners to inspect the foundries of
the Ile d'Indrette.]

[Footnote 2471: Moniteur, X. 420. Report of M. Cahier, Minister of the
Interior, Feb. 18, 1792. "In all the departments freedom of worship has
been more or less violated... Those who hold power are cited before
the tribunals of the people as their enemies."--On the radical and
increasing powerlessness of the King and his ministers, Cf. Moniteur,
XI. 11 (Dec. 31, 1791).--Letter of the Minister of Finances.--XII. 200
(April 23, 1792), report of the Minister of the Interior.--XIII. 53
(July 4, 1792), letter of the Minister of Justice.]

[Footnote 2472: Mortimer-Ternaux, II. 369. Letter of the Directory of
the Basses-Pyrénées, June 25, 1792.--"Archives Nationales," F7, 3200.
Letter of the Directory of Calvados to the Minister of the Interior,
Aug. 3. "We are not agents of the king or his ministers."--Moniteur,
XIII. 103. Declaration of M. de Joly, minister, in the name of his
colleagues (session of July 10, 1792).]




CHAPTER V. PARIS.




I.--Pressure of the Assembly on the King.

     His veto rendered void or eluded.--His ministers insulted
     and driven away.--The usurpations of his Girondist
     ministry.--He removes them.--Riots being prepared.

Previous to this the tree was so shaken as to be already tottering at
its base.--Reduced as the King's prerogative is, the Jacobins still
continue to contest it, depriving him of even its shadow. At the opening
session they refuse to him the titles of Sire and Majesty; to them he
is not, in the sense of the constitution, a hereditary representative
of the French people, but "a high functionary," that is to say, a mere
employee, fortunate enough to sit in an equally good chair alongside
of the president of the Assembly, whom they style "president of the
nation."[2501] The Assembly, in their eyes, is sole sovereign, "while
the other powers," says Condorcet, "can act legitimately only when
specially authorized by a positive law;[2502] the Assembly may do
anything that is not formally prohibited to it by the law," 'in other
words, interpret the constitution, then change it, take it to pieces,
and do away with it. Consequently, in defiance of the constitution, it
takes upon itself the initiation of war, and, on rare occasions, on
the King using his veto, it sets this aside, or allows it to be set
aside.[2503] In vain he rejects, as he has a legal right to do, the
decrees which sanction the persecution of unsworn ecclesiastics, which
confiscate the property of the émigrés, and which establish a camp
around Paris. At the suggestion of the Jacobin deputies,[2504] the
unsworn ecclesiastics are interned, expelled, or imprisoned by the
municipalities and Directories; the estates and mansions of the
émigrés and of their relatives are abandoned without resistance to the
jacqueries; the camp around Paris is replaced by the summoning of
the Federates to Paris. In short, the monarch's sanction is eluded or
dispensed with.--As to his ministers, "they are merely clerks of the
Legislative Body decked with a royal leash."[2505] In full session they
are maltreated, reviled, grossly insulted, not merely as lackeys of bad
character, but as known criminals. They are interrogated at the bar of
the house, forbidden to leave Paris before their accounts are examined;
their papers are overhauled; their most guarded expressions and most
meritorious acts are held to be criminal; denunciations against them are
provoked; their subordinates are incited to rebel against them;[2506]
committees to watch them and calumniate them are appointed; the
perspective of a scaffold is placed before them in every relation, acts
or threats of accusation being passed against them, as well as against
their agents, on the shallowest pretexts, accompanied with such
miserable quibbling,[2507] and such an evident falsification of facts
and texts that the Assembly, forced by the evidence, twice reverses its
hasty decision, and declares those innocent whom it had condemned the
evening before.[2508] Nothing is of any avail, neither their strict
fulfillment of the law, their submission to the committees of the
Assembly, nor their humble attitude before the Assembly itself; "they
are careful now to treat it politely and avoid the galleys."[2509]--But
this does not suffice. They must become Jacobins; otherwise the high
court of Orleans will be for them as for M. Delessart, the ante-room
to the prison and the guillotine. "Terror and dismay," says Vergniaud,
pointing with his finger to the Tuileries, "have often issued in the
name of despotism in ancient times from that famous palace; let them
to-day go back to it in the name of law."[2510]

Even with a Jacobin Minister, terror and dismay are permanent. Roland,
Clavières, and Servan not only do not shield the King, but they give
him up, and, under their patronage and with their connivance, he is more
victimized, more harassed, and more vilified than ever before. Their
partisans in the Assembly take turns in slandering him, while Isnard
proposes against him a most insolent address.[2511] Shouts of death
are uttered in front of his palace. An abbé or soldier is unmercifully
beaten and dragged into the Tuileries basin. One of the gunners of the
Guard reviles the queen like a fish woman, and exclaims to her, "How
glad I should be to clap your head on the end of my bayonet!"[2512] They
supposed that the King is brought to heel under this double pressure
of the Legislative Body and the street; they rely on his accustomed
docility, or at least, on his proven lethargy; they think that they
have converted him into what Condorcet once demanded, a signature
machine.[2513] Consequently, without notifying him, just as if the
throne were vacant, Servan, on his own authority, proposes to the
Assembly the camp outside Paris.[2514] Roland, for his part, reads
to him at a full meeting of the council an arrogant, pedagogical
remonstrance, scrutinizing his sentiments, informing him of his duties,
calling upon him to accept the new "religion," to sanction the decree
against unsworn ecclesiastics, that is to say, to condemn to beggary,
imprisonment, and transportation[2515] 70,000 priests and nuns guilty of
orthodoxy, and authorize the camp around Paris, which means, to put his
throne, his person, and his family at the mercy of 20,000 madmen, chosen
by the clubs and other assemblages expressly to do him harm;[2516] in
short, to discard at once his conscience and his common sense.--Strange
enough, the royal will this time remains staunch; not only does the King
refuse, but he dismisses his ministers. So much the worse for him, for
sign he must, cost what it will; if he insists on remaining athwart
their path, they will march over him.--Not because he is dangerous, and
thinks of abandoning his legal immobility. Up to the 10th of August,
through a dread of action, and not to kindle a civil war, he rejects
all plans leading to an open rupture. Up to the very last day he resigns
himself even when his personal safety and that of his family is at
stake, to constitutional law and public common sense. Before dismissing
Roland and Servan, he desires to furnish some striking proof of his
pacific intentions by sanctioning the dissolution of his guard and
disarming himself not only for attack but for defense; henceforth he
sits at home and awaits the insurrection with which he is daily menaced;
he resigns himself to everything, except drawing his sword; his attitude
is that of a Christian in the amphitheatre.[2517]--The proposition of
a camp outside Paris, however, draws out a protest from 8,000 Paris
National Guards. Lafayette denounces to the Assembly the usurpations
of the Jacobins; the faction sees that its reign is threatened by this
reawakening and union of the friends of order. A blow must be struck.
This has been in preparation for a month past, and to renew the days of
October 5th and 6th, the materials are not lacking.




II.--The floating and poor population of Paris.

     Disposition of the workers.--Effect of poverty and want of
     work.--Effect of Jacobin preaching.--The revolutionary
     army.--Quality of its recruits--Its first review.--Its
     actual effective force.

Paris always has its interloping, floating population. A hundred
thousand of the needy, one-third of these from the departments, "beggars
by race," those whom Rétif de la Bretonne had already seen pass his
door, Rue de Bièvre, on the 13th of July, 1789, on their way to join
their fellows on the suburb of St. Antoine,[2518] along with them "those
frightful raftsmen," pilots and dock-hands, born and brought up in the
forests of the Nièvre and the Yonne, veritable savages accustomed
to wielding the pick and the ax, behaving like cannibals when the
opportunity offers,[2519] and who will be found foremost in the ranks
when the September days come. Alongside these stride their female
companions "barge-women who, embittered by toil, live for the moment
only," and who, three months earlier, pillaged the grocer-shops.[2520]
All this "is a frightful crowd which, every time it stirs, seems to
declare that the last day of the rich and well-to-do has come; tomorrow
it is our turn, to-morrow we shall sleep on eiderdown."--Still more
alarming is the attitude of the steady workmen, especially in the
suburbs. And first of all, if bread is not as expensive as on the 5th of
October, the misery is worse. The production of articles of luxury has
been at a standstill for three years, and the unemployed artisan has
consumed his small savings. Since the ruin of St. Domingo and the
pillaging of grocers' shops colonial products are dear; the carpenter,
the mason, the locksmith, the market-porter, no longer has his early
cup of coffee,[2521] while they grumble every morning at the thought of
their patriotism being rewarded by an increase of deprivation.

But more than all this they are now Jacobins, and after nearly three
years of preaching, the dogma of popular sovereignty has taken deep root
in their empty brains. "In these groups," writes a police commissioner,
"the Constitution is held to be useless and the people alone are the
law. The citizens of Paris on the public square think themselves the
people, populus, what we call the universality of citizens."[2522]--It
is of no use to tell them that, alongside of Paris, there is a France.
Danton has shown them that the capital "is composed of citizens
belonging one way or another to the eighty-three departments; that
is has a better chance than any other place to appreciate ministerial
conduct; that it is the first sentinel of the nation," which makes them
confident of being right.[2523]--It is of no use to tell them that there
are better-informed and more competent authorities than themselves.
Robespierre assures them that "in the matter of genius and
public-spiritedness the people are infallible, whilst every one else
is subject to mistakes,"[2524] and here they are sure of their
capacity.--In their own eyes they are the legitimate, competent
authorities for all France, and, during three years, the sole theme
their courtiers of the press, tribune, and club, vie with each other
in repeating to them, is the expression of the Duc de Villeroy to Louis
XIV. when a child: "Look my master, behold this great kingdom! It is
all for you, it belongs to you, you are its master!"--Undoubtedly,
to swallow and digest such gross irony people must be half-fools or
half-brutes; but it is exactly their capacity for self-deception which
makes them different from the sensible or passive crowd and casts them
into a band whose ascendancy is irresistible. Convinced that a street
mob is entitled to absolute rule and that the nation expresses its
sovereignty through its gatherings, they alone assemble the street mobs,
they alone, by virtue of their conceit and lack of judgment, believe
themselves kings.

Such is the new power which, in the early months of the year 1792,
starts up alongside of the legal powers. It is not foreseen by the
Constitution; nevertheless it exists and declares itself; it is visible
and its recruits can be counted.[2525] On the 29th of April, with the
Assembly consenting, and contrary to the law, three battalions from the
suburb of St. Antoine, about 1500 men,[2526] march in three columns into
the hall, one of which is composed of fusiliers and the other two of
pikemen, "their pikes being from eight to ten feet long," of formidable
aspect and of all sorts, "pikes with laurel leaves, pikes with clover
leaves, pikes à carlet, pikes with turn-spits, pikes with hearts, pikes
with serpents tongues, pikes with forks, pikes with daggers, pikes
with three prongs, pikes with battle-axes, pikes with claws, pikes with
sickles, lance-pikes covered with iron prongs." On the other side of the
Seine three battalions from the suburb of St. Marcel are composed and
armed in the same fashion. This constitutes a kernel of 3,000 more in
other quarters of Paris. Add to these in each of the sixty battalions
of the National guard the gunners, almost all of them blacksmiths,
locksmiths and horse-shoers, also the majority of the gendarmes, old
soldiers discharged for insubordination and naturally inclined to
rioting, in all an army of about 9,000 men, not counting the usual
accompaniment of vagabonds and mere bandits; ignorant and eager, but men
who do their work, well armed, formed into companies, ready to march
and ready to strike. Alongside of the talking authorities we have the
veritable force that acts, for it is the only one which does act. As
formerly the praetorian guard of the Caesars in Rome, or the Turkish
guards of the Caliphs of Baghdad, it is henceforth master of the
capital, and through the capital, of the Nation.




III.--Its leaders.--Their committee.--Methods for arousing the crowd.

As the troops are so are their leaders. Bulls must have drovers to
conduct them, one degree superior to the brute but only one degree,
dressed, talking and acting in accordance with his occupation, without
dislikes or scruples, naturally or willfully hardened, fertile in
jockeying and in the expedients of the slaughterhouse, themselves
belonging to the people or pretending to belong to them. Santerre is
a brewer of the Faubourg St. Antoine, commander of the battalion of"
Enfants Trouvés," tall, stout and ostentatious, with stentorian lungs,
shaking the hand of everybody he meets in the street, and when at home
treating everybody to a drink paid for by the Duke of Orleans. Legendre
is a choleric butcher, who even in the Convention maintains his
butchering traits. There are three or four foreign adventurers,
experienced in all kinds of deadly operations, using the saber or the
bayonet without warning people to get out of the way. Rotonde, the first
one, is an Italian, a teacher of English and professional rioter, who,
convicted of murder and robbery, is to end his days in Piedmont on the
gallows. The second, Lazowski, is a Pole, a former dandy, a
conceited fop, who, with Slave facility, becomes the barest of naked
sans-culottes; former enjoying a sinecure, then suddenly turned out in
the street, and shouting in the clubs against his protectors who he
sees put down; he is elected captain of the gunners of the battalion St.
Marcel, and is to be one of the September slaughterers. His drawing-room
temperament, however, is not rigorous enough for the part he plays in
the streets, and at the end of a year he is to die, consumed by a fever
and by brandy. The third is another chief slaughterer at the September
massacres. Fournier, known as the American, a former planter, who has
brought with him from St. Domingo a contempt for human life; "with
his livid and sinister countenance, his mustache, his triple belt of
pistols, his coarse language, his oaths, he looks like a pirate."
By their side we encounter a little hump-backed lawyer named
Cuirette-Verrières, an unceasing speaker, who, on the 6th of October,
1789, paraded the city on a large white horse and afterwards pleaded for
Marat, which two qualifications with his Punch figure, fully establish
him in the popular imagination; the rugged guys, moreover, who hold
nocturnal meetings at Santerre's needed a writer and he probably met
their requirements.--This secret society can count on other faithfuls.
"Brière, wine-dealer, Nicolas, a sapper in the 'Enfants Trouvés'
battalion, Gonor, claiming to be one of the victors of the
Bastille,"[2527] Rossignol, an old soldier and afterwards a
journeyman-jeweler, who, after presiding at the massacres of La
Force, is to become an improvised general and display his incapacity,
debauchery, and thievery throughout La Vendée. "There are yet more of
them," Huguenin undoubtedly, a ruined ex-lawyer, afterwards carabineer,
then a deserter, next a barrier-clerk, now serving as spokesman for
the Faubourg St. Honoré and finally president of the September commune;
there was also, doubtless, St. Huruge alias Père Adam, the great barker
of the Palais-Royal, a marquis fallen into the gutter, drinking with and
dressing like a common porter, always flourishing an enormous club and
followed by the riffraff.[2528]--These are all the leaders. The Jacobins
of the municipality and of the Assembly confine their support of
the enterprise to conniving at it and to giving it their
encouragement.[2529] It is better for the insurrection to seem
spontaneous. Through caution or shyness the Girondins, Pétion, Manual
and Danton himself, keep in the background----there is not reason for
their coming forward.--The rest, affiliated with the people and lost in
the crowd, are better qualified to fabricate the story which their flock
will like. This tale, adapted to the crowd's intellectual limits, form
and activity, is both simple and somber, such as children like, or
rather a melodrama taken from an alien stage in which the good appear
on one side, and the wicked on the other with an ogre or tyrant in the
center, some infamous traitor who is sure to be unmasked at the end of
the piece and punished according to his deserts, the whole grandiloquent
terms and, as a finale, winding up with a grand chorus. In the raw brain
of an over-excited workman politics find their way only in the shape
of rough-hewn, highly-colored imagery, such as is furnished by the
Marseillaise, the Carmagnole, and the Ça ira. The requisite motto is
adapted to his use; through this misshapen magnifying glass the most
gracious figure appears under a diabolical aspect. Louis XVI. is
represented here "as a monster using his power and treasure to oppose
the regeneration of the French. A new Charles IX., he desires to bring
on France death and desolation. Be gone, cruel man, your crimes must
end! Damiens was less guilty than thou art! He was punished with the
most horrible torture for having tried to rid France of a monster,
while you, attempting twenty-five million times more, are allowed full
immunity![2530] Let us trample under our feet this simulacra of royalty!
Tremble tyrants, Scoevolas are still amongst you!"

All this is pronounced, declaimed or rather shouted, publicly, in full
daylight, under the King's windows, by stump-speakers mounted on chairs,
while similar provocations daily flow from the committee installed in
Santerre's establishment, now in the shape of displays posted in
the faubourgs, now in that of petitions circulated in the clubs and
sections, now through motions which are gotten up "among the groups in
the Tuileries, in the Palais-Royal, in the Place de Grève and especially
on the Place de la Bastille." After the 2nd of June the leaders founded
a new club in the church of the "Enfants Trouvés" that they might have
their special laboratory and thus do their work on the spot.[2531] Like
Plato's demagogues, they understand their business. They have discovered
the cries which make the popular animal take note, what offense offends
him, what charm attracts him, and on what road he should be made to
follow. Once drawn in and under way, he will march blindly on, borne
along by his own involuntary inspiration and crushing with his mass all
that he encounters on his path.




IV.--The 20th of June.

     The programme.--The muster.--The procession before the
     Assembly.--Irruption into the Château.--The King in the
     presence of the people.

The bait has been carefully chosen and is well presented. It takes
the form of a celebration of the anniversary of the oath of the
Tennis-court. A tree of Liberty will be planted on the terrace of the
Feuillants and "petitions relating to circumstances" will be presented
in the Assembly and then to the King. As a precaution, and to impose on
the ill-disposed, the petitioners provide themselves with arms and line
the approaches.[2532]--A popular procession is an attractive thing, and
there are so many workers who do not know what to do with their empty
day! And, again, it is so pleasant to appear in a patriotic opera while
many, and especially women and children, want very much to see
Monsieur and Madame Veto. The people from the surrounding suburbs are
invited,[2533] the homeless prowlers and beggars will certainly join the
party, while the numerous body of Parisian loafers, the loungers that
join every spectacle can be relied on, and the curious who, even in
our time, gather by hundreds along the quays, following a dog that has
chanced to tumble into the river. All this forms a body which, without
thinking, will follow its head.

At five o'clock in the morning on the 20th of June groups are already
formed in the faubourgs St. Antoine and St. Marcel, consisting of
National Guards, pikemen, gunners with their cannon, persons armed with
sabers or clubs, and women and children.--A notice, indeed, just posted
on the walls, prohibits any assemblage, and the municipal officers
appear in their scarves and command or entreat the crowd not to break
the law.[2534] But, in a working-class brain, ideas are as tenacious
as they are short-lived. People count on a civic procession and get up
early in the morning to attend to it; the cannon have been hitched up,
the maypole tree is put on wheels and all is ready for the ceremony,
everybody takes a holiday and none are disposed to return home. Besides,
they have only good intentions. They know the law as well as the city
officials; they are "armed solely to have it observed and respected."
Finally, other armed petitioners have already filed along before the
National Assembly, and, as one is as good as another, "the law being
equal for all," others must be admitted as well. In any event they, too,
will ask permission of the National Assembly and they go expressly.
This is the last and the best argument of all, and to prove to the city
officials that they have no desire to engage in a riot, they request
them to join the procession and march along with them.

Meanwhile, time passes. In a crowd irritated by delay, the most
impatient, the rudest, those most inclined to commit violence, always
lead the rest.--At the head-quarters of the Val-de-Grâce[2535] the
pikemen seize the cannon and drag them along; the National Guards
let things take their course; Saint-Prix and Leclerc, the officers in
command, threatened with death, have nothing to do but to yield with a
protest.--There is the same state of things in the Montreuil section;
the resistance of four out of six of the battalion officers merely
served to give full power to the instigator of the insurrection, and
henceforth Santerre becomes the sole leader of the assembled crowd.
About half-past eleven he leaves his brewery, and, followed by cannon,
the flag, and the truck which bears the poplar tree, he places himself
at the head of the procession "consisting of about fifteen hundred
persons including the bystanders."[2536] Like a snowball, however,
the troop grows as it marches along until, on reaching the National
Assembly, Santerre has behind him from seven to eight thousand
persons.[2537] Guadet and Vergniaud move that the petitioners be
introduced; their spokesman, Huguenin, in a bombastic and threatening
address, denounces the ministry, the King, the accused at Orleans, the
deputies of the "Right," demands "blood," and informs the Assembly that
the people "resolute" is ready to take the law in their own hands.[2538]
Then, with drums beating and bands playing, the crowd defiles for
more than an hour through the chamber under the eyes of Santerre and
Saint-Huruge: here and there a few files of the National Guard pass
mingled with the throng and lost in "the moving forest of pikes"; all
the rest is pure rabble, "hideous faces,"[2539] says a deputy, on
which poverty and loose living have left their marks, ragamuffins, men
"without coats," in their shirt-sleeves, armed in all sorts of ways,
with chisels and shoe-knives fastened on sticks, one with a saw on
a pole ten feet long, women and children, some of them brandishing a
saber.[2540] In the middle of this procession, an old pair of breeches
[culottes] borne on a pike with this motto: Vivent les Sans-Culottes!
and, on a pitch-fork, the heart of a calf with this inscription:
Coeur d'aristocrate, both significant emblems of the grim humor the
imaginations of rag-dealers or butchers might come up with for a
political carnival.--This, indeed, it is, they have been drinking and
many are drunk.[2541] A parade is not enough, they want also to amuse
themselves: traversing the hall they sing ça ira and dance in the
intervals. They at the same time show their civism by shouting Vive les
patriotes! A bas le Veto! They fraternise, as they pass along, with the
good deputies of the "Left"; they jeer those of the "Right" and shake
their fists at them; one of these, known by his tall stature, is told
that his business will be settled for him the first opportunity.[2542]
Thus do they flaunt their collaborators to the Assembly, everyone
prepared and willing to act, even against the Assembly itself.--And
yet, with the exception of an iron-railing pushed in by the crowd and an
irruption on to the terrace of the "Feuillants," no act of violence
was committed. The Paris population, except when in a rage, is rather
voluble and curious than ferocious; besides, thus far, no one had
offered any resistance. The crowd is now sated with shouting and
parading; many of them yawn with boredom and weariness;[2543] at four
o'clock they have stood on their legs for ten or twelve hours. The human
stream issuing from the Assembly and emptying itself into the
Carrousel remains stagnant there and seems ready to return to its usual
channels.--This is not what the leaders had intended. Santerre, on
arriving with Saint-Huruge, cries out to his men, "Why didn't you enter
the château? You must go in--that is what we came here for."[2544] A
lieutenant of the Val-de-Grâce gunners shouts: "We have forced open the
Carrousel, we must force open the château too! This is the first time
the Val-de-Grâce gunners march--they are not j.... f.... Come, follow
me, my men, on to the enemy![2545]--"Meanwhile, outside the gate,
some of the municipal officers selected by Pétion amongst the most
revolutionary members of the council, overcome resistance by their
speeches and commands. 'After all," says one of them, named Mouchet,
"the right of petition is sacred."--" Open the gate!" shout Sergent and
Boucher-René, "nobody has a right to shut it. Every citizen has a right
to go through it!"[2546] A gunner raises the latch, the gate opens and
the court fills in the winkling of an eye;[2547] the crowd rushes under
the archway and up the grand stairway with such impetuosity that a
cannon borne along by hand reaches the third room on the first story
before it stops. The doors crack under the blows of axes and, in the
large hall of the Oeil de Boeuf, the multitude find themselves face to
face with the King.

In such circumstances the representatives of public authority, the
directories, the municipalities, the military chiefs, and, on the 6th of
October, the King himself, have all thus far yielded; they have either
yielded or perished. Santerre, certain of the issue, preferred to take
no part in this affair; he prudently holds back, he shies away, and lets
the crowd push him into the council chamber, where the Queen, the young
Dauphin, and the ladies have taken refuge.[2548] There, with his tall,
corpulent figure, he formed a sort of shield to forestall useless and
compromising injuries. In the mean time, in the Oeil de Boeuf, he lets
things take their course; everything will be done in his absence that
ought to be done, and in this he seems to have calculated justly.--On
one side, in a window recess, sits the King on a bench, almost alone,
while in front of him, as a guard, are four or five of the National
Guards; on the other side, in the apartments, is an immense crowd,
hourly increasing according as the rumor of the irruption spreads in the
vicinity, fifteen or twenty thousand persons, a prodigious accumulation,
a pell-mell traversed by eddies, a howling sea of bodies crushing each
other, and of which the simple flux and reflux would flatten against the
walls obstacles ten times as strong, an uproar sufficient to shatter the
window panes, "frightful yells," curses and imprecations, "Down with M.
Veto!" "Let Veto go to the devil!" "Take back the patriot ministers!"
"He shall sign; we won't go away till he does!"[2549]--Foremost among
them all, Legendre, more resolute than Santerre, declares himself the
spokesman and trustee of the powers of the sovereign people: "Sir," says
he to the King, who, he sees, makes a gesture of surprise, "yes, Sir,
listen to us; you are made to listen to what we say! You are a traitor!
You have always deceived us; you deceive us now! But look out, the
measure is full; the people are tired of being played upon!"--" Sire,
Sire," exclaims another fanatic, "I ask you in the name of the hundred
thousand beings around us to recall the patriot ministers... I demand
the sanction of the decree against the priests and the twenty thousand
men. Either the sanction or you shall die!"--But little is wanting for
the threat to be carried out. The first comers are on hand, "presenting
pikes," among them "a brigand," with a rusty sword blade on the end of
a pole, "very sharp," and who points this at the King. Afterwards the
attempt at assassination is many times renewed, obstinately, by three or
four madmen determined to kill, and who make signs of so doing, one,
a shabby, ragged fellow, who keeps up his excitement with "the foulest
propositions," the second one, "a so-called conqueror of the Bastille,"
formerly porte-tête for Foulon and Berthier, and since driven out of
the battalion, the third, a market-porter, who, "for more than an hour,"
armed with a saber, makes a terrible effort to make his way to the
king.[2550]--Nothing is done. The king remains impassible under every
threat. He takes the hand of a grenadier who wishes to encourage him,
and, placing it on his breast, bids him, "See if that is the beating of
a heart agitated by fear."[2551] To Legendre and the zealots who call
upon him to sanction, he replies without the least excitement:

"I have never departed from the Constitution.... I will do what the
Constitution requires me to do.... It is you who break the law."
--And, for nearly three hours, remaining standing, blockaded on his
bench,[2552] he persists in this without showing a sign of weakness
or of anger. This cool deportment at last produces an effect, the
impression it makes on the spectators not being at all that which they
anticipated. It is very clear that the personage before them is not the
monster which has been depicted to them, a somber, imperious tyrant, the
savage, cunning Charles IX. they had hissed on the stage. They see a man
somewhat stout, with placid, benevolent features, whom they would take,
without his blue sash, for an ordinary, peaceable bourgeois.[2553] His
ministers, near by, three or four men in black coats, gentlemen and
respectable employees, are just what they seem to be. In another window
recess stands his sister, Madame Elizabeth, with her sweet and innocent
face. This pretended tyrant is a man like other men; he speaks gently,
he says that the law is on his side, and nobody says the contrary;
perhaps he is less wrong than he is thought to be. If he would only
become a patriot!--A woman in the room brandishes a sword with a cockade
on its point; the King makes a sign and the sword is handed to him,
which he raises and, hurrahing with the crowd, cries out: Vive la
Nation! That is already one good sign. A red cap is shaken in the air at
the end of a pole. Some one offers it to him and he puts it on his head;
applause bursts forth, and shouts of Vive la Nation! Vive la Liberte!
and even vive le Roi!

From this time forth the greatest danger is over. But it is not that the
besiegers abandon the siege. "He did damned well," they exclaim, "to put
the cap on, and if he hadn't we would have seen what would come of it.
And damn it, if he does not sanction the decree against the priests, and
do it right off; we will come back every day. In this way we shall tire
him out and make him afraid of us.--But the day wears on. The heat is
over-powering, the fatigue extreme, the King less deserted and better
protected. Five or six of the deputies, three of the municipal officers,
a few officers of the National Guard, have succeeded in making their way
to him. Pétion himself, mounted on a sofa, harangues the people with
his accustomed flattery.[2554] At the same time Santerre, aware of the
opportunity being lost, assumes the attitude of a liberator, and shouts
in his rough voice: "I answer for the royal family. Let me see to it."
A line of National Guards forms in front of the King, when, slowly and
with difficulty, urged by the mayor, the crowd melts away, and, by eight
o'clock in the evening, it is gone.


*****


[Footnote 2501: Moniteur, X. 39 and following pages (sessions of Oct.
5 and 6, 1791). Speeches by Chabot, Couthon, Lequinio, and
Vergniaud.--Mercure de France, Oct. 15. Speech by Robespierre, May 17,
1790. "The king is not the nation's representative, but its clerk."--Cf.
Ernest Hamel, "Vie de Robespierre."]

[Footnote 2502: Moniteur, XIII. 97 (session of July 6, 1792)]

[Footnote 2503: Buchez et Roux, XIII. 61, Jan.28, 1792. The King in his
usually mild way calls the attention of the Assembly to the usurpation
it is committing. "The form adopted by you is open to important
observations. I shall not extend these to-day; the gravity of the
situation demands that I concern myself much more with maintaining
harmonious sentiments than with continually discussing my rights."]

[Footnote 2504: Sauzay, II. 99. Letter of the deputy Vernerey to the
Directory of Doubs: "The Directory of the department may always act with
the greatest severity against the seditious, and, apart from the article
relating to their pension, follow the track marked out in the decree. If
the executive desires to impede the operations of the Directory.. .
the latter has its recourse in the National Assembly, which in
all probability will afford it a shelter against ministerial
attacks."--Moniteur, XII. 202 (session of April 23). Report of Roland,
Minister of the Interior. Already at this date forty-two departments had
expelled or interned the unsworn ecclesiastics.]

[Footnote 2505: Mercure-de-France, Feb.25.]

[Footnote 2506: Moniteur, X. 440 (session of Nov.22, 1791). A letter to
M. Southon, Director of the Mint at Paris, is read, "complaining of an
arbitrary order, that of the Minister of the Interior, to report himself
at Pau on the 25th of this month, under penalty of dismissal." Isnard
supports the charge: "M. Southon," he says, "is here at work on a very
circumstantial denunciation of the Minister of the Interior (Applause
from the galleries.) If citizens who are zealous enough to make war
on abuses are sent back to their departments we shall never have
denunciations" (The applause is renewed.):--Ibid., X, 504 (session of
Nov. 29). Speech by Isnard: "Our ministers must know that we are not
fully satisfied with the conduct of each of them repeated applause:;
that henceforth they must simply choose between public gratitude and the
vengeance of the law, and that our understanding of the word
responsibility is death." (The applause is renewed.)--The Assembly
orders this speech to be printed and sent into the departments.--Cf.
XII, 73, 138, etc.]

[Footnote 2507: Moniteur, XI. 603. (Session of March 10. Speech by
Brissot, to secure a decree of accusation against M. Delessart, Minister
of Foreign Affairs.) M. Delessart is a "perfidious man," for having
stated in a dispatch that "the Constitution, with the great majority
of the nation, has become a sort of religion which is embraced with
the greatest enthusiasm." Brissot denounces these two expressions as
inadequate and anti-patriotic.-Ibid., XII. 438 (session of May 20).
Speech by Guadet: "Larivière, the juge-de-paix, has convicted himself
of the basest and most atrocious of passions, in having desired to usurp
the power which the Constitution has placed in the hands of the National
Assembly."--I do not believe that Laubardemont himself could have
composed anything equal to these two speeches.--Cf. XII. 462 (session
of May 23). Speech by Brissot and one by Gonsonné on the Austrian
committee. The feebleness and absurdity of their argument is
incredible.]

[Footnote 2508: Affairs of the Minister Duport-Dutertre and of the
Ambassador to Vienna, M. de Noailles.]

[Footnote 2509: Mercure de France, March 10, 1792.]

[Footnote 2510: Moniteur, XI. 607 (session of March 10).]

[Footnote 2511: Moniteur, XII.396 (session of May 15). Isnard's address
is the ground-plan of Roland's famous letter.--Cf. passim, the sessions
of the Assembly during the Girondist ministry, especially those of May
19 and 20, June 5, etc.]

[Footnote 2512: Dumouriez, "Mémoires," book III. ch. VI.]

[Footnote 2513: "Letter of a young mechanician," proposing to make a
constitutional king, which, "by means of a spring, would receive
from the hands of the president of the Assembly a list of ministers
designated by the majority" (1791).]

[Footnote 2514: Servan, who was Girondist minister of war, proposed to
let 20 000 fédérés or provincial National guards establish themselves
outside Paris. (SR).]

[Footnote 2515: You will meet this sinister expression later on when
the Government ceased killing in France but simply sent undesirables and
imaginary or real opponents overseas to death-camps. Transportation was
used by Stalin and Hitler only their extermination took place in their
own countries not overseas. (SR).]

[Footnote 2516: Moniteur, XI. 426 (session of May 19). Speech by
Lasource: "Could not things be so arranged as to have a considerable
force near enough to the capital to terrify and keep inactive the
factions, the intriguers, the traitors who are plotting perfidious plans
in its bosom, simultaneously with the maneuvers of outside enemies?"]

[Footnote 2517: 'Mallet du Pan, "Mémoires." I. 303. Letter of Malouet,
June 29: "The king is calm and perfectly resigned. On the 19th he wrote
to his confessor: "Come, sir; never have I had so much need of your
consolations. I am done with men; I must now turn my eyes to heaven. Sad
events are announced for to-morrow. I shall have courage.' "--"Lettres
de Coray au Protopsalte de Smyrne" (translated by M. de Queux de
Saint-Hilaire,) 145, May 1st: "The court is in peril every moment. Do
not be surprised if I write you some day that his unhappy king and his
wife are assassinated."."]

[Footnote 2518: Rétif de la Bretonne, "Nuits de Paris," Vol. XVI.
(analyzed by Lacroix in "Bibliothèque de Rétif de la Bretonne" ).--Rétif
is the man in Paris who lived the most in the streets and had the most
intercourse with the low class.]

[Footnote 2519: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3276. Letter from the
Directory of Clamecy, March 27, and official report of the civil
commissioners, March 31, 1792, on the riot of the raftsmen. Tracu, their
captain, armed with a cudgel ten feet long, compelled peaceful people
to march along with him, threatening to knock them down; he tried to get
the head of Peynier, the clerk of the Paris dealers in wood. "I shall
have a good supper to-night," he exclaimed "(or the head of that bastard
Peynier is a fat one, and I'll stick it in my Pot!")]

[Footnote 2520: Letters of Coray, 126. "This pillaging has lasted three
days, Jan. 22, 23 and 24, and we expect from hour to hour similar riots
still more terrible."]

[Footnote 2521: Mercier (" Tableau de Paris") had already noticed before
the Revolution this habit of the Parisian workman, especially among the
lowest class of workmen.]

[Footnote 2522: Mortimer-Ternaux, 1.346 (letter of June 21, 1792).]

[Footnote 2523: Buchez et Roux, VIII. 25 (session of the National
Assembly, Nov.10, 1790). Petition presented by Danton in the name of the
forty-eight sections of Paris.]

[Footnote 2524: Buchez et Roux, XIV. 268 (May. 1792). Article by
Robespierre against the fête decreed in honor of Simonneau, Mayor of
Etampes, assassinated in a riot: "Simonneau was guilty before he became
a victim."]

[Footnote 2525: How can one forget that great seducer of the masses
Hitler? In his book "Hitler Speaks" page 208 Rauschning reports Hitler
as saying: "It is true that the masses are uncritical, but not in the
way these idiots of Marxists and reactionaries imagine. The masses have
their critical faculties, too, but they function differently from those
of the private individual. The masses are like an animal they obeys
instincts. They do not reach conclusions by reasoning. My success in
initiating the greatest people's movement of all time is due to my never
having done anything in violation of the vital laws and feelings of the
mass. These feelings may be primitive, but they have the resistance and
indestructibility of natural qualities. A once intensely felt experience
in the life of the masses, like ration cards and inflation, will never
again be driven out of their blood. The masses have a simple system
of thinking and feeling, and anything that cannot be fitted into
it disturbs them. It is only because I take their vital laws into
consideration that I can rule them."]

[Footnote 2526: Moniteur, XII. 254.--According to the royal almanac of
1792 the Paris national guard comprises 32,000 men, divided into
sixty battalions, to which must be added the battalions of pikemen,
spontaneously organized and composed, especially of the non-active
citizens.--Cf. in "Les Révolutions de Paris," Prudhomme's Journal, the
engravings which represent this sort of procession.]

[Footnote 2527: Buchez et Roux, XV. 122. Declaration of Lareynie, a
volunteer soldier in the Ile Saint-Louis battalion.--To those which he
names I add Huguenin, because on the 20th of June it was his duty to
read the petition of the rioters; also Saint-Huruge, because he led the
mob with Santerre.--About Rossignol, Cf. Dauban, "La Demagogie à Paris,"
369 (according to the manuscript memoirs of Mercier du Rocher). He
reaches Fontenay Aug.21, 1793, with the representative Bourbotte,
Momoro, commissary-general, three adjutants, Moulins, Hasard, the
ex-priest, Grammont, an ex-actor and several prostitutes. "The prettiest
shared her bed with Bourbotte and Rossignol." They lodge in a mansion to
which seals are affixed. "The seals were broken, and jewelry, dresses,
and female apparel were confiscated for the benefit of the general and
his followers. There was nothing, even down to the crockery, which did
not become the booty of these self-styled republicans"]

[Footnote 2528: Mathon de la Varenne, "Histoire particulière des
événements qui ont eu lieu en juin, juillet, août, et septembre, 1792,"
p. 23. (He knew Saint-Huruge personally.) Saint-Huruge had married an
actress at Lyons in 1778. On returning to Paris he learned through the
police that his wife was a trollop, and he treated her accordingly.
Enraged, she looked up Saint-Huruge's past career, and found two charges
against him, one for the robbery and assassination of an alien merchant,
and the other for infanticide; she obtained his incarceration by a
lettre-de-cachet. He was shut in Charenton from Jan. 14, 1781, to
December, 1784, when he was transferred to another prison and afterwards
exiled to his estates, from which he fled to England. He returned to
France on the outbreak of the Revolution.]

[Footnote 2529: With respect to connivance, Cf. Mortimer-Ternaux, I. 132
and the following pages.--Mallet du Pan, "Mémoires," I. 300. Letter of
the Abbé de Pradt, June 21, 1795. "The insurrection had been announced
for several days... The evening before, 150 deputies so many Jacobins,
had dined at their great table in the Champs-Elysées, and distributed
presents of wine and food."]

[Footnote 2530: Moniteur, XII. 642 (session of June 12, 1792, narrative
of M. Delfaux, deputy).--The execution of Damiens was witnessed by
Parisians still living, while "Charles IX.," by Marie Chénier, was
at this time the most popular tragedy.--"The French people," says M.
Ferières (I. 35), "went away from its representation eager for vengeance
and tormented with a thirst for blood. At the end of the fourth act a
lugubrious bell announces the moment of the massacre, and the audience,
drawing in its breath sighing and groaning, furiously exclaims silence!
silence! as if fearing that the sound of this death-knell had not
stirred the heart to its very depths."--"Révolutions de Paris," number
for June 23, 1792. "The speakers, under full sail, distributed their
parts amongst themselves," one against the staffs, another against
priests, another against judges, department, and the ministers, and
especially the king. "Some there are, and we agree in this with the
sieur Delfaux, who pass the measure and advise murder through gestures,
eyes, and speech."]

[Footnote 2531: Mortimer-Ternaux, I. 133.--There is the same calculation
and the same work-shop in the faubourg Saints-Marcel (report of
Saint-Prix, commandant of the Val-de-Grâce battalion). "Minds remained
tranquil until a club was opened at the Porte Saint-Marcel; now they
are all excited and divided. This dub, which is in contact with that of
Santerre, urges citizens to go armed to-morrow (June 20) to the National
Assembly and to the king's Palace, notwithstanding the acts of the
constituted authorities."]

[Footnote 2532: Mortimer-Ternaux, I. 136. This program is first
presented to the council-general of the commune by Lazowski and nine
others (June 16). The council-general rejects it and refers to the law.
"The petitioners, on learning this decision, loudly declare that it
shall not prevent them from assembling in arms" (Buchez et Roux, XV.
120, official report by M. Borie).--The bibliography of documents
relating to the 20th of June is given by Mortimer-Ternaux, I. 397 and
following pages. The principal documents are found in Mortimer-Ternaux,
in "L'Histoire Parlementaire" of Buchez et Roux, and in the Revue
Rétrospective.]

[Footnote 2533: "Correspondance de Mirabeau et M. de la Marck," III.
319. Letter of the Count de Montmorin, June 21, 1792. "The Paris bandits
not being sufficient, they have invited in these of the neighboring
villages."]

[Footnote 2534: Reports of the municipal officers Perron (7 o'clock
in the morning), Sergent (8 o'clock), Mouchet, Gujard, and Thomas (9
o'clock).]

[Footnote 2535: Report of Saint Prix, commandant of the Val-de-Grâce
battalion (10 o'clock In the morning).--Report of Alexandre, commanding
the Saint-Marcel battalion. "The whole battalion was by no means ready
to march."--Official report of the Montreuil section. Bonneau, the
commander concludes to march only under protest and to avoid spilling
blood.]

[Footnote 2536: Deposition of Lareyrnie, a volunteer soldier of the Ile
Saint-Louis battalion.]

[Footnote 2537: Deposition of M. Witinghof,
lieutenant-general.--"Correspondence of Mirabeau and M. de la Marck."
Letter of M. de Montmorin, June 21. "At two o'clock the gathering
amounted to 8,000 or 10,000 persons."]

[Footnote 2538: Moniteur, XII. 717. "What a misfortune for the freemen
who have transferred their powers to you, to find themselves reduced
to the cruel necessity of dipping their hands in the blood of
conspirators!" etc.--The character of the leaders is apparent in their
style. The incompetent copyist who drew up the address did not even know
the meaning of words. "The people so wills it, and its head is of more
account than that of crowned despots. That head is the genealogical tree
of the nation, and before that robust head the feeble reed must bend!"
He has already recited the fable of "The Oak and the Bulrush," and he
knows the names of Demosthenes, Cicero, and Catiline. It seems to be the
composition of a school master turned public letter writer, at a penny a
page.]

[Footnote 2539: Hua, "Mémoires," 134.]

[Footnote 2540: Moniteur, XII. 718.]

[Footnote 2541: "Chronique des cinquante jours," by Roederer,
syndic-attorney of the department.]

[Footnote 2542: Hua, 134.--Bourrienne, "Mémoires," I. 49. (He was with
Bonaparte in a restaurant, rue Saint-Honoré, near the Palais-Royal.) "On
going out we saw a troop coming from the direction of the market, which
Bonaparte estimated at from 5,000 to 6,000 men, all in rags and armed in
the oddest manner, yelling and shouting the grossest provocations, and
turning towards the Tuileries. It was certainly the vilest and most
abject lot that could be found in the faubourgs. 'Let us follow that
rabble,' said Bonaparte to me." They ascend the terrace on the river
bank. "I could not easily describe the surprise and indignation which
these scenes excited in him. He did not like so much weakness and
forbearance. 'Che coglione! he exclaimed in a loud tone. 'How could they
let those rascals in? Four or five hundred of them ought to have been
swept off with cannon, and the rest would still be running!'"]

[Footnote 2543: "Chronique des cinquante jours," by Roederer.--Deposition
of Lareynie.]

[Footnote 2544: Deposition of Lareynie.]

[Footnote 2545: Report of Saint-Prix.]

[Footnote 2546: Report by Mouchet.--Deposition of Lareynie. (The
interference of Sergent and Boucher-Réne is contested, but Raederer
thinks it very probable.)]

[Footnote 2547: M. Pinon, in command of the 5th legion, and M. Vannot,
commanding a battalion, tried to shut the iron gate of the archway, but
are driven back and told: "You want thousands to perish, do you, to
save one man?" This significant expression is heard over and over
again during the Revolution, and it explains the success of the
insurrections.--Alexandre, in command of the Saint-Marcel battalion,
says in his report: "Why make a resistance which can be of no usefulness
to the public, one which may even compromise it a great deal more?..."]

[Footnote 2548: Deposition of Lareynie. The attitude of Santerre is here
clearly defined. At the foot of the staircase in the court he is stopped
by a group of citizens, who threaten "to make him responsible for
any harm done," and tell him: "You alone are the author of this
unconstitutional assemblage; it is you alone who have led away these
worthy people. You are a rascal!"--"The tone of these honest citizens in
addressing the sieur Santerre made him turn pale. But, encouraged by
a glance from the sieur Legendre, he resorted to a hypocritical
subterfuge, and addressing the troop, he said: 'Gentlemen, draw up
a report, officially stating that I refuse to enter the king's
apartments.' The only answer the crowd made, accustomed to divining what
Santerre meant, was to hustle the group of honest citizens out of the
way."]

[Footnote 2549: Depositions of four of the national guard, Lecrosnier,
Gossé, Bidault, and Guiboult.--Reports of Acloque and de Lachesnaye,
commanding officers of the legion.--"Chronique des cinquante jours," by
Roederer.--Ibid. p.65: "I have to state that, during the Convention, the
butcher Legendre declared to Boissy d'Anglas, from whom I had it, that
the plan was to kill the king."--Prudhomme, "Crimes de la Révolution,"
III.43. "The king was to be assassinated. We heard citizens all in rags
say that it was a pity; he looks like a good sort of a bastard."]

[Footnote 2550: Madame Campan, "Mémoires," II. 212. "M. Vannot,
commander of the battalion, had turned aside a weapon aimed at the king.
One of the grenadiers of the Filles-Saint-Thomas warded off a blow with
a sword, aimed in the same direction with the same intention."]

[Footnote 2551: Declaration of Lachesnaye, in command of the
legion.--Moniteur, XII. 719 (evening session of June 20). Speech of M.
Alos, an eye-witness. (The king does this twice, using about the same
words, the first time immediately on the irruption of the crowd, and
the second time probably after Vergniaud's harangue.) Declaration of
Lachesnaye, in command of the legion.--Moniteur, XII. 719 (evening
session of June 20). Speech of M. Alos, an eye-witness. (The king does
this twice, using about the same words, the first time immediately
on the irruption of the crowd, and the second time probably after
Vergniaud's harangue.)]

[Footnote 2552: The engraving in the "Révolutions de Paris" represents
him seated, and separated from the crowd by an empty space; that is a
falsehood of the party..]

[Footnote 2553: The queen produces the same impression. Prudhomme, in
his journal, calls her "the Austrian panther," which word well expresses
the idea of her in the faubourgs. A prostitute stops before her and
bestows on her a volley of curses. The reply of the queen is: "Have I
ever done you any wrong?" "No; but it is you who do so much harm to the
nation." "You have been deceived," replies the queen. "I married the
King of France. I am the mother of the dauphin. I am a French woman. I
shall never again see my own country. I shall never be either happy or
miserable anywhere but in France. When you loved me I was happy then."
The prostitute burst into tears. "Ah. Madame, forgive me! I did not know
you. I see that you have been very good." Santerre, however, wishing
to put an end to this emotion, cries out: "The girl is drunk "--(Madame
Campan, II. 214.--Report by Mandat, an officer of the legion.)]

[Footnote 2554: Mortimer-Ternaux, I. 213. "Citizens, you have just
legally made known your will to the hereditary representative of the
nation; you have done this with the dignity, with the majesty of a free
people! There is no doubt that your demands will be reiterated by the
eighty-three departments, while the king cannot refrain from acquiescing
in the manifest will of the people."]




CHAPTER VI. THE BIRTH OF THE TERRIBLE PARIS COMMUNE.




I.--Indignation of the Constitutionalists.

     Cause of their weakness.--The Girondins renew the attack.
     --Their double plan.

As the blow has missed the target, it must be repeated. This is the
more urgent, inasmuch as the faction has thrown off the mask and "honest
people"[2601] on all sides become indignant at seeing the Constitution
subject to the arbitrariness of the lowest class. Nearly all the higher
administrative bodies, seventy-five of the department directories,[2602]
give in their adhesion to Lafayette's letter, or respond by supporting
the proclamation, so noble and so moderate, in which the King,
recounting the violence done to him, maintains his legal rights with
mournful, inflexible gentleness. Many of the towns, large and small,
thank him for his firmness, the addresses being signed by "the notables
of the place,"[2603] chevaliers of St. Louis, former officials, judges
and district-administrators, physicians, notaries, lawyers, recorders,
post-masters, manufacturers, merchants, people who are settled down, in
short the most prominent and the most respected men. At Paris, a similar
petition, drawn up by two former Constituents, contains 247 pages of
signatures attested by 99 notaries.[2604] Even in the council-general
of the commune a majority is in favor of publicly censuring the mayor
Pétion, the syndic-attorney Manuel, and the police administrators Panis,
Sergent, Viguer, and Perron.[2605] On the evening of June 20th, the
department council orders an investigation; it follows this up; it
urges it on; it proves by authentic documents the willful inaction, the
hypocritical connivance, the double-dealing of the syndic-attorney and
the mayor;[2606] it suspends both from their functions, and cites them
before the courts as well as Santerre and his accomplices. Lafayette,
finally, adding to the weight of his opinion the influence of his
presence, appears at the bar of the National Assembly and demands
"effectual" measures against the usurpations of the Jacobin sect,
insisting that the instigators of the riot of the 20th of June
be punished "as guilty of lése-nation." As a last and still more
significant symptom, his proceedings are approved of in the Assembly by
a majority of more than one hundred votes.[2607]

All this must and will be crushed out. For on the side of the
Constitutionalists, whatever they may be, whether King, deputies,
ministers, generals, administrators, notables or national-guards, the
will to act evaporates in words; and the reason is, they are civilized
beings, long accustomed to the ways of a regular community, interested
from father to son in keeping the law, disconcerted at the thought of
consequences, upset by multifaceted ideas, unable to comprehend that, in
the state of nature to which France has reverted, but one idea is of
any account, that of the man who, in accepting a declared war, meets the
offensive with the offensive, loads his gun, descends into the street
and contends with the savage destroyers of human society.----Nobody
comes to the support of Lafayette, who alone has the courage to take the
lead; about one hundred men muster at the rendezvous named by him in the
Champs-Élysées. They agree to march to the Jacobin club the following
day and close it, provided the number is increased to three hundred; but
the next day only thirty turn up. Lafayette can do no more than leave
Paris and write a letter containing another protest.--Protestations,
appeals to the Constitution, to the law, to public interest, to common
sense, well-reasoned arguments; this side will never resort to anything
else than speeches and paperwork; and, in the coming conflict words will
be of no use.--Imagine a quarrel between two men, one ably presenting
his case and the other indulging in little more than invective; the
latter, having encountered an enormous mastiff on his road, has caressed
him, enticed him, and led him along with him as an auxiliary. To the
mastiff, clever argumentation is only so much unmeaning sound; with his
eager eyes fixed on his temporary master he awaits only his signal to
spring on the adversaries he points out. On the 20th of June he has
almost strangled one of them, and covered him with his slaver. On the
21st,[2608] he is ready to spring again. He continues to growl for fifty
days, at first sullenly and then with terrific energy. On the 25th of
June, July 14 and 27, August 3 and 5, he again makes a spring and is
kept back only with great difficulty.[2609] Already on one occasion,
July 29th, his fangs are wet with human gore.[2610]--At each turn of the
parliamentary debate the defenseless Constitutionalists beholds those
open jaws before him; it is not surprising that he throws to this
dog, or allows to be thrown to him, all the decrees demanded by the
Girondists as a bone for him to gnaw on.--Sure of their strength the
Girondists renew the attack, and the plan of their campaign seems to be
skillfully prepared. They are quite willing to retain the King on his
throne, but on the condition that he shall be a mere puppet; that he
shall recall the patriot ministers, allow them to appoint the Dauphin's
tutor, and that Lafayette shall be removed;[2611] otherwise the Assembly
will pass the act of de-thronement and seize the executive power. Such
is the defile with two issues in which they have placed the Assembly and
the King. If the King balks at leaving by the first door, the Assembly,
equally nonplused, will leave through the second; in either case, as the
all-powerful ministers of the submissive King or as executive delegates
of the submissive Assembly, the Girondists will become the masters of
France.




II.--Pressure on the King.

     Pétion and Manual brought to the Hôtel-de-ville.--The
     Ministry obliged to resign.--Jacobin agitation against the
     King.--Pressure on the Assembly.--Petition of the Paris
     Commune.--Threats of the petitioners and of the galleries.
     --Session of August 8th.--Girondist strategy foiled in two
     ways.

With this in mind they begin by attacking the King, and try to make
him yield through fear.--They remove the suspension pronounced against
Pétion and Manuel, and restore them both to their places in the
Hôtel-de-ville. They will from now on rule Paris without restriction or
supervision; for the Directory of the department has resigned, and no
superior authority exists to prevent them from calling upon or giving
orders as they please to the armed forces; they are exempt from all
subordination, as well as from all control. Behold the King of France
in good hands, in those of the men who, on the 20th of June, refused to
nuzzle the popular brute, declaring that it had done well, that it had
right on its side, and that it may begin again. According to them, the
palace of the monarch belongs to the public; people may enter it as they
would a coffee-house; in any event, as the municipality is occupied
with other matters, it cannot be expected to keep people out. "Is
there nothing else to guard in Paris but the Tuileries and the
King?"[2612]--Another maneuver consists in rendering the King's
instruments powerless. Honorable and inoffensive as the new ministers
may be, they never appear in the Assembly without being hooted at in
the tribunes. Isnard, pointing with his finger to the principal one,
exclaims: "That is a traitor!"[2613] Every popular outburst is imputed
to them as a crime, while Guadet declares that, "as royal counselors,
they are answerable for any disturbances" that the double veto might
produce.[2614] Not only does the faction declare them guilty of the
violence provoked by itself, but, again, it demands their lives for
the murders which it commits. "France must know," says Vergniaud, "that
hereafter ministers are to answer with their heads for any disorders
of which religion is the pretext."--"The blood just spilt at Bordeaux,"
says Ducos, "may be laid at the door of the executive power. "[2615] La
Source proposes to "punish with death," not alone the minister who is
not prompt in ordering the execution of a decree, but, again, the clerks
who do not fulfill the minister's instructions. Always death on every
occasion, and for every one who is not of the sect. Under this constant
terror, the ministers resign in a body, and the King is required at once
to appoint others; meanwhile, to increase the danger of their position,
the Assembly decrees that hereafter they shall "be answerable for
each other." It is evident that they are aiming at the King over his
minister's shoulders, while the Girondists leave nothing unturned to
render government to him impossible. The King, again, signs this new
decree; he declines to protest; to the persecution he is forced to
undergo he opposes nothing but silence, sometimes a simple, frank,
good-hearted expression,[2616] some kindly, touching complaining, which
seems like a suppressed moan.[2617] But dogmatic obstinacy and impatient
ambition are willfully deaf to the most sorrowful strains! His sincerity
passes for a new false-hood. Vergniaud, Brissot, Torné, Condorcet, in
the tribune, charge him with treachery, demand from the Assembly the
right of suspending him,[2618] and give the signal to their Jacobin
auxiliaries.--At the invitation of the parent club, the provincial
branches bestir themselves, while all other instruments of
agitation belonging to the revolutionary machine are likewise put in
motion,--gatherings on the public squares, homicidal announcements
on the walls, incendiary resolutions in the clubs, shouting in the
tribunes, insulting addresses and seditious deputations at the bar of
the National Assembly.[2619] After the working of this system for a
month, the Girondists regard the King as subdued, and, on the 26th of
July, Guadet, and then Brissot, in the tribune, make their last advances
to him, and issue the final summons.[2620] A profound delusion! He
refuses, the same as on the 20th of June: "Girondist ministers, Never!"

Since he bars one of the two doors, they will pass out at the other,
and, if the Girondists cannot rule through him, they will rule without
him. Pétion, in the name of the Commune, appears personally and proposes
a new plan, demanding the dethronement. "This important measure once
passed,"[2621] he says, "the confidence of the nation in the actual
dynasty being very doubtful, we demand that a body of ministers,
jointly responsible, appointed by the National Assembly, but, as the
constitutional law provides, outside of itself, elected by the open
vote of freemen, be provisionally entrusted with the executive power."
Through this open vote the suffrage will be easily controlled. This is
but one more decree extorted, like so many others, the majority for a
long time having been subject to the same pressure as the King. "If you
refuse to respond to our wishes," as a placard of the 23rd of June had
already informed them, "our hands are lifted, and we shall
strike all traitors wherever they can be found, even amongst
yourselves."[2622]--"Court favorites," says a petition of August
6, "have seats in your midst. Let their inviolability perish if the
national will must always tamely submit to that lethal power!"--In the
Assembly the yells from the galleries are frightful; the voices of
those who speak against dethronement are overpowered; so great are the
hooting, the speakers are driven out of the tribune.[2623] Sometimes the
"Right" abandons the discussion and leaves the chamber. The insolence
of the galleries goes so far that frequently almost the entire Assembly
murmurs while they applaud; the majority, in short, loudly expresses
anger at its bondage.[2624]--Let it be careful! In the tribunes and at
the approaches to the edifice, stand the Federates, men who have a tight
grip. They will force it to vote the decisive measure, the accusation of
Lafayette, the decree under which the armed champion of the King and the
Constitution must fall. The Girondists, to make sure of it, exact a
call of the house; in this way the names are announced and printed, thus
designating to the populace the opponents of the measure, so that none
of them are sure of getting to their homes safe and sound.--Lafayette,
however, a liberal, a democrat, and a royalist, as devoted to the
Revolution as to the Law, is just the man, who, through his limited
mental grasp, his disconnected political conceptions, and the nobleness
of his contradictory sentiments, best represents the present opinion of
the Assembly, as well as that of France.[2625] Moreover, his popularity,
his courage, and his army are the last refuge. The majority feels that
in giving him up they themselves are given up, and, by a vote of 400
to 224, it acquits him.--On this side, again, the strategy of the
Girondists is found erroneous. Power slips away from them the second
time. Neither the King nor the Assembly have consented to restore it to
them, while they can no longer leave it suspended in the air, or defer
it until a better opportunity, and keep their Jacobin acolytes waiting.
The feeble leash restraining the revolutionary dog breaks in their
hands; the dog is free and in the street




III.--The Girondins have worked for the benefit of the Jacobins.

     The armed force sent away or disorganized.--The Federates
     summoned.--Brest and Marseilles send men.--Public sessions
     of administrative bodies.--Permanence of administrative
     bodies and of the sections.----Effect of these two
     measures.--The central bureau of the Hôtel-de-ville.--Origin
     and formation of the revolutionary Commune.

Never was better work done for another. Every measure relied on by them
for getting power back, serves only to place it in the hands of
the mob.--On the one hand, through a series of legislative acts and
municipal ordinances, they have set aside or disbanded the army, alone
capable of repressing or intimidating it. On the 29th of May they
dismissed the king's guard. On the 15th of July they ordered away from
Paris all regular troops. On the 16th of July,[2626] they select
"for the formation of a body of infantry-gendarmerie, the former
French-guardsmen who served in the Revolution about the epoch of the 1st
day of June, 1789, the officers, under-officers, gunners, and soldiers
who gathered around the flag of liberty after the 12th of July of that
year," that is to say, a body of recognized insurgents and deserters. On
the 6th of July, in all towns of 50,000 souls and over, they strike
down the National Guard by discharging its staff, "an aristocratic
corporation," says a petition,[2627] "a sort of modern feudality
composed of traitors, who seem to have formed a plan for directing
public opinion as they please." Early in August,[2628] they strike
into the heart of the National Guard by suppressing special companies,
grenadiers, and chasseurs, recruited amongst well-to-do-people, the
genuine elite, stripped of its uniform, reduced to equality, lost in
the mass, and now, moreover, finding its 'ranks degraded by a mixture of
interlopers, federates, and men armed with pikes. Finally, to complete
the pell-mell, they order that the palace guard be hereafter composed
daily of citizens taken from the sixty battalions,[2629] so that the
chiefs may no longer know their men nor the men their chiefs; so that
no one may place confidence in his chief, in his subordinate, in his
neighbor, or in himself; so that all the stones of the human dike may be
loosened beforehand, and the barrier crumble at the first onslaught.--On
the other hand, they have taken care to provide the insurrection with
a fighting army and an advanced guard. By another series of legislative
acts and municipal ordinances, they authorize the assemblage of the
Federates at Paris; they allow them pay and military lodgings;[2630]
they allow them to organize under a central committee sitting at the
Jacobin club, and to take their instructions from that club. Of these
new-comers, two-thirds, genuine soldiers and true patriots, set out for
the camp at Soissons and for the frontier; one-third of them, however,
remain at Paris,[2631] perhaps 2,000, the rioters and politicians, who,
feasted, entertained, indoctrinated, and each lodged with a Jacobin,
become more Jacobin than their hosts, and incorporate themselves with
the revolutionary battalions, so as to serve the good cause with their
guns.[2632]--Two squads, late comers, remain separate, and are only the
more formidable; both are dispatched by the towns on the sea-cost in
which, four months before this, "twenty-one capital acts of insurrection
had occurred, all unpunished, and several under sentence of the maritime
jury."[2633] The first, numbering 300 men, comes from Brest,

* where the municipality, as infatuated as those of Marseilles and
Avignon, engages in armed expeditions against its neighbors; where
popular murder is tolerated;

* where M. de la Jaille is nearly killed;

* where the head of M. de la Patry is borne on a pike;

* where veteran rioters compose the crews of the fleet,

* where "workers paid by the State, clerks, masters, non-commission
officers, converted into agitators, political stump-speakers, movers,
and critics of the administration," ask only to be given roles to
perform on a more conspicuous stage.

The second troop, summoned from Marseilles by the Girondins, Rebecqui,
and Barbaroux,[2634] comprises 516 men, intrepid, ferocious adventurers,
from everywhere, either Marseilles or abroad, Savoyards, Italians,
Spaniards, driven out of their country, almost all of the vilest
class, or gaining a livelihood by infamous pursuits, "hit-men and
their henchmen of evil haunts," used to blood, quick to strike, good
cut-throats, picked men out of the bands that had marched on Aix, Arles,
and Avignon, the froth of that froth which, for three years, in the
Comtat and in the Bouches-du-Rhône, boiled over the useless barriers
of the law.--The very day they reach Paris they show what they can
do.[2635] Welcomed with great pomp by the Jacobins and by Santerre, they
are conducted, for a purpose, to the Champs-Elysées, into a tavern,
near the restaurant in which the grenadiers of the Filles St. Thomas,
bankers, brokers, leading men, well-known for their attachment to a
monarchical constitution, were dining in a body, as announced several
days in advance. The mob which had formed a convoy for the Marseilles
battalion, gathers before the restaurant, shouts, throws mud, and then
lets fly a volley of stones; the grenadiers draw their sabers. Forthwith
a shout is heard just in front of them, à nous les Marseillais! upon
which the gang jump out of the windows with true southern agility,
clamber across the ditches, fall upon the grenadiers with their swords,
kill one and wound fifteen.--No début could be more brilliant. The party
at last possesses men of action;[2636] and they must be kept within
reach! Men who do such good work, and so expeditiously, must be well
posted near the Tuileries. The mayor, consequently, on the night of the
8th of August, without informing the commanding general, solely on his
own authority, orders them to leave their barracks in the Rue Blanche
and take up their quarters, with their arms and cannon, in the barracks
belonging to the Cordeliers.[2637]

Such is the military force in the hands of the Jacobin masses; nothing
remains but to place the civil power in their hands also, and, as the
first gift of this kind was made to them by the Girondins, they will not
fail to make them the second one.--On the 1st of July, they decree that
the sessions of administrative bodies should thenceforth be public; this
is submitting municipalities, district, and department councils, as
well as the National Assembly itself, to the clamor, the outrages, the
menaces, the rule of their audiences, which in these bodies as in the
National Assembly, will always be Jacobin.[2638] On the 11th of July,
on declaring the country in danger,[2639] they render the sessions
permanent, first of the administrative bodies, and next of
the forty-eight sections of Paris, which is a surrender of the
administrative bodies and the forty-eight sections of Paris to the
Jacobin minority, which minority, through its zeal and being ever
present, knows how to convert itself into a majority.--Let us trace the
consequences of this, and see the selection which is thus effected by
the double decree. Those who attend these meetings, day and night, are
not the steady, busy people. In the first place, they are too busy in
their own counting-rooms, shops and factories to lose so much time. In
the next place, they are too sensible, to docile, and too honest to
go and lord it over their magistrates in the Hôtel-de-ville, or regard
themselves in their various sections as the sovereign people. Moreover,
they are disgusted with all this bawling. Lastly, the streets of Paris,
especially at night, are not safe; owing to so much outdoor politics,
there is a great increase of caning and of knocking down. Accordingly,
for a long time, they do not attend at the clubs, nor are they seen in
the galleries of the National Assembly; nor will they be seen again
at the sessions of the municipality, nor at the meetings of the
sections.--Nothing, on the other hand, is more attractive to the idle
tipplers of the cafés, to bar-room oracles, loungers, and talkers,
living in furnished rooms,[2640] to the parasites and refractory of the
social army, to all who have left the social structures and unable to
get back again, who want to tear things to pieces, and, for lack of
a private career, establish one for themselves in public. Permanent
sessions, even at night, are not too long either for them, or for lazy
Federates, for disordered intellects, and for the small troop of genuine
fanatics. Here they are either performers or claqueurs, an uproar not
being offensive to them, because they create it. They relieve each
other, so as to be always on hand in sufficient number, or compensate
for a deficiency by usurpations and brutality. The section of the
Théâtre-Français, for instance, in contempt of the law, removes the
distinction between active and passive citizens, by granting to all
residents in its circumscription the right to be present at its meetings
and the right to vote. Other sections[2641] admit to their sittings
all well-disposed spectators, all women, children, and the nomads, all
agitators, and the agitated, who, as at the National Assembly, applaud
or hoot at the word of command. In the sections not disposed to be at
the mercy of an anonymous public, the same herd of frantic characters
make a racket at the doors, and insult the electors who pass through
them.--Thanks to this itinerant throng of co-operating intruders, the
Jacobin extremists rule the sections the same as the Assembly; in the
sections as in the Assembly, they drive away or silence the moderates,
and when the hall becomes half empty or dumb, their motion is passed.
Hawked about in the vicinity, the motion is even carried off; in a
few days it makes the tour of Paris, and returns to the Assembly as an
authentic and unanimous expression of popular will.[2642]

At present, to ensure the execution of this counterfeit will, it
requires a central committee, and through a masterpiece of delusion,
Pétion, the Girondist mayor, is the one who undertakes to lodge,
sanction, and organize the committee. On the 17th day of July,[2643] he
establishes in the offices belonging to the Commune, "a central
bureau of correspondence between the sections." To this a duly elected
commissioner is to bring the acts passed by his section each day, and
carry away the corresponding acts of the remaining forty-seven sections.
Naturally, these elected commissioners will hold meetings of their own,
appointing a president and secretary, and making official reports of
their proceedings in the same form as a veritable municipal council. As
they are elected to-day, and with a special mandate, it is natural that
they should consider themselves more legitimate than a municipal council
elected four or five months before them, and with a very uncertain
mandate. Installed in the town hall of Paris (Hôtel-de-ville), only two
steps from the municipal council, it is natural for them to attempt to
take its place; to substitute themselves for it, they have only to cross
over to the other side of a corridor.




IV.--Vain attempts of the Girondins to put it down.

     Jacobin alarm, their enthusiasm, and their program.

Thus, hatched by the Girondins, does the terrible Commune of Paris come
into being, that of August 10th, September 2nd 1792 and May 31st. 1793.
The viper has hardly left its nest before it begins to hiss. A fortnight
before the 10th of August[2644] it begins to uncoil, and the wise
statesmen who have so diligently sheltered and fed it, stand aghast at
its hideous, flattened head. Accordingly, they back away from it up to
the last hour, and strive to prevent it from biting them. Pétion himself
visits Robespierre on the 7th of August, in order to represent to him
the perils of an insurrection, and to allow the Assembly time enough to
discuss the question of dethronement. The same day Verginaud and
Guadet propose to the King, through the medium of Thierry, his
valet-de-chambre, that, until peace is assured, the government be
carried on under a regency. Pétion, on the night of August 9-10,
issues a pressing circular to the sections, urging them to remain
tranquil.[2645]

But it is too late. Fifty days of excitement and alarm have worked up
the aberrations of morbid imaginations into a delirium.--On the second
of August, a crowd of men and women rush to the bar of the
Assembly, exclaiming, "Vengeance! Vengeance! our brethren are being
poisoned!"[2646] The fact as ascertained is this: at Soissons, where the
bread of the soldiery was prepared in a church, some fragments of broken
glass were found in the oven, on the strength of which a rumor was
started that 170 volunteers had died, and that 700 were lying in the
hospital. A ferocious instinct makes men see their adversaries in
their own image and thus justify them to take those measures which
they imagine their enemies would have taken in their place.[2647]--The
committee of Jacobin leaders states positively that the Court is about
to attack, and, accordingly, has devised "not merely signs of this,
but of the most unmistakable proof."[2648]--"It is the Trojan horse,"
exclaimed Panis; "We are lost if we do not succeed in disemboweling
it.... The bomb explodes on the night of August 9-10... Fifteen
thousand aristocrats stand ready to slaughter all patriots."
Patriots, consequently, attribute to themselves the right to slaughter
aristocrats.--Late in June, in the Minimes section, "a French guardsman
had already determined to kill the King," if the King persisted in his
veto. When the president of the section wanted to expulse the regicide,
it was the latter who was retained and the president was expelled.[2649]
On the 14th of July, the day of the Federation festival, another
predecessor of Louvel and Fieschi, provided with a cutlass, had
introduced himself into the battalion on duty at the palace, for the
same purpose; during the ceremony the crowd warmed up, and, for a
moment, the King owed his life to the firmness of his escort. On the
27th of July, in the garden of the Tuileries, d'Espréménil, the old
Constituent[2650], beaten, slashed, and his clothes torn, pursued like a
stag across the Palais Royal, falls bleedings on a mattress at the gates
of the Treasury.[2651] On the 29th of July, whilst one of Lafayette's
aides, M. Bureau de Pusy, is at the bar of the house, "they try to have
a motion passed in the Palais Royal to parade his head on the end of a
pike."[2652]--At this level of rage and fear, the brutal and the excited
can wait no longer. On the 4th of August,[2653] the Mauconseil section
declares "to the Assembly, to the municipality, and to all the citizens
of Paris, that it no longer recognizes Louis XVI. as King of the
French". Its president, the foreman of a tailor's shop, and its
secretary, employed in the leather market, support their manifesto with
three lines of a tragedy floating vaguely in their minds,[2654] and
name the Boulevard Madeleine St. Honoré as a rendezvous on the following
Sunday for all well-disposed persons. On the 6th of August, Varlet,
a post-office clerk, makes known to the Assembly, in the name of the
petitioners of the Champ de Mars, the program of the faction:

1. the dethronement of the King,

2. the indictment, arrest, and speedy condemnation of Lafayette,

3. the immediate convoking of the primary assemblies,

4. universal suffrage,

5. the discharge of all staff officers,

6. the renewal of the departmental directories,

7. the recall of all ambassadors,

8. the suppression of diplomacy,

9. and a return to the state of nature.

The Girondins may now delay, negotiate, beat about and argue as much as
they please; their hesitation has no other effect that to consign them
into the background, as being lukewarm and timid. Thanks to them, the
(Jacobin) faction now has its deliberative assemblies, its executive
powers, its central seat of government, its enlarged, tried, and ready
army, and, forcibly or otherwise, its program will be carried out.




V.--Evening of August 8.

     Session of August 9.--Morning of August 10.--Assembly
     purged.

The Assembly must first of all be made to depose the King. Several times
already,[2655] on the 26th of July and August 4, clandestine meetings
had been held where strangers decided the fate of France, and gave
the signal for insurrection.--Restrained with great difficulty, they
consented "to have patience until August 9, at 11 o'clock in the
evening."[2656] On that day the discussion of the dethronement is to
take place in the Assembly, and calculations are made on a favorable
vote under such a positive threat; its reluctance must yield to the
certainty of a military occupation--On the 8th of August, however,
the Assembly refuses, by a majority of two-thirds, to indict the great
enemy, Lafayette. The double amputation essential for State security,
must therefore begin with the destruction of this majority.

The moment Lafayette's acquittal is announced, the galleries, usually
so vociferous, maintain "gloomy silence."[2657] The word of command for
them is to keep themselves in reserve for the streets. One by one the
deputies who voted for Lafayette are pointed out to the mob at the
doors, and a shout is raised, "the rascals, the knaves, the traitors
living on the civil list! Hang them! Kill them! Put an end to them!
Mud, mortar, plaster, stones are thrown at them, and they are severely
pummeled. M. Mézières, in the Rue du Dauphin, is seized by the throat,
and a woman strikes at him, which he parries. In the Rue St. Honoré, a
number of men in red caps surround M. Regnault-Beauceron, and decide to
"string him up at the lantern"; a man in his jacket had already
grabbed him from behind and raised him up, when the grenadiers of
Sainte-Opportune arrive in time to set him free. In the Rue St. Louis,
M. Deuzy, repeatedly struck on the back with stones, has a saber twice
raised over his head. In the Passage des Feuillants, M. Desbois is
pummeled, and a "snuff-box, his pocket-book, and cane" are stolen from
him. In the lobbies of the Assembly, M. Girardin is on the point of
being assassinated.[2658] Eight deputies besides these are pursued, and
take refuge in the guard-room of the Palais Royal. A Federate enters
along with them, and "there, his eyes sparkling with rage and thumping
on the table like a madman," he exclaims to M. Dumolard, who is the
best known:" "If you are unlucky enough to put your feet in the Assembly
again, I'll cut off your head with my sword!" As to the principal
defender of Lafayette, M. Vaublanc, he is assailed three times, but
he is wary enough not to return home; a number of infuriates, however,
invest his house, yelling out that "eighty citizens are to perish by
their hands, and he is one of the first"; a dozen of the gang ascend
to his apartments, rummage them in every corner, make another effort to
find him in the adjoining houses, and, not being able to secure him, try
to find his family; he is notified that, if he returns to his house,
he will be massacred.--In the evening, on the Feuillants terrace, other
deputies are subjected to the same outrages; the gendarmerie tries in
vain to protect them, while the 'commandant of the National Guard, on
leaving his post, is attacked and cut down."[2659]--Meanwhile, some
of the Jacobins in the lobbies "doom the majority of the Assembly to
destruction"; one orator declares that "the people have a right to form
lists of proscription," and the club accordingly decides on printing and
publishing the names of all the deputies who acquitted Lafayette.--Never
was physical constraint displayed and applied with such open
shamelessness.[2660]

On the following day, August 9, armed men gather around the approaches
to the Assembly, and sabers are seen even in the corridors.[2661] The
galleries, more imperious than ever, cheer, and break out in ironic
shouts of triumph and approval every time the attacks of the previous
evening are denounced in the tribune. The president calls the offenders
to order more than twenty times, but his voice and his bell are drowned
in the uproar. It is impossible to express an opinion. Most of the
representatives who were maltreated the evening before, write that they
will not return, while others, who are present, declare that they will
not vote again "if they cannot be secure of freedom of conscience in
their deliberations." At this utterance, which expresses the secret
sentiment of "nearly the whole of the Assembly,"[2662] "all the members
of the 'Right', and many of the 'Left' arise simultaneously and exclaim:
'Yes, yes; we will debate no longer unless we are free!"--As usual,
however, the majority gives away the moment effective measures are to be
adopted; its heart sinks, as it always has done, on being called upon
to act in self-defense, while these official declarations, one on top of
the other, in hiding from it the gravity of the danger, sink it deeper
in its own timidity. At this same session the syndic-attorney of the
department reports that the mob is ready, that 900 armed men had just
entered Paris, that the tocsin would be rung at midnight, and that the
municipality tolerates or favors the insurrection. At this same session,
the Minister of Justice gives notice that "the laws are powerless,"
and that the government is no longer responsible. At this same session,
Pétion, the mayor, almost avowing his complicity, appears at the bar of
the house, and declares positively that he will have nothing to do with
the public forces, because "it would be arming one body of citizens
against another."[2663]--Every support is evidently knocked away.
Feeling that it is abandoned, the National Assembly gives up, and, as
a last expedient, and with a degree of weakness or simplicity which
admirably depicts the legislators of the epoch, it adopts a philosophic
address to the people, "instructing it what to do in the exercise of its
sovereignty."

How this is done, it may see the next morning. At 7 o'clock, a Jacobin
deputy stops in a cab before the door of the Feuillants club; a crowd
gathers around him, and he gives his name, Delmas. The crowd understood
it as Dumas, a well-known Constitutionalist, and, in a rage, drag him
out of the vehicle and knock him down; had not other deputies run up and
given assurances that he was the patriot Delmas, of Toulouse, instead
of "the traitor, Mathieu Dumas," he was a lost man.[2664] Dumas makes
no effort to enter. He finds on the Place Vendôme a second and not less
instructive warning. Some wretches, followed by the usual rabble, carry
about a number of heads on pikes, those probably of the journalist
Suleau, and three others, massacred a quarter of an hour before; "boys
quite young, mere children, play with these heads by tossing them in the
air, and catching them on the ends of their sticks."--There is no doubt
but that the deputies of the "Right" and even the "Center," would do
well to go home and stay there. In fact, they are no longer seen in the
Assembly.[2665] In the afternoon, out of the 630 members still present
the evening before, 346 do not answer the call, while about
thirty others, had either withdrawn before this or sent in their
resignations.[2666] The purging is complete, like that to which
Cromwell, in 1648, subjected the Long Parliament. Henceforth the
Legislative body, reduced to 224 Jacobins or Girondins, with 60
frightened or tractable neutrals, will obey the orders of the street
without any difficulty. A change has come over the spirit of the body
as well as over its composition; it is nothing more now than a servile
instrument in the hands of the seditious, who have mutilated it, and
who, masters of it through a first misdeed, are going to use it to
legalize other crimes.




VI.--Nights of August 9 and 10.

     The sections.--Commissioners of the sections at the Hôtel-
     de-ville.--The revolutionary Commune is substituted for the
     legal Commune.

During the night of the 9th and 10th of August their government forms
itself for action, it has been set up as it will behave, with violence
and fraud.--In vain have they annoyed and worked on the sections
for the past fortnight; they are not yet submissive, only six out of
forty-eight at the present hour, eleven o'clock at night, being found
sufficiently excited or purged to send their commissioners forthwith,
with full power, to the Hôtel-de-ville. The others will follow, but the
majority rests inert or recalcitrant.[2667]--It is necessary, therefore,
to deceive or force this majority, and, to this end, darkness, the late
hour, disorder, dread of the coming day, and the uncertainty of what
to do, are precious auxiliaries. In many of the sections,[2668] the
meetings are already adjourned or deserted; only a few members of the
permanent bureau in the room, with a few men, perhaps asleep, on the
nearly empty benches. An emissary arrives from the insurgent sections,
along with a company of trusty fellows belonging to the quarter, and
cries out, Save the country! The sleepers open their eyes, stretch
themselves, raise their hands, and elect whoever is designated,
sometimes strangers and other unknown individuals, who will be disowned
the coming day at a full meeting of the section. There is no official
report drawn up, no balloting, the course pursued being the most prompt.
At the Arsenal section, six electors present choose three among their
own number to represent 1,400 active citizens. Elsewhere, a throng of
shrews, night-brawlers and dishonorable persons, invade the premises,
chase out the believers in law and order, and win all the desired
appointments.[2669] Other sections consent to elect, but without
consenting to give power of attorney. Several make express reservations,
stipulating that their delegates shall act in concert with the legal
municipality, distrusting the future committee, and declaring in advance
that they will not obey it. A few elect their commissioners only to
obtain information, and, at the same time, to show that they intend
earnestly to stop all rioting.[2670] Finally, at least twenty
sections abstain from or disapprove of the proceedings and send no
delegates.--Never mind, they can be dispensed with. At three o'clock
in the morning, 19 sections, and, at seven o'clock, 24 or 25,[2671] are
represented one way or another at the Town-hall (Hôtel-de-ville), and
this representation forms a central committee. Anyhow, there is nothing
to prevent seventy or eighty subordinate intriguers and desperadoes, who
have slipped in or pushed through, from calling themselves authorized
delegates and ministers plenipotentiary of the entire Paris
population,[2672] and to operate accordingly.--Scarcely are they
installed under the presidency of Huguenin, with Tallien as secretary,
when they issue a summons for "twenty-five armed men from each section,"
five hundred strapping lads, to act as guards and serve as an executive
force.--Against a band of this description the municipal council, in
session in the opposite chamber, is feeble enough. Moreover, the most
moderate and firmest of its members, sent away on purpose, are on
missions to the Assembly, at the palace, and in different quarters of
Paris, while its galleries are crammed with villainous looking men,
posted there to create an uproar, its deliberations being carried
on under menaces of death.--That's why, as the night passes, the
equilibrium between the two assemblages, one legal the other illegal,
facing each other like the two sides of a scale, disappears. Lassitude,
fear, discouragement, desertion, increase on one side, while numbers,
audacity, force and usurpation increase on the other. At length,
the latter wrests from the former all the acts it needs to start the
insurrection and render defense impossible. About six o'clock in the
morning the intruding committee, in the name of the people, ends the
matter by suspending the legitimate council, which it then expels, and
takes possession of its chairs.

The first act of the new sovereign rulers indicates at once what they
mean to do. M. de Mandat, in command of the National guard, summoned to
the Hôtel-de-ville, had come to explain to the council what disposition
he had made of his troops, and what orders he had issued. They seize
him, interrogate him in their turn,[2673] depose him, appoint Santerre
in his place, and, to derive all the benefit they can from his capture,
they order him to withdraw one-half of his men stationed around the
palace. Fully aware of what he was exposed to in this den of thieves, he
nobly refuses; forthwith they consign him to prison, and send him to
the Abbaye "for his greater safety." At these significant words from
Danton,[2674] he is murdered at the door as he leaves by Rossignol, one
of Danton's acolytes, with a pistol-shot at arm's length.--After tragedy
comes comedy. At the repeated entreaties of Pétion, who does not want to
be requisitioned against the rioters,[2675] they send him a guard of 400
men, thus confining him in his own house, and, apparently in spite of
himself.

On one side, sheltered by treachery and, on the other side, by
assassination, the insurrection may now go on in full security in
front of the terrible hypocrite who solemnly complains of his voluntary
captivity, and before the corpse, with shattered brow, lying on the
steps of the Hôtel-de-ville. On the right bank of the river, the
battalions of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, and, on the left, those of the
Faubourg Saint-Marcel, the Bretons, and the Marseilles band, march forth
as freely as if going to parade. Measures of defense are frustrated
by the murder of the commanding general, and by the mayor's duplicity;
there is not resistance on guarded spots, at the arcade Saint-Jean,
the passages of the bridges, along the quays, and in the court of the
Louvre. An advance guard of the mob, women, children, and men, armed
with cutters, cudgels, and pikes, spread over the abandoned Carrousel,
and, towards eight o'clock, the advance column, led by Westerman,
appears in front of the palace.




VII.--August 10.

     The King's forces.--Resistance abandoned.--The King in the
     National Assembly.--Conflict at the palace and discharge of
     the Swiss Guard.--The palace evacuated by the King's order.
     --The massacres.--The enslaved Assembly and its decrees.

If the King had wanted to fight, he might still have defended himself,
saved himself, and even been victorious.[2676]--In the Tuileries, 950 of
the Swiss Guard and 200 gentlemen stood ready to die for him to the last
man. Around the Tuileries, two or three thousand National Guard,
the élite of the Parisian population, had just cheered him as he
passed.[2677] "Hurrah for the King! Hurrah for Louis XVI.! He is our
King and we want no other; we want him only! Down with the rioters! Down
with the Jacobins! We will defend him unto death! Let him put himself
at our head! Hurrah for the Nation, the Law, the Constitution, and
the King, which are all one! If the gunners were silent, and seemed
ill-disposed,[2678] it was simply necessary to disarm them suddenly,
and hand over their pieces to loyal men. Four thousand rifles and eleven
pieces of artillery, protected by the walls of the courts and by the
thick masonry of the palace, were certainly sufficient against the nine
or ten thousand Jacobins in Paris, most of them pikemen, badly led by
improvised or rebellious battalion officers,[2679] and, still worse,
commanded by their new general, Santerre, who, always cautious, kept
himself aloof in the Hôtel-de-ville, out of harm's way. The only
staunch men in the Carrousel were the eight hundred men from Brest and
Marseilles; the rest consisted of a rabble like that of July 14, October
5, and June 20;[2680] the palace, says Napoleon Bonaparte, was attacked
by the vilest canaille, professional rioters, Maillard's band, and the
bands of Lazowski, Fournier, and Théroigne, by all the assassins, indeed
of the previous night and day, and of the following day, which species
of combatants, as was proved by the event, would have scattered at
the first discharge of a cannon.--But, with the governing as with the
governed, all notion of the State was lost, the former through humanity
become a duty, and the latter through insubordination erected into a
right. At the close of the eighteenth century, in the upper as well as
in the middle class, there was a horror of blood;[2681] refined social
ways, coupled with an idyllic imagination, had softened the militant
disposition. Everywhere the magistrates had forgotten that the
maintenance of society and of civilization is a benefit of infinitely
greater importance than the lives of a parcel of maniacs and
malefactors; that the prime object of government, as well as of a
police, is the preservation of order by force; that a gendarme is not
a philanthropist; that, if attacked on his post, he must use his sword,
and that, in sheathing it for fear of wounding his aggressors, he fails
to do his duty.

This time again, in the court of the Carrousel, the magistrates on the
spot, finding that "their responsibility is insupportable," concern
themselves only with how to "avoid the effusion of blood;" it is with
regret, and this they state to the troops, "in faltering tones," that
they proclaim martial law.[2682] They "forbid them to attack," merely
"authorizing them to repel force with force;" in other words, they order
them to stand up to the first fire; "you are not to fire until you are
fired upon."--Still better, they go from company to company, "openly
declaring that opposition to such a large and well-armed assemblage
would be folly, and that it would be a very great misfortune to attempt
it."--"I repeat to you," said Leroux, "that a defense seems to me
madness."--Such is the way in which, for more than an hour, they
encourage the National Guard. "All I ask," says Leroux again, "is that
you wait a little longer. I hope that we shall induce the King to yield
to the National Assembly."--Always the same tactics: hand the fortress
and the general over rather than fire on the mob. To this end they
return to the King, with Roederer at their head, and renew their efforts:
"Sire," says Roederer, "time presses, and we ask you to consent to
accompany us."--For a few moments, the last and most solemn of the
monarchy, the King hesitates.[2683] His good sense, probably,
enabled him to see that a retreat was abdication; but his phlegmatic
understanding is at first unable to clearly define its consequences;
moreover, his optimism had never explored the vastness of the stupidity
of the people, nor sounded the depths of human malice and spite; he
cannot imagine that slander may transform his determination not to shed
blood into a desire to shed blood.[2684] Besides, he is bound by his
past, by his habit of always yielding; by his determination, declared
and maintained for the past three years, never to cause civil war; by
his obstinate humanitarianism, and especially by his religious goodwill.
He has systematically extinguished in himself the animal instinct of
resistance, the flash of anger in all of us which starts up under unjust
and brutal aggressions; the Christian has supplanted the King; he is no
longer aware that duty obliges him to be a man of the sword that, in his
surrender, he surrenders the State, and that to yield like a lamb is to
lead all honest people, along with himself, to the slaughterhouse. "Let
us go," said he, raising his right hand; "we will give, since it is
necessary, one more proof of our self-sacrifice."[2685] Accompanied
by his family and Ministers, he sets out between two lines of National
Guards and the Swiss Guard,[2686] and reaches the Assembly, which sends
a deputation to meet him; entering the chamber he says: "I come here to
prevent a great crime. "--No pretext, indeed, for a conflict now exists.
An assault on the insurgent side is useless, since the monarch, with all
belonging to him and his government, have left the palace. On the other
side, the garrison will not begin the fight; diminished by 150 Swiss and
nearly all the grenadiers of the Filles-Saint-Thomas, who served as the
King's escort to the Assembly, it is reduced to a few gentlemen, 750
Swiss, and about a hundred National Guards; the others, on learning
that the King is going, consider their services at an end and
disperse.[2687]--All seems to be over in the sacrifice of royalty. Louis
XVI. imagines that the Assembly, at the worst, will suspend him from
his functions, and that he will return to the Tuileries as a private
individual. On leaving the palace, indeed, he orders his valet to
keep up the service until he himself returns from the National
Assembly.[2688]

He did not count on the exigencies, blindness and disorders of the riot.
Threatened by the Jacobin gunners remaining with their artillery in the
inside courts, the gatekeepers open the gates. The insurgents rush
in, fraternise with the gunners, reach the vestibule, ascend the grand
staircase, and summon the Swiss to surrender.[2689]--These show no
hostile spirit; many of them, as a mark of good humor, throw packets of
cartridges out of the windows; some even go so far as to let themselves
be embraced and led away. The regiment, however, faithful to its orders,
will not yield to force.[2690] "We are Swiss," replies the sergeant,
Blaser; "the Swiss do not part with their arms but with their lives. We
think that we do not merit such an insult. If the regiment is no longer
wanted, let it be legally discharged. But we will not leave our post,
nor will we let our arms be taken from us." The two bodies of troops
remain facing each other on the staircase for three-quarters of an hour,
almost intermingled, one silent and the other excited, turbulent, and
active, with all the ardor and lack of discipline peculiar to a popular
gathering, each insurgent striving apart, and in his own way, to
corrupt, intimidate, or constrain the Swiss Guards. Granier, of
Marseilles, at the head of the staircase, holds two of them at arms'
length, trying in a friendly manner to draw them down.[2691] At the foot
of the staircase the crowd is shouting and threatening; lighter men,
armed with boat-hooks, harpoon the sentinels by their shoulder-straps,
and pull down four or five, like so many fishes, amid shouts of
laughter.--Just at this moment a pistol goes off; nobody being able to
tell which party fired it.[2692] The Swiss, firing from above, clean out
the vestibule and the courts, rush down into the square and seize
the cannon; the insurgents scatter and fly out of range. The bravest,
nevertheless, rally behind the entrances of the houses on the Carrousel,
throw cartridges into the courts of the small buildings and set them
on fire. During another half-hour, under the dense smoke of the first
discharge and of the burning buildings, both sides fire haphazard, while
the Swiss, far from giving way, have scarcely lost a few men, when a
messenger from the King arrives, M. d'Hervilly, who orders in his name
the firing to cease, and the men to return to their barracks.

Slowly and regularly they form in line and retire along the broad alley
of the garden. At the sight of these foreigners, however, in red coats,
who had just fired on Frenchmen, the guns of the battalion stationed on
the terraces go off of their own accord, and the Swiss column divides in
two. One body of 250 men turns to the right, reaches the Assembly, lays
down its arms at the King's order, and allows itself to be shut up
in the Feuillants church. The others are annihilated on crossing the
garden, or cut down on the Place Louis XV. by the mounted gendarmerie.
No quarter is given. The warfare is that of a mob, not civilized war,
but primitive war, that of barbarians. In the abandoned palace into
which the insurgents entered five minutes after the departure of the
garrison,[2693] they kill the wounded, the two Swiss surgeons attending
to them,[2694] the Swiss who had not fired a gun, and who, in the
balcony on the side of the garden, "cast off their cartridge-boxes,
sabers, coats, and hats, and shout: 'Friends, we are with you, we are
Frenchmen, we belong to the nation!'"[2695] They kill the Swiss, armed
or unarmed, who remain at their posts in the apartments. They kill the
Swiss gate-keepers in their boxes. They kill everybody in the kitchens,
from the head cook down to the pot boys.[2696] The women barely escape.
Madame Campan, on her knees, seized by the back, sees an uplifted saber
about to fall on her, when a voice from the foot of the staircase calls
out: "What are you doing there? The women are not to be killed!" "Get
up, you hussy, the nation forgives you!"--To make up for this the nation
helps itself and indulges itself to its heart's content in the palace
which now belongs to it. Some honest persons do, indeed, carry money and
valuables to the National Assembly, but others pillage and destroy all
that they can.[2697] They shatter mirrors, break furniture to pieces,
and throw clocks out of the window; they shout the Marseilles hymn,
which one of the National Guards accompanies on a harpsichord,[2698] and
descend to the cellars, where they gorge themselves. "For more than
a fortnight," says an eye witness,[2699] "one walked on fragments of
bottles." In the garden, especially, "it might be said that they had
tried to pave the walks with broken glass."--Porters are seen seated on
the throne in the coronation robes; a trollop occupies the Queen's bed;
it is a carnival in which unbridled base and cruel instincts find plenty
of good forage and abundant litter. Runaways come back after the victory
and stab the dead with their pikes. Nicely dressed prostitutes fooling
around with naked corpses.[26100] And, as the destroyers enjoy their
work, they are not disposed to be disturbed in it. In the courts of the
Carrousel, where 1800 feet of building are burning, the firemen try four
times to extinguish the fire; "they are shot at, and threatened with
being pitched into the flames,"[26101] while petitioners appear at
the bar of the Assembly, and announce in a threatening tone that the
Tuileries are blazing, and shall blaze until the dethronement becomes a
law.

The poor Assembly, become Girondist through its late mutilation, strives
in vain to arrest the downhill course of things, and maintain, as it has
just sworn to do, "the constituted authorities";[26102] it strives, at
least, to put Louis XVI. in the Luxembourg palace, to appoint a tutor
for the Dauphin, to keep the ministers temporarily in office, and to
save all prisoners, and those who walk the streets. Equally captive, and
nearly as prostrate as the King himself; the Assembly merely serves as
a recording office for the popular will, that very morning furnishing
evidence of the value which the armed commonalty attaches to its
decrees. That morning murders were committed at its door, in contempt of
its safe conduct; at eight o'clock Suleau and three others, wrested from
their guards, are cut down under its windows. In the afternoon, from
sixty to eighty of the unarmed Swiss still remaining in the church
of the Feuillants are taken out to be sent to the Hôtel-de-ville,
and massacred on the way at the Place de Grève. Another detachment,
conducted to the section of the Roule, is likewise disposed of in the
same way.[26103] Carle, at the head of the gendarmerie, is called out
of the Assembly and assassinated on the Place Vendôme, and his head is
carried about on a pike. The founder of the old monarchical club, M. de
Clermont-Tonnerre, withdrawn from public life for two years past, and
quietly passing along the streets, is recognized, dragged through the
gutter and cut to pieces.--After such warnings (murder and pillage) the
Assembly can only obey, and, as usual, conceal its submission beneath
sonorous words. If the dictatorial committee, self-imposed at the
Hôtel-de-ville, still condescends to keep it alive, it is owing to a new
investiture,[26104] and by declaring to it that it must not meddle with
its doings now or in the future. Let it confine itself to its function,
that of rendering decrees made by the faction. Accordingly, like fruit
falling from a tree vigorously shaken, these decrees rattle down, one
after another, into the hands that await them,[26105]

1. the suspension of the King,

2. the convoking of a national convention,

3. electors and the eligible exempted from all property qualifications,

4. an indemnity for displaced electors,

5. the term of Assemblies left to the decision of the electors,[26106]

6. the removal and arrest of the late ministers,

7. the re-appointment of Servan, Clavières and Roland,

8. Danton as Minister of Justice,

9. the recognition of the usurping Commune,

10. Santerre confirmed in his new rank,

11. the municipalities empowered to look after general safety,

12. the arrest of suspicious persons confided to all well-disposed
citizens,[26107]

13. domiciliary visits prescribed for the discovery of arms and
ammunition,[26108]

14. all the justices of Paris to be re-elected by those within their
jurisdiction,

15. all officers of the gendarmerie subject to re-election by their
soldiers,[26109]

16. thirty sous per diem for the Marseilles troops from the day of their
arrival,

17. a court-martial against the Swiss,

18. a tribunal for the dispatch of justice against the vanquished of
August 10, and a quantity of other decrees of a still more important
bearing:

19. the suspension of the commissioners appointed to enforce the
execution of the law in civil and criminal courts,[26110]

20. the release of all persons accused or condemned for military
insubordination, for press offenses and pillaging of grain,[26111]

21. the partition of communal possessions,[26112]

22. the confiscation and sale of property belonging to émigrés,[26113]

23. the relegation of their fathers, mothers, wives and children into
the interior,

24. the banishment or transportation of unsworn ecclesiastics,[26114]

25. the establishment of easy divorce at two months' notice and on
demand of one of the parties,[26115] in short, every measure is
taken which tend to disturb property, break up the family, persecute
conscience, suspend the law, pervert justice, and rehabilitate crime.
laws are promulgated to deliver:

* the judicial system,

* the full control of the nation,

* the selection of the members of the future omnipotent Assembly,

* in short, the entire government,

to an autocratic, violent minority, which, having risked all to grab the
dictatorship, dares all to keep it.[26116]




VIII.--State of Paris in the Interregnum.

     The mass of the population.--Subaltern Jacobins.--The
     Jacobin leaders.

Let us stop a moment to contemplate this great city and its new
rulers.--From afar, Paris seems a club of 700,000 fanatics, vociferating
and deliberating on the public squares; near by, it is nothing of the
sort. The slime, on rising from the bottom, has become the surface,
and given its color to the stream; but the human stream flows in its
ordinary channel, and, under this turbid exterior, remains about the
same as it was before. It is a city of people like ourselves,
governed, busy, and fond of amusement. To the great majority, even in
revolutionary times, private life, too complex and absorbing, leaves but
an insignificant corner for public affairs. Through routine and through
necessity, manufacturing, display of wares, selling, purchasing, keeping
accounts, trades, and professions, continue as usual. The clerk goes
to his office, the workman to his shop, the artisan to his loft, the
merchant to his warehouse, the professional to his cabinet, and the
official to his duty;[26117] they are devoted, first of all, to their
pursuits, to their daily bread, to the discharge of their obligations,
to their own advancement, to their families, and to their pleasures; to
provide for these things the day is not too long. Politics only briefly
distract them, and then rather out of curiosity, like a play one
applauds or hisses in his seat without stepping upon the stage.--"The
declaration that the country is in danger," says many eye
witnesses,[26118] "has made no change in the physiognomy of Paris. There
are the same amusements, the same gossip.... The theaters are full as
usual. The wine-shops and places of diversion overflow with the people,
National Guards, and soldiers.... The fashionable world enjoys its
pleasure-parties,"--"The day after the decree, the effect of the
ceremony, so skillfully managed, is very slight. "The National Guard
in the procession, writes a patriotic journalist,[26119] "first shows
indifference and even boredom"; it is exasperated with night watches
and patrol duty; they probably tell each others that in parading for the
nation, one finds no time to work for one's self.--A few days after this
the manifesto of the Duke of Brunswick "produces no sensation whatever.
People laugh at it. Only the newspapers and their readers are familiar
with it... . The mass know nothing about it. Nobody fears the coalition
nor foreign troops."[26120]--On the 10th of August, outside the theater
of the combat, all is quiet in Paris. People walk about and chat in
the streets as usual."[26121]--On the 19th of August, Moore, the
Englishman,[26122] sees, with astonishment, the heedless crowd filling
the Champs Elysées, the various diversions, the air of a fête, the
countless small shops in which refreshments are sold accompanied with
songs and music, and the quantities of pantomimes and marionettes. "Are
these people as happy as they seem to be?" he asks of a Frenchman along
with him.--"They are as jolly as gods!"--"Do you think the Duke of
Brunswick is ever in their heads?"--"Monsieur, you may be sure of this,
that the Duke of Brunswick is the last man they think of."

Such is the unconcern or light-heartedness of the gross, egoistic mass,
otherwise busy, and always passive under any government whatever it may
be, a veritable flock of sheep, allowing government to do as it
pleases, provided it does not hinder it from browsing and capering as it
chooses.--As to the men of sensibility who love their country, they are
still less troublesome, for they are gone or going (to the army), often
at the rate of a thousand and even two thousand a day, ten thousand in
the last week of July,[26123] fifteen thousand in the first two weeks
of September,[26124] in all perhaps 40,000 volunteers furnished by
the capital alone and who, with their fellows proportionate in number
supplied by the departments, are to be the salvation of France.--Through
this departure of the worthy, and this passivity of the flock,
Paris belongs to the fanatics among the population. "These are the
sans-culottes," wrote the patriotic Palloy, "the scum and riffraff of
Paris, and I glory in belonging to that class which has put down the
so-called honest folks."[26125]--"Three thousand workmen," says the
Girondist Soulavie, later, "made the Revolution of the 10th of August,
against the kingdom of the Feuillants, the majority of the capital and
against the Legislative Assembly."[26126] Workmen, day laborers, and
petty shop-keepers, not counting women, common vagabonds and regular
bandits, form, indeed, one-twentieth of the adult male population of the
city, about 9,000 spread over all sections of Paris, the only ones to
vote and act in the midst of universal stupor and indifference.--We find
in the Rue de Seine, for example, seven of them, Lacaille, keeper of a
roasting-shop; Philippe, "a cattle-breeder, who leads around she-asses
for consumptives," now president of the section, and soon to become one
of the Abbaye butchers; Guérard, "a Rouen river-man who has abandoned
the navigation of the Seine on a large scale and keeps a skiff, in which
he ferries people over the river from the Pont du Louvre to the Quai
Mazarin," and four characters of the same stamp. Their energy, however,
replaces their lack of education and numerical inferiority. One day,
Guérard, on passing M. Hua, the deputy, tells him in the way of a
warning, "You big rascal, you were lucky to have other people with
you. If you had been alone, I would have capsized my boat, and had the
pleasure of drowning a blasted aristocrat!" These are the "matadors
of the quarter".[26127]--Their ignorance does not trouble them; on
the contrary, they take pride in coarseness and vulgarity. One of the
ordinary speechmakers of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, Gouchon, a designer
for calicos, comes to the bar of the Assembly, "in the name of the men
of July 14 and Augusts 10," to glorify the political reign of brutal
incapacity; according to him, it is more enlightened than that of the
cultivated:[26128] "those great geniuses graced with the fine title of
Constitutionalists are forced to do justice to men who never studied the
art of governing elsewhere than in the book of experience.... Consulting
customs and not principles, these clever people have for a long period
been busy with the political balance of things; we have found it without
looking for it in the heart of man: Form a government which will place
the poor above their feeble resources and the rich below their means,
and the balance will be perfect." [26129]

This is more than clear, their declared purpose is a complete leveling,
not alone of political rights, but, again, and especially, of conditions
and fortunes; they promise themselves "absolute equality, real
equality," and, still better, "the magistracy and all government
powers."[26130] France belongs to them, if they are bold enough to seize
hold of it.--And, on the other hand, should they miss their prey, they
feel themselves lost, for the Brunswick manifesto,[26131] which had made
no impression on the public, remains deeply impressed in their minds.
They apply its threats to themselves, while their imagination, as usual,
translates it into a specific legend:[26132] all the inhabitants
of Paris are to be led out on the plain of Saint-Denis, and there
decimated; previous to this, the most notorious patriots will be singled
out together with forty or fifty market-women and broken on the wheel.
Already, on the 11th of August, a rumor is current that 800 men of the
late royal guards are ready to make a descent on Paris;[26133] that very
day the dwelling of Beaumarchais is ransacked for seven hours;[26134]
the walls are pierced, the privies sounded, and the garden dug down to
the rock. The same search is repeated in the adjoining house. The women
are especially "enraged at not finding anything," and wish to renew the
attempt, swearing that they will discover where things are hidden in
ten minutes. The nightmare is evidently too much for these unballasted
minds. They break down under the weight of their accidental kingship,
their inflamed pride, extravagant desires, and intense and silent fears
which form in them that morbid and evil concoction which, in democracy
as well as in a monarchy, fashions a Nero.[26135]

Their leaders, who are even more upset, conceited, and despotic, have no
scruples holding them back, for the most noteworthy are corrupt, acting
alone or as leaders. Of the three chiefs of the old municipality,
Pétion, the mayor, actually in semi-retirement, but verbally respected,
is set aside and considered as an old decoration. The other two remain
active and in office, Manuel,[26136] the syndic-attorney, son of
a porter, a loud-talking, untalented bohemian, stole the private
correspondence of Mirabeau from a public depository, falsified it, and
sold it for his own benefit. Danton,[26137] Manuel's deputy, faithless
in two ways, receives the King's money to prevent the riot, and makes
use of it to urge it on.--Varlet, "that extraordinary speech-maker, led
such a foul and prodigal life as to bring his mother in sorrow to
the grave; afterwards he spent what was left, and soon had
nothing."[26138]--Others not only lacked honor but even common honesty.
Carra, with a seat in the secret Directory of the Federates, and who
drew up the plan of the insurrection, had been condemned by the Mâcon
tribunals to two years' imprisonment for theft and burglary.[26139]
Westermann, who led the attacking column, had stolen a silver dish, with
a coat of arms on it, from Jean Creux, keeper of a restaurant, rue des
Poules, and was twice sent away from Paris for swindling.[26140] Panis,
chief of the Committee of Supervision,[26141] was turned out of the
Treasury Department, where his uncle was a sub cashier, in 1774, for
robbery. His colleague, Sergent, appropriates to himself "three
gold watches, an agate ring, and other jewels," left with him on
deposit.[26142] "Breaking seals, false charges, breaches of trust,"
embezzlements, are familiar transactions. In their hands piles of silver
plate and 1,100,000 francs in gold are to disappear.[26143] Among the
members of the new Commune, Huguenin, the president, a clerk at
the barriers, is a brazen embezzler.[26144] Rossignol, a journeyman
jeweller, implicated in an assassination, is at this moment subject
to judicial prosecution.[26145] Hébert, a journalistic garbage bag,
formerly check-taker in a theatre, is turned away from the Variétés for
larceny.[26146] Among men of action, Fournier, the American, Lazowski,
and Maillard are not only murderers, but likewise robbers,[26147] while,
by their side, arises the future general of the Paris National Guard,
Henriot, at first a domestic in the family of an attorney who turned
him out for theft, then a tax-clerk, again turned adrift for theft, and,
finally, a police spy, and still incarcerated in the Bicêtre prison
for another theft, and, at last, a battalion officer, and one of the
September executioners.[26148]--Simultaneously with the bandits and
rascals, monstrous maniacs come out of their holes. De Sades,[26149] who
lived the life of "Justine" before he wrote it, and whom the Revolution
delivered from the Bastille, is secretary of the section of the Place
Vendôme. Marat, the homicidal monomaniac, constitutes himself, after
the 23rd of August, official journalist at the Hôtel-de-ville, political
advisor and consciousness of the new Commune, and the obsessive plan,
which he preaches for three years, is merely an instant and direct
wholesale butchery.

"Give me," said he to Barbaroux,[26150] "two hundred Neapolitans armed
with daggers, and with only a hand-kerchief on their left arms for a
buckler, and I will overrun France and build the Revolution."

According to him it is necessary to do away with 260,000 men "on humane
grounds," for, unless this is done, there is no safety for the rest.

"The National Assembly may still save France; let it decree that all
aristocrats shall wear a blue ribbon, and the moment that three of them
are seen in company, let them be hung."

Another way would be

"to lay in wait in dark streets and at corners for the royalists and
Feuillants, and cut their throats. Should ten patriots happen to be
killed among a hundred men, what does it matter? It is only ninety for
ten, which prevents mistakes. Fall upon those who own carriages, employ
valets, wear silk coats, or go to the theatres. You may be sure that
they are aristocrats."

The Jacobin proletariat has obviously found the leadership that suits
them. They will get on with each other without difficulty. In order
that this spontaneous massacre may become an administrative measure, the
Neros of the gutter have but to await the word of command from the Neros
of the Hôtel-de-ville.


*****


[Footnote 2601: An expression of Lafayette's in his address to the
Assembly.]

[Footnote 2602:Lafayette, "Mémoires," I. 452.--Malouet (II. 213) states
that there were seventy.]

[Footnote 2603:Cf., for example, "Archives Nationales," A.F. II.116.
Petition of 228 notables of Montargis.]

[Footnote 2604: Petition of the 20,000, so-called, presented by
Messrs. Guillaume and Dupont de Nemours.--Cf.. Mortimer-Ternaux, I.
278.--According to Buchez et Roux, the petition containing only 7,411
names.]

[Footnote 2605: Mortimer-Ternaux, I.277.]

[Footnote 2606: Moniteur, XIII. 89. The act (July 7) is drawn up with
admirable precision and force. On comparing it with the vague, turgid
exaggerations of their adversaries, it seems to measure the intellectual
distance between the two parties.]

[Footnote 2607: 339 against 224--Roederer ("Chronique des cinquante
jours," p.79). "A strong current of opinion by a majority of the
inhabitants of Paris sets in favor of the King."--C. Desmoulins; "That
class of petty traders and shopkeepers, who are more afraid of the
revolutionaries than of so many Uhlans... "]

[Footnote 2608: Mortimer-Ternaux, I. 236. Letter of Roederer to the
president of the National Assembly, June 25. "Mr. President, I have the
honor to inform the Assembly that an armed mob is marching towards the
Château."]

[Footnote 2609: Mortimer-Ternaux, I. 245, 246.--II. 81, 131, 148, 170.]

[Footnote 2610: The murder of M. Duhamel, sub-lieutenant of the national
guard.]

[Footnote 2611: Letter of Vergniaud and Guadet to the painter Boze (in
the "Mémoires de Dumouriez").--Roederer, "Chronique des cinquante jours,"
295.--Bertrand de Molleville, "Mémoires," III. 29.]

[Footnote 2612: Moniteur, XIII. 155 (session of July
16).--Mortimer-Ternaux, II. 69. "Favored by you," says Manuel, "all
citizens are entitled to visit the first functionary of the nation...
The prince's dwelling should be open, like a church. Fear of the people
is an insult to the people. If Louis XVI. possessed the soul of a Marcus
Aurelius, he would have descended into his gardens and tried to
console a hundred thousand beings, on account of the slowness of the
Revolution... Never had there been fewer thieves in the Tuileries than
on that day; for the courtiers had fled...The red cap was an honor to
Louis XVI's head, and ought to be his crown." At this solemn moment the
fraternization of the king with the people took place, and "the next day
the same king betrayed, calumniated, and disgraced the people!" Manuel's
rigmarole surpasses all that can be imagined. "After this there arises
in the panelings of the Louvre, at the confluence of the civil list,
another channel, which leads through the shades below to Pétion's
dungeon... The department, in dealing a blow at the municipality,
explains how, at the banquet of the Law, it represents the Law in the
form of a crocodile, etc."]

[Footnote 2613: Moniteur, XIII. 93 (session of July 9);--27 (session of
July 2).]

[Footnote 2614: Moniteur, XII. 751 (session of June 24); XIII.33
(session of July 3).]

[Footnote 2615: Moniteur, XIII. 224 (session of July 23). Two unsworn
priests had just been massacred at Bordeaux and their heads carried
through the streets on pikes. Ducos adds: "Since the executive power has
put its veto on laws repressing fanaticism, popular executions begin to
be repeated. If the courts do not render justice, etc."--Ibid., XIII.
301 (session of July 31).]

[Footnote 2616: Moniteur, XIII. 72 (session of July 7). The king's
speech to the Assembly after the Lamourette kiss. "I confess to you, M.
President, that I was very anxious for the deputation to arrive, that I
might hasten to the Assembly."]

[Footnote 2617: Moniteur, XIII. 313 (session of Aug. 3). The declaration
read in the king's name must be weighed sentence by sentence; it sums
up his conduct with perfect exactness and thus ends: "What are personal
dangers to a king, from whom they would take the love of his people?
This is what affects me most. The day will come, perhaps, when the
people will know how much I prize its welfare, how much this has always
been my concern and my first need. What sorrows would disappear at the
slightest sign of its return!"]

[Footnote 2618: Moniteur, XIII. 33, 56 bis 85, 97 (sessions of July 3,
5, 6 and 9).]

[Footnote 2619: Moniteur, XIII. 26, 170, 273 (sessions of July 12, 17,
28).--Mortimer-Ternaux, II. 122 (session of July 23): Addresses of
the municipal council of Marseilles, of the federates, of the Angers
petitioners, of the Charente volunteers, etc. "A hereditary monarchy is
opposed to the Rights of Man. Pass the act of dethronement and France
is saved... Be brave, let the sword of the law fall on a perjured
functionary and conspirator! Lafayette is the most contemptible, the
guiltiest,... the most infamous of the assassins of the people," etc.]

[Footnote 2620: Mortimer-Ternaux, II. 126.--Bertrand de Molleville, III.
294.]

[Footnote 2621: Moniteur, XIII. 325 (session of Aug. 3).]

[Footnote 2622: Moniteur, XII. 738; XII. 340.]

[Footnote 2623: Moniteur, XIII. 170, 171, 187, 208, 335 (sessions of
July 17, 18, and 23, and Aug. 5).]

[Footnote 2624: Moniteur, XIII. 187 (session of July 18). "The galleries
applaud. The Assembly murmurs."--208 (July 21). "Murmuring, shouts, and
cries of Down with the speaker! from the galleries. The president calls
the house to order five times, but always fruitlessly."--224 (July
23). "The galleries applaud; long continued murmurs are heard in the
Assembly."]

[Footnote 2625: Buzot, "Mémoires" (Ed. Dauban, 83 and 84). "The majority
of the French people yearned for royalty and the constitution of 1790...
It was at Paris particularly that this desire governed the general plan,
the discussion of it being the least feared in special conversations
and in private society. There were only a few noble-minded, superior
men that were worthy of being republicans... The rest desired the
constitution of 1791, and spoke of the republicans only as one speaks of
very honest maniacs."]

[Footnote 2626: Duvergier, "Collection des lois et décrets," May 29,
1792; July 15, 16, and 18; July 6-20.]

[Footnote 2627: Moniteur, XIII. 25 (session of July 1). Petition of 150
active citizens of the Bonne-Nouvelle section.]

[Footnote 2628: Mortimer-Ternaux, II. 194. Buchez et Roux, XVI. 253. The
decree of dismissal was not passed until the 12th of August, but after
the 31St of July the municipality demanded it and during the following
days several Jacobin grenadiers go to the National Assembly, trample on
their bearskin hats and put on the red cap of liberty.]

[Footnote 2629: Mortimer-Ternaux, II. 192 (municipal action of Aug. 5).]

[Footnote 2630: Decree of July 2.]

[Footnote 2631: Mortimer-Ternaux, II. 129.--Buchez et Roux, XV. 458.
According to the report of the Minister of War, read the 30th of July,
at the evening session, 5,314 department federates left Paris between
July 14 and 30. Pétion wrote that the levy of federates then in Paris
amounted to 2,960, "of which 2,032 were getting ready to go to the camp
at Soissons."--A comparison of these figures leads to the approximate
number that I have adopted]

[Footnote 2632: Buchez et Roux, XVI. 120, 133 (session of the Jacobins,
Aug. 6). The federates "resolved to watch the Château, each taking
a place in the battalions respectively of the sections in which they
lodge, and many incorporated themselves with the battalions of the
faubourg St Antoine."]

[Footnote 2633: Mercure de France, April 14, 1793.--" The Revolution,"
I. p. 332.]

[Footnote 2634: Barbaroux, "Mémoires," 37-40.--Lauront-Lautard,
"Marseilles depuis 1789 jusqu'à 1815," I. 134. "The mayor, Mourdeille,"
who had recruited them, "was perhaps very glad to get rid of them."--On
the composition of this group and on the previous rôle of Rebecqui, see
chapter VI.]

[Footnote 2635: Buchez et Roux, XVI. 197 and following
pages.--Mortimer-Ternaux, II. 148 (the grenadiers numbered only
166).--Moniteur, XIII. 310 (session of Aug. 1). Address of the
grenadiers: "They swore on their honor that they did not draw their
swords until after being threatened for a quarter of an hour, then
insulted and humiliated, until forced to defend their lives against
a troop of brigands armed with pistols, and some of them with
carbines."--" The reading of this memorandum is often interrupted
by hooting from the galleries, in spite of the president's
orders."--Hooting again, when they file out of the chamber.]

[Footnote 2636: The lack of men of action greatly embarrassed the
Jacobin party. ("Correspondance de Mirabeau et du Comte de la Marck,"
II. 326.) Letter of M. de Montmorin, July 13, 1792. On the disposition
of the people of Paris, wearied and worn out "to excess." "They will
take no side, either for or against the king... They no longer stir for
any purpose; riots are wholly factitious. This is so right that they are
obliged to bring men from the South to get them up. Nearly all of those
who forced the gates of the Tuileries, or rather, who got inside of them
on the 20th of June, were outsiders or onlookers, got together at the
sight of such a lot of pikes and red caps, etc. The cowards ran at the
slightest indication of presenting arms, which was done by a portion
of the national guard on the arrival of a deputation from the National
Assembly, their leaders being obliged to encourage them by telling them
that they were not to be fired at."]

[Footnote 2637: Buchez et Roux, XVI. 447. "Chronique des cinquante
jours," by Roederer.]

[Footnote 2638: Mortimer-Ternaux, II. 378.-127 Jacobins of Arras, led by
Geoffroy and young Robespierre, declare to the Directory that they mean
to come to its meetings and follow its deliberations. "It is time that
the master should keep his eye on his agents." The Directory, therefore,
resigns (July 4, 1792).--Ibid., 462 (report of Leroux, municipal
officer). The Paris municipal council, on the night of August 9-10
deliberates under threats of death and the furious shouts of the
galleries.]

[Footnote 2639: Duvergier's "Collection of Laws and Decrees," July 4,
5-8, 11-12, 25-28.--Buchez et Roux, XVI. 250. The section of the
Theatre Français (of which Danton is president and Chaumette and Momoro
secretaries) thus interpret the declaration of the country being in
danger. "After a declaration of the country being in danger by the
representatives of the people, it is natural that the people itself
should take back its sovereign supervision."]

[Footnote 2640: Schmidt, "Tableaux de la Révolution," I. 99-100. Report
to Roland, Oct. 29, 1792.]

[Footnote 2641: Mortimer-Ternaux, II. 199.--Buchez et Roux, XVI.
320.--Moniteur, XIII. 336 (session of Aug. 5). Speech by Collot
d'Herbois.]

[Footnote 2642: Moniteur, XI. 20, session of Feb. 4. At this meeting
Gorguereau, reporter of the committee on legislation, had already stated
that "The authors of these multiplied addresses seem to command rather
than demand... It is ever the same sections or the same individuals who
deceive you in bringing to you their own false testimony for that of the
capital."--"Down with the reporter! From the galleries."--Ibid., XIII.
93, session of July 11. M. Gastelier: "Addresses in the name of the
people are constantly read to you, which are not even the voice of one
section. We have seen the same individual coming three times a week to
demand something in the name of sovereignty." (Shouts of down! down! in
the galleries.) Ibid., 208, session of July 21. M. Dumolard: "You
must distinguish between the people of Paris and these subaltern
intriguers... these habitual oracles of the cafés and public squares,
whose equivocal existence has for a long time occupied the attention and
claimed the supervision of the police." (Down with the speaker! murmurs
and hooting in the galleries).-Mortimer-Ternaux, II. 398. Protests of
the arsenal section, read by Lavoisier (the chemist): "The caprice of a
knot of citizens (thus) becomes the desire of an immense population."]

[Footnote 2643: Buchez et Roux, XVI. 251.--Mortimer-Ternaux, II. 239
and 243. The central bureau is first opened in "the building of the
Saint-Esprit, in the second story, near the passage communicating with
the common dwelling." Afterwards the commissioners of the section occupy
another room in the Hôtel-de-ville, nearly joining the throne-room,
where the municipal council is holding its sessions. During the night
of August 9-10 both councils sit four hours simultaneously within a few
steps of each other.]

[Footnote 2644: Robespierre, "Seventh letter to his constituents," says:
"The sections... have been busy for more than a fortnight getting ready
for the last Revolution."]

[Footnote 2645: Robespierre, "Seventh letter to his
constituents"--Malouet, II. 233, 234.--Roederer, "Chronique des cinquante
jours."]

[Footnote 2646: Moniteur, XIII. 318, 319. The petition is drawn up
apparently by people who are beside themselves. "If we did not rely
on you, I would not answer for the excesses to which our despair would
carry us! We would bring on ourselves all the horrors of civil war,
provided we could, on dying, drag along with us some of our cowardly
assassins!"----The representatives, it must be noted, talk in the same
vein. La Source exclaims: "The members here, like yourselves, call for
vengeance!"--Thuriot: "The crime is atrocious!"]

[Footnote 2647: Taine is describing a basic trait of human nature,
something we see again and again whether our ancestors attacked small,
harmless neighboring nations, witches, renegades, Jews, or religious
people of another faith.(SR).]

[Footnote 2648: Buchez et Roux, XIX 93, session of Sept. 23, 1792.
Speech by Panis: "Many worthy citizens would like to have judicial
proof; but political proofs satisfy us"--Towards the end of July the
Minister of the Interior had invited Pétion to send two municipal
officers to examine the Tuileries; but this the council refused to do,
so as to keep up the excitement.]

[Footnote 2649: Mallet du Pan, "Mémoires," 303. Letter of Malouet, June
29.--Bertrand de Molleville, "Mémoires," II. 301.--Hua, 148.--Weber, II.
208.--Madame Campan, "Mémoires," II. 188. Already, at the end of 1791,
the king was told that he was liable to be poisoned by the pastry-cook
of the palace, a Jacobin. For three or four months the bread and pastry
he ate were secretly purchased in other places. On the 14th of July,
1792, his attendants, on account of the threats against his life, put a
breastplate on him under his coat.]

[Footnote 2650: member of the 1789 Constituent Assembly. (SR).]

[Footnote 2651: Moniteur, VIII. 271, 278. A deputy, excusing his
assailants, pretends that d'Ésprémesnil urged the people to enter the
Tuileries garden. It is scarcely necessary to state that during the
Constituent Assembly d'Espréménil was one of the most conspicuous
members of the extreme "Right."--Duc de Gaëte, "Mémoires," I. 18.]

[Footnote 2652: Lafayette, "Mémoires," I. 465.]

[Footnote 2653: Moniteur, XIII. 327,--Mortimer-Ternaux, II. 176.]

[Footnote 2654: Moniteur, XIII. 340.--The style of these petitions
is highly instructive. We see in them the state of mind and degree
of education of the petitioners: sometimes a half-educated writer
attempting to reason in the vein of the Contrat Social; sometimes, a
schoolboy spouting the tirades of Raynal; and sometimes, the corner
letter-writer putting together the expressions forming his stock in
trade.]

[Footnote 2655: Carra, "Précis historique sur l'origine et les
véritables auteurs de l'insurrection du 10 Août."--Barbaroux, "Mémoires,
49. The executive directory, appointed by the central committee of the
confederates, held its first meeting in a wine-shop, the Soleil d'or,
on the square of the Bastille; the second at the Cadran bleu, on the
boulevard; the third in Antoine's room, who then lodged in the same
house with Robespierre. Camille Desmoulins was present at this latter
meeting. Santerre, Westermann, Fournier the American, and Lazowski were
the principal members of this Directory. Another insurrectionary
plan was drawn up on the 30th of July in a wine-shop at Charenton
by Barbaroux, Rebecqui, Pierre Bayle, Heron, and Fournier the
American.--Cf. J. Claretie, "Camille Desmoulins," p. 192. Desmoulins
wrote, a little before the 10th of August: "If the National Assembly
thinks that it cannot save the country, let it declare then, that,
according to the Constitution, and like the Romans, it hands this over
to each citizen. Let the tocsin be rung forthwith, the whole nation
assembled, and every man, as at Rome, be invested with the power of
putting to death all well-known conspirators!"]

[Footnote 2656: Mortimer-Ternaux, II. 182. Decision of the Quinze-Vingt
Section, Aug. 4.--Buchez et Roux, XVI. 402-410. History of Quinze-Vingt
Section.]

[Footnote 2657: Moniteur. XIII. 367, session of Aug. 8.--Ibid., 369 and
following pages. Session of Aug. 9. Letters and speeches of maltreated
deputies.]

[Footnote 2658: Moniteur, 371. Speech of M. Girardin: "I am convinced
that most of those who insulted me were foreigners."--Ibid., 370. Letter
of M. Frouvières: "Many of the citizens, coming out of their shops,
exclaimed: How can they insult the deputies in this way? Run away! run
off!"--M. Jolivet, that evening attending a meeting of the Jacobin Club,
states "that the Jacobin tribunes were far from sharing in this frenzy."
He heard "one individual in these tribunes exclaim, on the proposal
to put the dwellings of the deputies on the list, that it was
outrageous."--Countless other details show the small number and
character of the factions.--Ibid., 374. Speech of Aubert-Dubacet: "I
saw men dressed in the coats of the national guard, with countenances
betraying everything that is most vile in wickedness." There are "a
great many evil-disposed persons among the federates."]

[Footnote 2659: Moniteur, XIII. 170 (letter of M. de Joly, Minister of
Justice).--Ibid., 371, declaration of M. Jolivet.--Buchez et Roux,
XVI. 370 (session of the Jacobin Club, Aug. 8, at evening). Speech by
Goupilleau.]

[Footnote 2660: One may imagine with what satisfaction Lenin, must
have read this description agreeing: "Yes, open voting by a named and
identified count, that is how a leader best can control any assembly."
(SR).]

[Footnote 2661: Moniteur, XIII. 370.--Cf. Ibid., the letter of M.
Chapron.--Ibid., 372. Speech by M. A. Vaublanc.--Moore, "Journal during
a Residence in France," I. 25 (Aug. 10). The impudence of the people in
the galleries was intolerable. There was "a loud and universal peal of
laughter from all the galleries" on the reading of a letter, in which a
deputy wrote that he was threatened with decapitation.--" Fifty members
were shouting at the same time; the most boisterous night I ever was
witness to in the House of Commons was calmness itself alongside of
this."]

[Footnote 2662: Moniteur, Ibid., p. 371.--Lafayette, I. 467. "On the 9th
of August, as can be seen in the unmutilated editions of the Logographe,
the Assembly, almost to a man, arose and declared that it was not free."
Ibid., 478. "On the 9th of August the Assembly had passed a decree
declaring that it was not free. This decree was torn up on the 10th. But
it is no that it was passed."]

[Footnote 2663: Moniteur, XIII. 370, 374, 375. Speech by Roederer, letter
of M. de Joly, and speech by Pétion.]

[Footnote 2664: Mathieu Dumas, "Mémoires," II. 461.]

[Footnote 2665: "Chronique des cinquante jours," by
Roederer.--Mortimer-Ternaux, II. 260.--Buchez et Roux, XVI. 458.--Towards
half-past seven in the morning there were only from sixty to eighty
members present. (Testimony of two of the Ministers who leave the
Assembly.)]

[Footnote 2666: Mortimer-Ternaux, II. 205. At the ballot of July 12,
not counting members on leave of absence or delegated elsewhere, and
the dead not replaced, there were already twenty-seven not answering the
call, while after that date three others resigned.--Buchez et Roux,
XVII. 340 (session of Sept. 2, 1792). Hérault de Séchelles is elected
president by 248 out of 257 voters.--Hua, 164 (after Aug. 10). "We
attended the meetings of the House simply to show that we had not given
them up. We took no part in the discussions, and on the vote being
taken, standing or sitting, we remained in our seats. This was the only
protest we could make."]

[Footnote 2667: Mortimer-Ternaux, II. 229, 233, 417 and following pages.
M. Mortimer-Ternaux is the first to expose, with documents to support
him and critical discussion, the formation of the revolutionary
commune.--The six sections referred to are the Lombards, Gravilliers,
Mauconseil, Gobelins, Théatre-Français, and Faubourg Poissonnière.]

[Footnote 2668: For instance, the Enfants Rouges, Louvre, Observatoire,
Fontaine-Grenelle, Faubourg Saint-Denis, and Thermes de Julien..]

[Footnote 2669: For example, at the sections of Montreuil, Popincourt,
and Roi de Sicile..]

[Footnote 2670: For example, Ponceau, Invalides, Sainte-Geneviève.]

[Footnote 2671: Mortimer-Ternaux, II. 240.]

[Footnote 2672: Mortimer-Ternaux, 446 (list of the commissioners who
took their seats before 9 o'clock in the morning). "Le Tableau général
des Commisaires des 48 sections qui ont composé le conseil général de la
Commune de Paris, le 10 Août, 1792," it must be noted, was not published
until three or four months later, with all the essential falsifications.
It may be found in Buchez et Roux, XVI. 450.--"Relation de l'abbé
Sicard." "At that time a lot of scoundrels, after the general meeting of
the sections was over, passed acts in the name of the whole assemblage
and had them executed, utterly unknown to those who had done this, or by
those who were the unfortunate victims of these proceedings." (supported
by documents).]

[Footnote 2673: Mortimer-Ternaux, II. 270, 273. (The official report
of Mandat's examination contains five false statements, either through
omission or substitution.)]

[Footnote 2674: Claretie, "Camille Desmoulins," p.467 (notes of
Topino-Lebrun on Danton's trial). Danton, in the pleadings, says: "I
left at 1 o'clock in the morning. I was at the revolutionary commune and
pronounced sentence of death on Mandet, who had orders to fire op the
people." Danton in the same place says: "I had planned the 10th of
August." It is very certain that from 1 to 7 o'clock in the
morning (when Mandat was killed) he was the principal leader of the
insurrectional commune. Nobody was so potent, so overbearing, so well
endowed physically for the control of such a conventicle as Danton.
Besides, among the new-comers he was the best known and with the most
influence through his position as deputy of the syndic-attorney. Hence
his prestige after the victory and appointment as Minister of Justice.
His hierarchical superior, the syndic-attorney Manuel, who was there
also and signed his name, showed himself undoubtedly the pitiful fellow
he was, an affected, crazy, ridiculous loud-talker. For this reason he
was allowed to remain syndic-attorney as a tool and servant.--Beaulieu,
"Essais sur la Révolution Française," III. 454. "Rossignal boasted of
having committed this assassination himself."]

[Footnote 2675: "Pièces intéressantes pour l'histoire," by Pétion, 1793.
"I desired the insurrection, but I trembled for fear that it might
not succeed. My position was a critical one. I had to do my duty as a
citizen without sacrificing that of a magistrate; externals had to be
preserved without derogating from forms. The plan was to confine me in
my own house; but they forgot or delayed to carry this out. Who do you
think repeatedly sent to urge the execution of this measure? Myself;
yes, myself!"]

[Footnote 2676: In "Histoire de la Révolution Française" by Ferrand
& Lamarque, Cavaillés, Paris 1851, vol. II. Page 225 we may read the
following footnote: "This very evening, a young artillery lieutenant
observed, from a window of a house in the rue de l'Echelle, the
preparations which were being undertaken in the château des Tuileries:
that was Napoleon Bonaparte.--Well, right, asked the deputy Pozze
di Borgo, his compatriot, what do you think of what is going on? This
evening they will attack the château. Do you think the people will
succeed?--I don't know, answered the future emperor, but what I can
assure you is that if they gave me the command of two Swiss battalions
and one hundred good horsemen, I should repel the insurgents in a manner
which would for ever rid them of any desire to return." (SR)]

[Footnote 2677: Napoleon, at this moment, was at the Carrousel, in the
house of Bourrienne's brother. "I could see conveniently," he says, "all
that took place during the day... The king had at least as many troops
in his defense as the Convention since had on the 13th Vendémaire,
while the enemies of the latter were much more formidable and better
disciplined. The greater part of the national guard showed that they
favored the king; this justice must be done to it." (It might be
helpful to some readers to know that when Napoleon refers to the 13th
Vendémaire, (5th Oct. 1795) that was when he, as a young officer was
given the task to defend the Convention against a royalist uprising.
He was quick-witted and got hold of some guns in time, loaded them with
grape-shot, placed them in front of the Parisian church of Saint-Roch
and completely eliminated the superior royalist force. SR.)]

[Footnote 2678: Official report of Leroux. On the side of the garden,
along the terrace by the river, and then on the return were "a
few shouts of Vive le roi! many for Vive la nation! Vivent les
sans-culottes! Down with the king! Down with the veto! Down with the
old porker! etc.--But I can certify that these insults were all uttered
between the Pont-Turnant and the parterre, and by about a dozen men,
among which were five or six gunners following the king, the same as
flies follow an animal they are bent on tormenting."]

[Footnote 2679: Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 223, 273--Letter of Bonnaud,
chief of the Sainte-Marguerite battalion: "I cannot avoid marching at
their head under any pretext... Never will I violate the Constitution
unless I am forced to."--The Gravilliers section and that of the
Faubourg Poissonnière cashiered their officers and elected others.]

[Footnote 2680: Mortimer-Ternaux, IV. 342. Speech of Fabre d'Eglantine
at the Jacobin Club, Nov. 5, 1792. "Let it be loudly proclaimed that
these are the same men who captured the Tuileries, broke into the
prisons of the Abbaye, of Orleans and of Versailles."]

[Footnote 2681: In this respect the riot of the Champ-de-Mars (July 17,
1791), the only one that was suppressed, is very instructive: "As the
militia would not as usual ground their arms on receiving the word of
command from the mob, this last began, according to custom, to pelt them
with stones. To be deprived of their Sunday recreational activities,
to be marching through the streets under a scorching sun, and then be
remain standing like fools on a public holiday, to be knocked out
with bricks, was a little more than they had patience to bear so that,
without waiting for an order, they fired and killed a dozen or two of
the raggamuffins. The rest of the brave chaps bolted. If the militia had
waited for orders they might, I fancy, have been all knocked down
before they received any... Lafayette was very near being killed in the
morning; but the pistol failed to go off at his breast. The assassin was
immediately secured, but he arranged to be let free" (Gouverneur Morris,
letter of July 20, 1791). Likewise, on the 29th of August, 1792, at
Rouen, the national guard, defending the Hôtel-de-ville, is pelted with
stones more than an hour while many are wounded. The magistrates make
every concession and try every expedient, the mayor reading the riot act
five or six times. Finally the national guard, forced into it, exclaim:
"If you do not allow us to repel force with force we shall leave." They
fire and four persons are killed and two wounded, and the crowd breaks
up. ("Archives Nationales," F7, 2265, official report of the Rouen
municipality, Aug. 29; addresses of the municipality, Aug. 28; letter of
the lieutenant-colonel of the gendarmerie, Aug. 30, etc.).]

[Footnote 2682: Official report of Leroux.--"Chronique des cinquante
jours," by Roederer.--"Détails particuliers sur la journée du 10 Aout,"
by a bourgeois of Paris, an eye-witness (1822).]

[Footnote 2683: Barbaroux, "Mémoires," 69. "Everything betokened victory
for the court if the king had never left his post... If he had shown
himself, if he had mounted on horseback the battalions of Paris would
have declared for him."]

[Footnote 2684: "Révolution de Paris," number for Aug. 11, 1792. "The
10th of August, 1792, is still more horrible than the 24th of August,
1572, and Louis XVI. a greater monster than Charles IX. "--"Thousands
of torches were found in cellars, apparently placed there to burn down
Paris at a signal from this modern Nero." In the number for Aug.18: "The
place for Louis Nero and for Medicis Antoinette is not in the towers of
the Temple; their heads should have fallen from the guillotine on the
night of the 10th of August." (Special details of a plan of the king
to massacre all patriot deputies, and intimidate Paris with a grand
pillaging and by keeping the guillotine constantly at work.) "That
crowned ogre and his Austrian panther."]

[Footnote 2685: Narrative of the Minister Joly (written four days after
the event). The king departs about half-past eight.--Cf. Madame Campan,
"Mémoires," and Moniteur, XIII. 378.]

[Footnote 2686: "Révolution de Paris," number for Aug. 18. On his way
a sans-culotte steps out in front of the rows and tries to prevent the
king from proceeding. The officer of the guard argues with him, upon
which he extends his hand to the king, exclaiming: "Touch that hand,
bastard, and you have shaken the hand of an honest man! But I have no
intention that your bitch of a wife goes with you to the Assembly; we
don't want that whore."--"Louis XVI," says Prudhomme, "kept on his way
without being upset by the with this noble impulse."--I regard this as a
masterpiece of Jacobin interpretation.]

[Footnote 2687: Mortimer-Ternaux, II. 311, 325. The king, at the foot
of the staircase, had asked Roederer: "what will become of the persons
remaining above?" "Sire," he replies, "they seem to be in plain dress.
Those who have swords have merely to take them off, follow you and leave
by the garden." A certain number of gentlemen, indeed, do so, and thus
depart while others escape by the opposite side through the gallery of
the Louvre.]

[Footnote 2688: Mathon de la Varenne, "Histoire particulière," etc.,
108. (Testimony of the valet-de-chambre Lorimier de Chamilly, with whom
Mathon was imprisoned in the prison of La Force.]

[Footnote 2689: De Lavalette, "Mémoires," I. 81. "We there found the
grand staircase barred by a sort of beam placed across it, and defended
by several Swiss officers, who were civilly disputing its passage with
about fifty mad fellows, whose odd dress very much resembled that of the
brigands in our melodramas. They were intoxicated, while their coarse
language and queer imprecations indicated the town of Marseilles, which
had belched them forth."]

[Footnote 2690: Mortimer-Ternaux, II. 314, 317 (questioning of M. de
Diesbach). "Their orders were not to fire until the word was given, and
not before the national guard had set the example."]

[Footnote 2691: Buchez et Roux, XVI, 443. Narration by Pétion.--Peltier,
"Histoire du 10 août."]

[Footnote 2692: M. de Nicolay wrote the following day, the 11th of
August: "The federates fired first, which was followed by a sharp volley
from the château windows." (Le Comte de Fersen et la cour de France. II.
347.)]

[Footnote 2693: Mortimer-Ternaux, II. 491. The abandonment of the
Tuileries is proved by the small loss of the assailants. (List of the
wounded belonging to the Marseilles corps and of the killed and wounded
of the Brest corps, drawn up Oct. 16, 1792.--Statement of the aid
granted to wounded Parisians, to widows, to orphans, and to the aged,
October, 1792, and then 1794.)--The total amounts to 74 dead and 54
severely wounded The two corps in the hottest of the fight were the
Marseilles band, which lost 22 dead and 14 wounded, and the Bretons, who
lost 2 dead and 5 wounded. The sections that suffered the most were the
Quinze-Vingts (4 dead and 4 wounded), the Faubourg-Montmartre (3 dead),
the Lombards (4 wounded), and the Gravilliers (3 wounded).--Out of
twenty-one sections reported, seven declare that they did not lose
a man.--The Swiss regiment, on the contrary, lost 760 men and 26
officers.]

[Footnote 2694: Napoleon's narrative.]

[Footnote 2695: Pétion's account.]

[Footnote 2696: Prudhomme's "Révolution de Paris," XIII. 236 and
237.--Barbaroux, 73.--Madame Campan, II. 250.]

[Footnote 2697: Mortimer-Ternaux, II. 258.--Moore, I. 59. Some of
the robbers are killed. Moore saw one of them thrown down the grand
staircase.]

[Footnote 2698: Michelet, III. 289.]

[Footnote 2699: Mercier, "Le Nouveau Paris," II. 108.--"The Comte de
Fersen et la Cour de France," II. 348. (Letter of Sainte-Foix, Aug. 11).
"The cellars were broken open and more than 10,000 bottles of wine of
which I saw the fragments in the court, so intoxicated the people that
I made haste to put an end to an investigation imprudently begun amidst
2,000 sots with naked swords, handled by them very carelessly."]

[Footnote 26100: Napoleon's narrative.--Memoirs of Barbaroux.]

[Footnote 26101: Moniteur, XIII. 387.--Mortimer-Ternaux, II. 340.]

[Footnote 26102: Mortimer-Ternaux, II. 303. Words of the president
Vergniaud on receiving Louis XVI.--Ibid. 340, 342, 350.]

[Footnote 26103: Mortimer-Ternaux, 356, 357.]

[Footnote 26104: Mortimer-Ternaux, 337. Speech of Huguenin, president of
the Commune, at the bar of the National Assembly: "The people by whom
we are sent to you have instructed us to declare to you that they invest
you anew with its confidence; but they at the same time instruct us to
declare to you that, as judge of the extraordinary measures to which
they have been driven by necessity and resistance to oppression, they k
now no other authority than the French people, your sovereign and ours,
assembled in its primary meetings."]

[Footnote 26105: Duvergier, "Collection des lois et décrets," (between
Aug. 10 and Sept. 20).]

[Footnote 26106: Duvergier, "Collection des lois et décrets," Aug.
11-12. "The National Assembly considering that it has not the right
to subject sovereignty in the formation of a national Convention to
imperative regulations,... invites citizens to conform to the following
rules."]

[Footnote 26107: August 11 (article 8)]

[Footnote 26108: Aug. 10-12 and Aug. 28.]

[Footnote 26109: Ibid., Aug. 10, Aug. 13.--Cf. Moniteur, XIII. 399
(session of Aug. 12).]

[Footnote 26110: Ibid., Aug. 18.]

[Footnote 26111: Aug. 23 and Sep. 3. After the 11th of August the
Assembly passes a decree releasing Saint-Huruge and annulling the
warrant against Antoine.]

[Footnote 26112: Ibid., Aug. 14.]

[Footnote 26113: Ibid., Aug. 14. Decree for dividing the property of
the émigrés into lots of from two to four arpents, in order to "multiply
small proprietors."--Ibid., Sept. 2. Other decrees against the émigrés
and their relations, Aug. 14, 23, 30, and Sept. 5 and 9.]

[Footnote 26114: Ibid., Aug. 26. Other decrees against the ecclesiastics
or the property of the church, Aug. 17, 18, 19, and Sept. 9 and 19.]

[Footnote 26115: Ibid., Sept. 20.]

[Footnote 26116: Imagine the impression these last lines may have upon
any ardent, ambitious and arrogant young man who, like Lenin in 1907,
would have read this between 1893 and 1962, date of the last English
reprinting of Taine's once widely know work. They summed up both
what had to be done and who would be the primary beneficiaries of the
revolution. Lenin, Hitler, Mussolini and countless other young hopeful
political men. Read it once more and ask yourself if much of this
program has not been more or less surreptitiously carried out in most
western countries after the second world war? (SR).]

[Footnote 26117: Malouet, II. 241.]

[Footnote 26118: Mercure de France, July 21, 1792.]

[Footnote 26119: "Révolutions de Paris," XIII. 137.]

[Footnote 26120: Mallet du Pan. "Mémoires," I. 322. Letters to Mallet du
Pan. Aug. 4 and following days.]

[Footnote 26121: Buchez et Roux, XVI. 446. Pétion's narrative.--Arnault,
"Souvenirs d'un sexagénaire," I. 342. (An eye-witness on the 10th of
August.) "The massacre extended but little beyond the Carrousel, and did
not cross the Seine. Everywhere else I found a population as quiet as if
nothing had happened. Inside the city the people scarcely manifested any
surprise; dancing went on in the public gardens. In the Marais, where I
lived then, there was only a suspicion of the occurrence, the same as at
Saint-Germain; it was said that something was going on in Paris, and the
evening newspaper was impatiently looked for to know what it was."]

[Footnote 26122: Moore, I. 122.--The same thing is observable at other
crises in the Revolution. On the 6th of October, 1789 (Sainte-Beuve,
"Causeries du Lundi," XII. 461), Sénac de Meilhan at an evening
reception hears the following conversations: "'Did you see the king
pass?' asks one. 'No, I was at the theater.' 'Did Molé play?'--'As for
myself; I was obliged to stay in the Tuileries; there was no way of
getting out before 9 o'clock.' 'You saw the king pass then?' 'I could
not see very well; it was dark.'--Another says: 'It must have taken
six hours for him to come from Versailles.'--Others coolly add a few
details.--To continue: 'Will you take a hand at whist?' 'I will play
after supper, which is just ready.' Cannon are heard, and then a few
whisperings, and a transient moment of depression,. 'The king is leaving
the Hôtel-de-ville. They must be very tired.' Supper is taken and there
are snatches of conversation. They play trente et quarante and while
walking about watching the game and their cards they do some talking:
'What a horrid affair!' while some speak together briefly and in a
low tone of voice. The clock strikes two and they all leave or go to
bed.--These people seem to you insensible. Very well; there is not one
of them who would not accept death at the king's feet."--On the 23d of
June, 1791, at the news of the king's arrest at Varennes, "the Bois de
Boulogne and the Champs Elysées were filled with people talking in a
frivolous way about the most serious matters, while young men are
seen, pronouncing sentences of death in their frolics with courtesans."
(Mercure de France, July 9, 1791. It begins with a little piece entitled
Dépit d'un Amant.)--See ch. XI. for the sentiment of the population in
May and June, 1793.]

[Footnote 26123: Moniteur, XIII. 290 (July 29) and 278 (July 30).]

[Footnote 26124: "Archives Nationales," F7, 145. Letter of Santerre to
the Minister of the Interior, Sept. 16, 1792, with the daily list of all
the men that have left Paris between the3rd and 15th of September, the
total amounting to 18,635, of which 15,504 are volunteers. Other letters
from the same, indicating subsequent departures: Sept. 17, 1,071 men;
none the following days until Sept. 21, 243; 22nd 150; up to the 26th,
813; on Oct. 1st, 113; 2nd and 3rd, 1,088; 4th, 1620; 16th, 196, etc.--I
believe that amongst those who leave, some are passing through Paris
coming from the provinces; this prevents an exact calculation of the
number of Parisian volunteers. M. de Lavalette, himself a volunteer,
says 60,000; but he furnishes not proofs of this.]

[Footnote 26125: Mortimer-Ternaux, II. 362.]

[Footnote 26126: Soulavie, "Vie privée du Maréchal duc de Richelieu,"
IX. 384.----"One can scarcely comprehend," says Lafayette, ("Mémoires,"
I. 454), "how the Jacobin minority and a gang of pretended Marseilles
men could render themselves masters of Paris, while almost the whole
of the 40,000 citizens forming the national guard desired the
Constitution."]

[Footnote 26127: Hua, 169.]

[Footnote 26128: Moniteur, XIII. 437. (session of Aug. 16, the applause
reiterated and the speech ordered to be printed).]

[Footnote 26129: These words should cause society to change resulting
in a leveling of incomes through proportional taxation and aids of all
kinds throughout the industrialized world. Nobody could ever imagine the
immense wealth which was to be produced by the efficient industry of the
20th century. (SR).]

[Footnote 26130: Roederer, "oeuvres Complètes." VIII 477. "The club
orators displayed France to the proletariat as a sure prey if they would
seize hold of it."]

[Footnote 26131: This manifesto, was drafted for the Duke of
Brunswick-Lunebourg, the general commanding the combined Prussian and
Austrian forces, by the French émigré Marquis de Limon. It threatened
the French and especially the Paris population with unspecified "rigors
of war" should it have the temerity to resist or to harm the King and
his family. It was signed in Koblenz, Germany on 25 August 1792 and
published in royalist newspapers 3 days later in Paris.(SR).]

[Footnote 26132: "Moore's Journal," I. 303-309.]

[Footnote 26133: "Archives Nationales," 474, 426. Section of
Gravilliers, letter of Charles Chemin, commissary, to Santerre, and
deposition of Ilingray, cavalryman of the national gendarmerie, Aug.
11.]

[Footnote 26134: Beaumarchais, "oeuvres complètes," letter of Aug. 12,
1792.--This very interesting letter shows how mobs are composed at this
epoch. A small gang of regular brigands and thieves plot together some
enterprise, to which is added a frightened, infatuated crowd, which may
become ferocious, but which remains honest.]

[Footnote 26135: The words of Hobbes applied by Roederer to the democracy
of 1792: "In democratia tot possent esse Nerones quot sunt oratores qui
populo adulantur; simul et plures sunt in democratia, et quotidie novi
suboriuntur."]

[Footnote 26136: Lucas de Montigny, "Mémoires de Mirabeau," II. 231
and following pages.--The preface affixed by Manuel to his edition
(of Mirabeau's letters) is a masterpiece of nonsense and
impertinence.--Peltier, "Histoire du 10 Aout," II. 205.--Manuel "came
out of a little shop at Montargis and hawked about obscene tracts in the
upper stories of Paris. He got hold of Mirabeau's letters in the drawers
of the public department and sold them for 2,000 crowns." (testimony of
Boquillon, juge-de la paix).]

[Footnote 26137: Lafayette, "Mémoires," I. 467, 471. "The queen had
50,000 crowns put into Danton's hands a short time before these terrible
days."--" The court had Danton under pay for two years, employing him as
a spy on the Jacobins."--" Correspondance de Mirabeau et du Comte de la
Marck," III. 82. Letter from Mirabeau, March 10, 1791: "Danton received
yesterday 30,000 livres".--Other testimony, Bertrand de Molleville, I.
354, II. 288.--Brissot, IV. 193--. Miot de Melito, "Mémoires," I. 40,
42. Miot was present at the conversations which took place between
Danton, Legendre, etc., at the table of Desforges, Minister of Foreign
Affairs. "Danton made no concealment of his love of pleasure and money,
and laughed at all conscientious and delicate scruples."--" Legendre
could not say enough in praise of Danton in speaking of his talents as a
public man; but he loudly censured his habits and cxpensive tastes,
and never joined him in any of his odious speculations."--The opposite
thesis has been maintained by Robinet and Bougeart in their articles
on Danton. The discussion would require too much space. The important
points are as follows: Danton, a barrister in the royal council in March, 1787, loses about
10,000 francs on the refund of his charge. In his marriage-contract
dated June, 1787, he admits 12,000 francs patrimony in lands and houses,
while his wife brings him only 20,000 francs dowry. From 1787 to 1791 he
could not earn much, being in constant attendance at the Cordeliers club
and devoted to politics; Lacretelle saw him in the riots of 1788. He
left at his death about 85,000 francs in national property bought in
1791. Besides, he probably held property and valuables under
third parties, who kept them after his death. (De Martel, "Types
Révolutionnaires," 2d part, p.139. Investigations of Blache at
Choisy-sur-Seine, where a certain Fauvel seems to have been Danton's
assumed name.)--See on this question, "Avocats aux conseils du Roi," by
Emil Bos, pp.513-520. According to accounts proved by M. Bos, it follows
that Danton, at the end of 1791, was in debt to the amount of 53,000
francs; this is the hole stopped by the court. On the other side, Danton
before the Revolution signs himself Danton even in authentic writing,
which is an usurpation of nobility and at that time subject to the
penalty of the galleys.--The double-faced infidelity in question must
have been frequent, for their leaders were anything else but sensitive.
On the 7th of August Madame Elizabeth tells M. de Montmorin that
the insurrection would not take place; that Pétion and Santerre were
concerned in it, and that they had received 750,000 francs to prevent
it and bring over the Marseilles troop to the king's side (Malouet,
II. 223).--There is no doubt that Santerre, in using the king's money
against the king, thought he was acting patriotically. Money is at the
bottom of every riot, to pay for drink and to stimulate subordinate
agents.]

[Footnote 26138: Buchez et Roux, XXVIII. 92. Letter of Gadolle to
Roland, October, 1792, according to a narrative by one of the teachers
in the college d'Harcourt, in which Varlet was placed.]

[Footnote 26139: Buchez et Roux, XIII. 254.]

[Footnote 26140: "C. Desmoulins," by Claretie, 238 (in 1786 and
in 1775). "The inquest still exists, unfortunately it is
convincing."--Westermann was accused of these acts in December, 1792,
by the section of the Lombards, "proofs in hand."--Gouverneur Morris, so
well informed, writes to Washington, Jan. 10, 1793: The retreat of the
King of Prussia "was worth to Westermann about 10,000 pounds... The
council ... exerted against him a prosecution for old affairs of no
higher rank than petty larceny."]

[Footnote 26141: "Archives Nationales," F7, 4434 (papers of the
committee of general safety). Note on Panis, with full details and
references to the occurrence.]

[Footnote 26142: "Révolutions de Paris," No.177 (session of the
council-general at the Hotel-de-ville, Nov. 8, 1792, report of the
committee of surveillance). "Sergent admits, except as to one of the
watches, that he intended to pay for the said object the price they
would have brought. It was noticed, as he said this, that he had on his
finger the agate ring that was claimed."]

[Footnote 26143: Mortimer-Ternaux, II. 638; III. 500 and following
pages; IV. 132.--Cf. II. 451.]

[Footnote 26144: Mortimer-Ternaux, II. 456.]

[Footnote 26145: Buchez et Roux, XVI. 138, 140 (testimony of Mathon de
la Varenne, who was engaged in the case).]

[Footnote 26146: "Dictionnaire biographique," by Eymery (Leipsic, 1807),
article HÉBERT.]

[Footnote 26147: Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 484, 601. Cf. letter of the
representative Cavaignac, Ibid., 399.]

[Footnote 26148: "Dictionnaire biographique," article HENRIOT.-The
lives of many of these subordinate leaders are well done. Cf. "Stanislas
Maillard," by AL Sorel; "Le Patriote Palloy," by V Fournel.]

[Footnote 26149: Granier de Cassagnac, "Histoire des Girondins,"
409.--"Archives Nationales," F7 3196. Letters of de Sades on the sacking
of his house near Apt, with supporting document and proofs of his
civism; among others a petition drawn up by him in the name of the Pique
section and read at the Convention year II. brumaire 25. "Legislators,
the reign of philosophy has at last annihilated that of imposture...
The worship of a Jewish slave of the Romans is not adapted to the
descendants of Scoevola. The general prosperity which is certain to
proceed from individual happiness will spread to the farthest regions
of the universe and everywhere the dreaded hydra of ultramontane
superstition, chased by the combined lights of reason and virtue, no
longer finding a refuge in the hateful haunts of a dying aristocracy,
will perish at her side in despair at finally beholding on this earth
the triumph of philosophy!"]

[Footnote 26150: Barbaroux, "Mémoires," 57, 59. The latter months of the
legislative assembly.]





BOOK THIRD. THE SECOND STAGE OF THE CONQUEST.




CHAPTER I.




I.--Government by gangs in times of anarchy.

     Case where anarchy is recent and suddenly brought on.--The
     band that succeeds the fallen government and its
     administrative tools.

The worst feature of anarchy is not so much the absence of the
overthrown government as the rise of new governments of an inferior
grade. In every state which breaks up, new groups will form to conquer
and become sovereign: it was so in Gaul on the fall of the Roman empire,
also under the latest of Charlemagne's successors; the same state
of things exists now (1875) in Rumania and in Mexico. Adventurers,
gangsters, corrupted or downgraded men, social outcasts, men overwhelmed
with debts and lost to honor, vagabonds, deserters, dissolute troopers,
born enemies of work, of subordination, and of the law, unite to break
the worm-eaten barriers which still surround the sheep-like masses;
and as they are unscrupulous, they slaughter on all occasions. On this
foundation their authority rests; each in turn reigns in its own area,
and their government, in keeping with its brutal masters, consists in
robbery and murder; nothing else can be looked for from barbarians and
brigands.

But never are they so dangerous as when, in a great State recently
fallen, a sudden revolution places the central power in their hands;
for they then regard themselves as the legitimate inheritors of the
shattered government, and, under this title, they undertake to manage
the commonwealth. Now in times of anarchy the ruling power does not
proceed from above, but from below; and the chiefs, therefore, who
would remain such, are obliged to follow the blind impulsion of their
flock.[3101] Hence the important and dominant personage, the one whose
ideas prevail, the veritable successor of Richelieu and of Louis XIV.
is here the subordinate Jacobin, the pillar of the club, the maker of
motions, the street rioter, Panis Sergent, Hébert, Varlet, Henriot,
Maillard, Fournier, Lazowski, or, still lower in the scale, the
Marseilles "rough," the Faubourg gunner, the drinking market-porter
who elaborates his political conceptions in the interval between his
hiccups.[3102]--For information he has the rumors circulating in
the streets which tell of a traitor to each house, and for confirmed
knowledge the club slogans inciting him to rule over the vast machine.
A machinery so vast and complicated, a whole assembly of entangled
services ramifying in innumerable offices, with so much apparatus
of special import, so delicate as to require constant adaptation
to changing circumstances, diplomacy, finances, justice, army
administration--all this surpasses his limited comprehension; a bottle
cannot be made to contain the bulk of a hogshead.[3103] In his narrow
brain, perverted and turned topsy-turvy by the disproportionate notions
put into it, only one idea suited to his gross instincts and aptitudes
finds a place there, and that is the desire to kill his enemies; and
these are also the State's enemies, however open or concealed, present
or future, probable or even possible. He carries this savagery and
bewilderment into politics, and hence the evil arising from his
government. Simply a brigand, he would have murdered only to rob, and
his murders would have been restricted. As representing the State,
he undertakes wholesale massacres, of which he has the means ready
at hand.--For he has not yet had time enough to take apart the old
administrative implements; at all events the minor wheels, gendarmes,
jailers, employees, book-keepers, and accountants, are always in their
places and under control. There can be no resistance on the part
of those arrested; accustomed to the protection of the laws and to
peaceable ways and times, they have never relied on defending themselves
nor ever could imagine that any one could be so summarily slain. As
to the mass, rendered incapable of any effort of its own by ancient
centralization, it remains inert and passive and lets things go their
own way.--Hence, during many long, successive days, without being
hurried or impeded, with official papers quite correct and accounts in
perfect order, a massacre can be carried out with the same impunity and
as methodically as cleaning the streets or clubbing stray dogs.[3104]




II.--The development of the ideas of killings in the mass of the party.

     The morning after August 10.--The tribunal of August 17.
     --The funereal fête of August 27.--The prison plot.

Let us trace the progress of the homicidal idea in the mass of the
party. It lies at the very bottom of the revolutionary creed. Collot
d'Herbois, two months after this, aptly says in the Jacobin tribune:
"The second of September is the great article in the credo of our
freedom."[3105] It is peculiar to the Jacobin to consider himself as a
legitimate sovereign, and to treat his adversaries not as belligerents,
but as criminals. They are guilty of lèse-nation; they are outlaws, fit
to be killed at all times and places, and deserve extinction, even when
no longer able or in a condition do any harm.--Consequently, on the 10th
of August the Swiss Guards, who do not fire a gun and who surrender, the
wounded lying on the ground, their surgeons, the palace domestics, are
killed; and worse still, persons like M. de Clermont-Tonnerre who pass
quietly along the street. All this is now called in official phraseology
the justice of the people.--On the 11th the Swiss Guards, collected
in the Feuillants building, come near being massacred; the mob on the
outside of it demand their heads;[3106] "it conceives the project
of visiting all the prisons in Paris to take out the prisoners and
administer prompt justice on them."--On the 12th in the markets "diverse
groups of the low class call Pétion a scoundrel," because "he saved the
Swiss in the Palais Bourbon"; accordingly, "he and the Swiss must be
hung to-day."-In these minds turned topsy-turvy the actual, palpable
truth gives way to its opposite; "the attack was not begun by them; the
order to sound the tocsin came from the palace; it is the palace which
was besieging the nation, and not the nation which was besieging the
palace."[3107] The vanquished "are the assassins of the people,"
caught in the act; and on the 14th of August the Federates demand a
court-martial "to avenge the death of their comrades."[3108] And even
a court-martial will not answer. "It is not sufficient to mete out
punishment for crimes committed on the 10th of August, but the vengeance
of the people must be extended to all conspirators;" to that "Lafayette,
who probably was not in Paris, but who may have been there;" to all the
ministers, generals, judges, and other officials guilty of maintaining
legal order wherever it had been maintained, and of not having
recognized the Jacobin government before it came into being. Let them
be brought before, not the ordinary courts, which are not to be trusted
because they belong to the defunct régime, but before a specially
organized tribunal, a sort of "chambre ardente,"[3109] elected by the
sections, that is to say, by a Jacobin minority. These improvised judges
must give judgment on conviction, without appeal; there must be no
preliminary examinations, no interval of time between arrest and
execution, no dilatory and protective formalities. And above all, the
Assembly must be expeditious in passing the decree; "otherwise," it is
informed by a delegate from the Commune,[3110] "the tocsin will be rung
at midnight and the general alarm sounded; for the people are tired
of waiting to be avenged. Look out lest they do themselves justice!--A
moment later, new threats and with an advanced deadline. "If the juries
are not ready to act in two or three hours great misfortunes will
overtake Paris."

Even if the new tribunal, set up on the spot, is quick, guillotining
three innocent persons in five days; it does not move fast enough.
On the 23rd of August one of the sections declares to the Commune in
furious language that the people themselves, "wearied and indignant"
with so many delays, mean to force open the prisons and massacre the
inmates.[3111]--Not only do the sections harass the judges, but they
force the accused into their presence: a deputation from the Commune and
the Federates summons the Assembly "to transfer the criminals at Orleans
to Paris to undergo the penalty of their heinous crimes". "Otherwise,"
says the speaker, "we will not answer for the vengeance of the
people."[3112] And in a still more imperative manner:

"You have heard and you know that insurrection is a sacred duty," a
sacred duty towards and against all: towards the Assembly if it refuses,
and towards the tribunal if it acquits. They dash at their prey contrary
to all legislative and judicial formalities, like a kite across the web
of a spider, while nothing detach them from their fixed ideas. On the
acquittal of M. Luce de Montmorin[3113] the gross audience, mistaking
him for his cousin the former minister of Louis XVI., break out in
murmurs. The president tries to enforce silence, which increases
the uproar, and M. de Montmorin is in danger. On this the president,
discovering a side issue, announces that one of the jurors is related to
the accused, and that in such a case a new jury must be impaneled and
a new trial take place; that the matter will be inquired into, and
meanwhile the prisoner will be returned to the Conciergerie prison.
Thereupon he takes M. de Montmorin by the arm and leads him out of the
court-room, amidst the yells of the audience and not without risks to
himself; in the outside court a soldier of the National Guard strikes
at him with a saber, and the following day the court is obliged to
authorize eight delegates from the audience to go and see with their own
eyes that M. de Montmorin is really in prison.

At the moment of his acquittal a tragic remark is heard:

"You discharge him to-day and in two weeks he will cut our throats!"

Fear is evidently an adjunct of hatred. The Jacobin rabble is vaguely
conscious of their inferior numbers, of their usurpation, of their
danger, which increases in proportion as Brunswick draws near. They feel
that they live above a mine, and if the mine should explode!--Since they
think that their adversaries are scoundrels they feel they are capable
of a dirty trick, of a plot, of a massacre. As they themselves have
never behaved in any other way, they cannot conceive anything else.
Through an inevitable inversion of thought, they impute to others the
murderous intentions obscurely wrought out in the dark recesses of
their own disturbed brains.--On the 27th of August, after the funeral
procession gotten up by Sergent expressly to excite popular resentment,
their suspicions, at once specific and guided, begin to take the form of
certainty. Ten "commemorative" banners,[3114] each borne by a volunteer
on horseback, have paraded before all eyes the long list of massacres
"by the court and its agents":

1. the massacre at Nancy,

2. the massacre at Nîmes,

3. the massacre at Montauban,

4. the massacre at Avignon,

5. the massacre at La Chapelle,

6. the massacre at Carpentras,

7. the massacre of the Champ de Mars, etc.

Faced with such displays, doubts and misgivings are out of the question.
To the women in the galleries, to the frequenters of the clubs, and to
pikemen in the suburbs it is from now beyond any doubt proved that the
aristocrats are habitual killers.

And on the other side there is another sign equally alarming "This
lugubrious ceremony, which ought to inspire by turns both reflection
and indignation,... did not generally produce that effect." The National
Guard in uniform, who came "apparently to make up for not appearing on
the day of action," did not behave themselves with civic propriety,
but, on the contrary, put on "an air of inattention and even of noisy
gaiety"; they come out of curiosity, like so many Parisian onlookers,
and are much more numerous than the sans-culottes with their
pikes.[3115] The latter could count themselves and plainly see that they
are just a minority, and a very small one, and that their rage finds
no echo. The organizers and their stooges are the only ones to call for
speedy sentencing and for death-penalties. A foreigner, a good observer,
who questions the shop-keepers of whom he makes purchases, the tradesmen
he knows, and the company he finds in the coffee-houses, writes that he
never had "seen any symptom of a sanguinary disposition except in the
galleries of the National Assembly and at the Jacobin Club," but then
the galleries are full of paid "applauders,' especially "females, who
are more noisy and to be had cheaper than males." At the Jacobin Club
are "the leaders, who dread a turnaround or who have resentments to
gratify[3116]": thus the only enragés are the leaders and the populace
of the suburbs.--Lost in the crowd of this vast city, in the face of a
National Guard still armed and three times their own number, confronting
an indifferent or discontented bourgeoisie, the patriots are alarmed.
In this state of anxiety a feverish imagination, exasperated by the
waiting, involuntarily gives birth to imaginings passionately accepted
as truths. All that is now required is an incident in order to put the
final touch to complete the legend, the germ of which has unwittingly
grown in their minds.

On the 1st of September a poor wagoner, Jean Julien,[3117] condemned to
twelve years in irons, has been exposed in the pillory. After two hours
he becomes furious, probably on account of the jeers of the bystanders.
With the coarseness of people of his kind he has vented his impotent
rage by abuse, he has unbuttoned and exposed himself to the public, and
has naturally chosen expressions which would appear most offensive to
the people looking at him:

"Hurrah for the King! Hurrah for the Queen! Hurra for Lafayette! To hell
with the nation!"

It is also natural that he missed being torn to pieces. He was at once
led away to the Conciergerie prison, and sentenced on the spot to be
guillotined as soon as possible, for being a promoter of sedition in
connection with the conspiracy of August the 10th.--The conspiracy,
accordingly, is still in existence. It is so declared by the tribunal,
which makes no declaration without evidence. Jean Julien has certainly
confessed; now what has he revealed?--On the following day, like a crop
of poisonous mushrooms, the growth of a single night, the story obtains
general credence. "Jean Julien has declared that all the prisons in
Paris thought as he did, that there would soon be fine times, that the
prisoners were armed, and that as soon as the volunteers cleared out
they would be let loose on all Paris."[3118] The streets are full of
anxious faces. "One says that Verdun had been betrayed like Longwy.
Others shook their heads and said it was the traitors within Paris and
not the declared enemies on the frontier that were to be feared."[3119]
On the following day the story grows: "There are royalist officers and
soldiers hidden away in Paris and in the outskirts. They are going to
open the prisons, arm the prisoners, set the King and his family free,
put the patriots in Paris to death, also the wives and children of those
in the army... Isn't it natural for men to look after the safety of
their wives and children, and to use the only efficient means to arrest
the assassin's dagger."[3120]--The working-class inferno has been
stirred up, now it's up to the contractors of public revolt to fan and
direct the flames.




III. Terror is their Salvation.

     Rise of the homicidal idea among the leaders.--Their
     situation.--The powers they seize.--Their pillage.--The
     risks they run--Terror is their rescue.

They have been fanning the flames for a long time. Already, on the 11th
of August, the new Commune had announced, in a proclamation,[3121]
that "the guilty should perish on the scaffold," while its threatening
deputations force the national Assembly into the immediate institution
of a bloody tribunal. Carried into power by brutal force, it must
perish if it does not maintain itself, and this can be done only through
terror.--Let us pause and consider this unusual situation. Installed
in the Hôtel-de-ville by a nightly surprise attack, about one hundred
strangers, delegated by a party which thinks or asserts itself to be the
peoples' delegates, have overthrown one of the two great powers of the
State, mangled and enslaved the other, and now rule in a capital of
700,000 souls, by the grace of eight or ten thousand fanatics and
cut-throats. Never did a radical change promote men from so low a point
and raise so high! The basest of newspaper scribblers, penny-a-liners
out of the gutters, bar-room oracles, unfrocked monks and priests, the
refuse of the literary guild, of the bar, and of the clergy, carpenters,
turners, grocers, locksmiths, shoemakers, common laborers, many with no
profession at all, strolling politicians and [3122]public brawlers,
who, like the sellers of counterfeit wares, have speculated for the past
three years on popular credulity. There were among them a number of
men in bad repute, of doubtful honesty or of proven dishonesty, who,
in their youth led shiftless lives. They are still besmirched with old
slime, they were put outside the pale of useful labor by their vices,
driven out of inferior stations even into prohibited occupations,
bruised by the perilous leap, with consciences distorted like the
muscles of a tight-rope dancer. Were it not for the Revolution, they
would still grovel in their native filth, awaiting prison or forced
labor to which they were destined. Can one imagine their growing
intoxication as they drink deep draughts from the bottomless cup of
absolute power?--For it is absolute power which they demand and which
they exercise.[3123] Raised by a special delegation above the regular
authorities, they put up with these only as subordinates, and tolerate
none among them who may become their rivals. Consequently, they reduce
the Legislative body simply to the function of editor and herald of
their decrees; they have forced the new department electors to "abjure
their title," to confine themselves to tax assessments, while they lay
their ignorant hands daily on every other service, on the finances, the
army, supplies, the administration, justice, at the risk of breaking the
administrative wheels or of interrupting their action.

One day they summon the Minister of War before them, or, for lack of
one, his chief clerk; another day they keep the whole body of officials
in his department in arrest for two hours, under the pretext of finding
a suspected printer.[3124] At one time they affix seals on the funds
devoted to extraordinary expenses; at another time they do away with
the commission on supplies; at another they meddle with the course of
justice, either to aggravate proceedings or to impede the execution of
sentences rendered.[3125] There is no principle, no law, no regulation,
no verdict, no public man or establishment that is not subject to the
risk of their arbitrariness.--And, as they have laid hands on power,
they do the same with money. Not only do they extort from the Assembly
850,000 francs a months, with arrears from the 1st of January, 1792,
more than six millions in all, to defray the expenses of their military
police, which means to pay their bands,[3126] but again, "invested with
the municipal scarf," they seize, "in the public establishment belonging
to the nation, all furniture, and whatever is of most value." "In one
building alone, they carry off the value of 100,000 crowns."[3127]
Elsewhere, in the hands of the treasurer of the civil list, they
appropriate to themselves, a box of jewels, other precious objects, and
340, 000 francs.[3128] Their commissioners bring in from Chantilly
three wagons each drawn by three horses "loaded with the spoils of M. de
Condé," and they undertake "removing the contents of the houses of
the émigrés."[3129] They confiscate in the churches of Paris "the
crucifixes, music-stands, bells, railings, and every object in bronze or
of iron, chandeliers, cups, vases, reliquaries, statues, every article
of plate," as well "on the altars as in the sacristies,"[3130] and we
can imagine the enormous booty obtained; to cart away the silver plate
belonging to the single church of Madeleine-de-la-ville required a
vehicle drawn by four horses.--Now they use all this money, so freely
seized, as freely as they do power itself. One fills his pockets in the
Tuileries without the slightest concern; another, in the Garde-Meuble,
rummages secretaries, and carries off a wardrobe with its
contents.[3131] We have already seen that in the depositories of the
Commune "most of the seals are broken," that enormous sums in plate, in
jewels, in gold and silver coin have disappeared. Future inquests and
accounts will charge on the Committee of Supervision, "abstractions,
dilapidations, and embezzlements," in short, "a mass of violations
and breaches of trust."--When one is king, one easily mistakes the
money-drawer of the State for the drawer in which one keeps one's own
money.

Unfortunately, this full possession of public power and the public funds
holds only by a slender thread. Let the evicted and outraged majority
dare, as subsequently at Lyons, Marseilles, and Toulon, to Return to
the section assemblies and revoke the false mandate which they have
arrogated to themselves through fraud and force, and, on the instance,
they again become, through the sovereign will of the people, and by
virtue of their own deed, what they really are, usurpers, extortioners,
and robbers, there is no middle course for them between a dictatorship
and the galleys.--The mind, before such an alternative, unless
extraordinarily well-balanced, loses its equilibrium; they have no
difficulty in deluding themselves with the idea that the State is
menaced in their persons, and, in postulating the rule, that all is
allowable for them, even massacre. Has not Bazire stated in the
tribune that, against the enemies of the nation, "all means are fair
justifiable? Has not another deputy, Jean Debry, proposed the formation
of a body of 1,200 volunteers, who "will sacrifice themselves," as
formerly the assassins of the Old Man of the Mountain, in "attacking
tyrants, hand to hand, individually," as well as generals?[3132] Have we
not seen Merlin de Thionville insisting that "the wives and children of
the émigrés should be kept as hostages," and declared responsible, or,
in other words, ready for slaughter if their relatives continue their
attacks?[3133]

That is all that is left to do, since all the other measures have proved
insufficient.--In vain has the Commune decreed the arrest of journalists
belonging to the opposite party, and distributed their printing
machinery amongst patriotic printers.[3134] In vain has it declared the
members of the Sainte-Chapelle club, the National Guards who have sworn
allegiance to Lafayette, the signers of the petition of 8,000, and of
that of 20,000, disqualified for any service whatever.[3135] In vain has
it multiplied domiciliary visits, even to the residence and carriages
of the Venetian ambassador. In vain, through insulting and repeated
examinations, does it keep at its bar, under the hootings and
death-cries of its tribunes, the most honorable and most illustrious
men, Lavoisier, Dupont de Nemours, the eminent surgeon Desault, the most
harmless and most refined ladies, Madame de Tourzel, Mademoiselle de
Tourzel, and the Princesse de Lamballe.[3136] In vain, after a profusion
of arrests during twenty days, it envelopes all Paris inside one cast of
its net for a nocturnal search[3137]during which,

1. the barriers are closed and doubly guarded,

2. sentinels are on the quays and boats stationed on the Seine to
prevent escape by water,

3. the city is divided beforehand into circumscriptions, and for each
section, a list of suspected persons,

4. the circulation of vehicles is stopped,

5. every citizen is ordered to stay at home,

6. the silence of death reigns after six o'clock in the evening, and
then,

7. in each street, a patrol of sixty pikemen, seven hundred squads
of sans-culottes, all working at the same time, and with their usual
brutality,

8. doors are burst in with pile drivers,

9. wardrobes are picked by locksmiths,

10. walls are sounded by masons,

11. cellars are searched even to digging in the ground,

12. papers are seized,

13. arms are confiscated,

14. three thousand persons are arrested and led off;[3138] priests, old
men, the infirm, the sick.

The action lasts from ten in the evening to five o'clock in the morning,
the same as in a city taken by assault, the screams of women rudely
treated, the cries of prisoners compelled to march, the oaths of the
guards, cursing and drinking at each grog-shop; never was there such
an universal, methodical execution, so well calculated to suppress all
inclination for resistance in the silence of general stupefaction.

And yet, at this very moment, there are those who act in good faith
in the sections and in the Assembly, and who rebel at being under such
masters. A deputation from the Lombards section, and another from the
Corn-market, come to the Assembly and protest against the Commune's
usurpations.[3139] Choudieu, the Montagnard, denounces its blatant
corrupt practices. Cambon, a stern financier, will no longer consent
to have his accounts tampered with by thieving tricksters.[3140]
The Assembly at last seems to have recovered itself. It extends its
protection to Géray, the journalist, against whom the new pashas had
issued a warrant; it summons to its own bar the signers of the warrant,
and orders them to confine themselves in future to the exact limits
of the law which they transgress. Better still, it dissolves the
interloping Council, and substitutes for it ninety-six delegates, to be
elected by the sections in twenty-four hours. And, even still better, it
orders an account to be rendered within two days of the objects it has
seized, and the return of all gold or silver articles to the Treasury.
Quashed, and summoned to disgorge their booty, the autocrats of the
Hôtel-de-ville come in vain to the Assembly in force on the following
day[3141] to extort from it a repeal of its decrees; the Assembly,
in spite of their threats and those of their satellites, stands its
ground.--So much the worse for the stubborn; if they are not disposed to
regard the flash of the saber, they will feel its sharp edge and point.
The Commune, on the motion of Manuel, decides that, so long as public
danger continues, they will stay where they are; it adopts an address by
Robespierre to "restore sovereign power to the people," which means
to fill the streets with armed bands;[3142] it collects together its
brigands by giving them the ownership of all that they stole on the
10th of August.[3143] The session, prolonged into the night, does not
terminate until one o'clock in the morning. Sunday has come and there
is no time to lose, for, in a few hours, the sections, by virtue of the
decree of the National Assembly, and following the example of the Temple
section the evening before, may revoke the pretended representatives at
the Hôtel-de-ville. To remain at the Hôtel-de-ville, and to be elected
to the convention, demands on the part of the leaders some striking
action, and this they require that very day.--That day is the second of
September.




IV.--Date of the determination of this.--The actors and their parts.

     Marat.--Danton.--The Commune.--Its co-operators.--Harmony of
     dispositions and readiness of operation.

Since the 23rd of August their resolution is taken.[3144] They have
arranged in their minds a plan of the massacre, and each one, little by
little, spontaneously, according to his aptitudes, takes the part that
suits him or is assigned to him.

Marat, foremost among them all, is the proposer and preacher of the
operation, which, for him, is a perfectly natural one. It is the epitome
of his political system: a dictator or tribune, with full power to
slay, and with no other power but that; a good master executioner,
responsible, and "tied hand and foot"; this is his program for a
government since July the 14th, 1789, and he does not blush at it:
"so much the worse for those who are not on a level with it!"[3145] He
appreciated the character of the Revolution from the first, not through
genius, but sympathetically, he himself being equally as one-sided and
monstrous; crazy with suspicion and beset with a homicidal mania for
the past three years, reduced to one idea through mental impoverishment,
that of murder, having lost the faculty for even the lowest order of
reasoning, the poorest of journalists, save for pikemen and Billingsgate
market-women, so monotonous in his constant paroxysms that the regular
reading of his journal is like listening to hoarse cries from the cells
of a madhouse.[3146] From the 19th of August he excites people to attack
the prisons. "The wisest and best course to pursue," he says, "is to
go armed to the Abbaye, drag out the traitors, especially the Swiss
officers and their accomplices, and put them to the sword. What folly
it is to give them a trial! That is already done. You have massacred the
soldiers, why should you spare the officers, ten times guiltier?"--Also,
two days later, his brain teeming with an executioner's fancies,
insisting that "the soldiers deserved a thousand deaths. As to the
officers, they should be drawn and quartered, like Louis Capet and his
tools of the Manège."[3147]--On the strength of this the Commune adopts
him as its official editor, assigns him a tribune in its assembly room,
entrusts him to report its acts, and soon puts him on its supervisory or
executive committee.

A fanatic of this stamp, however, is good for nothing but as a
mouthpiece or instigator; he may, at best, figure in the end among the
subordinate managers.--The chief of the enterprise,[3148] Danton, is
of another species, and of another stature, a veritable leader of
men: Through his past career and actual position, through his popular
cynicism, ways and language, through his capacity for taking the
initiative and for command, through his excessive corporeal and
intellectual vigor, through his physical ascendancy due to his ardent,
absorbing will, he is well calculated for his terrible office.--He
alone of the Commune has become Minister, and there is no one but him to
shelter the violations of the Commune under the protection or under the
passivity of the central authority.--He alone of the Commune and of
the ministry is able to push things through and harmonize action in
the pell-mell of the revolutionary chaos; both in the councils of the
ministry which he governs, as he formerly governed at the Hôtel-de
ville. In the constant uproar of incoherent discussions,[3149] athwart
"propositions ex abrupto, among shouts, swearing, and the going and
coming of questioning petitioners," he is seen mastering his new
colleagues with his "stentorian voice, his gestures of an athlete, his
fearful threats," taking upon himself their duties, dictating to them
what and whom he chooses, "fetching in commissions already drawn
up," taking charge of everything, "making propositions, arrests, and
proclamations, issuing brevets," and drawing millions out of the public
treasury, casting a sop to his dogs in the Cordeliers and the Commune,
"to one 20,000 francs, and to another 10,000," "for the Revolution,
and on account of their patriotism,"--such is a summary report of
his doings. Thus gorged, the pack of hungry "brawlers" and grasping
intriguers, the whole serviceable force of the sections and of the
clubs, is in his hands. One is strong in times of anarchy at the head of
such a herd. Indeed, during the months of August and September, Danton
was king, and, later on, he may well say of the 2d of September, as he
did of the 10th of August, "I did it!"[3150]

Not that he is naturally vindictive or sanguinary: on the contrary,
with a butcher's temperament, he has a man's heart, and, at the risk
of compromising himself, against the wills of Marat and Robespierre, he
will, by-and-by, save his political adversaries, Duport, Brissot, and
the Girondists, the old party of the "Right."[3151] Not that he is
blinded by fear, enmities, or the theory; furious as a clubbist, he
has the clear-sightedness of the politician; he is not the dupe of
the sonorous phrases he utters, he knows the value of the rogues he
employs;[3152] he has no illusions about men or things, about other
people or about himself; if he slays, it is with a full consciousness
of what he is doing, of his party, of the situation, of the revolution,
while the crude expressions which, in the tones of his bull's voice, he
flings out as he passes along, are but a vivid statement of the precise
truth "We are the rabble! We spring from the gutters!" With the normal
principles of mankind, "we should soon get back into them. We can only
rule through fear!"[3153] "The Parisians are so many j... f...; a river
of blood must flow between them and the émigrés."[3154] The tocsin about
to be rung is not a signal of alarm, but a charge on the enemies of
the country... What is necessary to overcome them? Boldness, boldness,
always boldness![3155] I have brought my mother here, seventy years of
age; I have sent for my children, and they came last night. Before
the Prussians enter Paris, I want my family to die with me. Let
twenty thousand torches be applied, and Paris instantly reduced to
ashes!"[3156] "We must maintain ourselves in Paris at all hazards.
Republicans are in an extreme minority, and, for fighting, we can rely
only on them. The rest of France is devoted to royalty. The royalists
must be terrified!"[3157]--It is he who, on the 28th of August, obtains
from the Assembly the great domiciliary visit, by which the Commune
fills the prisons. It is he who, on the 2d of September, to paralyze the
resistance of honest people, causes the penalty of death to be
decreed against whoever, "directly or indirectly shall, in any manner
whatsoever, refuse to execute, or who shall interfere with the orders
issued, or with the measures of the executive power." It is he who, on
that day, informs the journalist Prudhomme of the pretended prison plot,
and who, the second day after, sends his secretary, Camille Desmoulins,
to falsify the report of the massacres,[3158] It is he who, on the
3rd of September, at the office of the Minister of Justice, before
the battalion officers and the heads of the service, before Lacroix,
president of the Assembly, and Pétion, mayor of Paris, before Clavières,
Servan, Monge, Lebrun, and the entire Executive Council, except Roland,
reduces at one stroke the head men of the government to the position of
passive accomplices, replying to a man of feeling, who rises to stay the
slaughter, "Sit down--it was necessary!"[3159] It is he who, the
same day, dispatches the circular, countersigned by him, by which the
Committee of Supervision announces the massacre, and invites "their
brethren of the departments" to follow the example of Paris.[3160] It
is he who, on the 10th of September, "not as Minister of Justice, but as
Minister of the People," is to congratulate and thank the
slaughterers of Versailles.[3161]--After the 10th of August, through
Billaud-Varennes, his former secretary, through Fabre d'Eglantine, his
Keeper of the Seals, through Tallien, secretary of the Commune and
his most trusty henchman, he is present at all deliberations in
the Hôtel-de-ville, and, at the last hour, is careful to put on
the Committee of Supervision one of his own men, the head clerk,
Desforges.[3162]--Not only was the reaping-machine constructed under his
own eye, and with his assent, but, again, when it is put in motion, he
holds the handle, so as to guide the scythe.

He is right; if he did not sometimes put on the brake, it would go
to pieces through its own action. Introduced into the Committee as
professor of political blood-letting, Marat, stubbornly following out a
fixed idea, cuts down deep, much below the designated line; warrants of
arrest were already out against thirty deputies, Brissot's papers were
rummaged, Roland's house was surrounded, while Duport, seized in a
neighboring department, is deposed in the slaughterhouse. The latter is
saved with the utmost difficulty; many a blow is necessary before he
can be wrested from the maniac who had seized him. With a surgeon like
Marat, and medics like the four or five hundred leaders of the Commune
and of the sections, it is not essential to guide the knife; it is a
foregone conclusion that the amputation will be extensive. Their names
speak for themselves: in the Commune, Manuel, the syndic-attorney; and
his two deputies Hébert and Billaud-Varennes, Huguenin, Lhuillier,
M.-J. Chénier, Audoin, Léonard Bourdon, Boula and Truchon, presidents
in succession. In the Commune and the sections, Panis, Sergent, Tallien,
Rossignol, Chaumette, Fabre d'Eglantine, Pache, Hassenfratz, the
cobbler Simon, and the printer Momoro. From the National Guard, the
commanding-general, Santerre, and the battalion commander Henriot, and,
lower down, the common herd of district demagogues, Danton's,
Hébert's, or Robespierre's side kicks, guillotined later on with
their file-leaders, in brief, the flower of the future
terrorists.[3163]--Today they are taking their first steps in blood,
each with their own attitude and motives:

* Chénier denounced as a member of the Sainte-Chapelle club, in danger
because he is among the suspected;[3164]

* Manuel, poor, excitable, bewildered, carried away, and afterwards
shuddering at the sight of his own work;

* Santerre, a fine circumspect figure-head, who, on the 2nd of
September, under pretense of watching the baggage, climbs on the seat of
a landau standing on the street, where he remains a couple of hours, to
avoid doing his duty as commanding-general;[3165]

* Panis, president of the Committee of Supervision, a good subordinate,
his born disciple and bootlicker, an admirer of Robespierre's whom he
proposes for the dictatorship, as well as of Marat, whom he extols as a
prophet;[3166]

* Henriot, Hébert, and Rossignol, simple evil-doers in uniform or in
their scarves;

* Collot d'Herbois, a stage poetaster, whose theatrical imagination
delights in a combination of melodramatic horrors;[3167]

* Billaud-Varennes, a former oratorian monk, irascible and gloomy, as
cool before a murder as an inquisitor at an auto-da-fé;

finally, the wily Robespierre, pushing others without committing
himself, never signing his name, giving no orders, haranguing a great
deal, always advising, showing himself everywhere, getting ready to
reign, and suddenly, at the last moment, pouncing like a cat on his
prey, and trying to slaughter his rivals, the Girondists.[3168]

Up to this time, in slaughtering or having it done, it was always as
insurrectionists in the street; now, it is in places of imprisonment, as
magistrates and functionaries, according to the registers of a lock-up,
after proofs of identity and on snap judgments, by paid executioners,
in the name of public security, methodically, and in cool blood, almost
with the same regularity as subsequently under "the revolutionary
government." September, indeed, is the beginning of it, a summary and
a model; they will not do it differently or better than during the best
days of the guillotine. Only, as they are as yet poorly supplied with
tools, they are obliged to use pikes instead of the guillotine, and,
as decency has not entirely disappeared, the chiefs conceal themselves
behind maneuvers. Nevertheless, we can track them, take them in the act,
and we have their signatures; they planned commanded, and conducted the
operation. On the 30th of August, the Commune decided that the sections
should try accused persons, and, on the 2nd of September, five
trusted sections reply to it by resolving that the accused shall be
murdered.[3169] The same day, September 2, Marat takes his place on the
Committee of Supervision. The same day, September 2, Panis and Sergent
sign the commissions of "their comrades," Maillard and associates,
for the Abbaye, and "order them to judge," that is to say, kill the
prisoners.[3170] The same and the following days, at La Force, three
members of the Commune, Hébert, Monneuse, and Rossignol, preside in
turn over the assassin court.[3171] The same day, a commissar of
the Committee of Supervision comes and demands a dozen men of
the Sans-Culottes section to help massacre the priests of Saint
Firmin.[3172] The same day, a commissar of the Commune visits the
different prisons during the slaughter, and finds that "things are going
on well in all of them."[3173] The same day, at five o'clock in the
afternoon, Billaud-Varennes, deputy-attorney for the Commune, "in his
well-known puce-colored coat and black perruque," walking over the
corpses, says to the Abbaye butchers: "Fellow-citizens, you are
immolating your enemies, you are performing your duty." He returns
during the night, highly commends them, and confirms the promise of
the "agreed wages." On the following any at noon, he again returns,
congratulates them more warmly, allows each one twenty francs, and urges
them to keep on.[3174]--In the mean time, Santerre, summoned to the
general staff headquarters by Roland, hypocritically deplores his
voluntary inability, and persists in not giving the orders, without
which the National Guard cannot move.[3175] At the sections, the
presidents, Chénier, Ceyrat, Boula, Momoro, Collot d'Herbois,
dispatch or take their victims back under pikes. At the Commune, the
council-general votes 12,000 francs, to be taken from the dead,
to defray the expenses of the operation.[3176] In the Committee of
Supervision, Marat sends off dispatches to spread murder through the
departments.--It is evident that the leaders and their subordinates are
unanimous, each at his post and in the service he performs; through
the spontaneous co-operation of the whole party, the command from above
meets the impulse from below;[3177] both unite in a common murderous
disposition, the work being done with the more precision in proportion
to its being easily done.--Jailers have received orders to open the
prison doors, and give themselves no concern. Through an excess of
precaution, the knives and forks of the prisoners have been taken away
from them.[3178] One by one, on their names being called, they will
march out like oxen in a slaughter-house, while about twenty butchers to
each prison, from to two to three hundred in all,[3179] will suffice to
do the work.




V. Abasement and Stupor.

     Common workers.--Their numbers.--Their condition.--Their
     sentiments.--Effect of murder on the murderers.--Their
     degradation.--Their insensibility.

Two kinds of men make up the recruits, and it is especially on their
crude brains that we have to admire the effect of the revolutionary
dogma.

First, there are the Federates of the South, lusty fellows, former
soldiers or old bandits, deserters, bohemians, and scoundrels of
all lands and from every source, who, after finishing their work at
Marseilles and Avignon, have come to Paris to begin over again. "Triple
nom de Dieu!" exclaims one of them, "I didn't come a hundred and eighty
leagues to restrain myself from sticking a hundred and eighty heads
on the end of my pike!"[3180] Accordingly, they form in themselves a
special, permanent, resident body, allowing no one to divert them from
their adopted occupation. "They turn a deaf ear to the excitements of
spurious patriotism";[3181] they are not going to be sent off to the
frontier. Their post is at the capital; they have sworn "to defend
liberty"; neither before nor after September make them deviate from this
end. When, after having drawn money on every treasury and under
every pretext, they at last consent to leave Paris, it is only on the
condition that they return to Marseilles. Their operations are limited
to the interior of France, and only against political adversaries. But
their zeal in this field is only the greater; it is their band which,
first of all, takes the twenty-four priests from the town hall, and, on
the way, begins the massacre with their own hands.[3182]

Then there are the "enragés" of the Paris proletariat, a few of
them clerks or shopkeepers, most of them artisans of all the trades;
locksmiths, masons, butchers, wheelwrights, tailors, shoemakers,
waggoners, especially dockers working in the harbor, market-porters,
and, above all, journeymen and apprentices of all kinds, in short,
manual workers on the bottom of the social ladder.[3183] Among these
we find beasts of prey, murderers by instinct, or simple robbers.[3184]
Others who, like one of the disciples of Abbé Sicard, whom he loves
and venerates, confess that they never stirred except under
constraint.[3185] Others are simple machines, who let themselves be
driven: for instance the local forwarding agent, a good sort of man, but
who, dragged along, plied with liquor, and then made crazy, kills twenty
priests for his share, and dies at the end of the month, still
drinking, unable to sleep, frothing at the mouth and trembling in every
limb.[3186] And finally the few, who, with good intentions, are carried
away by the bloody whirlwind, and, struck by the grace of Revolution,
become converted to the religion of murder. One of them a certain
Grapin, deputized by his section to save two prisoners, seats himself
alongside of Maillard, sits in judgment at his side during sixty-three
hours, and demands a certificate from him.[3187] The majority, however,
entertain the same opinions as the cook, who, after taking the Bastille,
finding himself on the spot and having cut off M. de Launay's head,
regards it as a "patriotic" action, and deems himself worthy of a "medal
for having destroyed a monster." These people are not common criminals,
but well-disposed persons living in the vicinity, who, seeing a public
service established in their neighborhood,[3188] issue from their homes
to give a hand; their degree of probity is about the same as we find
nowadays among people of the same condition in life.

At the outset, especially, no one considers filling his pockets. At the
Abbaye prison, they come honorably and place on the table in the room
of the civil committee the purses and jewels of the dead.[3189] If they
appropriate anything to themselves, it is shoes to cover their naked
feet, and then only after asking permission. As to pay, all rough work
deserves it, and, moreover, between them and their recruiters, the
answer is obvious. With nothing but their own hands to rely on, they
cannot work for nothing,[3190] and, as the work is hard, they ought to
be paid double time. They require six francs a day, besides their meals
and as much wine as they want. One caterer alone furnished the men at
the Abbaye with 346 pints:[3191] when working incessantly day and night
with a task like that of sewer-cleaners and miners, nothing else will
keep their courage up.--Food and wages must be paid for by the nation;
the work is done for the nation, and, naturally, on interposing
formalities, they get out of temper and betake themselves to Roland,
to the City treasurer, to the section committees, to the Committee of
Supervision,[3192] murmuring, threatening, and showing their bloody
pikes. That is the evidence of having done their work well. They
boast of it to Pétion, impress upon him how "just and attentive" they
were,[3193] their discernment, the time given to the work, so many days
and so many hours; they ask only for what is "due to them"; when the
treasurer, on paying them, demands their names, they give them without
the slightest hesitation. Those who escort a dismissed prisoner; masons,
hairdressers, federates, require no recompense but "something to drink";
"we do not carry on this business for money," they say; "here is your
friend; he promised us a glass of brandy, which we will take and then
go back to our work."[3194]--Outside of their business they possess the
expansive cordiality and ready sensitivity of the Parisian workman. At
the Abbaye, a federate,[3195] on learning that the prisoners had been
kept without water for twenty-six hours, wanted to "exterminate" the
turnkey for his negligence, and would have done it if "the prisoners
themselves had not pleaded for him." On the acquittal of a prisoner, the
guards and the butchers, everybody, embraces him with enthusiasm; Weber
is greeted again and again for more than a hundred yards; they cheer
to excess. Each wants to escort the prisoner; the cab of Mathon de la
Varenne is invaded; "they perch themselves on the driver's seat, at the
doors, on top, and behind."[3196]--A few even display strange fits
of tact. Two of the butchers, still covered with blood, who lead the
chevalier de Bertrand home, insist on going up stairs with him to
witness the joy of his family; after their terrible task they need the
relaxation of tender emotion. On entering, they wait discreetly in the
drawing-room until the ladies have been prepared; the happiness of which
they are witnesses melts them; they remain some time, refuse money,
expressing their gratitude and depart.[3197]--Still more extraordinary
are the vestiges of innate politeness. A market-porter desirous of
embracing a discharged prisoner, first asks his permission. Old "hags,"
who had just clapped their hands at the slaughtering, stop the guards
"violently" as they hurry Weber along, in white silk stockings, across
pools of blood: "Hey, guard, look out, you are making Monsieur walk in
the gutter!"[3198] In short, they display the permanent qualities
of their race and class; they seem to be neither above nor below the
average of their brethren, Most of them, probably, would never have done
anything very monstrous had a rigid police, like that which maintains
order in ordinary times, kept them in their shops or at home in their
lodgings or in their tap-rooms.

But, in their own eyes, they are so many kings; "sovereignty is
committed to their hands,"[3199] their powers are unlimited; whoever
doubts this is a traitor, and is properly punished; he must be put out
of the way; while, for royal councillors, they take maniacs and rascals,
who, through monomania or calculation, have preach all that to them:
just like a Negro king surrounded by white slave-dealers, who urge him
into raids, and by black sorcerers, who prompt him to massacre. How
could such a man with such guides, and in such an office, be retarded by
the formalities of justice, or by the distinctions of equity? Equity and
justice are the elaborate products of civilization, while he is merely a
political savage. In vain are the innocent recommended to his mercy!

"Look here, citizen,[31100] do you, too, want to put us to sleep?
Suppose that those cursed Prussian and Austrian beggars were in Paris,
would they pick out the guilty? Wouldn't they strike right and left,
the same as the Swiss did on the 10th of August? Very well, I can't make
speeches, but I don't put anybody to sleep. I say, I am the father of
a family--I have a wife and five children that I mean to leave here for
the section to look after, while I go and fight the enemy. But I have no
intention that while I am gone these villains here in prison, and other
villains who would come and let them out, should cut the throats of my
wife and children. I have three boys who I hope will some day be more
useful to their country than those rascals you want to save. Anyhow, all
that can be done is to let 'em out and give them arms, and we will
fight 'em on an equal footing. Whether I die here or on the frontiers,
scoundrels would kill me all the same, and I will sell my life dearly.
But, whether it is done by me or by someone else, the prison shall be
cleaned out of those cursed beggars, there, now!" At this a general cry
is heard: "He's right! No mercy! Let us go in!"

All that the crowd assent to is an improvised tribunal, the reading of
the jailer's register, and prompt judgment; condemnation and slaughter
must follow, according to the famous Commune, which simplifies
things--There is another simplification still more formidable, which is
the condemnation and slaughter by categories. Any title suffices, Swiss,
priest, officer, or servant of the King, "the 'worms' on the civil
list"; wherever a lot of priests or Swiss are found, it is not worth
while to have a trial, the throats of the lot can be slit.--Reduced to
this, the operation is adapted to the operators; the arms of the new
sovereign are as strong as his mind is weak, and, through an inevitable
adaptation, he degrades his work to the level of his faculties.

His work, in its turn, degrades and perverts him. No man, and especially
a man of the people, rendered pacific by an old civilization, can, with
impunity, become at one stroke both sovereign and executioner. In vain
does he work himself up against the condemned and heap insults on them
to augment his fury;[31101] I he is dimly conscious of committing a
great crime, and his soul, like that of Macbeth, "is full of scorpions."
Through a terrible tightening up, he hardens himself against the
inborn, hereditary impulses of humanity; these resist while he becomes
exasperated, and, to stifle them, there is no other way but to "gorge
himself on horrors,"[31102] by adding murder to murder. For murder,
especially as he practices it, that is to say, with a naked sword on
defense-less people, introduces into his animal and moral machine two
extraordinary and disproportionate emotions which unsettle it, on the
one hand, a sensation of omnipotence exercised uncontrolled, unimpeded,
without danger, on human life, on throbbing flesh[31103] and, on the
other hand, an interest in bloody and diversified death, accompanied
with an ever new series of contortions and exclamations;[31104]
formerly, in the Roman circus, one could not tear one's self away from
it; the spectacle once seen, the spectator always returned to see it
again. Just at this time each prison court is a circus, and what makes
it worse is that the spectators are likewise actors.--Thus, for them,
two fiery liquids mingle together in one draught. To moral intoxication
is added physical intoxication, wine in profusion, bumpers at every
pause, revelry over corpses; and we see rising out of this unnatural
creature the demon of Dante, at once brutal and refined, not merely
a destroyer, but, again, an executioner, instigator and calculator of
suffering, and radiant and joyous over the evil it accomplishes.

They are merry; they dance around each new corpse, and sing the
carmagnole;[31105] they arouse the people of the quarter "to amuse
them," and that they may have their share of "the fine fête."[31106]
Benches are arranged for "gentlemen" and others for "ladies": the
latter, with greater curiosity, are additionally anxious to contemplate
at their ease "the aristocrats" already slain; consequently, lights are
required, and one is placed on the breast of each corpse.--Meanwhile,
the slaughter continues, and is carried to perfection. A butcher at the
Abbaye[31107] complains that "the aristocrats die too quick, and that
those only who strike first have the pleasure of it"; henceforth they
are to be struck with the backs of the swords only, and made to run
between two rows of their butchers, like soldiers formerly running a
gauntlet. If there happens to be well-known person, it is agreed to take
more care in prolonging the torment. At La Force, the Federates who come
for M. de Rulhières swear "with frightful imprecations that they will
cut the head of anyone daring to end his sufferings with a thrust of
his pike"; the first thing is to strip him naked, and then, for half
an hour, with the flat of their sabers, they cut and slash him until he
drips with blood and is "skinned to his entrails."--All the monstrous
instincts who grovels chained up in the dregs of the human heart, not
only cruelty with its bared fangs,[31108] but also the slimier desires,
unite in fury against women whose noble or infamous repute makes them
conspicuous; against Madame de Lamballe, the Queen's friend; against
Madame Desrues, widow of the famous poisoner; against the flower-girl
of the Palais-Royal, who, two years before, had mutilated her lover, a
French guardsman, in a fit of jealousy. Ferocity here is associated with
lewdness to add debasement to torture, while life is violated through
outrages on modesty. In Madame de Lamballe, killed too quickly,
the libidinous butchers could outrage only a corpse, but for the
widow,[31109] and especially the flower-girl, they revive, like so many
Neros, the fire-circle of the Iroquois.[31110]--From the Iroquois to
the cannibal, the gulf is small, and some of them jump across it. At the
Abbaye, an old soldier named Damiens, buries his saber in the side of
the adjutant-general la Leu, thrusts his hand into the opening, tears
out the heart "and puts it to his mouth as if to eat it"; "the blood,"
says an eye-witness, "trickled from his mouth and formed a sort of
mustache for him."[31111] At La Force, Madame de Lamballe is carved up.
What Charlot, the wig-maker, who carried her head did, I to it, should
not be described. I merely state that another wretch, in the Rue
Saint-Antoine, bore off her heart and "ate it."[31112]

They kill and they drink, and drink and kill again. Weariness comes and
stupor begins. One of them, a wheelwright's apprentice, has dispatched
sixteen for his share; another "has labored so hard at this merchandise
as to leave the blade of his saber sticking in it"; "I was more tired,"
says a Federate, "with two hours pulling limbs to pieces, right
and left, than any mason who for two days has been plastering a
wall."[31113] The first excitement is gone, and now they strike
automatically.[31114] Some of them fall asleep stretched out on benches.
Others, huddled together, sleep off the fumes of their wine, removed
on one side. The exhalation from the carnage is so strong that the
president of the civil committee faints in his chair,[31115] the fumes
of the tavern blending with those from the charnel-house. A heavy,
dull state of torpor gradually overcomes their clouded brains, the last
glimmerings of reason dying out one by one, like the smoky lights on
the already cold breasts of the corpses lying around them. Through
the stupor spreading over the faces of butchers and cannibals, we see
appearing that of the idiot. It is the revolutionary idiot, in which
all conceptions, save two, have vanished, two fixed, rudimentary, and
mechanical ideas, one destruction and the other that of public safety.
With no others in his empty head, these blend together through an
irresistible attraction, and the effect proceeding from their contact
may be imagined. "Is there anything else to do?" asks one of these
butchers in the deserted court.--"If there is no more to do," reply
a couple of women at the gate, "you will have to think of
something,"[31116] and, naturally, this is done.

As the prisons are to be cleaned out, it is as well to clean them all
out, and do it at once. After the Swiss, priests, the aristocrats, and
the "white-skinned gentlemen," there remain convicts and those confined
through the ordinary channels of justice, robbers, assassins, and those
sentenced to the galleys in the Conciergerie, in the Châtelet, and in
the Tour St. Bernard, with branded women, vagabonds, old beggars, and
boys confined in Bicêtre and the Salpétrière. They are good for nothing,
cost something to feed,[31117] and, probably, cherish evil designs. At
the Salpétrière, for example, the wife of Desrues, the poisoner, is,
assuredly, like himself, "cunning, wicked, and capable of anything"; she
must be furious at being in prison; if she could, she would set fire to
Paris; she must have said so; she did say it[31118]--one more sweep of
the broom.--This time, as the job is more foul, the broom is wielded by
fouler hands; among those who seize the handle are the frequenters of
jails. The butchers at the Abbaye prison, especially towards the close,
had already committed thefts;[31119] here, at the Châtelet and the
Conciergerie prisons, they carry away "everything which seems to them
suitable," even to the clothes of the dead, prison sheets and coverlids,
even the small savings of the jailers, and, besides this, they enlist
their cronies. "Out of 36 prisoners set free, many were assassins and
robbers, the killers attached them to their group. There were also 75
women, confined in part for larceny, who promised to faithfully serve
their liberators." Later on, indeed, these are to become, at the
Jacobin and Cordeliers clubs, the tricoteuses (knitters) who fill their
tribunes.[31120]--At the Salpétrière prison, "all the pimps of Paris,
former spies,... libertines, the rascals of France and all Europe,
prepare beforehand for the operation," and rape alternates with
massacre.[31121]--Thus far, at least, slaughter has been seasoned with
robbery, and the grossness of eating and drinking; at Bicétre, however,
it is crude butchery, the carnivorous instinct alone satisfying itself.
Among other prisoners are 43 youths of the lowest class, from 17 to 19
years of age, placed there for correction by their parents, or by those
to whom they are bound;[31122] one need only look at them to see that
they are genuine Parisian scamps, the apprentices of vice and misery,
the future recruits for the reigning band, and these the band falls on,
beating them to death with clubs. At this age life is tenacious, and, no
life being harder to take, it requires extra efforts to dispatch them.
"In that corner," said a jailer, "they made a mountain of their bodies.
The next day, when they were to be buried, the sight was enough to break
one's heart. One of them looked as if he were sleeping like one of God's
angels, but the rest were horribly mutilated."[31123]--Here, man has
sunk below himself, down into the lowest strata of the animal kingdom,
lower that the wolf; for wolves do not strangle their young.




VI. Jacobin Massacre.

     Effect of the massacre on the public.--General dejection and
     the dissolution of society.--The ascendancy of the Jacobins
     assured in Paris.--The men of September upheld in the
     Commune and elected to the Convention.

There are six days and five nights of uninterrupted butchery,[31124] 171
murders at the Abbaye, 169 at La Force, 223 at the Châtelet, 328 at the
Consciergerie, 73 at the Tour-Saint-Bernard, 120 at the Carmelites,
79 at Saint Firmin, 170 at Bicêtre, 35 at the Salpétrière; among the
dead,[31125] 250 priests, 3 bishops or archbishops, general officers,
magistrates, one former minister, one royal princess, belonging to the
best names in France, and, on the other side, one Negro, several working
class women, kids, convicts, and poor old men: What man now, little or
big, does not feel himself threatened?--And all the more because the
band has grown larger. Fournier, Lazowski, and Bécard, the chiefs
of robbers and assassins, return from Orleans with fifteen hundred
cut-throats.[31126] One the way they kill M. de Brissac, M. de Lessart,
and 42 others accused of lése-nation, whom they wrested from their
judges' hands, and then, by the way of surplus, "following the example
of Paris," twenty-one prisoners taken from the Versailles prisons. At
Paris the Minister of Justice thanks them, the Commune congratulates
them, and the sections feast them and embrace them.[31127]--Can anybody
doubt that they were ready to begin again? Can a step be taken in or out
of Paris without being subject to their oppression or encountering their
despotism? Should one leave the city, sentinels of their species are
posted at the barriers and on the section committees in continuous
session. Malouet, led before that of Roule,[31128] sees before him a
pandemonium of fanatics, at least a hundred individuals in the same
room, the suspected, those denouncing them, collaborators, attendants,
a long, green table in the center, covered with swords and daggers,
with the committee around it, "twenty patriots with their shirt sleeves
rolled up, some holding pistols and others pens," signing warrants of
arrest, "quarreling with and threatening each other, all talking
at once, and shouting: Traitor!--Conspirator!--Off to prison with
him!--Guillotine him!--and behind these, a crowd of spectators,
pell-mell, yelling, and gesticulating" like wild beasts pressed against
each other in the same cage, showing their teeth and trying to spring at
each other. "One of the most excited, brandishing his saber in order
to strike an antagonist, stopped on seeing me, and exclaimed, 'There's
Malouet!'--The other, however, less occupied with me than with his
enemy, took advantage of the opportunity, and with a blow of his club,
knocked him down." Malouet had a close shave, in Paris escapes take
place by such accidents.--If one remains in the city, one is beset with
lugubrious fears by,

1. the hurrying step of squads of men in each street, leading the
suspected to prison or before the committee;

2. around each prison the crowds that have come "to see the disasters";

3. in the court of the Abaye the cry of the auctioneer selling the
clothes of the dead;

4. the rumbling of carts on the pavement bearing away 1,300 corpses;

5. the songs of the women mounted aloft on the carts, beating time on
the naked bodies.[31129]

Is there a man who, after one of these encounters, does not see himself
in imagination before the green table of the section committee, after
this, in prison with sabers over his head, and then in the cart in the
midst of the bloody pile?

Courage falters before a vision like this. All the journals approve,
palliate, or keep silent; nobody dares offer resistance.[31130] Property
as well as lives belong to whoever wants to take them. At the barriers,
at the markets, on the boulevard of the Temple, thieves, decked with
the tricolor ribbon, stop people as they pass along, seize whatever they
carry, and, under the pretext that jewels should be deposited on the
altars of Patriotism, take purses, watches, rings, and other articles,
so rudely that women who are not quick enough, have the lobes of their
ears torn in unhooking their earrings[31131]. Others, installed in the
cellars of the Tuileries, sell the nation's wine and oil for their own
profit. Others, again, given their liberty eight days before by
the people, scent out a bigger job by finding their way into
the Garde-meuble and stealing diamonds to the value of thirty
millions.[31132]

Like a man struck on the head with a mallet, Paris, felled to the
ground, lets things go; the authors of the massacre have fully attained
their ends. The faction has fast hold of power, and will maintain its
hold. Neither in the Legislative Assembly nor in the Convention will the
aims of the Girondins be successful against its tenacious usurpation.
It has proved by a striking example that it is capable of anything,
and boasts of it; it is still armed, it stands there ever prepared and
anonymous on its murderous basis, with its speedy modes of operation,
its own group of fanatical agents and bravos, with Maillard and
Fournier, with its cannon and its pikes. All that does not live within
it lives only through its favor from day to day, through its good will.
Everybody knows that. The Assembly no longer thinks of dislodging people
who meet decrees of expulsion with massacre; it is no longer a question
of auditing their accounts, or of keeping them within the confines
of the law. Their dictatorship is not to be disputed, and their
purification continue. From four to five hundred new prisoners, arrested
within eleven days, by order of the municipality, by the sections,
and by this or that individual Jacobin, are crowded into cells still
dripping with blood, and the report is spread that, on the 20th of
September, the prisons will be emptied by a second massacre.[31133]--Let
the Convention, if it pleases, pompously install itself as sovereign,
and grind out decrees--it makes no difference; regular or irregular,
the government still marches on in the hands of those who hold the
sword.[31134] The Jacobins, through sudden terror, have maintained their
illegal authority; through a prolongation of terror they are going to
establish their legal authority. A forced suffrage is going to put
them in office at the Hôtel-de-ville, in the tribunals, in the National
Guard, in the sections, and in the various administrations, while
they have already elected to the Convention, Marat, Danton, Fabre
d'Eglantine, Camille Desmoulins, Manuel, Billaud-Varennes, Panis,
Sergent, Collot d'Herbois, Robespierre, Legendre, Osselin, Fréron,
David, Robert, Lavicourterie, in short, the instigators, leaders and
accomplices of the massacre.[31135] Nothing that could force or falsify
voting is omitted.[31136] In the first place the presence of the
people is imposed on the electoral assembly, and, to this end, it is
transferred to the large hall of the Jacobin club, under the pressure
of the Jacobin galleries. As a second precaution, every opponent is
excluded from voting, every Constitutionalist, every former member of
the monarchical club, of the Feuillants, and of the Sainte-Chapelle
club, of the Feuillants, and of the Sainte-Chapelle club, every signer
of the petition of the 20,000, or of that of the 8,000, and, on the
sections protesting against this, their protest is thrown out on
the ground of its being the fruit of "an intrigue." Finally, at each
balloting, each elector's vote is called out, which ensures the
right vote beforehand, the warnings he has received being very
explicit.[31137] On the 2nd of September, during the first meeting of
the electoral body, held at the bishop's palace, the Marseilles
troop, 500 yards away, came and took the twenty-four priests from the
town-hall, and, on the way, hacked them to pieces on the Pont-Neuf.
Throughout the evening and all night the agents of the municipality
carried on their work at the Abbaye, at the Carmelites, and at La Force,
and, on the 3rd of September, on the electoral assembly transferring
itself to the Jacobin club, it passed over the Pont-au-Change between
two rows of corpses, which the slaughterers had brought there from the
Châtelet and the Conciergerie prisons.


*****


[Footnote 3101: Thierry, son of Clovis, unwilling to take part in an
expedition of his brothers into Burgundy, was told by his men: "If thou
art unwilling to march into Burgundy with thy brothers, we will leave
thee and follow them in thy place."--Clotaire, another of his sons,
disposed to make peace with the Saxons, "the angry Francs rush upon him,
revile him, and threaten to kill him if he declines to accompany them.
Upon which he puts himself at their head."]

[Footnote 3102: Social condition and degree of culture are often
indicated orthographically.--Granier de Cassagnac, II..480. Bécard,
commanding the expedition which brought back the prisoners from Orleans,
signs himself: "Bécard, commandant congointement aveque M. Fournier
generalle. "--"Archives Nationales," F7, 4426. Letter of Chemin,
commissioner of the Gravilliers section, to Santerre, Aug.11, 1792.
"Mois Charles Chemin commissaire... fait part à Monsieur Santaire
générale de la troupe parisiene que le nommé Hingray cavaliers de la
gendarmeris nationalle.. me délarés qu'ille sestes trouvés aux jourduis
11 aoux avec une home attachés à la cours aux Equris; quille lui aves
dis quiere 800 home a peupres des sidevant garde du roy étes tous près a
fondre sure Paris pour donaire du sécour a naux rébelle et a signer avec
moi la presante."]

[Footnote 3103: On the 19th of March, 1871, I met in the Rue de Varennes
a man with two guns on his shoulder who had taken part in the pillage of
the Ecole d'Etat-major and was on his way home. I said to him: "But this
is civil war, and you will let the Prussians in Paris."--"I'd rather
have the Prussians than Thiers. Thiers is Prussian on the inside!"]

[Footnote 3104: Today, 115 years after these words were written, we have
seen others, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Mao Tse Tung, etc
following in the Jacobin's footsteps. Nobles, Bourgeois, Jews and other
undesirables have been methodically put away. The sheeplike majority
did not read Taine or did not profit from his warnings while most of the
great tyrants learned from him or from the events he described (SR.)]

[Footnote 3105: Moniteur, Nov. 14, 1792.]

[Footnote 3106: "Archives Nationales," F7, 4426. Letter of the police
administrators, Aug. 11. Declaration of Delaunay, Aug. 12.]

[Footnote 3107: Buchez et Roux, XVII. 59 (session of Aug. 12) Speech by
Leprieur at the bar of the house.]

[Footnote 3108: Buchez et Roux, XVII. 47.--Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 31.
Speech by Robespierre at the bar of the Assembly in the name of the
commune, Aug. 15.]

[Footnote 3109: Brissot, in his report on Robespierre's petition.--The
names of the principal judges elected show its character:
Fouquier-Tinville, Osselin, Coffinhal.]

[Footnote 3110: Buchez et Roux, XVII.91 (Aug. 17).]

[Footnote 3111: Stated by Pétion in his speech (Moniteur, Nov. 10,
1792).]

[Footnote 3112: Buchez et Roux, XVII. 116 (session of Aug. 23).]

[Footnote 3113: Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 461.--Moore, I. 273 (Aug. 31).]

[Footnote 3114: Buchez et Roux, XVII. 267 (article by Prudhomme in the
"Révolutions de Paris").]

[Footnote 3115: "Les Révolutions de Paris," Ibid., "A number of
sans-culottes were there with their pikes; but these were
largely outnumbered by the multitude of uniforms of the various
battalions."--Moore, Aug, 31: "At present the inhabitants of the
faubourgs Saint-Antoine and Saint-Marceau are all that is felt of the
sovereign people in Paris."]

[Footnote 3116: More, Aug. 26.]

[Footnote 3117: Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 471. Indictment against
Jean-Julien.--In referring to M. Mortimer-Ternaux we do so because, like
a true critic, he cites authentic and frequently unedited documents.]

[Footnote 3118: Rétif de la Bretonne, "les Nuits de Paris," 11th night,
p. 372.]

[Footnote 3119: Moore, Sept. 2.]

[Footnote 3120: Moore, Sept. 3.--Buchez et Roux, XVI. 159 (narrative
by Tallien).--Official report of the Paris commune, Sept. 4 (in the
collection of Barrière and Berville, the volume entitled "Mémoires sur
les journées de Septembre"). The commune adopts and expands the fable,
probably invented by it. Prudhomme well says that the story of the
prison plot, so scandalously circulated during the Reign of Terror,
appears for the first time on the 2d of September. The same report was
spread through the rural districts. At Gennevilliers, a peasant while
lamenting the massacres, said to Malouet: "It is, too, a terrible thing
for the aristocrats to want to kill all the people by blowing up the
city" (Malouet, II. 244).]

[Footnote 3121: Official reports of the commune, Aug. 11.]

[Footnote 3122: Mortimer-Ternaux, II. 446. List of the section
commissioners sitting at the Hôtel-de-ville, Aug. 10, before 9 o'clock
in the morning.]

[Footnote 3123: Official reports of the commune, Aug. 21. "Considering
that, to ensure public safety and liberty, the council-general of the
commune required all the power delegated to it by the people, at the
time it was compelled to resume the exercise of its rights," sends a
deputation to the National Assembly to insist that "the new
department be converted, pure and simple, into a tax-commissioners'
office."--Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 25. Speech of Robespierre in the
name of the commune: "After the people have saved the country, after
decreeing a National Convention to replace you, what remains for you to
do but to gratify their wishes?... The people, forced to see to its
own salvation, has provided for this through its delegates... It is
essential that those chosen by itself for its magistrates should enjoy
the plenary powers befitting the sovereign."]

[Footnote 3124: Official reports of the commune, Aug.
10.--Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 155. Letter of the Minister Servan, Aug.
30.-Ibid., 149.--Ibid., 148. The commission on supplies having been
broken up by the commune, Roland, the Minister of the Interior, begs the
Assembly to act promptly, for "he will no longer be responsible for the
supplies of Paris."]

[Footnote 3125: Official reports of the commune, Aug. 21. A resolution
requiring that, on trials for lésé-nation, those who appear for the
defendants should be provided with a certificate of their integrity,
issued by their assembled section, and that the interviews between them
and the accused be public.--Ibid., Aug.17, a resolution to suspend the
execution of the two assassins of mayor Simonneau, condemned to death by
the tribunal of Seine-et-Oise.]

[Footnote 3126: Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 11. Decree of Aug.11.]

[Footnote 3127: Prudhomme, "Révolutions de Paris" (number for Sep. 22)..
Report by Roland to the National Assembly (Sept. 16, at 9 o'clock in the
morning).]

[Footnote 3128: Madame Roland, "Mémoires," II. 414 (Ed. Barrière et
Berville). Report by Roland Oct. 29. The seizure in question tool place
Aug.27.]

[Footnote 3129: "Mémoirs sur les journées de Septembre" (Ed. Barrière
et Berville, pp. 307-322). List of sums paid by the treasurer of the
commune.--See, on the prolongation of this plundering, Roland's report,
Oct. 29, of money, plate, and assignats taken from the Senlis Hospital
(Sept. 13), the Hotel de Coigny emptied, and sale of furniture in the
Hotel d'Egmont, etc.]

[Footnote 3130: Official reports of the commune, Aug. 17 and 20.--List
of sums paid by the treasurer of the commune, p. 321.--On the 28th of
August a "Saint-Roch in silver is brought to the bar of the National
Assembly."]

[Footnote 3131: Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 150, 161, 511.--Report by Roland,
Oct. 29. P. 414.]

[Footnote 3132: Moniteur.514, 542 (sessions of Aug. 23 and 26).]

[Footnote 3133: Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 99 (sessions of Aug.15 and 23).
"Procès-verbaux de la Commune," Aug. 18, a resolution to obtain a law
authorizing the commune "to collect together with wives and children
of the émigrés in places of security, and to make use of the former
convents for this purpose."]

[Footnote 3134: "Procès-verbaux de la Commune," Aug. 12.--Ibid., Aug. 18.
Not being able to find M. Geoffrey, the journalist, the commune "passes
a resolution that seals be affixed to Madame Geoffroy's domicile and
that she be placed in arrest until her husband appears to release her."]

[Footnote 3135: "Procès-verbaux de la Commune." Aug.17 and 18. Another
resolution, again demanding of the National Assembly a list of the
signers for publication.]

[Footnote 3136: "Procès-verbaux de la Commune," Aug. 18, 19, 20.--On the
20th of August the commune summons before it and examines the Venetian
Ambassador. "A citizen claims to be heard against the ambassador, and
states that several carriages went out of Paris in his name. The name
of this citizen is Chevalier, a horse-shoer's assistant... The Council
decrees that honorable mention be made of the affidavits brought
forward in the accusation." On the tone of these examinations read Weber
("Mémoires," II. 245), who narrates his own.]

[Footnote 3137: Buchez et Roux, XVII. 215. Narration by Peltier.--In
spite of the orders of the National Assembly the affair is repeated on
the following day, and it lasts from the 19th to the 31st of August,
in the evening.--Moore, Aug.31. The stupid, sheep-like vanity of the
bourgeois enlisted as a gendarme for the sans-culottes is here well
depicted. The keeper of the Hôtel Meurice, where Moore and Lord
Lauderdale put up, was on guard and on the chase the night before: "He
talked a good deal of the fatigue he had undergone, and hinted a little
of the dangers to which he had been exposed in the course of this
severe duty. Being asked if he had been successful in his search after
suspected persons--'Yes my lord, infinitely; our battalion arrested four
priests.' He could not have looked more lofty if he had taken the Duke
of Brunswick,"]

[Footnote 3138: According to Roederer, the number arrested amounted to
from 5,000 to 6,000 persons.]

[Footnote 3139: Mortimer-Ternaux, III.147, 148, Aug.28 and
29.--Ibid., 176. Other sections complain of the Commune with some
bitterness.--Buchez et Roux, XVII. 358.--"Procès-verbaux de la Commune,"
Sept. 1. "The section of the Temple sends a deputation which declares
that by virtue of a decree of the National Assembly it withdraws
its powers entrusted to the commissioners elected by it to the
council-general."]

[Footnote 3140: Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 154 (session of Aug. 30).]

[Footnote 3141: Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 171 (session of Aug. 31).--Ibid.,
208.----On the following day, Sept. 1, at the instigation of Danton,
Thuriot obtains from the National Assembly an ambiguous decree which
seems to allow the members of the commune to keep their places,
provisionally at least, at the Hotel-de-ville.]

[Footnote 3142: "Procès-verbaux de la Commune," Sept. 1.]

[Footnote 3143: "Procès-verbaux de la Commune," Sept. 1. "It is resolved
that whatever effects fell into the hands of the citizens who fought
for liberty and equality on the 10th of August shall remain in their
possession; M. Tallien, secretary-general, is therefore authorized to
return a gold watch to M. Lecomte, a gendarme."]

[Footnote 3144: Four circumstances, simultaneous and in full agreement
with each other, indicate this date: 1. On the 23d of August the
council-general resolves "that a tribune shall be arranged in the
chamber for a journalist (M. Marat), whose duty it shall be to conduct
a journal giving the acts passed and what goes on in the commune"
("Procès-verbaux de la Commune," Aug.23) 2. On the same day, "on the
motion of a member with a view to separate the prisoners of lése-nation
from those of the nurse's hospital and others of the same stamp in the
different prisons, the council has adopted this measure" (Granier de
Cassagnac, II. 100). 3. The same day the commune applauds the deputies
of a section, which "in warm terms" denounce before it the tardiness of
justice and declare to it that the people will "immolate" the prisoners
in their prisons (Moniteur, Nov. 10, 1793, Narrative of Pétion). The
same day it sends a deputation to the Assembly to order a transfer of
the Orleans prisoners to Paris (Buchez et Roux, XVII. 116). The next
day, in spite of the prohibitions of the Assembly, It sends Fournier
and his band to Orleans (Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 364), and each knows
beforehand that Fournier is commissioned to kill them on the way.
(Balleydier, "Histoire politique et militaire du people de Lyon," I.79.
Letter of Laussel, dated at Paris, Aug.28): "Our volunteers are at
Orleans for the past two or three days to bring the anti-revolutionary
prisoners here, who are treated too well there." On the day of
Fournier's departure (Aug. 24) Moore observes in the Palais Royal and
at the Tuileries "a greater number than usual of stump-speakers of the
populace, hired for the purpose of inspiring the people with a horror of
monarchy."]

[Footnote 3145: Moniteur, Sept. 25,1792, speech by Marat in the
Convention.]

[Footnote 3146: See his two journals, "L'Ami du people" and the "Journal
de la Républic Française," especially for July and October 1792.--The
number for August 16 is headed: "Development of the vile plot of the
court to destroy all patriots with fire and sword."--That of August 19:
"The infamous conscript Fathers of the Circus, betraying the people
and trying to delay the conviction of traitors until Mottié arrives, is
marching with his army on Paris to destroy all patriots!"--That of Aug.
21: "The rotters of the Assembly, the perfidious accomplices of Mottié
arranging for flight... The conscript Fathers, the assassins of patriots
at Nancy, the Champ de Mars and in the Tuileries, etc."--All this
was yelled out daily every morning by those who hawked these journals
through the streets.]

[Footnote 3147: Ami du Peuple, Aug.19 and 21.]

[Footnote 3148: "Lettres autographs de Madame Roland," published by
Madame Bancal des Issarts, Sept. 9. "Danton leads all; Robespierre is
his puppet; Marat holds his torch and dagger."]

[Footnote 3149: Madame Roland "Mémoires," II. 19 (note by
Roland).--Ibid., 21, 23, 24. Monge says: "Danton wants to have it so; if
I refuse he will denounce me to the Commune and at the Cordeliers, and
have me hung." Fournier's commission to Orleans was all in order, Roland
probably having signed it unawares, like those of the commissioners sent
into the departments by the executive council (Cf. Mortimer-Ternaux,
III. 368.)]

[Footnote 3150: The person who gives me the following had it from the
king, Louis Philippe, then an officer in Kellerman's corps: On the
evening of the battle of Valmy the young officer is sent to Paris to
carry the news. On his arrival (Sept. 22 or 23. 1792) he learns that he
is removed from his post and appointed governor of Strasbourg. He goes
to Servan's house, Minister of War, and at first they refuse to let him
in. Servan is unwell and in bed, with the ministers in his room. The
young man states that he comes from the army and is the bearer of
dispatches. He is admitted, and finds, indeed, Servan in bed with
various personages around him, and he announces the victory.--They
question him and he gives the details.--He then complains of having
been displaced, and, stating that he is too young to command with any
authority at Strasbourg, requests to be reinstated with the army in the
field. "Impossible," replies Servan; "your place is given to another."
Thereupon one of the personages present, with a peculiar visage and a
rough voice, takes him aside and says to him: "Servan is a fool! Come
and see me to-morrow and I will arrange the matter." "Who are you?" "I
am Danton, the Minister of Justice."--The next day he calls on Danton,
who tells him: "It is all right; you shall have your post back--not
under Kellerman, however, but under Dumouriez; are you content?" The
young man, delighted, thanks him. Danton resumes: "Let me give you one
piece of advice before you go: You have talent and will succeed. But get
rid of one fault. You talk too much. You have been in Paris twenty-four
hours, and already you have repeatedly criticized the affair of
September. I know this; I have been informed of it" "But that was a
massacre; how can one help calling it horrible?" "I did it," replies
Danton, "The Parisians are all so many j--f--. A river of blood had
to flow between them and the émigrés. You are too young to understand
these matters. Return to the army; it is the only place nowadays for a
young man like you and of your rank. You have a future before you; but
mind this--keep your mouth shut!"]

[Footnote 3151: Hua, 167.. Narrative by his guest, the physician Lambry,
an intimate friend of Danton ultra-fanatical and member of a committee
in which the question came up whether the members of the "Right" should
likewise be put out of the way. "Danton had energetically repelled this
sanguinary proposal. 'Everybody knows,' he said, 'that I do not shrink
from a criminal act when necessary; but I disdain to commit a useless
one."']

[Footnote 3152: Mortimer-Ternaux, Iv. 437. Danton exclaims, in relation
to the hot-headed commissioners sent by him into the department: "Eh!
damn it, do you suppose that we would send you young ladies?"]

[Footnote 3153: Philippe de Ségur, "Mémoires,"I.12. Danton, in a
conversation with his father, a few weeks after the 2nd of September.]

[Footnote 3154: See above, narrative of the king, louis Philippe.]

[Footnote 3155: Buchez et Roux, xvii. 347. The words of Danton in the
National Assembly, Sept. 2nd a little before two o'clock, just as the
tocsin and cannon gave the signal of alarm agreed upon. Already on
the 31st of August, Tailien, his faithful ally, had told the National
Assembly: "We have arrested the priests who make so much trouble. They
are in confinement in a certain domicile, and in a few days the soil of
liberty will be purged of their presence."]

[Footnote 3156: Meillan, "Mémoires," 325 (Ed. Barrière et Berville).
Speech by Fabre d'Eglantine at the Jacobin Club, sent around among the
affiliated clubs, May 1, 1793.]

[Footnote 3157: Robinet, "Procès des Dantonistes," 39, 45 (words of
Danton in the committee on general defense).--Madame Roland, "Mémoires,"
II. 30. On the 2nd of September Grandpré ordered to report to the
Minister of the Interior on the state of the prisons, waits for Danton
as he leaves the council and tells him his fears. "Danton, irritated by
the description, exclaims in his bellowing way, suiting his word to the
action. 'I don't give a damn about the prisoners! Let them take care of
themselves! And he proceeded on in an angry mood. This took place in the
second ante-room, in the presence of twenty persons."--Arnault, II. 101.
About the time of the September massacres "Danton, in the presence
of one of my friends, replied to someone that urged him to use his
authority in stopping the spilling of blood: 'Isn't it time for the
people to take their revenge?' "]

[Footnote 3158: Prudhomme, "Crimes de la Révolution," iv. 90. On the
2nd of September, at the alarm given by the tocsin and cannon, Prudhomme
calls on Danton at his house for information. Danton gives him the
agreed story and adds: "The people, who are now aroused and know what
to do, want to administer justice themselves on the nasty imprisoned
persons."--Camille Desmoulins enters: "Look here," says Danton,
"Prudhomme has come to ask what is going to be done?"--"Didn't you tell
him that the innocent would not be confounded with the guilty? All those
that are demanded by their Sections will be given up."--On the 4th,
Desmoulins calls at the office of the journal and says to the editors:
"Well, everything has gone off in the most perfect order. The people
even set free a good many aristocrats against whom there was no direct
proof. I trust that you will state all this exactly, because the Journal
des Révolutions is the compass of public opinion."]

[Footnote 3159: Prudhomme, "Crimes de la Révolution," IV. 123. According
to the statements of Théophile Mandar, vice-president of a section,
witness and actor in the scene; he authorizes Prudhomme to mention his
name.----Afterwards, in the next room, Mandar proposes to Pétion and
Robespierre to attend the Assembly the next day and protest against the
massacre; if necessary, the Assembly may appoint a director for one day.
"Take care not to do that," replied Robespierre; "Brissot would be
the dictator."--Pétion says nothing. "The ministers were in perfect
agreement to let the massacres continue."]

[Footnote 3160: Madame Roland, II. 37.--"Angers et le départment de
Maine-et-Loire de 1787 à 1830," by Blordier Langlois. Appended to the
circular was a printed address bearing the title of Compte rendu au
peuple souverain, "countersigned by the Minister of Justice and with the
Minister's seal on the package," and addressed to the Jacobin Clubs of
the departments, that they, too, might preach massacre.]

[Footnote 3161: Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 391, 398.--Warned by Alquier,
president of the criminal court of Versailles, of the danger to which
the Orleans prisoners were exposed, Danton replied: "What is that to
you? That affair does not concern you. Mind your own business, and do
not meddle with things outside of it!"--"But, Monsieur, the law says
that prisoners must be protected."--"What do you care? Some among them
are great criminals, and nobody knows yet how the people will regard
them and how far their indignation will carry them." Alquier wished to
pursue the matter, but Danton turned his back on him]

[Footnote 3162: Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 217]

[Footnote 3163: Madame Roland, "Lettres autographes, etc.," Sept. 5,
1792. "We are here under the knives of Marat and Robespierre. These
fellows are striving to excite the people and turn them against the
National Assembly and the council. They have organized a Star Chamber
and they have a small army under pay, aided by what they found or stole
in the palace and elsewhere, or by supplies purchased by Danton, who is
underhandedly the chieftain of this horde."--Dusaulx, "Mémoires," 441.
"On the following day (Sept. 3) I went to see one of the most estimated
personalities at this epoch. 'You know,' said I to him, 'what is going
on?'--'Very well; but keep quiet; it will soon be over. A little more
blood is still necessary.'--I saw others who explained themselves much
more definitely. "--Mortimer-Ternaux, II. 445.]

[Footnote 3164: Madame Roland, "Lettres autographes, etc.," Sept. 5,
1792. "We are here under the knives of Marat and Robespierre. These
fellows are striving to excite the people and turn them against the
National Assembly and the council. They have organized a Star Chamber
and they have a small army under pay, aided by what they found or stole
in the palace and elsewhere, or by supplies purchased by Danton, who is
underhandedly the chieftain of this horde."--Dusaulx, "Mémoires," 441.
"On the following day (Sept. 3) I went to see one of the most estimated
personalities at this epoch. 'You know,' said I to him, 'what is going
on?'--'Very well; but keep quiet; it will soon be over. A little more
blood is still necessary.'--I saw others who explained themselves much
more definitely. "--Mortimer-Ternaux, II. 445.]

[Footnote 3165: Madame de Staël, "Considérations sur la Révolution
Française," 3rd part, ch. X.]

[Footnote 3166: Prudhomme, "Les Révolutions de Paris" (number for Sept.
22). At one of the last sessions of the commune "M. Panis spoke of Marat
as of a prophet, another Siméon Stylite. 'Marat,' said he, 'remained six
weeks sitting on one thigh in a dungeon.' "--Barbaroux, 64.]

[Footnote 3167: Weber, II. 348. Collot dwells at length, "in
cool-blooded gaiety," on the murder of Madame de Lamballe and on the
abominations to which her corpse was subjected. "He added, with a sigh
of regret, that if he had been consulted he would have had the head of
Madame de Lamballe served in a covered dish for the queen's supper."]

[Footnote 3168: On the part played by Robespierre and his
presence constantly at the Commune see Granier de Cassagnac, II.
55.--Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 205. Speech by Robespierre at the commune,
Sept. 1: "No one dares name the traitors. Well, I give their names
for the safety of the people: I denounce the libertycide Brissot, the
Girondist factionists, the rascally commission of the Twenty-One in the
National Assembly; I denounce them for having sold France to Brunswick,
and for having taken in advance the reward for their dastardly act." On
the 2nd of September he repeats his denunciation, and consequently on
that day warrants are issued by the committee of supervision against
thirty deputies and against Brissot and Roland (Mortimer-Ternaux, III.
216, 247).]

[Footnote 3169: "Procès-verbaux de la Commune," Aug.
30.--Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 217 (resolutions of the sections
Poissonnière and Luxembourg).--Granier de Cassagnac, II. 104 (adhesion
of the sections Mauconseil, Louvre, and Quinze-Vingt).]

[Footnote 3170: Granier de Cassagnac, II. 156.]

[Footnote 3171: Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 265.--Granier de Cassagnac, XII.
402. (The other five judges were also members of the commune.)]

[Footnote 3172: Granier de Cassagnac, II. 313. Register of the General
Assembly of the sans-culottes, section, Sept. 2.--"Mémoires sur les
journées de Septembre," 151 (declaration of Jourdan).]

[Footnote 3173: "Mémoires sur les journées de Septembre," narrative of
Abbé Sicard, 111.]

[Footnote 3174: Buchez et Roux, XVIII. 109, 178. ("La vérite tout
entière," by Méhée, Jr.)--Narrative of Abbé Sicard, 132, 134.]

[Footnote 3175: Granier de Cassagnac, II. 92, 93.--On the presence and
complicity of Santerre. Ibid, 89-99.]

[Footnote 3176: Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 277 and 299 (Sept. 3).--Granier
de Cassagnac, II. 257. A commissary of the section of the Quatre-Nations
states in his report that "the section authorized them to pay
expenses out of the affair."--Declaration of Jourdan, 151.--Lavalette,
"Mémoires," I. 91. The initiative of the commune is further proved by
the following detail: "Towards five o'clock (Sept. 2) city officials on
horseback, carrying a flag, rode through the streets crying: 'To arms!
To arms!' They added: 'The enemy is coming; you are all lost; the city
will be burnt and given up to pillage. Have no fear of the traitors or
conspirators behind your backs. They are in the hands of the patriots,
and before you leave the thunderbolt of national justice will fall on
them!"--Buchez et Roux, XXVIII. 105. Letter of Chevalier Saint-Dizier,
member of the first committee of supervision, Sept. 10. "Marat, Duplain,
Fréron, etc., generally do no more in their supervision of things than
wreak private vengeance... Marat states openly that 40,000 heads must
still be knocked off to ensure the success of the revolution."]

[Footnote 3177: Buchez et Roux, XVIII. 146. "Ma Résurrection," by Mathon
de la Varenne. "The evening before half-intoxicated women said publicly
on the Feuillants terrace: 'To-morrow is the day when their souls will
be turned inside out in the prisons."]

[Footnote 3178: "Mémoires sur les journées de Septembre. Mon agonie,"
by Journiac de Saint-Méard.--Madame de la Fausse-Landry, 72. The 29th of
August she obtained permission to join her uncle in prison: "M. Sergent
and others told me that I was acting imprudently; that the prisons were
not safe."]

[Footnote 3179: Granier de Cassagnac,--II. 27. According to Roch
Marcandier their number "did not exceed 300." According to Louvet there
were "200, and perhaps not that number." According to Brissot, the
massacres were committed by about "a hundred unknown brigands."--Pétion,
at La Force (Ibid., 75), on September 6, finds only about a dozen
executioners. According to Madame Roland (II. 35), "there were not
fifteen at the Abbaye." Lavalette the first day finds only about fifty
killers at the La Force prison.]

[Footnote 3180: Mathon de la Varenne, ibid., 137.]

[Footnote 3181: Buchez et Roux, XVII. 183 (session of the Jacobin Club,
Aug. 27). Speech by a federate from Tarn.--Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 126.]

[Footnote 3182: Sicard, 80.--Méhée, 187.--Weber, II. 279.--Cf., in
Journiac de Saint-Méard, his conversation with a Provençal.--Rétif de
la Bretonne, "Les Nuits de Paris," 375. "About 2 o'clock in the morning
(Sept. 3) I heard a troop of cannibals passing under my window, none of
whom appeared to have the Parisian accent; they were all strangers."]

[Footnote 3183: Granier de Cassagnac, II. 164, 502.--Mortimer-Ternaux,
III. 530.--Maillard's assessors at the Abbaye were a watchmaker living
in the Rue Childebert, a fruit-dealer in the Rue Mazarine, a keeper of
a public house in the Rue du Four-Saint-Germain, a journeyman hatter
in the Rue Sainte-Marguerite, and two others whose occupation is not
mentioned.--On the composition of the tribunal at La Force, Cf. Journiac
de Saint-Méard, 120, and Weber, II. 261.]

[Footnote 3184: Granier de Cassagnac, II. 507 (on Damiens), 513 (on
L'empereur).--Meillan, 388 (on Laforet and his wife, old-clothes dealers
on the Quai du Louvre, who on the 31st of May prepare for a second blow,
and calculate this time on having for their share the pillaging of fifty
houses).]

[Footnote 3185: Sicard, 98]

[Footnote 3186: De Ferrières (Ed. Berville et Barrière), III.
486.--Rétif de la Bretonne, 381. At the end of the Rue des Ballets a
prisoner had just been killed, while the next one slipped through the
railing and escaped. "A man not belonging to the butchers, but one of
those thoughtless machines of which there are so many, interposed his
pike and stopped him... The poor fellow was arrested by his pursuers and
massacred. The pikeman coolly said to us: 'I couldn't know they wanted
to kill him.'"]

[Footnote 3187: Granier de Cassagnac, II. 511.]

[Footnote 3188: The judges and slaughterers at the Abbaye, discovered in
the trial of the year IV., almost all lived in the neighborhood, in the
rues Dauphine, de Nevers, Guégénaud, de Bussy, Childebert, Taranne,
de l'Egoût, du Vieux Colombier, de l'Echaudé-Saint-Benoit, du
Four-Saint-Germain, etc.]

[Footnote 3189: Sicard, 86, 87, 101.--Jourdan, 123. "The president of
the committee of supervision replied to me that these were very honest
persons; that on the previous evening or the evening before that, one
of them, in a shirt and wooden shoes, presented himself before
their committee all covered with blood, bringing with him in his hat
twenty-five louis in gold, which he had found on the person of a man
he had killed."--Another instance of probity may be found in the
"Procès-verbaux du conseil-général de la Commune de Versailles," 367,
371.--On the following day, Sept. 3, robberies commence and go on
increasing.]

[Footnote 3190: Méhée, 179. "'Would you believe that I have earned only
twenty-four francs?' said a baker's boy armed with a club. 'I killed
more than forty for my share.'"]

[Footnote 3191: Granier de Cassagnac. II. 153.--Cf. Ibid., 202-209,
details on the meals of the workmen and on the more delicate repast of
Maillard and his assistants.]

[Footnote 3192: Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 175-176.--Granier de Cassagnac.
II. 84.----Jourdan, 222.--Méhée, 179. "At midnight they came back
swearing, cursing, and foaming with rage, threatening to cut the throats
of the committee in a body if they were not instantly paid."]

[Footnote 3193: Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 320. Speech by Pétion on the
charges preferred against Robespierre.]

[Footnote 3194: Mathon de la Varenne, 156.--Journiac de Saint-Méard,
129.--Moore, 267.]

[Footnote 3195: Journiac de Saint-Méard, 115.]

[Footnote 3196: Weber, II. 265.--Journiac de Saint-Méard, 129.--Mathon
de la Varenne, 155.]

[Footnote 3197: Moore, 267.--Cf. Malouet, II. 240. Malouet, on the
evening of Sept. 1, was at his sister-in-law's; there is a domiciliary
visit at midnight; she faints on hearing the patrol mount the stairs. "I
begged them not to enter the drawing-room, so as not to disturb the poor
sufferer. The sight of a woman in a swoon and pleasing in appearance
affected them, and they at once withdrew, leaving me alone with
her."--Beaulieu, "Essais," I. 108. (Regarding the two Abbaye butchers
he meets in the house of Journiac-de-Saint-Méard, and who chat with him
while issuing him with a safe-conduct): "What struck me was to detect
generous sentiments through their ferocity, those of men determined to
protect any one whose cause they adopted."]

[Footnote 3198: Weber, II. 265, 348.]

[Footnote 3199: Sicard, 101. Billaud-Varennes, addressing the
slaughterers.--Ibid.75. "Greater power," replied a member of the
committee of supervision, "what are you thinking of? To give you greater
power would be limiting those you have already. Have you forgotten that
you are sovereigns? That the sovereignty of the people is confided to
you, and that you are now in full exercise of it?"]

[Footnote 31100: Méhée, 171.]

[Footnote 31101: Sicard, 81. At the beginning the Marseilles men
themselves were averse to striking the disarmed, and exclaimed to the
crowd: "Here, take our swords and pikes and kill the monsters!"]

[Footnote 31102: Macbeth by Shakespeare: "I have supped full with
horrors."]

[Footnote 31103: Observe children drowning a dog or killing a snake.
Tenacity of life irritates them, as if it were a rebellion against their
despotism, the effect of which is to render them only the more violent
against their victim.]

[Footnote 31104: One may recall to mind the effect of bull-fights, also
the irresistible fascination which Saint-Augustin experienced on first
hearing the death-cry of a gladiator in the amphitheater.]

[Footnote 31105: Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 131. Trial of the September
actors; the judge's summing up. "The third and forty-sixth witnesses
stated that they saw Monneuse (member of the commune) go to and come
from la Force, express his delight at those sad events that had just
occurred, acting very immorally in relation thereto, adding that
there was violin playing in his presence, and that his colleague
danced."--Sicard, 88.]

[Footnote 31106: Sicard, 87, 91. This expression by a wine-merchant, who
wants the custom of the murderers.--Granier de Cassagnac, II. 197-200.
The original bills for wine, straw, and lights have been found.]

[Footnote 31107: Sicard, 91.--Maton de la Varenne, 150.]

[Footnote 31108: Mathon de la Varenne, 154. A man from the suburbs said
to him (Mathon is an advocate): "All right, Monsieur Fine-skin; I shall
treat myself to a glass of your blood."]

[Footnote 31109: Rétif de la Bretonne, "Les Nuits de Paris," 9th night,
p.388. "She screamed horribly, whilst the brigands amused themselves
with their disgraceful acts. Her body even after death was not exempt.
These people had heard that she had been beautiful."]

[Footnote 31110: Prudhomme, "Les Révolutions de Paris," number for Sept.
8, 1792. "The people subjected the flower-girl of the Palais-Royal to
the law of retaliation."--Granier de Cassagnac, II. 329. According
to the bulletin of the revolutionary tribunal, number for Sept.
3.--Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 291. Deposition of the caretaker's office of
the Conciergerie prison.--Buchez et Roux, XVII.198. "Histoire des hommes
de proi," by Roch Marcandier.]

[Footnote 31111: Mortimer-Ternaux III, 257. Trial of the September
murderers; deposition of Roussel.--Ib., 628.]

[Footnote 31112: Deposition of the woman Millet, ibid., 63.--Weber, II.
350.----Roch Marcandier, 197, 198.--Rétif de la Bretonne, 381.]

[Footnote 31113: Deposition of the woman Millet, ibid., 63.--Weber, II.
350.----Roch Marcandier, 197, 198.--Rétif de la Bretonne, 381.]

[Footnote 31114: On this mechanical and murderous action Cf: Dusaulx,
"Mémoires," 440. He addresses the bystanders in favor of the prisoners,
and, affected by his words, they hold out their hands to him. "But
before this the executioners had struck me on the cheeks with the points
of their pikes, from which hung pieces of flesh. Others wanted to cut
off my head, which would have been done if two gendarmes had not kept
them back."]

[Footnote 31115: Jourdan, 219.]

[Footnote 31116: Méhée, 179.]

[Footnote 31117: Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 558. The same idea is found
among the federates and Parisians composing the company of the Egalité,
which brought the Orleans prisoners to Versailles and then murdered
them. They explain their conduct by saying that they "hoped to put an
end to the excessive expenditure to which the French empire was subject
through the prolonged detention of conspirators."]

[Footnote 31118: Rétif de la Bretonne, 388.]

[Footnote 31119: Méhée, 177.]

[Footnote 31120: Prudhomme, "Les Crimes de la Révolution." III. 272.]

[Footnote 31121: Rétif de la Bretonne, 388. There were two sorts of
women at the Salpétrière, those who were banded and young girls brought
in the prison. Hence the two alternatives.]

[Footnote 31122: Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 295. See list of names, ages,
and occupations.]

[Footnote 31123: Barthélemy Maurice, "Histoire politique and anecdotique
des prisons de la Seine," 329.]

[Footnote 31124: Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 295. See list of names, ages,
and occupations.]

[Footnote 31125: The Encyclopedia "QUID" (ROBERT LAFONT, PARIS 1998)
advises us that the number of victims killed with "cold steel and clubs"
etc total 1395 persons. The total number of French victims due to the
Revolution is considered to be between 600,000 and 800,000 dead. (SR)]

[Footnote 31126: Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 399, 592,
602-606.--"Procès-verbal des 8, 9, 10 Septembre, extrait des registres
de la municipalité de Versailles." (In the "Mémoires sur les journées de
Septembre"), p. 358 and following pages.--Granier de Cassagnac, II. 483.
Bonnet's exploit at Orleans, pointed out to Fournier, Sept. I. Fournier
replies: "In God's name, I am not to be ordered; when the bloody beggars
have had their heads cut off the trial may be held later!"]

[Footnote 31127: Roch Marcandier, 210. Speech by Lazowski to the section
of Finistère, fauborg Saint-Marceau. Lazowski had, in addition, set free
the assassins of the mayor of Etampes, and laid their manacles on the
bureau table.]

[Footnote 31128: Malouet, II. 243 (Sept. 2).--Moniteur, XIII. 48
(session of Sept. 27, 1792). We see in the speech of Panis that
analogous scenes took place in the committee of supervision. "Imagine
our situation. We were surrounded by citizens irritated against the
treachery of the court. We were told: 'Here is an aristocrat who is
going to fly; you must stop him, or your yourselves are traitors!'
Pistols were pointed at us and we found ourselves obliged to sign
warrants, not so much for our own safety as for that of the persons
denounced."]

[Footnote 31129: Granier de Cassagnac, II. 258.--Prudhomme, "Les Crimes
de la Révolution," III. 272.--Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 631.--De
Ferrière, III. 391.--(The expression quoted was recorded by Rétif de la
Bretonne.)]

[Footnote 31130: That is how to do it, must any anarchist or hopeful
revolutionary have thought, upon reading Taine's livid description.-But
also: "Do not let the bourgeois read this, it might scare them and make
our task more difficult." (SR).]

[Footnote 31131: Moniteur, XIII. 698, 698 (numbers for Sept. 15 and 16).
Ibid., Letter of Roland, 701; of Pétion, 711.--Buchez et Roux, XVIII.
33. 34.--Prudhomme's journal contains an engraving of this subject
(Sept. 14)--"An Englishman admitted to the bar of the house denounces to
the National Assembly a robbery committed in a house occupied by him at
Chaillot by two bailiffs and their satellites. The robbery consisted
of twelve louis, five guineas, five thousand pounds in assignats, and
several other objects." The courts before which he appeared did not dare
take up his case (Buchez et Roux, XVII. P. 1, Sept. 18).]

[Footnote 31132: Buchez et Roux, XVII. 461.--Prudhomme, "Les Révolutions
de Paris," number for Sept. 22, 1792.]

[Footnote 31133: Moniteur, XIII. 711 (session of Sept. 16). Letter of
Roland to the National Assembly.--Buchez et Roux, XVIII. 42.--Moniteur,
XIII. 731 (session of Sept. 17). Speech by Pétion: "Yesterday there
was some talk of again visiting the prisons, and particularly the
Conciergerie."]

[Footnote 31134: Perhaps Mao read this and later coined his famous
slogan "that all political power emanates from the barrels of guns."
(SR).]

[Footnote 31135: "Archives Nationales," II. 58 to 76. Official reports
of the Paris electoral assembly.--Robespierre is elected the twelfth
(Sept. 5), then Danton and Collot d'Herbois (Sept. 6) then Manuel and
Billaud-Varennes (Sept. 7), next C. Desmoulins (Sept. 8), Marat (Sept.
9) etc.--Mortimer-Ternaux, IV. 35 (act passed by the commune at
the instigation of Robespierre for the regulation of electoral
operations).--Louvet, "Mémoires." Louvet, in the electoral assembly asks
to be heard on the candidacy of Marat, but is unsuccessful. "On going
out I was surrounded by those men with big clubs and sabers by whom
the future dictator was always attended, Robespierre's body-guard. They
threatened me and told me in very concise terms: 'Before long you
shall have your turn. This is the freedom of that assembly in which one
declared his vote under a dagger pointed at him."']

[Footnote 31136: In reading this all socialist and communists and other
potential manipulators of democracy would have taken and will continue
to take note. Once the hidden combination can manage to invest all the
different, in theory opponent, parties with their own men, an eternal
control by a hidden mafia can now take place. (SR).]

[Footnote 31137: Such procedures set a precedence for 200 years of
'guided democracy' in many trade unions and elsewhere. (SR).]




CHAPTER II. THE DEPARTMENTS.--THE EPEDEMIC AND CONTAGIOUS CHARACTER OF
THE REVOLUTIONARY DISEASE.

In the departments, it is by hundreds that we enumerate days like the
20th of June, August 10, September 2. The body has its epidemic, its
contagious diseases; the mind has the same; the revolutionary malady is
one of them. It appears throughout the country at the same time; each
infected point infects others. In each city, in each borough, the club
is a Center of inflammation which disorganizes the sound parts; and
the example of each disorganized Center spreads afar like contagious
fumes.[3201] Everywhere the same fever, delirium, and convulsions mark
the presence of the same virus. That virus is the Jacobin dogma. By
virtue of the Jacobin dogma, theft, usurpation, murder, take on the
guise of political philosophy, and the gravest crimes against persons,
against public or private property, become legitimate; for they are
the acts of the legitimate supreme power, the power that has the public
welfare in its keeping.




I. The Sovereignty of the People.

     Its principle is the Jacobin dogma of the sovereignty of the
     people.----The new right is officially proclaimed.--Public
     statement of the new régime.--Its object, its opponents, its
     methods.--Its extension from Paris to the provinces.

That each Jacobin band should be invested with the local dictatorship
in its own canton is, according to the Jacobins, a natural right. It
becomes the written law from the day that the National Assembly declares
the country in danger. "From that date," says their most widely read
Journal,[3202] and by the mere fact of that declaration, "the people of
France are assembled and insurgent. They have repossessed themselves of
the sovereign power." Their magistrates, their deputies, all constituted
authorities, return to nothingness, their essential state. And you,
temporary and revocable representatives, "you are nothing but presiding
officers for the people; you have nothing to do but to collect their
votes, and to announce the result when these shall have been cast with
due solemnity."--Nor is this the theory of the Jacobins only; it is also
official theory. The National Assembly approves of the insurrection,
recognizes the Commune, keeps in the background, abdicates as far as
possible, and only remains provisionally in office in order that the
place may not be left vacant. It abstains from exercising power, even
to provide its own successors; it merely "invites" the French people to
organize a national convention; it confesses that it has "no right to
put the exercise of sovereign power under binding rules"; it does no
more than "indicate to citizens" the rules for the elections "to which
it invites them to conform." Meanwhile it is subject to the will of the
sovereign people, then so-called; it dares not resist their crimes; it
interferes with assassins only by entreaties.--Much more; it authorizes
them, either by ministerial signature or counter-signature, to begin
their work elsewhere. Roland has signed Fournier's commission to
Orleans; Danton has sent the circular of Marat over all France. To
reconstruct the departments the council of ministers sends the most
infuriated members of the Commune and the party, Chaumette, Fréron,
Westerman, Auduoin, Huguenin, Momoro, Couthon, Billaud-Varennes,[3204]
and others still more tainted and brutal, who preach the purest Jacobin
doctrine. "They announce openly[3205] that laws no longer exist; that
since the people are sovereign, every one is master; that each fraction
of the nation can take such measures as suit it, in the name of the
country's safety; that they have the right to tax corn, to seize it in
the laborer's fields, to cut off the heads of the farmers who refuse to
bring their grain to market." At Lisieux, agrarian law is preached
by Fufour and Momoro. At Douai, other preachers from Paris say to the
popular club, "Prepare scaffolds; let the walls of the city bristle
with gallows, and hang upon them every man who does not accept our
opinions."--Nothing is more logical, more in conformity with their
principles. The journals, deducing their consequences, explain to
the people the use they ought to make of their reconquered
sovereignty.[3206] "Under the present circumstances, community of
property is the law; everything belongs to everybody." Besides, "an
equalizing of fortunes must be brought about, a leveling, which shall
abolish the vicious principle of the domination of the rich over the
poor." This reform is all the more pressing because "the people,
the real sovereign people, have nearly as many enemies as there are
proprietors, large merchants, financiers, and wealthy men. In a time
of revolution, we must regard all men who have more than enough as the
enemies, secret or avowed, of popular government." Therefore, "let the
people of each commune, before they quit their homes" for the army, "put
all those who are suspected of not loving liberty in a secure place, and
under the safe-keeping of the law; let them be kept shut up until war
is over; let them be guarded with pikes," and let each one of their
guardians receive thirty sous per day.

* As for the partisans of the fallen government, the members of the
Paris directory, "with Roederer and Blondel at their head,"

* as for the general officers, "with Lafayette and d'Affry at their
head,"

* as for "the critical deputies of the Constituent Assembly, with
Barnave and Lameth at their head,"

* as for the Feuillant deputies of the Legislative Assembly, "with
Ramond and Jaucourt at their head,"[3207]

* as for "all those who consented to soil their hands with the profits
of the civil list,"

* as for "the 40,000 hired assassins who were gathered at the palace on
the night of August 9-10,

they are all (say the Jacobins) furious monsters, who ought to be
strangled to the last one. People! you have risen to your feet; stand
firm until not one of these conspirators remains alive. Your humanity
requires you for once to show yourselves inexorable. Strike terror to
the wicked. The proscriptions which we impose on you as a duty, are the
sacred wrath of your country."

There is no mistaking this; it is a tocsin sounding against all the
powers that be, against all social superiority, against priests and
nobles, proprietors, capitalists, the leaders of business and industry;
it is sounding, in short, against the whole élite of France, whether of
old or recent origin. The Jacobins of Paris, by their journals, their
examples, their missionaries, give the signal; and in the provinces
their kindred spirits, imbued with the same principles, only wait the
summons to hurl themselves forward.




II.--In several departments it establishes itself in advance.

     An instance of this in the Var.

In many departments[3208] they have forestalled the summons. In the Var,
for example, pillages and proscriptions have begun with the month of
May. According to custom, they first seize upon the castles and the
monasteries, although these have become national property, at one time
alleging as a reason for this that the administration "is too slow
in carrying out sentence against the émigrés," and again, that "the
château, standing on an eminence, weighs upon the inhabitants."[3209]
There is scarcely a village in France that does not contain twoscore
wretches who are always ready to line their pockets, which is just
the number of thieves who thoroughly sacked the château of Montaroux,
carrying off "furniture, produce, clothing, even the jugs and bottles in
the cellar." There are the same doings by the same band at the chateau
of Tournon; the château of Salerne is burned, that of Flagose is pulled
down; the canal of Cabris is destroyed; then the convent of Montrieux,
the châteaux of Grasse, of Canet, of Régusse, of Brovaz, and many
others, all devastated, and the devastations are made "daily."--It is
impossible to suppress this country brigandage. The reigning dogma,
weakening authority in the magistrates' hands, and the clubs, "which
cover the department," have spread the fermentation of anarchy
everywhere. "Administrators, judges, municipal officers, all who are
invested with any authority, and who have the courage to use it in
forcing respect for law, are one by one denounced by public opinion as
enemies of the constitution and of liberty; because, people say, they
talk of nothing but the law, as if they did not know that the will of
the people makes the law, and that we are the people."[3210] This is the
real principle; here, as at Paris, it instantly begets its consequences.
"In many of these clubs nothing is discussed but the plundering of
estates and cutting off the heads of aristocrats. And who are designated
by this infamous title? In the cities, the great traders and rich
proprietors; in the country, those whom we call the bourgeois;
everywhere, all peaceable citizens, the friends of order, who wish to
enjoy, under the shadow of the protecting law, the blessings of the
Constitution. Such was the rage of their denunciations that in one of
these clubs a good and brave peasant was denounced as an aristocrat;
the whole of his aristocracy consisting in his having said to those who
plundered the château of their seigneur, already mentioned, that they
would not enjoy in peace the fruits of their crime."--Here is the
Jacobin programme of Paris in advance, namely, the division of the
French into two classes, the spoliation of one, the despotism of the
other; the destruction of the well-to-do, orderly and honest under the
dictation of those who are not so.

Here, as in Paris, the programme is carried out step by step. At
Beausset, near Toulon, a man named Vidal, captain of the National Guard,
"twice set at liberty by virtue of two consecutive amnesties,"[3211]
punishes not resistance merely, but even murmurs, with death. Two old
men, one of them a notary, the other a turner, having complained of him
to the public prosecutor, the general alarm is beaten, a gathering of
armed men is formed in the street, and the complainants are clubbed,
riddled with balls, and their bodies thrown into a pit. Many of their
friends are wounded, others take to flight; seven houses are sacked,
and the municipality, "either overawed or in complicity," makes no
interference until all is over. There is no way of pursuing the guilty
ones; the foreman of the jury, who goes, escorted by a thousand men, to
hold an inquest, can get no testimony. The municipal officers feign to
have heard nothing, neither the general alarm nor the guns fired under
their windows. The other witnesses say not a word; but they declare,
sotto voce, the reason for their silence. If they should testify, "they
would be sure of being killed as soon as the troops should have gone
away." The foreman of the jury is himself menaced; after remaining
three-quarters of an hour, he finds it prudent to leave the city.--After
this the clubs of Beausset and of the neighborhood, gaining hardihood
from the impotence of the law, break out into incendiary propositions:
"It is announced that after the troops retreat, nineteen houses more
will be sacked; it is proposed to behead all aristocrats, that is to
say, all the land-owners in the country." Many have fled, but their
flight does not satisfy the clubs. Vidal orders those of Beausset who
took refuge in Toulon to return at once; otherwise their houses will
be demolished, and that very day, in fact, by way of warning, several
houses in Beausset, among them that of a notary, are either pulled down
or pillaged from top to bottom; all the riff-raff of the town are at
work, "half-drunken men and women," and, as their object is to rob
and drink, they would like to begin again in the principal town of the
canton.--The club, accordingly, has declared that "Toulon would soon see
a new St. Bartholomew"; it has allies there, and arrangements are made;
each club in the small towns of the vicinity will furnish men, while
all will march under the leadership of the Toulon club. At Toulon, as at
Beausset, the municipality will let things take their course, while the
proceedings complained of by the public prosecutor and the district and
department administrators will be applied to them. They may send reports
to Paris, and denounce patriots to the National Assembly and the King,
if they choose; the club will reply to their scribbling with acts. Their
turn is coming. Lanterns and sabers are also found at Toulon, and the
faction murders them because they have lodged complaints against the
murderers.




III.--Each Jacobin band a dictator in its own neighborhood.

     Saint-Afrique during the interregnum.

By what it dared to do when the government still stood on its feet we
may we may imagine what it will do during the interregnum. Facts, then,
as always, furnish the best picture, and, to obtain a knowledge of the
new sovereign, we must first observe him on a limited stage.

On the reception of the news of the 10th of August, the Jacobins of
Saint-Afrique, a small town of the Aveyron,[3212] likewise undertook to
save the country, and, to this end, like their fellows in other boroughs
of the district, they organized themselves into an "Executive Power."
This institution is of an old date, especially in the South; it had
flourished for eighteen months from Lyons to Montpellier, from Agen
to Nîmes; but after the interregnum, its condition is still more
flourishing; it consists of a secret society, the object of which is to
carry out practically the motions and instructions of the club.[3213]
Ordinarily, they work at night, wearing masks or slouched hats, with
long hair falling over the face. A list of their names, each with a
number opposite to it, is kept at the meeting-place of the society. A
triangular club, decked with a red ribbon, serves them both as weapon
and badge; with this club, each member "may go anywhere," and do what
seems good to him. At Saint-Afrique they number about eighty, among whom
must be counted the rascals forming the seventh company of Tarn, staying
in the town; their enrollment in the band is effected by constantly
"preaching pillage to them," and by assuring them that the contents
of the châteaux in the vicinity belong to them.[3214]--Not that
the châteaux excite any fear; most of them are empty; neither in
Saint-Afrique nor in the environs do the men of the ancient régime form
a party; for many months orthodox priests and the nobles have had
to fly, and now the well-to-do people are escaping. The population,
however, is Catholic; many of the shop-keepers, artisans, and farmers
are discontented, and the object now is to make these laggards keep
step.--In the first place, they order women of every condition,
work-girls and servants, to attend mass performed by the sworn curé,
for, if they do not, they will be made acquainted with the cudgel.--In
the second place, all the suspected are disarmed; they enter their
houses during the night in force, unexpectedly, and, besides their gun,
carry off their provisions and money. A certain grocer who persists
in his lukewarmness is visited a second time; seven or eight men, one
evening, break open his door with a stick of timber; he takes refuge on
his roof, dares not descend until the following day at dawn, and
finds that everything in his store has been either stolen or broken
to pieces.[3215] In the third place, there is "punishment of the
ill-disposed." At nine o'clock in the evening a squad knocks at the door
of a distrusted shoemaker; it is opened by his apprentice; six of the
ruffians enter, and one of them, showing a paper, says to the poor
fellow:

"I come on the part of the Executive Power, by which you are condemned
to a beating."

"What for?"

"If you have not done anything wrong, you are thinking about it."[3216]

And so they beat him in the presence of his family. Many others like
him are seized and unmercifully beaten on their own premises.--As to
the expenses of the operation, these must be defrayed by the malevolent.
These, therefore, are taxed according to their occupations; this or that
tanner or dealer in cattle has to pay 36 francs; another, a hatter,
72 francs; otherwise "they will be attended to that very night at nine
o'clock." Nobody is exempt, if he is not one of the band. Poor old men
who have nothing but a five-franc assignat are compelled to give that;
they take from the wife of an unskilled laborer, whose savings consist
of seven sous and a half, the whole of this, exclaiming, "that is good
for three mugs of wine."[3217] When money is not to be had, they
take goods in kind; they make short work of cellars, bee-hives,
clothes-presses, and poultry-yards. They eat, drink, and break,
giving themselves up to it heartily, not only in the town, but in the
neighboring villages. One detachment goes to Brusque, and proceeds so
vigorously that the mayor and syndic-attorney scamper off across the
fields, and dare not return for a couple of days.[3218] At Versol, the
dwelling of the sworn curé, and at Lapeyre, that of the sworn vicar, are
both sacked; the money is stolen and the casks are emptied. In the house
of the curé of Douyre, "furniture, clothes, cabinets, and window-sashes
are destroyed"; they feast on his wine and the contents of his cupboard,
throw away what they could not consume, then go in search of the curé
and his brother, a former Carthusian, shouting that "their heads must
be cut off; and sausage-meat made of the rest of their bodies!" Some of
them, a little shrewder than the others, light on a prize; for example,
a certain Bourguière, a trooper of the line, seized a vineyard belonging
to an old lady, the widow of a physician and former mayor;[3219] he
gathered in its crop, "publicly in broad daylight," for his own
benefit, and warns the proprietress that he will kill her if she makes
a complaint against him, and, as she probably does complain of him, he
obliges her, in the name of the Executive Power, to pay him fifty crowns
damages.--As to the common Jacobin gangsters, their reward, besides food
and drink, is perfect licentiousness. In all houses invaded at eleven
o'clock in the evening. Whilst the father flies, or the husband screams
under the cudgel, one of the villains stations himself at the entrance
with a drawn saber in his hands, and the wife or daughter remains at
the mercy of the others; they seize her by the neck and maintain their
hold.[3220] In vain does she scream for help. "Nobody in Saint-Afrique
dares go outdoors at night"; nobody comes, and, the following day, the
juge-de-paix dares not receive the complaint, because "he is afraid
himself."--Accordingly, on the 23rd of September, the municipal officers
and the town-clerk, who made their rounds, were nearly beaten to death
with clubs and stones; on the 10th of October another municipal officer
was left for dead; a fortnight before this, a lieutenant of volunteers,
M. Mazières, "trying to do his duty, was assassinated in his bed by his
own men." Naturally, nobody dares whisper a word, and, after two months
of this order of things, it may be presumed that at the municipal
elections of the 21st of October, the electors will be docile. In any
event, as a precaution, their notification eight days before, according
to law, is dispensed with; as extra precaution, they are informed that
if they do not vote for the Executive Power, they will have to do with
the triangular cudgel.[3221] Consequently, most of them abstain; in a
town of over 600 active citizens, 40 votes give a majority; Bourgougnon
and Sarrus, the two chiefs of the Executive Power, are elected, one
mayor, and the other syndic-attorney, and henceforth the authority they
seized by force is conferred on them by the law.




IV.--Ordinary practices of the Jacobin dictatorship.

     The stationary companies of the clubs.--Their personnel.
     --Their leaders.

This is roughly the type of government which spring up in every commune
of France after the 10th of August; the club reigns, but the form
and processes of its dictatorship are different, according to
circumstances.--Sometimes it operates directly through an executive gang
or by lancing an excited mob; sometimes it operates indirectly through
the electoral assembly it has had elected, or through the municipality,
which is its accomplice. If the administrations are Jacobin, it governs
through them. If they are passive, it governs alongside of them. If they
are refractory, it purges them,[3222] or breaks them up,[3223] and, to
put them down, it resorts not only to blows, but even to murder[3224]
and massacre.[3225] Between massacre and threats, all intermediaries
meet, the revolutionary seal being everywhere impressed with
inequalities of relief.

In many places, threats suffice. In regions where the temperament of
the people is cool, and where there is no resistance, it is pointless to
resort to assault and battery. What is the use is killing in a town like
Arras, for instance, where, on the day of the civic oath, the president
of the department, a prudent millionaire, stalks through the streets arm
in arm with Aunty Duchesne, who sells cookies down in a cellar, where,
on election days, the townspeople, through cowardice, elect the club
candidates under the pretense that "rascals and beggars" must be sent
off to Paris to purge the town of them![3226] It would be labor lost to
strike people who grovel so well.[3227] The faction is content to mark
them as mangy curs, to put them in pens, keep them on a leash, and to
annoy them.[3228] It posts at the entrance of the guard-room a list of
inhabitants related to an émigré; it makes domiciliary visits; it draws
up a fancied list of the suspected, on which list all that are rich are
found inscribed. It insults and disarms them; it confines them to the
town; it forbids them to go outside of it even on foot; it orders them
to present themselves daily before its committee of public safety; it
condemns them to pay their taxes for a year in twenty-four hours; it
breaks the seals of their letters; it confiscates, demolishes, and sells
their family tombs in the cemeteries. This is all in order, as is the
religious persecution,

* with the irruption into private chapels where mass is said,

* with blows with gun-stocks and the fist bestowed on the officiating
priest,

* with the obligation of orthodox parents to have their children
baptized by the schismatic curé,

* with the expulsion of nuns, and

* with the pursuit, imprisonment and transportation of unsworn
ecclesiastics.

But if the domination of the club is not always a bloody one, the
judgments are always those of an armed man, who, putting his gun to
his shoulder, aims at the wayfarers whom he has stopped on the road.
Generally they kneel down, tender their purses, and the shot is not
fired. But the gun is cocked, nevertheless, and, to be certain of this,
we have only to look at the shriveled hand grasping the trigger. We are
reminded of those swarms of banditti which infested the country under
the ancient regime;[3229] the double-girdle of smugglers and receivers
embraced within twelve hundred leagues of internal excise-duties, the
poachers abounding on the four hundred leagues of guarded captaincies,
the deserters so numerous that in eight years they amounted to sixty
thousand, the beggars with which the prisons overflowed, the thousands
of thieves and vagabonds thronging the highways, quarry of the police
which the Revolution let loose and armed, and which, in its turn,
from being prey, became the hunters of game. For three years these
strong-armed prowlers have served as the hard-core of local jacqueries;
at the present time they form the staff of the universal jacquerie. At
Nîmes,[3230] the head of the Executive Power is a "dancing-master." The
two leading demagogues of Toulouse are a shoemaker, and an actor who
plays valets.[3231] At Toulon,[3232] the club, more absolute than
any Asiatic despot, is recruited from among the destitute, sailors,
harbor-hands, soldiers, "stray peddlers," while its president,
Sylvestre, sent down from Paris, is a criminal of the lowest degree. At
Rheims,[3233] the principal leader is an unfrocked priest, married to
a nun, aided by a baker, who, an old soldier, came near being hung.
Elsewhere,[3234] it is some deserter tried for robbery; here, a cook
or innkeeper, and there, a former lackey The oracle of Lyons is an
ex-commercial traveler, an emulator of Marat, named Châlier, whose
murderous delirium is complicated with morbid mysticism. The acolytes of
Châlier are a barber, a hair-dresser, an old-clothes dealer, a mustard
and vinegar manufacturer, a cloth-dresser, a silk-worker, a gauze-maker,
while the time is near when authority is to fall into still meaner
hands, those of "the dregs of the female population," who, aided by "a
few bullies," elect "female commissaries," tax food, and for three days
pillage the warehouses.[3235] Avignon has for its masters the Glacière
bandits. Arles is under the yoke of its porters and bargemen. Marseilles
belongs to "a band of wretches spawned out of houses of debauchery,
who recognize neither laws nor magistrates, and ruling the city through
terror."[3236]--It is not surprising that such men, invested with such
power, use it in conformity with their nature, and that the interregnum,
which is their reign, spreads over France a circle of devastations,
robberies, and murders.




V.--The companies of traveling volunteers.

     Quality of the recruits.--Election of officers.--Robberies
     and murders.

Usually, the stationary band of club members has an auxiliary band of
the same species which roves about. I mean the volunteers, who inspire
more fear and do more harm, because they march in a body and are
armed.[3237] Like their brethren in the ordinary walks of life, many of
them are town and country vagabonds; most of them, living from hand to
mouth, have been attracted by the pay of fifteen sous a day; they
have become soldiers for lack of work and bread.[3238] Each commune,
moreover, having been called upon for its army contingent, "they have
picked up whatever could be found in the towns, all the scamps hanging
around street-corners, men with no pursuit, and, in the country,
wretches and vagabonds of every description; nearly all have been forced
to march by money or drawing lots," and it is probable that the
various administrations thought that "in this way they would purge
France."[3239] To the wretched "bought by the communes," add others
of the same stamp, procured by the rich as substitutes for their
sons.[3240] Thus do they pick over the social dunghill and obtain at a
discount the natural and predestined inmates of houses of correction,
poor-houses and hospitals, with an utter disregard of quality, even
physical, "the halt, the maimed and the blind," the deformed and the
defective, "some too old, and others too young and too feeble to support
the fatigues of war, others so small as to stand a foot lower than their
guns," a large number of boys of sixteen, fourteen, and thirteen; in
short, the reprobate of great cities as we now see him, stunted, puny,
and naturally insolent and insurgent.[3241] "One-third of them are found
unfit for service" on reaching the frontier.[3242]--But, before reaching
the frontier, they act like "pirates" on the road.--The others, with
sounder bodies and better hearts, become, under the discipline of
constant danger, good soldiers at the end of a year. In the mean time,
however, they make no less havoc, for, if they are less disposed to
robbery, they are more fanatical. Nothing is more delicate than the
military organization, owing to the fact that it represents force, and
man is always tempted to abuse force; for any free company of soldiers
to remain inoffensive in a civil community, it must be restrained by
the strongest curbs, which curbs, either within or without, were wholly
wanting with the volunteers of 1792.[3243]

Artisans, peasants, the petty bourgeois class, youthful enthusiasts
stimulated by the prevailing doctrine, they are still much more Jacobin
than patriotic; the dogma of popular sovereignty, like a heady wine,
has turned their inexperienced brains; they are fully persuaded that,
"destined to contend with the enemies of the republic, is an honor which
permits them to exact and to dare all things."[3244] The least among
them believes himself superior to the law, "as formerly a Condé,[3245]"
and he becomes king on a small scale, self-constituted, an autocratic
justiciary and avenger of wrongs, a supporter of patriots and the
scourge of aristocrats, the disposer of lives and property, and, without
delay or formality, taking it upon himself to complete the Revolution on
the spot in every town he passes through.--He is not to be hindered in
all this by his officers. "Having created his chiefs, they are of no
more account to him than any of a man's creations usually are"; far from
being obeyed, the officers are not even respected, "and that comes from
resorting to analogies without considering military talent or moral
superiority."[3246] Through the natural effects of the system of
election, all grades of rank have fallen upon demagogues and blusterers.

"The intriguers, loud-talkers, and especially the great boozers, have
prevailed against the capable."[3247]

Besides, to retain his popularity, the new officer will go to a bar and
drink with his men,[3248] and he must show himself more Jacobin than
they are, from which it follows that, not content with tolerating
their excesses, he provokes them.--Hence, after March, 1792, and even
before,[3249] we see the volunteers behaving in France as in a conquered
country. Sometimes they make domiciliary visits, and break everything to
pieces in the house they visit. Sometimes, they force the re-baptism
of infants by the conventionalist curé, and shoot at the traditional
father. Here, of their own accord, they make arrests; there, they
join in with mutineers and stop grain-boats; elsewhere, they force a
municipality to tax bread; farther on, they burn or sack châteaux, and,
if a mayor happens to inform them that the château now belongs to the
nation and not to an émigré; they reply with "thrusts," and threaten to
cut his throat.[3250] As the 10th of August draws near, the phantom
of authority, which still occasionally imposed on them, completely
vanishes, and "they risk nothing in killing" whoever displeases
them.[3251] Exasperated by the perils they are about to encounter on
the frontier, they begin war in the interior. Provisionally, and as a
precaution, they slaughter probable aristocrats on the way, and treat
the officers, nobles and priests they meet on the road worse than their
club allies. For, on the one hand, being merely on the march, they are
much safer from punishment than local murderers; in a week, lost in
the army, they will not be sought for in camp, and they may slay
with perfect security. On the other hand, as they are strangers and
newcomers, they are not able, like local persons, to identify a person.
So on account of a name, a dress, qualifications, a coffee-house rumor,
or an appearance, however venerable and harmless a man may be, they kill
him, not because they know him, but because they do not know him.




VI.--A tour of France in the cabinet of the Minister of the Interior.

     From Carcassonne to Bordeaux.--Bordeaux to Caen.--The north
     and the east.--Châlons-sur-Marne to Lyons.--The Comtat and
     Provence.--The tone and the responses of the Jacobin
     administration.--The programme of the party.

Let us enter the cabinet of Roland, Minister of the Interior, a
fortnight after the opening of the Convention, and suppose him
contemplating, some evening, in miniature, a picture of the state of the
country administered by him. His clerks have placed the correspondence
of the past few weeks on his table, arranged in proper order; his
replies are noted in brief on the margin; he has a map of France before
him, and, placing his finger on the southern section, he moves it along
the great highway across the country. At every stage he recurs to the
paper file of letters, and passing innumerable reports of violence, he
merely gives his attention to the great revolutionary exploits.[3252]
Madame Roland, I imagine, works with her husband, and the couple,
sitting together alone under the lamp, ponder over the doings of the
ferocious brute which they have set free in the provinces the same as in
Paris.

Their eyes go first to the southern extremity of France. There,[3253]
on the canal of the Deux-Mers, at Carcassonne, the population has seized
three boats loaded with grain, demanded provisions, then a lower prices
of bread, then guns and cannon from the magazine, and, lastly, the heads
of the administrators; an inspector-general has been wounded by an axe,
and the syndic-attorney of the department, M. Verdie; massacred.--The
Minister follows with his eye the road from Carcassonne to Bordeaux, and
on the right and on the left he finds traces of blood. At Castres,[3254]
a report is spread that a dealer in grain was trying to raise the price,
whereupon a mob gathers, and, to save the dealer, he is placed in the
guard-house. The volunteers, however, force open the guard-house, and
throw the man out of the first-story window; they then finish him off
with "blows with clubs and weights," drag his body along the street
and cast it into the river.--The evening before, at Clairac,[3255] M.
Lartigue-Langa, an unsworn priest, pursued through the street by a troop
of men and women, who wanted to remove his cassock and set him on an
ass, found refuge, with great difficulty, in his country-house. They
go there for him, however, fetch him back to the public promenade,
and there they kill him. A number of brave fellows who interfered were
charged with incivism, and severely handled. Repression is impossible;
the department writes to the Minister that "at this time it would be
impolitic to follow the matter up." Roland knows that by experience. The
letters in his hands show him that there, as in Paris, murder engenders
murder. M. d'Alespée; a gentleman, has just been assassinated at Nérac;
"all reputable citizens formed around him a rampart with their bodies,"
but the rabble prevailed, and the murderers, "through their obscurity,"
escaped.--The Minister's finger stops at Bordeaux. There the federation
festivities are marked with a triple assassination.[3256] In order to
let this dangerous moment pass by, M. de Langoiran, vicar-general of
the archbishopric, had retired half a league off; in the village of
Cauderan, to the residence of an octogenarian priest, who, like himself;
had never meddled with public matters. On the 15th of July the National
Guards of the village, excited by the speeches of the previous night,
have come to the residence to pick them up, and moreover, a third priest
belonging in the neighborhood. There is nothing to lay to their charge;
neither the municipal officers, nor the justices before whom they are
brought, can avoid declaring them innocent. As a last recourse, they are
conducted to Bordeaux, before the Directory of the department. But it is
getting dark, and the riotous crowd becoming impatient, makes an
attack on them. The octogenarian "receives so many blows that he cannot
recover"; the abbé du Puy is knocked down and dragged along by a rope
attached to his feet; M. de Langoirac's head is cut off, carried about
on a pike, taken to his house and presented to the servant, who is
told that "her master will not come home to supper." The torment of the
priests has lasted from five o'clock in the morning to seven o'clock in
the evening, and the municipal authorities were duly advised; but
they cannot put themselves out of the way to give succor; they are too
seriously occupied in erecting a liberty-pole.

Route from Bordeaux to Caen.--The Minister's finger turns to the north,
and stops at Limoges. The day following the federation has been here
celebrated the same as at Bordeaux.[3257] An unsworn priest, the abbé
Chabrol, assailed by a gang of men and women, is first conducted to
the guard-house and then to the dwelling of the juge-de-paix; for his
protection a warrant of arrest is gotten out, and he is kept under
guard, in sight, by four chasseurs, in one of the rooms. But the
populace are not satisfied with this. In vain do the municipal officers
appeal to it, in vain do the gendarmes interpose themselves between it
and the prisoner; it rushes in upon them and disperses them. Meanwhile,
volleys of stones smash in the windows, and the entrance door yields to
the blows of axes; about thirty of the villains scale the windows, and
pass the priest down like a bale of goods. A few yards off, "struck down
with clubs and other instruments," he draws his last breath, his head
"crushed" by twenty mortal wounds.--Farther up, towards Orleans, Roland
reads the following dispatches, taken from the file for Loiret:[3258]
"Anarchy is at its height," writes one of the districts to the Directory
of the department; "there is no longer recognition of any authority; the
administrators of the district and of the municipalities are insulted,
and are powerless to enforce respect.... Threats of slaughter, of
destroying houses and giving them up to pillage prevail; plans are made
to tear down all the châteaux. The municipal authorities of Achères,
along with many of the inhabitants, have gone to Oison and Chaussy,
where everything is smashed, broken up and carried off On the 16th of
September six armed men went to the house of M. de Vaudeuil and obliged
him to return the sum of 300 francs, for penalties pretended to have
been paid by them. We have been notified that M. Dedeley will be visited
at Achères for the same purpose to-day. M. de Lory has been similarly
threatened... Finally, all those people there say that they want no more
local administrations or tribunals, that the law is in their own hands,
and they will execute it. In this extremity we have decided on the only
safe course, which is to silently accept all the outrages inflicted upon
us. We have not called upon you for protection, for we are well aware
of the embarrassment you labor under."--The best part of the National
Guard, indeed, having been disarmed at the county-town, there is no
longer an armed force to put riots down. Consequently, at this same
date,[3259] the populace, increased by the afflux of "strangers" and
ordinary nomads, hang a corn-inspector, plant his head on the end of a
pike, drag his body through the streets, sack five houses and burn the
furniture of a municipal officer in front of his own door. Thereupon,
the obedient municipality sets the arrested rioters free, and lowers the
price of bread one-sixth. Above the Loire, the dispatches of Orne and
Calvados complete the picture. "Our district," writes a lieutenant of
the gendarmerie,[3260] "is a prey to brigandage... About thirty rascals
have just sacked the château of Dampierre. Calls for men are constantly
made upon us," which we cannot satisfy, "because the call is general
on all sides." The details are curious, and here, notwithstanding the
Minister's familiarity with popular misdeeds, he cannot avoid noting
one extortion of a new species. "The inhabitants of the villages[3261]
collect together, betake themselves to different chateaux, seize the
wives and children of their proprietors, and keep them as bail for
promises of reimbursement which they force the latter to sign, not
merely for feudal taxes, but, again, for expenses to which this taxation
may have given rise," first under the actual proprietor and then under
his predecessors; in the mean time they install themselves on the
premises, demand payments for their time, devastate the buildings on the
place, and sell the furniture.--All this is accompanied with the
usual slaughter. The Directory of the department of Orne advises the
Minister[3262] that "a former noble has been killed (homicide) in the
canton of Sepf, an ex-curé in the town of Bellême, an unsworn priest in
the canton of Putanges, an ex-capuchin in the territory of Alençon." The
same day, at Caen, the syndic-attorney of Calvados, M. Bayeux, a man
of sterling merit, imprisoned by the local Jacobins, has just been
shot down in the street and bayoneted, while the National Assembly was
passing a decree proclaiming his innocence and ordering him to be set at
liberty.[3263]

Route of the East.--At Rouen, in front of the Hôtel-de-ville, the
National Guard, stoned for more than an hour, finally fire a volley
and kill four men; throughout the department violence is committed
in connection with grain, while wheat is stolen or carried off by
force;[3264] but Roland is obliged to restrict himself; he can note only
political disturbances. Besides, he is obliged to hurry up, for murders
abound everywhere. In addition to the turmoil of the army and the
capital,[3265] each department in the vicinity of Paris or near the
frontier furnishes its quota of murders. They take place at Gisors, in
the Eure, at Chantilly, and at Clermont in the Oise, at Saint-Amand in
the Pas-de-Calais, at Cambray in the Nord, at Retel and Charleville in
the Ardennes, at Rheims and at Chalons in the Marne, at Troyes in
the Aube, at Meaux in Seine-et-Marne, and at Versailles in
Seine-et-Oise.[3266]--Roland, I imagine, does not open this file, and
for a good reason; he knows too well how M. de Brissac and M. Delessart,
and the other sixty-three persons killed at Versailles; it was he who
signed Fournier's commission, the commander of the murderers. At this
very moment he is forced to correspond with this villain, to send him
certificates of "zeal and patriotism," and to assign him, over and
above his robberies, 30,000 francs to defray the expenses of the
operation.[3267]--But among the dispatches there are some he cannot
overlook, if he desires to know to what his authority is reduced, in
what contempt all authority is held, how the civil or military rabble
exercises its power, with what promptitude it disposes of the most
illustrious and most useful lives, especially those who have been, or
are now, in command, the Minister perhaps saying to himself that his
turn will come next.

Let us look at the case of M. de la Rochefoucauld. A philanthropist
since he was young, a liberal on entering the Constituent Assembly,
elected president of the Paris department, one of the most persistent,
most generous, and most respected patriots from first to last,--who
better deserved to be spared than? Arrested at Gisors[3268] by order of
the Paris Commune, he left the inn, escorted by the Parisian commissary,
surrounded by the municipal council, twelve gendarmes and one hundred
National Guards; behind him walked his mother, eighty years of age, his
wife following in a carriage; there could be no fear of an escape.
But, for a suspected person, death is more certain than a prison; three
hundred volunteers of the Orne and the Sarthe departments, on their way
through Gisors, collect and cry out: "We must have his head--nothing
shall stop us!" A stone hits M. de la Rochefoucauld on the temple; he
falters, his escort is broken up, and they finish him with clubs and
sabers, while the municipal council "have barely time to drive off the
carriage containing the ladies."--Accordingly, national justice, in the
hands of the volunteers, has its sudden outbursts, its excesses, its
reactions, the effect of which it is not advisable to wait for. For
example, at Cambray,[3269] a division of foot-gendarmerie had just left
the town, and it occurs to them that they had forgotten "to purge the
prison". It returns, seizes the keeper, takes him to the Hôtel-de-ville,
examines the prison register, sets at liberty those whose crimes seem
to it excusable, and provides them with passports. On the other hand, it
kills a former royal procureur, on whom addresses are found tainted
with "aristocratic principles," an unpopular lieutenant-colonel, and a
suspected captain.--However slight or ill-founded a suspicion, so much
the worse for the officer on whom it falls! At Charleville,[3270] two
loads of arms having passed through one gate instead of another, to
avoid a bad road, M. Juchereau, inspector of the manufacture of arms and
commander of the place, is declared a traitor by the volunteers and the
crowd, torn from the hands of the municipal officers, clubbed to the
ground, stamped on, and stabbed. His head, fixed to a pike, is paraded
through Charleville, then into Mézières, where it is thrown into the
river running between the two towns. The body remains, and this the
municipality orders to be interred; but it is not worthy of burial; the
murderers get hold of it, and cast it into the water that it may join
the head. In the meantime the lives of the municipal officers hang by
a single thread. One is seized by the throat; another is knocked out of
his chair and threatened with hanging, a gun is aimed at him and he
is beaten and kicked; subsequently a plot is devised "to cut off their
heads and plunder their houses."

He who disposes of lives, indeed, also disposes of property. Roland
has only to flick through two or three reports to see how patriotism
furnishes a cloak for brutal license and greed. At Coucy, in the
department of Aisne,[3271] the peasantry of seventeen parishes,
assembled for the purpose of furnishing their military quota, rush with
a loud clamor to two houses, the property of M. des Fossés, a former
deputy to the Constituent Assembly, and the two finest in the town; one
of them had been occupied by Henry IV. Some of the municipal officers
who try to interfere are nearly cut to pieces, and the entire municipal
body takes to flight. M. des Fossés, with his two daughters, succeed in
hiding themselves in an obscure corner in the vicinity, and afterwards
in a small tenement offered to them by a humane gardener, and finally,
after great difficulty, they reach Soissons. Of his two houses, "nothing
remains but the walls. Windows, casings, doors, and wainscoting, all
are shattered"; twenty thousand francs of assignats in a portfolio are
destroyed or carried off; the title-deeds of the property are not to be
found, and the damage is estimated at 200,000 francs. The pillage lasted
from seven o'clock in the morning to seven o'clock in the evening, and,
as is always the case, ended in a fête. The plunderers, entering the
cellars, drank "two hogsheads of wine and two casks of brandy; thirty
or forty remained dead drunk, and were taken away with considerable
difficulty." There is no prosecution, no investigation; the new mayor,
who, one month after, makes up his mind to denounce the act, begs the
Minister not to give his name, for, he says, "the agitators in the
council-general of the Commune threaten, with fearful consequences,
whoever is discovered to have written to you."[3272]--Such is the
ever-present menace under which the gentry live, even when veterans
in the service of freedom; Roland, foremost in his files, finds
heartrending letters addressed directly to him, as a last recourse.
Early in 1789, M. de Gouy d'Arcy[3273] was the first to put his pen
to paper in behalf of popular rights. A deputy of the noblesse to the
Constituent Assembly, he is the first to rally to the Third-Estate; when
the liberal minority of the noblesse came and took their seats in the
hall of the Communes, he had already been there eight days, and, for
thirty months, he "invariably seated himself on the side of the 'Left.'"
Senior major-general, and ordered by the Legislative Assembly to
suppress the outbreak of the 6,000 insurgents at Noyon, "he kept his
rigorous orders in his pocket for ten days"; he endured their insults;
he risked his life "to save those of his misguided fellow-citizens, and
he had the good fortune not to spill a drop of blood." Exhausted by so
much labor and effort, almost dying, ordered into the country by his
physicians, "he devoted his income to the relief of poverty"; he planted
on his own domain the first liberty tree that was erected; he furnished
the volunteers with clothes and arms; "instead of a fifth, he yielded
up a third of his revenue under the forced system of taxation." His
children live with him on the property, which has been in the family
four hundred years, and the peasantry call him "their father." No one
could lead a more tranquil or, indeed, a more meritorious existence.
But, being a noble, he is suspected, and a delegate from the Paris
Commune denounces him at Compiègne as having in his house two cannon and
five hundred and fifty muskets. There is at once a domiciliary visit.
Eight hundred men, infantry and cavalry, appear before the chateau
d'Arcy in battle array. He meets them at the door and tenders them the
keys. After a search of six hours, they find twelve fowling pieces and
thirteen rusty pistols, which he has already declared. His disappointed
visitors grumble, break, eat and drink to the extent of 2,000 crowns
damage.[3274] Nevertheless, urged by their leaders they finally retire.
But M. de Gouy has 60,000 francs in rentals which would be so much gain
to the nation if he would emigrate; this must be effected, by expelling
him, and, moreover during his expulsion, they may fill their pockets.
For eight days this matter is discussed in the Compiègne club, in the
bars, in the barracks, and, on the ninth day, 150 volunteers issue from
the town, declaring that they are going to kill M. de Gouy and all who
belong to him. Informed of this, he departs with his family, leaving the
doors of his house wide open. There is a general pillage for five hours;
the mob drink the costly wines, steal the plate, demand horses to
carry their booty away, and promise to return soon and take the owner's
head.--In effect, on the following morning at four o'clock, there is a
new invasion, a new pillage, and, this time, the last one; the servants
escape under a fire of musketry, and M. de Gouy, at the request of the
villagers, whose vineyards are devastated, is obliged to quit that part
of the country.[3275]--There is no need to go through the whole file.
At Houdainville, at the house of M. de Saint-Maurice, at Nointel, on the
estate of the Duc de Bourbon, at Chantilly, on the estate of the Prince
de Condé, at the house of M. de Fitz-James, and elsewhere, a certain
Gauthier, "commandant of the Paris detachment of Searchers, and charged
with the powers of the Committee of Supervision," makes his patriotic
circuit, and Roland knows beforehand of what that consists, namely, a
dragonnade[3276] in regular form on the domains of all nobles, absent or
present.[3277]

Favorite game is still found in the clergy, more vigorously hunted than
the nobles; Roland, charged with the duty of maintaining public order,
asks himself how the lives of inoffensive priests, which the law
recommends to him, can be protected.--At Troyes, at the house of M.
Fardeau, an old non-conformist curé, an altar decked with its sacred
vessels is discovered, and M. Fardeau, arrested, refuses to take the
civic oath. Torn from his prison, and ordered to shout "Vive la Nation!"
he again refuses. On this, a volunteer, borrowing an ax from a baker,
chops off his head, and this head, washed in the river, is borne to
the Hôtel-de-ville.[3278]--At Meaux, a brigade of Parisian gendarmerie
murders seven priests, and, as an extra, six ordinary malefactors in
confinement.[3279] At Rheims, the Parisian volunteers first make way
with the post-master and his clerk, both under suspicion because the
smell of burnt paper had issued from their chimney, and, next, M. de
Montrosier, an old retired officer, which is the opening of the hunt.
Afterwards they fall upon two ecclesiastics with pikes and sabers, whom
their game-beaters have brought in from the country, then on the former
curé of Saint-Jean, and on that of Rilly; their corpses are cut up,
paraded through the streets in portions, and burnt in a bonfire; one
of the wounded priests, the abbé Alexandre, is thrown in still
alive.[3280]--Roland recognizes the men of September, who, exposing
their still bloody pikes, came to his domicile to demand their wages;
wherever the band passes it announces, "in the name of the people," its
"plenary power to spread the example of the capital." Now, as 40,000
unsworn priests are condemned by the decree of August 26 to leave their
departments in a week and France in a fortnight, shall they be allowed
to depart? Eight thousand of them at Rouen, in obedience to the decree,
charter transports, which the riotous population of both sides of the
Seine prevent from leaving. Roland sees in his dispatches that in Rouen,
as elsewhere, they crowd the municipalities for their passports,[3281]
but that these are often refused. Better still, at Troyes; at Meaux, at
Lyons, at Dôle, and in many other towns, the same thing is done as at
Paris; they are confined in particular houses or in prisons, at least,
provisionally, "for fear that they may congregate under the German
eagle"; so that, made rebellious and declared traitors in spite of
themselves, they may still remain in their pens subject to the knife.
As the exportation of specie is prohibited, those who have procured the
necessary coin are robbed of it on the frontier, while others, who fly
at all hazards, tracked like wild boars, or run down like hares, escape
like the bishop of Barral, athwart bayonets, or like the abbé Guillon,
athwart sabers, when they are not struck down, like the abbé Pescheur,
by the blows of a gun-stock.[3282]

It is soon dawn. The files are too numerous and too large; Roland finds
that, out of eighty-three, he can examine but fifty; he must hasten on;
leaving the East, his eyes again turn to the South.--On this side,
too, there are strange sights. On the 2nd of September, at
Châlons-sur-Marne[3283], M. Chanlaire, an octogenarian and deaf, is
returning, with his prayer-book under his arm, from the Mall, to which
he resorted daily to read his prayers. A number of Parisian volunteers
who meet him, seeing that he looks like a devotee, order him to shout,
"Vive la Liberté" Unable to understand them, he makes no reply. They
then seize him by the ears, and, not marching fast enough, they drag him
along; his old ears give way, and, excited by seeing blood, they cut off
his ears and nose, and thus, the poor old man dripping with blood,
they reach the Hôtel-de-Ville. At this sight a notary, posted there as
sentinel, and who is a man of feeling, is horror-stricken and escapes,
while the other National Guards hasten to shut the iron gates. The
Parisians, still dragging along their captive, go to the district and
then to the department bureau "to denounce aristocrats"; on the way
they continue to strike the tottering old man, who falls down; they
then decapitate him, place pieces of his body on pikes, and parade these
about. Meanwhile, in this same town, twenty-two gentlemen; at Beaune,
forty priests and nobles; at Dijon, eighty-three heads of families,
locked up as suspected without evidence or examination, and confined at
their own expense two months under pikes, ask themselves every morning
whether the populace and the volunteers, who shout death cries through
the streets, mean to release them in the same way as in Paris.[3284]--A
trifle is sufficient to provoke a murder. On the 19th of August, at
Auxerre as the National Guard is marching along, three citizens, after
having taken the civic oath, "left the ranks," and, on being called
back, "to make them fall in," one, either impatient or in ill-humor,
"replied with an indecent gesture". The populace, taking it as an
insult, instantly rush at them, and shoving aside the municipal body and
the National Guards, wound one and kill the other two.[3285] A fortnight
after, in the same town, several young ecclesiastics are massacred,
and "the corpse of one of them remains three days on a manure heap,
the relatives not being allowed to bury it." About the same date, in
a village of sabot makers, five leagues from Autun, four ecclesiastics
provided with passports, among them a bishop and his two
grand-vicars, are arrested, then examined, robbed, and murdered by
the peasantry.--Below Autun, especially in the district of Roanne, the
villagers burn the rent-rolls of national property; the volunteers put
property-owners to ransom; both, apart from each other or together, give
themselves up "to every excess and to every sort of iniquity against
those whom they suspect of incivism under pretense of religious
opinions."[3286] However preoccupied or upset Roland's mind may be
by the philosophic generalities with which it is filled, he has long
inspected manufactures in this country; the name of every place is
familiar to him; objects and forms are this time clearly defined to his
arid imagination, and he begins to see things through and beyond mere
words.

Madame Roland rests her finger on Lyons, so familiar to her two years
before; she becomes excited against "the quadruple aristocracy of the
town, petty nobles, priests, heavy merchants, and limbs of the law; in
short, those formerly known as honest folks, according to the insolence
of the ancient régime."[3287] She may now find an aristocracy of another
kind there, that of the gutter. Following the example of Paris, the
Lyons clubbists, led by Charlier, have arranged for a massacre on
a grand scale of the evil-disposed or suspected Another ringleader,
Dodieu, has drawn up a list by name of two hundred aristocrats to be
hung; on the 9th of September, women with pikes, the maniacs of the
suburbs, bands of "the unknown," collected by the central club,[3288]
undertake to clean out the prisons. If the butchery is not equal to that
of Paris, it is because the National Guard, more energetic, interferes
just at the moment when a Parisian emissary, Saint-Charles, reads off
a list of names in the prison of Roanne already taken from the prison
register. But, in other places, it arrives too late.--Eight officers
of the Royal-Pologne regiment, in garrison at Auch, some of them having
been in the service twenty and thirty years, had been compelled to
resign owing to the insubordination of their men; but, at the express
desire of the Minister of War, they had patriotically remained at their
posts, and, in twenty days of laborious marching, they had led their
regiment from Auch to Lyons. Three days after their arrival, seized at
night in their beds, conducted to Pierre-Encize, pelted with stones on
the way, kept in secret confinement, and with frequent and prolonged
examinations, all this merely put their services and their innocence in
stronger light. They are taken from the prison by the Jacobin mob; of
the eight, seven are killed in the street, and four priests along with
them, while the exhibition of their work by the murderers is still more
brazen than at Paris. They parade the heads of the dead all night on the
ends of their pikes; they carry them to the Place des Terreaux into the
coffee-houses; they set them on the tables and derisively offer them
beer; they then light torches, enter the Célestins theater, and,
marching on the stage with their trophies, blending real and mock
tragedy.--The epilogue is both grotesque and horrible. Roland, at the
bottom of the file, finds a letter from his colleague, Danton,[3289] who
begs him to release the officers, murdered three months ago, "for,"
says Danton, "if no charge can be found against them, it would be crying
injustice to keep them longer in irons." Roland's clerk makes a minute
on Danton's letter: "This matter disposed of." At this I imagine the
couple looking at each other in silence. Madame Roland may remember
that, at the beginning of the Revolution, she herself demanded heads,
especially "two illustrious heads," and hoped "that the National
Assembly would formally try them, or that some generous Decius"[3290]
would devote himself to "striking them down."[3291] Her prayers are
granted. The trial is about to begin in the regular way, and the Decius
she has invoked is everywhere found throughout France.

The south-east corner remains, that Provence, described to him by
Barbaroux as the last retreat of philosophy and freedom. Roland follows
the Rhône down with his finger, and on both banks he finds, as he passes
along, the usual characteristic misdeeds.--On the right bank, in Cantal
and in the Gard, "the defenders of the country" fill their pockets at
the expense of taxpayers designated by themselves;[3292] this forced
subscription is called "a voluntary gift." "Poor laborers at Nismes
were taxed 50 francs, others 200, 300, 900, 1,000, under penalty of
devastation and of bad treatment."--In the country near Tarascon the
volunteers, returning to the old-fashioned ways of bandits, brandish the
saber over the mother's head, threaten to smother the aunt in her bed,
hold the child over a deep well, and thus extort from the farmer or
proprietor even as much as 4,000 or 5,000 francs. Generally the
farmer keeps silent, for, in case of complaint, he is sure to have his
buildings burnt and his olive trees cut down.[3293]--On the left bank,
in the Isère, Lieutenant-colonel Spendeler, seized by the populace
of Tullins, was murdered, and then hung by his feet in a tree on the
roadside;[3294]--in the Drôme, the volunteers of Gard forced the
prison at Montélimart and hacked an innocent person to death with a
saber;[3295] in Vaucluse, the pillaging is general and constant. With
all public offices in their hands, and they alone admitted into the
National Guard, the old brigands of Avignon, with the municipality for
their accomplice, sweep the town and raid about the country; in town,
450,000 francs of "voluntary gifts" are handed over to the Glacière
murderers by the friends and relatives of the dead;--in the country,
ransoms of 1,000 and 10,000 francs are imposed on rich cultivators,
to say nothing of the orgies of conquest and the pleasures of despots,
money forcibly obtained in honor of innumerable liberty trees, banquets
at a cost of five or six hundred francs, paid for by extorted
funds, reveling of every sort and unrestrained havoc on the invaded
farms;[3296] in short, the abuse drunken force amusing itself with
brutality and proud of its violence.

Following this long line of murders and robbery, the Minister
reaches Marseilles, and I imagine him stopping at this city some-what
dumbfounded. Not that he is in any way astonished at widespread murders;
undoubtedly he has had received information of them from Aix, Aubagne,
Apt, Brignolles, and Eyguières, while there are a series of them at
Marseilles, one in July, two in August, and two in September;[3297] but
this he must be used to. What disturbs him here is to see the national
bond dissolving; he sees departments breaking away, new, distinct,
independent, complete governments forming on the basis of popular
sovereignty;[3298] publicly and officially, they keep funds raised for
the central government for local uses; they institute penalties against
their inhabitants seeking refuge in France; they organize tribunals,
levy taxes, raise troops, and undertake military expeditions.[3299]
Assembled together to elect representatives to the Convention, the
electors of the Bouches-du-Rhône were, additionally, disposed to
establish throughout the department "the reign of liberty and equality,"
and to this effect they found, says one of them, "an army of 1,200
heroes to purge the districts in which the bourgeois aristocracy still
raises its bold, imprudent head." Consequently, at Sonas, Noves,
St. Remy, Maillane, Eyrages, Graveson, Eyguières, extended over the
territory consisting of the districts of Tarascon, Arles and Salon,
these twelve hundred heroes are authorized to get a living out of
the inhabitants at pleasure, while the rest of the expenses of the
expedition are to be borne "by suspected citizens."[32100] These
expeditions are prolonged six weeks and more; one of them goes outside
of the department, to Monosque, in the Basses-Alpes, and Monosque,
obliged to pay 104,000 francs to its "saviors and fathers," as
an indemnity for traveling expenses, writes to the Minister that,
henceforth, it can no longer meet his impositions.

What kind of improvised sovereigns are these who have instituted
perambulating brigandage? Roland, on this point, has simply to question
his friend Barbaroux, their president and the executive agent of their
decrees. "Nine hundred persons," Barbaroux himself writes, "generally of
slight education, impatiently listening to conservatives, and yielding
all attention to the effervescent, cunning in the diffusion of
calumnies, petty suspicious minds, a few men of integrity but
unenlightened, a few enlightened but cowardly; many of them patriotic,
but without judgment, without philosophy"; in short, a Jacobin club, and
Jacobin to such an extent as to "make the hall ring with applause[32101]
on receiving the news of the September massacre"; in the foremost ranks,
"a crowd of men eager for office and money, eternal informers,
imagining trouble or exaggerating it to obtain for themselves lucrative
commissions;"[32102] in other words, the usual pack of hungry appetites
in full chase.--To really know them, Roland has only to examine the last
file, that of the neighboring departments, and consider their colleagues
in Var. In this great wreck of reason and of integrity, called the
Jacobin Revolution, a few stray waifs still float on the surface; many
of the department administrations are composed of liberals, friends of
order, intelligent men, upright and firm defenders of the law. Such
was the Directory of Var.[32103] To get rid of it the Toulon Jacobins
contrived an ambush worthy of the Borgias and Oliverettos of the
sixteenth century.[32104] On the 28th of July, in the forenoon,
Sylvestre, president of the club, distributed among his trusty men in
the suburbs and purlieus of the town an enormous sack of red caps,
while he posted his squads in convenient places. In the mean time the
municipal body, his accomplices, formally present themselves at the
department bureau, and invite the administrators to join them in
fraternizing with the people. The administrators, suspecting nothing,
accompany them, each arm in arm with a municipal officer or delegate of
the club. They scarcely reach the square when there rushes upon it from
every avenue a troop of red-caps lying in wait. The syndic-attorney,
the vice-president of the department, and two other administrators, are
seized, cut down and hung; another, M. Debaux, succeeding in making his
escape, hides away, scales the ramparts during the night, breaks his
thigh and lies there on the ground; he is discovered the next morning;
a band, led by Jassaud, a harbor-laborer, and by Lemaille, calling him
self "the town hangman," come and raise him up, carry him away in a
barrow, and hang him at the first lamppost. Other bands dispatch the
public prosecutor in the same fashion, a district administrator, and a
merchant, and then, spreading over the country, pillage and slay
among the country houses.--In vain has the commandant of the place, M.
Dumerbion, entreated the municipality to proclaim martial law. Not only
does it refuse, but it enjoins him to order one-half of his troops
back to their barracks. By way of an offset, it sets free a number
of soldiers condemned to the galleys, and all that are confined for
insubordination.--Henceforth every shadow of discipline vanishes,
and, in the following month, murders multiply. M. de Possel, a navy
administrator, is taken from his dwelling, and a rope is passed around
his neck; he is saved just in time by a bombardier, the secretary of
the club. M. Senis, caught in his country-house, is hung on the Place du
Vieux Palais. Desidery, a captain in the navy, the curé of La Valette,
and M. de Sacqui des Thourets, are beheaded in the suburbs, and their
beads are brought into town on the ends of three poles. M. de Flotte
d'Argenson, vice-admiral, a man of Herculean stature, of such a grave
aspect, and so austere that he is nicknamed the "Père Eternel" is
treacherously enticed to the entrance of the Arsenal, where he sees the
lantern already dropping; he seizes a gun, defends himself; yields
to numbers, and after having been slashed with sabers, is hung. M. de
Rochemaure, a major-general of marines, is likewise sabred and hung in
the same manner; a main artery in the neck, severed by the blow of the
saber, spouts blood from the corpse and forms a pool on the pavement;
Barry, one of the executioners, washes his hands in it and sprinkles
the by-standers as if bestowing a blessing on them.--Barry, Lemaille,
Jassaud, Sylvestre, and other leading assassins, the new kings of
Toulon, sufficiently resemble those of Paris. Add to these a certain
Figon, who gives audience in his garret, straightens out social
inequalities, forces the daughters of large farmers to marry poor
republicans, and rich young men to marry prostitutes,[32105] and, taking
the lists furnished by the club or neighboring municipalities, ransoming
all the well-to-do and opulent persons inscribed on them. In order that
the portraiture of the band may be complete, it must be noted that,
on the 23rd of August, it attempted to set free the 1800 convicts; the
latter, not comprehending that they were wanted for political allies,
did not dare sally forth, or, at least, the reliable portion of the
National Guard arrived in time to put their chains on again. But here
its efforts cease, and for more than a year public authority remains
in the hands of a Jacobin faction which, as far as public order is
concerned, does not even have the morals of a convict.

More than once during the course of this long review the Minister must
have flushed with shame; for to the reprimands dispatched by him to
these apathetic administrations, they reply by citing himself as an
example:

"You desire us to denounce the arbitrary arrests to the public
prosecutor; have you denounced those guilty of similar and yet greater
crimes committed at the capital?"[32106]--

From all quarters come the cries of the oppressed appealing to "the
patriot Minister, the sworn enemy of anarchy," to "the good and
incorruptible Minister of the Interior, his only reproach, the common
sense of his wife," and he could only reply with empty phrases and
condolences:

"To lament the events which so grievously distress the province, all
administrations being truly useful when they forestall evils, it being
very sad to be obliged to resort to such remedies, and recommend to them
a more active supervision."[32107]

"To lament and find consolation in the observations made in the letter,"
which announces four murders, but calls attention to the fact that "the
victims immolated are counter-revolutionaries."[32108]

Roland has carried on written dialogues with the village municipalities,
and given lessons in constitutional law to communities of
pot-breakers.[32109]--But, on this territory, he is defeated by his own
principles, while the pure Jacobins read him a lesson in turn; they,
likewise, are able to deduce the consequences of their own creed.

"Brother and Friend, Sir," write those of Rouen, "not to be always at
the feet of the municipality, we have declared ourselves permanent,
deliberative sections of the Commune."[32110]

Let the so-called constituted authorities, the formalists and pedants
of the Executive Council and the Minister of the Interior, look twice
before censuring the exercise of popular sovereignty. This sovereign
raises his voice and drives his clerks back into their holes; spoliation
and murder, all this is just.

"Can you have forgotten that, after the tempest, as you yourself
declared in the height of the storm, it is the nation which saves
itself? Well, sir, this is what we have done.[32111].. What! when
all France was resounding with that long expected proclamation of the
abolition of tyranny, you were willing that the traitors, who strove to
reestablish it, should escape public prosecution! My God, what century
is this in which we find such Ministers!"

Arbitrary taxes, penalties, confiscations, revolutionary expeditions,
nomadic garrisons, pillage, what fault can be found with all that?

"We do not pretend that these are legal methods; but, drawing nearer
to nature, we demand what object the oppressed have in view in invoking
justice. Is it to lag behind and vainly pursue an equitable adjustment
which is rendered fleeting by judicial forms? Correct these abuses or
do not complain of the sovereign people suppressing them in advance....
You, sir, with so many reasons for it, would do well to recall your
insults and redeem the wrongs you have inflicted before we happen to
render them public."... "Citizen Minister, people flatter you; you are
told too often that you are virtuous; the moment this gives you pleasure
you cease to be so.... Discard the astute brigands who surround you,
listen to the people, and remember that a citizen Minister is merely the
executor of the sovereign will of the people."

However narrow Roland's outlook may be, he must finally comprehend that
the innumerable robberies and murders which he has just noted over
are not a thoughtless eruption, a passing crisis of delirium, but a
manifesto of the victorious party, the beginning of an established
system of government. Under this system, write the Marseilles Jacobins,

"to-day, in our happy region, the good rule over the bad, and constitute
a party which allows no contamination; whatever is vicious has gone into
hiding or has been exterminated." The programme is very precise, and
acts form its commentary. This is the programme which the faction,
throughout the interregnum, sets openly before the electors.


*****


[Footnote 3201: Guillon de Montléon, I. 122. Letter of Laussel, dated
Paris, 28th of August, 1792, to the Jacobins of Lyons: "Tell me how many
heads have been cut off at home. It would be infamous to let our enemies
escape." (1792).]

[Footnote 3202: "Les Révolutions de Paris," by Prudhomme, Vol. XIII. pp.
59-63 (14th of July, 3 Decrees of the 10th and 11th of August, 1792.)]

[Footnote 3204: Prudhomme, number of the 15th of September, p.
483.--Mortimer-Ternaux, IV. 430.]

[Footnote 3205: Mortimer-Ternaux. IV. II. Fauchet's report, Nov. 6,
1792.--Ib., IV. 91, 142. Discourse of M. Fockedey, administrator of the
department of the north, and of M. Bailly, deputy de Seine-et-Marne.]

[Footnote 3206: Prudhomme, number of Sept. 1, 1792, pp. 375, 381, 385:
number of Sept. 22, pp. 528-530,--Cf. Guillon de Montléon, I. 144. Here
are some of the principles announced by the Jacobin leaders of Lyons,
Châlier, Laussel, Cusset, Rouillot, etc. "The time has come when this
prophecy must be fulfilled: The rich shall be put in the place of
the poor, and the poor in the place of the rich."--"If a half of their
property be left them the rich will still be happy."--"If the laboring
people of Lyons are destitute of work and of bread, they can profit by
these calamities in helping themselves to wealth in the quarter where
they find it."--"No one who is near a sack of wheat can die of hunger.
Do you wish the word that will buy all that you want? Slay!--or
perish!"]

[Footnote 3207: Prudhomme, number for the 28th of August, 1792, pp.
284-287.]

[Footnote 3208: Cf.. "The French Revolution," I.346. In ten of the
departments the seventh jacquerie continues the sixth without a break.
Among other examples, this letter from the administrators of Tarn, June
18, 1792, may be read ("Archives Nationales," F7, 3271). "Numerous bands
overran both the city (Castres) and the country. They forcibly entered
the houses of the citizens, broke the furniture to pieces, and pillaged
everything that fell into their hands. Girls and women underwent
shameful treatment. Commissioners sent by the district and the
municipality to advocate peace were insulted and menaced. The pillage
was renewed; the home of the citizen was violated." The administrators
add: "In many places the progress made by the constitution was indicated
by the speedy and numerous emigrations of its enemies."]

[Footnote 3209: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3272. Letter of the
administrators of the Var, May 27, 1792.--Letter of the minister,
Duranthon, May 28.--Letter of the commission composing the directory
Oct. 31.]

[Footnote 3210: "Archives Nationales," Letter of the administrators of
Var, May. 27.--The saying is the summary of the revolutionary spirit;
it recurs constantly.--Cf. the Duc de Montpensier, "Mémoires," p. 11.
At Aix one of his guards said to the sans-culotte who were breaking into
the room where he had been placed: "Citizens, by what order do you
enter here? and why have you forced the guard at the door?" One of them.
answered: "By order of the people. Don't you know that the people is
sovereign?"]

[Footnote 3211: "Archives Nationales," letter of the public prosecutor,
May 23.--Letters of the administrators of the department, May 22, and 27
(on the events of the 13th of May at Beausset).]

[Footnote 3212: "Archives Nationales," F7 3193 and 3194. Previous
details may be found in these files. This department is one of those in
which the seventh jacquerie is merely a prolongation of the sixth.--Cf.
F7, 3193. Letter of the royal Commissioner at Milhau, May 5, 1791.
"The situation is getting worse; the administrative bodies continue
powerless and without resources. Most of their members are still unable
to enter upon their duties; while the factions, who still rule, multiply
their excesses in every direction. Another house in the country, near
the town, has been burnt; another broken into, with a destruction of the
furniture and a part of the dinner-service, and doors and windows broken
open and smashed; several houses visited, under the pretense of arms or
powder being concealed in them; all that is found with private persons
and dealers not of the factious party is carried off; tumultuous shouts,
nocturnal assemblages, plots for pillage or burning; disturbances caused
by the sale of grain, searches under this pretext in private granaries,
forced prices at current reductions; forty louis taken from a lady
retired into the country, found in her trunk, which was broken into, and
which, they say, should have been in assignats. The police and municipal
officers witnesses of these outrages, are sometimes forced to sanction
them with their presence; they neither dare suppress them nor punish the
well-known authors of them. Such is a brief statement of the disorders
committed in less than eight days."--In relation specially to
Saint-Afrique. Cf. F7, 3194, the letter, among others, of the department
administrator, march 29, 1792.]

[Footnote 3213: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3193. Extract from the
registers of the clerk of the juge-de-paix of Saint-Afrique, and report
by the department commissioners, Nov. 10, 1792, with the testimony of
the witnesses, forming a document of 115 pages.]

[Footnote 3214: Deposition of Alexis Bro, a volunteer, and three
others.]

[Footnote 3215: Deposition of Pons, a merchant. After this devastation
he is obliged to address a petition to the executive power, asking
permission to remain in the town.]

[Footnote 3216: Deposition of Capdenet, a shoemaker.]

[Footnote 3217: Depositions of Marguerite Galzeng, wife of Guibal a
miller, Pierre Canac and others.]

[Footnote 3218: Depositions of Martin, syndic-attorney of the commune
of Brusque; Aussel, curé of Versol; Martial Aussel, vicar of Lapeyre and
others.]

[Footnote 3219: Deposition of Anne Tourtoulon.]

[Footnote 3220: Depositions of Jeanne Tuffon, of Marianne Terral, of
Marguerite Thomas, of Martin syndic-attorney of the commune of Brusque,
of Virot, of Brassier, and othes. The details are too specific to allow
quotation.]

[Footnote 3221: Depositions of Moursol, wool-carder; Louis Grand,
district-administrator, and others.]

[Footnote 3222: For example, at Limoges, Aug. 16.--Cf. Louis Guibert,
"le Parti Girondin dans la Haute-Vienne," p. 14.]

[Footnote 3223: Paris, "Histoire de Joseph Lebon," I. 60. Restoration of
the Arras municipality. Joseph Lebon is proclaimed mayor Sept. 16.]

[Footnote 3224: For example, at Caen and at Carcassonne.]

[Footnote 3225: For example, at Toulon.]

[Footnote 3226: "Un séjour en France," 19, 29. ("Letters of a Wittness
to the French Revolution," translated by H. Taine.1872)]

[Footnote 3227: Ibid., p. 38: 2M. de M--, who had served for thirty
years gave up his arms to a boy who treated him with the greatest
insolence."]

[Footnote 3228: Paris, Ibid., p. 55 and the following pages.--Albert
Babeau, "Histoire de Troyes," I. 503-515.--Sausay, III. ch. I.]

[Footnote 3229: "The Ancient Régime," 381, 391, 392.]

[Footnote 3230: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3217. Letter of Castanet, an
old gendarme, Aug. 21 1792.]

[Footnote 3231: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3219. Letter of M. Alquier to
the first consul, Pluviôse 18, year VIII.]

[Footnote 3232: Lauvergne, "Histoire du Var," p. 104.]

[Footnote 3233: Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 325, 327.]

[Footnote 3234: "Archives-Nationales," F7, 3271. Letter of the Minister
of Justice, with official reports of the municipality of Rabastens. "The
juge-de-paix of Rabastens was insulted in his place by putting an end
to the proceedings commenced against an old deserter at the head of the
municipality, and tried for robbery. They threatened to stab the judge
if he recommenced the trial. Numerous gangs of vagabonds overrun the
country, pillaging and putting to ransom all owners of property.. . The
people has been led off by a municipal officer, a constitutional curé,
and a brother of sieur Tournal, one of the authors of the evils which
have desolated the Comtat." (March 5, 1792).]

[Footnote 3235: Guillon de Montléon, I. 84, 109, 139, 155, 158,
464.--Ibid., p.441, details concerning Châlier by his companion
Chassagnon.--"Archives Nationales," F7, 3255. Letter by Laussel, Sept.
22, 1792.]

[Footnote 3236: Barbaroux, "Mémoires," 85. Barbaroux is an eye-witness,
for he has just returned to Marseilles and is about to preside over the
electoral assembly of the Bouches-du-Rhône.]

[Footnote 3237: C. Rousset, "Les Volontaires," p. 67.--In his report
of June 27, 1792, Albert Dubayet estimates the number of volunteers at
84,000.]

[Footnote 3238: C. Rousset, "Les Volontaires," 101. Letter of
Kellermann, Aug.23, 1792.--"Un séjour en France," I. 347 and following
pages.--"Archives Nationales," F7, 3214. Letter of an inhabitant of
Nogent-le-Rotrou (Eure). "Out of 8,000 inhabitants one-half require
assistance, and two-thirds of these are in a sad state, having scarcely
straw enough to sleep on."(Dec. 3, 1792).--In his report of June 27,
1792, Albert Dubayet estimates the number of volunteers at 84,000.]

[Footnote 3239: C. Rousset, "Les Volontaires," 106 (Letter of General
Biron, Aug. 23, 1792).--226, Letter of Vezu, major, July 24, 1793.]

[Footnote 3240: C. Rousset, "Les Volontaires," 144 (Letter of a district
administrator of Moulins to General Custines, Jan. 27, 1793).--"Un
séjour en France," p.27: "I am sorry to see that most the volunteers
about to join the army are old men or very young boys."--C. Rousset,
Ibid., 74, 108, 226 (Letter of Biron, Nov. 7, 1792); 105 (Letter of
the commander of Fort Louis, Aug. 7); 127 (Letter of Captain Motmé).
One-third of the 2d battalion of Haute-Saône is composed of children 13
and 14 years old.]

[Footnote 3241: Moniteur, XIII. 742 (Sept. 21). Marshal Lückner and his
aids-de-camp just miss being killed by Parisian volunteers.--"Archives
Nationales," BB, 16703. Letter by Labarrière aide-de-camp of General
Flers, Antwerp, March 19, 1793. On the desertion en masse of gendarmes
from Dumouriez's army, who return to Paris.]

[Footnote 3242: Cf. "L'armée et la garde nationale," by Baron Poisson,
III. 475. "On hostilities being declared (April, 1792), the contingent
of volunteers was fixed at 200,000 men. This second attempt resulted in
nothing but confused and disorderly levies. Owing to the spinelessness
of the volunteer troops it was impossible to continue the war in
Belgium, which allowed the enemy to cross the frontier."--Gouverneur
Morris, so well informed, had already written, under date of Dec.27,
1791: "The national guards, who have turned out as volunteers, are in
many instances that corrupted scum of overgrown population of which
large cities purge themselves, and which, without constitutions to
support the fatigues... of war, have every vice and every disease which
can render them the scourge of their friends and the laughing stock of
their foes."--Buchez et Roux, XXVI. 177. Plan of the administrators of
Hérault, presented to the Convention April 27, 1793. "The composition
of the enlistment should not be concealed. Most of those of which it
is made up are not volunteers; they are not citizens all classes of
society, who, submitting to draft on the ballot, have willingly made
up their minds to go and defend the Republic. The larger part of the
recruits are substitutes who, through the attraction of a large sum,
have concluded to leave their homes."]

[Footnote 3243: C. Rousset, 47. Letter of the directory of Somme, Feb.
26, 1792.]

[Footnote 3244: "Archives Nationales," F 7, 3270. Deliberations of the
council-general of the commune of Roye, Oct. 8, 1792 (in relation to the
violence committed by two divisions of Parisian gendarmerie during their
passage, Oct. 7 and 8).]

[Footnote 3245: Moore, I. 338 (Sept. 8, 1792).--(The Condés were proud
princes from a branch of the royal house of Bourbon. (SR).]

[Footnote 3246: C Rousset, 189 (Letter of the Minister of War, dated at
Dunkirk, April 29, 1793).--Archives Nationales," BB, 16, 703. (Parisian
national guard staff major-general, order of the day, letter of citizen
Férat, commanding at Ostend, to the Minister of War, March 19, 1793):
"Since we have had the gendarmes with us at Ostend there is nothing but
disturbance every day. They attack the officers and volunteers, take the
liberty of pulling off epaulettes and talk only of cutting and slashing,
and declare that they recognize no superior being equals with everybody,
and that they will do as they please. Those who are ordered to arrest
them are chased and attacked with saber cuts and pistols]

[Footnote 3247: C. Rousset, 20 (Letter of General Wimpfen, Dec. 30,
1791).--"Souvenirs" of General Pelleport, pp.7 and 8.]

[Footnote 3248: C. Rousset, 45 (Report of General Wimpfen, Jan. 20,
1792).--Letter of General Biron, Aug. 23, 1792.]

[Footnote 3249: C. Rousset, 47, 48.--"Archives Nationales," F7, 3249.
Official report of the municipality of Saint-Maxence, Jan. 21, 1792.--F
7, 3275. Official report of the municipality of Châtellerault, Dec. 27,
1791.--F7, 3285 and 3286--F7, 3213. Letter of Servan, Minister of War,
to Roland, June 12, 1792: "I frequently receive, as well as yourself
and the Minister of Justice, complaints against the national volunteers.
They commit the most reprehensible offenses daily in places where
they are quartered, and through which they pass on their way to their
destination."--Ibid., Letter of Duranthon, Minister of Justice, May
5: "These occurrences are repeated, under more or less aggravating
circumstances, in all the departments."]

[Footnote 3250: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3193. Official report of the
commissaries of the department of Aveyron, April 4, 1792. "Among the
pillagers and incendiaries of the chateaux of Privesac, Vaureilles,
Péchins, and other threatened mansions, were a number of recruits
who had already taken the road to Rhodez to join their respective
regiments." Nothing remains of the château of Privesac but a heap
of ruins. The houses in the village "are filled to over flowing with
pillaged articles, and the inhabitants have divided the owners' animals
amongst themselves."--Comte de Seilhac, "Scènes et portraits de la
Révolution dans le bas Limousin," P.305. Pillage of the châteaux of
Saint-Jéal and Seilhac, April 12, 1792, by the 3rd battalion of la
Corrèze, commanded by Bellegarde, a former domestic in the château.]

[Footnote 3251: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3270. Deliberation of the
council-general of the commune of Roye, Oct. 8, 1792 (passage of
two divisions of Parisian gendarmes). "The inhabitants and municipal
officers were by turns the sport of their insolence and brutality,
constantly threatened in case of refusal with having their heads cut
off, and seeing the said gendarmes, especially the gunners, with naked
sabers in their hands, always threatening. The citizen mayor especially
was treated most outrageously by the said gunners... forcing him to
dance on the Place d'armes, to which they resorted with violins and
where they remained until midnight, rudely pushing and hauling him
about, treating him as an aristocrat, clapping the red cap on his head,
with constant threats of cutting it off and that of every aristocrat in
the town, a threat they swore to carry out the next day, openly stating,
especially two or three amongst them, that they had massacred the Paris
prisoners on the 2nd of September, and that it cost them nothing to
massacre."]

[Footnote 3252: Summaries, in the order of their date or locality, and
similar to those about to be placed before the reader, sometimes occur
in these files. I pursue the same course as the clerk, in conformity
with Roland's methodical habits.]

[Footnote 3253: Aug. 17, 1792 (Moniteur, XIII, 383, report of M.
Emmery).]

[Footnote 3254: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3271. Letter of the
administrators of Tarn, July 21.]

[Footnote 3255: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3234. Report of the
municipal officers of Clairac, July 20.-Letter of the syndic-attorney of
Lot-et-Garonne, Sept. 16.]

[Footnote 3256: Mercure de France, number for July 28, (letters from
Bordeaux).]

[Footnote 3257: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3275. Letter of the
administrators of Haute-Vienne, July 28 (with official reports).]

[Footnote 3258: '"Archives Nationales," F7, 3223. Letter of the
directory of the district of Neuville to the department-administrators,
Sept 18.]

[Footnote 3259: "Archives Nationales," report of the administrators of
the department and council-general of the commune of Orleans, Sept 16
and 17. (The disarmament had been effected through the decrees of Aug.26
and Sept. 2.)]

[Footnote 3260: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3249. Letter of the
lieutenant of the gendarmerie of Dampierre, Sept 23 (with official
report dated Sept 19).]

[Footnote 3261: "Archives Nationales," draft of a letter by Roland, Oct
4, and others of the same kind.--Letter of the municipal officers of
Ray, Sept 24.--Letter of M. Desdouits, proprietor, Sept 30.--Letter of
the permanent council of Aigle, Oct 1, etc.]

[Footnote 3262: "Archives Nationales," Letter of the administrators of
the Orne department, Sept 7.]

[Footnote 3263: Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 337 (Sept. 6).]

[Footnote 3264: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3265. Letter of the
lieutenant-general of the gendarmerie, Aug. 30.--Official report of
the Rouen municipality on the riot of Aug. 29.--Letters of the
department-administrators, Sept 18 and Oct. 11.--Letter of the same, Oct
13, etc.--Letter of David, cultivator and department administrator Oct
11.]

[Footnote 3265: Albert Babean, "Letters of a deputy of the municipality
of Troyes to the army of Dumuriez," p. 8.--(Sainte-Menehould, Sept. 7,
1792): "Our troops burn with a desire to meet the enemy. The massacre
reported to have taken place in Paris does not discourage them; on the
contrary, they are glad to know that suspected persons in the interior
are got rid of."]

[Footnote 3266: Moore, I.338 (Sept. 4). At Clermont, the murder of a
fish-dealer, killed for insulting the Breton volunteers.--401 (Sept.
7), the son of the post-master at Saint-Amand is killed on suspicion of
communicating with the enemy.--"Archives Nationales," F7; 3249.
Letter of the district-administrators of Senlis, Oct. 31 (Aug. 15). At
Chantilly, M. Pigean is assassinated in the midst of 1,200 persons.--C.
Rousset, p.84 (Sept. 21), lieutenant-colonel Imonnier is assassinated at
Châlons-sur-Marne.--Mortimer-Ternaux, IV. 172. Four Prussian deserters
are murdered at Rethel, Oct. 5, by the Parisian volunteers]

[Footnote 3267: Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 378, 594 and following pages.]

[Footnote 3268: Lacretelle, "Dix années d'épreuves," p. 58. Description
of Liancourt.--"Archives Nationales," F7, 3249. Letter of the
department-administrators of the Eure, Sept. 11 (with official report of
the Gisors municipality, Sept 4).--Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 550.]

[Footnote 3269: "Archives Nationales," F7, 4394. Letter of Roland to the
convention, Oct. 31 (with a copy of the documents sent by the department
of the Nord on the events of Oct. 10 and 11).]

[Footnote 3270: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3191. Official report of the
municipality of Charleville; Sept. 4, and letter, Sept. 6.--Moniteur,
XIII. 742, number for Sept. 21,1792 (letter of Sept. 17, On the Parisian
volunteers of Marshal Lückner's army). "The Parisian volunteers again
threatened to have several heads last evening, among others those of
the marshal and his aids. He had threatened to return some deserters to
their regiments. At this the men exclaimed that the ancient régime no
longer existed, that brothers should not be treated in that way, and
that he general should be arrested. Several of them had already seized
the horse's bridle."]

[Footnote 3271: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3185. Documents relating to
the case of M. de Fossés. (The pillage takes place Sept. 4.)]

[Footnote 3272: Letter of Goulard, mayor of Coucy, Oct. 4.--Letter of
Osselin, notary, Nov. 7. "Threats of setting fire to M. de Fossés' two
remaining farm-houses are made."--Letter of M. de Fossés, Jan. 28, 1793.
He states that he has entered no complaint, and if anybody has done so
for him he is much displeased. "A suit might place me in the greatest
danger, from my knowledge of the state of the public mind in Coucy,
and of what the guilty have done and will do to affect the minds of the
people in the seventeen communes concerned in the devastation."]

[Footnote 3273: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3249 letter of M. de Gouy to
Roland, Sept. 21. (An admirable letter, which, if copied entire,
would show the character of the gentleman of 1789. Lots of heart, many
illusions and much verbosity.) The first attack was made Sept. 4 and the
second on the 13th.]

[Footnote 3274: Most of the domiciliary visits end in similar
damages. For example, ("Archives Nationales," F7, 3265, letter of
the administrators of Seine-Inferieure, Sept. 18, 1792). Visit to
the château de Catteville, Sept. 7, by the national guard of the
neighborhood. "The national guard get drunk, break the furniture to
pieces, and fire repeated volleys at the windows and mirrors; the
château is a complete ruin." The municipal officers on attempting to
interfere are nearly killed.]

[Footnote 3275: The letter ends with the following: "No, never will I
abandon the French soil!" He is guillotined at Paris, Thermidor 5, year
II., as an accomplice in the pretended prison-plot.]

[Footnote 3276: Raid on Protestants under Louis XIV. (SR).]

[Footnote 3277: '"Archives Nationales," Letter of the Oise
administrators, Sept. 12 and 15.--Letter of the syndic-attorney of
the department, Sept. 23.--Letter of the administrators, Sept. 20 (on
Chantilly). "The vast treasures of this domain are being plundered."
In the forest of Hez and in the park belonging to M. de Fitz-James, now
national property, "the finest trees are sold on the spot, cut down, and
carried off."--F7, 3268, Letter of the overseer of the national domains
at Rambouillet, Oct. 31. Woods devastated "at a loss of more than
100,000 crowns since August 10."--"The agitators who preach liberty
to citizens in the rural districts are the very ones who excite the
disorders with which the country is menaced. They provoke the demand for
a partition of property, with all the accompanying threats."]

[Footnote 3278: Albert Babeau, I.504 (Aug.20).]

[Footnote 3279: Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 322 (Sept 4).]

[Footnote 3280: Mortimer-Ternaux, III.325.--"Archives Nationales," F7,
3239. Official report of the municipality of Rheims, Sept 6.]

[Footnote 3281: "Archives Nationales," F7, 4394. Correspondence of the
ministers in 1792 and 1793. Lists presented by Roland to the convention,
on the part of various districts and departments, containing the names
of priests demanding passports to go abroad, those who have gone without
passports, and of sick or aged priests in the department asylums.]

[Footnote 3282: Albert Babeau, I. 515-517. Guillon de Montléon, I. 120.
At Lyons after the 10th of August the unsworn conceal themselves;
the municipality offers them passports; many who come for them are
incarcerated; others receive a passport with a mark on it which serves
for their recognition on the road, and which excites against them the
fury of the volunteers. "A majority of the soldiers filled the air with
their cries of 'Death to kings and priests!' "--Sauzay, III. ch. IX.,
and especially p. 193: "M. Pescheu; while running along the road from
Belfort to Porentruy, is seen by a captain of the volunteers, riding
along the same road with other officers; demanding his gun, he aimed at
M. Pescheur and shot him."]

[Footnote 3283: "Histoire de Chalons-sur-Marne et de ses monuments," by
L. Barbat, pp. 420, 425]

[Footnote 3284: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3207. Letter of the
directory of the Côte d'Or, Aug. 28 and Sept. 26. Address of the Beaune
municipality, Sept. 2. Letter of M. Jean Sallier, Oct. 9: "Allow me
to appeal to you for justice and to interest yourself in behalf of my
brother, myself, and five servants, who on the 14th of September last,
at the order of the municipality of La Roche-en-Bressy, where we have
lived for three years, were arrested by the national guard of Saulieu,
and, first imprisoned here in this town, were on the 18th transferred
to Semur, no reason for our detention being given, and where we have in
vain demanded a trial from the directory of the district, which body,
making no examination or inquiry into our case, sent us on the 25th, at
great expense, to Dijon, where the department has imprisoned us again
without, as before, giving any reason therefore."--The directory of the
department writes "the communes of the towns and of the country arrest
persons suspected by them, and instead of caring for these themselves,
send them to the district"--Such arbitrary imprisonment multiply towards
the end of 1792 and early in 1793. The commissaries of the convention
arrest at Sedan 55 persons in one day: at Nancy, 104 in three weeks; at
Arras, more than 1,000 in two months; in the Jura, 4,000 in two months.
At Lons-le-Saulnier all the nobles with their domestics, at Aix all
the inhabitants of one quarter without exception are put in prison. (De
Sybel, II. 305.)]

[Footnote 3285:"Archives Nationales," F7, 3276. Letters of the
administrators of the Yonne, Aug. 20 and 21.-Ibid., F7, 3255. Letter
of the commissary, Bonnemant, Sept. 22.--Mortimer-Ternaux, III.
338.--Lavalette, "Mémoires," I.100.]

[Footnote 3286: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3,255. Letter of the district
administrator of Roanne, Aug. 18. Fourteen volunteers of the canton
of Néronde betake themselves to Chenevoux, a mansion belonging to M.
Dulieu, a supposed émigré. They exact 200 francs from the keeper of' the
funds of the house under penalty of death, which he gives them.--Letter
of the same. Sept. 1. "Every day repressive means are non-existent.
Juges-de-paix before whom complaints are made dare not report them, nor
try citizens who cause themselves to be feared. Witnesses dare not
give testimony for fear of being maltreated or pillaged by the
criminals."--Letter of the same, Aug. 22.--Official report of the
municipality of Charlieu, Sept. 9, on the destruction of the land
registry books. "We replied that not having the force with which
to oppose them, since they themselves were the force, we would
abstain."--Letter of an officer of the gendarmerie, Sept.9, etc.]

[Footnote 3287: "Lettres autographes de Madame Roland," published by
Madame Bancal des Issarts, p. 5 (June 2, 1790)]

[Footnote 3288: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3245.--Letter of the mayor
and municipal officers of Lyons, Aug. 2.--Letter of the deputy procureur
of the commune, Aug. 29.--Copy of a letter by Dodieu, Aug. 27.
(Roland replies with consternation and says that there must be a
prosecution.)--Official report of the 9th of September, and letter
of the municipality, Sept. 11.--Memorandum of the officers of the
Royal-Pologne regiment, Sept. 7.--Letter of M. Perigny, father-in-law
of one of the officers slain, Sept. 19.--Mortimer-Ternaux, III.
342.--Guillon de Montléon, I. 124.--Balleyder, "Histoire du peuple de
Lyon," 91.]

[Footnote 3289: "Archives Nationales," Letter of Danton, Oct. 3.]

[Footnote 3290: Decius, Roman emperor from 248 to 251 famous for having
persecuted the Christians. He was unable to tolerate their refusal to
join in communal corporate pagan observances. He insisted that they do
so and once they had done it, a Certificate of Sacrifice (libellus), was
issued. (SR).]

[Footnote 3291: "Etude sur Madame Roland," by Dauban, 82. Letter of
Madame Roland to Bosc, July 26, 1798. "You busy yourselves with a
municipality and allow heads to escape which will devise new horrors.
You are mere children; your enthusiasm is merely a straw bonfire! If the
National Assembly does not try two illustrious heads in regular form or
some generous Décius strike them down, you are all lost.--" Ibid.,, May
17, 1790: "Our rural districts are much dissatisfied with the decree on
feudal privileges... A reform is necessary, in which more châteaux must
be burnt. It would not be a serious evil were there not some danger of
the enemies of the Revolution profiting by these discontents to lessen
the confidence of the people in the National Assembly."--Sept. 27, 1790.
"The worst party is successful; it is forgotten that insurrection is
the most sacred of duties when the country is in danger."--Jan.24, 1791.
"The wise man shuts his eyes to the grievances or weaknesses of the
private individual; but the citizen should show no mercy, even to his
father, when the public welfare is at stake."]

[Footnote 3292: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3202. Report of the
commissary, member of the Cantal directory, Oct. 24. On the 16th of
October at Chaudesaigues the volunteers break open a door and then kill
one of their comrades who opposes them, whom the commissary tries to
save. The mayor of the place, in uniform, leads them to the dwellings of
aristocrats, urging them on to pillage; they enter a number of houses by
force and exact wine. The next day at Saint-Urcize they break into
the house of the former curé, devastate or pillage it, and "sell his
furniture to different persons in the neighborhood." The same treatment
is awarded to sieur Vaissier, mayor, and to lady Lavalette; their
cellars are forced open, barrels of wine are taken to the public square,
and drinking takes place from the tap. After this "the volunteers go in
squads into the neighboring parishes and compel the inhabitants to give
them money or effects." The commissary and municipal officers of St.
Urcize who tried to mediate were nearly killed and were saved only
through the efforts of a detachment of regular cavalry. As to the
Jacobin mayor of Chaudesaigues, it was natural that he should preach
pillage; on the sale of the effects of the nuns "he kept all bidders
away, and had things knocked down to him for almost nothing."]

[Footnote 3293: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3217. Letter or Castanet, an
old gendarme, Nîmes, Aug.21.--Letter of M. Griolet, syndic-attorney of
the Gard, Sept. 8: "I beg, sir, that this letter may be considered as
confidential; I pray you do not compromise me. "--Letter of M. Gilles,
juge-de-paix at Rocquemaure, Oct.31 (with official reports).]

[Footnote 3294: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3227. Letter of the municipal
officers of Tullins, Sept. 8.]

[Footnote 3295: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3190. Letter of Danton, Oct.
9.--Memorandum of M. Casimir Audiffret (with documents in support
of it). His son had been locked up by mistake, instead of another
Audiffret, belonging to the Comtat; he was slashed with a saber in
prison Aug.25. Report of the surgeon, Oct. 17: "The wounded man has
two gashes more on the head, one on the left cheek and the right leg is
paralyzed; he has been so roughly treated in carrying him from prison
to prison as to bring on an abscess on the wrist; if he is kept there he
will soon die."]

[Footnote 3296: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3195. Letter of M. Amiel,
president of the bureau of conciliation, Oct. 28.--Letter of
an inhabitant of Avignon, Oct. 7.--Other letters without
signatures.--Letter of M. Gilles, juge-de-paix, Jan. 23, 1793.]

[Footnote 3297: Fabre, "Histoire de Marseilles," II. 478 and following
pages.--"Archives Nationales," F7, 3195. Letter of the Minister of
Justice, M. de Joly (with supporting documents), Aug. 6.--Official
reports of the Marseilles municipality, July 21, 22, 23.--Official
report of the municipality of Aix, Aug. 24.--Letter of the
syndic-attorney of the department (with a letter of the municipality of
Aubagne), Sept. 22, etc., in which M. Jourdan, a ministerial officer, is
accused of "aristocracy." A guard is assigned to him. About midnight the
guard is overcome, he is carried off, and then killed in spite of the
entreaties of his wife and son. The letter of the municipality ends with
the following: "Their lamentations pierced our hearts. But, alas, who
can resist the French people when aroused? We remain, gentlemen, very
cordially yours, the municipal officers of Aubagne."]

[Footnote 3298: This stage of revolution seems to be sought after by the
secret communist revolutionaries arranging for the break-up of formerly
powerful independent states such as Germany, Yougoslavia, India etc.
(SR).]

[Footnote 3299: Moniteur, XIII. 560. Act passed by the administrators
of the Bouches-du-Rhône, Aug. 3, "forbidding special collectors from
henceforth paying taxes with the national treasury."--Ibid., 744. A
report by Roland. The department of Var, having called a meeting of
commissaries at Avignon to provide for the defense of these regions, the
Minister says: "This step, subversive of all government, nullifies the
general regulations of the executive power."--"Archives Nationales,"
F7, 3195. Deliberation of the three administrative bodies assembled at
Marseilles, Nov. 5, 1792.--Petition of Anselme, a citizen of Avignon,
residing in Paris, Dec. 14.--Report of the Saint-Rémy affair, etc.]

[Footnote 32100: "Archives Nationales," CII. I. 32. Official Report
of the Electoral Assembly of Bouches-du-Rhône, Sept. 4. "To defray the
expenses of this expenditure the syndic-attorney of the district of
Tarascon is authorized to draw upon the funds of public registry and
vendor of revenue stamps, and in addition thereto on the collector of
direct taxation. The expenses of this expedition will be borne by
the anti-revolutionary agitators who have made it necessary. A list,
therefore, is to be drawn up and sent to the National Assembly. The
commissioners will be empowered to suspend the district administrations,
municipal officers, and generally all public functionaries who, through
incivism or improper conduct, shall have endangered the public weal.
They may even arrest them as well as suspected citizens. They will
see that the law regarding the disarming of suspected citizens and the
banishment of priests be faithfully executed."--Ibid., F7, 3195. Letter
of Truchement, commissary of the department, Nov. 15.--Memorandum of
the community of Eyguières and letter of the municipality of Eyguières,
Sept. 13.--Letter of M. Jaubert, secretary of the Salon popular club,
Oct. 22: "The department of Bouches-du-Rhône has for a month past been
ravaged by commissions. .. The despotism of one is abolished, and we
now stagger under the much more burdensome yoke of a crowd of
despots."--Situation of the department in September and October, 1792
(with supporting documents).]

[Footnote 32101: Barbaroux, "Mémoires," 89.]

[Footnote 32102: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3196.--Letters and petition
of citizen de Sades, Nov., 1792, Feb.17, 1793, and Ventose 8, year III.:
"Towards the middle of Sept., 1792 (old style), some Marseilles brigands
broke into a house of mine near Apt. Not content with carrying away six
loads of furniture.. they broke the mirrors and wood-work." The damage
is estimated at 80,000 francs. Report of the executive council according
to the official statement of the municipality of Coste. On the 27th
of September Montbrion, commissioner of the administration of the
Bouche-du-Rhône, sends two messengers to fetch the furniture to Apt.
On reaching Apt Montbrion and his colleague Bergier have the vehicles
unloaded, putting the most valuable effects on one cart, which they
appropriate to themselves, and drive away with it to some distance out
of sight, paying the driver out of their own pockets: "No doubt whatever
exists as to the knavery of Montbrion and Bergier; administrators and
commissioners of the administration of the department."--De Sades,
the author of "Justine," pleads his well-known civism and the
ultra-revolutionary petitions drawn up by him in the name of the section
of the Pikes.]

[Footnote 32103: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3272. Read in this file the
entire correspondence of the directory and the public prosecutor.]

[Footnote 32104: Deliberation of the commune of Toulon. July 28
and following days.--That of the three administrative bodies, Sep.
10--Lauvergne, "Histoire du department du Var," 104-137.]

[Footnote 32105: "Mémoires" of Chancelier Pasquier. Vol. I. p. 106.
Librarie Plon, Paris 1893--Pasquier and his wife stopped in Picardy,
brought to Paris by a member of the commune, a small, bandy-legged
fellow formerly a chair-letter in his parish church, imbued with
the doctrines of the day and a determined leveler. At the village of
Saralles they passed the house of M. de Livry, a rich man enjoying an
income of 50,000 francs, and the lover of Saunier, an opera-dancer. "He
is a good fellow," exclaims Pasquier's bandy-legged guardian: "we have
just made hint marry. Look here, we said to him, it is time that to
put a stop to that behavior! Down with prejudice! Marquises and dancers
ought to marry each other. He made her his wife, and it is well he did;
otherwise he would have been done for a long time ago, or caged
behind the Luxembourg walls."--Elsewhere, on passing a chateau being
demolished, the former chair-letter quotes Rousseau: "For every chateau
that falls, twenty cottages rise in its place." His mind was stored with
similar phrases and tirades, uttered by him as the occasion warranted.
This man may be considered as an excellent specimen of the average
Jacobin.]

[Footnote 32106: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3,207. Letter of the
administrators of the Côte d'Or to the Minister, Oct. 6, 1792.]

[Footnote 32107: "Archives Nationales" F7, 3195. Letter of the
administrators of the Bouche-du-Rhône, Oct 29, and the Minister's answer
on the margin.]

[Footnote 32108: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3249. Letter of the
administrators of the Orne, Sept. 7, and the Minister's reply noted on
the margin.]

[Footnote 32109: "Archives Nationales," F', 3,249. Correspondence with
the municipality of Saint-Firmin (Oise). Letter of Roland, Dec. 3: "I
have read the letter addressed to me on the 25th of the past month, and
I cannot conceal from you the pain it gives me to find in it principles
so destructive of all the ties of subordination existing between
constituted authorities, principles so erroneous that should the
communes adopt them every form of government would be impossible and
all society broken up. Can the commune of Saint-Firmin, indeed, have
persuaded itself that it is sovereign, as the letter states? and have
the citizens composing it forgotten that the sovereign is the entire
nation, and not the forty-four thousandth part of it? that Saint-Firmin
is simply a fraction of it, contributing its share to endowing the
deputies of the National Convention, the administrators of departments
and districts with the power of acting for the greatest advantage of
the commune, but which, the moment it elects its own administrators and
agents, can no longer revoke the powers it has bestowed, without a total
subversion of order? etc."--All the documents belonging to this affair
ought to be quoted; there is nothing more instructive or ludicrous, and
especially the style of the secretary-clerk of Saint-Firmin: "We conjure
you to remember that the administrators of the district of Senlis strive
to play the part of the sirens who sought to enchant Ulysses."]

[Footnote 32110: Letter of the central bureau of the Rouen sections,
Aug. 30.]

[Footnote 32111: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3195. Letter of the three
administrative bodies and commissaries of the sections of Marseilles,
Nov. 15, 1792. Letter of the electors of Bouches-du-Rhône, Nov.
28.--(Forms of politeness are omitted at the end of these letters, and
no doubt purposely.) Roland replies (Dec. 31): "While fully admiring the
civism of the brave Marseilles people,... do not fully agree with you on
the exercise of popular Sovereignty." He ends by stating that all
their letters with replies have been transmitted to the deputies of the
Bouches-du-Rhône, and that the latter are in accord with him and will
arrange matters.]




CHAPTER III.




I.--The second stage of the Jacobin conquest.

     The importance and multitude of vacant offices.

The second stage of the Jacobin conquest will,[3301] after August 10th
and during the next three months, extend and multiply all vacancies from
the top to the bottom of the hierarchy, for the purpose of filling
them with their own men.--In the first place, the faction (the party)
installs representatives on the summits of public authority which
represent itself alone, seven hundred and forty-nine omnipotent
deputies, in a Convention which, curbed neither by collateral powers nor
by a previously established constitution, disposes at pleasure of the
property, the lives and the consciences of all French people.--Then,
through this barely installed convention, it decrees the complete
renewal[3302] of all administrative and judicial bodies, councils and
directories of departments, councils and communal municipalities, civil,
criminal and commercial tribunals, justices and their assistants in the
lower courts, deputies of the justices, national commissaries of the
civil courts, with secretaries and bailiffs belonging to the various
tribunals and administrations.[3303] The obligation of having practiced
as a lawyer is abolished by the same stroke, so that the first comer, if
he belongs to the club (party) may become a judge without knowing how to
write, and even without being able to read.[3304]--Just before this the
staff of the National Guard, in all towns above fifty thousand souls,
and afterwards in all the towns on the frontier, has again passed
through the electoral sieve.[3305] In like manner, the officers of the
gendarmerie at Paris and throughout France once more undergo an election
by their men. Finally, all post-masters and post-office comptrollers
have to submit to election.--Even better, below or alongside the
elected officials, this administrative purge concerns all non-elective
functionaries and employees, no matter how insignificant their service,
however feeble and indirect their office may be connected with political
matters. This is because tax receivers and assessors, directors and
other agents of rivers and forests, engineers, notaries, attorneys,
clerks and scribes belonging to the administrative branch, are all
subject to dismissal if they do not obtain a certificate of civism from
their municipality. At Troyes, out of fifteen notaries, it is refused
to four,[3306] which leaves four places to be filled by their Jacobin
clerks. At Paris,[3307] "all honest folks, all clerks who are educated,"
are driven out of the navy offices; the war department is getting to be
"a den where everybody on duty wears a red cap, where all thee-and-thou
each other, even the Minister, where four hundred employees, among
which are a number of women, show off in the dirtiest dress, affect
the coolest cynicism, do nothing, and steal on all sides."--Under the
denunciation of the clubs, the broom is applied even at the bottom of
the hierarchical scale, even to secretaries of village councils, to
messengers and call-boys in the towns, to jail-keepers and door-keepers,
to beadles and sextons, to foresters, field-custodians, and others of
this class.[3308] All these persons must be, or appear to be, Jacobin;
otherwise, their place slips away from them, for there is always some
one to covet it, apply for it and take it.--Outside of employees the
sweeping operation reaches the suppliers and contractors; even here
there are the faithful to be provided for, and nowhere is the bait so
important. The State, even in ordinary times, is always the largest of
consumers, and, at this moment, it is expending monthly, merely on
the war, two hundred millions extra. What fish may be caught in such
disturbed waters![3309]--All these lucrative orders as well as all these
remunerated positions are at the disposition of the Jacobins, and they
seize the opportunity; they are the lawful owner, who comes home after a
long absence and gives or withdraws his custom as the pleases, while
he makes a clean sweep in his own household.--The administrative and
judicial services alone number 1,300,000 places, all those in the
treasury department, in that of public works, in that of public
education, and in the Church; all posts in the National Guard and in the
army, from that of commander-in-chief down to a drummer; the whole of
the central or local power, with the vast patronage flowing from this.
Never had such rich spoils been made available to the general public in
one go. Lots will be drawn, apparently, by vote; but it is evident that
the Jacobins have no intention of surrendering their prey to the hazards
of a free ballot; they mean to keep it the way they got it; by force,
and will leave no stone unturned to control the elections.




II.--The elections.

     The young and the poor invited to the ballot-box.--Danger of
     the Conservatives if candidates.--Their chiefs absent
     themselves.--Proportion of absentees at the primary
     assemblies.

They begin by paving their way.[3310] A new decree has at once
suppressed the feeble and last legal requirement for impartiality,
integrity and competence of the elector and the eligible candidate. No
more discrimination between active and passive citizens; no longer any
difference between poll tax of an elector of the first degree and that
of the second degree: no electoral poll tax qualification whatever. All
Frenchmen, except domestics, of whom they are distrustful, supposing
them under their employer's influence, may vote at the primary
assemblies, and not longer at the age of twenty-five, but at twenty-one,
which brings to the polls the two most revolutionary groups, on the one
hand the young, and on the other the poor, the latter in great numbers
in these times of unemployment, dearth and poverty, amounting in all
to two millions and a half, and, perhaps, three millions of new
electors.--At Besançon the number of the registered voters is
doubled.[3311]--Thus are the usual clients of the Jacobins admitted
within the electoral boundaries, from which they had hitherto been
excluded,[3312] and, to ensure their coming, their leaders decide that
every elector obliged to travel "shall receive twenty sous mileage,"
besides "three francs per diem during his stay."[3313]

While attracting their supporters they drove their adversaries away. The
political banditry, through which they dominate and terrify France,
has already taken care of that. Many arbitrary arrests and unpunished
murders are a warning to all candidates who do not belong to their
party; and I do not speak about to the nobles or friends of the ancient
regime that have fled or are in prison, but the Constitutionalists and
the Feuillants. Any electoral enterprise on their part would be
madness, almost a suicide. Accordingly, none of them call attention to
themselves. If any outrageous moderate, like Durand de Maillane, appears
on a list, it is because the revolutionaries have adopted him without
knowing him, and because he swears that he hates royalty.[3314] The
others, more honest, do not want to don the popular livery and resort to
club patronage, so they carefully stay away; they know too well that
to do otherwise would mark their heads for pikes and their homes for
pillage. At the very moment of depositing the vote the domains of
several deputies are sacked simply because, "on the comparative lists
of seven calls by name," sent to the departments from Paris by the
Jacobins, their names are found on the right.[3315]--Through an excess
of precaution the Constitutionalists of the Legislative body are kept at
the capital, their passports being refused to them to prevent them from
returning into the provinces and obtaining votes by publicly stating
the truth in relation to the recent revolution.--In the same way, all
conservative journals are suppressed, reduced to silence, or compelled
to become turncoats.--Now, when one has neither the possibility to speak
up nor a candidate which might become one's representative, of what use
is it to vote? And especially, since the primary assemblies are places
of disorder and violence,[3316] patriots alone, in many places, being
admitted,[3317] a conservative being "insulted and overwhelmed with
numbers," and, if he utters an opinion, exposed to danger, also, if he
remains silent, incurring the risk of denunciations, threats, and blows.
To keep in the background, remain on the sidelines, avoid being seen,
and to strive to be forgotten, is the rule under a pasha, and especially
when this pasha is a mob. Hence the absenteeism of the majority; around
the ballot-box there is an enormous void. At Paris, in the election of
mayor and municipal officers, the balloting of October, November and
December collect together only 14,000 out of 160,000 registered voters,
later 10,000, and, later again, only 7,000.[3318] At Besançon, 7,000.
registered voters result in less than 600; there is the same proportion
in other towns, as for example, in Troyes. In like manner, in the rural
cantons, east of Doubs and west of Loire-Inférieure, but one-tenth of
the electors dare exercise their right to vote.[3319] The electoral
source is so exhausted, so often disturbed, and so stopped up as to be
almost dry: in these primary assemblies which, directly or indirectly,
delegate all public powers, and which, in the expression of the common
will, should be full, there are lacking six millions three hundred
thousands electors out of seven millions.[3320]




III.--Composition and tone of the secondary assemblies.

     Exclusion of "Feuillant" electors.--Pressure on other
     electors.--Persons elected by the conservatives obliged to
     resign.--Elections by the Catholics canceled.--Secession of
     the Jacobin minorities.--The election of their men made
     valid.--Public opinion not in accord with official
     selections.

Through this anticipated purge the assemblies of the first degree find
themselves, for the most part, Jacobin; consequently the electors of
the second degree, appointed by them, are for the most part, Jacobin; in
many departments, their assembly becomes the most anarchical, the most
turbulent, and the most usurping of all the clubs. Here there is only
shouting, denunciations, oath-taking, incendiary motions, cheering
which carry all questions, furious speeches by Parisian commissaries,
by delegates from the local club, by passing Federates, and by female
wretches demanding arms.[3321] The Pas-de-Calais assemblage sets free
and applauds a woman imprisoned for having beaten a drum in a mob. The
Paris assembly fraternizes with the Versailles slaughterers and the
assassins of the mayor of Etampes. The assembly of the Bouches-du-Rhône
gives a certificate o virtue to Jourdan, the Glacière murderer. The
assembly of Seine-et-Marne applauds the proposal to cast a cannon which
might contain the head of Louis XVI. for a cannon-ball to be fired
at the enemy.--It is not surprising that an electoral body without
self-respect should respect nothing, and practice self-mutilation under
the pretext of purification.[3322] The object of the despotic majority
was to reign at once, without any contest, on its own authority, and to
expel all offensive electors. At Paris, in the Aisne, in Haute-Loire, in
Ille-et-Vilaine, in Maine-et-Loire, it excludes as unworthy the
members of old Feuillants and monarchical clubs, and the signers of
Constitutionalist protests. In Hérault it cancels the elections in
the canton of Servian, because the elected men, it says, are "mad
aristocrats." In Orne it drives away an old Constituent, Goupil de
Préfeln, because he voted for the revision, also, his son-in-law,
because he is his son-in-law. In the Bouches-du-Rhône, where the canton
of Seignon, by mistake or through routine, swore "to maintain the
constitution of the kingdom," it sets aside these retrograde elected
representatives, commences proceedings against the "crime committed,"
and sends troops against Noves because the Noves elector, a justice who
is denounced and in peril, has escaped from the electoral den.--After
the purification of persons it proceeds to the purification of
sentiments. At Paris, and in at least nine departments,[3323] and in
contempt of the law, is suppresses the secret ballot, the last refuge of
timid conservatives, and imposes on each elector a verbal public vote,
loud and clear, on his name being called; that is to say, if he does
not vote as he ought to, he risks the gallows.[3324] Nothing could more
surely convert hesitation and indecision into good sense, while, in
many a place, still more powerful machinery is violently opposed to
the elections. At Paris the elections are carried on in the midst of
atrocities, under the pikes of the butchers, and con ducted by their
instigators. At Meaux and at Rheims the electors in session were within
hearing of the screeches of the murdered priests. At Rheims the butchers
themselves ordered the electoral assembly to elect their candidates,
Drouet, the famous post-master, and Armonville, a tipsy wool-carder,
upon which one-half of the assembly withdrew, while the two candidates
of the assassins are elected. At Lyons, two days after the massacre, the
Jacobin commander writes to the Minister: "Yesterday's catastrophe puts
the aristocrats to flight, and ensures us the majority in Lyons."[3325]
From universal suffrage thus subjected to so much sifting, submitted to
such heavy pressure, heated and refined in the revolutionary alembic,
those who control it obtain all they want, a concentrated extract, the
quintessence of the Jacobin spirit.

And yet, should this extract not seem to them sufficiently strong,
wherever they are sovereign, they throw it away and begin over again. At
Paris,[3326] by means of a purifying and surplus ballot, the new Council
of the Commune undertakes the expulsion of its lukewarm members, while
d'Ormesson, the mayor elect of the moderates, is assailed with so
many threats that, on the verge of his installation, he resigns. At
Lyons,[3327] another moderate, Nivière-Chol, twice elected, and, by
9,000 out of 11,000 votes, is twice compelled to abandon his place;
after him, Gilibert, the physician, who, supported by the same voters,
is about to obtain the majority, is seized suddenly and cast into
prison; even in prison, he is elected; the clubbists confine him
there more rigidly, and do not let him out even after extorting
his resignation.--Elsewhere in the rural cantons, for example, in
Franche-Comté,[3328] a number of elections are canceled when the person
elected happens to be a Catholic. The Jacobin minority frequently
secede, meet in a tavern, elect their mayor or justice of the peace, and
the validity of his election is secured because he is a patriot; so much
the worse for that of the majority, whose more numerous votes are null
because given by "fanatics."--The response of universal suffrage
thus appealed to cannot be other than that which is framed for
it. Indisputable facts are to show to what extent this response is
compulsive or perverted, what a distance there is between an official
choice and public opinion, how the elections give a contrary meaning to
popular sentiment. The departments of Deux-Sèvres, Maine-et-Loire,
la Vendée, Loire-Infèrieure, Morbihan, and Finistère, send only
anti-Catholic republicans to the Convention, while these same
departments are to become the inexhaustible nursery of the great
catholic and royalist insurrection. Three regicides out of four deputies
represent Lozère, where, six months later, thirty thousand peasants
are to march under the Royal white banner. Six regicides out of nine
deputies represent la Vendée, which is going to rise from one end of it
to the other in the name of the King.[3329]




IV.--Composition of the National Convention.

     Number of Montagnards at the start.--Opinions and sentiments
     of the deputies of the Plain.--The Gironde.--Ascendancy of
     the Girondins in the Convention.--Their intellectual
     character.--Their principles.--The plan of their
     Constitution.--Their fanaticism.--Their sincerity, culture
     and tastes.--How they differ from pure Jacobins.--How they
     comprehend popular sovereignty.--Their stipulations with
     regard to the initiative of individuals and of groups.--
     Weakness of philosophic thought and of parliamentary
     authority in times of anarchy.

However vigorous the electoral pressure may have been, the voting
machine has not provided the expected results. At the opening of the
session, out of 749 deputies, only about fifty[3330] are found to
approve of the Commune, nearly all of the elected in places where, as
at Rheims and Paris, terror has the elector by the throat, "under the
clubs, axes, daggers, and bludgeons of the butchers."[3331] But where
the physical impressions of murder have not been so tangible and
impressive, some sense of decency has prevented too glaring elections.
The inclination to vote for well-known names could not wholly be
arrested; seventy-seven former members of the Constituent Assembly, and
one hundred and eighty-six of the previous Legislative Assembly enter
the Convention, and the practical knowledge which many of these have
of government business has given them some insights. In short,
the consciences of six hundred and fifty deputies are only in part
perverted.

They are all, unquestionably, decided republicans, enemies of tradition,
apostles of reason, and trained in deductive politics; only on these
conditions could they be elected. Every candidate is supposed to possess
the Jacobin faith, or, at least, to recite the revolutionary creed. The
Convention, consequently, at its opening session votes unanimously, with
cheers and enthusiasm, the abolition of royalty, and three months later
it pronounces, by a large majority, Louis XVI.,

"guilty of conspiring against the liberty of the nation, and of assaults
on the general welfare of the State."[3332]

Nevertheless, social habitudes still subsist under political prejudices.
A man who is born in and lives for a long time in an old community, is,
through this alone, marked with its imprint; the customs to which he
conforms have crystallized in him in the shape of sentiments: if it is
well-regulated and civilized, he has involuntarily arrived at respect
for property and for human life, and, in most characters, this respect
has taken very deep root. A theory, even if adopted, does not wholly
succeed in destroying this respect; only in rare instances is it
successful, when it encounters coarse and defective natures; to
take full hold, it is necessary that it should fall on the scattered
inheritors of former destructive appetites, on those hopelessly
degenerate souls in which the passions of an anterior date are
slumbering; then only does its malevolence fully appear, for it rouses
the ferocious or plundering instincts of the barbarian, the raider, the
inquisitor, and the pasha. On the contrary, with the greatest number,
do what it will, integrity and humanity always remain powerful motives.
Nearly all these legislators, who originate in the middle class, are at
bottom, irrespective of a momentary delusion, what they always have been
up to now, advocates, attorneys, merchants, priests, or physicians
of the ancient regime, and what they will become later on, docile
administrators or zealous functionaries of Napoleon's empire,[3333] that
is to say, ordinary civilized persons belonging to the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries, sufficiently honest in private life to have a
desire to be equally so in public life.--Hence their horror of anarchy,
of Marat,[3334] and of the September butchers and robbers. Three days
after their assembling together they vote, "almost unanimously,"
the preparation of a law "against the instigators of murder and
assassination." "Almost unanimously," they desire to raise a guard,
recruited in the 83 departments, against the armed bands of Paris and
the Commune. Pétition is elected as their first president by "almost the
totality of suffrages." Roland who has just read his report to them, is
greeted with the "loudest" applause from nearly the "entire" Assembly.
In short they are for the ideal republic against actual brigands. This
accounts for their ranging themselves around those upright and sincere
deputies, who, in the two preceding Assemblies or alongside of them,
were the ablest defenders of both principles and humanity, around
Buzot, Lanjuinais, Pétition, and Rabaut-Saint-Etienne; around Brissot,
Vergniaud, Guadet, Gensonné, Isnard, and Condorcet; around Roland,
Louvet, Barbaroux, and the five hundred deputies of the "Plain,"[3335]
marching in one body under the leadership of the 180 Girondists who now
form the "Right."[3336]

These latter, among the republicans, are the most sincere and have the
most faith; for they have long been such, after much thought, study and
as a matter of principle. Nearly all of them are well-read educated men,
reasoners, philosophers, disciples of Diderot or of Rousseau, satisfied
that absolute truth had been revealed by their masters, thoroughly
imbued with the Encyclopédie[3337] or the Contrat Social, the same as
the Puritans formerly were with the Bible.[3338] At the age when
the mind is maturing, and fondly clings to general ideas,[3339] they
embraced the theory and aimed at a reconstruction of society according
to abstract principles. They have accordingly set to work as pure
logicians, rigorously applying the superficial and false system of
analysis then in vogue.[3340] They have formed for themselves an idea of
man in general, the same in all times and ages, an extract or minimum of
man; they have pondered over several thousands of or millions of these
abstract mortals, erected their imaginary wills into primordial rights,
and drawn up in anticipation the chimerical contract which is to
regulate their impossible union. There are to be no more privileges, no
more heredity, no qualifications of any kind; all are to be electors,
all eligible and all of equal members of the sovereignty; all powers are
to be of short date, and conferred through election; there must be
but one assembly, elected and entirely renewed annually, one executive
council elected and one-half renewed annually, a national treasury-board
elected and one-third renewed annually; all local administrations and
tribunals must be elected; a referendum to the people, the electoral
body endowed with the initiative, a constant appeal to the sovereignty,
which, always consulted and always active, will manifest its will not
alone by the choice of its mandatories but, again, through "the censure"
which it will apply to the laws--such is the Constitution they forge for
themselves.[3341] "The English Constitution," says Condorcet, "is
made for the rich, that of America for citizens well-off; the French
Constitution should be made for all men."--It is, for this reason, the
only legitimate one; every institution that deviates from it is opposed
to natural rights and, therefore, fit only to be put down.-This is what
the Girondists have done during the Legislative sessions; we know
how they, armed with the illusions[3342] of their new philosophy and
triumphing through a rigid, rash and hasty reason, have

* persecuted Catholic consciences,

* violated feudal property,

* encroached on the legal authority of the King,

* persecuted the remains of the ancient regime,

* tolerated crimes committed by the crowds,

* even plunged France into an European war,

* armed even the paupers,

* caused the overthrow of all government.--

As far as his Utopia is concerned, the Girondist is a sectarian, and he
knows no scruples.

* Little does he care that nine out of ten electors do not vote: he
regards himself as the authorized representative of all ten.

* Little does he care whether the great majority of Frenchmen favor the
Constitution of 1791; it is his business to impose on them his own.

* Little does he care whether his former opponents, King, émigrés,
unsworn ecclesiastics, are honorable men or at least excusable; he will
launch against them every rigorous legal proceeding, transportation,
confiscation, civil death and physical death.[3343]

In his own eyes he is the justiciary, and his investiture is bestowed
upon him by eternal right. There is no human infatuation so pernicious
to man as that of absolute right; nothing is better calculated for
the destruction in him of the hereditary accumulation of moral
conceptions.--Within the narrow bounds of their creed, however,
the Girondins are sincere and consistent. They are masters of their
formulae; they know how to deduce consequences from them; they believe
in them the same as a surveyor in his theorems, and a theologian in
the articles of his faith; they are anxious to apply them, to devise
a constitution, to establish a regular government, to emerge from a
barbarous state, to put an end to fighting in the street, to pillaging,
to murders, to the sway of brutal force and of naked arms.

The disorder, mover, so repugnant to them as logicians is still more
repugnant to them as cultivated, polished men. They have a sense of what
is proper,[3344] of becoming ways, and their tastes are even refined.
They are not familiar with, nor do they desire to imitate, the
rude manners of Danton, his coarse language, his oaths, and his low
associations with the people. They have not, like Robespierre, gone to
lodge with a master joiner, to live him and eat with his family. Unlike
Pache, Minister of War, no one among them "feels honored" by "going down
to dine with his porter," and by sending his daughters to the club to
give a fraternal kiss to drunken Jacobins.[3345] At Madame Roland's
house there is a salon, although it is stiff and pedantic; Barbaroux
send verses to a marchioness, who, after the 2nd of June, elopes with
him to Caen.[3346] Condorcet has lived in high society, while his wife,
a former canoness, possess the charms, the repose, the instruction, and
the elegance of an accomplished woman. Men of this stamp cannot endure
close alongside of them the inept and gross dictatorship of an armed
rabble. In providing for the public treasury they require regular taxes
and not tyrannical confiscations.[3347] To repress the malevolent they
propose "punishment and not banishment."[3348] In all State trials
they oppose irregular courts, and strive to maintain for those under
indictment some of the usual safeguards.[3349] On declaring the King
guilty they hesitate in pronouncing the sentence of death, and try to
lighten their responsibility by appealing to the people. The line "laws
and not blood," was a line which, causing a stir in a play of the day,
presented in a nutshell their political ideas. And, naturally, the law,
especially Republican law, is the law of all; once enacted, nobody,
no citizen, no city, no party, can refuse to obey it without being
criminal. It is monstrous that one city should arrogate to itself the
privilege of ruling the nation; Paris, like other departments, should be
reduced to its on-eighty-third proportion of influence. It is monstrous
that, in a capital of 700,000 souls, five or six thousand radical
Jacobins should oppress the sections and alone elect their candidates;
in the sections and at the polls, all citizens, at least all
republicans, should enjoy an equal and free vote. It is monstrous that
the principle of popular sovereignty should be used to cover up attacks
against popular sovereignty, that, under the pretense of saving the
State, the first that comes along may kill whom he pleases, that, on
the pretext that they are resisting oppression, each mob should have the
"Right" to put the government down.--Hence, this militant "Right" must
be pacified, enclosed within legal boundaries, and subjected to a fixed
process.[3350] Should any individual desire a law, a reform or a public
measure, let him state his on paper over his own signature and that of
fifty other citizens of the same primary assembly; then the proposition
must be submitted to his own primary assembly; then in case it obtains a
majority, to the primary assemblies of his arrondissement; then, in case
of a majority, to the primary assemblies of his department; then, in
case of a majority, to all the primary assemblies of the nation, so
that after a second verdict of the same assemblies twice consulted, the
Legislative body, yielding to the majority of primary suffrages, may
dissolve and a new Legislative body, in which all old members shall be
declared ineligible, take its place.--This is the final expression and
the master idea, of the theory. Condorcet, its able constructor, has
outdone himself. Impossible to design on paper a more ingenious or
complicated mechanism. The Girondists, in the closing article of this
faultless constitution, believe that they have discovered a way to
muzzle the beast and allow the sovereign people to fully assert their
rights.

As if, with some kind of constitution and especially with this one,
one could muzzle the beast! As if it was in the mood to crane the
neck allowing them to put the muzzle on! Robespierre, on behalf of the
Jacobins, counters with a clause radically opposed to the one drafted by
Condorcet[3351]:

"To submit 'the right to resist oppression' to legal formalities is
the ultimate refinement of tyranny... When a government violates the
people's rights, a general insurrection of the people, as well as
portions of the people, is the most sacred of duties."

Political orthodoxy, close reasoning, and oratorical talent are,
however, no weapon against this ever-muttering insurrection.

"Our philosophers," says a good observer,[3352] "want to attain their
ends by persuasion; which is equivalent to saying that battles may be
won by eloquence, fine speeches, and plans of constitution. Very soon,
according to them,.. if will suffice to carry complete copies of
Macchiavelli, Rousseau and Montesquieu into battle instead of cannon,
it never occurring to them that these authors, like their works, never
were, and never will be, anything but fools when put up against a
cut-throat provided with a good sword."

The parliamentary landscape has fallen away; things have returned to
a state of nature, that is, to a state of war, and one is no longer
concerned with debate but with brute force. To be in the right, to
convince the convention, to obtain majorities, to pass decrees, would be
appropriate in ordinary times, under a government provided with an armed
force and a regular administration, by which, from the summits of
public authority, the decrees of a majority descend through submissive
functionaries to a sympathetic and obedient population. But, in times of
anarchy, and above all, in the den of the Commune, in Paris, such as
the 10th of August and the 2nd of September made it, all this is of no
account.




V.--The Jacobins forming alone the Sovereign People.

     Opinion in Paris.--The majority of the population
     constitutional.--The new régime unpopular.--Scarcity and
     high cost of food.--Catholic customs obstructed.--Universal
     and increasing discontent.--Aversion or indifference to the
     Girondins.--Political resignation of the majority.--Modern
     customs incompatible with pure democracy.--Men of property
     and income, manufacturers and tradesmen, keep aloof.
     --Dissension, timidity, and feebleness of the Conservatives.
     --The Jacobins alone form the sovereign people.

And it is of no account because, first of all, in this great city
of Paris the Girondists are isolated, and have no group of zealous
partisans to depend upon. For, if the large majority is opposed to their
adversaries, that is not in their favor, it having secretly, at heart,
remained "Constitutionalists."[3353] "I would make myself master of
Paris," says a professional observer, "in ten days without striking a
blow if I had but six thousand men, and one of Lafayette's stable-boys
to command them." Lafayette, indeed, since the departure or concealment
of the royalists, represents the old, fixed, and innermost opinion
of the capital. Paris submits to the Girondists as well as to the
Montagnards as usurpers; the mass of the public regards them with
ill-will, and not only the bourgeoisie, but likewise the majority of the
people loathe the established government.

Work is scarce and food is dear; brandy has tripled in price; only four
hundred oxen are brought in at the Poissy market instead of seven or
eight thousand; the butchers declare that there will be no meat in Paris
next week except for the sick.[3354] To obtain a small ration of bread
it is necessary to wait five or six hours in a line at the baker's
shops, and,[3355] as is customary, workmen and housekeepers impute all
this to the government. This government, which so poorly provides for
its needs, offends them yet more in their deepest feelings, in the
habits most dear to them, in their faith and worship. The common people,
even at Paris, is still at this time very religious, much more so than
at the present day. When the priest bearing the Host passes along the
street, the crowd "gathers from all sides, men, women, and children,
young and old, and fall on their knees in worship."[3356] The day on
which the relics of saint Leu are borne in procession through the Rue
St. Martin, "everybody kneels; I did not see a man," says a careful
observer, "that did not take off his hat. At the guard-house of the
Mauconseil section, the entire company presented arms." At the same time
the "citoyennes around the markets talked with each other to know if
there was any way of decking houses with tapestry."[3357] The following
week they compel the revolutionary committee of Saint-Eustache[3358]
to authorize another procession, and again each one kneels: "everybody
approved of the ceremony, no one, that I heard of; making any objection.
This is a striking picture.... I saw repentance, I saw the parallel each
is forced to draw between the actual state of things and the former
one. I saw what a privation the people had to endure in the loss of that
which, formerly, was the most imposing of all church ceremonies. People
of all ranks and ages were deeply affected and humble, and many had
tears in their eyes." Now, in this respect, the Girondists, by virtue of
being philosophers, are more iconoclastic, more intolerant than any
one, and there is no reason for preferring them to their adversaries. At
bottom, the government installed by the recent electoral comedy, for
the major portion of the Parisians, has no authority but the fact of
its existence; people put up with it because there is no other, fully
recognizing its worthlessness;[3359] it is a government of strangers, of
interlopers, of bunglers, of cantankerous, weak and violent persons. The
Convention has no hold either on the people or on the bourgeois class,
and in proportion as it glides more rapidly down the revolutionary hill,
it breaks one by one the ties with which it is still connected to the
undecided.

In a reign of eight months the Convention has alienated public
opinion entirely. "Almost all who have property of any kind are
conservative,"[3360] and all the conservatives are against it. "The
gendarmes here openly speak up against the Revolution, even up to the
revolutionary tribunal, whose judgments they loudly condemn. All the old
soldiers detest the actual order of things."[3361]--The volunteers "who
come back from the army appear angry at putting the King to death, and
on that account they would flay all the Jacobins."[3362]--No party in
the Convention escapes this universal disaffection and growing aversion.
"If the question of guillotining the members of the Convention could be
put to an open vote, it would be carried against them by a majority of
nineteen-twentieths,"[3363] which, in fact, is about the proportion of
electors who, through fright or disgust, keep away from the polls. Let
the "Right" or the "Left" of the Convention be victors or vanquished,
that is a matter which concerns them; the public at large does not enter
into the discussions of its conquerors, and no longer cares for either
Gironde or "Mountain." Its old grievances always revive "against the
Vergniauds, Guadets" and company;[3364] it does not like them, and has
no confidence in them, and will let them be crushed without helping
them. The infuriates may expel the Thirty-Two, if they choose, and put
them under lock and key. "There is nothing the aristocracy (meaning
by this, owners of property, merchants, bankers, the rich, and the
well-to-do), desire so much as to see them guillotined."[3365] 'Even the
inferior aristocracy (meaning petty tradesmen and head-workmen) take
no more interest in their fate than if they were so many escaped wild
beasts... again caught and put in their cages."[3366] "Guadet, Pétion,
Brissot, would not find thirty persons in Paris who would take their
part, or even take the first step to save them."[3367]

Apart from all this, it makes little difference whether the majority has
any preferences; its sympathies, if it has any, will never be other
than platonic. It no longer counts for anything in either camp, it has
withdrawn from the battle-field, it is now simply the stakes of the
conflict, the prey and the booty of the winner. For, unable or unwilling
to comply with the political system imposed on it, it is self-condemned
to utter powerlessness. This system is the direct government of the
people by the people, with all that ensues, permanence of the section
assemblies, club debates in public, uproar in the galleries, motions in
the open air, mobs and manifestations in the streets; nothing is less
attractive and more impracticable to civilized and busy people. In our
modern communities, work, the family, and social intercourse absorb
nearly all our time; hence, such a system suits only the idle and
rough outcasts who feel at home there; the others refuse to enter an
environment expressly set up for singles, orphans, unskilled persons,
living in lodgings, foul-mouthed, lacking the sense of smell, with a
gift of the gab, robust arms, tough hide, solid haunches, expert in
hustling, and with whom blows replace arguments.[3368]--After the
September massacres, and on the opening of the barriers, a number of
proprietors and persons living on their incomes, not alone the suspected
but those who thought they might become so, escaped from Paris, and,
during the following months, the emigration increases along with the
danger. Towards December rumor has it that lists have been made up of
former Feuillants; "we are assured that during the past eight days more
than fourteen thousand persons have left the capital."[3369] According
to the report of the Minister himself;[3370] "many who are independent
in fortune and position abandon a city where the renewal of proscription
is talked of daily."--" Grass grows in the finest streets," writes
a deputy, "while the silence of the grave reigns in the Thébaïdes
(isolated villas) of the faubourg Saint-Germain."--As to the
conservatives who remain, they confine themselves to private life, from
which it follows that, in the political balance, those present are of no
more account than the absentees. At the municipal elections in October,
November, and December, out of 160,000 registered voters, there are at
first 144,000, then 150,000, and finally 153,000 who stay away from
the polls; these, certainly, and for a much better reason, do not show
themselves at the assemblies of their sections. Commonly, out of three
or four thousand citizens, only fifty or sixty attend; one of these,
called a general assembly, which signifies the will of the people to the
Convention, is composed of twenty-five voters.[3371] Accordingly, what
would a sensible man, a friend of order, do in these dens of fanatics?
He stays at home, as on stormy days; he lets the shower of words spend
itself, not caring to be spattered in the gutter of nonsense which
carries off the filth of this district.

If he leaves his house at all he goes out for a walk, the same as in
old times, to indulge the tastes he had under the old régime, those of
a talkative, curious on-looker and friendly stroller, of a Parisian safe
in his well run town. "Yesterday evening," writes a man who feels the
coming Reign of Terror, "I took my stand in the middle of the right
alley of the Champs-Elysées;[3372] it was thronged with--who do you
think? Would you believe it, with moderates, aristocrats, owners of
property, and very pretty women, elegantly dressed, seeking the caresses
of the balmy spring breeze! It was a charming sight. All were gay and
smiling. I was the only one that was not so... I withdrew hastily, and,
on passing through the Tuileries garden, I saw a repetition of what I
had seen before, forty thousand wealthy people scattered here and there,
almost as many as Paris contains."--These are evidently the sheep ready
for the slaughter-house. They no longer think of defense, they have
abandoned their posts to the sans-culottes, "they refuse all civil and
military functions,"[3373] they avoid doing duty in the National Guard
and instead pay their substitutes. In short, they withdraw from a game
which, in 1789, they desired to play without understanding it, and in
which, since the end of 1791, they have always burnt their fingers. The
cards may be handed over to others, especially as the cards are dirty
and the players fling them in each others' faces; as for themselves they
are spectators, they have no other ambitions.--"Leave them their old
enjoyments,[3374] leave them the pleasure of going and coming throughout
the kingdom; but do not force them to take part in the war. Subject them
to the heaviest taxation and they will not complain; nobody will even
know that they exist, while the most serious question that disturbs them
in their thoughtful days is, can one amuse one's self as much under a
republican form of government as under the ancient régime?" They hope,
perhaps, to escape under cover of inoffensive neutrality. Is it likely
that the victor, whoever he is, will regard people as enemies who
are resigned to his rule before-hand? "A dandy[3375] alongside of me
remarked, yesterday morning, 'They will not take my arms away, for I
never had any.' Alas,' I replied to him, 'don't make a boast of it, for
you may find forty thousand simpletons in Paris that would say the same
thing, and, indeed, it is not at all to the credit of Paris.'"--Such is
the blindness or self-complacency of the city dweller who, having always
lived under a good police, is unwilling to change his habits, and is not
aware that the time has come for him to turn fighting man in his turn.

The manufacturers, the merchants and the man living on his income
are even less disposed than the independent gentleman, to give up his
private affairs for public affairs. His business will not wait for him,
he being confined to his office, store or counting-room. For example,
"the wine-dealers[3376] are nearly all aristocrats in the sense of this
word at this period," but "never were their sales so great as during
the insurrections of the people and in revolutionary days." Hence the
impossibility of obtaining their services in those days. "They are seen
on their premises very active, with three or four of their assistants,"
and turn a deaf ear to every appeal. "How can we leave when custom is so
good? People must have their wants supplied. Who will attend to them
if I and the waiters should go away?"--There are other causes of
their weakness. All grades in the National Guard and all places in the
municipality having been given up to the Jacobin extremists, they have
no chiefs: the Girondists are incapable of rallying them, while Garat,
the Minister, is unwilling to employ them. Moreover, they are divided
amongst themselves, no one having any confidence in the other, "it being
necessary to chain them together to have anything accomplished."[3377]
Besides this, the remembrance of September weighs upon their spirits
like a nightmare.--All this converts people into a timid flock, ready to
scamper at the slightest alarm. "In the Contrat Social section," says
an officer of the National Guard, "one-third of those who are able to
defend the section are off in the country; another third are hiding away
in their houses, and the other third dare not do anything."[3378]
"If, out of fifty thousand moderates, you can collect together three
thousand, I shall be very much astonished. And if; out of these three
thousand, five hundred only are found to agree, and have courage enough
to express their opinion, I shall be still more astonished. The latter,
for instance, must expect to be Septemberized!"[3379] This they know,
and hence they keep silent and bend beneath the yoke. "What, indeed,
would the majority of the sections do when it is demonstrated that a
dozen raving maniacs at the head of a sans-culottes section puts the
other forty-seven sections of Paris to flight?"--Through this desertion
of the state and themselves, they surrender in advance, and, in this
great city, as formerly in ancient Athens and Rome, we see alongside of
an immense population of subjects without any rights, a small despotic
oligarchy in itself composing the sovereign people.[3380]





VI.--Composition of the party.

     Its numbers and quality decline.--The Underlings.--Idle and
     dissipated workmen.--The suburban rabble.--Bandits and
     blackguards.--Prostitutes.--The September actors.

Not that this minority has been on the increase since the 10th of
August, quite the reverse.--On the 19th of November, 1792, its candidate
for the office of Mayor of Paris, Lhuillier, obtains only 4,896
votes.[3381] On the 18th of June, 1793, its candidate for the command of
the National Guard, Henriot, will secure but 4,573 votes; to ensure his
election it will be necessary to cancel the election twice, impose the
open vote, and relieve voters from showing their section tickets,
which will permit the trusty to vote successively in other quarters and
apparently double their number by allowing each to vote two or three
times.[3382] Putting all together, there are not six thousand
Jacobins in Paris, all of them sans-culottes and partisans of the
"Mountain."[3383] Ordinarily, in a section assembly, they number "ten
or fifteen," at most "thirty or forty," "organized into a permanent
tyrannical board."... "The rest listen and raise their hands
mechanically."... "Three or four hundred Visionaries, whose devotion
is as frank as it is stupid, and two or three hundred more to whom the
result of the last revolution did not bring the places and honors they
too evidently relied on," form the entire staff of the party; "these are
the clamorers of the sections and of the groups, the only ones who
have clearly declared themselves against order, the apostles of a new
sedition, scathed or ruined men who need disturbance to keep alive,"
while under these comes the train of Marat, vile women, worthless
wretches, and "paid shouters at three francs a day."[3384]

To this must be added that the quality of the factious is still more
reduced than their number. Plenty of honest men, small tradesmen, wine
dealers, cook-shop keepers, clerks, who, on the 10th of August, were
against the Court, are now against the Commune.[3385] The September
affair, probably, disgusted them, and they were not disposed to
recommence the massacres. A workman named Gonchon, for example, the
usual spokesman of the faubourg Saint-Antoine, an upright man, sincere
and disinterested, supports Roland, and, very soon, at Lyons, seeing how
things are with his own eyes, he is to loyally endorse the revolt of
the moderates against the Maratists.[3386] "The respectable class of the
arts, says observers, "is gradually leaving the faction to join the sane
party."[3387] "Now that water-carriers, porters and the like storm the
loudest in the sections, it is plain to all eyes that the gangrene
of disgust has reached the fruit-sellers, tailors, shoe-makers, bar
owners," and others of that class.[3388]--Towards the end, "butchers of
both classes, high and low, are aristocratized."--In the same way, "the
women in the markets, except a few who are paid and whose husbands are
Jacobins, curse and swear, fume, fret and storm." "This morning," says
a merchant, "four or five of them were here; they no longer insist
on being called citoyennes; they declare that they "spit on the
republic."[3389]--The only remaining patriot females are from the lowest
of the low class, the harpies who pillage shops as much through envy
as through necessity, "boat-women, embittered by hard labor,[3390]...
jealous of the grocer's wife, better dressed than herself, as the latter
was of the wives of the attorney and counselor, as these were of those
of the financier and noble. The woman of the people thinks she cannot do
too much to lower the grocer's wife to her own level."

Thus reduced to its dregs through the withdrawal of its tolerably honest
recruits, the faction now comprises none but the scum of the populace,
first, "subordinate workmen who look upon the downfall of their
employers with a certain satisfaction," then, the small retailers, the
old-clothes dealers, plasterers, "those who offer second-hand coats
for sale on the fringes of the market, fourth-rate cooks who, at
the cemetery of the Innocents, sell meat and beans under umbrella
tops,"[3391] next, domestics highly pleased with now being masters of
their masters, kitchen helpers, grooms, lackeys, janitors, every species
of valet, who, in contempt of the law, voted at the elections[3392] and
at the Jacobin club form a group of "silly people" satisfied "that they
were universal geographers because they had ridden post once or twice,"
and that they were politicians "because they had read 'The Four Sons of
Aymon.'"[3393]--But, in this mud, spouting and spreading around in
broad daylight, it is the ordinary scum of great cities which forms the
grossest flux, the outcasts of every trade and profession, dissipated
workmen of all kinds, the irregular and marauding troops of the social
army, the class which, "discharged from La Pitié, run through a career
of disorder and end in Bicêtre."[3394] "From La Pitié to Bicêtre" is a
well known popular adage. Men of this stamp are without any principle
whatever. If they have fifty francs they live on fifty, and if they have
only five they live on five; spending everything, they are always out of
pocket and save nothing. This is the class that took the Bastille,[3395]
got up the 10th of August, etc. It is the same class which filled the
galleries in the Assembly with all sorts of characters, filling up
the groups," and, during all this time it never did a stroke of work.
Consequently, "a wife who owns a watch, ear-rings, finger-rings, any
jewels, first takes them to the pawnbrokers where they end up being
sold. At this period many of these people owe the butcher, the baker,
the wine-dealer, etc.; nobody trusts them any more. They have ceased to
love their wives, and their children cry for food, while the father is
at the Jacobin club or at the Tuileries. Many of them have abandoned
their position and trade," while, either through "indolence" or
consciousness "of their incapacity,"... "they would with a kind of
sadness see this trade come back to life." That of a political gossip,
of a paid claqueur, is more agreeable, and such is the opinion of
all the idlers, summoned by the bugle to work on the camps around
Paris.----Here,[3396] eight thousand men are paid forty sous a day "to
do nothing"; "the workmen come along at eight, nine and ten o'clock in
the morning. If they remain after roll-call... they merely trundle about
a few wheelbarrow loads of dirt. Others play cards all day, and most
of them leave at three or four o'clock, after dinner. On asking the
inspectors about this they reply that they are not strong enough to
enforce discipline, and are not disposed to have their throats slit."
Whereupon, on the Convention decreeing piece-work, the pretended workers
fall back on their equality, remind it that they had risen on the 10th
of August, and wish to massacre the commissioners. It is not until the
2nd of November that they are finally dismissed with an allowance of
three sous per league mileage for those of the departments. Enough,
however, remain in Paris to increase immeasurably the troop of drones
which, accustomed to consuming the store of honey, think they have a
right to be paid by the public for buzzing around the State.

As a rear-guard, they have "the rabble of the suburbs of Paris,
which flocks in at every tap of the drum because it hopes to make
something."[3397] As advance-guard they have "brigands," while the front
ranks contain "all the robbers in Paris, which the faction has enrolled
in its party to use when required;" the second ranks are made up of "a
number of former domestics, the bullies of gambling-houses and of houses
of ill-fame, all the vilest class."[3398]--Naturally, lost women form a
part of the crowd "Citoyennes," Henriot says, addressing the prostitutes
of the Palais-Royal, whom he has assembled in its garden, "citoyennes,
are you good republicans?" "Yes, general, yes!" "Have you, by chance,
any refractory priest, any Austrian, any Prussian, concealed in your
apartments?" "Fie, fie! We have nobody but sans-culottes!"[3399]--Along
with these are the thieves and prostitutes out of the Châtelet and
Conciergerie, set at liberty and then enlisted by the September
slaughterers, under the command of an old hag named Rose Lacombe,[33100]
forming the usual audience of the Convention; on important days, seven
or eight hundred of these may be counted, sometimes two thousand,
stationed at the entrance and in the galleries, from nine o'clock in the
morning.[33101]--Male and female, "this anti-social vermin"[33102] thus
crawls around at the sessions of the Assembly, the Commune, the Jacobin
club, the revolutionary tribunal, the sections and one may imagine the
physiognomies it offers to view. "It would seem," says a deputy,[33103]
"as if every sink in Paris and other great cities had been scoured to
find whatever was foul, the most hideous, and the most infected....
Ugly, cadaverous features, black or bronzed, surmounted with tufts
of greasy hair, and with eyes sunken half-way into the head.... They
belched forth with their nauseous breath the grossest insults amidst
sharp cries like those of carnivorous animals." Among them there can be
distinguished "the September murderers, whom" says an observer[33104]
in a position to know them, "I can compare to nothing but lazy tigers
licking their paws, growling and trying to find a few more drops of
blood just spilled, awaiting a fresh supply." Far from hiding away they
strut about and show themselves. One of them, Petit-Mamain, son of an
innkeeper at Bordeaux and a former soldier, "with a pale, wrinkled face,
sharp eyes and bold air, wearing a scimitar at his side and pistols at
his belt," promenades the Palais-Royal[33105] "accompanied or followed
at a distance by others of the same species," and "taking part in every
conversation." "It was me," he says, "who ripped open La Lamballe and
tore her heart out.... All I have to regret is that the massacre
was such a short one. But we shall have it over again. Only wait
a fortnight!" and, thereupon, he calls out his own name in
defiance.--Another, who has no need of stating his well-known name,
Maillard, president of the Abbaye massacres, has his head-quarters at
the café Chrétien,[33106] Rue Favart, from which, guzzling drams of
brandy, "he dispatches his mustached men, sixty-eight cutthroats, the
terror of the surrounding region;" we see them in coffee-houses and
in the foyers of the theaters "drawing their huge sabers," and telling
inoffensive people: "I am Mr. so and so; if you look at me with contempt
I'll cut you down!--A few months more and, under the command of one
of Henriot's aids, a squad of this band will rob and toast (chauffer)
peasants in the environment of Corbeil and Meaux.[33107] In the
meantime, even in Paris, they toast, rob, and rape on grand occasions.
On the 25th and 26th of February, 1793,[33108] they pillage wholesale
and retail groceries, "save those belonging to Jacobins," in the Rue des
Lombards, Rue des Cinq-Diamants, Rue Beaurepaire, Rue Montmartre, in
the Ile Saint-Louis, on the Port-au-Blé, before the Hôtel-de-ville, Rue
Saint-Jacques, in short, twelve hundred of them, not alone articles of
prime necessity, soap and candles, but again, sugar, brandy, cinnamon,
vanilla, indigo and tea. "In the Rue de la Bourdonnaie, a number of
persons came out with loaves of sugar they had not paid for and which
they re-sold." The affair was arranged beforehand, the same as on the
5th of October, 1789; among the women are seen "several men in disguise
who did not even take the precaution of shaving," and in many places,
thanks to the confusion, they heartily abandon themselves to it. With
his feet in the fire or a pistol at his head, the master of the house
is compelled to give them "gold, money, assignats and jewels," only too
glad if his wife and daughters are not raped before his eyes as in a
town taken by assault.




VII. The Jacobin Chieftains.

     The make up of the rulers.--The nature and scope of their
     intellect.--The political views of M. Saule.

Such are the politicians who, after the last months of the year 1792,
rule over Paris, and, through Paris, over the whole of France, five
thousand brutes and blackguards with two thousand hussies, just about
the number a good police force would expel from the city, were it
important to give the capital a cleaning out;[33109] they too, were
convinced of their rights, all the more ardent in their revolutionary
faith, because the creed converts their vices into virtues, and
transforms their misdeeds into public services.[33110] They are the
actual sovereign people, this is why we should try to unravel their
innermost thoughts. If we truly are to comprehend the past events we
must discern the spontaneous feelings moving them on the trial of the
King, the defeat of Neerwinden, at the defection of Dumouriez, on the
insurrection in La Vendée, at the accusation of Marat, the arrest of
Hébert, and each of the dangers which in turn fall on their heads. For,
this is not borrowed emotion; it does not descend from above; they are
not a trusty army of disciplined soldiers, but a suspicious accumulation
of temporary adherents. To command them requires obedience to them,
their leaders always remaining their tool. However popular and firmly
established a chief may seem to be, he is there only for a short
time, at all times subject to their approval as the bullhorn for their
passions and the purveyor to their appetites.[33111] Such was Pétion in
July, 1792, and such is Marat since the days of September. "One Marat
more or less (which will soon be seen) would not change the course
of events."[33112]--"But one only would remain,[33113] Chaumette, for
instance; one would suffice to lead the horde," because it is the horde
itself which leads. "Its attachment will always be awarded to whoever
shows a disposition to follow it the closest in its outrages without in
any respect caring for its former leaders... Its liking for Marat and
Robespierre is not so great as for those who will exclaim, Let us kill,
let us plunder!" Let the leader of the day stop following the current of
the day, and he will be crushed as an obstacle or cast off as a piece of
wreckage.--Judge if they are willing to be entangled in the spider's
web which the Girondins put in their way. Instead of the metaphysical
constitution with which the Girondins confront them, they have one in
their own head ready made, simple to the last point, adapted to their
capacity and their instincts. The reader will call to mind one of their
chiefs, whom we have already met, M. Saule, "a stout, stunted little
old man, drunk all his life, formerly an upholsterer, then a peddler of
quackeries in the shape of four-penny boxes of hangman's grease, to
cure pains in the loins,[33114] afterwards chief of the claque in the
galleries of the Constituent Assembly and driven out for rascality,
restored under the Legislative Assembly, and, under the protection of a
groom of the Court, favored with a spot near the Assembly door, to
set up a patriotic coffee-shop, then awarded six hundred francs as a
recompense, provided with national quarters, appointed inspector of the
tribunes, a regulator of public opinion, and now "one of the madcaps
of the Corn-market." Such a man is typical, an average specimen of his
party, not only in education, character and conduct, but, again, in
ambition, principles, logic and success. "He swore that he would make
his fortune, and he did it. His constant cry was that nobles and priests
should be put down, and we no longer have either. He has constantly
shouted against the civil list, and the civil list has been suppressed.
At last, lodged in the house belonging to Louis XVI., he told him to his
face that his head ought to be struck off, and the head of Louis XVI.
has fallen."--Here, in a nutshell, is the history and the portrait
of all the others; it is not surprising that genuine Jacobins see the
Revolution in the same way as M. Saule,[33115]

* when, for them, the sole legitimate Constitution is the definitive
establishment of their omnipotence;

* when they designate as order and justice the boundless despotism they
exercise over property and life;

* when their instinct, as narrow and violent as that of a Turkish bey,
comprises only extreme and destructive measures, arrests, deportations,
confiscations, executions, all of which is done with head erect, with
delight as if a patriotic duty, by right of a moral priesthood, in the
name of the people, either directly and tumultuously with their
own hands, or indirectly and legally by the hands of their docile
representatives.

This is the sum of their political system, from which nothing will
detach them; for they are anchored fast to it with the full weight and
with every hold upon it that characterizes their immorality, ignorance
and folly. Through the hypocritical glitter of compulsory parades, their
one fixed idea imposes itself on the orator that he may utter it in
tirades, on the legislator that he may put it into decrees, on the
administrator that he may put it in practice, and, from their opening
campaign up to their final victory, they will tolerate but one
variation, and this variation is trifling. In September, 1792, they
declare by their acts:

"Those whose opinions are opposed to ours will be assassinated, and
their gold, jewels and pocketbooks will belong to us."

In November, 1793, they are to declare through the official inauguration
of the revolutionary government:

"those whose opinions differ from ours will be guillotined and we shall
be their heirs."[33116]

Between this program, which is supported by the Jacobin population
and the program of the Girondins which the majority in the Convention
supports, between Condorcet's Constitution and the summary articles
of M. Saule, it is easy to see which will prevail. "These Parisian
blackguards," says a Girondist, "take us for their valets![33117] Let a
valet contradict his master and he is sure to lose his place. From the
first day, when the Convention in a body traversed the streets to begin
its sessions, certain significant expressions enabled it to see into
what hands it had fallen:

"Why should so many folks come here to govern France," says a bystander,
"haven't we enough in Paris?"[33118]


*****


[Footnote 3301: Any contempory Western reader take notice!! The proof
of any Jacobin or Socialist or Communist take-over, surreptitious or
open-handed, lies in their take-over of the important posts in politics,
the judicial system, the media and the administration. They may be years
in doing this, placing convinced or controlled men and women, first in
the faculties, later in career post, so that they, 30 years later, have
their people on all leading posts; or they may do it all at once, like
the Jacobins in France, Lenin in Russia or Stalin in the conquered
territories after the second world war. (SR).]

[Footnote 3302: Duvergier, "Collection des lois et décrets," decrees
of Sept. 22 and Oct. 19, 1792. The electoral assemblies and clubs had
already proceeded in many places to renew on their own authority the
decree rendering their appointments valid.]

[Footnote 3303: The necessity of placing Jacobins everywhere is well
shown in the following letter: "Please designate by a cross, on the
margin of the jury-panel for your district, those Jacobins that it will
do to put on the list of 200 for the next quarter. We require patriots."
(Letter from the attorney-general of Doubs, Dec. 23, 1792. Sauzay, III.
220.)]

[Footnote 3304: Pétion, "Mémoires" (Ed. Dauban), p. 118: "The justice
who accompanied me was very talkative, but could not speak a word of
French. He told me that he had been a stone-cutter before he became a
justice, having taken this office on patriotic grounds. He wanted to
draw up a statement and give me a guard of two gendarmes; he did not
know how, so I dictated to him what to say; but my patience was severely
taxed by his incredibly slow writing."]

[Footnote 3305: Decrees of July 6, Aug. 15 and 20, Sept. 26, 1792.]

[Footnote 3306: Decree of Nov. 1, 1792.--Albert Babeau, II. 14, 39, 40.]

[Footnote 3307: Dumouriez, III. 309, 355.--Miot de Melito, "Mémoires,"
I.31, 33.--Gouverneur Morris, letter of Feb. 14, 1793: "The state of
disorganization appears to be irremediable. The venality is such
that, if there be no traitors, it is because the enemy have not common
sense."]

[Footnote 3308: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3268. Letter of the municipal
officers of Rambouillet, Oct. 3, 1792. They denounce a petition of the
Jacobins of the town, who strive to deprive forty foresters of their
places, nearly all with families, "on account of their once having been
in the pay of a perjured king."--Arnault ("Souvenirs d'un sexagénaire"),
II. 15. He resigns a small place he had in the assignate manufacture,
because, he says, "the most insignificant place being sought for, he
found himself exposed to every kind of denunciation."]

[Footnote 3309: Dumouriez, III. 339.--Meillan, "Mémoires," 27. "Eight
days after his installation as Minister of War, Beurnonville confessed
to me that he had been offered sums to the amount of 500,000 francs
to lend himself to embezzlements." He tries to sweep out the vermin of
stealing employees, and is forthwith denounced by Marat.--Barbaroux,
"Mémoires" (Ed. Dauban). (Letter of Feb. 5, 1793.) "I found the Minister
of the Interior in tears at the obstinacy of Vieilz, who wanted him to
violate the law of Oct. 12, 1791 (on promotion)." Vieilz had been in the
service only four months, instead of five years, as the law required,
and the Minister did not dare to make an enemy of a man of so much
influence in the clubs. Buchez et Roux, XXVIII.19 ("Publication des
pièces relatives au 31 Mai," at Caen, by Bergoing, June 28, 1793): "My
friend learned that the place had been given to another, who had paid
50 louis to the deputy.--The places in the bureaus, the armies, the
administrations and commissions are estimated at 9,000. The deputies
of the Mountain have exclusive disposal of them and set their price
on them, the rates being almost publicly stated." The number greatly
increases during the following year (Mallet du Pan, II.56, March, 1794).
"The public employees at the capital alone amount to 35,000."]

[Footnote 3310: Decree of Aug. 11, 12, 1792.]

[Footnote 3311: Sauzay, III. 45. The number increases from 3,200 to
7,000.]

[Footnote 3312: Durand-Maillane, "Mémoires," p. 30: "This proceeding
converted the French proletariat, which had no property or tenacity,
into the dominant party at electoral assemblages.... The various clubs
established in France (were) then masters of the elections." In the
Bouches-du-Rhône "400 electors in Marseilles, one-sixth of whom had
not the income of a silver marc, despotically controlled our Electoral
Assembly. Not a voice was allowed to be raised against them... Only
those were elected whom Barbaroux designated."]

[Footnote 3313: Decree of Aug. 11, 12, "Archives Nationales," CII. 58
to 76. Official report of the Electoral Assembly of the Rhône-et-Loire,
held at Saint-Etienne. The electors of Saint-Etienne demand remuneration
the same as the others, considering that they gave their time in the
same way. Granted.]

[Footnote 3314: "Archives Nationales," CII. 1 to 32. Official report
of the Electoral Assembly of the Bouches-du-Rhône, speech by
Durand-Maillane: "Could I in the National Convention be otherwise than I
have been in relation to the former Louis XVI., who, after his flight
on the 22d of June, appeared to me unworthy of the throne? Can I do
otherwise than abhor royalty, after so many of our regal crimes?"]

[Footnote 3315: Moniteur, XIII. 623, session of Sept. 8, speech by
Larivière.--"Archives Nationales," CII., 1 to 83. (The official reports
make frequent mention of the dispatch of this comparative lists, and
the Jacobins who send it request the Electoral Assembly to have it read
forthwith.)]

[Footnote 3316: Rétif de la Bretonne, "Les Nuits de Paris," Night X. p.
301: "As soon as the primary assemblies had been set up, the plotters
began to work, electors were nominated, and through the vicious system
adopted in the sections, an uproar made it out for a majority of
voices."--Cf. Schmidt, "Tableaux de la Révolution Française," I. 98.
Letter of Damour, vice-president of the section of the Théatre-Français,
Oct.29.--" Un Séjour en France," p.29: "The primary assemblies have
already begun in this department (Pas-de-Calais). We happened to enter a
church, where we found young Robespierre haranguing an audience as small
in point of number as it was in that of respectability. They applauded
vigorously as if to make up for their other shortcomings."]

[Footnote 3317: Albert Babeau, I. 518. At Troyes, Aug.26, the
revolutionaries in most of the sections have it decided that the
relations of an émigré, designated as hostages and the signers of
royalist addresses, shall not be entitled to vote: "The sovereign people
in their primary assembly may admit among its members only pure citizens
against whom there is not the slightest reproach" (resolution of the
Madeleine section).--Sauzay, III. 47, 49 and following pages. At Quinsy,
Aug. 26, Lout, working the Chattily furnaces, along with a hundred of
his men armed with clubs, keeps away from the ballot-box the electors
of the commune of Courcelles, "suspected of incivisme. "--" Archives
Nationales," F7, 3217. Letters of Gilles, justice an the canton of
Roquemaure (Gard), Oct. 31, 1792, and Jan. 23, 1793, on the electoral
proceedings employed in this canton: Dutour, president of the club, left
his chair to support the motion for "lanterning" the grumpy and all the
false patriots... On the 4th of November "he forced contributions
by threatening to cut off heads and destroy houses." He was elected
juge-de-paix.--Another, Magère, "approved of the motion for setting up
a gallows, provided that it was not placed in front of his windows, and
stated openly in the club that if people followed the law they would
never accomplish anything to be remembered." He was elected member of
the department directory.--A third, Fournier, "wrote that the gifts
which citizens made to save their lives were voluntary gifts." He is
made a department councilor. "Peaceable citizens are storing their
furniture in safe places in order to take to flight... There is no
security in France; the epithet of aristocrat, of Feuillant, of moderate
affixed to the most honest citizen's name is enough to make him an
object of spoliation and to expose him to losing his life... I insist
on regarding the false idea which is current in relation to popular
sovereignty as the principal cause of the existing anarchy."]

[Footnote 3318: Schmidt, "Pariser Zustande," I. 50 and following
pages.--Mortimer-Ternaux, V. 95. 109, 117, 129. (Ballot of Oct. 4,
14,137 voters; Oct. 22, 14,006; Nov.19, 10,223, Dec. 6, 7062.)]

[Footnote 3319: Sauzay, III. 45, 46, 221.--Albert Babeau, I.
517.--Lallié, "Le district de Machecoul," 225.--Cf. in the above the
history of the elections 'of Saint-Affrique: out of more than 600
registered electors the mayor and syndic-attorney are elected by forty
votes.--The plebiscite of September, 1795, on the constitution of the
year III. calls out only 958,000 voters. Repugnance to voting still
exists. "Ninety times out of a hundred, on asking: 'Citizen, how did the
Electoral Assembly of your canton go off?' they would reply (in patois):
'Me, citizen? why should I go there? They have a good deal of trouble
in getting along together.' Or, 'What would you? Only a few will come;
honest people will stay at home!'" (Meissner, "Voyage à Paris," towards
the end of 1795.)]

[Footnote 3320: Stalin easily found a remedy. He obliged all to vote and
falsified the count so that 99% now voted for him and his men. (SR).]

[Footnote 3321: "Archives Nationales," CII. 1 to 76, passim, especially
the official reports of the assemblies of the Bouches-du-Rhône,
Hérault and Paris. Speech by Barbaroux to the Electoral Assembly of the
Bouches-du-Rhône: "Brothers and friends, liberty will perish if you do
not elect men to the National Convention whose hearts are filled with
hatred of royalty... Mine is the soul of a freeman; ever since my fourth
year it has been nourished on hatred to kings. I will relieve France
from this detestable race, or I will die in the attempt. Before I leave
you I will sign my own death-warrant, I will designate what I love most,
I will show you all my possessions, I will lay a dagger on the table
which shall pierce my heart if ever for an instant I prove false to the
cause of the people!" (session of Sept. 3).--Guillon de Montléon, I,
135.]

[Footnote 3322: Durand-Maillane, I.33. In the Electoral Assembly of the
Bouches-du-Rhône "there was a desire to kill an elector suspected of
aristocracy."]

[Footnote 3323: Mortimer-Ternaux, IV. 52. "Archives Nationales," CII. I
to 32.--Official report of the Electora1 Assembly of Bouches-du-Rhône.
Speech by Pierre Bayle, Sept. 3: "That man is not free who tries to
conceal his conscience in the shadow of a vote. The Romans openly
elected their tribunes... Who amongst us would reject so wise a measure?
The galleries of the National Assembly have had as much to do
with fostering the Revolution as the bayonets of patriots. "--In
Seine-et-Marne the Assembly at first decided for the secret vote; at the
request of the Paris commissaries, Ronsin and Lacroix, it rescinds its
decision and adopts voting aloud and by call.]

[Footnote 3324: Barbaroux, "Mémoires," 379: "One day, on proceeding
to the elections, tumultuous shouts break out: 'That is an
anti-revolutionary from Arles, hang him!' An Arlesian had, indeed,
been arrested on the square, brought into the Assembly, and they were
lowering the lantern to run him up."]

[Footnote 3325: Mortimer-Ternaux, III. 338.--De Sybel, "Histoire de
l'Europe pendant la Révolution Française" (Dosquet's translation), I.
525. (Correspondence of the army of the South, letter by Charles de
Hesse, commanding the regular troops at Lyons.)]

[Footnote 3326: Mortimer-Ternaux, V.101, 122 and following pages.]

[Footnote 3327: Guillon de Montléon, I. 172, 196 and following pages.]

[Footnote 3328: Sauzay, III. 220 and following pages.--Albert Babeau,
II. 15. At Troyes, two mayors elected refuse in turn. At the third
ballot in this town of from 32,000 to 35,000 souls, the mayor-elect
obtains 400 out of 555 votes.]

[Footnote 3329: Moniteur, XV. 184 to 233 (the roll-call of those who
voted for the death of Louis XVI).--Dumouriez, II. 73 (Dumouriez reaches
Paris Feb. 2, 1793, after visiting the coasts of Dunkirk and Antwerp):
"All through Picardy, Artois, and maritime Flanders Dumouriez found the
people in consternation at the tragic end of Louis XVI. He noticed that
the very name of Jacobin excited horror as well as fear."]

[Footnote 3330: This number, so important, is verified by the following
passages:--Moniteur, session of Dec. 39, 1792. Speech by Birotteau:
"Fifty members against 690... About twenty former nobles, fifteen or
twenty priests, and a dozen September judges (want to prevail against)
700 deputies."--Ibid., 851 (Dec.26, on the motion to defer the trial
of the king): "About fifty voices, with energy, No! no!"--Ibid., 865,
(Dec.27, a violent speech by Lequinio, applauded by the extreme "Left"
and the galleries; the president calls them to order): "The
applause continues of about fifty members of the extreme 'Left.'
"--Mortimer-Ternaux, VI. 557. (Address by Tallien to the Parisians,
Dec.23, against the banishment of the Duke of Orleans): "To-morrow,
under the vain pretext of another measure of general safety, the 60 or
80 members who on account of their courageous and inflexible adherence
to principles are offensive to the Brissotine faction, will be driven
out."--Moniteur, XV. 74 (Jan. 6). Robespierre, addressing Roland, utters
this expression: "the factious ministers." "Cries of Order! A vote
of censure! To the Abbaye/ 'Is the honest minister whom all France
esteems,' says a member, 'to be treated in this way?'--Shouts of
laughter greet the exclamation from about sixty members."--Ibid.,
XV. 114. (Jan. 11). Denunciation of the party of anarchists by Buzot.
Garnier replies to him: "You calumniate Paris; you preach civil war!"
"Yes! yes! 'exclaim about sixty members.--Buchez et Roux, XXIV. 368
(Feb. 26). The question is whether Marat shall be indicted. "Murmurs
from the extreme left, about a dozen members noisily demanding the order
of the day."]

[Footnote 3331: Mercier, "Le nouveau Paris," II. 200.]

[Footnote 3332: Buchez et Roux, XIX. 17. XXVIII. 168.--The king is
declared guilty by 683 votes; 37 abstain from voting, as judges; of
these 37, 26, either as individuals or legislators, declare the king
guilty. None of the other 11 declare him innocent.]

[Footnote 3333: "Dictionnaire biographique," by Eymery, 1807 (4 vols).
The situation of the conventionists who survive the Revolution may
here be ascertained. Most of them will become civil or criminal
judges, prefects, commissaries of police, heads of bureaus, post-office
employees, or registry clerks, collectors, review-inspectors, etc. The
following is the proportion of regicides among those thus in office: Out
of 23 prefects 21 voted for the king'' death; 42 out of 43 magistrates
voted for it, the 43rd being ill at the time of the sentence. Of 5
senators 4 voted for his death, and 14 deputies out of 16. Out of 36
other functionaries of various kinds 35 voted for death. Among the
remaining regicides we again find 2 councillors of state, 4
diplomatic agents and consuls, 2 generals, 2 receiver-generals, 1
commissary-general of the police, 1 minister in the cabinet of King
Joseph, the minister of police, and the arch-chancellor of the empire.]

[Footnote 3334: Buchez et Roux, XIX, 97, session of Sept. 25, 1792.
Marat states: "'I have many personal enemies in this assembly.' 'All!
all!' exclaim the entire Assembly, indignantly rising."--Ibid., XIX. 9,
49, 63, 338.]

[Footnote 3335: "Right" and "Left", only refers to the right and left
wings of the hemicycles of the hall in which the Assembly meets. The
Plain and the Mountain refer to the same Assembly but here to those on
the lower or the upper benches.(SR).]

[Footnote 3336: Meillan, "Mémoires," 20.--Buchez et Roux, XXVI. Session
of April 15, 1793. Denunciation of the Twenty-two Girondists by
the sections of Paris: Royer-Fonfrède regrets "that his name is not
inscribed on this honorable list. 'And all of us--all! All!' exclaim
three-quarters of the Assembly, rising from their seats."]

[Footnote 3337: The Philosophe Denis Diderot (1713-84) was largely
responsible for the 28 volume Encyclopédie (1751-729, which incorporated
the latest knowledge and progressive ideas, and which helped spread
the ideas of the Enlightenment in France and in other parts of Europe.
(Guinness Encyclopedia).]

[Footnote 3338: "Archives Nationales," A.F. 45. Letter of Thomas Paine
to Danton, May 6, 1792 (in English). "I do not know better men or better
patriots." This letter, compared with the speeches or publications
of the day, produces a singular impression through its practical good
sense. This Anglo-American, however radical he may be, relies on nothing
but experience and example in his political discussions.]

[Footnote 3339: Cf. The memoirs of Buzot, Barbaroux, Louvet, Madame
Roland, etc.]

[Footnote 3340: And for some incomprehensible reason still in fashion at
the end of the 20th Century. (SR).]

[Footnote 3341: Buchez et Roux, XXIV. 102. (Plan drawn up by Condorcet,
and reported in the name of the Committee on the Constitution, April 15
and 16, 1793.) Condorcet adds to this a report of his own, of which he
publishes and abstract in the Chronique de Paris.]

[Footnote 3342: Buchez et Roux, XXIV. 102. Condorcet's abstract contains
the following extraordinary sentence: "In all free countries the
influence of the populace is feared with reason; but give all men the
same rights and there will be no populace."]

[Footnote 3343: Cf. Edmond Biré. "La Légende des Girondins," on the part
of the Girondists in all these odious measures.]

[Footnote 3344: These traits are well defined in the charges of
the popular party against them made by Fabre d'Eglantine. Maillan,
"Mémoires," 323. (Speech of Fabre d'Eglantine at the Jacobin Club in
relation to the address of the commune, demanding the expulsion of the
Twenty-Two.) "You have often taken the people to task; you have even
sometimes tried to flatter them; but there was about this flattery that
aristocratic air of coldness and dislike which could deceive nobody.
Your ways of a bourgeois patrician are always perceptible in your words
and acts; you never wanted to mix with the people. Here is your doctrine
in few words: after the people have served in revolutions they must
return to dust, be of no account, and allow themselves to be led by
those who know more than they and who are willing to take the trouble to
lead them. You, Brissot, and especially you, Pétion, you have received
us formally, haughtily, and with reserve. You extend to us one finger,
but you never grasp the whole hand. You have not even refused yourselves
that keen delight of the ambitious, insolence and disdain."]

[Footnote 3345: Buzot, "Mémoires," 78.]

[Footnote 3346: Edmond Biré, "La légende des Girondins." (Inedited
fragments of the memoirs of Pétion and Barbaroux, quoted by Vatel in
"Charlotte Corday and the Girondists," III. 472, 478.)]

[Footnote 3347: Buchez et Roux, XXVI. A financial plan offered by the
department of Hérault adopted by Cambon and rejected by the Girondists.]

[Footnote 3348: Buchez et Roux, XXV. Speech by Vergniaud (April 10),
pp. 376, 377, 378. "An effort is made to accomplish the Revolution by
terror. I would accomplish it through love."]

[Footnote 3349: Maillan, 22.]

[Footnote 3350: Buchez et Roux, XXIV. 109. Plan of a constitution
presented by Condorcet. Declaration of rights, article 32. "In every
free government the mode of resistance to different acts of oppression
should be regulated by law."--Ibid., 136. Title VIII. Of the
Constitution "De la Censure des lois."]

[Footnote 3351: Buchez et Roux, 93. Session of the Jacobin Club, April
21, 1793.]

[Footnote 3352: Schmidt, "Tableaux de la révolution Française," II.4
(Report of Dutard, June 6, 1793.)--The mental traits of the Jacobins
form a contrast and are fully visible in the following speeches: "We
desire despotically a popular constitution." (Address of the Paris
Jacobin Club to the clubs in the departments, Jan. 7, 1793.)--Buchez
et Roux, XXIII. 288--Ibid., 274. (Speech by Legros in the Jacobin Club,
Jan. 1.) "Patriots are not counted; they go by weight... One patriot in
a scale weights more than 100,000 aristocrats. One Jacobin weights
more than 10,000 Feuillants. One republican weights more than 100,000
monarchists. One patriot of the Mountain weights more than 100,000
Brissotins. Hence I conclude that the convention should not be stopped
by the large number of votes against the death-sentence of Louis XVI.,
(and that) even (if there should be) but a minority of the nation
desiring Capet's death."--"Applauded." (I am obliged to correct the last
sentence, as it would otherwise be obscure.)]

[Footnote 3353: Buzot, "Mémoires," 33: "The majority of French people
yearned after royalty and the Constitution of 1790. This was the
strongest feeling, and especially at Paris.. This people is only
republican because it is threatened by the guillotine.. All its desires,
all its hopes incline to the constitution of 1791."--Schmidt, I. 232
(Dutard, May 16). Dutard, an old advocate and friend of Garat, is one
of those rare men who see facts behind words; clear-sighted, energetic,
active, abounding in practical counsels, and deserving of a better chief
than Garat.]

[Footnote 3354: Schmidt, ibid., I. 173, 179 (May 1, 1793).]

[Footnote 3355: "La Démagogie à en Paris en 1793," p.152. Dauban
("Diurnal de Beaulieu," April 17).--"Archives Nationales," AF II. 45
(report by the police, May 20). "The dearness of supplies is the leading
cause of agitation and complaints."--(Ib., May 24). "The calm which now
appear to prevail in Paris will soon be disturbed if the prices of the
prime necessities of life do not shortly diminish."--(Ibid., May 25).
"Complaints against dear food increase daily end this circumstance looks
as if it might become one of the motives of forthcoming events."]

[Footnote 3356: Schmidt, I. 198 (Dutard, May 9).]

[Footnote 3357: Schmidt, I. 350; II. 6 (Dutard, May 30, June 7 and 8).]

[Footnote 3358: Durand-Maillane,100: "The Girondist party was yet more
impious than Robespierre."--A deputy having demanded that mention
should be made of the Supreme Being in the preamble of the constitution,
Vergniaud replied: "We have no more to do with Numa's nymph than
with Mahomet's pigeon; reason is sufficient to give France a good
constitution."--Buchez et Roux, XIII. 444. Robespierre having spoken of
the Emperor Leopold's death as a stroke of Providence, Guadet replies
that he sees "no sense in that idea," and blames Robespierre for
"endeavoring to return the people to slavery of superstition."--Ibid.,
XXVI. 63 (session of April 19, 1793). Speech by Vergniaud against
article IX of the Declaration of Rights, which states that "all men are
free to worship as they please." This article, says Vergniaud, "is a
result of the despotism and superstition under which we have so long
languished."--Salle: "I ask the Convention to draw up an article by
which each citizen, whatever his form of worship, shall bind himself
to submit to the law "--Lanjuinais, who often ranked along with the
Girondists, is a Catholic and confirmed Gallican.]

[Footnote 3359: Schmidt, I. 347 (Dutard, May 30). "What do I now behold?
A discontented people hating the Convention, all its administrators, and
the actual state of things generally."]

[Footnote 3360: Schmidt, I. 278. (Dutard, May 23).]

[Footnote 3361: Schmidt, I. 216 (Dutard, May 13).]

[Footnote 3362: Schmidt, I. 240 (Dutard, May 17).]

[Footnote 3363: Schmidt, I. 217 (Dutard, May 13).]

[Footnote 3364: Schmidt, I. 163 (Dutard, April 30).]

[Footnote 3365: Schmidt, II. 377 (Dutard, June 13). Cf. Ibid., II. 80.
(Dutard, June 21): "If the guillotining of the Thirty-Two were
subject to a roll call, and the vote a secret one I declare to you no
respectable man would fail to hasten in from the country to give his
vote and that none of those now in Paris would fail to betake themselves
to their section."]

[Footnote 3366: Schmidt, II. 35 (Dutard, June 13). On the sense of these
two words, inferior aristocracy, Cf. All of Dutard's reports and those
of other observers in the employ of Garat.]

[Footnote 3367: Schmidt, II. 37 (Dutard, June 13).]

[Footnote 3368: Schmidt, I. 328 (Perrière, May 28): "Intelligent men
and property-owners abandoned the section assemblies and handed them to
others as these were places where the workman's fist prevailed against
the speaker's tongue."--Moniteur. XV. 114 (session of Jan. 11, speech by
Buzot). "There is not a man in this town who owns anything, that is not
afraid of being insulted and struck in his section if he dares raise
his voice against the ruling power... The permanent assemblies of Paris
consist of a small number of men who have succeeded in keeping other
citizens away."--Schmidt, I. 235 (Dutard, May 28): "Another plan
would be to drill young men in the use of the staff. One must be a
sans-culotte, must live with sans-culottes, to discover the value of
expedients of this kind. There is nothing the sans-culotte fears as
much as a truncheon. A number of young men lately carried them in their
trousers, and everybody trembled as they passed. I wished that the
fashion were general."]

[Footnote 3369: Moniteur, XV. 95 (Letter of Charles Villette, deputy).]

[Footnote 3370: Moniteur, XV. 179 (Letter of Roland, Jan. 11. 1793).]

[Footnote 3371: Moniteur, XV. 66, session of Jan. 5, speech of the
mayor of Paris; (Chambon)--Ib., XV 114, session of Jan. 14, speech by
Buzot;----Ib., XV. 136, session of Jan. 13. Speech by a deputation of
Federates.--Buchez et Roux, XXVIII. 91 (Letter of Gadolle to Roland,
October, 1792).--XXI. 417 (Dec. 20, article by Marat): "Boredom and
disgust have emptied the assemblies."--Schmidt, II, 69 (Dutard, June
18).]

[Footnote 3372: Schmidt, I. 203. (Dutard, May 10). The engravings
published during the early period of the Revolution and under the
directory exhibit this scene perfectly (cabinet des estampes, Paris).]

[Footnote 3373: Moniteur, XV. 67 (session of Jan. 5, 1793). Speech by
the mayor of Paris.]

[Footnote 3374: Schmidt, I. 378 (Blanc, June 12).]

[Footnote 3375: Schmidt, II. 5 (Dutard, June 5).]

[Footnote 3376: Schmidt, II. (Dutard, June 11)--Ibid., II. (Dutard, June
i8): "I should like to visit with you," if it were possible, "the 3,000
or 4,000 wine-dealers, and the equally numerous places of refreshment in
Paris; you would find the 15,000 clerks they employ constantly busy. If
we should then go to the offices of the 114 notaries, we should again
find two-thirds of these gentlemen in their caps and red slippers, also
very much engaged. We might then, again, go to the 200 or 300
printing establishments, where we should find 4,000 or 5,000 editors,
compositors, clerks, and porters all conservatized because they no
longer earn what they did before; and some because they have made a
fortune."--The incompatibility between modern life and direct democratic
rule strikes one at every step, owing to modern life being carried out
under other conditions than those which characterized life in ancient
times. For modern life these conditions are, the magnitude of States,
the division of labor, the suppression of slavery and the requirements
of personal comforts and prosperity. Neither the Girondists nor the
Montagnards, who aimed to revive Athenian and Spartan ways, comprehended
the precisely opposite conditions on which Athens and Sparta
flourished.]

[Footnote 3377: Schmidt, I. 207 (Dutard, May 10).]

[Footnote 3378: Schmidt, II. 79 (Dutard, June 19).]

[Footnote 3379: Schmidt, II.70 (Dutard, June 10).]

[Footnote 3380: Lenin must have felt encouraged by reading these lines
which can only have increase his disdain for the "capitalist" and
bourgeoisie. (SR).]

[Footnote 3381: Mortimer-Ternaux, V. 101.]

[Footnote 3382: Meillan, 54.--Raffet, Henriot's competitor and denounced
as an aristocrat, had at first the most votes, 4,953 against 4,578. At
the last ballot, out of about 15,000 he still has 5,900 against 9,087
for Henriot.--Mortimer-Ternaux, VIII. 31: "The electors had to vote
thirty at a time. All who dared give their votes to Raffet were
marked with a red cross on the roll-call, followed by the epithet of
anti-revolutionary."]

[Footnote 3383: Schmidt, II. 37 (Dutard, June 13): "Marat and others
have a party of from 4,000 to 6,000 men, who would do anything to
rescue them."--Meillan, 155 (depositions taken by the Commission of
the Twelve): Laforet has stated that there were 6,000 sans-culottes to
massacre objectionable deputies at the first signal.--Schmidt, II, 87
(Dutard, June 24): "I know that there are not in all Paris 3,000 decided
revolutionaries."]

[Footnote 3384: Moniteur, XV. 114, session of Jan. 11, speech by
Buzot.--Ibid., 136, session of Jan. 13, speech of the Federates of
Finisterre.--Buchez et Roux, XXVIII. 80, 81, 87, 91, 93 (Letter of
Gadolle to Roland, October 1792).--Schmidt, I. 207 (Dutard, May 10,
1793).]

[Footnote 3385: Schmidt, II. 37 (Dutard, May 10, 1793).]

[Footnote 3386: Mortimer-Ternaux, IV. 269 (petition presented by
Gonchon.)--"Archives Nationales," AF, II 43. Letters of Gonchon to the
Minister Garat, (May 31, June 1, June 3, 1793). These are very odd and
naive. He addresses the Minister Garat: "Citizen Garra."]

[Footnote 3387: Schmidt, I, 254 (Dutard, May 19).--Moniteur, XIV. 522
(Letter addressed to Roland number for Nov. 21, 1792): "The sections
(are) composed of, or at least frequented, nineteen-twentieth of them,
by the lowest class, both in manners and information."]

[Footnote 3388: Schmidt, II. 39 (Dutard, June 13).]

[Footnote 3389: Schmidt, II.87 (Dutard, June 14). The expression of
these fish-women is still coarser.]

[Footnote 3390: Rétif de la Bretonne ("Bibliographie de ses oeuvres, par
Jacob," 287).--(On the pillage of shops, Feb.25 and 26, 1793).]

[Footnote 3391: Schmidt, II. 61; I. 265 (Dutard, May 21 and June 17).]

[Footnote 3392: Schmidt, I.96 (Letter of citizen Lauchou to the
president of the Convention, Oct. 11, 1792).--II. 37 (Dutard, June 13).
Statement of a wigmaker's wife: "They are a vile set, the servants.
Some of them come here every day. They chatter away and say all sorts of
horrible things about their masters. They are all just alike. Nobody is
crazier than they are. I knew that some of them had received benefits
from their masters, and others who were:still being kindly treated; but
nothing stopped them."]

[Footnote 3393: Schmidt, I. 246 (Dutard, May 18).--Grégoire, "Mémoires,"
I. 387. The mental and moral decline of the party is well shown in the
new composition of the Jacobin Club after September, 1792: "I went back
there," says Grégoire in September, 1792 (after a year's absence), "and
found it unrecognizable; no opinions could be expressed there other than
those of the Paris section... I did not set foot there again; (it was)
a factious disreputable drinking place."--Buchez et Roux, XXVI. 214
(session of April 30,1793, speech by Buzot). "Behold that once famous
club. But. thirty of its founders remain there; you find there none but
men steeped in debt and crime."]

[Footnote 3394: Schmidt, I. 189 (Dutard, May 6).]

[Footnote 3395: Cf. Rétif de la Bretonne, "Nuits de Paris," vol. XVI.
(July 12, 1789). At this date Rétif is in the Palais-Roya1, where "since
the 13th of June numerous meetings have been held and motions made... I
found there none but brutal fellows with keen eyes, preparing themselves
for plunder rather than for liberty."]

[Footnote 3396: Mortimer-Ternaux, V.226 and following pages (address of
the sans-culottes section, Sept. 25).--"Archives Nationales," F7, 146
(address of the Roule section, Sept. 23). In relation to the threatening
tone of those at work on the camp, the petitioners add: "Such was the
language of the workshops in 1789 and 1790."]

[Footnote 3397: Schmidt, II.12 (Dutard, June 7): "During a few days
past I have seen men from Neuilly, Versailles, and Saint-Germain staying
here, attracted by the scent."]

[Footnote 3398: Schmidt, I.254 (Dutard, May 19).--At this date robbers
swarm in Paris; Mayor Chambon, in his report to the Convention, himself
admits it (Moniteur, XV. 67, session of Jan. 5, 1793).]

[Footnote 3399: De Concourt, "La Société Française pendant 'a
Révolution." (According to the "Courrier de l'Egalité," Jul. 1793).]

[Footnote 33100: Buzot, 72.]

[Footnote 33101: Moore, Nov.10, 1792 (according to an article in the
Chronique de Paris). 'The day Robespierre made his "apology," "the
galleries contained from seven to eight hundred women, and two hundred
men at most. Robespierre is a priest who has his congregation of
devotees."----Mortimer-Ternaux, VII. 562 (letter of the deputy Michel,
May 20, 1793): "Two or three thousand women, organized and drilled
by the Fraternal Society in session at the Jacobin Club, began their
uproar. which lasted until 6 o'clock, when the house adjourned. Most of
these creatures are prostitutes."]

[Footnote 33102: An expression of Gadol's in his letter to Roland.]

[Footnote 33103: Buzot, 57.]

[Footnote 33104: Buchez et Roux, XXVIII. 80 (Letter of Gadolle to
Roland).]

[Footnote 33105: Beaulieu, "Essais," I. 108 (an eye-witness).--Schmidt,
II. 15. Report by Perrières, June 8.]

[Footnote 33106: Beaulieu, "Essais," I. 100. "Maillard died, his stomach
eaten away by brandy" (April 15, 1794).--Alexandre Sorel, "Stanislas
Maillard," pp. 32 to 42. Report of Fabre d'Eglantine on Maillard, Dec.
17, 1793. A decree subjecting him to indictment along with Ronsin and
Vincent, Maillard publishes his apology, in which we see that he was
already active in the Rue Favart before the 31st of May. "I am one of
the members of that meeting of true patriots and I am proud of it, for
it is there that the spark of that sacred insurrection of the 31st of
May was kindled."]

[Footnote 33107: Alexandre Sorel, ibid. (denunciation of the
circumstance by Lecointre, Dec.14, 1793 accompanied with official
reports of the justices).--"Archives Nationales," F7, 3268 (letter of
the directory of Corbeil to the Minister, with official report, Nov.
28,1792). On the 26th of November eight or ten armed men, foot-soldiers,
and others on horseback, entered the farm-house of a man named Ruelle,
in the commune of Lisse. They dealt him two blows with their sabers,
then put a bag over his head, kicked him in the face, tormented him, and
almost smothered his wife and two women servants, to make him give up
his money. A carter was shot with a pistol in the shoulder and twice
struck with a saber; the hands about the premises were tied and bound
like so many cattle. Finally the bandits went away, carrying with them
silver plate, a watch, rings, laces, two guns, etc.]

[Footnote 33108: Moniteur, XV. 565.--Buchez et Roux, XXIV. 335 and
following pages.--Rétif de la Bretonne, "Nuits de Paris," VIII. 460. (an
eye witness). The last of these details are given by him.]

[Footnote 33109: Cf. Ed. Fleury, "Baboeuf;" pp.139 and 150. Through a
striking coincidence the party staff is still of the same order in 1796.
Baboeuf estimates his adherents in Paris as "4,000 revolutionaries,
1,500 members of the former authorities, and 1,000 bourgeois gunners,"
besides soldiers, prisoners, and a police force. He also recruited a
good many prostitutes. The men who come to him are workmen who pretend
to have arsouillé in the Revolution and who are ready to repeat the
job, provided it is "for the purpose of killing those rich rascals, the
monopolizers, merchants, informers, and panachés at the Luxembourg."
(Letter of the agent of the Bonne-Nouvelle section, April 13, 1796.)]

[Footnote 33110: The proportion, composition and spirit of the party
are everywhere the same, especially at Lyons (Guillon de Montléon,
"Mémoires," and Balleydier, "Histoire du peuple de Lyon,". passim);
at Toulon (Lauvergne, "Histoire du department du Var"); at Marseilles,
Bordeaux, Toulouse, Strasbourg, Besançon, etc.--At Bordeaux (Riouffe,
"Mémoires," 23) "it consisted wholly of vagabonds, Savoyards, Biscayans,
even Germans,..brokers, and water-carriers, who had become so powerful
that they arrested the rich, and so well-off that they traveled by post"
Riouffe adds: "When I read this passage in the Conciergerie men from
every corner of the republic exclaimed in one voice: 'It is the same in
all the communes!'"--Cf. Durand-Maillane, "Mémoires," 67: "This people,
thus qualified, since the suppression of the silver marc has been the
most vicious and most depraved in the community."--Dumouriez, II. 51.
"The Jacobins, taken for the most part, from the most abject and most
brutal of the nation, unable to furnish men of sufficient dignity for
offices, have degraded offices to their own level... They are drunken,
barbarous Helots that have taken the places of the Spartans."--The sign
of their advent is the expulsion of the liberals and of the refined of
1789. ("Archives Nationales," F7, 4434, No.6. Letter of Richard to
the committee on Public Safety, Ventôse 3, year II.). During the
proconsulate of Baudot at Toulouse "almost all the patriots of 1789 were
excluded from the popular club they had founded; an immense number were
admitted whose patriotism reached only as far back as the 10th of
August 1792, if it even went so far as the 31st of last May. It is an
established fact that out of more than 1,000 persons who now compose the
club there are not fifty whose patriotism as far back as the beginning
of the Revolution."]

[Footnote 33111: Any tribune taking command of a mob of brutes is well
advised to understand Taine's analysis. One might think Hitler had read
Taine pr somebody who had learned from his wisdom, somewhat like the
Devil who had read the Bible. See page 208, The Secret of Ruling the
Masses, in Rauschning's book, "Hitler Speaks". (SR).]

[Footnote 33112: Roederer, "Chronique des cinquante jours."]

[Footnote 33113: Schmidt, I. 246 (Dutard, May 18).]

[Footnote 33114: Schmidt, I. 215 (Dutard, May 25).]

[Footnote 33115: Buchez et Roux, XXV. 156 (extract from the Patriote
Français, March 30, 1793).Speech by Chasles at the Jacobin Club, March
27: "We have announced to our fellow-citizens in the country that by
means of the war-tax the poor could be fed by the rich, and that they
would find in the purses of those egoists the wherewithal to live
on." Ibid., 269. Speech by Rose Lacombe: "Let us make sure of the
aristocrats; let us force them to meet the enemies which Dumouriez is
bringing against Paris. Let us give them to understand that if they
prove treacherous their wives and children shall have their throats cut,
and that we will burn their houses.. I do not want patriots to leave the
city; I want them to guard Paris. And if we are beaten, the first man
who hesitates to apply the torch, let him be stabbed at once. I want
all the owners of property who have grabbed everything and excited
the people's anger, to kill the tyrants themselves or else be killed."
Applause--April 3.:--Ibid., 302 (in the Convention, April
8): "Marat demands that 100,000 relatives and friends of the émigrés be
seized as hostages for the safety of the commissioners in the hands of
the enemy."--Cf. Balleydier, 117, 122. At Lyons, Jan. 26, 1793, Challier
addresses the central club: "Sans-culottes, rejoice! the blood of the
royal tiger has flowed in sight of his den! But full justice is not
yet done to the people There are still 500 among you deserving of the
tyrant's fate!"--He proposes on the 5th of February a revolutionary
tribunal for trying arrested persons in a revolutionary manner. "It
is the only way to force it (the Revolution) on royal and aristocratic
factionists, the only rational way to avenge the sovereignty of the
brave sans-culottes, who belong only to us."----Hydens, a national
commissioner adds: "Let 25,000,000 of Frenchmen perish a hundred times
over rather than one single indivisible Republic!"]

[Footnote 33116: Mallet du Pan, the last expression.]

[Footnote 33117: Buzot, 64.]

[Footnote 33118: Michelet, IV. 6 (according to an oral statement by
Daunou).--Buchez et Roux, 101 (Letter of Louvet to Roland): "At the
moment of the presentation of their petition against armed force
(departmental) by the so-called commissioners of the 48 sections of
Paris, I heard Santerre say in a loud tone to those around him,
somewhat in these words: 'You see, now, these deputies are not up to the
Revolution... That all comes from fifty, a hundred two hundred leagues
off; they don't understand one word you say!'"]





CHAPTER IV. PRECARIOUS SITUATION OF A CENTRAL GOVERNMENT LOCKED UP
WITHIN A LOCAL JURISDICTION.

"Citizen Danton," wrote the deputy Thomas Paine,[3401] "the danger,
every day increasing, is of a rupture between Paris and departments.
The departments did not send their deputies to Paris to be insulted, and
every insult shown to them is an insult to the department that elected
them. I see but one effective plan to prevent this rupture taking place,
and that is to fix the residence of the Convention and of the future
assemblies at a distance from Paris.... I saw, during the American
Revolution, the exceeding inconvenience that arose from having the
government of Congress within the limits of any municipal jurisdiction.
Congress first resided in Philadelphia, and, after a residence of four
years, it found it necessary to leave it. It then adjourned to the State
of Jersey. It afterwards removed to New York. It again removed from
New York to Philadelphia, and, after experiencing in every one of these
places the great inconvenience of a government within a government,
it formed the project of building a town not within the limits of any
municipal jurisdiction for the future residence of Congress. In every
one of the places where Congress resided, the municipal authority
privately or publicly opposed itself to the authority of Congress, and
the people of each of those places expected more attention from Congress
than their equal share with the other States amounted to. The same thing
now takes place in France, but in a greater excess."

Danton knew all this, and he is sufficiently clear-headed to comprehend
the danger; but the furrow is laid out, traced, and by himself.
Since the 10th of August Paris holds France down while a handful of
revolutionaries tyrannize Paris.[3402]




I.--Jacobin advantages.

     Their sway in the section assemblies.--Maintenance,
     re-election and completion of the Commune.--Its new chiefs,
     Chaumette, Hébert and Pache.--The National Guard recast.
     --Jacobins elected officers and sub-officers.--The paid band
     of roughs.--Public and secret funds of the party.

Owing to the composition and the holding of the section assemblies,
the original source of power has remained Jacobin, and has become of a
darker and darker hue; accordingly, the electoral processes which, under
the legislative body, had fashioned the usurping Commune of the 10th of
August, are perpetuated and aggravated under the Convention.[3403] "In
nearly all the sections[3404] it is the sans-culottes who occupy the
chair, arrange things inside the chamber, place the sentinels and
provide the censors and auditors. Five or six spies, familiar with the
section, and paid forty sous a day, remain during the session, and ready
to undertake any enterprise. These same individuals will take orders
from one Committee of Surveillance to another,.. so that if the
sans-culottes of one section are not strong enough they may call in
those of a neighboring section."--In such assemblies the elections are
decided beforehand, and we see how the faction keeps forcibly in its
hands, or obtains by force, every elective position. The Council of
the Commune, in spite of the hostile inclinations of the Legislative
Assembly and the Convention, succeeds at first in maintaining itself
four months; then, in December,[3405] when it is at last compelled
to break up, it reappears through the authorization of the suffrage,
reinforced and completed by its own class, with three chiefs, a
syndic-attorney, a deputy and a mayor, all three authors or abettors of
the September massacre; with Chaumette, Anaxagoras, so-called, once a
cabin-boy, then a clerk, always in debt, a windbag, and given to drink;
Hébert, called "Père Duchesne," which states about all that is necessary
for him; Pache, a subaltern busy-body, a bland, smooth-faced intriguer,
who, with his simple air and seeming worth, pushes himself up to
the head of the War Department, where he used all its resources for
pillaging, and who, born in a door-keeper's lodgings, returns there,
either through craft or inclination, to take his dinner.--The Jacobins,
with the civil power in their hands, also grab the military power.
Immediately after the 10th of August,[3406] the National Guard is
reorganized and distributed in as many battalions as there are sections,
each battalion thus becoming "a section in arms"; by this we may judge
its composition, and the kind of rabble-rousers they select as officers
and non-commissioned officers. "The title of National Guard," writes a
deputy, "can no longer be given to the lot of pikemen and substitutes,
mixed with a few bourgeois, who, since the 10th of August, maintain the
military service in Paris." There are, indeed, 110,000 names on paper;
when called out on important occasions, all who are registered may
respond, if not disarmed, but, in general, almost all stay at home and
pay a sans-culotte to mount guard in their place. In fact, there is
for the daily service only a hired reserve in each section, about one
hundred men, always the same individuals. This makes in Paris a band of
four or five thousand roughs, in which the squads may be distinguished
which have already been seen in September: Maillard and his 68 men at
the Abbaye, Gauthier and his 40 men at Chantilly, Audouin, the Sapper
of the Carmelites," and his 350 men in the suburbs of Paris, Fournier,
Lazowski and their 1,500 men at Orleans and Versailles.[3407] As to the
pay of these and that of their civil auxiliaries, the faction is not
troubled about that; for, along with power, it has seized money. To
say nothing of its rapine in September,[3408] and without including
the lucrative offices at its disposition, four hundred of these being
distributed by Pache alone, and four hundred more by Chaumette,[3409]
the Commune has 850,000 francs per month for its military police. Other
bleedings at the Treasury cause more public money to flow into the
pockets of its clients. One million per month supports the idle workmen
which fife and drum have collected together to form the camp around
Paris. Five millions of francs protect the petty tradesmen of the
capital against the depreciation in value of certificates of credit.
Twelve thousand francs a day keep down the price of bread for the Paris
poor.[3410] To these regularly allowed subsidies add the funds which
are diverted or extorted. On one side, in the War Department, Pache, its
accomplice before becoming its mayor, organizes a steady stream of waste
and theft; in three months he succeeds in bringing about a deficiency
of 130,000,000, "without vouchers."[3411] On another side, the Duke of
Orleans, become Philippe-Egalité, dragged along by the men once in his
pay, with a rope around his neck and almost strangled, has to pay out
more than ever, even down to the very depths of his purse; to save his
own life he consents to vote for the King's death, besides resigning
himself to other sacrifices;[3412] it is probable that a large portion
of his 74,000,000 of indebtedness at his death is due to all this.--Thus
in possession of civil and military offices, of arms and money, the
faction, masters of Paris, has nothing to do but master the isolated
Convention, and this it invests on all sides.[3413]




II.--Its parliamentary recruits.

     Their characters and minds.--Saint-Just.--Violence of the
     minority in the Convention.--Pressure of the galleries.
     --Menaces of the streets.

Through the elections, the Jacobin advance-guard of fifty deputies
is already posted there; while, owing to the fascination it has
to excitable and despotic natures, to brutal temperaments, narrow,
disjointed minds, weak imaginations, doubtful honesty, and old religious
or social rancor, it succeeds in doubling this number at the end of six
months.[3414] On the benches of the extreme "Left," around Robespierre,
Danton and Marat, the original nucleus of the September faction, sit
men of their stamp, first, the corrupt, like Chabot, Tallien and Barras,
wretches like Fouché, Guffroy and Javogues, crazy enthusiasts like
David, savage maniacs like Carrier, paltry simpletons like Joseph Lebon,
common fanatics like Levasseur, Baubot, Jeanbon-Saint-André, Romme and
Lebas. Add also, and especially, the future iron-handed representatives,
uncouth, authoritarian, and narrow-minded, excellent troopers for a
political militia, Bourbotte, Duquesnoy, Rewbell, and Bentabole, "a lot
of ignorant bastards," said Danton,[3415] "without any common sense, and
patriotic only when drunk. Marat is nothing but a bawler. Legendre is
fit for nothing but to cut up his meat. The rest are good for little
else than voting by either sitting down or standing up, but they are
cold blooded and have broad shoulders." From amongst these energetic
nonentities we see ascending a young monster, with calm, handsome
features, Saint-Just. He is a kind of precocious Sylla, 25 years old
and a new-comer, who springs at once from the ranks and, by dint of
atrocities, obtains a prominent position.[3416] Six years before this he
began life by a domestic robbery; on a visit to his mother, he left
the house during the night, carrying off the plate and jewels, which he
squandered while living in a lodging house in the Rue Fromenteau, in the
center of Parisian prostitution;[3417] on the strength of this, and at
the demand of his friends, he is shut up in a house of correction
for six months. On returning to his lodgings he occupied himself with
writing an obscene poem in the style of La Pucelle and then, through a
fit of rage resembling a spasm, he plunged headlong into the Revolution.
He possessed a "blood calcified by study," a colossal pride, an unhinged
conscience, a pompous, gloomy imagination haunted with the bloody
recollections of Rome and Sparta, an intelligence so warped and
twisted as to be comfortable only among excessive paradoxes, shameless
sophistry, and devastating lies.[3418] All these dangerous ingredients
which, mingled in the crucible of suppressed, concentrated ambition,
long and silently boiling within him, have led to a constant defiance,
a determined callousness, an automatic rigidity, and to the summary
politics of the Utopian dictator and exterminator.--It is plain that
such a minority will not obey parliamentary rules, and, rather than
yield to the majority that it will introduce into the debate boos and
hisses, insults, threats, and scuffles with daggers, pistols, sabers and
even the "blunder busses" of a veritable combat.

"Vile intriguers, calumniators, scoundrels, monsters, assassins,
blackguards, fools and hogs," such are the usual terms in which they
address each other, and these form the least of their outrages.[3419]
The president, at certain sessions, is obliged three times to put on his
hat and, at last, breaks his bell. They insult him, force him to leave
his seat and demand that "he be removed.' Bazire tries to snatch a
declaration presented by him "out of his hands." Bourdon, from the
department of Oise, cries out to him that if he "dares to read it
he will assassinate him."[3420] The chamber "has become an arena of
gladiators."[3421] Sometimes the entire "Mountain" darts from its
benches on the left, while a similar human wave rolls down from those on
the right; both clash in the center of the room amidst furious screams
and shouts; in one of these hubbubs one of the "Mountain" having drawn a
pistol the Girondist Duperret draws his sword.[3422] After the middle
of December prominent members of the "Right," constantly persecuted,
threatened and outraged," reduced to "being out every night, are
compelled to carry arms in self-defense,"[3423] and, after the King's
execution, "almost all" bring them to the sessions of the Convention.
Any day, indeed, they may look for the final attack, and they are not
disposed to die unavenged: during the night of March 9, finding that
they are only forty-three, they agree to launch themselves in a body "at
the first hostile movement, against their adversaries and kill as many
as possible" before perishing.[3424]

It is a desperate resource, but the only one. For, besides the madmen
belonging to the Convention, they have against them the madmen in
the galleries, and these likewise are September murderers. The vilest
Jacobin rabble purposely takes its stand near them, at first in the old
Riding-school, and then in the new hall in the Tuileries. They see above
and in a circle around them drilled adversaries, eight or nine hundred
heads packed "in the great gallery at the bottom, under a deep and
silent vault," and, besides these, on the sides, a thousand or fifteen
hundred more, two immense tribunes completely filled.[3425] The
galleries of the Constituent and Legislative Assemblies, compared with
these, were calm. Nothing is more disgraceful to the Convention, writes
a foreign spectator,[3426] than the insolence of the audience. One of
the regulations prohibits, indeed, any mark of approval or disapproval,
"but it is violated every day, and nobody is ever punished for this
delinquency." The majority in vain expresses its indignation at this
"gang of hired ruffians," who beset and oppress it, while at the very
time that it utters its complaints, it endures and tolerates it.
"The struggle is frightful," says a deputy,[3427] "screams, murmurs,
stampings, shouts... The foulest insults were launched from the
galleries." "For a long time," says another, "no one can speak here
without obtaining their permission."[3428] The day that Buzot obtains
the floor to speak against Marat, "they break out furiously, yelling,
stamping, and threatening";[3429] every time that Buzot tries to begin
his voice is drowned in the clamor, while he remains half an hour in
the tribune without completing a sentence. On the calls of the House,
especially, their cries resemble those of the excited crowd at a Spanish
bull-fight, with their eager eyes and heaving breasts, watching the
contest between the bull and the picadores; every time that a deputy
votes against the death of the King or for an appeal to the people,
there are the "vociferations of cannibals," and "interminable yells"
every time that one votes for the indictment of Marat. "I declare," say
deputies in the tribune, "that I am not free here; I declare that I am
forced to debate under the knife."[3430] Charles Villette is told at
the entrance that "if he does not vote for the King's death he will
be massacred."--And these are not empty threats. On the 10th of March,
awaiting the promised riot, "the tribunes, duly advised,... had already
loaded their pistols."[3431] In the month of May, the tattered women
hired for the purpose, under the title of "Ladies of the Fraternity,"
formed a club, came daily early in the morning to mount guard, with arms
in their hands, in the corridors of the Convention; they tear up all
tickets given to men or women not of their band; they take possession
of all the seats, show pistols and daggers, and declare that "eighteen
hundred heads must be knocked off to make things go on right."

Behind these two first rows of assailants is a third, much more compact,
the more fearful because it is undefined and obscure, namely, the vague
multitude forming the anarchical set, scattered throughout Paris, and
always ready to renew the 10th of August and 2nd of September against
the obstinate majority. Incendiary motions and demands for riots come
incessantly from the Commune, and Jacobin, Cordeliers, and l'Evêché
clubs; from the assemblies of the sections and groups stationed at the
Tuileries and in the streets. "Yesterday," writes the president of the
Tuileries section,[3433] "at the same moment, at various points about
Paris, the Rue du Bac, at the Marais, in the Church of St. Eustache, at
the Palace of the Revolution, on the Feuillants terrace, scoundrels were
preaching pillage and assassination."--On the following day, again on
the Feuillants terrace, that is to say, right under the windows of the
Convention, "they urge the assassination of Louvel for having denounced
Robespierre. "--Minister Roland writes: "I hear of nothing but
conspiracy and plans to murder."--Three weeks later, for several days,
"an up-rising is announced in Paris";[3434] the Minister is warned that
"alarm guns would be fired," while the heads are designated beforehand
on which this ever muttering insurrection will burst. In the following
month, in spite of the recent precise law, "the electoral assembly
prints and circulates gratis the list of members of the Feuillants and
Sainte-Chapelle clubs; it likewise orders the printing and circulation
of the list of the eight thousand, and of the twenty thousand, as well
as of the clubs of 1789 and of Montaigu."[3435] In January, "hawkers cry
through the streets a list of the aristocrats and royalists who voted
for an appeal to the people."[3436] Some of the appelants are singled
out by name through placards; Thibaut, bishop of Cantal, while reading
the poster on the wall relating to him, hears some one along side of him
say: "I should like to know that bishop of Cantal; I would make bread
tasteless to him." Roughs point out certain deputies leaving the
Assembly, and exclaim: "Those are the beggars to cut up!"--From week
to week signs of insurrection increase and multiply, like flashes of
lightning in a coming tempest. On the 1st of January, "it is rumored
that the barriers are to be closed at night, and that domiciliary visits
are going to begin again."[3437] On the 7th of January, on the motion of
the Gravilliers section, the Commune demands of the Minister of War 132
cannon stored at Saint Denis, to divide among the sections. On the
15th of January the same section proposes to the other forty-seven to
appoint, as on the 10th of August, special commissaries to meet at
the Evêché and watch over public safety. That same day, to prevent the
Convention from misunderstanding the object of these proceedings, it is
openly stated in the tribunes that the cannon brought to Paris "are for
another 10th of August against that body." The same day, military force
has to be employed to prevent bandits from going to the prisons "to
renew the massacres." On the 28th of January the Palais-Royal, the
resort of the pleasure-seeking, is surrounded by Santerre, at eight
o'clock in the evening, and "about six thousand men, found without a
certificate of civism," are arrested, subject to the decision one by one
of their section.--Not only does the lightning flash, but already the
bolt descends in isolated places.[3438] On the 31st of December a man
named Louvain, formerly denounced by Marat as Lafayette's agent, is
slain in the faubourg St. Antoine, and his corpse dragged through the
streets to the Morgue. On the 25th of February, the grocer shops are
pillaged at the instigation of Marat, with the connivance or sanction of
the Commune. On the 9th of March the printing establishment of Gorsas
is sacked by two hundred men armed with sabers and pistols. The same
evening and on the next morning the riot extends to the Convention
itself; "the committee of the Jacobin club summons every section in
Paris to arms to "get rid" of the appelant deputies and the ministers;
the Cordeliers club requests the Parisian authorities "to take
sovereignty into their own hands and place the treacherous deputies
under arrest"; Fournier, Varlet, and Champion ask the Commune "to
declare itself in insurrection and close the barriers"; all the
approaches to the Convention are occupied by the "dictators of
massacre," Pétion[3439] and Beurnonville being recognized on their
passing, pursued and in danger of death, while furious mobs gather on
the Feuillants terrace "to award popular judgment," "to cut off heads"
and "send them into the departments."--Luckily, it rains, which always
cools down popular effervescence. Kervélegan, a deputy from Finistère,
who escapes, finds means of sending to the other end of the faubourg St.
Marceau for a battalion of volunteers from Brest that had arrived a few
days before, and who were still loyal; these come in time and save the
Convention.--Thus does the majority live under the triple pressure of
the "Mountain," the galleries and the outside populace, and from month
to month, especially after March 10, the pressure gets to be worse and
worse.




III. Physical fear and moral cowardice.

     Defection among the majority.--Effect of physical fear.
     --Effect of moral cowardice.--Effect of political necessity.
     --Internal weakness of the Girondins.--Accomplices in
     principle of the Montagnards.

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

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

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

"To put down the faction," says one of them,[3453] "can be done only by
cutting its throat, which, perhaps, would not be difficult to do. All
Paris is as weary as we are of its yoke, and if we had any liking for
or knowledge how to deal with insurrections, we could soon throw it off.
But how can we make men adopt such necessary atrocious measures when
they are criticizing their adversaries for taking these? And yet they
would have saved the country." Consequently, incapable of action, able
only to talk, reduced to protests, to barring the way to revolutionary
decrees, to making appeals to the department against Paris, they stand
as an obstacle to all the practical people who are heartily engaged in
the brunt of the action.--"There is no doubt that Carnot is as honest
as they are, as honest as a fanatic spectator can be."[3454] Cambon,
undoubtedly with as much integrity as Roland, spoke as loudly up as he
against the 2nd of September, the Commune, and anarchy.[3455]--But,
to Carnot and Cambon, who pass their nights, one in establishing his
budgets, and the other in studying his military maps, they require,
first of all, a government which will provide them with money and with
soldiers, and, therefore, an unscrupulous and unanimous Convention;
that is to say, there being no other expedient, a Convention under
compulsion, i.e. a Convention purged of troublesome some, dissentient
speakers;[3456] in other words, the dictatorship of the Parisian
proletariat. After the 15th of December, 1792, Cambon completely accepts
this, and even erects the dictatorship of the proletariat into
an European system. From that time[3457] he preaches universal
sans-culotterie, a form of government in which the poor will rule and
the rich will pay, in short, the restoration of privileges in an inverse
sense. The later expression of Siéyès which has already come true: the
problem is no longer how to apply the principles of the Revolution,
but the salvation of its men. Faced with this more and more distressing
imperative, many of undecided deputies go with the tide, letting
the Montagnards have their own way and separate themselves from the
Girondists.

And, what is graver still, the Girondists, apart from all these
defections, are untrue to themselves. Not only are they ignorant of how
to draw a line, of how to form themselves into a compact body: not only
"is the very idea of a collective proceeding repulsive, each member
desiring to keep himself independent. and act as he thinks best,"[3458]
make motions without consulting others, and vote as the occasion calls
for against his party, but, through its abstract principle, they are in
accord with their adversaries, and, on the fatal declivity whereon their
honorable and humane instincts still retain them, this common dogma,
like a concealed weight, causes them to sink lower and lower down, even
into the bottomless pit, where the State, according to the formula of
Jean Jacques, omnipotent, philosophic, anti-Catholic, anti-Christian,
despotic, leveling, intolerant, and propagandist, seizes education,
levels fortunes, persecutes the Church, oppresses consciences, crushes
out the individual, and, by military foice, imposes its structures
abroad.[3459] Basically, apart from the Jacobin excess of brutality and
of precipitation, the Girondists, setting out from the same principles
as the Jacobin "Mountain," march forward to the same end along with
them. Hence the effect of ideological prejudice on them in weakening
their moral attitudes. Secretly, in their hearts, revolutionary desires
conspire with those of their enemies, and, on many occasions, make them
betray themselves.--Through these devices and multiplied weaknesses,
on the one hand, the majority diminishes so as to present but 279 votes
against 228.[3460] And, on the other hand, through frequent failures,
it surrenders to the besiegers one by one every commanding post of the
public citadel. Now, at the first attack, nothing remains but to fly, or
to beg for mercy.




IV. Jacobin victory over Girondin majority.

     Principal decrees of the Girondist majority.--Arms and means
     of attack surrendered by it to its adversaries.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




V. Jacobin violence against the people.

     Committees of Supervision after March 28, 1793.--The régime
     of August and September, 1792, revived.--Disarmament.
     --Certificates of civism.--Forced enlistment.--Forced loans.
     --Use made of the sums raised.--Vain resistance of the
     population.--Manifestations by young men repressed.
     --Violence and victory of the Jacobins in the assemblies of
     the sections.

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

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

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

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

The first thing is the disarmament of the suspected. "It is enough that
any citizen shall be denounced, and that the case is made known to the
Committee";[3481] or that his certificate of civism is less than one
month old,[3482] to make a delegate, accompanied by ten armed men,
search his house. In the section of the Réunion alone, on the first
day, 57 denounced persons are thus disarmed for "acts of incivism or
expressions adverse to the Republic," not merely lawyers, notaries,
architects, and other prominent men, but petty tradesmen and
shop-keepers, hatters, dyers, locksmiths, mechanics, gilders, and
bar-keepers. One section; in defiance of the law, adds to these in block
the signers of the petition of the eight thousand and that of the twenty
thousand. "Through such schemes," says an observer,[3483] "all the guns
in Paris, numbering more than a hundred thousand, pass into the hands of
the faction. None remain for its adversaries, even in the gunshops; for,
through an ordinance of the Commune, no one may purchase a gun without
a certificate issued by the Committee of Supervision of the
section.[3484]--On the other hand, owing to the power of granting or
refusing certificates of civism, each Committee, on its own authority,
interposes barriers as it pleases in all directions, public or private,
to every inhabitant within its bounds. It is impossible for any person
who has not obtained his certificate[3485] to have a passport for
traveling, although a tradesman; no public employee, no clerk of the
administration, advocate or notary can keep his place without it; no one
can go out of Paris or return late at night. If one goes out to take
a walk, there is danger of being arrested and brought back between two
soldiers to the committee of the section; if one stays at home, it is
with the chance of being inspected as a harbourer of priests or nobles.
Any Parisian opening his windows in the morning may find his house
surrounded by a company of carmagnoles, if he has not the indispensable
certificate in his pocket.[3486] In the eyes of a Jacobin committee,
there is no civism but in Jacobinism, and we can imagine whether
this patent would be willingly conferred on opponents, or even on the
lukewarm; what examinations they would have to undergo; what questions
they would be obliged to answer; how many goings and comings,
solicitations, appearances and waitings would be imposed on them; with
what persistency it would excite delay, and with what satisfaction it
would be refused. Buzot presented himself four times at the Committee of
Quatre-Nations to obtain a certificate for his domestic, and failed
to get it.[3487] There is another still more effective expedient for
keeping the ill-disposed in check The committee of each section, aided
by a member of the Commune,[3488] designates the twelve thousand men
drafted for the expedition into La Vendée, and picks them by name, one
by one, as it may select them; the effect of this is to purge Paris of
twelve thousand anti-Jacobins, and tranquilize the section assemblies,
where opposition is often objectionable. To this end the committee
selects first, and gives the preference to, the clerks of lawyers and
notaries, those of banking-houses, the administration, and of merchants,
the unmarried in all offices and counting-rooms, in short, all
the Parisian middle class bachelors, of which there are more than
twenty-five thousand.[3489] The ordinance stipulates that one out of two
should be taken, undoubtedly those with the poorest reputation with the
Committee, this proceeding will silence the others and prevent them from
speaking up in their sections.[3490]

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

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

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

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

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

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

* disarm,

* put on the index,

* displace,

* tax,

* send off to the army, and

* imprison whoever gives them umbrage,

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




VI. Jacobin tactics.

     Jacobin tactics to constrain the Convention.--Petition of
     April 15 against the Girondins.--Means employed to obtain
     signatures.--The Convention declares the petition
     calumnious.--The commission of Twelve and the arrest of
     Hébert.--Plans for massacres.--Intervention of the Mountain
     leaders.

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

Sign, or no certificate of civism!

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

"Since the 10th of March," says Vergniaud, in the tribune,[34113]
"murder is openly and unceasingly fomented against you."--"It is a
terrible time," says an observer, "strongly resembling that preceding
the 2nd of September."[34114]--That same evening, at the Jacobin club,
a member proposes to "exterminate the scoundrels before leaving. "I
have studied the Convention," he says[34115] "it is composed in part of
scoundrels who ought to be punished. All the supporters of Dumouriez and
the other conspirators should be put out of the way; fire the alarm gun
and close the barriers!" The following forenoon, "all the walls in Paris
are covered with posters," calling on the Parisians to "hurry up and
slit the throats of the statesmen."[34116]--" We must do something to
put an end to this!" is the slogan of the sans-culottes.--The following
week, at the Jacobin club, as elsewhere, "immediate insurrection is the
order of the day.... What we formerly called the sacred enthusiasm of
freedom and patriotism, is now metamorphosed into the fury of an excited
populace, which can no longer be regulated or disciplined except by
force. There is not one of these scoundrels who would not accept a
counter-revolution, provided they could be allowed to crush and stamp on
the most noted conservatives.[34117].. . The conclusion is that the day,
the hour, the minute that the faction believes that it can usefully and
without risk bring into play all the brigands in Paris,[34118] then
the insurrection will undoubtedly take place." Already the plan of the
massacre is under consideration by the lowest class of fanatics at the
mayoralty, the Evêché, and the Jacobin club.[34119]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




VII. The central Jacobin committee in power.

     The 27th day of May.--The central revolutionary committee.
     --The municipal body displaced and then restored.--Henriot,
     commanding general.

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 Marais[34144] 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-ville[34148] 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.




VIII. Right or Wrong, my Country.

     Character of the new governors.--Why France accepted them.

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 hospices[34169], 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 disappeared[34172]"; 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."
Carnot[34185] 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, bourgeois[34186] 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 observer[34189] 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.


*****


[Footnote 3401: "Archives Nationales," AF II, 45, May 6, 1793 (in
English).]

[Footnote 3402: 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).]

[Footnote 3403: 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."]

[Footnote 3404: Schmidt, I. 223 (report by Dutard, May 14).]

[Footnote 3405: 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.]

[Footnote 3406: 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."]

[Footnote 3407: 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.]

[Footnote 3408: 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."]

[Footnote 3409: Schmidt, I, 270.]

[Footnote 3410: Mortimer-Ternaux, IV. 221 to 229, 242 to 260; VI. 43 to
52.]

[Footnote 3411: 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."]

[Footnote 3412: 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.]

[Footnote 3413: Schmidt, I. 246 (Dutard, May 13). "The Convention cannot
count in all Paris thirty persons ready to side with them.]

[Footnote 3414: Buchez et Roux, XXV. 463. On the call of the houses,
April 13, 1793, ninety-two deputies vote for Marat.]

[Footnote 3415: 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.]

[Footnote 3416: 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.]

[Footnote 3417: 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.]

[Footnote 3418: 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!"]

[Footnote 3419: Buchez et Roux, XXIV. 296, 363; XXV. 323; XXVII. 144,
145.--Moniteur, XIV 80 (terms employed by Danton, David, Legendre, and
Marat).]

[Footnote 3420: Moniteur, XV. 74.--Buchez et Roux, XXVII. 254, 257,
sessions of Jan. 6 and May 27.]

[Footnote 3421: Moniteur, XIV. 851. (Session of Dec.26, 1792. Speech by
Julien.)]

[Footnote 3422: 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.)]

[Footnote 3423: Louvet, 72]

[Footnote 3424: 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.]

[Footnote 3425: 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.]

[Footnote 3426: Moore, I.44 (Oct. 10), and II. 534.]

[Footnote 3427: Moniteur. XIV. 795. Speech by Lanjuinais, Dec. 19,
1792.]

[Footnote 3428: Buchez et Roux, XX. 5, 396. Speech by Duperret, session
of April 11, 1793.]

[Footnote 3429: 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.]

[Footnote 3430: 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.]

[Footnote 3431: 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.]

[Footnote 3433: Moniteur, XIV. 362 (Nov. 1, 1792).--Ibid., 387, session
of Nov. 4. Speech by Royer and Gorsas.-Ibid., 382. Letter by Roland,
Nov. 5.]

[Footnote 3434: Moniteur, XIV. 699. Letter of Roland, Nov. 28.]

[Footnote 3435: Moniteur, XIV. 697, number for Dec. 11.]

[Footnote 3436: 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."]

[Footnote 3437: 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.]

[Footnote 3438: 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.]

[Footnote 3439: 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."]

[Footnote 3440: 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."]

[Footnote 3441: Durand-Maillane, 35, 38, 57.]

[Footnote 3442: An expression by Dussaulx, in his "Fragments pour servir
à l'histoire de la Convention."]

[Footnote 3443: Madame Roland, "Mémoires," ed. Barrière et Berville, II.
52.--(Note by Roland.)]

[Footnote 3444: 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."]

[Footnote 3445: Sainte-Beuve, "Causeries du Lundi," V. 209. ("Sièyes,"
according to his unpublished manuscripts.)]

[Footnote 3446: Madame Roland, II.56. Note by Roland.]

[Footnote 3447: Mortimer-Ternaux, V. 476.]

[Footnote 3448: Mortimer-Ternaux, V. 513.]

[Footnote 3449: Comte de Ségur, "Mémoires." I. 13.]

[Footnote 3450: Harmand de la Meuse (member of the Convention),
"Anecdotes relative à la Révolution," 83, 85.]

[Footnote 3451: Meissner, 148, "Voyage à Paris" (last months of 1795).
Testimony of the regicide Audrein.]

[Footnote 3452: Louvet, 775.]

[Footnote 3453: Meillan, 16.]

[Footnote 3454: Remark by M. Guirot ("Mémoires"), II. 73.]

[Footnote 3455: 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.]

[Footnote 3456: "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."]

[Footnote 3457: 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."]

[Footnote 3458: Meillan. 100.]

[Footnote 3459: Speech by Ducos, March 20. "We must choose between
domestic education and liberty. So long as the poor and the rich are
not brought close together through a common education, in vain will
your laws proclaim sacred equality!"--Rabaut-Saint-Étienne: "In every
township a national temple will be erected, in which every Sunday
its municipal officers will give moral instruction to the assembled
citizens. This instruction will be drawn from books approved of by
the legislative body, and followed by hymns also approved of by the
legislative. A catechism, as simple as it is short, drawn up by
the legislative body, shall be taught and every boy will know it
by heart."--On the sentiments of the Girondists in relation to
Christianity, see chapters V. and XI. of this volume.--On the means for
equalizing the fortunes, see articles by Rabaut-Saint-Étienne (Buchez et
Roux, XXIII. 467).--Ibid., XXIV. 475 (March 7-11) decree abolishing the
testamentary right.--Condorcet, in his "Tableau des progrés de
l'Esprit humain," assigns the leveling of conditions as the purpose of
society.--On propaganda abroad, read the report by Cambon (Dec. 15).
This report is nearly unanimously accepted, and Buzot exacerbates it by
adding an amendment]

[Footnote 3460: Buchez et Roux, XXVII. 287, session of May 28, vote on
the maintenance of the Commission of Twelve.]

[Footnote 3461: Moniteur. XV. 395, session of Feb. 8, 1793.]

[Footnote 3462: Decrees of March 13 and 14.]

[Footnote 3463: Moore, II. 44 (October 1792). Danton declares in the
tribune that "the Convention should be a committee of instruction for
kings throughout the universe." On which Moore remarks that this
is equivalent to declaring war against all Europe except
Switzerland.--Mallet du Pan, "Considerations sur la Revolution de
France," p.37: "In a letter which chance has brought to my notice,
Brissot wrote to one of his minister-generals towards the close of last
year: 'The four quarters of Europe must be set on fire; that is our
salvation.'"]

[Footnote 3464: Duvergier, "Collection des lois et décrets." Decree of
March 10-12. Title I. articles 4, 12, 13; title II. articles 2, 3. Add
to this the decree of March 29-31, establishing the penalty of
death against whoever composes or prints documents favoring the
re-establishment of royalty.]

[Footnote 3465: Ib., Decree of March 28--April 5 (article 6).--Cf. the
decrees of March 18-22, and April 23-24.]

[Footnote 3466: Decree of March 27-30.]

[Footnote 3467: Decree of April 5-7.]

[Footnote 3468: Decree of May 4. (A law fixing the highest price at
which grain shall be sold. TR.)]

[Footnote 3469: Decree of April 11-16 (bearing on the reduction in value
of the legal currency.--TR).]

[Footnote 3470: Decree of May 20-25.]

[Footnote 3471: Decree of April 5-7. Words used by Danton in the course
of the debate.]

[Footnote 3472: Decree of April 5-11.]

[Footnote 3473: Decrees of May 13, 16, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, and 29, June
1.]

[Footnote 3474: Decrees of March 21-23 and March 26-30.]

[Footnote 3475: Decrees of March 29-31.]

[Footnote 3476: Decree of April 1-5.]

[Footnote 3477: Schmidt, I. 232. Report by Dutard, May 10.]

[Footnote 3478: "Archives Nationales," F7, 2401 to 2505. Records of
the section debates in Paris.--Many of these begin March 28, 1793, and
contain the deliberations of revolutionary committees; for example, F7,
2475, the section of the Pikes or of the Place Vendôme. We see by
the official reports dated March 28 and the following days that the
suspected were deprived all weapons, even the smallest, every species of
swordcane, including dress-swords with steel or silver handles.]

[Footnote 3479: Buchez et Roux, XXV. 157.--"Archives Nationales," F7,
2494, section of the Réunion, official report, March 28.]

[Footnote 3480: Schmidt, I. 223 (Dutard, May 14).--Ibid., 224. "If the
Convention allows committees of supervision to exercise its authority,
I will not give it eight days."--Meillan, 111: "Almost all the section
agitators were strangers"--"Archives Nationales," F7, 3294 and 3297,
records of debate in the committees of supervision belonging to the
sections of the Réunion and Droits de l'Homme. Quality of mind and
education are both indicated by orthography. For instance: "Le dit jour
et an que déçus."--"Orloger."--"Lecture d'une lettre du comité de surté
général de la convention qui invite le comité à se transporter de
suites chez le citoyen Louis Féline rue Baubourg, à leffets de faire
perquisition chez lui et dans tout ces papiers, et que ceux qui
paraîtrons suspect lon y metes les selés."]

[Footnote 3481: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3294. Section of the Réunion,
official report. March 28.]

[Footnote 3482: Buchez et Roux, XXV. 168. An ordinance of the commune,
March 27.]

[Footnote 3483: Schmidt, I.223. Report by Dutard, May 14.]

[Footnote 3484: Buchez et Roux, XXV. 167. Ordinance of May 27. XXXVII.
151. Ordinance of May 20.]

[Footnote 3485: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3294. See in particular, the
official reports of the month of April.--Buchez et Roux, XXV. 149, and
XXVI. 342. (ordinances of the Commune, March 27 and May 2).]

[Footnote 3486: Buchez et Roux, XXVI. 402 (article from the Patriote
Français, May 8). "Arrests are multiplied lately to a frightful extent.
The mayoralty overflows with prisoners. Nobody has any idea of the
insolence and harshness with which citizens are treated. Slaughter and
a Saint-Bartholomew are all that are talked of. "--Meillan, 55. "Let
anybody in any assemblage or club express any opinion not in unison
with municipal views, and he is sure to be arrested the following night.
"--Gouverneur Morris, March 29, 1793. "Yesterday I was arrested in the
street and conducted to the section of Butte-des-Moulins... Armed men
came to my house yesterday. "--Reply of the minister Lebrun, April 3.
"Domiciliary visits were a general measure from which no house in Paris
was exempt."]

[Footnote 3487: Buchez et Roux, XXVI. 384. Speech by Buzot, session of
May 8.]

[Footnote 3488: Buchez et Roux, XXVI. 332. Ordinance of the commune, May
1.]

[Footnote 3489: Schmidt, I. 216. Report by Dutard, May 13.]

[Footnote 3490: Schmidt, I.301. "In our sections the best class of
citizens are still afraid of imprisonment or of being disarmed. Nobody
talks freely."--The Lyons revolutionaries make the same calculation
("Archives Nationales," AF, II. 43). Letter addressed to the
representatives of the people by the administrators of the department of
the Rhône, June 4, 1793. The revolutionary committee "designated for La
Vendée those citizens who were most comfortably off or those it hated,
whilst conditional enlistment with the privilege of remaining in the
department were granted only to those in favor of disorganization."--Cf.
Guillon de Montléon, I. 235.]

[Footnote 3491: Buchez et Roux, XXVI. 399. Ordinance of the commune, May
3, on a forced loan of twelve millions, article 6. "The revolutionary
committees will regard the apportionment 'lists simply as guides,
without regarding them as a basis of action."--Article 14. "The personal
and real property of those who have not conformed to the patriotic draft
will be seized and sold at the suit of the revolutionary committees, and
their persons declared suspected."]

[Footnote 3492: Buchez et Roux, XXVII. 17 (Patriote Français, number for
May 14). Francoeur is taxed at 3,600 francs.--The same process at Lyons
(Balleydier, 174, and Guillon de Montléon, I. 238). The authorized tax
by the commissaries of the convention amounted to six millions. The
revolutionary committee levied thirty and forty millions, payable
in twenty-four hours on warrants without delay (May 13 and 14). Many
persons are taxed from 80,000 to 100,000 francs, the text of the
requisitions conveying ironically a hostile spirit.]

[Footnote 3493: Buchez et Roux, XXVI. 463, session of the Jacobin Club,
May 11.]

[Footnote 3494: Meillan, 17.]

[Footnote 3495: Buchez et Roux, XXVI. 463, session of the Jacobin club,
May 11. Speech by Hassenfratz.--Ibid., 455, session of the Jacobin club,
May 10, speech by Robespierre. "The rich are all anti-revolutionaries;
only beggars and the people can save the country."--Ibid. N--:
"Revolutionary battalions should be maintained in the department at the
expense of the rich, who are cowards."--Ibid., XXVII. 317. Petition of
the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, May 11.--Schmidt, I. 315 (Report by Dutard,
May 13). "There is no recruiting in the faubourgs, because people there
know that they are more wanted here than in La Vendée. They let the rich
go and fight. They watch things here, and trust nobody but themselves to
guard Paris."]

[Footnote 3496: "Archives Nationales," F7, 2494. Section of the Réunion,
official reports of May 15 and 16.--Buchez et Roux, XXV. 167, ordance of
the commune, March 27.]

[Footnote 3497: Schmidt, I.327. Report of Perriére, May 28. "Our group
itself seemed to governed by nothing but hatred of the rich by the poor.
One must be a dull observer not to see by a thousand symptoms that these
two natural enemies stand in battle array, only awaiting the signal or
the opportunity."]

[Footnote 3498: Buchez et Roux, XXV. 460. The papers examined by the
accusers are the numbers of Marat's journal of the 5th of January and
of the 25th of February. The article which provoked the decree is his
"Address to the National Convention," pp. 446 and 450.]

[Footnote 3499: Buchez et Roux, XXVI. 149; Narrative by Marat,114.
Bulletin of the revolutionary tribunal, session of the Convention.]

[Footnote 34100: Buchez et Roux, XXVI. 358, article in the Chronique de
Paris; 358, article by Marat.--Schmidt, I. 184. Report by Dutard, May
5.--Paris, "Histoire de Joseph Lebon," I. 81. Letter by Robespierre, Jr.,
May 7.]

[Footnote 34101: Buchez et Roux, XXV. 240 and 246. Protest of the Mail
section, of the electoral body of the Arsenal, Marais, Gravelliers,
and Arcis sections. (The Convention, session of April 2; the commune,
session of April 2.)--XXVI. 358 Protests of the sections of Bon-Conseil
and the Unité, (May 5).--XXVII. 71. Defeat of the anarchists in the
section of Butté-des-Moulins. "A great many sections openly show a
determination to put anarchy down." (Patriote Français, May 15).--Ibid.,
137. Protests of the Panthéon Français, Piques, Mail, and several
other sections (Patriote Français, May 19).--Ibid., 175. Protest of the
Fraternité section (session of the Convention, May 23).]

[Footnote 34102: Schmidt, I. 189. Dutard, May 6.]

[Footnote 34103: Mortimer-Ternaux, VII. 218. Official report of the
reunion of the two sections of the Lombards and Bon-Conseil (April
12), "by which the two said sections promise and swear union, aid,
fraternity, and mutual help, in case the aristocracy are disposed to
destroy liberty."--"Consequently," says the Bon-Conseil section,
"many of the citizens of the Lombards section, justly alarmed at the
disturbances occasioned by the evil-disposed, came and proffered their
assistance."--Adhesion of the section of Les Amis de la Patrie.--Buchez
et Roux, XXVII. 138. (Article of the Patriote Français, May 19): "This
brigandage is called assembly of combined sections."--Ibid., 236, May
26, session of the commune. "Deputations of the Montreuil, Quinze-Vingts
and Droits de l'Homme sections came to the assistance of the Arsenal
patriots; the aristocrats took to flight, leaving their hats behind
them."--Schmidt, I. 213, 313 (Dutard, May 13 and 27). Violent treatment
of the moderates in the Bon-Conseil and Arsenal sections; "struck with
chairs, several persons wounded, one captain carried off on a bench;
the gutter-jumpers and dumpy shopkeepers cleared out, leaving the
sans-culottes masters of the field."--Meillan, 111.--Buchez et Roux,
XXVII. 237, session of the Jacobin club, May 26. "In the section of
Butte-des-Moulins the patriots, finding they were not in force, seized
the chairs and drove the aristocrats out."]

[Footnote 34104: Buchez et Roux, 78, XXVII. On the juge-de-paix Roux,
carried off at night and imprisoned. April 16.--Mortimer-Ternaux, III.
220, on the vice-president Sagnier, May 10.--Buchez et Roux, XXVII.
231, May 26, on the five citizens of the Unité section arrested by
the revolutionary committee of the section "for having spoken against
Robespierre and Marat."]

[Footnote 34105: Buchez et Roux, XXVII. 154. Speech of Léonard Bourdon
to the Jacobins, May 20.]

[Footnote 34106: Buchez et Roux, XXVI. 3. Address drawn up by the
commissaries of the 48 sections approved of by 35 sections, also by the
commune, and presented to the Convention April 15.--Others have preceded
it, like pilot ballons.--Ibid., XXV. 319. Petition of the Bon-Conseil,
April 8.--XXV. 320. Petition of the section of the Halleau-Blé, April
10.]

[Footnote 34107: Buchez et Roux, XXVI. 83. Speech by Vergniaud to the
convention, session of April 20. "These facts are accepted. Nobody can
contradict them. More than 10,000 witnesses would confirm them."--There
are the same proceedings at Lyons Jan.13, 1792, against the petition far
an appeal to the people (Guillon de Montléon, I.145, 155). The official
report of the Jacobins claims that the petition obtained 40,215
signatures. "The petition was first signed by about 200 clubbists, who
pretended to be the people... They spread the report among the people
that all who would not sign the address would be blacklisted or
proscribed. That's why they had desks set up in all the public squares,
and seized by the arm all who came, and forced them to sign. As this
approach did not prove fruitful they made children ten years of age,
women, and ignorant rustics put down their name." They were told that
the object was to put down the price of bread. "I swear to you that this
address is the work a hundred persons at most; the great majority of the
citizens of Lyons desire to avail themselves of their own sovereignty
in the judgment of Louis." (Letter of David of Lyons to the president of
the convention, Jan. 16.)]

[Footnote 34108: "Fragment," by Lanjuinais (in the memoirs of
Durand-Maillane, p. 297).]

[Footnote 34109: Meillan, 113.]

[Footnote 34110: Buchez et Roux, XXVI. 3!9 (May 12).--Meillan, 113.]

[Footnote 34111: Buchez et Roux, XVI. 327. On being informed of this the
crowd sent new deputies, the latter stating in relation to the others:
"We do not recognise them."]

[Footnote 34112: Buchez et Roux, XXVI. 143.]

[Footnote 34113: Buchez et Roux, XXVII. 175, May 23.]

[Footnote 34114: Schmidt, I. 212. Report of Dutard, May 13.--I. 218. "A
plot is really under way, and many heads are singled out." (Terrasson,
May 13.)]

[Footnote 34115: Buchez et Roux, XXVII 9. Speech of Guadet to the
Convention, May 14.]

[Footnote 34116: Buchez et Roux, XXVII. 2. Patriote Français, May 13.]

[Footnote 34117: Schmidt, I 242. Report of Dutard, May 18.--Also 245.]

[Footnote 34118: Schmidt, I 254. Report of Dutard, May 19.]

[Footnote 34119: Bergoeing, Chatry, Dubosq, "Pièces recueillies par
la Commission des Douze et publiées à Caen." June 28, 1793 (in the
"Mémoires" of Meillan, pp. 176-198). Attempts at murder had already
occurred. "Lanjuinais came near being killed. Many of the deputies were
insulted and threatened. The armed force joins with the malefactors; we
have accordingly no means of repression." (Mortimer-Ternaux, VII.562,
letter of the deputy Michel to his constituents, May 20.)]

[Footnote 34120: Bergoeing, "Pièces, etc."--Meillan, pp. 39 and 40.--The
depositions are all made by eye witnesses. The propositions for the
massacre were made in the meetings at the town-hall, May 19, 20 and 21,
and at the Cordeliers club May 22 and 23.]

[Footnote 34121: The Jacobins at Lyons plot the same thing (Guilion de
Montléon, 248). Chalier says to the club: "We shall not fail to have 300
noted heads. Get hold of the members of the department, the presidents
and secretaries of the sections, and let us make a bundle of them for
the guillotine; we will wash our hands in their blood." Thereupon, on
the night of May 28 the revolutionary municipality seize the arsenal and
plant cannon on the Hôtel-de-ville. The Lyons sections, however, more
energetic than those of Paris, take, up arms and after a terrible fight
they get possession of the Hôtel-de-ville. The moral difference
between the two parties is very marked in Gonchon's letters. ("Archives
Nationales," AF, II. 43. letters of Gonchon to Garat, May 31, June 1 and
3.) "Keep up the courage of the Convention. It need not be afraid. The
citizens of Lyons have covered themselves with glory. They displayed the
greatest courage in every fight that took place in various quarters of
the town, and the greatest magnanimity to their enemies, who behaved
most villainously." The municipal body had sent a flag of truce,
pretending to negotiate, and then treacherously opened fire with its
cannon on the columns of the sections, and cast the wounded into the
river. The citizens of Lyons, so often slandered, will be the first
to have set an example of true republican character. Find me a similar
instance, if you can, in the history of revolutions: being victorious
and yet not then to have shed a drop of blood!" They cared for the
wounded, and raised a subscription for the widows and orphans of the
dead, without distinction of party. Cf. Lauvergue, "Histoire du Var,"
175. The same occurs at Toulon (insurrection of the moderates, July 12
and 13, 1793).--At Toulon, as at Lyons, there was no murder after the
victory; only regular trials and the execution of two or three assassins
whose crimes were legally proved.]

[Footnote 34122: Schmidt, I. 335. Report of Perrière, May 29.]

[Footnote 34123: Bergoeing, "Pièces, etc.", p. 195.--Buchez et Roux,
XXVII 296.]

[Footnote 34124: The insurrection at Lyons took place on May 29. On the
2nd of June it is announced in the Convention that the insurgent army
of Lozère, more than 30,000 strong, has taken Marvejols, and is about
to take Mende (Buchez et Roux XXVII. 387).--A threatening address from
Bordeaux (May 14) and from thirty-two sections in Marseilles (May 25)
against the Jacobins (Buchez et Roux, XXVII. 3. 214).--Cf. Robinet in
"Le procès des Dantonistes, 303, 305.]

[Footnote 34125: Mortimer-Ternaux, VII 38.]

[Footnote 34126: Buchez et Roux, XXVII. 297, session of the Jacobins,
May 29.]

[Footnote 34127: Barrère, "Mémoires," II. 91, 94. As untruthful as
Barrère is, here his testimony may be accepted. I see no reason why he
should state what is not true; he was well informed, as he belonged
to the Committee of Public Safety. His statements, besides, on the
complicity d the Mountain and on the rôle of Danton are confirmed by the
whole mass of facts.--Buchez et Roux, XXVIII. 200 (speech by Danton in
the Convention, June 13). "Without the canon of the 31st of May, without
the insurrection the conspirators would have triumphed; they would have
given us the law. Let the crime of that insurrection be on our heads!
That insurrection--I myself demanded it!... I demand a declaration by
the Convention, that without the insurrection of May 31, liberty would
be no more!"--Ibid., 220. Speech by Leclerc at the Cordeliers club, June
27: "Was it not Legendre who rendered abortive our wise measures, so
often taken, to exterminate our enemies? He and Danton it was, who,
through their culpable resistance, reduced us to the moderation of
the 31st of May, Legendre and Danton are the men who opposed the
revolutionary steps which we had taken on those great days to crush out
all the aristocrats in Paris!"]

[Footnote 34128: Schmidt, I. 244. Report by Dutard, May 18.]

[Footnote 34129: Buchez et Roux, XXVII. 253 and following pages, session
of May 27.--Mortimer-Ternaux, VII. 294.--Buchez et Roux, XXVIII. 9
("Précis rapide" by Gorsas).]

[Footnote 34130: Buchez et Roux, XXVII. 258. Meillan, 43.]

[Footnote 34131: Buchez et Roux, XXVII. 259 (words of Raffet).]

[Footnote 34132: Meillan, 44.--Buchez et Roux, XXVII. 267, 280.]

[Footnote 34133: Meillan, 44. Placed opposite the president, within
ten paces of him, with my eyes constantly fixed on him, because in the
horrible din which disgraced the Assembly we could have no other compass
to steer by, I can testify that I neither saw nor heard the decree put
to vote."--Buchez et Roux, XXVII. 278. Speech by Osselin, session of
May 28: "I presented the decree as drawn up to the secretaries for their
signatures this morning. One of them, after reading it, observed to
me that the last article had not been decreed, but that the preceding
articles had been."--Mortimer-Ternaux, VII. 562. Letter of the deputy
Michel. May 29. "The guards were forced, and the sanctuary of the law
invested from about four to ten hours, so that nobody could leave the
hall even for the most urgent purposes.]

[Footnote 34134: Mortimer-Ternaux, VII. 308. Extract from the official
reports of the patriotic club of Butte-des-Moulins, May 30. "Considering
that the majority of the section, known for incivism and its
antirevolutionary spirit, would decline this election or would elect
commissaries not enjoying the confidence of patriots,".. the patriotic
club takes upon itself the duty of electing the two commissaries
demanded.]

[Footnote 34135: Durand-Maillan, 297. "Fragment," by Lanjuinais. "Seven
strangers, seven outside agents, Desfieux, Proly, Pereyra, Dubuisson,
Gusman, the two brothers Frey, etc., were set up by the commune as an
insurrectionary committee." Most of them are vile fellows, as is the
case with Varlet, Dobsen, Hassenfratz, Rousselin, Desfieux, Gusman,
etc.]

[Footnote 34136: Buchez et Roux, XXVIII. 156. "We, members of the
revolutionary commission, citizens Clémence, of the Bon-Conseil section;
Dunouy, of the Sans-culottes section; Bonin, of the section of Les
Marchés, Auvray of the section of Mont-Blanc; Séguy, of the section
of Butte-des-Moulins; Moissard, of Grenelle; Berot, canton d'Issy;
Rousselin, section of the Unité; Marchand, section of Mont-Blanc;
Grespin, section of Gravilliers." They resign on the 6th of June.--The
commission, at first composed of nine members, ends in comprising eleven
(Buchez et Roux, XXVII. 316, official reports of the commune. May 31.)
then 25 (Speech by Pache to the Committee of Public Safety, June 1.)]

[Footnote 34137: Buchez et Roux XXVII. 306. Official reports of the
commune, May 31.--Ibid., 316. Mortimer-Ternaux, VII. 319.]

[Footnote 34138: Buchez et Roux, XXVII. 274 Speech by Hassenfratz to the
Jacobin Club, May 27.]

[Footnote 34139: Buchez et Roux, XXVII. 346 (speech by Lhuillier in the
Convention, May 31).]

[Footnote 34140: Buchez et Roux, XXVII. 302, session of the Convention,
May 30. Words uttered by Hassenfratz, Varlet, and Chabot, and denounced
by Lanjuinais.]

[Footnote 34141: Madame Roland, "Appel à l'impartiale postérité."
Conversation of Madam Roland on the evening of May 31 on the Place du
Carrusel with an artillerist.]

[Footnote 34142: Buchez et Roux, 307-323. Official reports of the
commune, May 31.]

[Footnote 34143: "Archives Nationales," F7, 2494, register of the
revolutionary committee of the Réunion section, official report of May
31, 6 o'clock in the morning.]

[Footnote 34144: Buchez et Roux, XXVII. 335, session of the Convention,
May 31. Petition presented by the commissaries in the name of
forty-eight sections; their credentials show that they are not at first
authorized by more than twenty-six sections.]

[Footnote 34145: Buchez et Roux, 347, 348. Mortimer-Ternaux, VII.
350 (third dispatch of the Hôtel-de-ville delegates, present at the
session): "The National Assembly was not able to accept the above
important measures... until the perturbators of the Assembly, known
under the title of the 'Right,' did themselves the justice to perceive
that they were not worthy of taking part in them; they evacuated the
Assembly, after the great gesticulations and imprecations, to which you
know they are liable."]

[Footnote 34146: Dauban, "La Demagogie en 1793." Diary of Beaulieu,
May 31.--Declaration of Henriot, Germinal 4, year III.--Buchez et Roux,
XXVIII. 351]

[Footnote 34147: Mortimer-Ternaux, VII. 565. Letter of the deputy
Loiseau, June 5.]

[Footnote 34148: Buchez et Roux, XXVII. 352 to 360, 368 to 377. Official
reports of the commune, June 1 and 2. Proclamation of the revolutionary
committee, June 1. "Your delegates have ordered the arrest of all
suspected persons concealing themselves in the sections of Paris. This
arrest is in progress in all quarters."]

[Footnote 34149: "Archives Nationales," F7, 2494. Section of the
Réunion, official report, June 1.--Ibid., June 2. Citizen Robin is
arrested on the 2nd of June, "for having manifested opinions contrary to
the sovereignty of the people in the National Assembly." The same day a
proclamation is made on the territory of the section by a deputation
of the commune, accompanied by one member and two drummers, "tending
(tendantes) to make known to the people that the country will be
saved by awaiting (en atendans) with courage the decree which is to be
rendered to prevent traitors (les traitre) from longer sitting in the
senate house."--Ibid., June 4. The committee decides that it will add
new members to its number, but they will be taken only from all "good
sans-cullote; no notary, no notary's clerk, no lawyers nor their clerks,
no banker nor rich landlord" being admissible, unless he gives evidence
of unmistakable civism since 1789.--Cf. F7, 2497 (section of the Droits
de l'Homme), F7, 2484 (section of the Halle-au-blé), the resemblance in
orthography and in their acts; the registry of the Piques section (F7,
2475) is one of the most interesting; here may be found the details of
the appearance of the ministers before it; the committee that examines
them does not even spell their names correctly, "Clavier" being often
written for Clavière, and "Goyer" for Gohier.]

[Footnote 34150: Buchez et Roux, XXVIII. 19.]

[Footnote 34151: Buchez et Roux, XXVII.357. Official reports of the
commune, June 1.]

[Footnote 34152: Meillan, 307.--"Fragment," by Lanuinais.--"Diurnal," of
Beaulieu, June 2.--Buchez et Roux, XXVII. 399 (speech by Barère).]

[Footnote 34153: Buchez et Roux, XXVII. 357. Official reports of the
commune, June 1.]

[Footnote 34154: Meillan, 53, 58, 307. Buchez et Roux, XXVIII. 14
(Précis, by Gordas).]

[Footnote 34155: Buchez et Roux, XXVII 359. Official reports of the
commune, June 1. "One member of the Council stated that on going to the
Beaurepaire section he was not well received; that the president of
this section spoke uncivilly to him and took him for an imaginary
municipalist; that he was threatened with the lock-up, and that his
liberty was solely due to the brave citizens of the Sans-culottes
section and the gunners of the Beaurepaire section who went with
him."--Preparations for the investment began on the 1st of June.
("Archives Nationales," F7, 2497, official reports of the Droits de
l'Homme section, June 1.) Orders of Henriot to the commandant of the
section to send "400 homme et la compagnie de canonier avec le 2 pièces
de canon au Carouzel le long des Thuilerie plasse de la Révolution."]

[Footnote 34156: "Lanjuinais states 100,000 men, Meillan 50,000; the
deputies of the Somme say 60,000, but without any evidence. Judging by
various indications I should put the number much lower, on account of
the disarmament and absentees: say 30,000 men, the same as May 31.]

[Footnote 34157: Mortimer-Ternaux, VII. 566. Letter of the deputy
Loiseau: "I passed through the whole of one battalion; the men all
said that they did not know why the movement was made, that only their
officers knew." (June 1.)]

[Footnote 34158: Buchez et Roux, XXVII. 400. Session of the Convention,
June 2.----XXVIII. 43 (report by Saladin).]

[Footnote 34159: Mortimer-Ternaux, VII. 392. Official report of the
Jacobin Club, June 2 "The deputies were so surrounded as not to be able
to go out even for special purposes."--Ibid., 568 Letter of the deputy
Loiseau.]

[Footnote 34160: Buchez et Roux, XXVIII. 44. Report by
Saladin.--Meillan, 237.--Mortimer-Ternaux VII. 547. Declaration of the
deputies of the Somme.]

[Footnote 34161: Meillan, 52.--Pétion, "Mémoires," 109 (Edition
Dauban).--Lanjuinais ("Fragment")--"Nearly all those called Girondists
thought it best to stay away."--Letter of Vergniaud June 3 (in the
Republican Français, June 5, 1793). "I left the Assembly yesterday
between 1 and 2 o'clock."]

[Footnote 34162: Lanjuinais, "Fragment," 299.]

[Footnote 34163: Buchez et Roux, XXVII. 400.]

[Footnote 34164: Robinet, "Le Procès de Danton," 169. Words of Danton
(according to the notes of a juryman, Topino-Lebrun).]

[Footnote 34165: Buchez et Roux, XXVII. 44. Report by Saladin.--Meillan,
59.--Lanjuinais, 308, 310.]

[Footnote 34166: Buchez et Roux, XXVII. 401]

[Footnote 34167: Mortimer-Ternaux, VII. 569. Letter of the deputy
Loiseau.--Meillan, 62.]

[Footnote 34168: Buchez et Roux, XXVI. 341. Speech by Chasles in the
Convention, May 2: "The farmers... are nearly all aristocrats."]

[Footnote 34169: Or workhouses, see Taine: "Notes on England" page
214: "It is an English principle that the indigent, by giving up their
freedom, have a right to be supported. Society pays the cost, but shuts
them up and sets them to work. As this condition is repugnant to them,
they avoid the workhouse as much as possible." Similar institutions
existed in France before the revolution. (SR).]

[Footnote 34170: Sieyès (quoted by Barante, "Histoire de la Convention,"
III. 169) thus describes it: "The fake people, the deadliest enemy which
the French people ever had, blocked incessantly the approaches to the
Convention... At the entrance or exit of the Convention the astonished
spectator thought that a new invasion of barbarian hordes had suddenly
occurred, a new irruption of voracious, sanguinary harpies, flocking
there to seize hold of the revolution as if it were the natural prey of
their species."]

[Footnote 34171: Gouverneur Morris, II. 241. Letter of Oct. 23, 1792.
"The populace--something, thank God, that is unknown in America"--He
often insists on this essential characteristic of the French
Revolution.--On this ever-present class, see the accurate and complete
work well supported by facts, of Dr. Lombrose, "L'Uomo delinquente."]

[Footnote 34172: Mortimer-Ternaux, VII. Letter of the deputy Laplaigne,
July 6.]

[Footnote 34173: Meillan, 51.--Buchez et Roux, XXVII. 356. Official
report of the commune, session of June 1. In the afternoon Marat comes
to the commune, harrangues the council, and gives the insurrection the
last impetus. It is plain that he was chief actor on both these days
(June 1 and 2).]

[Footnote 34174: Pétion, 116.]

[Footnote 34175: Schmidt, I. 370.--Mortimer-Ternaux, VII. 391. Letter
of Marchand, member of the Central Committee. "I saw Chaumette do
everything he could to hinder this glorious revolution,... exclaim, shed
tears, and tear his hair."--Buchez et Roux, XXVIII. 46. According to
Saladin, Chaumette went so far as to demand Hébert's arrest.]

[Footnote 34176: Mortimer-Ternaux, VII. 300.--Cf. "Le vieux Cordelier,"
by C. Desmoulins, No. 5.]

[Footnote 34177: Mallet du Pan, II. 52. (March 8, 1794).--The titular
general of the revolutionary army was Ronsin. "Previous to the
Revolution he was a seedy author earning his living and reputation by
working for the boulevard stalls... One day a person informed him that
his staff 'was behaving very badly, acting tyrannically in the most
outrageous manner at the theaters and everywhere else, striking women
and tearing their bonnets to pieces. Your men commit rape, pillage, and
massacre.' To which he replied; 'Well, what shall I do? I know that they
are a lot of ruffians as well as you do; but those are the follows I
need for my revolutionary army. Find me honest people, if you can,
that will do that business.'" (Prudhomme, "Crimes de la Révolution," V.
130.)]

[Footnote 34178: Buchez et Roux, XXIX. 152.]

[Footnote 34179: Beaulieu, "Essais sur la Révolution," V. 200.]

[Footnote 34180: Schmidt, II. 85. Report of Dutard, June 24 (on the
review of the previous evening) "A sort of low-class artisan who seemed
to me to have been a soldier... Apparently he had associated only with
disorderly men; I am sure that he would be found fond of gaming, wine,
women, and everything that denotes a bad character."]

[Footnote 34181: Charlotte de Corday d'Armont, 1768 to 1793. Young
French girl who knifed Marat in his bath. Adherent of the Revolution,
she considered Marat as being responsible for the elimination of the
Girondists and the establishment of the terror. She was guillotined.
(SR.)]

[Footnote 34182: Lauvergne, "Histoire de la Révolution dans le
département du Var," 176. At Toulon "the spirit of counter-revolution
was nothing else than the sentiment of self-preservation." It was the
same thing at Lyons. (Nolhac, "Souvenir de trois année de la Révolution
à Lyon," p. 14.)]

[Footnote 34183: Gouverneur Morris, II. 395. Letter of Jan. 21, 1794.
"Admitting what has been asserted by persons in a situation to know the
truth and deeply interested to prove the contrary, it is an undoubted
truth that ninety-nine-hundredths are opposed to all ideas of a
dismemberment, and will fight to prevent it.]

[Footnote 34184: Mallet du Pan, II. 44.]

[Footnote 34185: Carnot, Lazare, Nicolas, 1753-1823, military engineer
and mathematician, member of the committee of public safety, organized
the armies of the republic and their offensive tactics. (SR).]

[Footnote 34186: Among other documents, the following letter will show
the quality of these recruits, especially of the recruits of 1791, who
were much the best men. (Letter from the municipal officers of Dorat,
December 28, 1792, "Archives Nationales," F7, 3275.) "The commune
of Dorat is made up of three classes of citizens: The richest class,
composed of persons confirmed in the prejudices of the ancient régime,
has been disarmed. The second, composed of well-to-do people, fills
the administrative positions. It is against them that the fury of the
turbulent is aimed; but those of this class who could make resistance
have gone to fight the enemy abroad. The third class, and the most
numerous, is made up in part of the seditious and in part of laborers,
who, not daring to mix in the revolt, content themselves with
coveting the tax on grain."--Toulongeon, "Histoire de France depuis la
Révolution," IV. 94. "Do not degrade a nation by ascribing base motives
to it and a servile fear. Every one, on the contrary, felt himself
infused by an exalted instinct for the public welfare."--Gouvion
Saint-Cyr, "Mémoires," I. 56: A young man would have blushed to remain
at home when the independence of the nation was threatened. Each one
quitted his studies or his profession.]

[Footnote 34187: Gouvion-Saint-Cyr, 26. "The manifesto of Brunswick
assigns to France more than a hundred battalions, which, within three
weeks, were raised, armed, and put in the field."]

[Footnote 34188: In respect of these sentiments, cf. Gouvion Saint-Cyr,
"Mémoires," and Fervel, "Campagnes de la Révolution Française dans les
Pyrénées orientales."]

[Footnote 34189: Stendhal, Memoires sur Napoléon.]

[Footnote 34190: Gouvion-Saint-Cyr, "Memoires," p.43. "Patriotism
made up for everything; it alone gave us victory; it supplied our most
pressing needs."]