The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume
4 (of 6), by Hippolyte A. Taine
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6)
The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3)
Author: Hippolyte A. Taine
Annotator: Svend Rom
Translator: John Durand, 1880
Release Date: June 18, 2008 [EBook #2580]
Last Updated: January 8, 2013
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FRENCH REVOLUTION V3 ***
Produced by Svend Rom and David Widger
Text 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.
HTML Producer's Note: Footnote numbering has been changed to
include as a prefix to the original footnote number, the book and
chapter numbers. A table of contents has been added with active
links.
David Widger, June 2008
Please note that all references to earlier Volumes of the
Origines of Contemporary France are to the American edition.
Since there are no fixed page numbers in the Gutenberg
edition these page numbers are only approximate. (SR).
CONTENTS
PREFACE.
BOOK FIRST. THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE REVOLUTIONARY GOVERNMENT.
CHAPTER I. JACOBIN GOVERNMENT
I. The despotic creed and instincts of the Jacobin.BOOK SECOND. THE JACOBIN PROGRAM.
II. Jacobin Dissimulation.
III. Primary Assemblies
IV. The Delegates reach Paris
V. Fête of August 10th
VI. The Mountain.
VII. Extent and Manifesto of the departmental insurrection
VIII. The Reasons for the Terror.
IX. Destruction of Rebel Cities
X. Destruction of the Girondin party
XI. Institutions of the Revolutionary Government
CHAPTER I. THE JACOBIN PARTY
I. The Doctrine.CHAPTER II. REACTIONARY CONCEPT OF THE STATE.
II. A Communist State.
III. The object of the State is the regeneration of man.
IV. Two distortions of the natural man.
V. Equality and Inequality.
VI. Conditions requisite for making a citizen.
VII. Socialist projects.
VIII. Indoctrination of mind and intellect.
I. Reactionary concept of the State.BOOK THIRD. THE MEN IN POWER.
II. Changed minds.
III. Origin and nature of the modern State.
IV. The state is tempted to encroach.
V. Direct common interest.
VI. Indirect common interest.
VII. Fabrication of social instruments.
VIII. Comparison between despotisms.
CHAPTER I. PSYCHOLOGY OF THE JACOBIN LEADERS.
CHAPTER II. THE RULERS OF THE COUNTRY.
I. The Convention.CHAPTER III. THE RULERS. (continued).
II. Its participation in crime.
III. The Committee of Public Safety.
IV. The Statesmen.
V. Official Jacobin organs.
VI. Commissars of the Revolution.
VII. Brutal Instincts.
IX. Vice.
I. The Central Government Administration.BOOK FOURTH. THE GOVERNED.
II. Subaltern Jacobins.
III. A Revolutionary Committee.
IV. Provincial Administration.
V. Jacobins sent to the Provinces.
VI. Quality of staff thus formed.
VII. The Armed Forces.
CHAPTER I. THE OPPRESSED.
I. Revolutionary Destruction.CHAPTER II. FOOD AND PROVISIONS.
II. The Value of Notables in Society.
III. The three classes of Notables.
IV. The Clergy.
V. The Bourgeoisie.
VI. The Demi-notables.
VII. Principle of socialist Equality.
VIII. Rigor against the Upper Classes.
IX. The Jacobin Citizen Robot.
X. The Governors and the Governed.
I. Economical Complexity of Food Chain.BOOK FIFTH. THE END OF THE REVOLUTIONARY GOVERNMENT.
II. Conditions in 1793. A Lesson in Market Economics.
III. Privation.
IV. Hunger.
V. Revolutionary Remedies.
VI. Relaxation.
VII. Misery at Paris.
CHAPTER I. THE CONVENTION.
I. The Convention.
II. Re-election of the Two-thirds.
III. A Directory of Regicides.
IV. Public Opinon.
VI. The Directory.
VII. Enforcement of Pure Jacobinism.
VIII. Propaganda and Foreign Conquests.
IX. National Disgust.
X. Contrast between Civil and Military France.
"In Egypt," says Clement of Alexandria,1101 "the sanctuaries of the temples are shaded by curtains of golden tissue. But on going further into the interior in quest of the statue, a priest of grave aspect, advancing to meet you and chanting a hymn in the Egyptian tongue, slightly raises a veil to show you the god. And what do you behold? A crocodile, or some indigenous serpent, or other dangerous animal, the Egyptian god being a beast sprawling on a purple carpet."
We need not visit Egypt or go so far back in history to encounter crocodile worship, as this can be readily found in France at the end of the last century.—Unfortunately, a hundred years is too long an interval, too far away, for an imaginative retrospect of the past. At the present time, standing where we do and regarding the horizon behind us, we see only forms which the intervening atmosphere embellishes, shimmering contours which each spectator may interpret in his own fashion; no distinct, animated figure, but merely a mass of moving points, forming and dissolving in the midst of picturesque architecture. I was anxious to take a closer view of these vague points, and, accordingly, deported myself back to the last half of the eighteenth century. I have now been living with them for twelve years, and, like Clement of Alexandria, examined, first, the temple, and next the god. A passing glance at these is not sufficient; it was also necessary to understand the theology on which this cult is founded. This one, explained by a very specious theology, like most others, is composed of dogmas called the principles of 1789; they were proclaimed, indeed, at that date, having been previously formulated by Jean-Jacques Rousseau:
* The well known sovereignty of the people.
* The rights of Man.
* The social contract.
Once adopted, their practical results unfolded themselves naturally. In three years these dogmas installed the crocodile on the purple carpet insides the sanctuary behind the golden veil. He was selected for the place on account of the energy of his jaws and the capacity of his stomach; he became a god through his qualities as a destructive brute and man-eater.—Comprehending this, the rites which consecrate him and the pomp which surrounds him need not give us any further concern.—We can observe him, like any ordinary animal, and study his various attitudes, as he lies in wait for his prey, springs upon it, tears it to pieces, swallows it, and digests it. I have studied the details of his structure, the play of his organs, his habits, his mode of living, his instincts, his faculties, and his appetites.—Specimens abounded. I have handled thousands of them, and have dissected hundreds of every species and variety, always preserving the most valuable and characteristic examples, but for lack of room I have been compelled to let many of them go because my collections was too large. Those that I was able to bring back with me will be found here, and, among others, about twenty individuals of different dimensions, which—a difficult undertaking—I have kept alive with great pains. At all events, they are intact and perfect, and particularly the three largest. These seem to me, of their kind, truly remarkable, and those in which the divinity of the day might well incarnate himself.—Authentic and rather well kept cookbooks inform us about the cost of the cult: We can more or less estimate how much the sacred crocodiles consumed in ten years; we know their bills of daily fare, their favorite morsels. Naturally, the god selected the fattest victims, but his voracity was so great that he likewise bolted down, and blindly, the lean ones, and in much greater number than the fattest. Moreover, by virtue of his instincts, and an unfailing effect of the situation, he ate his equals once or twice a year, except when they succeeded in eating him.—This cult certainly is instructive, at least to historians and men of pure science. If any believers in it still remain I do not aim to convert them; one cannot argue with a devotee on matters of faith. This volume, accordingly, like the others that have gone before it, is written solely for amateurs of moral zoology, for naturalists of the understanding, for seekers of truth, of texts, and of proofs—for these alone and not for the public, whose mind is made up and which has its own opinion on the Revolution. This opinion began to be formed between 1825 and 1830, after the retirement or withdrawal of eye witnesses. When they disappeared it was easy to convince a credulous public that crocodiles were philanthropists; that many possessed genius; that they scarcely ate others than the guilty, and that if they sometimes ate too many it was unconsciously and in spite of themselves, or through devotion and self-sacrifice for the common good.
H. A. Taine, Menthon Saint Bernard, July 1884.
Weakness of former governments.—Energy of the new
government.—The despotic creed and instincts of the
Jacobin.
So far, the weakness of the legal government is extreme. During four years, whatever its kind, it has constantly and everywhere been disobeyed. For four years it never dared enforce obedience. Recruited among the cultivated and refined class, the rulers of the country have brought with them into power the prejudices and sensibilities of the epoch. Under the influence of the prevailing dogma they have submitted to the will of the multitude and, with too much faith in the rights of Man, they have had too little in the authority of the magistrate. Moreover, through humanity, they have abhorred bloodshed and, unwilling to repress, they have allowed themselves to be repressed. Thus from the 1st of May, 1789, to June 2, 1793, they have administrated or legislated, escaping countless insurrections, almost all of them going unpunished; while their constitution, an unhealthy product of theory and fear, have done no more than transform spontaneous anarchy into legal anarchy. Deliberately and through distrust of authority they have undermined the principle of command, reduced the King to the post of a decorative puppet, and almost annihilated the central power: from the top to the bottom of the hierarchy the superior has lost his hold on the inferior, the minister on the departments, the departments on the districts, and the districts on the communes. Throughout all branches of the service, the chief, elected on the spot and by his subordinates, has come to depend on them. Thenceforth, each post in which authority is vested is found isolated, dismantled and preyed upon, while, to crown all, the Declaration of Rights, proclaiming "the jurisdiction of constituents over their clerks,"1102 has invited the assailants to make the assault. On the strength of this a faction arises which ends in becoming an organized band; under its clamor, its menaces and its pikes, at Paris and in the provinces, at the polls and in the parliament, the majorities are all silenced, while the minorities vote, decree and govern; the Legislative Assembly is purged, the King is dethroned, and the Convention is mutilated. Of all the garrisons of the central citadel, whether royalists, Constitutionalists, or Girondins, not one has been able to defend itself, to re-fashion the executive instrument, to draw the sword and use it in the streets: on the first attack, often at the first summons, all have surrendered, and now the citadel, with every other public fortress, is in the hands of the Jacobins.
This time, its occupants are of a different stamp. Aside from the great mass of well-disposed people fond of a quiet life, the Revolution has sifted out and separated from the rest all who are fanatical, brutal or perverse enough to have lost respect for others; these form the new garrison—sectarians blinded by their creed, the roughs (assommeurs) who are hardened by their calling, and those who make all they can out of their offices. None of this class are scrupulous concerning human life or property; for, as we have seen, they have shaped the theory to suit themselves, and reduced popular sovereignty to their sovereignty. The commonwealth, according to the Jacobin, is his; with him, the commonwealth comprises all private possessions, bodies, estates, souls and consciences; everything belongs to him; the fact of being a Jacobin makes him legitimately czar and pope. Little does he care about the wills of actually living Frenchmen; his mandate does not emanate from a vote; it descends to him from aloft, conferred on him by Truth, by Reason, by Virtue. As he alone is enlightened, and the only patriot, he alone is worthy to take command, while resistance, according to his imperious pride, is criminal. If the majority protests it is because the majority is imbecile or corrupt; in either case, it deserves to be brought to heel. And, in fact, the Jacobin only does that and right away too; insurrections, usurpations, pillaging, murders, assaults on individuals, on judges and public attorneys, on assemblies, violations of law, attacks on the State, on communities—there is no outrage not committed by him. He has always acted as sovereign instinctively; he was so as a private individual and clubbist; he is not to cease being so, now that he possesses legal authority, and all the more because if he hesitates he knows he is lost; to save himself from the scaffold he has no refuge but in a dictatorship. Such a man, unlike his predecessors, will not allow himself to be turned out; on the contrary, he will exact obedience at any cost. He will not hesitate to restore the central power; he will put back the local wheels that have been detached; he will repair the old forcing gear; he will set it agoing so as to work more rudely and arbitrarily than ever, with greater contempt for private rights and public liberties than either a Louis XIV. or a Napoleon.
Contrast between his words and his acts.—How he
dissimulates his change of front.—The Constitution of June,
1793.—Its promises of freedom.
In the mean time, he has to harmonize his coming acts with his recent declarations, which, at the first glance, seems a difficult operation: for, in the speeches he has made he has already condemned the actions he meditates. Yesterday he exaggerated the rights of the governed, even to a suppression of those of the government; to-morrow he is to exaggerate the rights of the people in power, even to suppressing those who are governed. The people, as he puts it, is the sole sovereign, and he is going to treat the people as slaves; the government, as he puts it, is a valet, and he is going to endow the government with prerogatives of a sultan. He has just denounced the slightest exercise of public authority as a crime; he is now going to punish as a crime the slightest resistance to public authority. What will justify such a volte-face and with what excuse can he repudiate the principles with which he justified his takeover?—He takes good care not to repudiate them; it would drive the already rebellious provinces to extremes; on the contrary, he proclaims them with renewed vigor, through which move the ignorant crowd, seeing the same flask always presented to it, imagines that it is always served with the same liquor, and is thus forced to drink tyranny under the label of freedom. Whatever the charlatan can do with his labels, signboards, shouting and lies for the next six months, will be done to disguise the new nostrum; so much the worse for the public if, later on, it discovers that the draught is bitter; sooner or later it must swallow it, willingly or by compulsion: for, in the interval, the instruments are being got ready to force it down the public throat.1103
As a beginning, the Constitution, so long anticipated and so often promised, is hastily fabricated:1104 declarations of rights in thirty-five articles, the Constitutional bill in one hundred and twenty-four articles, political principles and institutions of every sort, electoral, legislative, executive, administrative, judicial, financial and military;1105 in three weeks all is drawn up and passed on the double.—Of course, the new Constitutionalists do not propose to produce an effective and serviceable instrument; that is the least of their worries. Hérault Séchelles, the reporter of the bill, writes on the 7th of June, "to have procured for him at once the laws of Minos, of which he has urgent need;" very urgent need, as he must hand in the Constitution that week.1106 Such circumstance is sufficiently characteristic of both the workmen and the work. All is mere show and pretense. Some of the workmen are shrewd politicians whose sole object is to furnish the public with words instead of realities; others, ordinary scribblers of abstractions, or even ignoramuses, and unable to distinguish words from reality, imagine that they are framing laws by stringing together a lot of phrases.—It is not a difficult job; the phrases are ready-made to hand. "Let the plotters of anti-popular systems," says the reporter, "painfully elaborate their projects! Frenchmen.... have only to consult their hearts to read the Republic there!"1107 Drafted in accordance with the "Contrat-Social," filled with Greek and Latin reminiscences, it is a summary "in pithy style" of the manual of current aphorisms then in vogue, Rousseau's mathematical formulas and prescriptions, "the axioms of truth and the consequences flowing from these axioms," in short, a rectilinear constitution which any school-boy may spout on leaving college. Like a handbill posted on the door of a new shop, it promises to customers every imaginable article that is handsome and desirable. Would you have rights and liberties? You will find them all here. Never has the statement been so clearly made, that the government is the servant, creature and tool of the governed; it is instituted solely "to guarantee to them their natural, imprescriptible rights." 1108 Never has a mandate been more strictly limited: "The right of expressing one's thoughts and opinions, either through the press or in any other way; the right of peaceful assembly, the free exercise of worship, cannot be interdicted." Never have citizens been more carefully guarded against the encroachments and excesses of public authority: "The law should protect public and private liberties against the oppression of those who govern... offenses committed by the people's mandatories and agents must never go unpunished. Let free men instantly put to death every individual usurping sovereignty. .. Every act against a man outside of the cases and forms which the law determines is arbitrary and tyrannical; whosoever is subjected to violence in the execution of this act has the right to repel it by force... When the government violates the people's rights insurrection is, for the people and for each portion of the people, the most sacred of rights and the most indispensable of duties."
To civil rights the generous legislator has added political rights, and multiplied every precaution for maintaining the dependence of rulers on the people.—In the first place, rulers are appointed by the people and through direct choice or nearly direct choice: in primary meetings the people elect deputies, city officers, justices of the peace, and electors of the second degree; the latter, in their turn, elect in the secondary meetings, district and department administrators, civil arbitrators, criminal judges, judges of appeal and the eighty candidates from amongst which the legislative body is to select its executive council.—In the second place, all powers of whatever kind are never conferred except for a very limited term: one year for deputies, for electors of the second degree, for civil arbitrators, and for judges of every kind and class. As to municipalities and also department and district administrations, these are one-half renewable annually. Every first of May the fountain-head of authority flows afresh, the people in its primary assemblies, spontaneously formed, manifesting or changing at will its staff of clerks.—In the third place, even when installed and at work, the people may, if it pleases, become their collaborator: means are provided for "deliberating" with its deputies. The latter, on incidental questions, those of slight importance, on the ordinary business of the year, may enact laws; but on matters of general, considerable and permanent interest, they are simply to propose the laws, while, especially as regards a declaration of war, the people alone must decide. The people have a suspensive veto and, finally, a definitive veto, which they may exercise when they please. To this end, they may assemble in extraordinary session; one-fifth of the citizens who have the right to vote suffice for their convocation. Once convoked, the vote is determined by a Yes or a No on the act proposed by the legislative body. If, at the expiration of forty days, one-tenth of the primary assemblies in one-half of the departments vote No, there is a suspensive veto. In that event all the primary assemblies of the Republic must be convoked and if the majority still decides in the negative, that is a definitive veto. The same formalities govern a revision of the established constitution.—In all this, the plan of the "Montagnards" is a further advance on that of the Girondins; never was so insignificant a part assigned to the rulers nor so extensive a part to the governed. The Jacobins profess a respect for the popular initiative which amounts to a scruple.1109 According to them the sovereign people should be sovereign de facto, permanently, and without interregnum, allowed to interfere in all serious affairs, and not only possess the right, but the faculty, of imposing its will on its mandatories.—All the stronger is the reason for referring to it the institutions now being prepared for it. Hence the Convention, after the parade is over, convokes the primary assemblies and submits to them for ratification the Constitutional bill has been drawn up.
Primary Assemblies.—Proportion of Absentees.—Unanimity of
the voters.—Their motives for accepting the Constitution.
—Pressure brought to bear on voters.—Choice of Delegates.
The ratification will, undoubtedly, be approved. Everything has been combined beforehand to secure it, also to secure it as wanted, apparently spontaneously, and almost unanimously.—The primary assemblies, indeed, are by no means fully attended; only one-half, or a quarter, or a third of the electors in the cities deposit their votes, while in the rural districts there is only a quarter, and less.1110 Repelled by their experience with previous convocations the electors know too well the nature of these assemblies; how the Jacobin faction rules them, how it manages the electoral comedy, with what violence and threats it reduces all dissidents to voting either as figurants or claqueurs. From four to five million of electors prefer to hold aloof and stay at home as usual. Nevertheless the organization of most of the assemblies takes place, amounting to some six or seven thousand. This is accounted for by the fact that each canton contains its small group of Jacobins. Next to these come the simple-minded who still believe in official declarations; in their eyes a constitution which guarantees private rights and institutes public liberties must be accepted, no matter what hand may present it to them. And all the more readily because the usurpers offer to resign; in effect, the Convention has just solemnly declared that once the Constitution is adopted, the people shall again be convoked to elect "a new national assembly... a new representative body invested with a later and more immediate trust,"1111 which will allow electors, if they are so disposed, to return honest deputies and exclude the knaves who now rule. Thereupon even the insurgent departments, the mass of the Girondins population, after a good deal of hesitation, resign themselves at last to voting for it.1112 This is done at Lyons and in the department of Calvados only on the 30th of July. A number of Constitutionalists or neutrals have done the same thing, some through a horror of civil war and a spirit of conciliation, and others through fear of persecution and of being taxed with royalism;1113 one conception more: through docility they may perhaps succeed in depriving the "Mountain" of all pretext for violence.
In this they greatly deceive themselves, and, from the first, they are able to see once more the Jacobins interpretation of electoral liberty.—At first, all the registered,1114 and especially the "suspects," are compelled to vote, and to vote Yes; otherwise, says a Jacobin journal,1115 "they themselves will indicate the true opinion one ought to have of their attitudes, and no longer have reason to complain of suspicions that are found to be so well grounded." They come accordingly, "very humbly and very penitent." Nevertheless they meet with a rebuff, and a cold shoulder is turned on them; they are consigned to a corner of the room, or near the doors, and are openly insulted. Thus received, it is clear that they will keep quiet and not risk the slightest objection. At Macon "a few aristocrats muttered to themselves, but not one dared say No."1116 It would, indeed, be extremely imprudent. At Montbrison, "six individuals who decline to vote," are denounced in the procès-verbal of the Canton, while a deputy in the Convention demands "severe measures" against them. At Nogent-sur-Seine, three administrators, guilty of the same offense, are to be turned out of office.1117 A few months later, the offense becomes a capital crime, and people are to be guillotined "for having voted against the Constitution of 1793."1118 Almost all the ill-disposed foresaw this danger; hence, in nearly all the primary assemblies, the adoption is unanimous, or nearly unanimous.1119 At Rouen, there are but twenty-six adverse votes; at Caen, the center of the Girondin opposition, fourteen; at Rheims, there are only two; at Troyes, Besançon, Limoges and Paris, there are none at all; in fifteen departments the number of negatives varies from five to one; not one is found in Var; this apparent unity is most instructive. The commune of St. Donau, the only one in France, in the remote district of Cotês-du-Nord, dares demand the restoration of the clergy and the son of Capet for king. All the others vote as if directed with a baton; they have understood the secret of the plebiscite; that it is a Jacobin demonstration, not an honest vote, which is required.1120 The operation undertaken by the local party is actually carried out. It beats to arms around the ballot-box; it arrives in force; it alone speaks with authority; it animates officers; it moves all the resolutions and draws up the report of proceedings, while the representatives on mission from Paris add to the weight of the local authority that of the central authority. In the Macon assembly "they address the people on each article; this speech is followed by immense applause and redoubled shouting of Vive la République! Vive la Constitution! Vive le Peuple Français!" Beware, ye lukewarm, who do not join in the chorus! They are forced to vote "in a loud, intelligible voice." They are required to shout in unison, to sign the grandiloquent address in which the leaders testify their gratitude to the Convention, and give their adhesion to the eminent patriots delegated by the primary assembly to bear its report to Paris.1121
The Delegates reach Paris.—Precautions taken against them.
—Constraints and Seductions.
The first act of the comedy is over and the second act now begins.—The faction has convoked the delegates of the primary assemblies to Paris for a purpose. Like the primary assemblies, they are to serve as its instruments for governing; they are to form the props of dictatorship, and the object now is to restrict them to that task only.—Indeed, it is not certain that all will lend themselves to it. For, among the eight thousand commissioners, some, appointed by refractory assemblies, bring a refusal instead of an adhesion;1122 others, more numerous, are instructed to present objections and point out omissions:1123 it is very certain that the envoys of the Girondist departments will insist on the release or return of their excluded representatives. And lastly, a good many delegates who have accepted the Constitution in good faith desire its application as soon as possible, and that the Convention should fulfill its promise of abdication, so as to give way to a new Assembly.—As it is important to suppress at once all these vague desires for independence or tendencies for opposition a decree of the Convention "authorizes the Committee of General Security to order the arrest of 'suspect' commissioners;" it is especially to look after those who, "charged with a special mission, would hold meetings to win over their colleagues,.... and engage them in proceedings contrary to their mandate."1124 In the first place, and before they are admitted into Paris, their Jacobinism is to be verified, like a bale in the customs-house, by the special agents of the executive council, and especially by Stanislas Maillard, the famous September judge, and his sixty-eight bearded ruffians, each receiving pay at five francs a day. "On all the roads, within a circuit of fifteen or twenty leagues of the capital," the delegates are searched; their trunks are opened, and their letters read. At the barriers in Paris they find "inspectors" posted by the Commune, under the pretext of protecting them against prostitutes and swindlers. There, they are taken possession of, and conducted to the mayoralty, where they receive lodging tickets, while a picket of gendarmerie escorts them to their allotted domiciles.1125—Behold them in pens like sheep, each in his numbered stall; there is no fear of the dissidents trying to escape and form a band apart: one of them, who comes to the Convention and asks for a separate hall for himself and his adherents, is snubbed in the most outrageous manner; they denounce him as an intriguer, and accuse him of a desire to defend the traitor Castries; they take his name and credentials, and threaten him with an investigation.1126 The unfortunate speaker hears the Abbaye alluded to, and evidently thinks himself fortunate to escape sleeping there that night.—After this, it is certain that he will not again demand the privilege of speaking, and that his colleagues will remain quiet; and all this is the more likely
* because the revolutionary tribunal holds permanent sessions under their eyes,
* because the guillotine is set up and in operation on the "Place de la Révolution;"
* because a recent act of the Commune enjoins on the police "the most active surveillance" and "constant patrols" by the armed force;
* because, from the first to the fourth of August, the barriers are closed;
* because, on the 2nd of August, a raid into three of the theaters puts five hundred young men in the lock-up,1127
so the discontented soon discover, if there are any, that this is not the time or the place to protest.
As to the others, already Jacobin, the faction takes it upon itself to render them still more so.—Lost in the immensity of Paris, all these provincials require moral as well as physical guides; it agrees to exercise toward them "hospitality in all its plenitude, the sweetest of Republican virtues."1128 Hence, ninety-six sans-culottes, selected from among the sections, wait on them at the Mayoralty to serve as their correspondents, and perhaps as their guarantees, and certainly as pilots
* to give them lodging-tickets,
* to escort and install them,
* to indoctrinate them, as formerly with the federates of July, 1792,
* to prevent their getting into bad company,
* to introduce them into all the exciting meetings,
* to see that their ardent patriotism quickly rises to the proper temperature of Parisian Jacobinism.1129
The theaters must not offend their eyes or ears with pieces "opposed to the spirit of the Revolution."1130 An order is issued for the performance three times a week of "republican tragedies, such as 'Brutus', 'William Tell', 'Caius Gracchus,' and other dramas suitable for the maintenance of the principles of equality and liberty." Once a week the theaters must be free, when Chéniér's alexandrines are spouted on the stage to the edification of the delegates, crowded into the boxes at the expense of the State. The following morning, led in groups into the tribunes of the Convention,1131 they there find the same, classic, simple, declamatory, sanguinary tragedy, except that the latter is not feigned but real, and the tirades are in prose instead of in verse. Surrounded by paid yappers like victims for the ancient Romans celebrations of purifications, our provincials applaud, cheer and get excited, the same as on the night before at the signal given by the claqueurs and the regulars. Another day, the procureur-syndic Lhullier summons them to attend the "Evéché," to "fraternize with the authorities of the Paris department;"1132 the "Fraternité" section invites them to its daily meetings; the Jacobin club lends them its vast hall in the morning and admits them to its sessions in the evening.—Thus monopolized and kept, as in a diving bell, they breathe in Paris nothing but a Jacobin atmosphere; from one Jacobin den to another, as they are led about in this heated atmosphere, their pulse beats more rapidly. Many of them, who, on their arrival, were "plain, quiet people,"1133 but out of their element, subjected to contagion without any antidote, quickly catch the revolutionary fever. The same as at an American revival, under the constant pressure of preaching and singing, of shouts and nervous spasms, the lukewarm and even the indifferent have not long to wait before the delirium puts them in harmony with the converted.
They make their profession of Jacobin faith.—Their part in
the Fête of August 10th.—Their enthusiasm.
On the 7th of August things come to a head.—Led by the department and the municipality, a number of delegates march to the bar of the Convention, and make a confession of Jacobin faith. "Soon," they exclaim, "will search be made on the banks of the Seine for the foul marsh intended to engulf us. Were the royalist and intriguers to die of spite, we will live and die 'Montagnards.'"1134 Applause and embraces.—From thence they betake themselves to the Jacobin Club, where one of them proposes an address prepared beforehand: the object of this is to justify the 31st of May, and the 2nd of June, "to open the eyes" of provincial France, to declare "war against the federalists."1135 "Down with the infamous libelers who have calumniated Paris!.... We cherish but one sentiment, our souls are all melted into one... We form here but one vast, terrible mountain, about to vomit forth its fires on the royalists and supporters of tyranny." Applause and cheers.—Robespierre declares that they are there to save the country.1136 On the following day, August 8th, this address is presented to the Convention and Robespierre has a resolution adopted, ordering it to be sent to the armies, to foreign powers and all the Communes. More applause, more embraces, and more cheers.—On the 9th of August,1137 by order of the Convention, the delegates meet in the Tuileries garden, where, divided into as many groups as there are departments, they study the program drawn up by David, in order to familiarize themselves with the parts they are to play in the festival of the following day.
What an odd festival and how well it expresses the spirit of the time! It is a sort of opera played in the streets by the public authorities, with triumphant chariots, altars, censers, an Ark of the Covenant, funeral urns, classic banners and other trappings! Its divinities consist of plaster statues representing Nature, Liberty, the People, and Hercules, all of which are personified abstractions, like those painted on the ceiling of a theater. In all this there is no spontaneity nor sincerity; the actors, whose consciences tell them that they are only actors, render homage to symbols which they know to be nothing but symbols, while the mechanical procession,1138 the invocations, the apostrophes, the postures, the gestures are regulated beforehand, the same as by a ballet-manager. To any truth-loving person all this must seem like a charade performed by puppets.—But the festival is colossal, well calculated to stimulate the imagination and excite pride through physical excitement.1139 On this grandiose stage the delegates become quite intoxicated with their part; for, evidently, theirs is the leading part; they represent twenty-six millions of Frenchmen, and the sole object of this ceremony is to glorify the national will of which they are the bearers.—On the Place de la Bastille1140 where the gigantic effigy of nature pours forth from its two breasts "the regenerating water," Hérault, the president, after offering libations and saluting the new goddess, passes the cup to the eighty-seven elders (les doyens) of the eighty-seven departments, each "summoned by sound of drum and trumpet" to step forward and drink in his turn, while cannon belch forth their thunders as if for a monarch. After the eighty-seven have passed the cup around, the artillery roars. The procession them moves on, and the delegates again are assigned the place of honor. The elders, holding an olive-branch in one hand, and a pike in the other, with a streamer on the end of it bearing the name of their department, "bound to each other by a small three-color ribbon," surround the Convention as if to convey the idea that the nation maintains and conducts its legal representative. Behind them march the rest of the eight thousand delegates, likewise holding olive-branches and forming a second distinct body, the largest of all, and on which all eyes are centered. For, in their wake, "their is no longer any distinction between persons and functionaries," all being confounded together, marching pell-mell, executive council, city officials, judges scattered about haphazard and, by virtue of equality, lost in the crowd. At each station, thanks to their insignia, the delegates form the most conspicuous element. On reaching the last one, that of the Champ de Mars, they alone with the Convention, ascend the steps leading to the alter of the country; on the highest platform stands the eldest of all alongside the president of the Convention, also standing; thus graded above each other, the seven thousand, who envelope the seven hundred and fifty, form "the veritable Sacred Mountain." Now, the president, on the highest platform, turns toward the eighty-seven elders; he confides to the Ark containing the Constitutional Act and the list of those who voted for it; they, on their part, then advance and hand him their pikes, which he gathers together into one bundle as an emblem of national unity and indivisibility. At this, shouts arise from every point of the immense enclosure; salvoes of artillery follow again and again; "one would say that heaven and earth answered each other" in honor "of the greatest epoch of humanity."—Certainly, the delegates are beside themselves; their nerves, strained to the utmost, vibrates too powerfully; the millennium discloses itself before their eyes. Already, many among them on the Place de la Bastille, had addressed the universe; others, "seized with a prophetic spirit," promise eternity to the Constitution. They feel themselves "reborn again, along with the human species;" they regard themselves as beings of a new world. History is consummated in them; the future is in their hands; they believe themselves gods on earth.—In this critical state, their reason, like a pair of ill-balanced scales, yields to the slightest touch; under the pressure of the manufacturers of enthusiasm, a sudden reaction will carry them away. They consider the Constitution as a panacea, and they are going to consign it, like some dangerous drug, to this coffer which they call an ark. They have just proclaimed the liberty of the people, and are going to perpetuate the dictatorship of the Convention.
Maneuvers of the "Mountain."—The Jacobin Club on the eve of
August 11th.—Session of the Convention on the 11th of
August.—The Delegates initiate Terror.—Popular
consecration of the Jacobin dictatorship.
This volteface has, of course, to appear spontaneous and the hand of the titular rulers remain invisible: the Convention, as usual with usurpers, is to simulate reserve and disinterestedness.—Consequently, the following morning, August 11, on the opening of the session, it simply declares that "its mission is fulfilled:"1141 on the motion of Lacroix, a confederate of Danton's, it passes a law that a new census of the population and of electors shall be made with as little delay as possible, in order to convoke the primary assemblies at once; it welcomes with joy the delegates who bring to it the Constitutional Ark; the entire Assembly rises in the presence of this sacred receptacle, and allows the delegates to exhort it and instruct it concerning its duties.1142 But in the evening, at the Jacobin Club, Robespierre, after a long and vague discourse on public dangers, conspiracies, and traitors, suddenly utters the decisive words:
"The most important of my reflections was about to escape me1143... The proposition made this morning will only facilitate the replacement of the purified members of this Convention by the envoys of Pitt and Cobourg."
Dreadful words in the mouth of a man of principles! They are at once understood by the leaders, great and small, also by the selected fifteen hundred Jacobins then filling the hall. "No! no! shouts the entire club." The delegates are carried away:
"I demand," exclaims one of them, "that the dissolution of the Convention be postponed until the end of the war."—
At last, the precious motion, so long desired and anticipated, is made: the calumnies of the Girondins now fall the ground; it is demonstrated that the Convention does not desire to perpetuate itself and that it has no ambition; if it remains in power it is because it is kept there; the delegates of the people compel it to stay.
And better still, they are going to mark out its course of action.—The next day, the 12th of August, with the zeal of new converts, they spread themselves through the hall in such numbers that Assembly, no longer able to carry on is deliberations, crowds toward the left and yields the whole of the space on the right that they may occupy and "purify" it.1144 All the combustible material in their minds, accumulated during the past fortnight, takes fire and explodes; they are more furious than the most ultra Jacobins; they repeat at the bar of the house the extravagances of Rose Lacombe, and of the lowest clubs; they even transcend the program drawn up by the "Mountain." "The time for deliberation is past," exclaims their spokesman, "we must act1145... Let the people rouse themselves in a mass... it alone can annihilate its enemies... We demand that all 'suspects' be put under arrest; that they be dispatched to the frontiers, followed by the terrible mass of sans-culottes. There, in the front ranks, they will be obliged to fight for that liberty which they have outraged for the past four years, or be immolated on the tyrants' cannon.... Women, children, old men and the infirm shall be kept as hostages by the women and children of sans-culottes." Danton seizes the opportunity. With his usual lucidity he finds the expression which describes the situation:
"The deputies of the primary assemblies," he says, "have just begun to practice among us the initiative of terror."
He moreover reduces the absurd notions of the fanatics to a practical measure: "A mobilization en masse, yes, but with order" by at once calling out the first class of conscript, all men from eighteen to twenty-five years of age; the arrest of all 'suspects', yes, but not to lead them against the enemy; "they would be more dangerous than useful in our armies; let us shut them up; they will be our hostages."—He also proposes employment for the delegates who are only in the way in Paris and might be useful in the provinces. Let us make of them "various kinds of representatives charged with animating citizens... Let them, along with all good citizens and the constituted authorities, take charge of the inventories of grain and arms, and make requisitions for men, and let the Committee of Public Safety direct this sublime movement.... All will swear that, on returning to their homes, they will give this impulse their fellow citizens." Universal applause; the delegates exclaim in one voice, "We swear!" Everybody springs to his feet; the men in the tribunes wave their hats and likewise should the same oath.—The scheme is successful; a semblance of popular will has authorized the staff of officials, the policy, the principles and the very name of Terror. As to the instruments for the operation they are all there ready to be back into action. The delegates, of whose demands and interference the "Mountain" is still in dread, are sent back to their departmental holes, where they shall serve as agents and missionaries.1146 There is no further mention of putting the Constitution into operation; this was simply a bait, a decoy, contrived for fishing in turbid waters: the fishing ended, the Constitution is now placed in a conspicuous place in the hall, in a small monument for which David furnished the design.1147—The Convention, now, says Danton, "will rise to a sense of its dignity, for it is now invested with the full power of the nation." In other words, artifice completes what violence has begun. Through the outrages committed in May and June, the Convention had lost its legitimacy; through the maneuvers of July and August it recovered the semblance of it. The Montagnards still hold their slave by his lash, but they have restored his prestige so as to make the most of him to their own profit.
Effect of this maneuver.—Extent and Manifesto of the
departmental insurrection.—Its fundamental weakness.—The
mass of the population inert and distrustful.—The small
number of Girondists.—Their lukewarm adherents.—Scruples
of fugitive deputies and insurgent administrators.—They
form no central government.—They leave military authority
in the hands of the Convention.—Fatal progress of their
concessions.—Withdrawal of the departments one by one.
—Retraction of the compromised authorities.—Effect of
administrative habits.—Failings and illusions of the
Moderates.—Opposite character of the Jacobins.
With the same blow, and amongst the same playacting, they have nearly disarmed their adversaries.—On learning the events of May 31 and June 2, a loud cry of indignation arose among republicans of the cultivated class in this generation, who, educated by the philosophers, sincerely believed in the rights of man.1148 Sixty-nine department administrations had protested,1149 and, in almost all the towns of the west, the south, the east and the center of France, at Caen, Alençon, Evreux, Rennes, Brest, Lorient, Nantes and Limoges, at Bordeaux, Toulouse, Montpellier, Nîmes and Marseilles, at Grenoble, Lyons, Clermont, Lons-le-Saunier, Besançon, Mâcon and Dijon,1150 the citizens, assembled in their sections, had provoked, or maintained by cheering them on, the acts of their administrators. Rulers and citizens, all declared that, the Convention not being free, its decrees after the 31st of May, no longer had the force of law; that the troops of the departments should march on Paris to deliver that city from its oppressors, and that their substitutes should be called out and assemble at Bourges. In many places words were converted into acts. Already before the end of May, Marseilles and Lyons had taken up arms and checkmated their local Jacobins. After the 2nd of June, Normandy, Brittany, Gard, Jura, Toulouse and Bordeaux, had also raised troops. At Marseilles, Bordeaux and Caen representatives on mission, arrested or under guard, were retained as hostages.1151 At Nantes, the national Guard and popular magistrates who, a week before, had so bravely repulsed the great Vendéan army, dared to more than this; they limited the powers of the Convention and condemned all meddling: according to them, the sending of representatives on mission was "an usurpation, an attack on national sovereignty;" representatives had been elected
"to make and not to execute laws, to prepare a constitution and regulate all public powers, and not to confound these together and exercise them all at once; to protect and maintain intermediary powers which the people have delegated, and not to encroach upon and annihilate them."1152
With still greater boldness, Montpellier enjoined all representatives everywhere to meet at the headquarters of their respective departments, and await the verdict of a national jury. In short, in accordance with the very democratic creed, "nothing was visible amid the ruins of the Convention," mutilated and degraded, but interloping "attorneys." "The people's workmen" are summoned "to return to obedience and do justice to the reproaches addressed to them by their legitimate master;"1153 the nation canceled the pay of its clerks at the capital, withdrew the mandate they had misused, and declared them usurpers if they persisted in not yielding up their borrowed sovereignty "to its inalienable sovereignty."—To this stroke, which strikes deep, the "Mountain" replies by a similar stroke; it also renders homage to principles and falls back on the popular will. Through the sudden manufacture of an ultra-democratic constitution, through a convocation of the primary assemblies, and a ratification of its work by the people in these assemblies, through the summoning of delegates to Paris, through the assent of these converted, fascinated, or constrained delegates, it exonerates and justifies itself, and thus deprives the Girondins of the grievances to which they had given currency, of the axioms they had displayed on their standards, and of the popularity they thought they had acquired.1154—Henceforth, the ground their opponents had built on sinks under their feet; the materials collected by them disintegrate in their hands; their league dissolves before it is completed, and the incurable weakness of the party appears in full daylight.
Firstly, in the departments, as at Paris,1155 the party has no roots. For the past three years all the sensible and orderly people, occupied with their own affairs, who has no taste or interest in politics, nine-tenths of the electors, abstain from voting and in this large mass the Girondins have no adherents. As they themselves admit,1156 this class remains attached to the institutions of 1791, which they have overthrown; if it has any esteem for them, it is as "extremely honest madmen." Again, this esteem is mingled with aversion: it reproaches them with the violent decrees they have passed in concert with the "Mountain;" with persecutions, confiscations, every species of injustice and cruelty; it always sees the King's blood on their hands; they, too, are regicides, anti-Catholics, anti-Christians, demolishers and levelers.1157—Undoubtedly they are less so than the "Mountain;" hence, when the provincial insurrection breaks out, many Feuillants and even Royalists follow them to the section assemblies and join in their protests. But the majority goes no further, and soon falls back into is accustomed inertia. It is not in harmony with its leaders:1158 its latent preferences are opposed to their avowed program; it does not wholly trust them; it has only a half-way affection for them; its recent sympathies are deadened by old animosities: everywhere, instead of firmness there is only caprice. All this affords no assurance of steadfast loyalty and practical adhesion. The Girondin deputies scattered through the provinces relied upon each department arousing itself at their summons and forming a republican Vendée against the "Mountain:" nowhere do they find anything beyond mild approval and speculative hopes.
There remains to support them the élite of the republican party, the scholars and lovers of literature, who are honest and sincere thinkers, who, worked upon by the current dogmas, have accepted the philosophical catechism literally and seriously. Elected judges, or department, district, and city administrators, commanders and officers of the National Guard, presidents and secretaries of sections, they occupy most of the places conferred by local authority, and hence their almost unanimous protest seems at first to be the voice of France. In reality, it is only the despairing cry of a group of staff-officers without an army. Chosen under the electoral pressure with which we are familiar, they possess rank, office and titles, but no credit or influence; they are supported only by those whom they really represent, that is to say, those who elected them, a tenth of the population, and forming a sectarian minority. Again, in this minority there are a good many who are lukewarm; with most men the distance is great between conviction and action; the interval is filled up with acquired habits, indolence, fear and egoism. One's belief in the abstractions of the "Contrat-social" is of little account; no one readily bestirs oneself for an abstract end. Uncertainties beset one at the outset; the road one has to follow is found to be perilous and obscure, and one hesitates and postpones; one feels himself a home-body and is afraid of engaging too deeply and of going too far. Having expended one's breath in words one is less willing to give one's money; another may open his purse but he may not be disposed to give himself, which is as true of the Girondins as it is of the Feuillants.
"At Marseilles,1159 at Bordeaux," says a deputy, "in nearly all the principal towns, the proprietor, slow, indifferent and timid, could not make up his mind to leave home for a moment; it was to mercenaries that he entrusted his cause his arms."
Only the federates of Mayenne, Ile-et-Vilaine, and especially of Finisterre, were "young men well brought up and well informed about the cause they were going to support." In Normandy, the Central Committee, unable to do better, has to recruit its soldiers, and especially gunners, from the band of Carabots, former Jacobins, a lot of ruffians ready for anything, pillagers and runaways at the first canon-shot. At Caen, Wimpffen, having ordered the eight battalions of the National Guard to assemble in the court, demands volunteers and finds that only seventeen step forth; on the following day a formal requisition brings out only one hundred and thirty combatants; other towns, except Vire, which furnishes about twenty, refuse their contingent. In short, a marching army cannot be formed, or, if it does march, it halts at the first station, that of Evreux before reaching Vernon, and that of Marseilles at the walls of Avignon.
On the other hand, by virtue of being sincere and logical, those who have rebelled entertain scruples and themselves define the limits of their insurrection. The fugitive deputies at their head would believe themselves guilty of usurpation had they, like the "Mountain" at Paris, constituted themselves at Caen en sovereign assembly1160: according to them, their right and their duty is reduced to giving testimony concerning the 31st of May and the 1st of June, and to exhorting the people and to being eloquent. They are not legally qualified to take executive power; it is for the local magistrates, the élus(elected) of the sections, and better still, the department committees to command in the departments. Lodged as they are in official quarters, they are merely to print formal statements, write letters, and, behaving properly, wait until the sovereign people, their employer, reinstates them. It has been outraged in their persons; it must avenge itself for this outrage; since it approves of its mandatories, it is bound to restore them to office; it being the master of the house, it is bound to have its own way in the house.—As to the department committees, it is true that, in the heat of the first excitement, they thought of forming a new Convention at Bourges,1161 either through a muster of substitute deputies, or through the convocation of a national commission of one hundred and seventy members. But time is wanting, also the means, to carry out the plan; it remains suspended in the air like vain menace; at the end of a fortnight it vanishes in smoke; the departments succeed in federating only in scattered groups; they desist from the formation of a central government, and thus, through this fact alone, condemn themselves to succumb, one after the other, in detail, and each at home.—What is worse, through conscientiousness and patriotism, they prepare their own defeat: the refrain from calling upon the armies and from stripping the frontiers; they do not contest the right of the Convention to provide as it pleases for the national defense. Lyons allows the passage of convoys of cannon-balls which are to be subsequently used in cannonading its defenders1162. The authorities of Puy-de-Dome aid by sending to Vendée the battalion that they had organized against the "Mountain." Bordeaux is to surrender Chateau-Trompette, its munitions of war and supplies, to the representatives on mission; and, without a word, with exemplary docility, both the Bordeaux battalions which guard Blaye suffer themselves to be dislodged by two Jacobin battalions.1163 Comprehending the insurrection in this way, defeat is certain beforehand.
The insurgents are thus conscious of their false position; they have a vague sort of feeling that, in recognizing the military authority of the Convention, they admit its authority in full; insensibly they glide down this slope, from concession to concession, until they reach complete submission. From the 16th of June, at Lyons,1164 "people begin to feel that it ought not break with the Convention." Five weeks later, the authorities of Lyons "solemnly recognize that the Convention is the sole central rallying point of all French citizens and republicans," and decree that "all acts emanating from it concerning the general interests of the republic are to be executed."1165 Consequently, at Lyons and in other departments, the administrations convoke the primary assemblies as the Convention has prescribed; consequently, the primary assemblies accept the Constitution which it has proposed; consequently, the delegates of the primary assemblies betake themselves to Paris according to its orders.—Henceforth, the Girondins' cause is lost; the discharge of a few cannon at Vernon and Avignon disperse the only two columns of soldiery that have set out on their march. In each department, the Jacobins, encouraged by the representatives on mission, raise their heads; everywhere the local club enjoins the local government to submit,1166 everywhere the local governments report the acts they pass, make excuses and ask forgiveness. Proportionately to the retraction of one department, the rest, feeling themselves abandoned, are more disposed to retract. On the 9th of July forty-nine departments are enumerated as having given in their adhesion. Several of them declare that the scales have dropped from their eyes, that they approve of the acts of May 31 and June 2, and thus ensure their safety by manifesting their zeal. The administration of Calvados notifies the Breton fédérés that "having accepted the Constitution it can no longer tolerate their presence in Caen;" it sends them home, and secretly makes peace with the "Mountain;" and only informs the deputies, who are its guests, of this proceeding, three days afterwards, by postings on their door the decree that declares them outlaws.
Disguised as soldiers, the latter depart along with the Breton fédérés; on the way, they are able to ascertain the veritable sentiments of this people whom they believe imbued with their rights and capable of taking a political initiative.1167 The pretended citizens and republicans they have to do with are, in sum, the former subjects of Louis XVI. and the future subjects of Napoleon I., that is to say, administrators and people, disciplined by habit and instinctively subordinate, requiring a government just as sheep require a shepherd and a watch-dog, accepting or submitting to shepherd and dog, provided these look and act the part, even if the shepherd be a butcher and the dog a wolf. To avoid isolation, to rejoin the most numerous herd as soon as possible, to always form masses and bodies and thus follow the impulsion which comes from above, and gather together scattered individuals, such is the instinct of the flock.
In the battalion of federates, they begin by saying that, as the Constitution is now accepted and the convention recognized, it is no longer allowed to protect deputies whom it has declared outlaws: "that would be creating a faction." Thereupon, the deputies withdraw from the battalion, and, in a little squad by themselves, march along separately. As they are nineteen in number, resolute and well armed, the authorities of the market-towns through which they pass make no opposition by force; it would be offering battle, and that surpasses a functionary's zeal; moreover, the population is either indifferent toward them or sympathetic. Nevertheless, efforts are made to stop them, sometimes to surround them and take them by surprise; for, a warrant of arrest is out against them, transmitted through the hierarchical channel, and every local magistrate feels bound to do his duty as gendarme. Under this administrative network, the meshes of which they encounter everywhere, the proscribed deputies can do naught else but hide in caves or escape by sea.—On reaching Bordeaux, they find other sheep getting ready for the slaughter-house. Saige, the mayor, preaches conciliation and patience: he declines the aid of four or five thousand young men, three thousand grenadiers of the National Guard, and two or three hundred volunteers who had formed themselves into a club against the Jacobin club. He persuades them to disband; he sends a deputation to Paris to entreat the Convention to overlook "a moment of error" and pardon their "brethren who had gone astray."—"They flattered themselves," says a deputy, an eye-witness,1168 "that prompt submission would appease the resentment of tyrants and that these would be, or pretend to be, generous enough to spare a town that had distinguished itself more than any other during the Revolution." Up to the last, they are to entertain the same illusions and manifest the same docility. When Tallien, with his eighteen hundred peasants and brigands, enters Bordeaux, twelve thousand National Guards, equipped, armed and in uniform, receive him wearing oak-leaf crowns; they listen in silence to "his astounding and outrageous discourse;" they suffer him to tear off their crowns, cockades and epaulettes; the battalions allow themselves to be disbanded on the spot; on returning to their quarters they listen with downcast eyes to the proclamation which "orders all inhabitants without distinction to bring their arms within thirty-six hours, under the penalty of death, to the glacis of the Chateau-Trompette; before the time elapses thirty thousand guns, swords, pistols and even pocket-knives are given up."
Here, as at Paris, on the 20th of June, 10th of August, 2nd of September, 3rd of May and 2nd of June, as at every critical moment of the Revolution in Paris and the provinces, habits of subordination and of amiability, stamped on a people by a provident monarchy and a time-honored civilization, have blunted in man the foresight of danger, his aggressive instinct, his independence and the faculty of depending upon himself only, the willingness to help one another and of saving himself. Inevitably, when anarchy brings a nation back to the state of nature, the tame animals will be eaten by the savage ones,—these are now let loose and immediately they show their true nature.
The last local resistance.—Political orthodoxy of the
insurgent towns.—They stipulate but one condition.—Reasons
of State for granting this.—Party arguments against it.
If the men of the "Mountain" had been statesmen, or even sensible men, they would have shown themselves humane, if not for the sake of humanity, at least through calculation; for in this France, so little republican, all the republican strength is not too great for the founding of the Republic, while, through their principles, their culture, their social position and their number, the Girondins form the élite and the force, the flower and the sap of the party.—The death-cry of the "Mountain" against the insurgents of Lozére1169 and Vendée can be understood: they had raised the king's white flag; they accepted leaders and instructions from Coblentz and London. But neither Bordeaux, Marseilles nor Lyons are royalist, or in alliance with the foreigner.
"We, rebels!" write the Lyonnese;1170 "Why we see no other than the tri-color flag waving; the white cockade, the symbol of rebellion, has never been raised within our walls. We, royalists! Why, shouts of 'Long live the Republic' are heard on all sides, and, spontaneously (in the session of July 2nd) we have all sworn to fall upon whoever should propose a king.... Your representatives tell you that we are anti-revolutionaries, we who have accepted the Constitution. They tell you that we protect émigrés when we have offered to surrender all those that you might indicate. They tell you that our streets are filled with refractory priests, when we have not even opened the doors of Pierre-en-Cize (prison) to the thirty-two priests confined there by the old municipality, without indictment, without any charge whatever against them, solely because they were priests."
Thus, at Lyons, the pretended aristocrats were, then, not only republicans but democrats and radicals, loyal to the established régime, and submissive to the worst of the revolutionary laws, while the same state of things prevailed at Bordeaux, at Marseilles and even at Toulon.1171 And furthermore, they accepted the outrages of May 31 and June 2;1172 they stopped contesting the usurpations of Paris; they no longer insisted on the return of the excluded deputies. On the 2nd of August at Bordeaux, and the 30th of July at Lyons, the Committee-Extraordinary of Public Safety resigned; there no longer existed any rival assembly opposed to the Convention. After the 24th of July,1173 Lyons solemnly recognized the supreme and central authority, reserving nothing but its municipal franchises.—And better still, in striking testimony of political orthodoxy, the Council-General of the department prescribed a civic festival for the 10th of August analogous to that of Paris. The Lyonnese, already blockaded, indulged in no hostile manifestation; on the 7th of August they marched out of their advanced positions to fraternize with the first body of troops sent against them.1174 They conceded everything, save on one point, which they could not yield without destruction, namely, the assurance that they should not be given up defenseless to the arbitrary judgment of their local tyrants, to the spoliation, proscriptions and revenge of the Jacobin rabble. In sum, at Marseilles and Bordeaux, especially at Lyons and Toulon, the sections had revolted only on that account; acting promptly and spontaneously, the people had thrust aside the knife which a few ruffians aimed at their throats; they had not been, and were not now, willing to be "Septemberised," that was their sole concern. Provided they were not handed over to the butchers bound hand and foot, they would open their gates. On these minimum terms the "Mountain" could terminate the civil war before the end of July. It had only to follow the example of Robert Lindet who, at Evreux the home of Buzot, at Caen the home of Charlotte Corday and the central seat of the fugitive Girondins, established permanent obedience through the moderation he had shown and the promises he had kept.1175 The measures that had pacified the most compromised province would have brought back the others, and through this policy, Paris, without striking a blow, would have secured the three largest cities in France, the capital of the South-west, that of the South, and the capital of the Center.
On the contrary, should Paris persist in imposing on them the domination of its local Jacobins there was a risk of their being thrown into the arms of the enemy. Rather than fall back into the hands of the bandits who had ransomed and decimated them, Toulon, starved out, was about to receive the English within its walls and surrender to them the great arsenal of the South. Not less famished, Bordeaux might be tempted to demand aid from another English fleet; a few marches would brings the Piedmontese army to Lyons; France would then b cut in two, while the plan of stirring up the South against the North was proposed to the allies by the most clear-sighted of their councilors.1176 Had this plan been carried out it is probably that the country would have been lost.—In any event, there was danger in driving the insurgents to despair: for, between the unbridled dictatorship of their victorious assassins and the musketry of the besieging army, there could be no hesitation by men of any feeling; it was better to be beaten on the ramparts than allow themselves to be bound for the guillotine; brought to a stand under the scaffold, their sole resource was to depend on themselves to the last.—Thus, through its unreasonableness, the "Mountain" condemns itself to a number of sieges or blockades which lasted several months,1177 to leaving Var and Savoy unprotected, to exhausting the arsenals, to employing against Frenchmen1178 troops and munitions needed against foreigners, and all this at the moment the foreigner was taking Valenciennes1179 and Mayence, when thirty thousand royalist were organizing in Lozére, when the great Vendean army was laying siege to Nantes, when each new outbreak of fighting was threatening to connect the flaming frontier with the conflagration in the Catholic countries.1180—With a jet of cold water aptly directed, the "Mountain" could extinguish the fires it had kindled in the great republican towns; otherwise, nothing remained but to let them increase at the risk of consuming the whole country, with no other hope than that they might at last die out under a mass of ruins, and with no other object but to rule over captives and the dead.
But this is precisely the Jacobin aim; for, he is not satisfied with less than absolute submission; he must rule at any cost, just as he pleases, by fair means or foul, no matter over what ruins. A despot by instinct and installation, his dogma has consecrated him King; he is King by natural and divine right, in the name of eternal verity, the same as Philip II., enthroned by his religious system and blessed by his Holy Office. Hence he can abandon no jot or title of his authority without a sacrifice of principle, nor treat with rebels, unless they surrender at discretion; simply for having risen against legitimate authority, they are traitors and villains. And who are greater rascals the renegades who, after three years of patient effort, just as the sect finally reaches its goal, oppose its accession to power!1181 At Nîmes, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Toulon, and Lyons, not only have they interfered with or arrested the blow which Paris struck, but they have put down the aggressors, closed the club, disarmed the fanatical and imprisoned the leading Maratists; and worse still, at Lyons and at Toulon, five or six massacreurs, or promoters of massacre, Châlier and Riard, Jassaud, Sylvestre and Lemaille, brought before the courts, have been condemned and executed after a trial in which all the forms were strictly adhered to.—That is the inexpiable crime; for, in this trial, the "Mountain" is involved; the principles of Sylvestre and Châlier are its principles; what is accomplished in Paris, they have attempted in the provinces; if they are guilty, it is also guilty; it cannot tolerate their punishment without assenting to its own punishment. Accordingly,
* it must proclaim them heroes and martyrs,
* it must canonize their memory,1182
* it must avenge their tortures,
* it must resume and complete their assaults,
* it must restore their accomplices to their places,
* it must render them omnipotent,
* it must force each rebel city to accept the rule of its rabble and villains.
It matters little whether the Jacobins be a minority, whether at Bordeaux, they have but four out of twenty-eight sections on their side, at Marseilles five out of thirty-two, whether at Lyons they can count up only fifteen hundred devoted adherents.1183 Suffrages are not reckoned, but weighed, for legality is founded, not on numbers, but on patriotism, the sovereign people being composed wholly of sans-culottes. So much the worse for towns where the anti-revolutionary majority is so great; they are only more dangerous; under the republican demonstrations is concealed the hostility of old parties and of the "suspect" classes, the Moderates, the Feuillants and Royalists, merchants, men of the legal profession, property-owners and muscadins.1184 These towns are nests of reptiles and must be crushed out.
Bordeaux.—Marseilles.—Lyons.—-Toulon.
Consequently, obedient or disobedient, they are crushed out. They are declared traitors to the country, not merely the members of the departmental committees, but, at Bordeaux, all who have "aided or abetted the Committee of Public Safety;" at Lyons, all administrators, functionaries, military or civil officers who "convoked or tolerated the Rhône-et-Loire congress," and furthermore, "every individual whose son, clerk, servant, or even day-laborer, may have borne arms or contributed the means of resistance," that is to say, the entire National Guard who took up arms, and nearly all the population which gave its money or voted in the sections.1185—By virtue of this decree, all are "outlaws," or, in other words subject to the guillotine just on the establishment of their identity, and their property confiscated. Consequently, at Bordeaux, where not a gun had been fired, the mayor Saige, and principal author of the submission, is at once led to the scaffold without any form of trial,1186 while eight hundred and eighty-one others succeed him amidst the solemn silence of a dismayed population.1187 Two hundred prominent merchants are arrested in one night; more than fifteen hundred persons are imprisoned; all who are well off are ransomed, even those against who no political charge could be made; nine millions of fines are levied against "rich egoists." One of these,1188 accused of "indifference and moderatism," pays twenty thousand francs "not to be harnessed to the car of the Revolution;" another "convicted of having shown contempt for his section and for the poor by giving thirty livres per months," is taxed at one million two hundred thousand livres, while the new authorities, a crooked mayor and twelve knaves composing the Revolutionary Committee, traffic in lives and property.1189 At Marseilles, says Danton,1190 the object is "to give the commercial aristocracy an important lesson;" we must "show ourselves as terrible to traders as to nobles and priests;" consequently, twelve thousand of them are proscribed and their possessions sold.1191 From the first day the guillotine works as fast as possible; nevertheless, it does not work fast enough for Representative Fréron who finds the means for making it work faster.
"The military commission we have established in place of the revolutionary tribunal," he writes, "works frightfully fast against the conspirators.... They fall like hail under the sword of the law. Fourteen have already paid for their infamous treachery with their heads. To-morrow, sixteen more are to be guillotined, all chiefs of the legion, notaries, sectionists, members of the popular tribunal; to-morrow, also, three merchants will dance the carmagnole, and they are the ones we are after."1192
Men and things, all must perish; he wishes to demolish the city and proposes to fill up the harbor. Restrained with great difficulty, Fréron contents himself with a destruction of "the haunts" of the aristocracy, two churches, the concert-hall, the houses around it, and twenty-three buildings in which the rebel sections had held their meetings.
At Lyons, to increase the booty, the representatives had taken pains to encourage the manufacturers and merchants with vague promises; these opened their shops and brought their valuable goods, books and papers out of their hiding-places. No time is lost in seizing the plunder; "a list of all property belonging to the rich and to anti-revolutionaries" is drawn up, which is "confiscated for the benefit of the patriots of the city;" in addition to this a tax of six millions is imposed, payable in eight days, by those whom the confiscation may have still spared;1193 it is proclaimed, according to principle, that the surplus of each individual belongs by right to the sans-culottes, and whatever may have been retained beyond the strictly necessary, is a robbery by the individual to the detriment of the nation.1194 In conformity with this rule there is a general rounding up, prolonged for ten months, which places the fortunes of a city of one hundred and twenty thousand souls in the hands of its scoundrels. Thirty-two revolutionary committees "whose members are thick as thieves select thousands of guards devoted to them."1195 In confiscated dwellings and warehouses, they affix seals without an inventory; they drive out women and children "so that there shall be no witnesses;" they keep the keys; they enter and steal when they please, or install themselves for a revel with prostitutes.—Meanwhile, the guillotine is kept going, and people are fired at and shot down with grape-shot. The revolutionary committee officially avow one thousand six hundred and eighty-two acts of murder committed in five months,1196 while a confederate of Robespierre's privately declare that there were six thousand.1197
Blacksmiths are condemned to death for having shod the Lyonnese cavalry, firemen for having extinguished fires kindled by republican bombshells, a widow for having paid a war-tax during the siege, market women for "having shown disrespect to patriots." It is an organized "Septembrisade" made legal and lasting; its authors are so well aware of the fact as to use the word itself in their public correspondence.1198—At Toulon it is worse, people are slaughtered in heaps, almost haphazard. Notwithstanding that the inhabitants the most compromised, to the number of four thousand, take refuge on board English vessels, the whole city, say the representatives, is guilty. Four hundred workmen in the navy-yard having marched out to meet Fréron, he reminds them that they kept on working during the English occupation of the town, and he has them put to death on the spot. An order is issued to all "good citizens to assemble in the Champ de Mars on penalty of death." They come there to the number of three thousand; Fréron, on horseback, surrounded by cannon and troops, arrives with about a hundred Maratists, the former accomplices of Lemaille, Sylvestre, and other well-known assassins, who form a body of local auxiliaries and counselors; he tells them to select out of the crowd at pleasure according to their grudge, fancy, or caprice; all who are designated are ranged along a wall and shot. The next morning, and on the following days, the operation is renewed: Fréron writes on the 16th of Nivose that "eight hundred Toulonese have already been shot." ... "A volley of musketry," says he, in another letter, and after that, volley after volley, until "the traitors are all gone." Then, for three months after this, the guillotine dispatches eighteen hundred persons; eleven young women have to mount the scaffold together, in honor of a republican festival; an old woman of ninety-four is borne to it in an armchair. The population, initially of twenty-eight thousand people, is reduced to six or seven thousand only.
All this is not enough; the two cities that dared maintain a siege must disappear from the French soil. The Convention decrees that "the city of Lyons shall be destroyed: every house occupied by a rich man shall be demolished; only the dwellings of the poor shall remain, with edifices specially devoted to industry, and monuments consecrated to humanity and public education."1199 The same at Toulon: "the houses within the town shall be demolished; only the buildings that are essential for army and navy purposes, for stores and munitions, shall be preserved."11100 Consequently, a requisition is made in Var and the neighboring departments for twelve thousand masons to level Toulon to the ground.—At Lyons, fourteen thousand laborers pull down the Chateau Pierre-Encize; also the superb houses on Place Bellecour, those of the Quai St.-Clair, those of the Rues de Flandre and de Bourgneuf, and many others; the cost of all this amounts to four hundred thousand livres per decade; in six months the Republic expends fifteen millions in destroying property valued at three or four hundred millions, all belonging to the Republic.11101 Since the Mongols of the fifth and thirteenth centuries, no such vast and irrational waste had been seen—such frenzy against the most profitable fruits of industry and human civilization.—Again, one can understand how the Mongols, who were nomads, desired to convert the soil into one vast steppe. But, to demolish a town whose arsenal and harbor is maintained by it, to destroy the leaders of manufacturing interests and their dwellings in a city where its workmen and factories are preserved, to keep up a fountain and stop the stream which flows from it, or the stream without the fountain, is so absurd that the idea could only enter the head of a Jacobin. His imagination has run so wild and his prevision become so limited that he is no longer aware of contradictions; the ferocious stupidity of the barbarian and the fixed idea of the inquisition meet on common ground; the earth is not big enough for any but himself and the orthodox of his species. Employing absurd, inflated and sinister terms he decrees the extermination of heretics: not only shall their monuments, dwellings and persons be destroyed, but every vestige of them shall be eradicated and their names lost to the memory of man.11102
"The name of Toulon shall be abolished; that commune shall henceforth bear the name of Port-la-Montagne."—"The name of Lyons shall be stricken off the list of towns belonging to the Republic; the remaining collection of houses shall henceforth bear the name of Ville-Affranchie. A column shall be erected on the ruins of Lyons bearing this inscription: 'Lyons made war on Liberty! Lyons is no more!'"
Destruction of the Girondin party.—Proscription of the
Deputies of the "Right".—Imprisonment of the 73.—Execution
of the 21.—Execution, suicide, or flight of the rest.
In all this there is no intention to spare in Paris the chiefs of the insurrection or of the party, either deputies or ministers; on the contrary, the object is to complete the subjection of the Convention, to stifle the murmurs of the "Right," to impose silence on Ducos, Boyer-Fonfrède, Vernier, and Couhey, who still speak and protest.11103 Hence the decrees of arrest or death, launched weekly from the top of the "Mountain," fall on the majority like guns fired into a crowd. Decrees of accusation follow: on the 15th of June, against Duchâtel, on the 17th against Barbaroux, on the 23rd against Brissot, on the 8th of July against Devérité and Condorcet, on the 14th against Lauze-Deperret and Fauchet, on the 30th against Duprat Jr., Valée and Mainvielle, on the 2nd of August against Rouyer, Brunel and Carra; Carra, Lauze-Deperret and Fauchet, present during the session, are seized on the spot, which is plain physical warning: none is more effective to check the unruly.—Decrees are passed on the 18th of July accusing Coustard, on the 28th of July against Gensonné, La Source, Vergniaud, Mollevaut, Gardien, Grangeneuve, Fauchet, Boilleau, Valazé, Cussy, Meillan; each being aware that the tribunal before which he must appear is the waiting room to the guillotine.—Decrees of condemnation are passed on the 12th of July against Birotteau, the 28 of July against Buzot, Barbaroux, Gorsas, Lanjuniais, Salles, Louvet, Bergoeing, Pétion, Guadet, Chasset, Chambon, Lidon, Valady, Defermon, Kervelégen, Larivière, Rabaut-Saint-Étienne, and Lesage; pronounced outlaws and traitors, they are to be led to the scaffold without trial as soon as they can be got hold of.—Finally, on the 3rd of October, a great haul of the net in the Assembly itself sweeps off the benches all the deputies that still seem capable of any independence: the first thing is to close the doors of the hall, which is done by Amar, reporter of the Committee of General Security;11104 then, after a declamatory and calumnious speech, which lasts two hours, he reads off names on two lists of proscriptions: forty-five deputies, more or less prominent among the Girondins, are to be at once summoned before the revolutionary tribunal; seventy-three others, who have signed secret protests against the 31st of May and 2nd of June, are to be put in jail. No arguing! the majority dares not even express an opinion. Some of the proscribed attempt to exculpate themselves, but they are not allowed to be heard; none but the Montagnards have the floor, and they do no more than add to the lists, each according to personal enmity; Levasseur has Vigée put down, and Duroi adds the name of Richon. One their names being called, all the poor creatures who happen to be inscribed, quietly advance and "huddle together within the bar of the house, like lambs destined to slaughter," and here they are separated into two flocks; on the one hand the seventy-three, and on the other, the ten or twelve who, with the Girondins already kept under lock and key, are to furnish the sacramental and popular number, the twenty-two traitors, whose punishment is a requirement of the Jacobin imagination;11105 on the left, the batch for the prison; on the right, the batch for the guillotine.
To those who might be tempted to imitate them or defend them this is a sufficient lesson.—Subject to the boos, hisses and insults from the hags lining the streets, the seventy-three11106 are conducted to the prisoners' room in the town hall. This, already full, is where they pass the night standing on benches, scarcely able to breathe. The next day they are crammed into the prison for assassins and robbers, "la Force," on the sixth story, under the roof; in this narrow garret their beds touch each other, while two of the deputies are obliged to sleep on the floor for lack of room. Under the skylights, which serve for windows, and at the foot of the staircase are two pig-pens; at the end of the apartment are the privies, and in one corner a night-tub, which completes the poisoning of the atmosphere already vitiated by this crowded mass of human beings. The beds consist of sacks of straw swarming with vermin; they are compelled to endure the discipline,11107 rations and mess of convicts. And they are lucky to escape at this rate: for Amar takes advantage of their silent deportment to tax them with conspiracy; other Montagnards likewise want to arraign them at the revolutionary Tribunal: at all events, it is agreed that the Committee of General Security shall examine their records and maintain the right of designating new culprits amongst them. For ten months they thus remain under the knife, in daily expectation of joining the twenty-two on the Place de la Révolution.—With respect to the latter, the object is not to try them but to kill them, and the semblance of a trial is simply judicial assassination; the bill of indictment against them consists of club gossip; they are accused of having desired the restoration of the monarchy, of being in correspondence with Pitt and Coburg;11108 of having excited Vendée to insurrection. The betrayal of Dumouriez is imputed to them, also the murder of Lepelletier, and the assassination of Marat; while pretended witnesses, selected from amongst their personal enemies, come and repeat, like a theme agreed upon, the same ill-contrived fable: nothing but vague allegations and manifest falsehoods, not one definite fact, not once convincing document; the lack of proof is such that the trial has to be stopped as soon as possible. "You brave b——forming the court," writes Hébert, "don't trifle away your time. Why so much ceremony in shortening the days of wretches whom the people have already condemned?" Care is especially taken not to let them have a chance to speak. The eloquence of Vergniaud and logic of Guadet might turn the tables at the last moment. Consequently, a prompt decree authorizes the tribunal to stop proceedings as soon as the jury becomes sufficiently enlightened, which is the case after the seventh session of the court, the record of death suddenly greeting the accused, who are not allowed to defend themselves. One of them, Valazé, stabs himself in open court, and the next day the national head-chopper strikes off the remaining twenty heads in thirty-eight minutes.—Still more expeditious are the proceedings against the accused who avoid a trial. Gorsas, seized in Paris on the 8th of October, is guillotined the same day. Birotteau, seized at Bordeaux, on the 24th of October, mounts the scaffold within twenty-four hours. The others, tracked like wolves, wandering in disguise from one hiding-place to another, and most of them arrested in turn, have only choice of several kinds of death. Cambon is killed in defending himself. Lidon, after having defended himself, blows out his brains, Condorcet takes poison in the guard-room of Bourg-la-Reine. Roland kills himself with his sword on the highway. Clavière stabs himself in prison. Rébecqui is found drowned in the harbor of Marseilles, and Pétion and Buzon half eaten by wolves on a moor of Saint-Emilion. Valady is executed at Périgueux, Dechézeau at Rochefort, Grangeneuve, Guadet, Salle and Barbaroux at Bordeaux, Coustard, Cussy, Rabout-Saint-Étienne, Bernard, Masuyer, and Lebrun at Paris. Even those who resigned in January, 1793, Kersaint and Manuel, atone with their lives for the crime of having sided with the "Right" and, of course, Madame Roland, who is taken for the leader of the party, is one of the first to be guillotined.11109—Of the one-hundred and eighty Girondins who led the Convention, one hundred and forty have perished or are in prison, or fled under sentence of death. After such a curtailment and such an example the remaining deputies cannot be otherwise than docile;11110 neither in the central nor in the local government will the "Mountain" encounter resistance; its despotism is practically established, and all that remains is to proclaim this in legal form.
Institutions of the Revolutionary Government.—Its
principle, objects, proceedings, tools and structure.—The
Committee of Public Safety.—Subordination of the Convention
and ministry.—The use of the Committee of General Security
and the Revolutionary Tribunal.—Administrative
centralization.—Representatives on Mission, National Agents
and Revolutionary Committees.—Law of Lése-majesty.
—Restoration and Aggravation of the institutions of the old
monarchy.
After the 2nd of August, on motion of Bazire, the Convention decrees "that France is in revolution until its independence is recognized." which means11111 that the period of hypocritical phrases has come to an end, that the Constitution was merely a signboard for a fair, and that the charlatans who had made use of it no longer need it, that it is to be put away in the store containing other advertising material, that individual, local and parliamentary liberties are abolished, that the government is arbitrary and absolute, that no institution, law, dogma, or precedent affords any guarantee for it against the rights of the people, that property and lives are wholly at its mercy, that there are no longer any rights of man.—Six weeks later, when, through the protest of the forty-five and the arrest of the seventy-three, obedience to the Convention is assured, all this is boldly and officially announced in the tribune. "Under the present circumstances of the Republic," says St. Just, "the Constitution cannot be implemented as this would enable attacks on liberty to take place because it would lack the violent measures necessary to repress these." We are no longer to govern "according to maxims of natural peace and justice; these maxims are only valid among the friends of liberty;" but they are not applicable between patriots and the malevolent. The latter are "outside our sovereignty," are lawless, excluded from the social pact, slaves in rebellion, to be punished or imprisoned, and, amongst the malevolent must be placed "the indifferent11112".—"You are to punish whoever is passive in the Republic and does nothing for it;" for his passivity is treason and ranks him among other public enemies. Now, between the people and its enemies, there is nothing in common but the sword; steel must control those who cannot be ruled "by justice"; the monarchical and neutral majority must be repressed (comprimé);
"The Republic will be founded only when the sans-culottes,11113 the sole representatives of the nation, the only citizens, "shall rule by right of conquest."11114
The meaning of this is more than clear. The régime of which St. Just presents the plan, is that by which every oligarchy of invaders installs and maintains itself over a subjugated nation. Through this régime, in Greece, ten thousand Spartans, after the Dorian invasion, mastered three hundred thousand helots and périocques; through this régime, in England, sixty thousand Normans, after the battle of Hastings, mastered two million Saxons; through this régime in Ireland, since the battle of the Boyne, two hundred thousand English Protestants have mastered a million of Catholic Irish; through this régime, the three hundred thousand Jacobins of France will master the seven or eight millions of Girondins, Feuillants, Royalists or Indifferents.
This system of government is a very simple one and consist in maintaining the subject population in a state of extreme helplessness and of extreme terror. To this end, it is disarmed;11115 it is kept under surveillance; all action in common is prohibited; its eyes should always be directed to the up-lifted ax and to the prison doors always open; it is ruined and decimated.—For the past six months all these rigors are decreed and applied,—disarmament of "suspects," taxes on the rich, the maximum against traders, requisitions on land-owners, wholesale arrests, rapid executions of sentences, arbitrary penalties of death, and publicized, multiplied tortures. For the past six months, all sorts of executive instruments are set up and put into operation: The Committee of Public Safety, the Committee of General Security, ambulating proconsuls with full power, local committees authorized to tax and imprison at will, a revolutionary army, a revolutionary tribunal. But, for lack of internal harmony and of central impulsion, the machine only half works, the power not being sufficient and its action not sufficiently sweeping and universal.
"You are too remote from the conspiracies against you," says St. Just;11116 "it is essential that the sword of the law should everywhere be rapidly brandished and your arm be everywhere present to arrest crime.... The ministers confess that, beyond their first and second subordinates, they find nothing but inertia and indifference."—"A similar apathy is found in all the government agents," adds Billaud-Varennes;11117 "the secondary authorities which are the strong points of the Revolution serve only to impede it." Decrees, transmitted through administrative channels, arrive slowly and are indolently applied. "You are missing that co-active force which is the principle of being, of action, of execution.... Every good government should possess a center of willpower and the levers connected with it.... Every government activity should exclusively originate from the central source."—
"In ordinary governments," says Couthon, finally,11118 "the right of electing belongs to the people; you cannot take it away from them. In extraordinary governments all impulsion must come from the center; it is from the convention that elections must issue.... You would injure the people by confiding the election of officials to them, because you would expose them to electing men that would betray them."
—The result is that the constitutional maxims of 1789 give way to radically opposed maxims; instead of subjecting the government to the people, the people is made subject to the government. The hierarchy of the ancient régime is re-established under revolutionary terms, and henceforth all powers, much more formidable than those of the ancient régime, cease to be delegated from the depths to the summit and will henceforth instead be delegated from the summit to the bottom.
At the summit, a committee of twelve members, similar to the former royal council, exercises collective royalty; nominally, authority is divided amongst the twelve; it is, in practice, concentrated in a few hands. Several members occupy only a subaltern position, and amongst these, Barère, who, official secretary and mouthpiece, is always ready to make a speech or draft an editorial; others, with special functions, Jean Bon St. André, Lindet, and above all, Prieur de la Côte d'Or and Carnot, confine themselves each to his particular department, navy, war, supplies, with blank signatures, for which they give in return their signatures to the political leaders; the latter, called "the statesmen," Robespierre, Couthon, Saint-Just, Collot d'Herbois, Billaud-Varennes, are the real rulers providing overall direction. It is true that their mandate has to be renewed monthly; but this is a certainty, for, in the present state of the Convention, its vote, required beforehand, becomes an almost vain formality. More submissive than the parliament of Louis XIV., the Convention adopts, without discussion, the decrees which the Committee of Public Safety present to it ready made. It is no more than a registry-office, and scarcely that, for it has relinquished its right of appointing its own committees, that office being assigned to the Committee of Public Safety; it votes as a whole all lists of names which the Committee send in.11119 Naturally, none but the creatures of the latter and the faithful are inscribed; thus, the whole legislative and parliamentary power belongs to it.—As to executive and administrative power, the ministers have become mere clerks of the Committee of Public Safety; "they come every day at specified hours to receive its orders and acts;11120 "they submit to it "the list with explanations, of all the agents" sent into the departments and abroad; they refer to it every minute detail; they are its scribes, merely its puppets, so insignificant that they finally lose their title, and for the "Commission on External Relations" a former school-master is taken, an inept clubbist, bar-fly and the pillar of the billiard-room, scarcely able to read the documents brought to him to sign in the café where he passes his days.11121—Thus is the second power in the State converted by the Committee into a squad of domestics, while the foremost one is converted into an audience of claqueurs.
To make them do their duty, it has two hands.—One, the right, which seizes people unawares by the collar, is the Committee of General Security, composed of twelve extreme Montagnards, such as Panis, Vadier, Le Bas, Geoffroy, David, Amar, La Vicomterie, Lebon and Ruhl, all nominated, that is to say, appointed by it, being its confederates and subalterns. They are its lieutenants of police, and once a week they come and take part in its labors, as formerly the Sartines, and the Lenoirs assisted the Comptroller-general. A man who this secret committee deems a "suspect," is suddenly seized, no matter who, whether representative, minister, or general, and finds himself the next morning behind the bars in one of the ten new Bastilles.—There, the other hand seizes him by the throat; this is the revolutionary tribunal, an exceptional court like the extraordinary commissions of the ancient régime, only far more terrible. Aided by its police gang, the Committee of Public Safety itself selects the sixteen judges and sixty jurymen11122 from among the most servile, the most furious, or the most brutal of the fanatics:11123 Fouquier-Tinville, Hermann, Dumas, Payan, Coffinhal, Fleuriot-Lescot, and, lower down on the scale, apostate priests, renegade nobles, disappointed artists, infatuated studio-apprentices, journeymen scarcely able to write their names, shoemakers, joiners, carpenters, tailors, barbers, former lackeys, an idiot like Ganney, a deaf man like Leroy-Dix-Août; their names and professions indicate all that is necessary to be told: these men are licensed and paid murderers. The Jurymen themselves are allowed eighteen francs a day, so that they may attend to their business more leisurely. This business consists in condemning without proof, without any pleadings, and scarcely any examination, in a hurry, in batches, whoever the Committee of Public Safety might send to them, even the most confirmed Montagnards: Danton, who contrived the tribunal, will soon discover this.—it is through these two government institutions that the Committee of Public Safety keeps every head under the cleaver and each head, to avoid being struck off, bows down,11124 in the provinces as well as in Paris.
This has happened when the existing local hierarchy was replaced by new authorities making the omnipotent will of the Committee present everywhere. Directly or indirectly, "for all government measures or measures of public safety, all that relates to persons and the general and internal police, all constituted bodies and all public functionaries, are placed under its inspection."11125 You may imagine how the risk of being guillotined weighed upon them.
To suppress in advance any tendency to administrative inertia, it has had withdrawn from the too powerful, too much respected, department governments, "too inclined to federalism," their departmental dominance and their "political influence."11126 It reduces these to the levying of taxes and the supervision of roads and canals; it purges them out through its agents; it even purges out the governments of municipalities and districts. To suppress beforehand all probability of popular opposition, it has had the sessions of the sections reduced to two per week; it installs in these sections, for about forty sous a day, a majority of sans-culottes; it orders the suspension "until further directives" of all municipal elections.11127
Finally, to have full control on the spot, it appoints its own men, first, the commissioners and the representatives on missions, a sort of temporary corps of directors sent into each department with unlimited powers;11128 next, a body of national agents, a sort of permanent body of sub-delegates, through whom in each district and municipality it replaces the procureurs-syndics.11129 To this army of functionaries is added in each town, bourg or large village, a revolutionary committee, paid three francs a day per member, charged with the application of its decrees, and required to make reports thereon. Never before was such a vast and closely woven network cast from above to envelope and keep captive twenty-six million people. Such is the real constitution which the Jacobins substitute for the constitution they have prepared for show. In the arsenal of the monarchy which they destroyed they took the most despotic institutions—centralization, Royal Council, lieutenants of police, special tribunals, intendants and sub-delegates; they disinterred the antique Roman law of lèse-majesty, refurbished old blades which civilization had dulled, aiming them at every throat and now wielded at random against liberties, property and lives. It is called the "revolutionary government;" according to official statements it is to last until peace is secured; in the minds of genuine Jacobins it must continue until all the French have been regenerated in accordance with the formula.
1101 (return)
[ Titus Flavious
Clemens, (Greek writer born in Athens around 150 and dead in Cappadoce in
250) He lived in Alexandria. (SR).]
1102 (return)
[ The words of Marat.]
1103 (return)
[ After the
Constitution is completed, said Legendre, in the Jacobin club, we will
make the federalists dance.]
1104 (return)
[ Archives Nationales,
F.I.C.. 56, (Circular of Gohier, Minister of Justice, to the French
people, July 6, 1793). "Certain persons are disposed to pervert the events
of May 31 and June 2, by atrocious exaggerations and the grossest fables,
and prevent the fortunate results they present from being seen. They are
absolutely determined to see nothing but violations of the liberty of the
people's representatives in a step which was specially designed to hasten
on the Constitutional Act on which the liberty of all is established. Of
what consequence is it who are the authors of the Constitution presented
to you? What does it matter whether it issues from a mountain amidst
lightning and the rolling thunder, like the Tables of the Law given to the
Hebrews, or whether it comes, like the laws given to the early Romans,
inspired in the tranquil asylum of a divinity jealous of his religious
surroundings? Is this constitution worthy of a free people? That is the
only question which citizens who wear the livery of no party need
examine!"]
1105 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXVIII., 177. (report by Hérault Séchelles, June 10, 1793). Ibid, XXXI.,
400. (Text of constitution submitted to discussion June 11th, and passed
June 24th.)]
1106 (return)
[ De Sybel, II., 331.
(According to the facsimile published in the Quarterly Review). "Hérault
says that he and four of his colleagues are ordered to furnish the draft
of a constitution by Monday."]
1107 (return)
[ Report by
Hérault-Séchelles. (Buchez et Roux, XXVIII. 178.)]
1108 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XXXI,
400. (Articles of the Declaration of Rights, 1, 7, 9, 11, 27, 31, 35)]
1109 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXVIII., 178. Report by Hérault-Séchelles. "Each of us had the same
desire, that of attaining to the greatest democratic result. The
sovereignty of the people and the dignity of man were constantly in our
minds... A secret sentiment tells us that our work is perhaps the most
popular that ever existed."]
1110 (return)
[ Archives Nationales,
B. II., 23. (Table of votes by the commission appointed to collect the
procès-verbaux of the adoption of the constitution, August 20, 1793.)—Number
of primary assemblies sending in their procès-verbaux, 6,589 (516 cantons
have not yet sent theirs in).—Number of voters on call, 1,795,908;
Yes, 1,784,377; Noes, 11,531.—Number of primary assemblies voting
Yes unanimously, not on call of names, 297.—At Paris, 40,990 voters,
at Troyes, 2,491, at Limoges, 2,137.—Cf. For details and motives of
abstention, Sauzay IV. pp. 157-161. Albert Babeau, II, pp. 83 and 84.
Moniteur, XVII., 375 (speech by the representative Desvars).]
1111 (return)
[ Ibid., Moniteur,
XVII., 20. (report by Barrère on the convocation of the primary
assemblies, June 17, 1793.) Ibid., 102 (Report of Cambon, July 11). "It is
now a fortnight since you demanded a Constitution. Very well, here it
is.... Respect for persons and property is amply secured in it. Yes, more
definitely than in any other constitution. Does it provide for its own
revision? Yes, for in six weeks, we can convoke the primary assemblies and
express our desire for the reform that may appear necessary.—Will
the popular wish be respected? Yes, the people then will make definitive
laws."]
1112 (return)
[ Guillon de Montléon,
I., 282, 309.—Buchez et Roux, XXVIII, 356, 357 (Journal de Lyon Nos.
223 and 224.) "The acceptance of the Constitution was neither entire nor
very sincere; people took credit to themselves for accepting a vicious and
sketchy production." Meillan, "Mémoires," 120. (In July he leaves Caen for
Quimper). "Although we were assured that we should pass only through
Maratist towns, we had the satisfaction of finding nearly all the
inhabitants regarding Marat with horror. They had indeed accepted the
Constitution offered by the Committee of Public Safety, but solely to end
the matter and on conditions which would speak well for them; for,
everywhere the renewal of the Convention was exacted and the punishment of
assaults made on it." This desire, and others analogous to it, are given
in the procès-verbaux of many of the primary assemblies (Archives
Nationales, B. II., 23); for example, in those of the thirteen cantons of
Ain. A demand is made, furthermore, for the reintegration of the
Twenty-two, the abolition of the revolutionary tribunal, the suppression
of absolute proconsulates, the organization of a department guard for
securing the future of the Convention, the discharge of the revolutionary
army, etc.]
1113 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVII., 20.
Report of Barère: "The Constitutional act is going to draw the line
between republicans and royalists."]
1114 (return)
[ Archives Nationales,
F.I.C., 54. (Circular of the Minister, Gohier, July 6, 1793.) "It is
to-day that, summoned to the alter of the country, those who desire the
Republic will be known by name, and those who do not desire it, whether
they speak or keep silent, will be equally known."]
1115 (return)
[ Sauzay, IV., 160,
161. (Article by the Vidette.) Consequently, "all the unconstitutionalists
nobles and priests considered it a duty to go the assemblies and joyfully
accept a constitution which guaranteed liberty and property to
everybody."]
1116 (return)
[ "Journal des Débats
de la Société des Jacobins," No. For July 27, 1793 (correspondence, No.
122).]
1117 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVII., 156,
163.]
1118 (return)
[ Sauzay, IV., 158:
"The motives for judgments were thus stated by judges themselves."]
1119 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVII., 40,
48, 72, 140, 175, 194, 263. (Cf. Speeches by Chaumette, July 14, and
Report by Gossoin, August 9).—Archives Nationales, B. II., 23.
Negative votes in Ardèche 5, in Aude 5, Moselle 5, Saône-et-Loire 5,
Côte-d'Or 4, Creuse 4, Haut-Rhin 4, Gers 4, Haute-Garonne 3, Aube 2,
Bouches-du-Rhône 2, Cantal 2, Basses-Alpes 1, Haute-Marne 1, Haute-Vienne
1, Var 0, Seine 0.—The details and circumstances of voting are
curious. In the department of Aube, at Troyes, the second section in
agreement with the third, excluded "suspects" from the vote. At Paris, the
section "Gardes Française," Fourcroy president, announces 1,714 voters, of
which 1,678 are citizens and 36 citoyennes. In the "Mont Blanc" section,
the secretary signs as follows: Trone segretaire general de la semblé.]
1120 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVII., 375.
(Session of the convention, August 11, 1793). Chabot: "I demand a law
requiring every man who does not appear at a primary meeting to give good
reason for his absence; also, that any man who has not favored the
Constitution, be declared ineligible to all constitutional franchises."
Ibid., 50. (Meeting of the Commune, July 4th). Leonard Bourdon demands, in
the name of his section, the Gravilliers, a register on which to inscribe
those who accept the Constitution, "in order that those who do not vote
for it may be known."—Souzay, IV. 159. M. Boillon, of Belleherbe, is
arrested "for being present at the primary assembly of the canton of
Vaucluse, and when called upon to accept the Constitutional act, leaving
without voting."]
1121 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVII., 11.
(Instructions on the mode of accepting the Constitution).—Sauzay
IV., 158.—Moniteur, XVII., 302. (Speech by Garat, August 2.) "I have
dispatched commissioners to push the Constitutional Act through the
primary assemblies."—Durand- Maillane. 150. "The envoys of the
departments were taken from the sans-culotterie then in fashion, because
they ruled in the Convention."]
1122 (return)
[ Sauzay, IV., 158.]
1123 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVII., 363.
(Report of Gossuin to the Convention, August 9). "There are primary
assemblies which have extended their deliberations beyond the acceptance
of the Constitution. This acceptance being almost unanimous, all other
objects form matter for petitions to be entrusted to competent
committees."—Ibid., 333. (Speech of Delacroix). "The
anti-revolutionary delegates sent by the conspirators we had in the
Convention must be punished. (August 6.).]
1124 (return)
[ Moniteur, ibid., 333.
Speech and motions of Bazire, August 8.—XIX., 116. Report of
Vouland, January 2, 1794. The pay of Maillard and his acolytes amounted to
twenty-two thousand livres.—XVIII., 324. (Session of August 5.
Speeches of Gossuin, Thibault and Lacroix.)—Ibid., 90. (Session of
Germinal 8, year III.) Speech by Bourdon de l'Oise: "We have been obliged
to pick men out of the envoys in order to find those disposed for rigorous
measures."]
1125 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVII., 330.
Ordinance of the Commune, August 6.]
1126 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVII., 332.
(Session of the Convention, August 6.)—Cf. the "Diurnal" of
Beaulieu, August 6. Beaulieu mentions several deputations and motions of
the same order, and states the alarm of the "Mountain."—Durand-Maillane,
"Mémoires," 151. "Among the envoys from the departments were sensible men
who, far from approving of all the steps taken by their brethren,
entertained and manifested very contrary sentiments. These were molested
and imprisoned."—"Archives des Affaires étrangères," vol. 1411.
(Report of the agents of August 10 and 11.) The department
commissioners... seemed to us in the best disposition. There are some
intriguers among them, however; we are following up some of them, and
striving by fraternizing with them to prevent them from being seduced or
led away by the perfidious suggestions of certain scoundrels, the friends
of federalism, amongst them.... A few patriotic commissioners have already
denounced several of their brethren accused of loving royalty and
federalism."]
1127 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXVIII., 408.]
1128 (return)
[ Moniteur., XVII.,
330. (Act passed by the Commune, August 6.)]
1129 (return)
[ Archives des Affaires
étrangères, vol. 1411. (Reports of agents, Aug. 10 and 11). "Citizens are,
to-day, eager to see who shall have a commissioner at his table: who shall
treat him the best. .. the Commissioners of the primary assemblies come
and fraternise with them in the Jacobin club. They adopt their maxims, and
are carried away by the energy of the good and true republican
sans-culottes in the clubs."]
1130 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVII., 307,
308. (Report of Couthon to the Convention, Aug. 2.) "You would wound, you
would outrage these Republicans, were you to allow the performance before
them of an infinity of pieces filled with insulting allusions to
liberty."]
1131 (return)
[ Ibid. 124. (Session
of Aug. 5.)]
1132 (return)
[ Ibid., 314; (Letter
of Lhuillier, Aug. 4.)—322, Session of the Commune, Aug. 4th; 332,
(Session of the Convention, Aug. 6).—Buchez et Roux, XXVIII., 409.
(Meeting of the Jacobin Club, Aug. 5th).]
1133 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, 411
(Article in the Journal de la Montagne.)]
1134 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVII.,
348.]
1135 (return)
[ "Le Féderation" was
in 1790 "the Association of the National Guards." (SR).]
1136 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XVIII., 415 and following pages.]
1137 (return)
[ Ibid., 352.—Cf.
Beaulieu, "Diurnal," Aug. 9.]
1138 (return)
[ On the mechanical
character of the festivals of the Revolution read the programme of "The
civic fete in honor of Valor and Morals," ordered by Fouché at Nevers, on
the 1st day of the 1st decade of the 2nd month of the year II. (De Martel,
"Etude sur Fouché," 202); also, the programme of the "Fete de l'Etre
Supréme," at Sceaux, organized by the patriot Palloy, Presidial 20, year
II. (Dauban, Paris en 1794, p.187).]
1139 (return)
[ It cost one million
two hundred thousand francs, besides the traveling expenses of eight
thousand delegates.]
1140 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXVIII., 439, and following pages. Procès verbal of he National Festival
of the 10th of August.—Dauban "La Demagogie en 1791." (Extract from
the Republican Ritual.)]
1141 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVII., 366.
(Session of Aug. 11. Speech by Lacroix and decree in conformity
therewith.)]
1142 (return)
[ Ibid., 374. "Remember
that you are accountable to the nation and the universe for this sacred
Ark. Remember that it is your duty to die rather than suffer a
sacrilegious hand....."]
1143 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXVIII., 358. It is evident from the context of the speech that
Robespierre and the Jacobins were desirous of maintaining the Convention
because they foresaw Girondist elections.]
1144 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVII., 382.
(Session of Aug. 12. Speech by Lacroix).]
1145 (return)
[ Ibid., 387.—Cf.
Ibid., 410, session of August 16. The delegates return there to insist on
a levy, en masse, the levy of the first class not appearing sufficient to
them. (levy means mobilization of all men)—Buchez et Roux, XXVIII.,
464. Delegate Royer, Curé of Chalons-sur-Saone, demands that the
aristocrats "chained together in sixes" be put in the front rank in battle
"to avoid the risks of sauve qui peut."]
1146 (return)
[ Decrees of August 14
and 16.]
1147 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVII.,
375.]
1148 (return)
[ Riouffe, "Mémoires,"
19: "An entire generation, the real disciples of Jean-Jacques, Voltaire
and Diderot, could be, and was annihilated, to a large extent under the
pretext of federalism."]
1149 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVII., 102.
(Speech by Cambon, July 11, 1793). Archives Nationales, AF. II., 46.
(Speech of General Wimpffen to the "Société des amis de la Liberté et de
l'Egalité," in session at Cherbourg, June 25, 1793). "Sixty-four
departments have already revoked the powers conferred on their
representatives." Meillan, "Mémoires," 72: "The archives of Bordeaux once
contained the acts passed by seventy-two departments, all of which adhered
to measures nearly the same as those indicted in our documents."]
1150 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XVIII., 148.—Meillan, 70, 71.—Guillon de Montléon, I., 300 (on
Lyons) and I., 280 (on Bordeaux). Archives Nationales, AF II., 46.
(Deliberations of the Nantes section July 5).—Letter of Merlin and
Gillet, representatives on mission, Lorient, June 12. Dissatisfaction at
the outrages of May 31 and June 2, was so manifest that the
representatives on mission Merline, Gillet, Savestre, and Cagaignac print
on the 14th of June a resolution authorising one of their body to go to
the Convention and protest "in their name" against the weakness shown by
it and against the ursurpations of the Paris commune.—Sauzay, IV.,
260. At Besançon, in a general assembly of all the administrative,
judicial and municipal bodies of the department joined to the
commissioners of the section, protest "unanimously" on the 15th of June.]
1151 (return)
[ Archives Nationales,
Ibid.(Letter of Romme and Prieur, Caen, June 10th, to the committee of
Public Safety). The insurgents are so evidently in the right that Romme
and Prieur approve of their own arrest. "Citizens, our colleagues, this
arrest may be of great importance, serve the cause of liberty, maintain
the unity of the republic and revive confidence if, as we hasten to demand
it of you, you confirm it by a decree which declares us hostages.... We
have noticed that among the people of Caen, there is a love of liberty, as
well as of justice and docility."]
1152 (return)
[ Archives Nationales,
AF. II., 46. (Printed July 5). Result of the deliberations of the Nantes
sections. The act is signed by the three administrative bodies of Nantes,
by the district rulers of Clisson, Anceries and Machecoul, who had fled to
Nantes, and by both the deputies of the districts of Paimboeuf and
Chateaubriand, in all, eighty-six signatures.]
1153 (return)
[ Archives Nationales,
ibid., (letter of General Wimpffen to the "Societé des Amis de l'Egalité
et de la Liberté" in session at Cherbourg, June 25, 1793).—Mortimer-Ternaux,
VIII., 126.—On the opinion of the departments cf. Paul Thibaud
("Etudes sur l'histoire de Grenoble et du Department de l'Isére").—Louis
Guibert ("Le Parti Girondin dans le Haute Vienne").—Jarrin, ("Bourg
et Bellay pendant la Révolution").]
1154 (return)
[ Albert Babeau, II.,
83. (Pamphlet by the curé of Cleray). "Every primary assembly that accepts
the Constitution strikes the factions a blow on the head with the club of
Hercules."]
1155 (return)
[ Cf. "The Revolution,"
Vol. II. Ch. XI.]
1156 (return)
[ Buzot.—Archives
Nationales, AF. II., 157. Reports by Baudot and Ysabeau to the Convention.
The 19th of Aug. At the Hotel de Ville of Bordeaux, they eulogize the 21st
of January: "There was then a roar as frightful as it was general. A city
official coolly replied to us: What would you have? To oppose anarchy we
have been forced to join the aristocrats, and they rule." Another says
ironically to Ysabeau: "We did not anticipate that,—they are our
tribunes."]
1157 (return)
[ Jarrin, "Bourg et
Belley pendant la Révolution" ("Annales de la Societé d'Emulation de
l'Ain," 1878, Nos. For January, February and March, p. 16).]
1158 (return)
[ Louvet, 103, 108.—Guillon
de Montléon, I., 305 and following pages.—Buchez et Roux, XXVIII.,
151. (Report of the delegates of the district of Andelys). "One of members
observed that there would be a good deal of trouble in raising an armed
force of one thousand men."—An administrator (a commissioner of
Calvados) replied: "We shall have all the aristocrats on our side." The
principal military leaders at Caen and at Lyons, Wimpffen, Précy, Puisaye,
are Feuillants and form only a provisional alliance with the Girondists
properly so called, Hence constant contentions and reciprocal mistrust.
Birotteau and Chapet leave Lyons because they do not find the spirit of
the place sufficiently republican.]
1159 (return)
[ Louvet, 124, 129.—Buchez
et Roux, XXVII, 360. (Notice by General Wimpffen), July 7.—Puisaye,
"Mémoires" and "L'Insurrection Normande." by et Vaultier et Mancel.]
1160 (return)
[ Mortimer-Ternaux,
VIII., 471. Letter of Barbaroux, Caen, June 18.—Ibid., 133. Letter
of Madame Roland to Buzot, July 7. "You are not the one to march at the
head of battalions (departmental). It would have the appearance of
gratifying personal vengeance."]
1161 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXVIII., 153. (Deliberations of the constituted authorities of Marseilles,
June 7.)]
1162 (return)
[ Guillon de Montléon,
II., 40. The contrast between the two parties is well shown in the
following extract from the letter of a citizen of Lyons to Kellerman's
soldiers. "They tell you that we want to destroy the unity of the
republic, while they themselves abandon the frontiers to the enemy in
order to come here and cut their brethren's throats."]
1163 (return)
[ Guillon de Montléon,
I., 288.—Marcelin Boudet, "Les Conventionnels d'Auvergne," p. 181.—Louvet,
193.—Moniteur, XVII., 101. (Speech of Cambon, July 11). "We have
preferred to expose these funds (one hundred and five millions destined
for the army) to being intercepted, rather than to retard this dispatch.
The first thing the Committee of Public Safety have had to care for was to
save the republic and make the administrations fully responsible for it.
They were fully aware of this, and accordingly have allowed the
circulation of these funds... They have been forced, through the wise
management of the Committee, to contribute themselves to the safety of the
republic."]
1164 (return)
[ Archives Nationales,
Letter of Robert Lindet, June 16, AF. II., 43. The correspondence of
Lindet, which is very interesting, well shows the sentiments of the
Lyonnese and the policy of the "Mountain." "However agitated Lyons may be,
order prevails; nobody wants either king or tyrant; all use the same
language: the words republic, union, are in everybody's mouth." (Eight
letters.) He always gives the same advice to the Committee of Public
Safety: "Publish a constitution, publish the motives of the bills of
arrest," which are indispensable to rally everybody to the Convention,
(June 15).]
1165 (return)
[ Guillon de Montléon,
I., 309 (July 24).]
1166 (return)
[ Sauzay, IV., 268.—Paul
Thibaud, 50.—Marcelin Boudet, 185.—Archives Nationales AF.
II., 46. Extract from the registers of the Council of the department of
Loire-Inferieure, July 14. The department protests that its decree of July
5 was not "a rupture with the Convention, an open rebellion against the
laws of the State, an idea very remote from the sentiments and intentions
of the citizens present." Now, "the plan of a Constitution is offered to
the acceptance of the sovereign. This fortunate circumstance should bring
people to one mind, and, with hope thus renewed, let us at once seize on
the means of salvation thus presented to us."—Moniteur, XVII., 102.
(Speech of Cambon, July 11.)]
1167 (return)
[ Louvet, 119, 128,
150, 193.—Meillan, 130, 141. (On the disposition and sentiments of
the provinces and of the public in general, the reader will find ample and
authentic details in the narratives of the fugitives who scattered
themselves in all directions, and especially those of Louvet, Meillan,
Dulaure, and Vaublanc.) Cf. the "Mémoires de Hua" and "Un Séjour en France
in 1792 and 1795."—Mallet-du-Pan already states this disposition
before 1789 (MS. Journal). "June, 1785: The French live simply in a crowd;
they must all cling together. On the promenades they huddle together and
jostle each other in one alley; the same when there is more space." "Aug.,
1787, (after the first riots): I have remarked in general more curiosity
than excitement in the multitude.... One can judge, at this moment, the
national character; a good deal of bravado and nonsense; neither reason,
rule nor method; rebellious in crowds, and not a soul that does not
tremble in the presence of a corporal."]
1168 (return)
[ Meillan, 143.—Mortimer-Ternaux,
VIII., 203. (Session of August 10).—Mallet-du-Pan, "Mémoires," II.,
9.]
1169 (return)
[ Ernest Daudet, "His.
des Conspirations royalistes dans le midi." (Books II. And III.)]
1170 (return)
[ Guillon de Montléon,
I., 313. (Address of a Lyonais to the patriot soldiers under Kellerman.)]
1171 (return)
[ Mortimer-Ternaux,
VIII., 222.—The insurrection of Toulon, Girondist at the start,
dates July 1st.—Letter of the new administrators of Toulon to the
Convention. "W desire the Republic, one and indivisible; there is no sign
of rebellion with us... Representatives Barras and Fréron lie shamefully
in depicting us as anti-revolutionaries, on good terms with the English
and the families of Vendée."—The Toulon administrators continue
furnishing the Italian army with supplies. July 19, an English boat, sent
to parley, had to lower the white flag and hoist the tri-color flag. The
entry of the English into Toulon did not take place before the 29th of
August.]
1172 (return)
[ Guillon de Montléon,
II., 67. (Letter of the Lyonnese to the representatives of the people,
Sep. 20): "The people of Lyons have constantly respected the laws, and if,
as in some departments, that of Rhone-et-Loire was for a moment mistaken
in the events of May 31, they hastened, as soon as they believed that the
Convention was not oppressed, to recognize and execute its decrees. Every
day, now that these reach it, they are published and observed within its
walls."]
1173 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVII., 269.
(Session of July 28). (Letter of the administrators of the department of
Rhone-et-Loire to the Convention, Lyons, July 24). "We present to the
Convention our individual recantation and declaration; in conforming to
the law we are entitled to its protection. We petition the court to decide
on our declaration, and to repeal the acts which relate to us or make an
exception in our favor... We have always professed ourselves to be true
republicans."]
1174 (return)
[ Guillon de Montléon,
I., 309, 311, 315, 335.—Mortimer-Ternaux, VIII., 197.]
1175 (return)
[ Mortimer-Ternaux,
VIII., 141.]
1176 (return)
[ Mallet du Pan, I.,
379 and following pages; I., 408; II., 10.]
1177 (return)
[ Entry of the
Republican troops into Lyons, October 9th, into Toulon, December 19th.—Bordeaux
had submitted on the 2nd of August. Exasperated by the decree of the 6th
which proscribed all the abettors of the insurrection, the city drives
out, on the 19th, the representatives Baudot and Ysabeau. It submits again
on the 19th of September. But so great is the indignation of the citizens,
Tallien and his three colleagues dare not enter before the 16th of
October. (Mortimer-Ternaux, VIII., 197 and following pages.)]
1178 (return)
[ Seventy thousand men
were required to reduce Lyons, (Guillon de Montléon, II., 226) and sixty
thousand men to reduce Toulon.]
1179 (return)
[ Archives des Affaires
étrangères, vol. CCCXXIX. (Letter of Chépy, political agent, Grenoble,
July 26, 1793). "I say it unhesitatingly, I had rather reduce Lyons than
save Valenciennes."]
1180 (return)
[ Ibid., vol. CCCXXIX.
(Letter of Chépy, Grenoble, August 24, 1793): "The Piedmontese are masters
of Cluse. A large body of mountaineers have joined them. At Annecy the
women have cut down the liberty pole and burnt the archives of the club
and commune. At Chambéry, the people wanted to do the same, but they
forced the sick in the hospitals to take arms and thus kept them down."]
1181 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVIII, 474.
(Report of Billaud-Varennes, October 18, 1793). "The combined efforts of
all the powers of Europe have not compromised liberty and the country so
much as the federalist factions; the assassin the most to be dreaded is
the one that lives in the house."]
1182 (return)
[ The convention
purposely reinstates incendiaries and assassins. (Moniteur, XVIII., 483.
Session of Breumaire 28, year II.): XVII., 176. (Session of July 19,
1793). Rehabilitation of Bordier and Jourdain, hung in August, 1789.
Cancelling of the proceedings begun against the authors of the massacre of
Melun (September, 1792) and release of the accused.—Cf. Albert
Babeau, (I., 277.) Rehabilitation, with indemnities distributed in
Messidor, year II, to their relatives.—"Archives des Affaires
étrangères," vol. 331. (Letter of Chépy, Grenoble, Frimaire 8, year II).
"The criminal court and jury of the department have just risen to the
height of the situation; they have acquitted the castle-burners."]
1183 (return)
[ Mortimer-Ternaux,
VIII., 593. (Deputation of twenty-four sections sent from Bordeaux to the
Convention, August 30).—Buchez et Roux, XXVIII., 494. (Report of the
representatives on mission in Bouches-du-Rhône, September 2nd).—Ibid.,
XXX., 386. (Letter of Rousin, commandant of the revolutionary army at
Lyons. "A population of one hundred twenty thousand souls..... There are
not amongst all these, one thousand five hundred patriots, even one
thousand five hundred persons that one could spare."—Guillon de
Montléon, I., 355, 374. (Signatures of twenty thousand Lyonnese of all
classes, August 17th).]
1184 (return)
[ Guillon de Montléon,
I., 394. (Letter of Dubois-Crancé to the Lyonnese, August 19th.)]
1185 (return)
[ Mortimer-Ternaux,
VIII., 198. (Decree of Aug. 6.)—Buchez et Roux, XXVIII. 297, (Decree
of July 12.).—Guillon de Montléon, I., 342. Summons of
Dubois-Crancé, Aug. 8.)]
1186 (return)
[ Meillan, 142.).—"Archives
des Affaires Etrangéres," vol. CCCXXXII. (Letter of Desgranges, Bordeaux,
Brumaire 8, year II.): "The execution of Mayor Saige, who was much loved
by the people for his benefactions, caused much sorrow: but no guilty
murmur was heard."]
1187 (return)
[ Archives Nationales,
AF. II., 46. (Letter of Julien to the Committee of Public Safety Messidor
11, year II). "Some time ago a solemn silence prevailed at the sessions of
the military commission, the people's response to the death-sentences
against conspirators; the same silence attended them to the scaffold; the
whole commune seemed to sob in secret at their fate."]
1188 (return)
[ Berryat Saint-Prix,
"La Justice Révolutionaire," pp. 277-299.—Archives Nationales, AF.
II., 46. (Registers of the Com. Of Surveillance, Bordeaux). The number of
prisoners between Prairial 21 and 28, varies from 1504 to 1529. Number of
the guillotined, 882. (Memoirs of Sénart).]
1189 (return)
[ Archives Nationales,
AF. II., 46. Letter of Julien, Messidor 12, year II. "A good deal has been
stolen here; the mayor, now in prison, is informed of considerable losses.
The former Committee of surveillance came under serious suspicion; many
people who were outlawed only escaped by paying: it is a fact that... Of a
number of those who have thus purchased their lives there are some who did
not deserve to die and who, nevertheless, were threatened with death."—Buchez
et Roux, XXXII., 428. (Extracts from the Memoirs of Sénart). "The
president of the military commission was a man named Lacombe, already
banished from the city on account of a judgment against him for robbery.
The other individuals employed by Tallien comprised a lot of valets,
bankrupts and sharpers."]
1190 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXVIII., 493. (Speech by Danton, August 31, and decree in conformity
therewith by the Convention).]
1191 (return)
[ Mallet-Dupan, II.,
17. "Thousands of traders in Marseilles and Bordeaux, here the respectable
Gradis and there the Tarteron, have been assassinated and their goods
sold. I have seen the thirty-second list only of the Marseilles emigres,
whose property has been confiscated.... There are twelve thousand of them
and the lists are not yet complete." (Feb. 1, 1794.)—Anne
Plumptre.2A Narrative of Three years' Residence in France, from 1802 to
1805." "During this period the streets of Marseilles were almost those of
a deserted town. One could go from one end of the town to the other
without meeting any one he could call an inhabitant. The great terrorists,
of whom scarcely one was a Marseillaise, the soldiers and roughs as they
called themselves, were almost the only persons encountered. The latter,
to the number of fifty or sixty, in jackets with leather straps, fell upon
all whom they did not like, and especially on anybody with a clean shirt
and white cravat. Many persons on the "Cours" were thus whipped to death.
No women went out-doors without a basket, while every man wore a jacket,
without which they were taken for aristocrats." (II., 94.)]
1192 (return)
[ "Mémoires de Fréron."
(Collection Barrière and Berville). Letters of Fréron to Moise Bayle,
Brumaire 23, Pluviose 5 and 11, Novose 16, II, published by Moise Bayle,
also details furnished by Huard, pp. 350-365.—Archives Nationales,
AF. II., 144. (Order of representatives Fréron, Barras, Salicetti and
Richard, Novose 17, year II.)]
1193 (return)
[ Mallet-Dupan, II.,
17.—Guillon de Montléon, II., 259.]
1194 (return)
[ Ibid., II., 281.
(Decree of the Convention, Oct. 12); II. 312. (Orders of Couthon and his
colleagues, Oct. 25); II., 366-372 (Instructions of the temporary
commission, Brumaire 26).]
1195 (return)
[ Ibid. III., 153-156.
Letter of Laporte to Couthon, April 13, 1794.]
1196 (return)
[ The contemporary
French Encyclopedia "QUID" ed. Lafont, 1996 states on page 755 that
according to Louis Marie Prudhomme there were 31 000 victims at Lyons.
(SR.)]
1197 (return)
[ Ibid. II. 135-137.
(Resolutions of the Revolutionary Commission, Germinal 17.) and Letters of
Cadillot to Robespierre, Floréal, year II). III., 63.]
1198 (return)
[ Guillon de Montléon,
II., 399. (Letter of Perrotin, member of the temporary commission to the
revolutionary committee of Moulin.) "The work before the new commission
may be considered as an Organization of the Septembrisade; the process
will be the same but legalized by an act passed."]
1199 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXIX., 192. (Decree of October 12).]
11100 (return)
[ Ibid., XXX., 457.
(Decree of November 23).]
11101 (return)
[ "Mémoires de
Fréron." (Letter of Fréron, Nivose 6).—Guillon de Montléon, II.,
391.]
11102 (return)
[ Decrees of October
12 and December 24.—Archives Nationales, AF. II., 44. The
representatives on mission wanted to do the same thing with Marseilles.
(Orders of Fréron, Barras, Salicetti, and Ricard, Nivôse 17, year II.)
"The name of Marseilles, still borne by this criminal city, shall be
changed. The National Convention shall be requested to give it another
name. Meanwhile it shall remain nameless and be thus known." In effect, in
several subsequent documents, Marseilles is called the nameless commune.]
11103 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXVIII., 204. (Session of June 24: "Strong expressions of dissent are
heard on the right." Legendre, "I demand that the first rebel, the first
man there (pointing to the "Right" party) who interrupts the speaker, be
sent to the Abbaye." Couhey, indeed, was sent to the Abbaye for applauding
a Federalist speech.—Cf. on these three months.—Mortimer-Ternaux,
vol. VIII.]
11104 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXIX., 175.—Dauban: "La Démagogie à Paris en 1793," 436 (Narrative
by Dulaure, an eye-witness).]
11105 (return)
[ There were really
only twenty-two brought before the revolutionary tribunal.]
11106 (return)
[ Dauban, XXVI., p.
440. (Narrative of Blanqui, one of the seventy-three.)]
11107 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux.
XXIX., 178, 179. Osselin: "I demand the decree of accusation against them
all."—Amar: "The apparently negative conduct of the minority of the
Convention since the 2nd of June, was a new plot devised by Barbaroux."
Robespierre: "If there are other criminals among those you have placed
under arrest the Committee of General Security will present to you the
nomenclature of them and you will always be at liberty to strike."]
11108 (return)
[ Ibid., XXIX., 432,
437, 447.—Report by Amar. (this report served as the bill of
indictment against them, "cowardly satellites of royal despotism, vile
agents of foreign tyrants."—Wallon, II., 407, 409. (Letter of
Fouquier-Tinville to the convention). "After the special debates, will not
each of the accused demand a general prosecution? The trial, accordingly,
will be interminable. Besides, one may ask why should there be witnesses?
The convention, all France, accuses those on trial. The evidence of their
crimes is plain; everybody is convinced of their guilt.... It is the
Convention which must remove all formalities that interfere with the
course pursued by the tribunal."—Moniteur, XVII., (Session of
October 28), 291. The decree provoked by a petition of Jacobins, is passed
on motion of Osselin, aggravated by Robespierre.]
11109 (return)
[ Louvet, "Mémoires,"
321. (List of the Girondists who perished or who were proscribed.
Twenty-four fugitives survived.)]
11110 (return)
[ Mortimer-Ternaux,
VIII., 395, 416, 435. The terror and disgust of the majority is seen in
the small number of voters. Their abstention from voting is the more
significant in relation to the election of the dictators. The members of
the Committee of Public Safety, elected on the 16th of July, obtain from
one hundred to one hundred and ninety-two votes. The members of the
Committee of Security obtain from twenty-two to one hundred and thirteen
votes. The members of the same committee, renewed on the 11th of
September, obtain from fifty-two to one hundred and eight votes. The
judges of the revolutionary tribunal, completed on the 3rd of August,
obtain from forty-seven to sixty-five votes.—Meillan, 85. (In
relation to the institution of the revolutionary government, on motion of
Bazire, Aug. 28). "Sixty or eighty deputies passed this decree... it was
preceded by another passed by a plurality of thirty against ten. .. For
two months the session the best attended, contains but one hundred
deputies. The Montagnards overran the departments to deceive or intimidate
the people. The rest, discouraged, keep away from the meetings or take no
part in the proceedings."]
11111 (return)
[ The meaning and
motives of this declaration are clearly indicated in Bazire's speech.
"Since the adoption of the Constitution," he says, "Feuillantism has
raised its head; a struggle has arisen between energetic and moderate
patriots. At the end of the Constituent Assembly, the Feuillants possessed
themselves of the words law, order, public, peace, security, to enchain
the zeal of the friends of freedom; the same manoeuvres are practiced
to-day. You must shatter the weapon in your enemies' hands, which they use
against you."—Durand-Maillane, 154. "The simple execution of
constitutional laws," said Bazire, "made for peaceable times, would be
impotent among the conspiracies that surround you."—Meillan, 108.]
11112 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVIII,
106. (Report of Saint-Just on the organization of the revolutionary
government, October 10th, and the decree in conformity therewith.) Ibid.,
473. (Report of Billaud-Varennes on a mode of provisional and
revolutionary government, Nov. 18th, and decree in conformity therewith.)—Ib.,
479 (session of Nov. 22nd, 1793,.—Speech of Hébrard, spokesman of a
deputation from Cantal). "A central committee of surveillance, a
revolutionary army, has been established in our department. Aristocrats,
suspects, the doubtful, moderates, egoists, all gentlemen without
distinguishing those who have done nothing for the revolution from those
who have acted against it, await in retirement the ulterior measures
required by the interests of the Republic. I have said without distinction
of the indifferent from the suspects; for we hold to these words of
Solon's: 'He who is not with us is against us.'"]
11113 (return)
[ The trousers used
in pre-Revolutionary France by the nobility was called culottes, they
terminated just below the knee where the long cotton or silken stockings
would begin. The less affluent used long trousers and no socks and became
known as the Sans-culottes which became, as mentioned in vol. II. a
nickname for the revolutionary proletariat. (SR.)]
11114 (return)
[ Moniteur, (Speech
by Danton, March 26, 1794.) "In creating revolutionary committees the
desire was to establish a species of dictatorship of citizens the most
devoted to liberty over those who rendered themselves suspects."]
11115 (return)
[ Mallet-Dupan, II.,
8. (February, 1794). "At this moment the entire people is disarmed. Not a
gun can be found either in town or country. If anything attests the
super-natural power which the leaders of the Convention enjoy, it is to
see, in one instant, through one act of the will and nobody offering any
resistance, or complaining of it, the nation from Perpignan to Lille,
deprived of every means of defense against oppression, with a facility
still more unprecedented than that which attended the universal arming of
the nation in 1789."—"A Residence in France," II., 409. "The
National Guard as a regular institution was in great part suppressed after
the summer of 1793, those who composed it being gradually disarmed.
Guard-mounting was continued, but the citizens performing this service
were, with very few exceptions, armed with pikes, and these again were not
fully entrusted to them; each man, on quitting his post, gave up his arms
more punctually than if he had been bound to do so through capitulation
with a victorious enemy."]
11116 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVIII.,
106. (Report by Saint-Just, Oct. 10th).]
11117 (return)
[ Ibid., 473. (Report
of Billaud-Varennes, Nov. 13th).]
11118 (return)
[ Ibid., XVIII., 591.
(Speech by Couthon, December 4th). Ibid., Barère: "Electoral assemblies
are monarchical institutions, they attach to royalism, they must be
specially avoided in revolutionary times."]
11119 (return)
[ Mortimer-Ternaux,
VIII., 40. (Decree passed on the proposition of Danton, session of
September 13th). The motive alleged by Danton is that "members are still
found on the committees whose opinions, at least, approach federalism."
Consequently the committees are purified, and particularly the Committee
of General Security. Six of its members are stricken off (Sept. 14), and
the list sent in by the Committee of Public safety passes without
discussion.]
11120 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVIII.,
592. (Session of December 4, speech by Robespierre).]
11121 (return)
[ Miot de Melito,
"Mémoires," I., 47.]
11122 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXVIII., 153. Mortimer-Ternaux, VIII., 443. (Decree of September 28th).—Wallon,
"Histoire du Tribunal Révolutionaire de Paris," IV., 112.]
11123 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXXIV., 300. (Trial of Fouquier-Tinville and associates). Bill of
indictment: "One of these publicly boasted of always having voted death.
Others state that they were content to see people to give their judgment;
physical inspection alone determined them to vote death. Another said,
that when there was no offense committed it was necessary to imagine one.
Another is a regular sot and has never sat in judgment but in a state of
intoxication. Others came to the bench only to fire their volleys." Etc.
(Supporting evidence.)—"Observe, moreover, that judges and juries
are bound to kill under penalty of death (Ibid.,30)." Fouquier-Tinville
states that on the 22nd of Prairial he took the same step (to resign) with
Chatelet, Brochet and Lerry, when they met Robespierre, returning to the
National Convention arm-in-arm with Barère. Fouquier adds, that they were
treated as aristocrats and anti-revolutionaries, and threatened with death
if they refused to remain on their posts." Analogous declarations by
Pigeot, Ganne, Girard, Dupley, Foucault, Nollin and Madre. "Sellier adds,
that the tribunal having remonstrated against the law of Prairial 22, he
was threatened with arrest by Dumas. Had we resigned, he says, Dumas would
have guillotined us.]
11124 (return)
[ Moniteur, XXIV.,
12. (Session of Ventôse 29, year III., speech by Baileul). "Terror subdued
all minds, suppressed all emotions; it was the force of the government,
while such was this government that the numerous inhabitants of a vast
territory seemed to have lost the qualities which distinguish man from a
domestic animal. They seemed even to have no life except what the
government accorded to them. Human personality no longer existed; each
individual was simply a machine, going, coming, thinking or not thinking
as he was impelled or stimulated by tyranny."]
11125 (return)
[ Decree of Frimaire
14, year II., Dec. 4, 1793.]
11126 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVII.,
473, 474, 478. (Speech by Billaud-Varennes). "The sword of Damocles must
henceforth be brandished over the entire surface." This expression of
Billaud sums up the spirit of every new institution.]
11127 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVIII.,
275. (Session of Oct. 26. 1793, speech by Barère.) "This is the most
revolutionary step you can take." (Applause.)]
11128 (return)
[ Ibid., 520. (Report
of Barère and decree in conformity). "The representatives sent on mission
are required to conform strictly to the acts of the Committee of Public
Safety. Generals and other agents of the executive power will, under no
pretext, obey any special order, that they may refuse to carry out the
said acts."—Moniteur, XVIII., 291. (Report by Barère, Oct. 29,
1793.) At this date one hundred and forty representatives are on mission.]
11129 (return)
[ Archives
Nationales, AF. II., 22. (Papers of the 'Committee of Public Safety. Note
on the results of the revolutionary government without either date or
signature.) "The law of Frimaire 14 created two centers of influence from
which action spread, in the sense of the Committee, and which affected the
authorities. These two pivots of revolutionary rule outside the Committee
were the representatives of the people on missions and the national agents
controlling the district committees. The word revolutionary government
alone exercised an incalculable magical influence."—Mallet-Dupan,
"Mémoires," II., p. 2, and following pages.]
Program of the Jacobin party.—Abstract principle and
spontaneous development of the theory.
Nothing is more dangerous than a general idea in narrow and empty minds: as they are empty, it finds no knowledge there to interfere with it; as they are narrow it is not long before it occupies the place entirely. Henceforth they no longer belong to themselves but are mastered by it; it works in them and through them, the man, in the true sense of the word, being possessed. Something which is not himself, a monstrous parasite, a foreign and disproportionate conception, lives within him, developing and giving birth to the evil purposes with which it is pregnant. He did not foresee that he would have them; he did not know what his dogma contained, what venomous and murderous consequences were to issue from it. They issue from it fatally, each in its turn, and under the pressure of circumstances, at first anarchical consequences and now despotic consequences. Having obtained power, the Jacobin brings his fixed idea along with him; whether at the head of the government or in opposition to it, this idea is fruitful, and the all-powerful dogma projects over a new domain the innumerable links of its endless chain.
The Jacobin concept of Society.—The Contrat-Social.—Total
surrender of the Individual to the Community.—Everything
belongs to the State.—Confiscations and Sequestrations.
—Pre-emption and requisition and requisition of produce and
merchandise.—Individuals belong to the State.—Drafts of
persons for Military service.—Drafts of persons for the
Civil service.—The State philanthropist, educator,
theologian, moralist, censor and director of ideas and
intimate feelings.
Let us trace this inward development and go back, along with the Jacobin, to first principles, to the original pact, to the first organization of society. There is but one just and sound society, the one founded on the "contrat-social," and
"the clauses of this contract, fully understood, reduce themselves to one, the total transfer of each individual, with all his rights, to the community,.... each surrendering himself up absolutely, just as he actually stands, he and all his forces, of which the property he possesses forms a part."2101
There must be no exception or reservation. Nothing of what he previously was, or had, now belongs to him in his own right; henceforth, what he is, or has, devolves upon him only through delegation. His property and his person now form a portion of the commonwealth. If he is in possession of these, his ownership is at second hand; if he derives any benefit there from, it is as a concession. He is their depository, trustee and administrator, and nothing more.2102 In other words, with respect to these he is simply a managing director, that is to say a functionary like others, with a precarious appointment and always revocable by the State which has appointed him.
"As nature gives to every man absolute power over the members of his body the social pact gives the social body absolute power over all its members."
The State, as omnipotent sovereign and universal proprietor, exercises at discretion, its boundless rights over persons and things; consequently we, its representatives, take all things and persons into our hands; as they belong to it, so do they belong to us.
We have confiscated the possessions of the clergy, amounting to about four billion livres; we confiscate the property of the emigrés, amounting to three billion livres;2103 we confiscate the property of the guillotined and deported: all this amounts to some hundreds of millions; later on, the count will be made, because the list remains open and is being daily added to. We will sequestrate the property of "suspects," which gives us the right to use it: here are many hundred millions more; after the war and the banishment of "suspects," we shall seize the property along with its income: here, again, are billions of capital.2104 Meanwhile we take the property of hospitals and of other benevolent institutions, about eight hundred million livres; we take the property of factories, of endowments, of educational institutions, and of literary and scientific associations: another lot of millions.2105 We take back the domains rented or surrendered by the State for the past three centuries and more, which gives again about a couple of billions.2106 We take the possessions of the communes up to the amount of their indebtedness. We have already received as inheritance the ancient domains of the crown, also the later domain of the civil list. More than three-fifths2107 of the soil thus falls into our hands, which three-fifths are much the best stocked; they comprise almost all the large and fine edifices, châteaux, abbeys, mansions, houses of superintendents and nearly all the royal, episcopal, seigniorial and bourgeois stock of rich and elegant furniture; all plate, libraries, pictures and artistic objects accumulated for centuries.—Remark, again, the seizure of specie and all other articles of gold and silver; in the months alone of November and December, 1793, this swoop puts into our coffers three or four hundred millions,2108 not assignats, but ringing coin. In short, whatever the form of established capital may be we take all we can get hold of, probably more than three-fourths of it.—There remains the portion which is not fixed capital, that which disappears in use, namely, all that is consumed, all the fruits of the soil, every description of provision, all the products of human art and labor which contribute the maintenance of existence. Through "the right of pre-emption" and through the right of "requisition," "the Republic becomes temporary proprietor of whatever commerce, manufacture and agriculture have produced and added to the soil of France: "all food and merchandise is ours before being owned by their holder. We carry out of his house whatever suits us; we pay him for this with worthless paper; we frequently do not pay him at all. For greater convenience, we seize objects directly and wherever we find them, grain in the farmer's barn, hay in the reaper's shed, cattle in the fold, wine in the vats, hides at the butcher's, leather in the tanneries, soap, tallow, sugar, brandy, cloths, linens and the rest, in stores, depots and ware-houses. We stop vehicles and the horses in the street. We enter the premises of mail or coach contractors and empty their stables. We carry away kitchen utensils to obtain the copper; we turn people out of their rooms to get their beds; we strip them of their coats and shirts; in one day, we make ten thousand individuals in one town go barefoot.2109
"When public needs require it," says representative Isoré, "all belongs to the people and nothing to individuals."
By virtue of the same right we dispose of persons as we do of things. We decree the levy en masse and, stranger still, we carry it out, at least in many parts of the country, and we keep it up for months: in Vendée, and in the northern and eastern departments, it is the entire male, able-bodied population, up to fifty years of age, which we drive in herds against the enemy.2110 We afterwards sign an entire generation on, all young men between eighteen and twenty-five, almost a million of men:2111 whoever fails to appear is put in irons for ten years; he is regarded as a deserter; his property is confiscated, and his family is punished as well; later he is classed with the emigrants, condemned to death, and his father, mother and progenitors, treated as "suspects," imprisoned and their possessions taken.—To clothe, shoe and equip our recruits, we must have workmen; we summon to head-quarters all gunsmiths, blacksmiths and locksmiths, all the tailors and shoemakers of the district, "foremen, apprentices and boys;"2112 we imprison those who do not come; we install the rest in squads in public buildings and assign them their tasks; they are forbidden to furnish anything to private individuals. Henceforth, French shoemakers must work only for us, and each must deliver to us, under penalty, so many pairs of shoes per decade.2113—But, the civil service is no less important than the military service, and to feed the people is as urgent as it is to defend them. Hence we put "in requisition all who have anything to do with handling, transporting or selling provisions and articles of prime necessity,"2114 especially combustibles and food—wood-choppers, carters, raftsmen, millers, reapers, threshers, wine-growers, movers, field-hands, "country people" of every kind and degree. Their hands belong to us: we make them bestir themselves and work under the penalty of fine and imprisonment. There shall be no idlers, especially in crop time: we take the entire population of a commune or canton into the fields, comprising "the lazy of both sexes;"2115 willingly or not, they shall do the harvesting under our eyes, banded together in fields belonging to others as well as in their own, and they shall put the sheaves indiscriminately into the public granary.
But in labor all hangs together, from the initial undertaking to the final result, from the raw material to the most finished production, from the great manufacturer down to the pettiest jobber; grasping the first link of the chain involves grasping the last one. The requisition here again answers the purpose: we apply it to all pursuits; each is bound to continue his own; the manufacturer to manufacture, the trader to trade, even to his own detriment, because, if he works at a loss, the public profits, and every good citizen ought to prefer public profit to his own profit.2116 In effect, let his office be what it will, he is an employee of the community; therefore, the community may not only prescribe task-work to him, but select his task; it need not consult him in the matter, for he has no right to refuse. Hence it is that we appoint or maintain people in spite of themselves, in the magistracy, in the army and in every other species of employment. In vain may they excuse themselves or try get out of the way; they must remain or become generals, judges, mayors, national agents, town councilors, commissioners of public welfare or administration,2117 even against their will. Too bad for them if the responsibility is expensive or dangerous, if they have no time for leisure, if they do not feel themselves qualified for it, if the rank or services seems to them to lead to a prison or the guillotine; when they declare that the work is forced labor we reply that they liable to work for the State.—Such is, henceforth, the condition of all Frenchmen, and likewise of all French women. We force mothers to take their daughters to the meetings of popular clubs. We oblige women to parade in companies, and march in procession at republican festivals; we invade the family and select the most beautiful to be draped as antique goddesses, and publicly promenaded on a chariot; we sometimes even designate those among the rich who must wed patriots2118: there is no reason why marriage, which is the most important of all services, should not be put in requisition like the others.—Accordingly, we enter families, we carry of the child, we subject him to a civic education. We are schoolmasters, philanthropists, theologians, and moralists. We impose by force our religion and our ritual, our morality and our social customs. We lord it over private lives and consciences; we dictate ideas, we scrutinize and punish secret inclinations, we tax, imprison and guillotine not only the evil-disposed, but again "the indifferent, the moderate and the egoists."2119 Over and above his visible acts we dictate to the individual his ideas and his deepest feelings; we prescribe to him his affections as well as his beliefs, and, according to a preconceived type, we refashion his intellect, his conscience and his sensibilities.
The object of the State is the regeneration of man.—Two
sides to this undertaking.—Restoration of the Natural man.
—Formation of the Social man.—Grandeur of the undertaking.
—To carry it out, the use of force is a right and a duty.
There is nothing arbitrary in this operation; for the ideal model is traced beforehand. If the State is omnipotent, it is for the purpose of "regenerating Mankind," and the theory which confers its rights, at the same time assigns to it its object. In what does this regeneration of Man consist?—Consider a domestic animal such as a dog or a horse. Scrawny, battered, tied up or chained, a thousand are strained and overworked compared to the few basking in idleness, dying from rich living; and with all of them, whether fat or lean, the soul is more spoiled than the body. A superstitious respect keeps them cowed under their burden, or makes them cringe before their master. Servile, slothful, gluttonous, feeble, incapable of resisting adversity, if they have acquired the miserable skills of slavery, they have also contracted its needs, weaknesses and vices. A crust of absurd habits and perverse inclinations, a sort of artificial and supplementary being, has covered over their original nature.—And, on the other hand, the better side of their original nature has had no chance to develop itself, for lack of use. Separated from the other, these two parts of its nature have not acquired the sentiment of community; they do not know, like their brethren of the prairies, how to help each other and subordinate private interests to the interests of the flock. Each pulls his own way, nobody cares for others, all are egoists; social interests have miscarried.—Such is Man nowadays, a disfigured slave that has to be restored. Our task, accordingly is two-fold: we have to demolish and we have to construct; we must first set free the natural Man that we may afterwards build up the social Man.
It is a vast enterprise and we are conscious of its vastness.
"It is necessary," says Billaud-Varennes,2120 "that the people to which one desires to restore their freedom should in some way be created anew, since old prejudices must be destroyed, old habits changed, depraved affections improved, superfluous wants restricted, and inveterate vices extirpated."
But the task is sublime, as the aim is "to fulfill the desires of nature,2121 accomplish the destinies of humanity, and fulfill the promises of philosophy".—"Our purpose," says Robespierre,2122 "is to substitute morality for egoism, honesty for honor, principles for custom, duties for etiquette, the empire of reason for the tyranny of fashion, contempt of vice for indifference to misfortune, pride for arrogance, a noble mind for vanity, love of glory for the love of profit, good people for high society, merit for intrigue, genius for intellectual brilliancy, the charm of contentment for the boredom of voluptuous pleasure, the majesty of Man for the high-breeding of the great, a magnanimous, powerful and happy people for an amiable, frivolous and wretched people, that is to say, every virtue and miracle of the Republic in the place of the vices and absurdities of the monarchy."
We will do this, the whole of it, whatever the cost. Little do we care for the present generation: we are working for generations to come.
"Man, forced to isolate himself from society, anchors himself in the future and presses to his heart a posterity innocent of existing evils."2123
He sacrifices to this work his own and the lives of others.
"On the day that I am persuaded," writes Saint-Just, "that it is impossible to render the French people kind, energetic, tender and relentless against tyranny and injustice, I will stab myself."
—"What I have done in the South I will do in the North," says Baudot; "I will convert them into patriots; either they or I must die."—
"We will make France a cemetery," says Carrier, "rather than not regenerate it our own way."
In vain may the ignorant or the vicious protest; they protest because they are ignorant or vicious. In vain may the individual plead his personal rights; he has none: through the social contract, which is obligatory and solely valid, he has surrendered his entire being; having made no reservation, "he has nothing to claim." Undoubtedly, some will grumble, because, with them, the old wrinkle remains and artificial habits still cover over the original instinct. Untie the mill-horse, and he will still go round in the same track; let the mountebank's dog be turned loose, and he will still raise himself on his hind-legs; if we would bring them back to their natural gait we must handle them roughly. In like manner, to restore Man to his normal attitude, you must handle him roughly. But, in this respect, have no scruples,2124 for we do not bow him down, we raise him up; as Rousseau says, "we compel him to be free;" we confer on him the greatest boon a human being can receive; we bring him back to nature and to justice. For this reason, now that he is warned, if he persists in his resistance, he is a criminal and merits every kind of chastisements2125, for, he declares himself a rebel and a perjurer, inimical to humanity, and a traitor to the social compact.
Two distortions of the natural man.—Positive religion.
—Proscription of the orthodox cult.—Measures against unsworn
priests.—Measures against the loyal orthodox.—Destruction
of the constitutional cult.—Pressure on the sworn priests.
—Churches closed and ceremonies suppressed.—Continuation of
these persecutions until the Consulate.
Let us (Taine lets the Jacobin say) begin by figuring to ourselves the natural man; certainly we of to-day have some difficulty in recognizing him; he bears but little resemblance to the artificial being who (in 1789) stands in his shoes, the creature which an antiquated system of constraint and fraud has deformed, held fast in his hereditary harness of thralldom and superstition, blinded by his religion and held in check by prestige, exploited by his government and tamed by dint of blows, always with a halter on, always put to work in the wrong way and against nature, whatever stall he may occupy, high or low, however full or empty his crib may be, now in menial service like the blinded hack-horse turning the mill-wheel, and now on parade like a trained dog which, decked with flags, shows off its antics before the public.2126 But imagine all these out of the way, the flags and the bands, the fetters and compartments in the social stable, and you will see a new man appearing, the original man, intact and healthy in mind, soul and body.—In this condition, he is free of prejudice, he is not ensnared in a net of lies, he is neither Jew, Protestant nor Catholic; if he tries to imagine the universe as a whole and the principle of events, he will not let himself be duped by a pretended revelation; he will listen only to his own reason; he may chance, now and then, to become an atheist, but, generally, he will settle down into a deist.—In this condition of things he is not fettered by a hierarchy; he is neither noble nor commoner, land-owner nor tenant, inferior nor superior. Independent of the others, all are equal, and, if all agree in the forming of an association, their common-sense will stipulate that its first article shall secure the maintenance of this primordial equality.—Such is man, as nature made him, as history has unmade him, and as the Revolution is to re-make him.2127 One cannot batter away too vigorously against the two casings that hold him tight, one the positive religion which narrows and perverts his intellect, and the other the social inequality which perverts and weakens his will;2128 for, at every effort, some band is loosened, and, as each band gives way, the paralyzed limbs recover their action.
Let us trace, (say the Jacobins), the progress of this liberating operation.—Always timid and at loggerheads with the ecclesiastical organization, the Constituent Assembly could take only half-measures; it cut into the bark without daring to drive the ax into the solid trunk. Its work reduced itself down to the confiscation of clerical property, to a dissolution of the religious orders, and to a check upon the authority of the pope; its object was to establish a new church and transform priests into sworn functionaries of the State, and this was all. As if Catholicism, even administrative, would cease to be Catholicism! As if the noxious tree, once stamped with the public seal, would cease to be noxious! Instead of the old laboratory of falsehoods being destroyed another one is officially established alongside of it, so that there are now two instead of one. With or without the official label it operates in every commune in France and, as in the past, it distributes with impunity its drug to the public. This is precisely what we, (the Jacobins) cannot tolerate.—We must, indeed, keep up appearances, and, as far as words go, we will decree anew freedom of worship.2129 But, in fact and in practice, we will demolish the laboratory and prevent the drug from being sold; there shall no longer be any Catholic worship in France, no baptism, no confession, no marriage, no extreme unction, no mass; nobody shall preach or listen to a sermon; nobody shall administer or receive a sacrament, save in secret, and with the prospect before him of imprisonment or the scaffold.—With this object in mind, we do one thing at a time. There is no problem with the Church claiming to be be orthodox: its members having refused to take the oath are outlaws; one excludes oneself from an association when one repudiates the pact; they have lost their qualifications as citizens and have become ordinary foreigners under the surveillance of the police; and, as they propagate around them discontent and disobedience, they are not only foreigners but seditious persons, enemies in disguise, the authors of a secret and widespread Vendée; it is not necessary for us to prosecute them as charlatans, it is sufficient to strike them down as rebels. As such, we have already banished from France all unsworn ecclesiastics, about forty thousand priests, and we are deporting those who did not cross the frontier within the allotted time: we allow only sexagenarians and the infirm to remain on French soil, and, again, as prisoners and in seclusion; they incur the penalty of death if they do not of their own accord report to the prisons of their country town; the banished who return home incur the penalty of death, and there is penalty of death against those who shelter priests.2130 Consequently, in default of an orthodox clergy, there must no longer be an orthodox worship; the most dangerous of the two manufactories of superstition is shut down. That the sale of this poisonous food may be more surely stopped we punish those who ask for it the same as those who provide it, and we prosecute not only the pastors, but, again, the fanatics of the flock; if these are not the authors of the ecclesiastical rebellion they are its promoters and accomplices. Now, thanks to the schism among them, we already know who they are, and, in each commune, the list is made out. We style as fanatics all who reject the ministry of the sworn priests, the bourgeois who calls him an interloper, all the nuns who do not confess to him, all the peasants who stay away from his mass, all the old women who do not kiss his paten, and all the relations of an infant who do not wish him to baptize it. All these people and those who associate with them, whether allied, close relatives, friends, guests or visitors, of whatever class, either men or women, are seditious at heart, and, therefore, "suspects." We deprive them of their electoral rights, we withdraw their pensions, we impose on them special taxation, we confine them to their dwellings, we imprison them by thousands, and guillotine them by hundreds; the rest will gradually become discouraged and abandon an impracticable cult.2131—The lukewarm remain, the sheep-like crowd which holds on to its rites: the Constituent Assembly will seize them wherever it finds them, and, as they are the same in the authorized as in the refractory church, instead of seeking them with the priest who does not submit, it will seek them with the one who does. But it will proceed without zeal, without confidence, often even with distrust, questioning itself whether these rites, being administered by one who is excommunicated, are not of doubtful quality. Such a church is not sound, and we have only to give it a push to knock it down. We will do all we can to discredit constitutional priests: we will prohibit them from wearing the ecclesiastical costume, and force them by law to bestow the nuptial benediction on their apostate brethren; we will employ terror and imprisonment to constrain them to marry; we will given them no respite until they return to civil life, some admitting themselves to be impostors, many by surrendering their priestly credentials, and most of them by resigning their places.2132 Deprived of leaders by these voluntary or forced desertions, the Catholic flock will allow itself to be easily led out of the fold, while, to remove all temptation to go back, we will tear the enclosure down. In the communes in which we are masters we will make the Jacobins of the place demand the abolition of worship, while, in other communes, we will get rid of this authoritatively through our missionary representatives. We will close the churches, demolish the steeples, melt down the bells, send all sacred vessels to the Mint, smash the images of the saints, desecrate relics, prohibit religious burials, impose the civil burial, prescribe rest during the décadi2133 and labor on Sundays. No exception whatever. Since all positive religions deal in error, we will outlaw them all: we will exact from Protestant clergymen a public abjuration; we will not let the Jews practice their ceremonies; we will have "an 'auto-da-fé,' of all the books and symbols of the faith of Moses."2134 But, of all these various juggling machines, the worst is the Catholic, the most hostile to nature due to the celibacy of its priesthood, the most opposed to reason in the absurdity of its dogmas, the most opposed to democracy, since its powers are delegated from above downwards, the best protected from civil authority because its head is outside of France.2135 Accordingly, we must be most furious against it; even after Thermidor,2136 we will keep up constant persecution, great and small; up to the Consulate, we will deport and shoot the priests, we will revive against fanatics the laws of the Reign of Terror, we will hamper their movements, we will exhaust their patience; we will keep them anxious during the day and restless at night; we will not give them a moment's repose.2137 We will restrict the population to the decadal cult only; we will change the market-days, so that no believer shall be able to buy fish on a fast-day.2138—We have nothing more at heart than this war against Catholicism; no article on our program will be carried out with more determination and perseverance. The question involved is truth. We are its guardians, its champions, its ministers, and never did the servants of truth apply force with such minute detail and such effect to the extirpation of error.
Social inequality.—Malice of the aristocratic race.
—Measures against the King and Nobles.—Malice of the
aristocracy of wealth.—Measures against landowners,
capitalists and people with incomes.—Destruction of large
fortunes.—Measures taken to prevent the large fortunes in
reconstituting themselves.
Next to superstition there is another monster to be destroyed, and, also here it was the Constituent Assembly that had begun the assault. But it had also, through lack of courage or of logic, it stopped, after two or three feeble blows:
* Banning of heraldic insignia, titles of nobility and territorial names;
* abolition, without indemnity, of all the dues belonging to the seigneur by right of his former proprietorship over persons;
* abolition of the permission to purchase other feudal rights at a price agreed upon,
* limitation of royal power. This was little enough. When it concerns usurpers and tyrants they must be treated in another fashion; for their privilege is, of itself, an outrage on the rights of man. Consequently,
* we (the Jacobins) have dethroned the King and cut off his head;2139
* we have suppressed, without indemnity, the entire feudal debt, comprising the rights vested in the seigneurs by virtue of their being owners of real-estate, and merely lessors;
* we have abandoned their persons and possessions to the claims and rancor of local jacqueries;
* we have reduced them to emigration;
* we imprison them if they stay at home;
* we guillotine them if they return.
(As the aristocrats are)Reared in habits of supremacy, and convinced that they are of a different species from other men, the prejudices of their race are incorrigible; they are incapable of companionship with their social equals; we cannot too carefully crush them out, or, at the very least, hold them firmly down.2140 Besides, they are guilty from the fact of having existed; for, they have taken both the lead and the command without any right to do so, and, in violation of all right, they have misused mankind; having enjoyed their rank, it is but just that they should pay for it. Privileged in reverse, they must be treated the same as vagabonds were treated under their reign,
* stopped by the police and sent off with their families into the interior,
* crowded into prisons,
* executed in a mass, or, at least,
* expelled from Paris, the seaports and fortified towns, put on the limits,
* compelled to present themselves daily at the municipality,
* deprived of their political rights,
* excluded from public offices, "popular clubs, committees of supervision and from communal and section assemblages."2141
Even this is indulgence; branded with infamy, we ought to class them with galley-slaves, and set them to work on the public highways.2142
"Justice condemns the people's enemies and the partisans of tyranny to eternal slavery."2143
But that is not enough, because, apart from the aristocracy of rank, there are other aristocracies which the Constituent Assembly has left untouched,2144 especially the aristocracy of wealth. Of all the sovereignties, that of the rich man over the poor one is the most burdensome. In effect, not only, in contempt of equality, does he consume more than his share of the common products of labor, and without producing anything himself, but again, in contempt of liberty, he may fix wages as he pleases, and, in contempt of humanity, he always fixes them at the lowest point. Between himself and the needy he never makes other than the most unjust contracts. Sole possessor of land, capital and the necessities of life, he imposes conditions which others, deprived of means, are forced to accept at the risk of starvation; he speculates at his discretion on wants which cannot be put off, and makes the most of his monopoly by maintaining the poor in their destitute situations. That is why, writes Saint Just:2145
"Opulence is a disgrace; for every thousand livres expenditure of this kind a smaller number of natural or adopted children can be looked after."—
"The richest Frenchman," says Robespierre, "ought not to have now more three thousand livres rental."—
Beyond what is strictly necessary, no property is legitimate; we have the right to take the superfluous wherever we find it. Not only to-day, because we now require it for the State and for the poor, but at all times, because the superfluous, in all times, confers on its owner an advantage in contracts, a control of wages, an arbitrary power over the means of living, in short, a supremacy of condition worse than preeminence in rank. Consequently, our hand is not only against the nobles, but also against the rich and well-to-do bourgeois2146 the large land-owners and capitalists; we are going to demolish their crafty feudalism from top to bottom.2147—In the first place, and merely through the effect of the new institutions, we prevent any capitalist from deducting, as he is used to do, the best portion of the fruits of another's labor; the hornets shall no longer, year after year, consume the honey of the bees. To bring this about, we have only to let the assignats (paper money) and their forced rate (of exchange) work things out. Through the depreciation of paper-money, the indolent land-owner or capitalist sees his income melting away in his hands; his receipts consist only of nominal values. On the 1st of January, his tenant pays him really for a half term instead of a full term; on the 1st of March, his farmer settles his account with a bag of grain.2148 The effect is just the same as if we had made fresh contracts, and reduced by one-half, three-quarters, or, even more, the rate of interest on loans, the rent of houses and the leases of farm lands.—Whilst the revenue of the landlord evaporates, his capital melts away, and we do the best we can to help this along. If he has claims on ancient corporations or civil and religious establishments of any description, whether provincial governments, congregations, associations, endowments or hospitals, we withdraw his special guarantee; we convert his title-deeds into a state annuity, we combine his private fortune with the public fortune whether he will or not, we drag him into the universal bankruptcy, toward which we are conducting all the creditors of the Republic.2149—Besides, to ruin him, we have more direct and prompt means. If an émigré, and there are hundreds of thousands of émigrés, we confiscate his possessions. If he has been guillotined or deported, and there are tens of thousands of these, we confiscate his possessions. If he is "recognized as an enemy of the Revolution,"2150 and "all the rich pray for the counter-revolution,"2151 we sequestrate his property, enjoying the usufruct of it until peace is declared, and we shall have the property after the war is over. Usufruct or property, the State, in either case, inherits; at the most we might grant temporary aid to the family, which is not even entitled to maintenance.
It is impossible to uproot fortunes more thoroughly. As to those which are not at once eradicated we get rid of them piecemeal, and against these we employ two axes:
On the one hand, we decree the principle of progressive taxation, and on this basis we establish the forced loan:2152 in incomes, we distinguish between the essential and the surplus; we fix according as the excess is greater or less we take a quarter, a third or the half of it, and, when above nine thousand francs, the whole; beyond its small alimentary reserve, the most opulent family will keep only four thousand five hundred francs income.
On the other hand, we cut deep into capital through revolutionary taxes; our committees and provincial proconsuls levy arbitrarily what suits them, three hundred, five hundred, up to one million two hundred thousand francs,2153 on this or that banker, trader, bourgeois or widow, payable within a week; all the worse for the person taxed if he or she has no money on hand and is unable to borrow it; we declare them "suspects," we imprison them, we sequestrate their property and the State enjoys it in their place.
In any event, even when the amount is paid, we force him or her to deposit their silver and gold coin in our hands, sometimes with assignats as security, and often nothing; henceforth, money must circulate and the precious metals are in requisition;2154 everybody will deliver up what plate he possesses. And let nobody presume to conceal his hoard; all treasure, whether silver-plate, diamonds, ingots, gold or silver, coined or un-coined, "discovered, or that may be discovered, buried in the ground or concealed in cellars, inside of walls or in garrets, under floors, pavements, or hearthstones, or in chimneys and other hiding places,"2155 becomes the property of the Republic, with a premium of twenty per cent. in assignats to the informer.—As, furthermore, we make requisitions for bed-linen, beds, clothes, provisions, wines and the rests, along with specie and precious metals, the condition of the mansion may be imagined, especially after we have lodged in it; it is the same as if the house had been on fire; all movable property and all real estate have perished.—Now that both are destroyed they must not be allowed to accumulate again. To ensure this,
1. we abolish, according to rule, the freedom of bequest,2156
2. we prescribe equal and obligatory divisions of all inheritances;2157
3. we include bastards in this under the same title as legitimate children;
4. we admit representation à l'infini,2158 "in order to multiply heirs and parcel out inheritances;"2159
5. we reduce the disposable portion to one-tenth, in the direct line, and one-sixth in a collateral line;
6. we forbid any gift to persons whose income exceeds one thousand quintals of grain;
7. we inaugurate adoption, "an admirable institution," and essentially republican, "since it brings about a division of large properties without a crisis."
Already, in the Legislative Assembly a deputy had stated that "equal rights could be maintained only by a persistent tendency to uniformity of fortunes."2160
We have provided for this for the present day and we likewise provide for it in the future.—None of the vast tumors which have sucked the sap of the human plant are to remain; we have cut them away with a few telling blows, while the steady-moving machine, permanently erected by us, will shear off their last tendrils should they change to sprout again.
Conditions requisite for making a citizen.—Plans for
suppressing poverty.—Measures in favor of the poor.
In returning Man to his natural condition we have prepared for the advent of the Social Man. The object now is to form the citizen, and this is possible only through a leveling of conditions. In a well made society there shall be "neither rich nor poor"2161: we have already destroyed the opulence which corrupts; it now remains for us to suppress the poverty which degrades. Under the tyranny of material things, which is as oppressive as the tyranny of men, Man falls below himself. Never will a citizen be made out of a poor fellow condemned to remain valet, hireling or beggar, reduced to thinking only of himself and his daily bread, asking in vain for work, or, plodding when he gets it, twelve hours a day at a monotonous pursuit, living like a beast of burden and dying in a alms-house.2162 He should have his own bread, his own roof, and all that is indispensable for life; he must not be overworked, nor suffer anxiety or constraint;
"he must live independently, respect himself, have a tidy wife and healthy and robust children."2163
The community should guarantee him comfort, security, the certainty of not going hungry if he becomes infirm, and, if he dies, of not leaving his family in want.
"It is not enough," says Barère,2164 "to bleed the rich, to pull down colossal fortunes; the slavery of poverty must be banished from the soil of the Republic. No more beggars, no more almsgiving, no poor-houses".
"The poor and unfortunates," says Saint Just, "are the powerful of the earth; they have a right to speak as masters to the governments which neglect them;2165 they have a right to national charity.... In a democracy under construction, every effort should be made to free people from having to battle for the bare minimum needed for survival; by labor if he is fit for work, by education if he is a child, or with public assistance if he is an invalid or in old age."2166
And never had the moment been so favorable. "Rich in property, the Republic now expects to use the many millions the rich would have spent on a counter revolution for the improvement of the conditions of its less fortunate citizens... Those who would assassinate liberty have made it the richer. The possessions of conspirators exist for the benefit of the unfortunate."2167—Let the poor take with a clear conscience: it is not a charity but "an indemnity" which we provide for them; we save their pride by providing for their comfort, and we relieve them without humiliating them.
"We leave charity and benevolent works to the monarchies; this insolent and shabby way of furnishing assistance is fit only for slaves and masters; we substitute for it a system of national works, on a grand scale, over the whole territory of the Republic."2168
On the other hand, we cause a statement to be drawn up in each commune, of "the condition of citizens without property," and "of national possessions not disposed of;" we divide these possession in small lots; we distribute them "in the shape of national sales" to poor folks able to work. We give, "through the form of rental, "an acre to each head of a family who has less than an acre of his own. "We thus bind all citizens to the country as well as to property. We restore idle and robust arms to the soil, and lost or weakened families to the workshops in the towns."—As to old and infirm farmers or craftsmen, also poor mothers, wives and widows of artisans and farmers, we keep in each department a "big ledger of national welfare;" we inscribe thereon for every thousand inhabitants, four farmers, two mechanics, five women, either mothers or widows; each registered person shall be pensioned by the State, the same as a maimed soldier; labor-invalids are as respectable as war-invalids.—Over and above those who are thus aided on account of poverty, we relieve and elevate the entire poor class, not alone the thirteen hundred thousand destitutes counted in France,2169 but, again, all who, having little or no means on hand, live from day to day on what they can earn. We have passed a law2170 by which the public treasury shall, through a tax on large fortunes, "furnish to each commune or district the necessary funds for adapting the price of bread to the rate of wages." Our representatives in the provinces impose on the wealthy the obligation of "lodging, feeding, and clothing all infirm, aged, and indigent citizens and orphans of their respective cantons."2171 Through the decree on monopolization and the establishment of the "maximum" we bring within reach of the poor all objects of prime necessity. We pay them forty sous a day for attending district meetings; and three francs a day for serving on committees of surveillance. We recruit from amongst them our revolutionary army;2172 we select amongst them the innumerable custodians of sequesters: in this way, hundreds of thousands of sans-culottes enter into the various public services.—At last, the poor are taken out of a state of poverty: each will now have his plot of ground, his salary or pension;
"in a well-ordered republic nobody is without some property."2173
Henceforth, among individuals, the difference in welfare will be small; from the maximum to the minimum, there will be only a degree, while there will be found in every dwelling about the same sort of household, a plain, simple household, that of the small rural proprietor, well-off farmer or factory foreman; that of Rousseau at Montmorency, or that of the Savoyard Vicar, or that of Duplay, the carpenter, with whom Robespierre lodges.2174 There will be no more domestic servitude: "only the bond of help and gratitude will exists between employer and employee."2175—He who works for another citizen belongs to his family and sits at his table."2176—Through the transformation of lower social classes into middle class conditions we restore human dignity, and out of the proletarian, the valet and the workman, we begin to liberate the citizen.
Repression of Egoism.—Measures against farmers,
manufacturers and merchants.—Socialist projects.
—Repression of Federalism.—Measures against the local,
professional and family spirit.
Two leading obstacles hinder the development of civism, and the first is egoism. Whilst the citizen prefers the community to himself, the egoist prefers himself to the community. He cares only for his own interest, he gives no heed to public necessities; he sees none of the superior rights which take precedence of his derived right; he supposes that his property is his own without restriction or condition; he forgets that, if he is allowed to use it, he must not use it to another's detriment.2177 This even the middle or low class, who possess goods essential for survival, will do. The greater the demand for these goods the higher they raise their prices; soon, they sell only at an exorbitant rate, and worse still, stop selling and store their goods or products, in the expectation of selling them dearer. In this way, they speculate on another's wants; they augment the general distress and become public enemies. Nearly all the agriculturists, manufacturers and tradesmen of the day, little and big, are public enemies—farmers, tenant farmers, market-gardeners, cultivators of every degree, as well as foremen, shopkeepers, especially wine-dealers, bakers and butchers.
"All merchants are essentially anti-revolutionaries, and would sell their country to gain a few pennies."2178
We will not tolerate this legal brigandage. Since "agriculture has done nothing for liberty and has sought only its own gain,"2179 we will put it under surveillance, and, if necessary, under control. Since "commerce has become a species of miserly tyrant," since "it has become self-paralyzed," and, "through a sort of anti-revolutionary contempt, neglected the manufacture, handling and expedition of diverse materials," we will thwart "the calculations of its barbarous arithmetic, and purge it of the aristocratic and corrupting fermentation which oppresses it." We make monopoly "a capital crime;"2180 we call him a monopolist who "takes food and wares of prime necessity out of circulation," and "keeps them stored without daily and publicly offering them for sale." Penalty of death against whoever, within eight days, does not make a declaration, or if he makes a false one. Penalty of death against the dealer who does not post up the contents of his warehouse, or who does not keep open shop. Penalty of death against any person who keeps more bread on hand than he needs for his subsistence.2181 Penalty of death against the cultivator who does not bring his grain weekly to market. Penalty of death against the dealer who does not post up the contents of his warehouse, or who does not keep open shop. Penalty of death against the manufacturer who does not verify the daily use of his workable material.—As to prices, we intervene authoritatively between buyer and seller; we fix the maximum price for all objects which, near or remotely, serve to feed, warm and clothe man; we will imprison whoever offers or demands anything more. Whether the dealer or manufacturer pays expenses at this rate, matters not; if, after the maximum is fixed, he closes factory, or gives up business, we declare him a "suspect;" we chain him down to his pursuit, we oblige him to lose by it.—This is the way to clip the claws of beasts of prey, little and big! But the claws grow out again, and, instead of paring them down, it would probably be better to pull them out. Some amongst us have already thought of that; the right of pre-emption shall be applied to every article; "in each department, national storehouse might be established where farmers, land-owners and manufacturers would be obliged to deposit at a fixed price, paid down, the surplus of their consumption of every species of merchandise. The nation would distribute this merchandise to wholesale dealers, reserving a profit of six per cent. The profit of the wholesale dealer would be fixed at eight per cent and that of the retailer at twelve per cent."2182 In this way, farmers, manufacturers, and merchants would all become clerks of the State, appointed on a premium or a discount; unable to gain a great deal, they would not be tempted to gain too much; they would cease to be greedy and soon cease to be egoists.2183—Since, fundamentally, egoism is the capital vice and individual proprietorship the food that nourishes it, why not suppress individual proprietorship altogether? Our extreme logicians, with Babæuf at the head of them, go as far as that, and Saint-Just seems to be of that opinion.2184 We are not concerned with the enacting of an Agrarian; the nation may reserve the soil to itself and divide among individuals, not the soil, but its lease. The outcome of this principle affords us a glimpse of an order of things in which the State, sole proprietor of real-estate, sole capitalist, sole manufacturer, sole trader, having all Frenchmen in its pay and service, would assign to each one his task according to his aptitude, and distribute to each one his rations according to his wants.2185—These various uncompleted plans still float in a hazy distance but their common purpose is clearly distinguishable.
"All which tends to center human passions on the vile, individual ego must be repudiated or repressed;"2186
We should annihilate special interests, deprive the individual of the motives and means for self-isolation, suppress preoccupations and ambitions by which Man makes himself a focal point at the expense of the real center, in short, to detach him from himself in order to attach him wholly to the State.
This is why, disregarding the narrow egoism through which the individual prefers himself to the community, we strive towards the enlarged egoism by which the individual prefers the community to the group of which he forms a part. Under no pretext must he separate himself from the whole, at no price, must he be allowed to form for himself a small homeland within the large one, for, by the affection he entertains for the small one, he frustrates the objects of the large one. Nothing is worse than political, civil, religious and domestic federalism; we combat it under all its forms.2187 In this particular, the Constituent Assembly has paved the way for us, since it has broken up all the principal historic or material groups by which men have separated themselves from the masses and formed a band apart, provinces, clergy, nobles, parliaments, religious orders and trades-unions. We complete its work, we destroy churches, we suppress literary or scientific associations, educational or benevolent societies, even down to financial companies.2188 We prohibit any departmental or commercial "local spirit:" we find
"odious and opposed to all principles, that, amongst municipalities, some should be rich and others poor, that one should have immense patrimonial possessions and another nothing but debts."2189
We regard these possessions as the nation's, and we place indebtedness to the nation's account. We take grain from rich communes and departments, to feed poor communes and departments. We build bridges, roads and canals of each district, at the expense of the State; "we centralize the labor of the French people in a broad, opulent fashion."2190 We want no more local interests, recollections, dialects, idioms and patriotisms. Only one bond should subsist between individuals, that which attaches them to the social body. We sunder all others; we do not tolerate any special aggregation; we do the best we can to break up the most tenacious of all, the family.—We therefore give marriage the status of an ordinary contract: we render this loose and precarious, resembling as much as possible the free and transient union of the sexes; it shall be dissolved at the option of both parties, and even of one of the parties, after one month of formalities and of probation. If the couple has lived separate six months; the divorce may be granted without any probation or delay; divorced parties may re-marry. On the other hand, we suppress marital authority: since spouses are equal, each has equal rights over common property and the property of each other; we deprive the husband of its administration and render it "common" to both parties. We abolish "paternal authority;"
"it is cheating nature to enforce her rights through constraint.. .. The only rights that parents have are those of protection and watchfulness."2191
The father can no longer control the education of his children; the State takes charge of it. The father is no longer master of his property; that portion he can dispose of by donation or testament is of the smallest; we prescribe an equal and forced division of property.—Finally we preach adoption, we efface bastardy, we confer on children born of free love, or of a despotic will, the same rights as those of legitimate children. In short, we break that sacred circle, that exclusive group, that aristocratic organization which, under the name of the family, was created out of pride and egoism.2192—Henceforth, affection and obedience will no longer be frittered away; the miserable supports to which they have clung like ivy vines, castes, churches, corporations, provinces, communes or families, are ruined and rooted out; on the ground which is thus leveled, the State alone remains standing, and it alone offers any point of adhesion; all these vines are about to twine themselves in on trunk about the great central column.
Indoctrination of mind and intellect.—Civil religion.
—National education.—Egalitarian moral standards.
—Obligatory civism.—The recasting and reduction of human
nature to the Jacobin type.
Let not Man go astray, let us lead him on, let us direct minds and souls, and, to this end, let us enfold him in our doctrines. He needs general ideas and the daily experiences flowing out of them; he needs some theory explaining the origin and nature of things, one which assigns him his place and the part he has to play in the world, which teaches him his duties, which regulates his life, which fixes the days he shall work and the days he shall rest, which stamps itself on his mind through commemorations, festivals and ceremonies, through a catechism and a calendar. Up to this time Religion has been the power charged with this service, interpreted and served by the Church; now it is to be Reason, interpreted and served by the State.—In this connection, many among us, disciples of the encyclopedists, constitute Reason a divinity, and honor her with a system of worship; but it is plain that they personify an abstraction; their improvised goddess is simply an allegorical phantom; none of them see in her the intelligent cause of the world; in the depths of their hearts they deny this Supreme Cause, their pretended religion being merely a show or a sham.—We discard atheism, not only because it is false, but again, and more especially, because it is disintegrating and unwholesome.2193 We want an effective, consolatory and fortifying religion, and that religion is natural religion, which is social as well as true. "Without this,2194 as Rousseau has said, it is impossible to be a good citizen......The existence of divinity, the future life, the sacredness of the social contract and of the laws," all are its dogmas; "no one may be forced to believe in these, but whoever dares say that he does not believe in them, sets himself up against the French people, the human species and nature." Consequently, we decree that "the French people recognizes the Supreme Being and the immortality of the soul."—The important thing now is to plant this entirely philosophic faith in all hearts. We introduce it into the civil order of things, we take the calendar out of the hands of the Church, we purge it of its Christian imagery; we make the new era begin with the advent of the Republic; we divide the year according to the metric system, we name the months according to the vicissitudes of the seasons, "we substitute, in all directions, the realities of reason for the visions of ignorance, the truths of nature for a sacerdotal prestige,"2195 the decade for the week, the décadi for Sundays, lay festivals for ecclesiastical festivals.2196 On each décadi, through solemn and appropriate pomp, we impress on the popular mind one of the highest truths of our creed; we glorify, in the order of their dates, Nature, Truth, Justice, Liberty, Equality, the People, Adversity, Humanity, the Republic, Posterity, Glory, Patriotism, Heroism, and other virtues. Besides this, we honor the important days of the Revolution, the taking of the Bastille, the fall of the Throne, the punishment of the tyrant, the expulsion of the Girondins. We, too, have our anniversaries, our relics, the relics of Chalier and Marat,2197 our processions, our services, our ritual,2198 and the vast system of visible pageantry by which dogmas are made manifest and propagated. But ours, instead of leading men off to an imaginary heaven, brings them back to a living patrimony, and, through our ceremonies as well as through our creed, we shall preach public-spiritedness (civism).
It is important to preach this to adults, it is still more important to teach it to children: for children are more easily molded than adults. Our hold on these still flexible minds is complete, and, through national education "we seize the coming generations."2199 Naught is more essential and naught is more legitimate.
"The country," says Robespierre, "has a right to bring up its own children; it cannot confide this trust to family pride nor to the prejudices of individuals, the eternal nourishment of aristocracies and of a domestic federalism which narrows the soul by keeping it isolated." We are determined to have "education common and equal for all French people," and "we stamp on it a great character, analogous to the nature of our government and the sublime doctrines of our Republic. The aim is no longer to form gentlemen (messieurs) but citizens."21100
We oblige21101 teachers, male and female, to present certificates of civism, that is to say, of Jacobinism. We close the school if "precepts or maxims opposed to revolutionary morality" are taught in it, that is to say, in conformity with Christian morals. Children will learn to read in the Declaration of Rights and in the Constitution of 1793. Republican manuals and catechisms will be prepared for their use.21102 "They must be taught the virtuous traits which most honor free men, and especially the traits characteristic of the French Revolution, the best calculated to elevate the soul and render them worthy of equality and liberty." The 14th of July, 10th of August, 2nd of September, 21st of January, and 31st of May must be lauded or justified in their presence. They must be taken to meetings of the municipalities, to the law courts,21103 and especially to the popular clubs; from these pure sources they will derive a knowledge of their rights, of their duties, of the laws, of republican morality," and, on entering society, they will find themselves imbued with all good maxims. Over and above their political opinions we shape their ordinary habits. We apply on a grand scale the plan of education drawn out by Jean-Jacques (Rousseau).21104 We want no more literary prigs; in the army, "the 'dandy' breaks down during the first campaign;21105 we want young men able to endure privation and fatigue, toughened, like Emile, "by hard work" and physical exercise.—We have, thus far, only sketched out this department of education, but the agreement amongst the various plans shows the meaning and bearings of our principle. "Children generally, without exception, says Le Peletier de Saint-Fargeau,21106 the boys from five to twelve, the girls from five to eleven years of age, must be brought up in common at the expense of the Republic; all, under the sacred law of equality, are to receive the same clothing, the same food, the same education, the same attention "in boarding-schools distributed according to cantons, and containing each from four to six hundred pupils.
"Pupils will be made to submit every day and every moment to the same rigid rules... Their beds must be hard, their food healthy, but simple, their clothing comfortable, but coarse." Servants will not be allowed; children must help themselves and, besides this, they must wait on the old and infirm, lodged with or near them. "Among daily duties, manual labor will be the principal thing; all the rest will be accessory." Girls must learn to spin, sew and wash clothes; the boys will work the roads, be shepherds, ploughmen and work-hands; both will have tasks set them, either in the school-workshops, or in the fields and factories in the neighborhood; they will be hired out to surrounding manufacturers and to the tillers of the soil. Saint-Just is more specific and rigid.21107 "Male children from five to sixteen years of age, must be raised for their country. They must be clad in common cloth at all seasons, and have mats for beds, and sleep eight hours. They are to have common food only, fruits, vegetables, preparations of milk, bread and water. They must not eat meat before sixteen.. Their education, from ten to sixteen, is to be military and agricultural. They will be formed into companies of sixty; six companies make a battalion; the children of a district form a legion; they will assemble annually at the district town, encamp there and drill in infantry tactics, in arenas specially provided for the purpose; they will also learn cavalry maneuvers and every other species of military evolution. In harvest time they are to be distributed amongst the harvesters." After sixteen, "they enter the crafts," with some farmer, artisan, merchant or manufacturer, who becomes their titular "instructor," and with whom they are bound to remain up to the age of twenty-one, "under the penalty of being deprived for life of a citizen's rights.21108... All children will dress alike up to sixteen years of age; from twenty-one to twenty-five, they will dress as soldiers, if they are not in the magistracy."—Already we show the effects of the theory by one striking example; we founded the "Ecole de Mars;"21109 we select out of each district six boys from sixteen to seventeen and a half years old "among the children of sans-culottes;" we summon them to Paris, "to receive there, through a revolutionary education, whatever belongs to the knowledge and habits of a republican soldier. They are schooled in fraternity, in discipline, in frugality, in good habits, in love of country and in detestation of kings." three or four thousand young people are lodged at the Sablons, "in a palisaded enclosure, the intervals of which are guarded by chevaux de frises and sentinels."21110 We puts them into tents; we feed them with bran bread, rancid pork, water and vinegar; we drill them in the use of arms; we march them out on national holidays and stimulate them with patriotic harangues.—Suppose all Frenchmen educated in such a school; the habits they acquire in youth will persist in the adult, and, in each adult we shall find the sobriety, energy and patriotism of a Spartan or Roman.
Already, under the pressure of our decrees, civism affects customs, and there are manifest signs, on all sides, of public regeneration. "The French people," says Robespierre, "seems to have outstripped the rest of humanity, by two thousand years; one might be tempted to regard them, living amongst them, as a different species. In the rest of Europe, a ploughman, an artisan, is an animal formed for the pleasures of a noble; in France, the nobles are trying to transform themselves into ploughmen and artisans, but do not succeed in obtaining that honor."21111 Life in all directions is gradually assuming democratic forms Wealthy prisoners are prohibited from purchasing delicacies, or procuring special conveniences; they eat along with the poor prisoners the same ration, at the common mess21112. Bakers have orders to make but one quality of bread, the brown bread called equality bread, and, to obtain his ration, each person must place himself in line with the rest of the crowd. On holidays21113 everybody will bring his provisions down into the street and eat as one family with his neighbor; on décadi all are to sing and dance together, pell-mell, in the temple of the Supreme being. The decrees of the Convention and the orders of the representatives impose the republican cockade on women; public opinion and example impose on men the costume and appearance of sans-culottes we see even dandies wearing mustaches, long hair, red cap, vest and heavy wooden shoes.21114 Nobody calls a person Monsieur or Madame; the only titles allowed are citoyen and citoyenne while thee and Thou is the general rule. Rude familiarity takes the place of monarchical politeness; all greet each other as equals and comrades.21115 There is now only one tone, one style, one language; revolutionary forms constitute the tissue of speech, as well as of written discourse; thought now seems to consists entirely of our ideas and phrases.21116 All names are transformed, those of months and of days, those of places and of monuments, baptismal names and names of families: St. Denis has become Franciade; Peter Gaspard is converted into Anaxagoras, and Antoine-Louis into Brutus; Leroi, the deputy, calls himself Laloi, and Leroy, the jurist, calls himself August-Tenth.—By dint of thus shaping the exterior we reach the interior, and through outward civism we prepare internal civism. Both are obligatory, but the latter much more so than the former; for that is the fundamental principle,21117 "the incentive which sustains and impels a democratic and popular government." It is impossible to apply the social contract if everybody does not scrupulously observe the first clause of it, namely, the complete surrender of himself to the community; everybody, then, must give himself up entirely, not only actually but heartily, and devote himself to the public good, which public good is the regeneration of Man as we have defined it. The veritable citizen is he who thus marches along with us. With him, as with us, abstract truths of philosophy control the conscience and govern the will. He starts with our articles of faith and follows them out to the end; he endorses our acts, he recites our creed, he observes our discipline, he is a believing and practicing Jacobin, an orthodox Jacobin, unsullied, and without taint of heresy or schism. Never does he swerve to the left toward exaggeration, nor to the right toward toleration; without haste or delay he travels along the narrow, steep and straight path which we have marked out for him; this is the pathway of reason, for, as there is but one reason, there is but one pathway. Let no one swerve from the line; there are abysses on each side of it. Let us follow our guides, men of principles, the pure, especially Couthon, Saint-Just and Robespierre; they are choice specimens, all cast in the true mold, and it is this unique and rigid mold in which all French men are to be recast.
2101 (return)
[ This and the
following text are taken from the "Contrat-Social" by Rousseau. Cf. "The
ancient Régime," book III., ch.. IV.]
2102 (return)
[ This idea, so
universally prevalent and precocious, is uttered by Mirabeau in the
session of the 10th of August, 1789. (Buchez et Roux, II., 257.) "I know
of but three ways of maintaining one's existence in society, and these are
to be either a beggar, a robber or a hireling. The proprietor is himself
only the first of hirelings. What we commonly call his property is nothing
more than the pay society awards him for distributing amongst others that
which is entrusted to him to distribute through his expenses and through
what he consumes; proprietors are the agents, the stewards of the social
body."]
2103 (return)
[ Report by Roland,
January 6, 1793, and by Cambon, February 1, 1793.]
2104 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXXI., 311. Report by Saint-Just, Ventôse 8, year II., and decree in
conformity therewith.]
2105 (return)
[ Decree of 13
Brumaire, year II.—Report by Cambon, Feb. 1, 1793. Cambon estimates
the property alone of the order of Malta and of the colleges at four
hundred million livres.]
2106 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVIII., 419
and 486. Reports by Cambon, Brumaire 22 and Frimaire 1st, year II. "Let us
begin with taking possession of the leased domains, notwithstanding
preceding laws."]
2107 (return)
[ Cf. "The Ancient
Régime," p. 14.]
2108 (return)
[ Mallet-Dupan,
"Mémoires," II., 19. Moniteur, XVIII., 565. (Report by Cambon, 11
Frimaire, year II.) Requested to do so by a popular club of Toulouse, the
department of Haute-Garonne has ordered all possessors of articles in gold
or silver to bring them to the treasuries of their districts to be
exchanged for assignats. This order has thus far brought into the Toulouse
treasury about one million five hundred thousand or one million six
hundred thousand livres in gold and silver. The same at Montauban and
other places. "Several of our colleagues have even decreed the death
penalty against whoever did not bring their gold and silver within a given
time."]
2109 (return)
[ Archives Nationales,
AF. II., 106. (Order by representative Beauchamp, l'Isle Jourdan, Pluviose
2, year II.) "All blue and green cloaks in the departments of
Haute-Garonne, as well as of the Landes, Gers and others, are put in
requisition from the present day. Every citizen possessing blue or green
cloaks is required to declare them at the depot of municipality or other
locality where he may chance to be." If not, he is considered "suspect" is
treated as such.—Ibid., AF.II., 92 (Order issued by Taillefer,
Brumaire 3, year II., at Villefranche-l'Aveyron).—De Martel, "Etude
sur Fouché," 368. (Order by Fouché, Collot d'Herbois and Delaporte: Lyons,
Brumaire 21, year II.)—Moniteur, XVIII., 384. (Session of 19th
Brumaire. Letter of Barras and Fréron, dated at Marseilles.)—Moniteur
XVIII., 513 (Orders by Lebon and Saint-Just, at Strasbourg, Brumaire 24
and 25, year II.) Letter of Isoré to the minister Bouchotte, November 4,
1793. (Legros, "La Revolution telle qu'elle est.") The principle of these
measures was laid down by Robespierre in his speech on property (April 24,
1793), and in his declaration of rights unanimously adopted by the Jacobin
Club (Buchez et Roux, XXVI., 93 and 130).]
2110 (return)
[ Rousset, "Les
Volontaires," p. 234 and 254.]
2111 (return)
[ Report by Cambon,
Pluviose 3, year III., p.3. "One fifth of the active population is
employed in the common defense."—Decree of May 12, and Aug. 23,
1793.—Decree of November 22, 1793.—Order of the Directory,
October 18, 1798.]
2112 (return)
[ Moniteur, XIX., 631.
Decree of Ventôse 14, year II. Archives Nationales, D.SI., 10. (Orders by
representatives Delacroix, Louchet and Legendre; Pont-Audemer, Frimaire
14, year II.)—Moniteur, XVIII, 622.—(Decree of Frimaire 18,
year II.)]
2113 (return)
[ Lenin must have read
Taine's text during his long studious stay in Paris. He and Stalin did, in
any case try to let the USSR function in accordance with such central
allocated planning. (SR.)]
2114 (return)
[ Decree of 15-18
Floréal, year II. Decree of September 29, 1793, (in which forty objects of
prime necessity are enumerated.—Article 9 decrees three days
imprisonment against workmen and manufacturers who "without legitimate
reason, shall refuse to do their ordinary task."—Decrees of
September 16 and 20, 1793, and that of September 11, articles 16,19, 20
and 21.]
2115 (return)
[ Archives Nationales,
AF. II., III. Order of the representative Ferry; Bourges, 23 Messidor,
year II.—Ibid., AF. II., 106. Order of the representative
Dartigoyte, Auch, Prairial 18, year II.]
2116 (return)
[ Decree of Brumaire
11, year II., article 7.]
2117 (return)
[ Gouvion Saint Cyr,
"Mémoires sur les campagnes de 1792 à la paix de Campo-Formio," I.,
91-109: "Promotion, which every one feared at this time."... Ibid. 229.
"Men who had any resources obstinately held aloof from any kind of
advancement." Archives Nationales, DS. I, 5. (Mission of representative
Albert in L'Aube and La Marne, and especially the order issued by Albert,
Chalons, Germinal 7, year III., with the numerous petitions of judges and
town officers soliciting their removal.—Letter of the painter Gosse
(published in Le Temps, May 31, 1872), which is very curious, showing the
trials of those in private life during the Revolution: "My father was
appointed charity commissioner and quartermaster for the troops; at the
time of the Reign of Terror it would have been imprudent to have refused
any office"—Archives Nationales, F7, 3485. The case of Girard
Toussaint, notary at Paris, who "fell under the sword of the law,
Thermidor 9, year II." This Girard, who was very liberal early in the
revolution, was president of his section in 1789, but, after the 10th of
August, he had kept quiet. The committee of the section of the "Amis de la
Patrie," "considering that citizen Girard.... came forward only at the
time when the court and Lafayette prevailed against the sans-culottes;"
that, "since equality was established by the Revolution he has deprived
his fellow citizens of his knowledge, which, in a revolution, is criminal,
unanimously agree that the said citizen is "suspect" and order "him to be
sent to the Luxembourg."]
2118 (return)
[ Ludovic Sciout,
"Histoire de la Constitution civile du clergé," IV., 131, 135. (Orders
issued by Dartigoyte and de Pinet).—"Recueil de pieces authentiques
serrant à l'histoire de la révolution à Strasbourg." Vol. I. p. 230.
(Speech by Schneider at Barr, for marrying the patriot Funck.) Schneider,
it appears, did still better on his own account. (Ibid., 317).]
2119 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXIX., 160. (Report of Saint-Just, October 20, 1793.) "You have to punish
not only traitors, but even the indifferent; you must punish all in the
Republic who are passive and do nothing for it."]
2120 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXXII., 338. Report of the Convention on the theory of democratic
government, by Billaud-Varennes (April 20, 1794).]
2121 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXXI., 270. Report by Robespierre, on the principles which should guide
the National Convention in the internal administration of the Republic,
February 5, 1794.—Cf. "The ancient Régime," 227-230, the ideas of
Rousseau, of which those of Robespierre are simply a recast.]
2122 (return)
[ Ibid., 270.—The
pretension of reforming men's sentiments is found in all the programs.
Ibid., 305. (Report of Saint-Just, February 26, 1794.) "Our object is to
create an order of things establishing a universal inclination toward the
good, and to have factions immediately hurled upon the scaffold." Ibid.,
337. (Report of Saint-Just, March 13, 1794.—Ibid., 337. (Report of
Saint-Just, March 13, 1794.) "We see but one way of arresting the evil,
and that is to convert the revolution into a civil power and wage war on
every species of perversity, as designedly created amongst us for the
enervation of the republic."]
2123 (return)
[ Ibid., XXXV., 276.
(Institutions, by Saint-Just.—Ibid., 287.)—Moniteur, XVIII.,
343. Meeting of the Jacobin Club, Brumaire 13, year II., speech by
Baudot.]
2124 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XXIX,
142. (Speech by Jean Bon St. André in the Convention, Sep. 25, 1793.) "We
are said to exercise arbitrary power, we are charged with being despots.
We, despots!... Ah, no doubt, if despotism is to secure the triumph of
liberty, such a despotism is political regeneration." (Applause.)—Ibid,
XXXI., 276. (Report by Robespierre, Pluviose 17, year, II.) "It has been
said that terror is the incentive of despotic government. Does yours,
then, resemble despotism? Yes, as the sword which flashes in the hands of
the heroes of liberty, resembles that with which the satellites of tyranny
are armed..... The government of the Revolution is the despotism of
freedom against tyranny."]
2125 (return)
[ Ibid., XXXII, 353.
Decree of April 1791. "The Convention declares, that, supported by the
virtues of the French people, it will insure the triumph of the democratic
revolution and show no pity in punishing its enemies."]
2126 (return)
[ In the following
portrayal of the ancient régime, the bombast and credulity of the day
overflows in the most extravagant exaggerations (Buchez et Roux, XXXI.,
300, Report, by Saint-Just, February 26, 1794.): "In 1788, Louis XVI.
Caused eight thousand persons of both sexes and of every age to be
sacrificed in the rue Meslay and on the Pont-Neuf. These scenes were
repeated by the court on the Champs de Mars; the court had hangings in the
prisons, and the bodies of the drowned found in the Seine were its
victims. These were four hundred thousand prisoners in confinement;
fifteen thousand smugglers were hung in a year, and three thousand men
were broken on the wheel; there were more prisoners in Paris than there
are now... Look at Europe. There are four millions of people shut up in
Europe whose shrieks are never heard."—Ibid., XXIV., 132. (Speech by
Robespierre, May 10, 1793). "Up to this time the art of governing has
simply consisted in the art of stripping and subduing the masses for the
benefit of the few, and legislation, the mode of reducing these outrages
to a system."]
2127 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXXII., 353. (Report by Robespierre to the Convention, May 7, 1794.)
"Nature tells us that man is born for freedom while the experience of man
for centuries shows him a slave. His rights are written in his heart and
history records his humiliation."]
2128 (return)
[ Ibid., 372. "Priests
are to morality what charlatans are to medical practice. How different is
the God of nature from the God of the priests! I know of nothing which is
so much like atheism as the religions they have manufactured." Already, in
the Constituent Assembly, Robespierre wanted to prevent the father from
endowing a child. "You have done nothing for liberty if yours laws do not
tend to diminish by mild and effective means the inequality of fortunes."
(Hamel, I., 403.)]
2129 (return)
[ Decree of Frimaire
18, year II.—Note the restrictions: "The convention, in the
foregoing arrangement, has no idea of derogating from any law or
precaution for public safety against refractory or turbulent priests, or
against those who might attempt to abuse the pretext of religion in order
to compromise the cause of liberty. Nor does it mean to disapprove of what
has thus far been done by virtue of the ordinances of representatives of
the people, nor to furnish anybody with a pretext for unsettling
patriotism and relaxing the energy of public spirit."]
2130 (return)
[ Decrees of May 27,
and August 26, 1792, March 18, April 21 and October 20, 1793, April 11,
and May 11, 1794.—Add (Moniteur, XIX., 697) the decree providing for
the confiscation of the possessions of ecclesiastics "who have voluntarily
left or been so reported, who are retired as old or inform, or who have
preferred transportation to retirement."—Ibid., XVIII., 492,
(session of Frimaire 2). A speech by Forester. "As to the priesthood, its
continuation has become a disgrace and even a crime."—Archives
Nationales, AF. II., 36. (An order by Lequinio, representative of the
people of Charante-Inférieur, la Vendée and Deux-Sèvres, Saintes, Nivose
1, year II.) "In order that freedom of worship may exist in full plenitude
it is forbidden to all whom it may concern to preach or write in favor of
any form of worship or religious opinion whatsoever." And especially "it
is expressly forbidden to any former minister, belonging to any religious
sect whatever, to preach, write or teach morality under penalty of being
regarded as a suspect and, as such, immediately put under arrest.. ..
Every man who undertakes to preach any religious precepts whatsoever is,
by that fact, culpable before the people. He violates ... social equality,
which does not permit the individual to publicly raise his ideal
pretensions above those of his neighbor."]
2131 (return)
[ Ludofic Sciout,
"Histoire de la Constitution Civile du clergé," vols. III. and IV.,
passim.—Jules Sauzay, "Histoire de la persécution révolutionaire
dans le Doubs," vols. III., IV., V., and VI., particularly the list, at
the end of the work, of those deported, guillotined, sent into the
interior and imprisoned.]
2132 (return)
[ Order of the day of
the Convention September 17, 1792; circular of the Executive Council,
January 22, 1793; decrees of the Convention, July 19, August 12, September
17, November 15, 1793.—Moniteur, October, and November, 1793,
passim. (November 23, Order of the Paris Commune, closing the churches.)—In
relation to the terror the constitutional priests were under, I merely
give the following extracts (Archives Nationales, F7,31167): "Citizen
Pontard, bishop of the department of Dordogne, lodging in the house of
citizen Bourbon, No. 66 faubourg Saint-Honoré, on being informed that
there was an article in a newspaper called "le Republican" stating that a
meeting of priests had been held in the said house, declares that he had
no knowledge of it; that all the officers in charge of the apartments are
in harmony with the Revolution; that, if he had had occasion to suspect
such a circumstance, he would have move out immediately, and that if any
motive can possibly be detected in such a report it is his proposed
marriage with the niece of citizen Caminade, an excellent patriot and
captain of the 9th company of the Champs-Elysées section, a marriage which
puts an end to fanaticism in his department, unless this be done by the
ordination of a priest à la sans-culotte which he had done yesterday in
the chapel, another act in harmony with the Revolution. It is well to add,
perhaps, that one of his curés now in Paris has called on him, and that he
came to request him to second his marriage. The name of the said curé is
Greffier Sauvage; he is still in Paris, and is preparing to be married the
same time as himself. Aside from these motives, which may have given rise
to some talk, citizen Pontard sees no cause whatever for suspicion.
Besides, so thoroughly patriotic as he, he asks nothing better than to
know the truth, in order to march along unhesitatingly in the
revolutionary path. He sighs his declaration, promising to support the
Revolution on all occasions, by his writings as well as by his conduct. He
presents the two numbers of his journal which he has had printed in Paris
in support of the principles he adheres to. At Paris, September 7, 1793,
year II. Of the Republic, one and indivisible. F. Pontard, bishop of the
Republic in the department of Dordogne."—Dauban La Demagogie en
1793, p. 557. Arrest of representative Osselin, letter his brother, curé
of Saint-Aubin, to the committee of section Mutius Scoevola, Brumaire 20,
year II.,"Like Brutus and Mutius Scoevola, I trample on the feelings with
which I idolised my brother! O, truth, thou divinity of republicans, thou
knowest the incorruptibility of may intentions!" (and so on for
fifty-three lines). "These are my sentiments, I am fraternally, Osselin,
minister of worship at Saint-Aubin."—P.S. "It was just as I was
going to answer a call of nature that I learned this afflicting news." (He
keeps up this bombast until words fail him, and finally, frightened to
death, and his brain exhausted, he gives this postscript to show that he
was not an accomplice.)]
2133 (return)
[ A term denoting the
substitution of ten instead of seven days as a division of time in the
calendar, and forced into use during the Revolution.]
2134 (return)
[ "Recuil de pieces
authentiques servant à l'histoire de la revolution à Strasbourg," II.,
299. (A district order.)]
2135 (return)
[ Later, when Lenin and
Stalin resurrected Jacobinism, they placed the headquarters of any
subversive movement outside the country where it operated. (SR.)]
2136 (return)
[ Thermidor refers to
the a very important day and event during the French Revolution: the day
Robespierre fell: Thermidor 9, year II, (July 27, 1794), Robespierre's
fall, effective the 10, was prepared by his adversaries, Tallien, Barras,
Fouché etc., essentially because they feared for their lives. Robespierre
and 21 of his followers were executed on the evening of the 10th of
Thermidor year II. (SR.).]
2137 (return)
[ Ludovic Sciout, IV.,
426. (Instructions sent by the Directory to the National Commissions,
Frimaire, year II.)—Ibid., ch. X. to XVIII.]
2138 (return)
[ Ibid., IV., 688.An
order of the Director, Germinal 14, year VI.—"The municipal
governments will designate special days in each decade for market days in
their respective districts, and not allow, in any case, their ordinance to
be set aside on the plea that the said market days would fall on a
holiday. They will specially strive to break up all connection between the
sales of fish and days of fasting designated on the old calendar. Every
person exposing food or wares on sale in the markets on days other than
those fixed by the municipal government will be prosecuted in the police
court for obstructing a public thoroughfare."—The Thermidorians
remain equally as anti-Catholic as their predecessors; only, they disavow
open persecution and rely on slow pressure. (Moniteur, XIII., 523. Speech
by Boissy d'Anglas, Ventôse 3, year II.) "Keep an eye on what you cannot
hinder; regulate what you cannot prohibit.... It will not be long before
these absurd dogmas, the offspring of fear and error, whose influence on
the human mind has been so steadily destructive, will be known only to be
despised.... It will not be long before the religion of Socrates, of
Marcus Aurelius and Cicero will be the religion of the whole world."]
2139 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVI., 646.
(The King's trial.) Speech by Robespierre: "the right of punishing the
tyrant and of dethroning him is one and the same thing."—Speech by
Saint-Just: "Royalty is an eternal crime, against which every man has the
right of taking up arms... To reign innocently is impossible!"]
2140 (return)
[ Epigraph of Marat's
journal: Ute readapt miseries, abet Fortuna superb is.]
2141 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXXII., 323. (Report of Saint-Just, Germinal 21, year II., and a decree of
Germinal 26-29, Art. 4, 13, 15.)—Ibid., 315.]
2142 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
(Report of Saint-Just, October 10, 1793.) "That would be the only good
they could do their country.... It would be no more than just for the
people to reign over its oppressors in its turn, and that their pride
should be bathed in the sweat of their brows."]
2143 (return)
[ Ibid., XXXI., 309.
(Report of Saint-Just, Ventôse 8, year II.)]
2144 (return)
[ Ibid., XXVI. 435.
(Speech by Robespierre on the constitution, May 10, 1793.) "What were our
usages and pretended laws other than a code of impertinence and baseness,
where contempt of men was subject to a sort of tariff, and graduated
according to regulations as odd as they were numerous? To despise and be
despised, to cringe in order to rule, slaves and tyrants in turn, now
kneeling before a master, now trampling the people under foot—such
was the ambition of all of us, so long as we were men of birth or well
educated men, whether common folks or fashionable folks, lawyers or
financiers, pettifoggers or wearing swords."—Archives Nationales,
F7, 31167. (Report of the observatory Chaumont, Nivôse 10, year II.)—"Boolean's
effigy, placed in the college of Lisle, has been lowered to the statues of
the saints, the latter being taken out of their niches. There is now no
kind of distinction. Saints and authors are of the same class."]
2145 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux., 296.
("Institutions" by Saint-Just.)—Meillan, "Mémoires," p. 17.—Anne
Plumptre, "A narrative of three years' residence in France, from 1802 to
1805," II., 96. At Marseilles: "The two great crimes charged on those who
doomed to destruction, were here as elsewhere, wealth and aristocracy...
It had been decreed by the Terrorists that no person could have occasion
for more than two hundred livres a year, and that no income should be
permitted to exceed that sum."]
2146 (return)
[ Archives Nationales,
F7, 4437. (Address of the people's club of Caisson (Gard), Messidor 7,
year II.) "The Bourgeoisie, the merchants, the large land-owners have all
the pretension of the ex-nobles. The law provides no means for opening the
eyes of the common people in relation to these new tyrants. The club
desires that the revolutionary tribunal should be empowered to condemn
this proud class of individuals to a prompt partial confinement. The
people would then see that they had committed a misdemeanor and would
withdraw that sort of respect in which they hold them." A note in the
hand-writing of Couthon: "Left to the decision of popular commissions."]
2147 (return)
[ Gouvernor Morris, in
a letter of January 4, 1796, says that French capitalists have been
financially ruined by assignats, and physically by the guillotine.—Buchez
et Roux, XXX., 26. (Notes written by Robespierre in June, 1793.) "Internal
dangers come from the bourgeois... who are our enemies? The vicious and
the rich."]
2148 (return)
[ Narrative by M.
Sylvester de Sacy (May 23, 1873): His father owned a farm bringing in four
thousand francs per annum; the farmer offered him four thousand francs in
assignats or a hog; M. de Sacy took the hog.]
2149 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXXI., 441. (Report by Cambon on the institution of the grand livre of
public debt, August 15, 1793.)]
2150 (return)
[ Ibid., XXXI., 311.
Report by Saint-Just, February 26, 1794, and decree in accordance
therewith, unanimously adopted. See, in particular, article 2.—Moniteur,
12 Ventôse, year II. (meeting of the Jacobin club, speech by Collot
d'Herbois). "The Convention has declared that prisoners must prove that
they were patriots from the 1st of May 1789. When the patriots and enemies
of the Revolution shall be fully known, then the property of the former
shall be inviolable and held sacred, while that of the latter will be
confiscated for the benefit of the republic."]
2151 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXVI., 455 (Session of the Jacobin Club, May 10, 1793, speech by
Robespierre.)—Ibid., (Report by Saint-Just, Feb. 26, 1794.) "He who
has shown himself an enemy of his country cannot be one of its
proprietors. Only he has patrimonial rights who has helped to free it."]
2152 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXXI., 93 and 130. (Speech by Robespierre on property, and the declaration
of rights adopted by the Jacobin club.) Decree of Sept. 3, 1793 (articles
13 and 14).]
2153 (return)
[ Moniteur, XXII., 719.
(Report by Cambon, Frimaire 6, year III.) "At Bordeaux Raba has been
sentenced to pay a fine of 1,200,000 francs, Pechotte to pay 500,000
francs, Martin-Martin to 300,000 francs."—Cf. Rodolphe Reuss,
"Séligmann Alexandre ou les Tribulations d'un israélite de Strasbourg."]
2154 (return)
[ Ibid., XVIII., 486.
(Report by Cambon, Frimaire 1, year II.) "The egotists who, some time ago,
found it difficult to pay for the national domains they had acquired from
the Republic, even in assignats, now bring us their gold... Collectors of
the revenue who had buried their gold have come and offered to pay what
they owe the nation in ingots of gold and silver. These have been refused,
the Assembly having decreed the confiscation of these objects."]
2155 (return)
[ Decree of Brumaire
23, year II. On taxes and confiscations in the provinces see M. de Martel,
"Etude sur Fouché et Pieces authentiques servant à l'histoire de la
revolution à Strasbourg." And further on the details of this operation at
Troyes.—Meillan, 90: "At Bordeaux, merchants were heavily taxed, not
on account of their incivism, but on account of their wealth."]
2156 (return)
[ Decree of March 7-11,
1793.]
2157 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVIII.,
274, decrees of Brumaire 4, and ibid, 305, decree of Brumaire 9, year II.,
establishing equal partition of inheritances with retroactive effect to
July 14, 1789. Adulterous bastards are excepted. The reporter of the bill,
Cambacèrés, laments this regrettable exception.]
2158 (return)
[ Rights of inheritance
allowed to the descendants of a deceased person who never enjoyed these
rights, but who might have enjoyed them had he been living when they fell
to him.—Tr.]
2159 (return)
[ Fenet, "Travaux du
Code civil." (Report by Cambacèrés on the Code civil, August 9, 1793). The
spokesman for the committee that had framed the bill makes excuses for not
having deprived the father of all the disposable portion. "The committee
believed that such a clause would seriously violate our customs without
being of any benefit to society or of any moral advantage. We assured
ourselves, moreover, that there should always be a division of property."
With respect to donations: "It is repugnant to all ideas of beneficence to
allow donations to the rich. Nature is averse to the making of such gifts
so long as our eyes dwell on misery and misfortune. These affecting
considerations have determined us to fix a point, a sort of maximum, which
prohibits gifts on the part of those who have reached that point."]
2160 (return)
[ Moniteur, XII., 730,
(June 22, 1792), speech by Lamarque.—But this principle is
encountered everywhere. "Equality, indeed, (is) the final aim of social
art." (Condorcet, 'Tableau des progrès de l'esprit humain," II., 59.—"We
desired," writes Baudot, "to apply to politics the equality which the
Gospel awards to Christians." (Quinet, "Revolution Française, II., 407.)]
2161 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XXXV,
296 (The words of Saint-Just.)—Moniteur, XVIII, 505 (Ordinance of
the Paris Commune, Frimaire 3, year II). "Wealth and Poverty must alike
disappear under the régime of equality."]
2162 (return)
[ Ib. XXXV, 296
("Institutions" by Saint-Just). "A man is not made for trades, nor for a
workhouse nor for an alms-house; all this is frightful."—Ibid.,
XXXI., 312. (Report of Saint-Just, Ventôse 8, year II.) "Let all Europe
see that you will not allow a miserable man on French territory!...
Happiness is a new idea in Europe."]
2163 (return)
[ Ib. XXXV, 296
("Institutions" by Saint-Just.)]
2164 (return)
[ Moniteur, XX, 444 (
Report by Barère, Floreal 22, year II). "Mendicity is incompatible with
popular government."]
2165 (return)
[ Ib., XIX., 568.
(Report by Saint-Just, Ventôse 8, year II.)]
2166 (return)
[ Ib., XX, 448 (Rapport
by Barère, Floreal 22).]
2167 (return)
[ Ibid., XIX., 568.
(Report by Saint-Just, Ventôse 8, and decree of Ventôse 13.) "The
Committee of Public Safety will report on the means of indemnifying the
unfortunate with property belonging to the enemies of the Revolution."]
2168 (return)
[ Ibid., XIX., 484.
(Report by Barère, Ventôse 21, year II.)—Ibid., XX., 445. (Report by
Barère, Floréal 22, year II.)—Decrees on public assistance, June 28,
1793, July 25, 1793, Frimaire 2, and Floréal 22, year II.)—this
principle, moreover, was set forth in the Constitution of 1793. "Public
help is a sacred obligation; society owes a subsistence to unfortunate
citizens, whether by providing work for them, or by ensuring the means of
existence to those who are not in a condition to work."—Archives
Nationales, AF. II., 39. The character of this measure is very clearly
expressed in the following circular of the Committee of Public Safety to
its representatives on mission in the departments, Ventôse, year II. "A
summary act was necessary to put the aristocracy down. The national
Convention has struck the blow. Virtuous indigence had to recover the
property which crime had encroached upon. The national Convention has
proclaimed its rights. A general list of all prisoners should be sent to
the Committee of General Security, charged with deciding on their fate.
The Committee of Public Safety will receive the statement of the indigent
in each commune so as to regulate what is due to them. Both these
proceedings demand the utmost dispatch and should go together. It is
necessary that terror and justice be brought to bear on all points at
once. The Revolution is the work of the people and it is time they should
have the benefit of it."]
2169 (return)
[ Moniteur, XX., 449.
(Report by Barère, Floréal 22, year II.)]
2170 (return)
[ Decree of April 2-5,
1793.]
2171 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVIII.,
505. (Orders of Fouché and Collet d'Herbois, dated at Lyons and
communicated to the commune of Paris, Frimaire 3, year II.)—De
Martel, "Etude sur Fouché," 132. Orders of Fouché on his mission in the
Nievre, Sept. 19, 1793. "There shall be established in each district town
a Committee of Philanthropy, authorized to levy on the rich a tax
proportionate to the number of the indigent."]
2172 (return)
[ Decree of April 2-5,
1793. "There shall be organized in each large commune a guard of citizens
selected from the least fortunate. These citizens shall be armed and paid
at the expense of the Republic."]
2173 (return)
[ Moniteur, XX., 449.
(Report of Barère, Floréal 22, year II.)]
2174 (return)
[ Ibid., XIX., 689.
(Report by Saint-Just, Ventôse 23, year II.) "We spoke of happiness. It is
not the happiness of Persepolis we have offered to you. It is that of
Sparta or Athens in their best days, the happiness of virtue, that of
comfort and moderation, the happiness which springs from the enjoyment of
the necessary without the superfluous, the luxury of a cabin and of a
field fertilized by your own hands. A cart, a thatched roof affording
shelter from the frosts, a family safe from the lubricity of a robber—such
is happiness!"]
2175 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXXI., 402. (Constitution of 1793.)]
2176 (return)
[ Ibid. XXXV., 310.
("Institutions", by Saint-Just.)]
2177 (return)
[ Ibid., XXVI., 93 and
131. (Speech by Robespierre on property, April 24, 1793, and declaration
of rights adopted by the Jacobin Club.)—Mallet-Dupan, "Mémoires,"
I., 401. (Address of a deputation from Gard.) "Material wealth is no more
the special property of any one member of the social body than base metal
stamped as a circulating medium."]
2178 (return)
[ Moniteur, VIII., 452.
(Speech by Hébert in the Jacobin Club, Brumaire 26, year II.) "Un Séjour
en France de 1792 à 1795," p.218. (Amiens, Oct. 4, 1794.) "While waiting
this morning at a shop door I overheard a beggar bargaining for a slice of
pumpkin. Unable to agree on the price with the woman who kept the shop he
pronounced her 'corrupted with aristocracy.' 'I defy you to prove it!' she
replied. But, as she spoke, she turned pale and added, 'Your civism is
beyond all question—but take your pumpkin.' 'Ah,' returned the
beggar, 'what a good republican!'"]
2179 (return)
[ Ibid., XVIII., 320.
(Meeting of Brumaire 11, year II. Report by Barère.)—Meillan, 17.
Already, before the 31st May: "The tribune resounded with charges against
monopoly, every man being a monopolist who was not reduced to living on
daily wages or on alms."]
2180 (return)
[ Decrees of July 26,
1793, Sept. 11 and 29; Brumaire 11, and Ventôse 6, year II.]
2181 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVIII.,
359. "Brumaire 16, year II. Sentence of death of Pierre Gourdier,
thirty-six years of age, stock-broker, resident in Paris, rue Bellefond,
convicted of having monopolized and concealed in his house a large
quantity of bread, in order to bread scarcity in the midst of abundance."
He had gastritis and could eat nothing but panada made with toast, and the
baker who furnished this gave him thirty pieces at a time (Wallon, II.,
155).]
2182 (return)
[ Journal of the
debates of the Jacobin Club, No. 532, Brumaire 20, year II. (Plan of
citizen Dupré, presented in the Convention by a deputation of the Arcis
Club.)—Dauban, "Paris en 1794," p. 483 (a project similar to the
former, presented to the Committee of Public Safety by the Jacobin Club of
Montereau, Thermidor, year II.)]
2183 (return)
[ These proposals
should come to haunt western civilization for a long time. (SR.)]
2184 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXXV., 272. ("Institutions," by Saint-Just.)]
2185 (return)
[ These ideas were
still powerful even before Taine wrote these words in 1882. The Oxford
Dictionary of Quotations cites a declaration made by 47 anarchists on
trial after their uprising in Lyons in 1870: "We wish, in a word, equality—equality
in fact as corollary, or rather, as primordial condition of liberty. From
each according to his faculties, to each according to his needs; that is
what we wish sincerely and energetically."]
2186 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XXXI,
273, (Report by Robespierre, Pluviôse17, year II. (7 Feb. 1794).]
2187 (return)
[ Moniteur, XIX
(Rapport by Barère, Ventôse 21, an II). "You should detect and combat
federalism in all your institutions, as your natural enemy....A grand
central establishment for all the work of the Republic is an effective
means against federalism."—Buchez et Roux, XXXI, 351, et XXXII, 316
(Rapports by Saint-Just, Ventôse 23 et Germinal 26, year II). "Immorality
is a federalism in the civil state...Civil federalism, by isolating all
parts of the state, has dried up abundance."]
2188 (return)
[ Decree of Germinal
26-29, year II. "Financial companies are and hereby remain suppressed. All
bankers, commission merchants, and other persons, are forbidden to form
any establishment of this order under any pretext or under any
denomination."]
2189 (return)
[ "Memoires de Carnot,"
I., 278 (Report by Carnot). "That is not family life. If there are local
privileges there will soon be individual privileges and local aristocracy
will bring along in its train the aristocracy of inhabitants."]
2190 (return)
[ Moniteur, XIX., 683
(Rapport by Barère, Ventôse 21, year II).—This report should be read
in full to comprehend the communistic and centralizing spirit of the
Jacobins. (Undoubtedly Lenin, during his years in Paris, had read Taine's
footnote and asked the national library for a copy of this rapport. SR.)]
2191 (return)
[ Fenet, "Travaux du
Code civil," 105 (Rapports by Cambacérès, August 9, 1793 and September 9,
1794).—Decrees of September 20, 1793 and Floréal 4, year II (On
divorce).—Cf. "Institutions," by Saint-Just (Buchez et Roux, XXXV,
302). "A man and woman who love each other are married; if they have no
children they may keep their relationship secret."]
2192 (return)
[ This article of the
Jacobin program, like the others, has its practical result.—"At
Paris, in the twenty-seven months after the promulgation of the law of
September, 1792, the courts granted five thousand nine hundred and
ninety-four divorces, and in year VI, the number of divorces exceeded the
marriages." (Glasson, le Mariage civil et le Divorce, 51.)—"The
number of foundlings which, in 1790, in France, did not exceed
twenty-three thousand, is now (year X.) more than sixty-three thousand.
"Statistique de la Sarthe," by Auvray, prefect, year, X.)—In the
Lot-et-Garonne (Statistique, by Peyre, préfet, year X ), more than fifteen
hundred foundlings are counted: "this extraordinary number increased
during the Revolution through the too easy admission of foundlings into
the asylums, through the temporary sojourning of soldiers in their homes,
through the disturbance of every moral and religious principle."—"It
is not rare to find children of thirteen and fourteen talking and acting
in a way that would have formerly disgraced a young man of twenty."
(Moselle, Analyse, by Ferrière.)—"The children of workmen are idle
and insubordinate; some indulge in the most shameful conduct against their
parents;" others try stealing and use the coarsest language." (Meurthe,
Statistique, by Marquis, préfet.)—Cf. Anne Plumptre (A Narrative of
three years' residence in France from 1802 to 1805, I. 436). "You would
not believe it, Madame, said a gardener to her at Nimes, that during the
Revolution we dared not scold our children for their faults. Those who
called themselves patriots regarded it as against the fundamental
principles of liberty to correct children. This made them so unruly that,
very often, when a parent presumed to scold its child the latter would
tell him to mind his business, adding, 'we are free and equal, the
Republic is our only father and mother; if you are not satisfied, I am. Go
where you like it better.' Children are still saucy. It will take a good
many years to bring them back to minding.']
2193 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXXII., 364 (Report by Robespierre, Floréal 8, year II.)]
2194 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXXII., 385—(Address of a Jacobin deputation to the Convention,
Floréal 27, year II.)—At Bayeux, the young girl who represented
Liberty, had the following inscription on her breast or back: "Do not make
of me an instrument of licentiousness." (Gustave Flaubert, family
souvenirs.)]
2195 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXXI., 415. (Report by Fabre d'Eglantine, October 6, 1793.)—(Grégoire,
"Memoires," I., 341.) "The new calendar was invented by Romme in order to
get rid of Sunday. This was his object; he admitted it to me."]
2196 (return)
[ Ibid., XXXII., 274.
(Report by Robespierre, Floréal 18, year II.) "National Festivals form an
essential part of public education.... A system of national festivals is
the most powerful means of regeneration."]
2197 (return)
[ Ibid., XXXVIII., 335.
Marat's heart, placed on a table in the Cordéliers Club, was an object of
religious reverence.—(Grégoire, "Mémoires," I., 341.) "In some
schools the pupils were obliged to make the sign of the cross at the names
of Marat, Lazowski, etc."]
2198 (return)
[ Comte de Martel,
"Étude sur Fouché," 137. Fête at Nevers, on the inaguration of a bust of
Brutus.—Ibid., 222, civic festival at Nevers in honor of valor and
morals.—Dauban, "Paris en 1794." Programme of the fête of the
supreme Being at Sceaux.]
2199 (return)
[ An expression by
Rabaut Saint-Etienne.]
21100 (return)
[ Ibid., XXXII., 373
(Report by Robespierre, Floréal 15, year II.)—Danton had expressed
precisely the same opinion, supported by the same arguments, at the
meeting of Frimaire 22, year II. (Moniteur, XVIII, 654.) "Children first
belong to the Republic before belonging to their parents. Who will assure
me that these children, inspired by parental egoism, will not become
dangerous to the Republic? What do we care for the ideas of an individual
alongside of national ideas?... Who among us does not know the danger of
this constant isolation? It is in the national schools that the child must
suck republican milk! .... The Republic is one and indivisible. Public
instruction must likewise relate to this center of unity."]
21101 (return)
[ Decree of
Vendémaire 30 and Brumaire 7, year II.—Cf. Sauzay, VI., 252, on the
application of this decree in the provinces.]
21102 (return)
[ Albert Duruy, 2L
'Instruction publique et la Revolution,2 164, to 172' (extracts from
various republican spelling-books and catechisms).—Decree of
Frimaire 29, year II., section I., art. I, 83; section II., art. 2;
section III., arts. 6 and 9.]
21103 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVIII.,
653. (Meeting of Frimaire 22, speech by Bouquir, reporter.)]
21104 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVIII.,
351-359. (Meeting of Brumaire 15, year II., report by Chénier.) "You have
made laws—create habits.... You can apply to the public instruction
of the nation the same course that Rousseau follows in 'Emile.' "]
21105 (return)
[ The words of
Bouquier, reporter. (Meeting of Frimaire 22, year II.)]
21106 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXIV, 57 (Plan by Le Peletier de Saint-Fargeau, read by Robespierre at the
Convention, July 13, 1793.)—Ibid., 35. (Draft of a decree by the
same hand.)]
21107 (return)
[ Ibid., XXX., 229.
("Institutions," by Saint-Just.)]
21108 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXXI., 261. (Meeting of Nivose 17.) On the committee presenting the final
draft of the decrees on public instruction the Convention adopts the
following article: "All boys who, on leaving the primary schools of
instruction, do not devote themselves to tillage, will be obliged to learn
some science, art or occupation useful to society. Otherwise, on reaching
twenty, they will be deprived of citizens' rights for ten years, and the
same penalty will be laid on their father, mother, tutor or guardian."]
21109 (return)
[ Decree of Prairial
13, year II.]
21110 (return)
[ Langlois,
"Souvenirs de l'Ecole de Mars."]
21111 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXXII., 355. (Report by Robespierre, Floréal 18, year II.)]
21112 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVIII.,
326. (Meeting of the Commune, Brumaire 11, year II.) the commissary
announces that, at Fontainebleau and other places, "he has established the
system of equality in the prisons and places of confinement, where the
rich and the poor partake of the same food."—Ibid., 210. (Meeting of
the Jacobins, Vendémiaire 29, year II. Speech by Laplance on his mission
to Gers.) "Priests had every comfort in their secluded retreats; the
sans-culottes in the prisons slept on straw. The former provided me with
mattresses for the latter."—Ibid., XVIII., 445. (Meeting of the
convention, Brumaire 26, year II.) "The Convention decrees that the food
of persons kept in places of confinement shall be simple and the same for
all, the rich paying for the poor."]
21113 (return)
[ Archives
Nationales. (AF. II., 37, order of Lequinio, Saintes, Nivose 1, year II.)
"Citizens generally in all communes, are requested to celebrate the day of
the decade by a fraternal banquet which, served without luxury or
display... will render the man bowed down with fatique insensible to his
forlorn condition; which will fill the soul of the poor and unfortunate
with the sentiment of social equality and raise man up to the full sense
of his dignity; which will suppress with the rich man the slightest
feeling of pride and extinguish in the public functionary all germs of
haughtiness and aristocracy."]
21114 (return)
[ Archives
Nationales, AF. II., ii., 48 (Act of Floréal 25, year II.) "the Committee
of Public Safety request David, representative of the people, to present
his views and plans in relation to modifying the present national costume,
so as to render it appropriate to republican habits and the character of
the Revolution."—Ibid., (Act of Prairial 5, year II.) for engraving
and coloring twenty thousand impressions of the design for a civil
uniform, and six thousand impressions for the three designs for a
military, judicial and legislative uniform.]
21115 (return)
[ An identical change
took, strangely enough and as caused by some hidden force, place in
Denmark in the seventies. (SR.)]
21116 (return)
[ This is now the
case in the entire Western 'democratic' sphere, in newspapers, schools,
and on television. (SR.)]
21117 (return)
[ Ibid, XXXI., 271.
(Report by Robespierre, Pluviose 1, year II.) "This sublime principle
supposes a preference for public interests over all private interests;
from which it follows that the love of country supposes again, or
produces, all the virtues." "As the essence of a republic or of democracy
is equality, it follows that love of country necessarily comprises a love
of equality." "The soul of the Republic is virtue, equality."—Lavalette,
"Memoirs," I., 254. (Narrated by Madame Lavalette.) She was compelled to
attend public festivals, and, every month, the patriotic processions. "I
was rudely treated by my associates, the low women of the quarter; the
daughter of an emigré, of a marquis, or of an imprisoned mother, ought not
to be allowed the honor of their company;.... it was all wrong that she
was not made an apprentice.... Hortense de Beauharnais was apprenticed to
her mother's seamstress, while Eugene was put with a carpenter in the
Faubourg St. Germain." The prevailing dogmatism has a singular effect with
simple-minded people. (Archives Nationals, AF. II., 135. petition of
Ursule Riesler, servant to citizen Estreich and arrested along with him,
addressed to Garneri, agent of the Committee of Public Safety. She begs
citizen Garnerin to interest himself in obtaining her freedom. She will
devote her life to praying to the Supreme Being for him, since he will
redeem her life. He is to furnish her, moreover, with the means for
espousing a future husband, a genuine republican, by who she is pregnant,
and who would not allow her to entertain any idea of fanatical capers.]
Reactionary concept of the State.—Analogy between this idea
of the State and that of antiquity.—Difference between
antique and modern society.—Changed circumstances.
The Jacobin theory can then be summarized in the following points:
* The speculative creation of a curtailed type of human being.
* An effort to adapt the living man to this type.
* The interference of public authority in every branch of public endeavor.
* Constraints put upon labor, trade and property, upon the family and education, upon worship, habits, customs and sentiments.
* The sacrifice of the individual to the community.
* The omnipotence of the State.
No theory could be more reactionary since it moves modern man back to a type of society which he, eighteen centuries ago, had already passed through and left behind.
During the historical era proceeding our own, and especially in the old Greek or Latin cities, in Rome or Sparta, which the Jacobins take for their models,2201 human society was shaped after the pattern of an army or convent. In a convent as in an army, one idea, absorbing and unique, predominates:
* The aim of the monk is to please God at any sacrifice.
* The soldier makes every sacrifice to obtain a victory.
Accordingly, each renounces every other desire and entirely abandons himself, the monk to his rules and the soldier to his drill. In like manner, in the antique world, two preoccupations were of supreme importance. In the first place, the city had its gods who were both its founders and protectors: it was therefore obliged to worship these in the most reverent and particular manner; otherwise, they abandoned it. The neglect of any insignificant rite might offend them and ruin it. In the second place, there was incessant warfare, and the spoils of war were atrocious; on a city being taken every citizen might expect to be killed or maimed, or sold at auction, and see his children and wife sold to the highest bidder.2202 In short, the antique city, with its acropolis of temples and its fortified citadel surrounded by implacable and threatening enemies, resembles for us the institution of the Knights of St. John on their rocks at Rhodes or Malta, a religious and military confraternity encamped around a church.—Liberty, under such conditions, is out of the question: public convictions are too imperious; public danger is too great. With this pressure upon him, and thus hampered, the individual gives himself up to the community, which takes full possession of him, because, to maintain its own existence, it needs the whole man. Henceforth, no one may develop apart and for himself; no one may act or think except within fixed lines. The type of Man is distinctly and clearly marked out, if not logically at least traditionally; each life, as well as each portion of each life must conform to this type; otherwise public security is compromised: any falling off in gymnastic education weakens the army; passing the images of the gods and neglecting the usual libation draws down celestial vengeance on the city. Consequently, to prevent all deviations, the State, absolute master, exercises unlimited jurisdiction; no freedom whatever is left to the individual, no portion of himself is reserved to himself, no sheltered corner against the strong hand of public force, neither his possessions, his children, his personality, his opinions or his conscience.2203 If, on voting days, he shares in the sovereignty, he is subject all the rest of the year, even to his private sentiments. Rome, to serve these ends, had two censors. One of the archons of Athens was inquisitor of the faith. Socrates was put to death for not believing in the gods in which the city believed.2204—In reality, not only in Greece and in Rome, but in Egypt, in China, in India, in Persia, in Judea, in Mexico, in Peru, during the first stages of civilization,2205 the principle of human communities is still that of gregarious animals: the individual belongs to his community the same as the bee to its hive and the ant to its ant-hill; he is simply an organ within an organism. Under a variety of structures and in diverse applications authoritative socialism alone prevails.
Just the opposite in modern society; what was once the rule has now become the exception; the antique system survives only in temporary associations, like that of an army, or in special associations, as in a convent. Gradually, the individual has liberated himself, and century after century, he has extended his domain and the two chains which once bound him fast to the community, have snapped or been lightened.
In the first place, public power has ceased to consist of a militia protecting a cult. In the beginning, through the institution of Christianity, civil society and religious society have become two distinct empires, Christ himself having separated the two jurisdictions;
"Render unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's, and unto God the things that are God's."
Additionally, through the rise of Protestantism, the great Church is split into numerous sects which, unable to destroy each other, have been so compelled to live together and the State, even when preferring one of them, has found it necessary to tolerate the others. Finally, through the development of Protestantism, philosophy and the sciences, speculative beliefs have multiplied. There are almost as many faiths now-a-days as there are thinking men, and, as thinking men are becoming daily more numerous, opinions are daily becoming more numerous. So should the State try to impose any one of these on society, this would excite opposition from an infinity of others; hence the wisdom in governing is found, first, in remaining neutral, and, next, in acknowledging that it is not qualified to interfere.
In the second place, war has become less frequent and less destructive because men have not so many motives for waging it, nor the same motives to push it to the same extremes. Formerly, war was the main source of wealth; through victories Man acquired slaves, subjects and tributaries; he turned these to the best account; he leisurely enjoyed their forced labor. Nothing of this kind is seen now-a-days; people no longer think of providing themselves human cattle; they have discovered that, of all animals, these are the most troublesome, the least productive, and the most dangerous. Comforts and security are obtained much more readily through free labor and machinery; the great object no is not to conquer, but to produce and interchange. Every day, man, pressing forward more eagerly in civil careers, is less disposed to put up with any obstacle that interferes with his aims; if he still consents to be a soldier it is not to become an invader, but to provide against invasion. Meanwhile, war has become more scientific and, through the complications of its machinery, more costly; the State can no longer call out and enlist for life every able-bodied man without ruining itself, nor put too many obstacles in the way of the free industry which, through taxation, provides for its expenses; however short-sighted the State may be, it consults civil interests, even in its military interest.—Thus, of the two nets in which it has enveloped all human activity, one is rent asunder and the other has slackened its meshes. There is no longer any reason for making the community omnipotent; the individual need not alienate himself entirely; he may, without inconvenience, reserve to himself a part of himself, and, if now called upon to sign a social contract, you may be sure that he would make this reservation.
Changed minds.—Conscience and its Christian origin.—Honor
and its feudal origin.—The individual of to-day refuses to
surrender himself entirely.—His motives.—Additional
motives in modern democracy.—Character of the elective
process and the quality of the representative.
And so have not only outward circumstances changed, but the very human attitudes are now different. In the mind of modern man a feeling, distasteful to the antique pact, has evolved.—Undoubtedly, in extreme cases and under the pressure of brutal necessity I may, momentarily, sign a blank check. But, never, if I understand what I am doing, will I sign away in good faith the complete and permanent abandonment of myself: it would be against conscience and against honor, which two possessions are not to be alienated. My honor and my conscience are not to go out of my keeping; I am their sole guardian and depositary; I would not even entrust them to my father.—Both these terms are recent and express two conceptions unknown to the ancients,2206 both being of profound import and of infinite reach. Through them, like a bud separated from its stem and taking root apart, the individual has separated himself from the primitive body, clan, family, caste or city in which he has lived indistinguishable and lost in the crowd; he has ceased to be an organ and appendage; he has become a personality.—The first of these concepts is of Christian origin the second of feudal origin; both, following each other and conjoined, measure the enormous distance which separates an antique soul from a modern soul.2207
Alone, in the presence of God, the Christian has felt melting, like wax, all the ties binding him to his group; this because he is in front of the Great Judge, and because this infallible judge sees all souls as they are, not confusedly and in masses, but clearly, each by itself. At the bar of His tribunal no one is answerable for another; each answers for himself alone; one is responsible only for one's own acts. But those acts are of infinite consequence, for the soul, redeemed by the blood of a God, is of immeasurable value; hence, according as it has or has not profited by the divine sacrifice, so will the reward or punishment be infinite; at the final judgment, an eternity of torment or bliss opens before it. All other interests vanish alongside of a vision of such vastness. Thenceforth, righteousness is the most serious of all aims, not in the eyes of man, but of God and again, day after day, the soul renews within itself that tragic questioning in which the Judge interrogates and the sinner responds.—Through this dialogue, which has been going on for eighteen centuries, and which is yet to continue, conscience has grown more and more sensitive, and man has conceived the idea of absolute justice. Whether this is vested in an all-powerful master, or whether it is a self-existent truth, like mathematical truths, in no way diminishes its sacredness nor, consequently, from its authority. It commands with a superior voice and its commands must be obeyed, irrespective of cost: there are strict duties to which every man is rigorously bound. No pledge may relieve him of these duties; if not fulfilled because he has given contrary pledges he is no less culpable on this account, and besides, he is culpable for having pledged himself; the pledging of himself to crimes was in itself a crime. His fault thus appears to himself twofold, and the inward prick galls him twice instead of once. Hence, the more sensitive the conscience, the more loath it is to give up; it rejects any promise which may lead to wrong-doing, and refuses to give to give others any right of imposing remorse.
At the same time another sentiment has arisen, not less valuable, but hardier, more energetic, more human and more effective. On his own in his stronghold, the feudal chieftain, at the head of his band, could depend on nobody but himself, for a public force did not then exist. It was necessary that he should protect himself, and, indeed, over-protect himself. Whoever, in the anarchical and military society in which he lived, allowed the slightest encroachment, or left unpunished the slightest approach to insult, was regarded as weak or craven and at once became a prey; one had to be proud-spirited, if not, one risked death. This was not difficult either. Sole proprietor and nearly absolute sovereign, with neither equals or peers on his domain, here he was unique being, superior and incomparable to every one else.2208 On that subject revolved his long monologue during his hours of gloomy solitude, which soliloquy has lasted for nine centuries.2209 Thus in his own eyes, his person and all that depends on him are inviolable; rather than tolerate the slightest infringement on his prerogatives he will dare all and sacrifice all.2210 A sensitive pride (orgueil exalté) is the best of sentinels to protect a right; for, not only does it mount guard over the right to preserve it, but, again, and especially, for its own satisfaction; the imagination has conceived a personality appropriate for his rank, and this character the man imposes on himself as his role. Henceforth, he not only forces the respect of others, but he respects himself; he possesses the sentiment of honor, a generous self-esteem which makes him regard himself as noble and incapable of doing anything mean. In discriminating between his actions, he may err; fashion or vanity may sometimes lead him too far, or lead him astray, either on the path of recklessness or on that of puerility; his point of honor may be fixed in the wrong direction. But, in sum, and thanks to this being a fixed point, he will maintain himself erect even under an absolute monarchy, under a Philip II. in Spain, under a Louis XIV. in France, under a Frederick II. in Prussia. From the feudal baron or gentleman of the court to the modern gentleman, this tradition persists and descends from story to story down to lowest social substratum: to-day, every man of spirit, the bourgeois, the peasant, the workman, has his point of honor like the noble. He likewise, in spite of the social encroachments that gain on him, reserves to himself his private nook, a sort of moral stronghold wherein he preserves his faiths, his opinions, his affections, his obligations as son, husband and father; it is the sacred treasury of his innermost being. This stronghold belongs to him alone; no one, even in the name of the public, has a right to enter it; to surrender it would be cowardice, rather than give up its keys he would die in the breach;2211 when this militant sentiment of honor is enlisted on the side of conscience it becomes virtue itself.2212—Such are, in these days, (1870) the two central themes of our European morality.2213 Through the former the individual recognizes duties from which nothing can exempt him; through the latter, he claims rights of which nothing can deprive him: our civilization has vegetated from these two roots, and still vegetates. Consider the depth and the extent of the historical soil in which they penetrate, and you may judge of their vigor. Consider the height and unlimited growth of the trees which they nourish, and you may judge of their healthiness. Everywhere else, one or other having failed, in China, in the Roman Empire, in Islam, the sap has dried downward and the tree has become stunted, or has fallen.... It is the modern man, who is neither Chinese, nor antique, nor Moslem, nor Negro, nor savage, the man formed by Christian education and taking refuge in his conscience as in a sanctuary, the man formed by feudal education and entrenched behind his honor as in a fortress, whose sanctuary and stronghold the new social contract bids him surrender.
Now, in this democracy founded on the preponderance of numbers, into whose hands am I required to make this surrender?—Theoretically, to the community, that is to say, to a crowd in which an anonymous impulse is the substitute for individual judgment; in which action becomes impersonal because it is collective; in which nobody acknowledges responsibility; in which I am borne along like a grain of sand in a whirlwind; in which all sorts of outrages are condoned beforehand for reasons of state: practically, to the plurality of voices counted by heads, to a majority which, over-excited by the struggle for mastery, will abuse its victory and wrong the minority to which I may belong; to a provisional majority which, sooner or later, will be replaced by another, so that if I am to-day oppressor I am sure of being oppressed to-morrow; still more particularly, to six or seven hundred representatives, among who I am called upon to choose but one. To elect this unique mandatory I have but one vote among ten thousand; and in helping to elect him I am only the ten-thousandth; I do not even count for a ten-thousandth in electing the others. And it is these six or seven hundred strangers to me to who I give full power to decide for me—note the expression full power—which means unlimited power, not alone over my possessions and life, but, again, over my conscience, with all its powers combined; that is to say, with powers much more extensive than those I confer separately on ten persons in whom I place the most confidence—to my legal adviser who looks after my fortune, to the teacher of my children, to the physician who cares for my health, to the confessor who directs my conscience, to friends who are to serve as executors of my last will and testament, to seconds in a duel who decide on my life, on the was of my blood and who guard my honor. Without reference to the deplorable farce, so often played around the ballot-box, or to the forced and distorted elections which put a contrary interpretation on public sentiment, or to the official lies by which, at this very moment, a few fanatics and madmen, who represent nobody but themselves, assume to represent the nation,2214 measure what degree of confidence I may have, even after honest elections, in mandatories who are thus chosen! Frequently, I have voted for the defeated candidate; in which case I am represented by the other who I did not want for a representative. In voting for the elected candidate, I did it because I knew of no better one, and because his opponent seemed to me worse. I have only seen him one time out of four and then fleetingly, at odd moment; I scarcely knew more of him than the color of his coat, the tone of his voice, and the way he has of thumping his breast. All I know of him is through his "platform," vague and declamatory, through editorials, and through drawing-room, coffee-house, or street gossip. His title to my confidence is of the flimsiest and shallowest kind; there is nothing to substantiate to me his integrity or competency; he has no diploma, and no one to endorse him as has a private tutor; he has no guarantee from the society to which he belongs, like the physician, the priest or the lawyer. With references as poor as these I should hesitate to recruit him even as a domestic. And all the more because the class from which I am obliged to take him is almost always that of politicians, a suspicious class, especially in countries in which universal suffrage prevails. This class is not recruited among the most independent, the ablest, and the most honest, but among voluble, scheming men, zealous charlatans, who for want of perseverance, having failed in private careers, in situations where one is watched too closely and too nicely weighed in the balance, have selected roles in which the want of scrupulousness and discretion is a force instead of a weakness; to their indelicacy and impudence the doors of a public career stand wide open.—Such is the august personage into whose hands, according to the theory, I am called upon to surrender my will, my will in full; certainly, if self-renunciation were necessary, I should risk less in giving myself up to a king or to an aristocracy, even hereditary; for then would my representatives be at least recommended by their evident rank and their probable competency.—Democracy, in its nature and composition, is a system in which the individual awards to his representatives the least trust and deference; hence, it is the system in which he should entrust them with the least power. Conscience and honor everywhere enjoin a man to retain for himself some portion of his independence; but nowhere is there so little be ceded. If a modern constitution ought to clearly define and limit the domain of the State, it is in respect of contemporary democracy that it ought to be the most restrictive.
Origin and nature of the modern State.—Its functions,
rights and limits.
Let us try to define these limits.—After the turmoil of invasions and conquest, at the height of social disintegration, amidst the combats daily occurring between private parties, there arose in every European community a public force, which force, lasting for centuries, still persists to our day. How it was organized, through what early stages of violence it passed, through what accidents and struggles, and into whose hands it is now entrusted, whether temporarily or forever, whatever the laws of its transmission, whether by inheritance or election, is of secondary importance; the main thing is its functions and their mode of operation. It is essentially a mighty sword, drawn from its scabbard and uplifted over the smaller blades around it, with which private individuals once cut each others' throats. Menaced by it, the smaller blades repose in their scabbards; they have become inert, useless, and, finally rusty; with few exceptions, everybody save malefactors, has now lost both the habit and the desire to use them, so that, henceforth, in this pacified society, the public sword is so formidable that all private resistance vanishes the moment it flashes.—This sword is forged out of two interests: it was necessary to have one of its magnitude, first, against similar blades brandished by other communities on the frontier, and next, against the smaller blades which bad passions are always sharpening in the interior. People demanded protection against outside enemies and inside ruffians and murderers, and, slowly and painfully, after much groping and much re-tempering, the agreement between hereditary forces has fashioned the sole arm which is capable of protecting lives and property with any degree of success.—So long as it does no more I am indebted to the State which holds the hilt: it gives me a security which, without it, I could not have enjoyed. In return for this security I owe it, for my quota, the means for keeping this weapon in good condition: he who enjoys a service is under an obligation to pay for it. Accordingly, there is between the State and myself, if not an express contract, at least a tacit understanding equivalent to that which binds a child to its parent, a believer to his church, and, on both sides, this mutual understanding is clear and precise. The state engages to look after my security within and without; I engage to furnish the means for so doing, which means consist of my respect and gratitude, my zeal as a citizen, my services as a conscript, my contributions as a tax-payer, in short, whatever is necessary for the maintenance of an army, a navy, a diplomatic organization, civil and criminal courts, a militia and police, central and local administrations, in short, a harmonious set of organs of which my obedience and loyalty constitute the food, the substance and the blood. This loyalty and obedience, whatever I am, whether rich or poor, Catholic, Protestant, Jew or free-thinker, royalist or republican, individualist or socialist, upon my honor and in my conscience I owe. This because I have received the equivalent; I am delighted that I am not vanquished, assassinated, or robbed. I reimburse the State, exactly but not more that which it has spent on equipment and personnel for keeping down brutal cupidity, greedy appetites, deadly fanaticism, the entire howling pack of passions and desires of which, sooner or later, I might become the prey, were it not constantly to extend over me its vigilant protection. When it demands its outlay of me it is not my property which it takes away, but its own property, which it collects and, in this light, it may legitimately force me to pay.—On condition, however, that it does not exact more than my liabilities, and this it does when it oversteps its original engagements;
1. when it undertakes some extra material or moral work that I do not ask for;
2. when it constitutes itself sectarian, moralist, philanthropist, or pedagogue;
3. when it strives to propagate within its borders, or outside of them, any religious or philosophic dogma, or any special political or social system.
For then, it adds a new article to the primitive pact, for which article there is not the same unanimous and assured assent that existed for the pact. We are all willing to be secured against violence and fraud; outside of this, and on almost any other point, there are divergent wills. I have my own religion, my own opinions, my habits, my customs, my peculiar views of life and way of regarding the universe; now, this is just what constitutes my personality, what honor and conscience forbid me to alienate, and which the State has promised me to protect. Consequently, when, through its additional article, it attempts to regulate these in a certain way, if that way is not my way, it fails to fulfill its primordial engagement and, instead of protecting me, it oppresses me. Even if it should have the support of a majority, even if all voters, less one, should agree to entrusting it with this supererogatory function, were there only one dissenter, he would be wronged, and in two ways.—
First of all, and in any event, the State, to fulfill its new tasks, exacts from him an extra amount of subsidy and service; for, every supplementary work brings along with it supplementary expenses; the budget is overburdened when the State takes upon itself the procuring of work for laborers or employment for artists, the maintenance of any particular industrial or commercial enterprise, the giving of alms, and the furnishing of education. To an expenditure of money add an expenditure of lives, should it enter upon a war of generosity or of propaganda. Now, to all these expenditures that it does not approve of, the minority contributes as well as the majority which does approve of them; so much the worse for the conscript and the tax-payer if they belong to the dissatisfied group. Like it or not, the collector puts his hand in the tax-payer's pocket, and the sergeant lays his hand on the conscript's collar.—
In the second place, and in many circumstances, not only does the State unjustly take more than its due, but it uses the money it has extorted from me to apply unjustly new constraints against me. Such is the case,
* when it imposes on me its theology or philosophy;
* when it prescribes for me, or interdicts, a cult;
* when it assumes to regulate my ways and habits,
* when it assumes to limit my labor or expenditure,
* when it assumes to direct the education of my children,
* when it assumes to fix the prices of my wares or the rate of my wages.
For then, to enforce its commands and prohibitions, it enacts light or serious penalties against the recalcitrant, all the way from political or civil incapacity to fines, imprisonment, exile and the guillotine. In other words, the money I do not owe it, and of which it robs me, pays for the persecution which it inflicts upon me; I am reduced to paying out of my own purse the wages of my inquisitors, my jailer and my executioner. A more glaring oppression could not be imagined!—Let us watch out for the encroachments of the State and not allow it to become anything more than a watch-dog. Whilst the teeth and nails of other guests in the household have been losing their sharpness, its fangs have become formidable; it is now colossal and it alone still keeps up the practice of fighting. Let us supply it with nourishment against wolves; but never let it touch peaceable folks around the table. Appetite grows by eating; it would soon become a wolf itself, and the most ravenous wolf inside the fold. The important thing is to keep a chain around its neck and confine it within its own enclosure.
The state is tempted to encroach.—Precedents and reasons
for its pretensions.
Let us go around the fold, which is an extensive one, and, through its extensions, reach into almost every nook of private life.—Each private domain, indeed, physical or moral, offers temptations for its neighbors to trespass on it, and, to keep this intact, demands the superior intervention of a third party. To acquire, to possess, to sell, to give, to bequeath, to contract between husband and wife, father, mother or child, between master or domestic, employer or employee, each act and each situation, involves rights limited by contiguous and adverse rights, and it is the State which sets up the boundary between them. Not that it creates this boundary; but, that this may be recognized, it draws the line and therefore enacts civil laws which it applies through its courts and gendarmes in such a way as to secure to each individual what belongs to him. The State stands, accordingly, as regulator and controller, not alone of private possessions, but also of the family and of domestic life; its authority is thus legitimately introduced into that reserved circle in which the individual will has entrenched itself, and, as is the habit of all great powers, once the circle is invaded, its tendency is to occupy it fully and entirely.—To this end, it invokes a new principle. Constituted as a moral personality, the same as a church, university, or charitable or scientific body, is not the State bound, like every corporate body that is to last for ages, to extend its vision far and near and prefer to private interests, which are only life-interests, the common interest (l'intérêt commun) which is eternal? Is not this the superior end to which all others should be subordinated, and must this interest, which is supreme over all, be sacrificed to two troublesome instincts which are often unreasonable and sometimes dangerous; to conscience, which overflows in mystic madness, and to honor, which may lead to strife even to murderous duels?—Certainly not, and first of all when, in its grandest works, the State, as legislator, regulates marriages, inheritances, and testaments, then it is not respect for the will of individuals which solely guides it; it does not content itself with obliging everybody to pay his debts, including even those which are tacit, involuntary and innate; it takes into account the public interest; it calculates remote probabilities, future contingencies, all results singly and collectively. Manifestly, in allowing or forbidding divorce, in extending or restricting what a man may dispose of by testament, in favoring or interdicting substitutions, it is chiefly in view of some political, economical or social advantage, either to refine or consolidate the union of the sexes, to implant in the family habits of discipline or sentiments of affection, to excite in children an initiatory spirit, or one of concord, to prepare for the nation a staff of natural chieftains, or an army of small proprietors, and always authorized by the universal assent. Moreover, and always with this universal assent, it does other things outside the task originally assigned to it, and nobody finds that it usurps when,
* it coins money,
* it regulates weights and measures,
* it establishes quarantines,
* on condition of an indemnity, it expropriates private property for public utility,
* it builds lighthouses, harbors, dikes, canals, roads,
* it defrays the cost of scientific expeditions,
* it founds museums and public libraries;
* at times, toleration is shown for its support of universities, schools, churches, and theaters, and, to justify fresh drafts on private purses for such objects, no reason is assigned for it but the common interest. (l'intérêt commun)—Why should it not, in like manner, take upon itself every enterprise for the benefit of all? Why should it hesitate in commanding the execution of every work advantageous to the community, and why abstain from forbidding every harmful work? Now please note that in human society every act or omission, even the most concealed or private, is either a loss or a gain to society. So if I neglect to take care of my property or of my health, of my intellect or of my soul, I undermine or weaken in my person a member of the community which can only be rich, healthy and strong through the wealth, health and strength of his fellow members, so that, from this point of view, my private actions are all public benefits or public injuries. Why then, from this point of view, should the State scruple about prescribing some of these to me and forbidding others? Why, in order to better exercise this right, and better fulfill this obligation, should it not constitute itself the universal contractor for labor, and the universal distributor of productions? Why should it not become the sole agriculturist, manufacturer and merchant, the unique proprietor and administrator of all France?—Precisely because this would be opposed to the common weal (l'intérêt de tous, the interest of everyone)2215. Here the second principle, that advanced against individual independence, operates inversely, and, instead of being an adversary, it becomes a champion. Far from setting the State free, it puts another chain around its neck, and thus strengthens the fence within which modern conscience and modern honor have confined the public guardian.
Direct common interest.—This consists in the absence of
constraint.—Two reasons in favor of freedom of action.—
Character, in general, of the individual man.—Modern
complication.
In what, indeed, does the common weal (l'intérêt de tous, the interest of everyone) consist?—In the interest of each person, while that which interests each person is the things of which the possession is agreeable and deprivation painful. The whole world would in vain gainsay this point; every sensation is personal. My suffering and my enjoyments are not to be contested any more than my inclination for objects which procure me the one, and my dislike of objects which procure me the other. There is, therefore, no arbitrary definition of each one's particular interest; this exists as a fact independently of the legislator; all that remains is to show what this interest is, and what each individual prefers. Preferences vary according to race, time, place and circumstance. Among the possessions which are ever desirable and the privation of which is ever dreaded, there is one, however, which, directly desired, and for itself, becomes, through the progress of civilization, more and more cherished, and of which the privation becomes, through the progress of civilization, more and more grievous. That is the disposition of one's self, the full ownership of one's body and property, the faculty of thinking, believing and worshipping as one pleases, of associating with others, of acting separately or along with others, in all senses and without hindrance; in short, one's liberty. That this liberty may as extensive as possible is, in all times, one of man's great needs, and, in our days, it is his greatest need. There are two reasons for this, one natural and the other historical.—
By nature Man is an individual, that is to say a small distinct world in himself, a center apart in an enclosed circle, a detached organism complete in itself and which suffers when his spontaneous inclinations are frustrated by the intervention of an outside force.
The passage of time has made him a complicated organism, upon which three or four religions, five or six civilizations, thirty centuries of rich culture have left their imprint; in which its acquisitions are combined together, wherein inherited qualities are crossbred, wherein special traits have accumulated in such a way as to produce the most original and the most sensitive of beings. As civilization increases, so does his complexity: with the result that man's originality strengthens and his sensitivity become keener; from which it follows that the more civilized he becomes, the greater his repugnance to constraint and uniformity.
At the present day, (1880), each of us is the terminal and peculiar product of a vast elaboration of which the diverse stages occur in this order but once, a plant unique of its species, a solitary individual of superior and finer essence which, with its own inward structure and its own inalienable type, can bear no other than its own characteristic fruit. Nothing could be more adverse to the interest of the oak than to be tortured into bearing the apples of the apple tree; nothing could be more adverse to the interests of the apple tree than to be tortured into bearing acorns; nothing could be more opposed to the interests of both oak and apple tree, also of other trees, than to be pruned, shaped and twisted so as all to grow after a forced model, delineated on paper according to the rigid and limited imagination of a surveyor. The least possible constraint is, therefore, everybody's chief interest; if one particular restrictive agency is established, it is that every one may be preserved by if from other more powerful constraints, especially those which the foreigner and evil-doer would impose. Up to that point, and not further, its intervention is beneficial; beyond that point, it becomes one of the evils it is intended to forestall. Such then, if the common weal is to be looked after, the sole office of the State is,
1. to prevent constraint and, therefore, never to use it except to prevent worse constraints;
2. to secure respect for each individual in his own physical and moral domain; never to encroach on this except for that purpose and then to withdraw immediately;
3. to abstain from all indiscreet meddling, and yet more, as far as is practicable, without any sacrifice of public security;
4. to reduce old assessments, to exact only a minimum of subsidies and services;
5. to gradually limit even useful action;
6. to set itself as few tasks as possible;
7. to let each one have all the room possible and the maximum of initiative;
8. to slowly abandon monopolies;
9. to refrain from competition with private parties;
10. to rid itself of functions which these private parties can fulfill equally well—and we see that the limits assigned to the State by the public interest (l'intérêt commun) correspond to those stipulated by duty and justice.
Indirect common interest.—This consists in the most
economical and most productive employment of spontaneous
forces.—Difference between voluntary labor and forced
labor.—Sources of man's spontaneous action. Conditions of
their energy, work and products.—Motives for leaving them
under personal control.—Extent of the private domain.
—Individuals might voluntarily extend it.—What is left
becomes the domain of the State.—Obligatory functions of
the State.—Optional functions of the State.
Let us now take into consideration, no longer the direct, but the indirect interest of all. Instead of considering individuals let us concern ourselves with their works. Let us regard human society as a material and spiritual workshop, whose perfection consists in making it as productive, economical, and as well furnished and managed as possible. Even with this secondary and subordinate aim, the domain of the State is scarcely to be less restricted: very few new functions are to be attributed to it; nearly all the rest will be better fulfilled by independent persons, or by natural or voluntary associations.—
Let us consider the man who works for his own benefit, the farmer, the manufacturer, the merchant, and observe how attentive he is to his business. This is because his interest and pride are involved. One side his welfare and that of those around him is at stake, his capital, his reputation, his social position and advancement; on the other side, are poverty, ruin, social degradation, dependence, bankruptcy and the alms-house. In the presence of this alternative he keeps close watch and becomes industrious; he thinks of his business even when abed or at his meals; he studies it, not from a distance, speculatively, in a general way, but on the spot, practically, in detail, in all its bearings and relationships, constantly calculating difficulties and resources, with such sharp insight and special information that for any other person to try to solve the daily problem which he solves, would be impossible, because nobody could possess or estimate as he can the precise elements which constitute it.—Compare with this unique devotion and these peculiar qualifications the ordinary capacity and listless regularity of a senior public official, even when expert and honest. He is sure of his salary, provided he does his duty tolerably well, and this he does when he is occupied during official hours. Let his papers be correct, in conformity with regulations and custom, and nothing more is asked of him; he need not tax his brain beyond that. If he conceives any economical measure, or any improvement of his branch of the service, not he, but the public, an anonymous and vague impersonality, reaps all the benefit of it. Moreover, why should he care about it, since his project or reform might end up in the archives. The machine is too vast and complicated, too unwieldy, too clumsy, with its rusty wheels, its "old customs and acquired rights," to be renewed and rebuilt as one might a farm, a warehouse or a foundry. Accordingly, he has no idea of troubling himself further in the matter; on leaving his office he dismisses it from his mind; he lets things go on automatically, just as it happens, in a costly way and with indifferent results. Even in a country of as much probity as France, it is calculated that every enterprise managed by the State costs one quarter more, and brings in one quarter less, than when entrusted to private hands. Consequently if work were withheld from individuals in order that the State might undertake it the community, when the accounts came to be balanced, would suffer a loss of one-half.2216
Now, this is true of all work, whether spiritual or material not only of agricultural, industrial and commercial products, but, again, of works of science and of art, of literature and philosophy, of charity, of education and propaganda. Not only when driven by egoism, such as personal interest and vulgar vanity, but also when a disinterested sentiment is involved, such the discovery of truth, the creation of beauty, the propagation of a faith, the diffusion of convictions, religious enthusiasm or natural generosity, love in a broad or a narrow sense, spanning from one who embraces all humanity to one who devotes himself wholly to his friends and kindred. The effect is the same in both cases, because the cause is the same. Always, in the shop directed by the free workman, the motivating force is enormous, almost infinite, because it is a living spring which flows at all hours and is inexhaustible. The mother thinks constantly of her child, the savant of his science, the artist of his art, the inventor of his inventions, the philanthropist of his endowments, Faraday of electricity, Stephenson of his locomotive, Pasteur of his microbes, De Lesseps of his isthmus, sisters of charity of their poor. Through this peculiar concentration of thought, man derives every possible advantage from human faculties and surroundings; he himself gets to be a more and more perfect instrument, and, moreover, he fashions others: with this he daily reduces the friction of the powerful machine which he controls and of which he is the main wheel; he increases its yield ; he economizes, maintains, repairs and improves it with a capability and success that nobody questions; in short, he fabricates in a superior way.—But this living source, to which the superiority of the works is due, cannot be separated from the owner and chief, for it issues from his own affections and deepest sentiments. It is useless without him; out of his hands, in the hands of strangers, the fountain ceases to flow and production stops.—If, consequently, a good and large yield is required, he alone must have charge of the mill; he is the resident owner of it, the one who sets it in motion, the born engineer, installed and specially designed for that position. In vain may attempts be made to turn the stream elsewhere; there simply ensues a stoppage of the natural issue, a dam barring useful canals, a haphazard change of current not only without gain, but loss, the stream subsiding in swamps or undermining the steep banks of a ravine. At the utmost, the millions of buckets of water, forcibly taken from private reservoirs, half fill with a good deal of trouble the great central artificial basin in which the water, low and stagnant, is never sufficient in quantity or force to move the huge public wheel that replaces the small private wheels, doing the nation's work.
Thus, even when we only consider men as manufactures, even if we treat them simply as producers of what is valuable and serviceable, with no other object in view than to furnish society with supplies and to benefit the consumers, even though the private domain includes all enterprises undertaken by private individuals, either singly or associated together, through personal interests or personal taste, then this is enough to ensure that all is managed better than the State could have done; it is by virtue of this that they have devolved into their hands. Consequently, in the vast field of labor, they themselves decide on what they will undertake; they themselves, of their own authority, set their own limits. They may therefore enlarge their own domain to any extent they please, and reduce indefinitely the domain of the State. On the contrary, the State cannot pretend to more than what they leave; as they advance on their common territory separated by vague frontiers, it is bound to recede and leave the ground to them; whatever the task is, it should not perform it except in case of their default, or their prolonged absence, or on proof of their having abandoned it.
All the rest, therefore falls to the State; first, the offices which they would never claim, and which they will deliberately leave in its hands, because they do not have that indispensable instrument, called armed force. This force forces assures the protection of the community against foreign communities, the protection of individuals against one another, the levying of soldiers, the imposition of taxes, the execution of the laws, the administration of justice and of the police.—Next to this, come matters of which the accomplishment concerns everybody without directly interesting any one in particular—the government of unoccupied territory, the administration of rivers, coasts, forests and public highways, the task of governing subject countries, the framing of laws, the coinage of money, the conferring of a civil status, the negotiating in the name of the community with local and special corporations, departments, communes, banks, institutions, churches, and universities.—Add to these, according to circumstances, sundry optional co-operative services,2217 such as subsidies granted to institutions of great public utility, for which private contributions could not suffice, now in the shape of concessions to corporations for which equivalent obligations are exacted, and, again, in those hygienic precautions which individuals fail to take through indifference; so occasionally, such provisional aid as supports a man, or so stimulates him as to enable him some day or other to support himself; and, in general, those discreet and scarcely perceptible interpositions for the time being which prove so advantageous in the future, like a far-reaching code and other consistent regulations which, mindful of the liberty of the existing individual, provide for the welfare of coming generations. Nothing beyond that.
Again, in this preparation for future welfare the same principle still holds.
Fabrication of social instruments.—Application of this
principle.—How all kinds of useful laborers are formed.—
Respect for spontaneous sources, the essential and adequate
condition.—Obligation of the State to respect these.—They
dry up when it monopolizes them.—The aim of patriotism.—
The aim of other liberal dispositions.—Impoverishment of
all the productive faculties.—Destructive effect of the
Jacobin system.
Among the precious products, the most precious and important are, evidently, the animated instruments, namely the men, since they produce the rest. The object then, is to fashion men capable of physical, mental or moral labor, the most energetic, the most persistent, the most skillful and most productive; now, we already know the conditions of their formation. It is essential and sufficient, that the vivacious sources, described above, should flow there, on the spot, each through its natural outlet, and under the control of the owner. On this condition the jet becomes more vigorous, for the acquired impetus increases the original outflow; the producer becomes more and more skillful, since 'practice makes perfect.' Those around him likewise become better workmen, inasmuch as they find encouragement in his success and avail themselves of his discoveries.—Thus, simply because the State respects, and enforces respect, for these individual sources in private hands, it develops in individuals, as well as in those around them, the will and the talent for producing much and well, the faculty for, and desire to, keep on producing more and better; in other words, all sorts of energies and capacities, each of its own kind and in its own place, with all compatible fullness and efficiency. Such is the office, and the sole office, of the State, first in relation to the turbid and frigid springs issuing from selfishness and self-conceit, whose operations demand its oversight, and next for still stronger reasons, in relation to the warm and pure springs whose beneficence is unalloyed, as in the family affections and private friendships; again, in relation to those rarer and higher springs, such as the love of beauty, the yearning for truth, the spirit of association, patriotism and love of mankind; and, finally, for still stronger reasons, in relation to the two most sacred and salutary of all springs, conscience which renders will subject to duty, and honor which makes will the support of justice. Let the State prevent, as well as abstain from, any interference with either; let this be its object and nothing more; its abstention is as necessary as its vigilance. Let it guard both, and it will see everywhere growing spontaneously, hourly, each in degree according to conditions of time and place, the most diligent and most competent workmen, the agriculturist, the manufacturer, the merchant, the savant, the artist, the inventor, the propagandist, the husband and wife, the father and mother, the patriot, the philanthropist and the sister of charity.
On the contrary, if, like our Jacobins, the State seeks to confiscate every natural force to its own profit, it seeks to make affection for itself paramount, if it strives to suppress all other passions and interests, if it tolerates no other preoccupation than that which concerns the common weal, if it tries to forcibly convert every member of society into a Spartan or Jesuit, then, at enormous cost, will it not only destroy private fountains, and spread devastation over the entire territory, but it will destroy its own fountain-head. We honor the State only for the services it renders to us, and proportionately to these services and the security it affords us, and to the liberty which it ensures us under the title of universal benefactor; when it deliberately wounds us through our dearest interests and most tender affections, when it goes so far as to attack our honor and conscience, when it becomes the universal wrong-doer, our affection for it, in the course of time, turns into hatred. Let this system be maintained, and patriotism, exhausted, dries up, and, one by one, all other beneficent springs, until, finally, nothing is visible over the whole country, but stagnant pools or overwhelming torrents, inhabited by passive subjects or depredators. As in the Roman empire in the fourth century, in Italy in the seventeenth century, in the Turkish provinces in our own day, naught remains but an ill-conducted herd of stunted, torpid creatures, limited to their daily wants and animal instincts, indifferent to the public welfare and to their own prospective interests, so degenerate as to have lost sight of their own discoveries, unlearned their own sciences, arts and industries, and, in short, and worse than all, base, false, corrupted souls entirely wanting in honor and conscience. Nothing is more destructive than the unrestricted meddling of the State, even when wise and paternal; in Paraguay, under the discipline of Jesuits, so minute in its details, "Indian physiognomy appeared like that of animals taken in a trap." They worked, ate, drank and gave birth by sound of bells, under watch and ward, correctly and mechanically, but showing no liking for anything, not even for their own existence, being transformed into so may automatons; at least it may be said is that the means employed to produce this result were gentle and that they, before their transformation were mere brutes. But those who the revolutionary-Jesuit now undertakes to transform into robots, and by harsh means, are human beings.
Comparison between despotisms.—Philip II and Louis XIV.—
Cromwell and Frederick the Great.—Peter the Great and the
Sultans.—Relationship between the tasks the Jacobins are to
carry out and the assets at their disposal.—Disproportion
between the burdens they are to carry and the forces at
their disposal.—Folly of their undertaking.—Physical force
the only governmental force they possess.—They are
compelled to exercise it.—They are compelled to abuse it.—
Character of their government.—Character requisite of their
leaders.
Several times, in European history, despotism almost equally harsh have born down heavily on human effort; but never have any of them been so thoroughly inept; for none have ever attempted to raise so heavy a mass with so short a lever. And to start with, no matter how authoritative the despot might have been, his intervention was limited.—Philip II. burned heretics, persecuted Moors and drove out Jews; Louis XIV. forcibly converted the Protestants; but both used violence only against dissenters, about a fifteenth or a twentieth of their subjects. If Cromwell, on becoming Protector, remained sectarian, and the compulsory servant of an army of sectarians, he took good care not to impose on other churches the theology, rites and discipline of his own church;2218 on the contrary, he repressed fanatical outrages; protected the Anabaptists as well as his Independents. He granted paid curates to the Presbyterians as well as the public exercise of their worship, he showed the Episcopalians a large tolerance and gave them the right to worship in private; he maintained the two great Anglican universities and allowed the Jews to erect a synagogue.—Frederick II. drafted into his army every able-bodied peasant that he could feed; he kept every man twenty years in the service, under a discipline worse than slavery, with almost certain prospect of death; and in his last war, he sacrificed about one sixth of his male subjects;2219 but they were serfs, and his conscription did not touch the bourgeois class. He put his hands in the pockets of the bourgeois and of every other man, and took every crown they had; when driven to it, he adulterated coin and stopped paying his functionaries; but, under the scrutiny of his eyes, always open, the administration was honest, the police effective, justice exact, toleration unlimited, and the freedom of the press complete; the king allowed the publication of the most cutting pamphlets against himself, and their public sale, even at Berlin.—A little earlier, in the great empire of the east, Peter the Great,2220 with whip in hand, lashed his Muscovite bears and made them drill and dance in European fashion; but were bears accustomed from father to son to the whip and chain; moreover, he stood as the orthodox head of their faith, and left their mir (the village commune) untouched.—Finally, at the other extremity of Europe, and even outside of Europe, in the seventh century the caliph, in the fifteenth century a sultan, a Mahomet or an Omar, a fanatical Arab or brutal Turk, who had just overcome Christians with the sword, himself assigned the limits of his own absolutism: if the vanquished were reduced to the condition of heavily ransomed tributaries and of inferiors daily humiliated, he allowed them their worship, civil laws and domestic usages; he left them their institutions, their convents and their schools; he allowed them to administer the affairs of their own community as they pleased under the jurisdiction of their patriarch, or other natural chieftains.—Thus whatever the tyrant may have been, he did not attempt to entirely recast Man, nor to subject all his subjects to the recasting. However penetrating the tyranny, it stopped in the soul at a certain point; that point reached, the sentiments were left free. No matter how comprehensive this tyranny may have been, it affected only one class of men; the others, outside the net, remained free. When it wounded all at once all sensitive chords, it did so only to a limited minority, unable to defend themselves. As far as the majority, able to protect itself, their main sensibilities were respected, especially the most sensitive, this one or that one, as the case might be, now the conscience which binds man to his religion, now that amour-propre on which honor depends, and now the habits which make man cling to customs, hereditary usages and outward observances. As far as the others were concerned, those which relate to property, personal welfare, and social position, it proceeded cautiously and with moderation. In this way the discretion of the ruler lessened the resistance of the subject, and a daring enterprise, even mischievous, was not outrageous; it might be carried out; nothing was required but a force in hand equal to the resistance it provoked.
Again, and on the other hand, the tyrant possessed this force. Very many and very strong arms stood behind the prince ready to cooperate with him and countervail any resistance.—Behind Philip II. or Louis XIV. ready to drive the dissidents out or at least to consent to their oppression, stood the Catholic majority, as fanatical or as illiberal as their king. Behind Philip II., Louis XIV., Frederick II., and Peter the Great, stood the entire nation, equally violent, rallied around the sovereign through his consecrated title and uncontested right, through tradition and custom, through a rigid sentiment of duty and the vague idea of public security.—Peter the Great counted among his auxiliaries every eminent and cultivated man in the country; Cromwell had his disciplined and twenty-times victorious army; the caliph or sultan brought along with him his military and privileged population.—Aided by cohorts of this stamp, it was easy to raise a heavy mass, and even maintain it in a fixed position. Once the operation was concluded there followed a sort of equilibrium; the mass, kept in the air by a permanent counterbalance, only required a little daily effort to prevent it from falling.
It is just the opposite with the Jacobin enterprise. When it is put into operation, the theory, more exacting, adds an extra weight to the uplifted mass, and, finally, a burden of almost infinite weight.—At first, the Jacobin confined his attacks to royalty, to nobility, to the Church, to parliaments, to privileges, to ecclesiastical and feudal possessions, in short, to medieval foundations. Then he attacks yet more ancient and more solid foundations, positive religion, property and the family.—For four years he has been satisfied with demolition and now he wants to construct. His object is not merely to do away with a positive faith and suppress social inequality, to proscribe revealed dogmas, hereditary beliefs, an established cult, the supremacy of rank and superiority of fortunes, wealth, leisure, refinement and elegance, but he wants, in addition to all this, to re-fashion the citizen. He wants to create new sentiments, impose natural religion on the individual, civic education, uniform ways and habits, Jacobin conduct, Spartan virtue; in short, nothing is to be left in a human being that is not prescribed, enforced and constrained.—Henceforth, there is opposed to the Revolution, not alone the partisans of the ancient régime—priests, nobles, parliamentarians, royalists, and Catholics—but, again, every person imbued with European civilization, every member of a regular family, any possessor of a capital, large or small; every kind or degree of proprietor, farmer, manufacturer, merchant, artisan or farmer, even most of the revolutionaries. Nearly all the revolutionaries count on escaping the constraints they impose, and who only like the strait jacket when it is on another's back.—The influence of resistant wills at this moment becomes incalculable: it would be easier to raise a mountain, and, just at this moment, the Jacobins have deprived themselves of every moral force through which a political engineer acts on human wills.
Unlike Philip II. and Louis XIV. they are not supported by the intolerance of a vast majority, for, instead of fifteen or twenty orthodox against one heretic, they count in their church scarcely more than one orthodox against fifteen or twenty heretics.2221—They are not, like legitimate sovereigns, supported by the stubborn loyalty of an entire population, following in the steps of its chieftain out of the prestige of hereditary right and through habits of ancient fealty. On the contrary, their reign is only a day old and they themselves are interlopers. At first installed by a coup d'état and afterwards by the semblance of an election, they have extorted or obtained by trick the suffrages through which they act. They are so familiar with fraud and violence that, in their own Assembly, the ruling minority has seized and held on to power by violence and fraud, putting down the majority by riots, and the departments by force of arms. To give their brutalities the semblance of right, they improvise two pompous demonstrations, first, the sudden manufacture of a paper constitution, which molders away in their archives, and next, the scandalous farce of a hollow and compulsory plebiscite.—A dozen leaders of the party concentrate unlimited authority in their own hands; but, as admitted by them, their authority is derivative; it is the Convention which makes them its delegates; their precarious title has to be renewed monthly; a turn of the majority may sweep them and their work away to-morrow; an insurrection of the people, whom they have familiarized with insurrection, may to-morrow sweep them away, their work and their majority.—They maintain only a disputed, limited and transient ascendancy over their adherents. They are not military chieftains like Cromwell and Napoleon, generals of an army obeyed without a murmur, but common stump-speakers at the mercy of an audience that sits in judgment on them. There is no discipline in this public; every Jacobin remains independent by virtue of his principles; if he accepts leaders, it is with a reservation of their worth to him; selecting them as he pleases, he is free to change them when he pleases; his trust in them is intermittent, his loyalty provisional, and, as his adhesion depends on a mere preference, he always reserves the right to discard the favorite of to-day as he has discarded the favorite of yesterday. In this audience, there is no such thing as subordination; the lowest demagogue, any noisy subaltern, a Hébert or Jacques Roux, aspiring to step out of the ranks, overbidding the charlatans in office in order to obtain their places. Even with a complete and lasting ascendancy over an organized band of docile supporters, the Jacobin leaders would be feeble for lack of reliable and competent instruments; for they have but very few partisans other than those of doubtful probity and of notorious incapacity.—Cromwell had around him, to carry out the puritan program, the moral élite of the nation, an army of rigorists, with narrow consciences, but much more strict towards themselves than towards others, men who never drank and who never swore, who never indulged for a moment in sensuality or idleness, who forbade themselves every act of omission or commission about which they held any scruples, the most honest, the most temperate, the most laborious and the most persevering of mankind,2222 the only ones capable of laying the foundations of that practical morality on which England and the United States still subsist at the present day.—Around Peter the Great, in carrying out his European program, stood the intellectual élite of the country, an imported staff of men of ability associated with natives of moderate ability, every well-taught resident foreigner and indigenous Russian, the only ones able to organize schools and public institutions, to set up a vast central and regular system of administration, to assign rank according to service and merit, in short, to erect on the snow and mud of a shapeless barbarism a conservatory of civilization which, transplanted like an exotic tree, grows and gradually becomes acclimated.—Around Couthon, Saint-Just, Billaud, Collot, and Robespierre, with the exception of certain men devoted, not to Utopianism but the country, and who, like Carnot, conform to the system in order to save France, there are but a few sectarians to carry out the Jacobin program. These are men so short-sighted as not to clearly comprehend its fallacies, or sufficiently fanatical to accept its horrors, a lot of social outcasts and self-constituted statesmen, infatuated through incommensurate faculties with the parts they play, unsound in mind and superficially educated, wholly incompetent, boundless in ambition, their consciences perverted, callous or deadened by sophistry, hardened through arrogance or killed by crime, by impunity and by success.
Thus, whilst other despots raise a moderate weight, calling around them either the majority or the flower of the nation, employing the best strength of the country and lengthening their lever (of despotism) as much as possible, the Jacobins attempt to raise an incalculable weight, repel the majority as well as the flower of the nation, discard the best strength of the country, and shorten their lever to the utmost. They hold on only to the shorter end, the rough, clumsy, iron-bound, creaking and grinding extremity, that is to say, to physical force,—the means for physical constraint, the heavy hand of the gendarme on the shoulder of the suspect, the jailer's bolts and keys turned on the prisoner, the club used by the sans-culottes on the back of the bourgeois to quicken his pace, and, better still, the Septembriseur's pike thrust into the aristocrat's belly, and the blade falling on the neck held fast in the clutches of the guillotine.—Such, henceforth, is the only machinery they posses for governing the country, for they have deprived themselves of all other. Their engine has to be exhibited, for it works only on condition that its bloody image be stamped indelibly on every body's imagination; if the Negro monarch or the pasha desires to see heads bowing as he passes along, he must be escorted by executioners. They must abuse their engine because fear losing its effect through habit, needs example to keep it alive; the Negro monarch or the pasha who would keep the fear alive by which he rules, must be stimulated every day; he must slaughter too many to be sure of slaughtering enough; he must slaughter constantly, in heaps, indiscriminately, haphazard, no matter for what offense, on the slightest suspicion, the innocent along with the guilty. He and his are lost the moment they cease to obey this rule. Every Jacobin, like every African monarch or pasha, must it that he may be and remain at the head of his band.—That is the reason why the chiefs of the party, its natural and pre-determined leaders, are theoreticians able to grasp its principle and logicians capable of drawing its consequences. They are, however, so inept as to be unable to understand that their enterprise exceeds both their own and all other human resources, but shrewd enough to see that brutal force is their only tool, inhuman enough to apply it unscrupulously and without reserve, and perverted enough to murder at random in order to disseminate terror.
2201 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXXII, 354. (Speech by Robespierre in the Convention, Floréal 18, year
II.) "Sparta gleams like a flash of lightening amidst profoundest
darkness".]
2202 (return)
[ Milos taken by the
Athenians; Thebes, after Alexander's victory; Corinth, after its capture
by the Romans.—In the Peloponnesian war, the Plateans, who surrender
at discretion, are put to death. Nicias is murdered in cold blood after
his defeat in Sicily. The prisoners at oegos-Potamos have their thumbs cut
off.]
2203 (return)
[ Fustel de Coulanges,
"La Cité Antique", ch. XVII.]
2204 (return)
[ Plato, "The Apology
of Socrates."—See also in the "Crito" Socrates' reasons for not
eluding the penalty imposed on him. The antique conception of the State is
here clearly set forth.]
2205 (return)
[ Cf. the code of Manu,
the Zendavesta, the Pentateuch and the Tcheou-Li. In this last code
(Biot's translation), will be found the perfection of the system,
particularly in vol. I., 241, 247, II., 393, III., 9, 11, 21, 52. "Every
district chief, on the twelfth day of the first moon, assembles together
the men of his district and reads to them the table of rules; he examines
their virtue, their conduct, their progress in the right path, and in
their knowledge, and encourages them; he investigates their errors, their
failings and prevents them from doing evil.... Superintendents of
marriages see that young people marry at the prescribed age." The
reduction of man to a State automaton is plain enough in the institution
of "Overseer of Gags..." At all grand hunts, at all gatherings of troops,
he orders the application of gags. In these cases gags are put in the
soldiers' mouths; they then fulfill their duties without tumult or
shouting."]
2206 (return)
[ These two words have
no exact equivalents in Greek or Latin, Conscientia, dignitas, honos
denote different shade of meaning. This difference is most appreciable in
the combination of the two modern terms delicate conscience, scrupulous
conscience, and the phrase of stake one's honour on this or that, make it
a point of honor, the laws of honor, etc. The technical terms of antique
morality: the beautiful, truthfulness, the sovereign good, indicate ideas
of another stamp and origin.]
2207 (return)
[ Alas, modern 20th
century democratic Man has given up honor and conscience, all he has got
to do is to be correct and follow the thousands of rules governing his
life. And, of course, make sure that he is following orders or sure of not
being caught when he breaks the natural rules of friendship, honor or
conscience. Conscience, on the other had, will always lurk somewhere in
the shadows of our mind, because we all know how we would like to be
treated by others, and will be forced not to transgress certain boundaries
in case an intended victim might be in a position to take his revenge.
That I am not alone in seeing things this way I noted in an interview with
the 79 year old French author Michel Déon in Le Figaro on the 16th of May
1998 in which Mr. Déon said: "Everywhere we are still in a nursery. A
great movement attempting to turn us all into half-wits (une grande
campagne de crétinisation est en route). When these are the only ones
left, the governments have an easy job. It is very clever." (SR.)]
2208 (return)
[ Montaigne, Essays,
book I., ch. 42: "Observe in provinces far from the court, in Brittany for
example, the retinue, the subjects, the duties, the ceremony, of a
seignior living alone by himself, brought up among his dependents, and
likewise observe the flights of his imagination, there is nothing which is
more royal; he may allude to his superior once a year, as if he were the
King of Persia... The burden of sovereignty scarcely affects the French
gentilhomme twice in his life... he who lurks in his own place avoiding
dispute and trial is as free as the Duke of Venice."]
2209 (return)
[ "Mémoires de
Chateaubriand," vol. I. ("Les Soirées au Chateau de Cambourg".)]
2210 (return)
[ In China, the moral
principle is just the opposite. The Chinese, amidst obstacles and
embarrassments, always enjoin siao-sin, which means, "abate thy
affections." (Huc, "L'Empire Chinoise," I., 204.)]
2211 (return)
[ In the United states
the moral order of things reposes chiefly on puritan ideas; nevertheless
deep traces of feudal conceptions are found there; for instance, the
general deference for women which is quite chivalric there, and even
excessive.]
2212 (return)
[ Observe, from this
point of view, in the woman of modern times the defenses of female virtue.
The (male) sentiment of duty is the first safeguard of modesty, but this
has a much more powerful auxiliary in the sentiment of honor, or deep
innate pride.]
2213 (return)
[ The moral standard
varies, but according to a fixed law, the same as a mathematical function.
Each community has its own moral elements, organization, history and
surroundings, and necessarily its peculiar conditions of vitality. When
the queen been in a hive is chosen and impregnated this condition involves
the massacre of useless male and female rivals (Darwin). In China, it
consists of paternal authority, literary education and ritual observances.
In the antique city, it consisted of the omnipotence of the State,
gymnastic education, and slavery. In each century, and in each country,
these vital conditions are expressed by more or less hereditary passwords
which set forth or interdict this or that class of actions. When the
individual feels the inward challenge he is conscious of obligation; the
moral conflict consists in the struggle within himself between the
universal password and personal desire. In our European society the vital
condition, and thus the general countersign, is self-respect coupled with
respect for others (including women and children). This countersign, new
in history, has a singular advantage over all preceding ones: each
individual being respected, each can develop himself according to his
nature; he can accordingly invent in every sense, bring forth every sort
of production and be useful to himself and others in every way, thus
enabling society to develop indefinitely.]
2214 (return)
[ Taine is probably
speaking of the colonial wars in China and the conquest of Madagascar.
(SR).]
2215 (return)
[ Here Taine is seeing
mankind as being male, strong and hardy; however I feel that liberty is
more desirable for the strong and confident while the child, the lost, the
sick, the ignorant or feeble person is looking for protection, reassurance
and guidance. When society consisted of strong independent farmers,
hunters, warriors, nomads or artisans backed by family and clan, liberty
was an important idea. Today few if any can rise above the horde and gain
the insights, the wisdom and the competence which once was such a common
thing. Today the strong seek promotion inside the hierarchy of the welfare
state rest-house. (S.R.)]
2216 (return)
[ This is just what
Lenin could not believe when he read this around 1906. Even Taine did not
see how much a French government organization depended upon staff
recruited from a hardworking, modest and honest French population. We have
now lived to see how the nationalization of private property in Egypt,
Argentina, Algeria not to speak of Ethiopia and India proved disastrous
and how 40 years of government ownership should degrade and corrupt the
populations of Russia, China, Yugoslavia, Albania etc. (SR).]
2217 (return)
[ When the function to
be performed is of an uncertain or mixed character the following rule may
be applied in deciding whether the State or individuals shall be entrusted
with it; also in determining, in the case of cooperation, what portion of
it shall be assigned to individuals and what portion to the State. As a
general rule, when individuals, either singly or associated together, have
a direct interest in, or are drawn toward, a special function, and the
community has no direct interest therein, the matter belongs to
individuals and not to the State. On the other hand, if the interest of
the community in any function is direct, and indirect for individuals
singly or associated together, it is proper for the State and not for
individuals to take hold of it.—According to this rule the limits of
the public and private domain can be defined, which limits, as they change
backward and forward, may be verified according to the changes which take
place in interests and preferences, direct or indirect.]
2218 (return)
[ Carlyle: "Cromwell's
Speeches and Letters," III., 418. (Cromwell's address to the Parliament,
September 17, 1656.)]
2219 (return)
[ Seeley, "Life and
Times of Stein," II., 143.—Macaulay, "Biographical essays,"
Frederick the Great. 33, 35, 87, 92.]
2220 (return)
[ Eugene Schuyler,
"Peter the Great," vol. 2.]
2221 (return)
[ Cf. "The Revolution"
vol. II., pp. 46 and 323, vol. III., ch I. Archives des Affaires
Etrangèrés. Vol. 332. (Letter by Thiberge, Marseilles, Brumaire 14, year
II.) "I have been to Marteygne, a small town ten leagues from Marseilles,
along with my colleague Fournet; I found (je trouvée) seventeen patriots
in a town of give thousand population."—Ibid., (Letter by Regulus
Leclerc, Bergues, Brumaire 15, year II.) At Bergues, he says, "the
municipality is composed of traders with empty stores and brewers without
beer since the law of the maximum." Consequently there is universal
lukewarmness, "only forty persons being found to form a popular club,
holding sessions as a favor every five days.... Public spirit at Bergues
is dead; fanaticism rules."—Archives Nationales, F7, 7164
(Department of Var, reports of year V. "General idea.")—"At
Draguignan, out of seven thousand souls, forty patriots, exclusifs,
despised or dishonest; at Vidauban, nine or ten exclusifs, favored by the
municipality and who live freely without their means being known; at
Brignolles, frequent robberies on the road by robbers said to have been
very patriotic in the beginning of the Revolution: people are afraid of
them and dare not name them; at Fréjus, nine leading exclusifs who pass
all their time in the cafe."—Berryat-Saint-Prix, "La Justice
Révolutionnaire," p. 146.—Brutus Thierry, grocer, member of the Rev.
Com. Of Angers, said that "in angers, there were not sixty
revolutionaries."]
2222 (return)
[ Macaulay. "History of
England," I., 152. "The Royalists themselves confessed that, in every
department of honest industry, the discarded warriors prospered beyond
other men, that none was charged with any theft or robbery, that none was
heard to ask an alms, and that, if a baker, a mason, or a waggoner
attracted notice by his diligence and sobriety, he was in all probability
one of Oliver's old soldiers."]
Marat.—Disparity between his faculties and pretensions.
—The Maniac.—The Ambitious delirium.—Rage for persecution.
—The permanent nightmare.—Homicidal frenzy.
Three men among the Jacobins, Marat, Danton and Robespierre, had deserved preeminence and held authority:—that is because they, due to a deformity or warping of their minds and their hearts, met the required conditions.—
Of the three, Marat is the most monstrous; he is nearly a madman, of which he displays the chief characteristics—furious exaltation, constant over-excitement, feverish restlessness, an inexhaustible propensity for scribbling, that mental automatism and single-mindedness of purpose constrained and ruled by a fixed idea. In addition to this, he displays the usual physical symptoms, such as insomnia, a pallid complexion, hot-headed, foulness of dress and person,3101 with, during the last five months of his life, rashes and itching all over his body.3102 Issuing from ill-matched stock, born of a mixed blood and tainted with serious moral agitation,3103 he carries within him a peculiar germ: physically, he is a freak, morally a pretender, and one who covet all places of distinction. His father, who was a physician, intended, from his early childhood, that he should be a scholar; his mother, an idealist, had prepared him to become a philanthropist, while he himself always steered his course towards both summits.
"At five years of age," he says, "it would have pleased me to be a school-master, at fifteen a professor, at eighteen an author, and a creative genius at twenty,"3104and, afterwards, up to the last, an apostle and martyr to humanity. "From my earliest infancy I had an intense love of fame which changed its object at various stages of my life, but which never left me for a moment." He rambled over Europe or vegetated in Paris for thirty years, living a nomadic life in subordinate positions, hissed as an author, distrusted as a man of science and ignored as a philosopher, a third rate political writer, aspiring to every sort of celebrity and to every honor, constantly presenting himself as a candidate and as constantly rejected,—too great a disproportion between his faculties and ambition! Without talents,3105 possessing no critical acumen and of mediocre intelligence, he was fitted only to teach some branch of the sciences, or to practice some one of the arts, either as professor or doctor more or less bold and lucky, or to follow, with occasional slips on one side or the other, some path clearly marked out for him. "But," he says, "I constantly refused any subject which did not hold out a promise.... of showing off my originality and providing great results, for I cannot make up my mind to treat a subject already well done by others."—Consequently, when he tries to originate he merely imitates, or commits mistakes. His treatise on "Man" is a jumble of physiological and moral common-places, made up of ill-digested reading and words strung together haphazard,3106 of gratuitous and incoherent suppositions in which the doctrines of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, coupled together, end in empty phraseology. "Soul and Body are distinct substances with no essential relationship, being connected together solely through the nervous fluid;" this fluid is not gelatinous for the spirits by which it is renewed contains no gelatin; the soul, excited by this, excites that; hence the place assigned to it "in the brain."—His "Optics"3107 is the reverse of the great truth already discovered by Newton more than a century before, and since confirmed by more than another century of experiment and calculation. On "Heat" and "Electricity" he merely puts forth feeble hypotheses and literary generalizations; one day, driven to the wall, he inserts a needle in a resin to make this a conductor, in which piece of scientific trickery he is caught by the physicist Charles.3108 He is not even qualified to comprehend the great discoverers of his age, Laplace, Monge, Lavoisier, or Fourcroy; on the contrary, he libels them in the style of a low rebellious subordinate, who, without the shadow of a claim, aims to take the place of legitimate authorities. In Politics, he adopts every absurd idea in vogue growing out of the "Contrat-Social" based on natural right, and which he renders still more absurd by repeating as his own the arguments advanced by those bungling socialists, who, physiologists astray in the moral world, derive all rights from physical necessities.
"All human rights issue from physical wants3109... If a man has nothing, he has a right to any surplus with which another gorges himself. What do I say? He has a right to seize the indispensable, and, rather than die of hunger, he may cut another's throat and eat his throbbing flesh.... Man has a right to self-preservation, to the property, the liberty and even the lives of his fellow creatures. To escape oppression he has a right to repress, to bind and to massacre. He is free to do what he pleases to ensure his own happiness."
It is plain enough what this leads to.—But, let the consequences be what they may, whatever he writes or does, it is always in self-admiration and always in a counter sense, being as vain-glorious of his encyclopedic impotence as he is of his social mischievousness. Taking his word for it, his discoveries in Physics will render him immortal3110:
"They will at least effect a complete transformation in Optics.... The true primitive colors were unknown before me."
He is a Newton, and still better. Previous to his appearance "the place occupied by the electrical fluid in nature, considered as an universal agent, was completely ignored. .. I have made it known in such a way as to leave no further doubt about it."3111 As to the heat-engendering fluid, "that substance unknown until my discovery, I have freed the theory from every hypothesis and conjecture, from every alembic argument; I have purged it of error, I have rendered it intuitive; I have written this out in a small volume which consigns to oblivion all that scientific bodies have hitherto published on that subject."3112 Anterior to his treatise on "Man," the relationships between moral and physics were incomprehensible. "Descartes, Helvetius, Hailer, Lecat, Hume, Voltaire, Bonnet, held this to be an impenetrable secret, 'an enigma.'" He has solved the problem, he has fixed the seat of the soul, he has determined the medium through which the soul communicates with the body.3113—In the higher sciences, those treating of nature generally, or of human society, he reaches the climax. "I believe that I have exhausted every combination of the human intellect in relation to morals, philosophy and political science."3114 Not only has he discovered the true theory of government, but he is a statesman, a practical expert, able to forecast the future and shape events. He makes predictions, on the average, twice a week, which always turn out right; he already claims, during the early sessions of the Convention, to have made "three hundred predictions on the leading points of the Revolution, all justified by the event."3115—In the face of the Constituents who demolish and reconstruct so slowly, he is sufficiently strong to take down, put up and complete at a moment's notice.
"If I were one of the people's tribunes3116 and were supported by a few thousand determined men, I answer for it that, in six weeks, the Constitution would be perfected, the political machine well agoing, and the nation free and happy. In less than a year there would be a flourishing, formidable government which would remain so as long as I lived."—If necessary, he could act as commander-in-chief of the army and always be victorious: having twice seen the Vendeans carry on a fight he would end the war "at the first encounter."3117—"If I could stand the march, I would go in person and carry out my views. At the head of a small party of trusty troops the rebels could be easily put down to the last man, and in one day. I know something of military art, and; without boasting, I can answer for success."—On any difficulty occurring, it is owing to his advice not having been taken; he is the great political physician: his diagnosis from the beginning of the Revolution is always correct, his prognosis infallible, his therapeutics efficacious, humane and salutary. He provides the panacea and he should be allowed to prescribe it; only, to ensure a satisfactory operation, he should himself administer the dose. Let the public lancet, therefore, be put in his hands that he may perform the humanitarian operation of bloodletting. "Such are my opinions. I have published them in my works. I have signed them with my name and I am not ashamed of it.... If you are not equal to me and able to comprehend me so much the worse for you."3118 In other words, in his own eyes, Marat is in advance of everybody else and, through his superior genius and character, he is the veritable savior.
Such are the symptoms by which medical men recognize immediately one of those partial lunatics who may not be put in confinement, but who are all the more dangerous;3119 the malady, as they would express it in technical terms, may be called the ambitious delirium, well known in lunatic asylums.—Two predispositions, one an habitually perverted judgment, and the other a colossal excess of self-esteem,3120 constitute its sources, and nowhere are both more prolific than in Marat. Never did a man with such diversified culture, possess such an incurably perverted intellect. Never did a man, after so many abortive speculations and such repeated malpractices, conceive and maintain so high an opinion of himself. Each of these two sources in him augments the other: through his faculty of not seeing things as they are, he attributes to himself virtue and genius; satisfied that he possesses genius and virtue, he regards his misdeeds as merits and his whims as truths.—Thenceforth, and spontaneously, his malady runs its own course and becomes complex; to the ambitious delirium comes the persecution mania. In effect, the evident or demonstrated truths which he advances should strike the public at once; if they burn slowly or miss fire, it is owing to their being stamped out by enemies or the envious; manifestly, they have conspired against him, and against him plots have never ceased. First came the philosophers' plot: when his treatise on "Man" was sent to Paris from Amsterdam, "they felt the blow I struck at their principles and had the book stopped at the custom-house."3121 Next came the plot of the doctors: "they ruefully estimated my enormous gains. Were it necessary, I could prove that they often met together to consider the best way to destroy my reputation." Finally, came the plot of the Academicians; "the disgraceful persecution I had to undergo from the Academy of Sciences for two years, after being satisfied that my discoveries on Light upset all that it had done for a century, and that I was quite indifferent about becoming a member of its body.... Would it be believed that these scientific charlatans succeeded in underrating my discoveries throughout Europe, in exciting every society of savants against me, and in closing against me all the newspapers?"3122—Naturally, the would-be-persecuted man defends himself, that is to say, he attacks. Naturally, as he is the aggressor, he is repulsed and put down, and, after creating imaginary enemies, he creates real ones, especially in politics where, on principle, he daily preaches insurrection and murder. And finally, he is of course prosecuted, convicted at the Chatelet court, tracked by the police, obliged to fly and wander from one hiding-place to another; to live like a bat "in a cellar, underground, in a dark dungeon;"3123 once, says his friend Panis, he passed "six weeks sitting on his behind" like a madman in his cell, face to face with his reveries.—It is not surprising that, with such a system, the reverie should become more intense, more and more gloomy, and, at last settle down into a confirmed nightmare; that, in his distorted brain, objects should appear distorted; that, even in full daylight men and things should seem awry, as in a magnifying, dislocating mirror; that, frequently, on the numbers (of his journal) appearing too blood-thirsty, and his chronic disease too acute, his physician should bleed him to arrest these attacks and prevent their return.3124
But it has become a habit: henceforth, falsehood grow in his brain as if it was their native soil; planting himself on the irrational he cultivates the absurd, even physical and mathematical. "If we include everyone;"3125 he says, "the patriotic tax-contribution of one-quarter of all income will produce, at the very least, 4,860 millions, and perhaps twice that sum." With this sum M. Necker may raise five hundred thousand men, which he calculates on for the subjugation of France.—Since the taking of the Bastille, "the municipality's waste alone amount to two hundred millions. The sums pocketed by Bailly are estimated at more than two millions; what 'Mottié' (Lafayette) has taken for the past two years is incalculable."3126—On the 15th of November, 1791, the gathering of emigrés comprises "at least 120,000 former gentlemen and drilled partisans and soldiers, not counting the forces of the German princes about to join them."3127—Consequently, as with his brethren in Bicêtre, (a lunatic asylum), he raves incessantly on the horrible and the foul: the procession of terrible or disgusting phantoms has begun.3128 According to him, the scholars who do not choose to admire him are fools, charlatans and plagiarists. Laplace and Monge are even "automatons," so many calculating machines; Lavoisier, "reputed father of every discovery causing a sensation in the world, has not an idea of his own;" he steals from others without comprehending them, and "changes his system as he changes his shoes." Fourcroy, his disciple and horn-blower, is of still thinner stuff. All are scamps: "I could cite a hundred instances of dishonesty by the Academicians of Paris, a hundred breaches of trust;" twelve thousand francs were entrusted to them for the purpose of ascertaining how to direct balloons, and "they divided it among themselves, squandering it at the Rapée, the opera and in brothels."3129—In the political world, where debates are battles, it is still worse. Marat's publication "The Friend of the people" has merely rascals for adversaries. Praise of Lafayette's courage and disinterestedness, how absurd If he went to America it was because he was jilted, "cast off by a Messalina;" he maintained a park of artillery there as "powder-monkeys look after ammunition-wagons; "these are his only exploits; besides, he is a thief. Bailly is also a thief, and Mabuet a "clown." Necker has conceived the "horrible project of starving and poisoning the people; he has drawn on himself for all eternity the execration of Frenchmen and the detestation of mankind."—What is the Constituent Assembly but a set of "low, rampant, mean, stupid fellows?"—"Infamous legislators, vile scoundrels, monsters athirst for gold and blood, you traffic with the monarch, with our fortunes, with our rights, with our liberties, with our lives!"—"The second legislative corps is no less rotten than the first one."—In the Convention, Roland, "the officious Gilles and the forger Pasquin, is the infamous head of the monopolizers." "Isnard is a juggler, Buzot a Tartuffe, Vergniaud a police spy."3130—When a madman sees everywhere around him, on the floor, on the walls, on the ceiling, toads, scorpions, spiders, swarms of crawling, loathsome vermin, he thinks only of crushing them, and the disease enters on its last stage: after the ambitious delirium, the mania for persecution and the settled nightmare, comes the homicidal mania.
With Marat, this broke out at the very beginning of the Revolution. The disease was innate; he was inoculated with it beforehand. He had contracted it in good earnest, on principle; never was there a plainer case of deliberate insanity.—On the one hand, having derived the rights of man from physical necessities, he concluded, "that society owes to those among its members who have no property, and whose labor scarcely suffices for their support, an assured subsistence, the wherewithal to feed, lodge and clothe oneself suitably, provision for attendance in sickness and when old age comes on, and for bringing up children. Those who wallow in wealth must (then) supply the wants of those who lack the necessaries of life." Otherwise, "the honest citizen whom society abandons to poverty and despair, reverts back to the state of nature and the right of forcibly claiming advantages which were only alienated by him to procure greater ones. All authority which is opposed to this is tyrannical, and the judge who condemns a man to death (through it) is simply a cowardly assassin."3131
Thus do the innumerable riots which the dearth excites, find justification, and, as the dearth is permanent, the daily riot is legitimate.—On the other hand, having laid down the principle of popular sovereignty he deduces from this, "the sacred right of constituents to dismiss their delegates;" to seize them by the throat if they prevaricate, to keep them in the right path by fear, and wring their necks should they attempt to vote wrong or govern badly. Now, they are always subject to this temptation.
"If there is one eternal truth of which it is important to convince man, it is that the mortal enemy of the people, the most to be dreaded by them, is the Government."—"Any minister who remains more than 2 days in office, once the ministry is able to plot against the country is 'suspect.' "3132—Bestir yourselves, then, ye unfortunates in town and country, workmen without work, street stragglers without fuel or shelter sleeping under bridges, prowlers along the highways, beggars, tattered vagabonds, cripples and tramps, and seize your faithless representatives!—On July 14th and October 5th and 6th, "the people had the right not only to execute some of the conspirators in military fashion, but to immolate them all, to put to the sword the entire body of royal satellites leagued together for our destruction, the whole herd of traitors to the country, of every condition and degree."3133 Never go to the Assembly, "without filling your pockets with stones and throwing them at the impudent scoundrels who preach monarchical maxims;" "I recommend to you no other precaution but that of telling their neighbors to look out."3134—"We do not demand the resignation of the ministers-we demand their heads. We demand the heads of all the cabinet officials in the Assembly, your mayor's, your general's, the heads of most of the staff-officers, of most of the municipal council, of the principal agents of the executive power in the kingdom. "—Of what use are half-way measures, like the sack of the hotel de Castries?3135
"Avenge yourselves wisely! Death! Death! is the sole penalty for traitors raging to destroy you It is the only one that strikes terror into them. Follow the example of your implacable enemies! Keep always armed, so that they may not escape through the delays of the law! Stab them on the spot or blow their brains out!"—"Twenty-four millions of men shout in unison: If the black, gangrened, archi-gangrened officials dare pass a bill reducing and reorganizing the army, citizens, then you build eight hundred scaffolds in the Tuileries garden and hang on them every traitor to his country—that infamous Riquetti, Comte de Mirabeau, at the head of them—and, at the same time, erect in the middle of the fountain basin a big pile of logs to roast the ministers and their tools!"3136—Could "the Friend of the People" rally around him two thousand men determined "to save the country, he would go and tear the heart out of that infernal Mottié in the very midst of his battalions of slaves; he would go and burn the monarch and his imps in his palace, impale the deputies on their benches, and bury them beneath the flaming ruins of their den."3137-On the first cannon shot being fired on the frontier,
"it is indispensable that the people should close the gates of the towns and unhesitatingly make way with every priest, public functionary and anti-revolutionary, known instigators and their accomplices."—"It would be wise for the people's magistrates to keep constantly manufacturing large quantities of strong, sharp, short-bladed, double-edged knives, so as to arm each citizen known as a friend of his country. Now, the art of fighting with these terrible weapons consists in this: Use the left arm as buckler, and cover it up to the arm-pit with a sleeve quilted with some woollen stuff, filled with rags and hair, and then rush on the enemy, the right hand wielding the knife."3138—Let us use these knives as soon as possible, for "what means are now remaining for us to put an end to the problems which overwhelm us? I repeat it, no other but executions by the people."3139—The Throne is at last down; but "be careful not to give way to false pity!.... No quarter! I advise you to decimate the anti-revolutionary members of the municipality, of the justices of the peace, of the members of the departments and of the National Assembly."3140—At the outset, a few lives would have sufficed: "five hundred heads ought to have fallen when the Bastille was taken, and all would then have gone on well." But, through lack of foresight and timidity, the evil was allowed to spread, and the more it spread the larger the amputation should have been.—With the sure, keen eye of the surgeon, Marat gives its dimensions; he has made his calculation beforehand. In September, 1792, in the Council at the Commune, he estimates forty thousand as the number of heads that should be laid low.3141 Six weeks later, the social abscess having enormously increased, the figures swell in proportion; he now demands two hundred and seventy thousand heads,3142 always on the score of humanity, "to ensure public tranquility," on condition that the operation be entrusted to him, as the temporary enforcer of the justice.—Except for this last point, the rest is granted to him; it is unfortunate that he could not see with his own eyes the complete fulfillment of his programme, the batches condemned by the revolutionary Tribunal, the massacres of Lyons and Toulon, the drownings of Nantes.—From the beginning to the end, he was in keeping with the Revolution, lucid on account of his blindness, thanks to his crazy logic, thanks to the concordance of his personal malady with the public malady, to the early manifestation of his complete madness in the midst of the incomplete or tardy madness of the rest, he alone steadfast, remorseless, triumphant, perched aloft at the first bound on the sharp pinnacle which his rivals dared not climb or only stumbled up.
Danton.—Richness of his faculties.—Disparity between his
condition and instincts.—The Barbarian.—His work.—His
weakness.
There is nothing of the madman about Danton; on the contrary, not only is his intellect sound, but he possesses political aptitudes to an eminent degree, and to such an extent that, in this particular, none of his associates or adversaries compare with him, while, among the men of the Revolution, only Mirabeau equals or surpasses him. He is an original, spontaneous genius and not, like most of his contemporaries, a disputatious, quill-driving theorist,3143 that is to say, a fanatical pedant, an artificial being composed of his books, a mill-horse with blinkers, and turning around in a circle without an issue. His free judgment is not hampered by abstract prejudices: he does not carry about with him a social contract, like Rousseau, nor, like Siéyès, a social art and cabinet principles or combinations;3144 he has kept aloof from these instinctively and, perhaps, through contempt for them; he had no need of them; he would not have known what to do with them. Systems are crutches for the impotent, while he is able-bodied; formulas serve as spectacles for the short-sighted, while his eyes are good. "He had read and meditated very little," says a learned and philosophical witness;3145 "his knowledge was scanty and he took no pride in investigation; but he observed and saw .. His native capacity, which was very great and not absorbed by other things, was naturally closed to vague, complex and false notions, and naturally open to every notion of experience the truth of which was made manifest." Consequently, "his perceptions of men and things, sudden, clear, impartial and true, were instinct with solid, practical discretion." To form a clear idea of the divergent or concordant dispositions, fickle or earnest, actual or possible, of different parties and of twenty-six millions of souls, to justly estimate probable resistances, and calculate available forces, to recognize and take advantage of the one decisive moment, to combine executive means, to find men of action, to measure the effect produced, to foresee near and remote contingencies, to regret nothing and take things coolly, to accept crimes in proportion to their political efficacy, to dodge before insurmountable obstacles, even in contempt of current maxims, to consider objects and men the same as an engineer contracting for machinery and calculating horse-power3146—such are the faculties of which he gave proof on the 10th of August and the 2nd of September, during his effective dictatorship between the 10th of August and the 21st of September, afterwards in the Convention, on the first Committee of Public Safety, on the 31st of May and on the 2nd of June:3147 we have seen him busy at work. Up to the last, in spite of his partisans, he has tried to diminish or, at least, not add to, the resistance the government had to overcome. Nearly up to the last, in spite of his adversaries, he tried to increase or, at least, not destroy the available forces of the government. In defiance of the outcries of the clubs, which clamor for the extermination of the Prussians, the capture of the King of Prussia, the overthrow of all thrones, and the murder of Louis XVI., he negotiated the almost pacific withdrawal of Brunswick;3148 he strove to detach Prussia from the coalition;3149 he wanted to turn a war of propaganda into one of interests;3150 he caused the Convention to pass the decree that France would not in any way interfere with foreign governments; he secured an alliance with Sweden; he prescribed beforehand the basis of the treaty of Basle, and had an idea of saving the King.3151 In spite of the distrust and attacks of the Girondists, who strove to discredit him and put him out of the way, he persists in offering them his hand; he declared war on them only because they refused to make peace,3152 and he made efforts to save them when they were down. Amidst so many ranters and scribblers whose logic is mere words and whose rage is blind, who grind out phrases like a hand-organ, or are wound up for murder, his intellect, always capacious and supple, went right to facts, not to disfigure and pervert them, but to accept them, to adapt himself to them, and to comprehend them. With a mind of this quality one goes far no matter in what direction; nothing remains but to choose one's path. Mandrin, under the ancient régime, was also, in a similar way, a superior man;3153 only he chose the highway.
Between the demagogue and the highwayman the resemblance is close: both are leaders of bands and each requires an opportunity to organize his band. Danton, to organize his band, needed the Revolution.—"Of low birth, without patronage," penniless, every office being filled, and "the Paris bar exorbitantly priced," admitted a lawyer after "a struggle," he for a long time wandered jobless frequenting the coffee-houses, the same as similar men nowadays frequent the bars. At the Café de l'École, the proprietor, a good natured old fellow "in a small round wig, gray coat and a napkin on his arm," circulated among his tables smiling blandly, while his daughter sat in the rear as cashier.3154 Danton chatted with her and demanded her hand in marriage. To obtain her, he had to mend his ways, purchase an attorneyship in the Court of the Royal Council and find guarantors and sponsors in his small native town.3155 Once married and lodged in the gloomy Passage du Commerce, he finds himself "more burdened with debts than with causes," tied down to a sedentary profession which demands vigorous application, accuracy, a moderate tone, a respectable style and blameless deportment; obliged to keep house on so small a scale that, without the help of a louis regularly advanced to him each week by his coffee-house father-in-law, he could not make both ends meet.3156 His free-and-easy tastes, his alternately impetuous and indolent disposition, his love of enjoyment and of having his own way, his rude, violent instincts, his expansiveness, creativeness and activity, all rebel against this life: he is ill-suited for the quiet routine of our civil careers. It is not the steady discipline of an old society, but the tumultuous brutality of a society going to pieces or in a state of formation, that suits him. In temperament and character he is a barbarian, and a barbarian born to command his fellow-creatures, like this or that vassal of the sixth century or baron of the tenth century. A giant with the face of a "Tartar," pitted with the small-pox, tragically and terribly ugly, with a mask convulsed like that of a growling "bull-dog,"3157 with small, cavernous, restless eyes buried under the huge wrinkles of a threatening brow, with a thundering voice and moving and acting like a combatant, full-blooded, boiling over with passion and energy. His strength in its outbursts appears boundless like a force of nature, when speaking he is roaring like a bull and be heard through closed windows fifty yards off in the street, employing immoderate imagery, intensely in earnest, trembling with indignation, revenge and patriotic sentiments, able to arouse savage instincts in the most tranquil breast and generous instincts in the most brutal personalities.3158 He may be profane, using emphatic terms,3159 cynical, but not monotonous and affected like Hébert, but spontaneous and to the point, full of crude jests worthy of Rabelais, possessing a stock of jovial sensuality and good-humor, cordial and familiar in his ways, frank, friendly in tone. He is, both outwardly and inwardly, the best fitted for winning the confidence and sympathy of a Gallic, Parisian populace. His talents all contribute to "his inborn, practical popularity," and to make of him "a grand-seignior of sans-cullotterie."3160—With such talents for acting, there is a strong temptation to act it out the moment the theatre is ready, whatever the theatre, even unlawful and murky, whatever the actors rogues, scoundrels and loose women, whatever the part, ignoble, murderous, and finally fatal to him who undertakes it.—To hold out against such temptation, would require a sentiment of repugnance which a refined or thorough culture develops in both sense and mind, but which was completely wanting in Danton. Nothing disgusts him physically or morally: he embraces Marat,3161 fraternizes with drunkards, congratulates the Septembriseurs, retorts in blackguard terms to the insults of prostitutes, treats reprobates, thieves and jail-birds as equals,—Carra, Westermann, Huguenin, Rossignol and the confirmed scoundrels whom he sends into the departments after the 2nd of September.
"Eh! What the hell! Do you think we ought to send young misses." 3162 Garbage men are needed for the collection of garbage; one cannot hold one's nose when they come for their wages; one must pay them well, talk to them encouragingly, and leave them plenty of elbow room. Danton is willing to play the part of the fire, and he humors vices; he has no scruples, and lets people scratch and take.—He has stolen as much to give as to keep, to maintain his role as much as to benefit by it, squaring accounts by spending the money of the Court against the Court, probably inwardly chuckling, the same as the peasant in a blouse on getting ahead of his well-duped landlord, or as the Frank, whom the ancient historian describes as leering on pocketing Roman gold the better to make war against Rome.—The graft on this plebeian seedling has not taken; in our modern garden this remains as in the ancient forest; its vigorous sap preserves its primitive raciness and produces none of the fine fruits of our civilization, a moral sense, honor and conscience. Danton has no respect for himself nor for others; the nice, delicate limitations that circumscribe human personality, seem to him as legal conventionality and mere drawing-room courtesy. Like a Clovis, he tramples on this, and like a Clovis, equal in faculties, in similar expedients, and with a worse horde at his back, he throws himself athwart society, to stagger along, destroy and reconstruct it to his own advantage.
At the start, he comprehended the peculiar character and normal procedure of the Revolution, that is to say, the useful agency of popular brutality: in 1788 he had already figured in insurrections. He comprehended from the first the ultimate object and definite result of the Revolution, that is to say, the dictatorship of the violent minority. Immediately after the 14th of July," 1789, he organized in his quarter of the city3163 a small independent republic, aggressive and predominant, the center of the faction, a refuge for the riff-raff and a rendezvous for fanatics, a pandemonium composed of every available madcap, every rogue, visionary, shoulder-hitter, newspaper scribbler and stump-speaker, either a secret or avowed plotter of murder, Camille Desmoulins, Fréron, Hébert, Chaumette, Clootz, Théroigne, Marat,—while, in this more than Jacobin State, the model in anticipation of that he is to establish later, he reigns, as he will afterwards reign, the permanent president of the district, commander of the battalion, orator of the club, and the concocter of bold undertakings. Here, usurpation is the rule there is no recognition of legal authority; they brave the King, the ministers, the judges, the Assembly, the municipality, the mayor, the commandant of the National Guard. Nature and principle raise them above the law; the district takes Marat under its protection, posts two sentinels at his door to protect him from prosecutions, and uses arms against the armed force sent with a warrant to arrest him.3164 yet more, in the name of the city of Paris, "chief sentinel of the nation," they assume to govern France: Danton betakes himself to the National Assembly and declares that the citizens of Paris are the natural representatives of the eighty-three departments, and summons it, on their injunction, to cancel an act it has passed.3165—The entire Jacobin conception is therein expressed: Danton, with his keen insight, took it all in and proclaimed it in appropriate terms; to apply it at the present time on a grand scale,3166 he has merely to pass from the small theatre to the large one, from the Cordeliers club to the Commune, to the Ministry, and the Committee of Public Safety, and, in all these theatres, he plays the same part with the same end in view and the same results. A despotism formed by conquest and maintained by terror, the despotism of the Jacobin Parisian rabble, is the end to which he directly marches. He employs no other means and, adapting the means to the end and the end to the means, manages the important days and instigates the decisive measures of the Revolution: the 10th of August,3167 the 2nd of September, the 31st of May, the 2nd of June;3168 the decree providing for an army of paid sans-culottes "to keep down aristocrats with their pikes;" the decree in each commune where grain is dear, taxing the rich to put bread within reach of the poor;3169 the decree giving laborers forty sous for attending the meetings of the Section Assemblies;3170 the institution of the revolutionary Tribunal;3171 the proposal to erect the Committee of Public Safety into a provisional government; the proclamation of Terror; the concentration of Jacobin zeal on useful works; the employment of the eight thousand delegates of the primary assemblies, who had been sent home as recruiting agents for the universal armament;3172 the inflammatory expressions of young men on the frontier; the wise resolutions for limiting the levy en masse to men between eighteen and twenty-five, which put an end to the scandalous songs and dances by the populace in the very hall of the Convention.3173
In order to set the machine up, he cleared the ground, fused the metal, hammered out the principal pieces, filed off the blisters, designed the action, adjusted the minor wheels, set it agoing and indicated what it had to do, and, at the same time, he forged the armor which guarded it against strangers and outside violence. The machine being his, why, after constructing it, did he not serve as its engineer?
Because, if competent to construct it, he was not qualified to manage it. In a crisis, he may give a helping hand, win the support of an assembly or a mob, direct, high-handedly and for a few weeks, an executive committee. But regular, persistent labor is repugnant to him; he is not made for bookkeeping,3174 for paper and administrative work. Never, like Robespierre and Billaud can he attend to both official and police duties at the same time, carefully reading minute daily reports, annotating mortuary lists, extemporizing ornate abstractions, coolly enunciating falsehoods and acting out the patient, satisfied inquisitor; and especially, he can never become the systematic executioner.—On the one hand, his eyes are not obscured by the gray veil of theory: he does not regard men through the "Contrat-Social" as a sum of arithmetical units,3175 but as they really are, living, suffering, shedding their blood, especially those he knows, each with his peculiar physiognomy and demeanor. Compassion is excited by all this when one has any feeling, and he had. Danton had a heart; he had the quick sensibilities of a man of flesh and blood stirred by the primitive instincts, the good ones along with the bad ones, instincts which culture had neither impaired nor deadened, which allowed him to plan and permit the September massacre, but which did not allow him to practice daily and blindly, systematic and wholesale murder. Already in September, "cloaking his pity under his bellowing,"3176 he had shielded or saved many eminent men from the butchers. When the axe is about to fall on the Girondists, he is "ill with grief" and despair. "I am unable to save them," he exclaimed, " and big tears streamed down his cheeks."—On the other hand, his eyes are not covered by the bandage of incapacity or lack of fore-thought. He detected the innate vice of the system, the inevitable and approaching suicide of the Revolution.
"The Girondists forced us to throw ourselves upon the sans-culotterie which has devoured them, which will devour us, and which will eat itself up."3177—"Let Robespierre and Saint-Just alone, and there will soon be nothing left in France but a Thebiad of political Trappists."3178—At the end, he sees more clearly still:
"On a day like this I organized the Revolutionary Tribunal: I ask pardon for it of God and man.—In Revolutions, authority remains with the greatest scoundrels.—It is better to be a poor fisherman than govern men."3179
But he has aspired to govern them; he constructed a new machine for the purpose, and, deaf to its squeals, it worked in conformity with the structure and the impulse he gave to it. It towers before him, this sinister machine, with its vast wheel and iron cogs grinding all France, their multiplied teeth pressing out each individual life, its steel blade constantly rising and falling, and, as it plays faster and faster, daily exacting a larger and larger supply of human material, while those who furnish this supply are held to be as insensible and as senseless as itself. This Danton cannot, will not be.—He gets out of the way, diverts himself, gambles,3180 forgets; he supposes that the titular decapitators will probably consent to take no notice of him; in any event they do not pursue him; "they would not dare do it." "No one must lay hands on me, I am the ark." At the worst, he prefers "to be guillotined rather than guillotine."—Having said or thought this, he is ripe for the scaffold.
Robespierre.—Mediocrity of his faculties.—The Pedant.
—Absence of ideas.—Study of phrases.—Wounded self-esteem.
—His infatuation.—He plays victim.—His gloomy fancies.—His
resemblance to Marat.—Difference between him and Marat.
—The sincere hypocrite.—The festival in honor of the Supreme
Being, and the law of Prairial 22.—The external and
internal characters of Robespierre and the Revolution.
Even with the firm determination to remain decapitator-in-chief, Danton could never be a perfect representative of the Revolution. It is an armed but philosophical robbery; its creed includes robbery and assassination, but only as a knife in its sheath; the showy, polished sheath is for public display, and not the sharp and bloody blade. Danton, like Marat, lets the blade be too plainly visible. At the mere sight of Marat, filthy and slovenly, with his livid, frog-like face, with his round, gleaming and fixed eyeballs, and his bold, maniacal stare and steady monotonous rage, common-sense rebels; no-one selects a homicidal maniac as a guide. At the mere sight of Danton, with his porter's vocabulary, his voice like an alarm bell of insurrection, his cyclopean features and air of an exterminator, humanity takes alarm; one does not surrender oneself to a political butcher without repugnance. The Revolution demands another interpreter, like itself captivatingly fitted out, and Robespierre fits the bill,3181 with his irreproachable attire, well-powdered hair, carefully brushed coat,3182 strict habits, dogmatic tone, and formal, studied manner of speaking. No mind, in its mediocrity and incompetence, so well harmonizes with the spirit of the epoch. The reverse of the statesman, he soars in empty space, amongst abstractions, always mounted on a principle and incapable of dismounting so as to see things practically.
"That bastard there," exclaims Danton, "is not even able to boil an egg!"
"The vague generalities of his preaching," writes another contemporary,3183 "rarely culminated in any specific measure or legal provision. He combated everything and proposed nothing; the secret of his policy happily accorded with his intellectual impotence and with the nullity of his legislative conceptions." Once he has rattled his revolutionary pedantry off, he no longer knows what to say.—As to financial matters and military art, he knows nothing and risks nothing, except to underrate or calumniate Carnot and Cambon who did know and who took risks.3184—In relation to a foreign policy his speech on the state of Europe is the amplification of a schoolboy; on exposing the plans of the English minister he reaches the pinnacle of chimerical nonsense;3185 eliminate the rhetorical passages, and it is not the head of a government who speaks, but the porter of the Jacobin club. On contemporary France, as it actually exists, he has not one sound or specific idea: instead of men, he sees only twenty-six millions simple robots, who, when duly led and organized, will work together in peace and harmony. Basically they are good,3186 and will, after a little necessary purification, become good again. Accordingly, their collective will is "the voice of reason and public interest," hence, on meeting together, they are wise. "The people's assembly of delegates should deliberate, if possible, in the presence of the whole body of the people;" the Legislative body, at least, should hold its sittings "in a vast, majestic edifice open to twenty thousand spectators." Note that for the past four years, in the Constituent Assembly, in the Legislative Assembly, in the Convention, at the Hotel de-Ville, in the Jacobin Club, wherever Robespierre speaks, the galleries have never ceased to shout, yell and express their opinion. Such a positive, palpable experience would open anybody's eyes; his are closed through prejudice or interest; even physical truth finds no access to his mind, because he is unable to comprehend it, or because he has to keep it out. He must, accordingly, be either obtuse or a charlatan. Actually he is both, for both combine to form the pedant (cuistre), that is to say, the hollow, inflated mind which, filled with words and imagining that these are ideas, revels in its own declamation and dupes itself that it may dictate to others.
Such is his title, his personality and role. In this artificial and declamatory tragedy of the Revolution he takes the leading part; the maniac and the barbarian slowly retire in the background on the appearance of the cuistre; Marat and Danton finally become effaced, or efface themselves, and the stage is left to Robespierre who attracts all the attention.3187—If we want to understand him we must look at him as he stands in the midst of his surroundings. At the last stage of a dying intellectual vegetation, on the last branch of the eighteenth century, he is the final freak and dried fruit of the classical spirit.3188 He has retained nothing of a worn-out system of philosophy but its lifeless dregs and well-conned formulae, the formulae of Rousseau, Mably, and Raynal, concerning "the people, nature, reason, liberty, tyrants, factions, virtue, morality," a ready-made vocabulary,3189 expressions too ample, the meaning of which, ill-defined by the masters, evaporates in the hands of the disciple. He never tries to get at this; his writings and speeches are merely long strings of vague abstract periods; there is no telling fact in them, no distinct, characteristic detail, no appeal to the eye evoking a living image, no personal, special observation, no clear, frank original impression. It might be said of him that he never saw anything with his own eyes, that he neither could nor would see, that false conceptions have intervened and fixed themselves between him and the object;3190 he combines these in logical sequence, and simulates the absent thought by an affected jargon, and this is all. The other Jacobins alongside of him likewise use the same scholastic jargon; but none of them spout and spread out so complacently and lengthily as he. For hours, we grope after him in the vague shadows of political speculation, in the cold and perplexing mist of didactic generalities, trying in vain to make something out of his colorless tirades, and we grasp nothing.3191 When we, in astonishment, ask ourselves what all this talk amounts to, and why he talks at all; the answer is, that he has said nothing and that he talks only for the sake of talking, the same as a sectarian preaching to his congregation, neither the preacher nor his audience ever wearying, the one of turning the dogmatic crank, and the other of listening. So much the better if the container is empty; the emptier it is the easier and faster the crank turns. And better still, if the empty term he selects is used in a contrary sense; the sonorous words justice, humanity, mean to him piles of human heads, the same as a text from the gospels means to a grand inquisitor the burning of heretics.—Through this extreme perversity, the cuistre spoils his own mental instrument; thenceforth he employs it as he likes, as his passions dictate, believing that he serves truth in serving these.
Now, his first passion, his principal passion, is literary vanity. Never was the chief of a party, sect or government, even at critical moments, such an incurable, insignificant rhetorician, so formal, so pompous, and so dull.—On the eve of the 9th of Thermidor, when it was a question of life or death, he enters the tribune with a set speech, written and re-written, polished and re-polished,3192 overloaded with studied ornaments and bits for effect,3193 coated by dint of time and labor, with the academic varnish, the glitter of symmetrical antitheses, rounded periods, exclamations, omissions, apostrophes and other tricks of the pen.3194—In the most famous and important of his reports,3195 I have counted eighty-four instances of personifications3196 imitated from Rousseau and the antique, many of them largely expanded, some addressed to the dead, to Brutus, to young Barra, and others to absentees, priests, and aristocrats, to the unfortunate, to French women, and finally to abstract substantives like Liberty and Friendship. With unshaken conviction and intense satisfaction, he deems himself an orator because he harps on the same old tune. There is not one true tone in his elaborate eloquence, nothing but recipes and only those of a worn-out art, Greek and Roman common-places, Socrates and the hemlock, Brutus and his dagger, classic metaphors like "the flambeaux of discord," and "the vessel of State,"3197s coupled together and beauties of style which a pupil in rhetoric aims at on the college bench;3198times a grand bravura air, so essential for parade in public;3199 centimes a delicate strain of the flute, for, in those days, one must have a tender heart;31100 in short, Marmontel's method in "Belisarius," or that of Thomas in his "Eloges," all borrowed from Rousseau, but of inferior quality, like a sharp, thin voice strained to imitate a rich, powerful voice. All is a sort of involuntary parody, and the more repulsive because a word ends in a blow, because a sentimental, declamatory Trissotin poses as statesman, because the studied elegance of the closet become pistol shots aimed at living breasts, because an epithet skillfully directed sends a man to the guillotine.—The contrast is too great between his talent and the part he plays. With such a talent, as mediocre and false as his intellect, there is no employment for which he is less suited than that of governing men; he was cut out for another, which, in a peaceable community, he would have been able to do. Suppress the Revolution, and Marat would have probably ended his days in an asylum. Danton might possibly have become a legal filibuster, a highwayman or gangster, and finally throttled or hung. Robespierre, on the contrary, might have continued as he began,31101 a busy, hard-working lawyer of good standing, member of the Arras Academy, winner of competitive prizes, author of literary eulogies, moral essays and philanthropic pamphlets; his little lamp, lighted like hundreds of others of equal capacity at the focus of the new philosophy, would have burned moderately without doing harm to any one, and diffused over a provincial circle a dim, commonplace illumination proportionate to the little oil his lamp would hold.
But the Revolution bore him into the Constituent Assembly, where, for a long time on this great stage, his amour propre, the dominant feeling of the pedant, suffered terribly. He had already suffered on this score from his earliest youth, and his wounds being still fresh made him only the more sensitive.—Born in Arras in 1758, orphaned and poor, protégé of his bishop, a bursar through favor at the college Louis-le-Grand, later a clerk with Brissot under the revolutionary system of law-practice, and at length settled down in his gloomy rue des Rapporteurs as a pettifogger. Living with a bad-tempered sister, he has adopts Rousseau, whom he had once seen and whom he ardently studies, for his master in philosophy, politics and style. Fancying, probably, like other young men of his age and condition, that he could play a similar part and thus emerge from his blind alley, he published law pleadings for effect, contended for Academy prizes, and read papers before his Arras colleagues. His success was moderate: one of his harangues obtained a notice in the Artois Almanac; the Academy of Metz awarded him only a second prize; that of Amiens gave him no prize, while the critic of the "Mercure" spoke of his style as smacking of the provinces.—In the National Assembly, eclipsed by men of great and spontaneous ability, he remains a long time in the shade, and, more than once, through obstination or lack of tact, makes himself ridiculous. With his sharp, thin, attorney's visage, "dull, monotonous, coarse voice and wearisome delivery,"—"an artesian accent" and constrained air,31102 his constantly putting himself forward, his elaboration of commonplaces, his evident determination to impose on cultivated people, still a body of intelligent listeners, and the intolerable boredom he caused them—all this is not calculated to render the Assembly indulgent to errors of sense and taste.31103 One day, referring to certain acts of the "Conseil:" "It is necessary that a noble and simple formula should announce national rights and carry respect for law into the hearts of the people. Consequently, in the decrees as promulgated, after the words Louis, by the grace of God," etc., these words should follow:
"People, behold the law imposed on you! Let this law be considered sacred and inviolable for all!" Upon this, a Gascon deputy arises and remarks in his southern accent, "Gentlemen, this style is unsuitable—there is no need for sermons.31104 (cantique)."
General laughter; Robespierre keeps silent and bleeds internally: two or three such mishaps nettle such a man from head to foot. It is not that his stupid remarks seem silly to him; no pedant taken in the act and hissed would avow that he deserved such treatment; on the contrary, he is content to have spoken as becomes a philosophic and moral legislator, and so much the worse for the narrow minds and corrupt hearts unable to comprehend him.—Thrown back upon himself, his wounded vanity seeks inward nourishment and takes what it can find in the sterile uniformity of his bourgeois moderation. Robespierre, unlike Danton, has no cravings. He is sober; he is not tormented by his senses; if he gives way to them, it is only no further than he can help, and with a bad grace. In the rue Saintonge in Paris, "for seven months," says his secretary,31105 "I knew of but one woman that he kept company with, and he did not treat her very well. .. very often he would not let her enter his room": when busy, he must not be disturbed. He is naturally steady, hard-working, studious and fond of seclusion, at college a model pupil, at home in his province an attentive advocate, a punctual deputy in the Assembly, everywhere free of temptation and incapable of going astray.—"Irreproachable" is the word which from early youth an inward voice constantly repeats to him in low tones to console him for obscurity and patience. Thus has he ever been, is now, and ever will be; he says this to himself, tells others so, and on this foundation, all of a piece, he builds up his character. He is not, like Desmoulins, to be seduced by dinners, like Barnave, by flattery, like Mirabeau and Danton, by money, like the Girondists, by the insinuating charm of ancient politeness and select society, like the Dantonists, by the bait of joviality and unbounded license—he is the incorruptible. He is not to be deterred or diverted, like the Feuillants, Girondists, and Dantonists, like statesmen or specialists, by considerations of a lower order, by regard for interests or respect for acquired positions, by the danger of undertaking too much at once, by the necessity of not disorganizing the service and of giving play to human passions, motives of utility and opportunity: he is the uncompromising champion of the right.31106 "Alone, or nearly alone, I do not allow myself to be corrupted; alone or nearly alone, I do not compromise justice; which two merits I possess in the highest degree. A few others may live correctly, but they oppose or betray principles; a few others profess to have principles, but they do not live correctly. No one else leads so pure a life or is so loyal to principles; no one else joins to so fervent a worship of truth so strict a practice of virtue: I am the unique."—What can be more agreeable than this mute soliloquy? From the very first day it can be heard toned down in Robespierre's address to the Third-Estate of Arras;31107 the last day it is spoken aloud in his great speech in the Convention;31108 during the interval, it crops out and shines through all his compositions, harangues, or reports, in exordiums, parentheses and perorations, permeating every sentence like the drone of a bag-pipe.31109—Through the delight he takes in this he can listen to nothing else, and it is just here that the outward echoes supervene and sustain with their accompaniment the inward cantata which he sings to his own glory. Towards the end of the Constituent Assembly, through the withdrawal or the elimination of every man at all able or competent, he becomes one of the conspicuous tenors on the political stage, while in the Jacobin Club he is decidedly the tenor most in vogue.—"Unique competitor of the Roman Fabricius," writes the branch club at Marseilles to him; "immortal defender of popular rights," says the Jacobin crew of Bourges.31110 One of two portraits of him in the exhibition of 1791 bears the inscription: "The Incorruptible." At the Moliere Theatre a drama of the day represents him as launching the thunderbolts of his logic and virtue at Rohan and Condé. On his way, at Bapaume, the patriots of the place, the National Guard on the road and the authorities, come in a body to honor the great man. The town of Arras is illuminated on his arrival. On the adjournment of the Constituent Assembly the people in the street greet him with shouts, crown him with oak wreaths, take the horses from his cab and drag him in triumph to the rue St. Honoré, where he lodges with the carpenter Duplay.—Here, in one of those families in which the semi-bourgeois class borders on the people, whose minds are unsophisticated, and on whom glittering generalities and oratorical tirades take full hold, he finds his worshippers; they drink in his words; they have the same opinion of him that he has of himself; to every person in the house, husband, wife and daughter, he is the great patriot, the infallible sage; he bestows benedictions night and morning; he inhales clouds of incense; he is a god at home. The faithful, to obtain access to him form a line in the court.31111 One by one they are admitted into the reception room, where they gather around portraits of him drawn with pencil, in stump, in sepia and in water color, and before miniature busts in red or gray plaster. Then, on the signal being given by him, they penetrate through a glass door into the sanctuary where he presides, into the private closet in which the best bust of him, with verses and mottoes, replaces him during his absence.—His worshippers adore him on their knees, and the women more than the men. On the day he delivers his apology before the Convention "the passages are lined with women31112.... seven or eight hundred of them in the galleries, and but two hundred men at most;" and how frantically they cheer him! He is a priest surrounded by devotees."31113 In the Jacobin club, when he delivers his "amphigory," there are sobs of emotion, "outcries and stamping of feet almost making the house tumble."31114 An onlooker who shows no emotion is greeted with murmurs and obliged to slip out, like a heretic that has strayed into a church on the elevation of the Host.—The faster the revolutionary thunderbolts fall on other heads, so does Robespierre mount higher and higher in glory and deification. Letters are addressed to him as "the founder of the Republic, the incorruptible genius who foresees all and saves all, who can neither be deceived nor seduced;"31115 who has "the energy of a Spartan and the eloquence of an Athenian;"31116 "who shields the Republic with the aegis of his eloquence;"31117 who "illuminates the universe with his writings, fills the world with his renown and regenerates the human species here below;"31118 whose" name is now, and will be, held in veneration for all ages, present and to come;"31119 who is "the Messiah promised by the Eternal for universal reform."31120 An extraordinary popularity," says Billaud-Varennes,31121 a popularity which, founded under the Constituent Assembly, "only increased during the Legislative Assembly," and, later on, so much more, that, "in the National Convention he soon found himself the only one able to fix attention on his person.... and control public opinion.... With this ascendancy over public opinion, with this irresistible preponderance, when he reached the Committee of Public Safety, he was already the most important being in France." After three years, a chorus of a thousand voices,31122 which he formed and directs, repeats again and again in unison his litany, his personal creed, a hymn of three stanzas composed by him in his own honor, and which he daily recites to himself in a low tone of voice, and often in a loud one:
"Robespierre alone has discovered the best type of citizen! Robespierre alone, modestly and without shortcomings, fits the description! Robespierre alone is worthy of and able to lead the Revolution!"31123
Cool infatuation carried thus far is equivalent to a raging fever, and Robespierre almost attains to the ideas and the ravings of Marat.
First, in his own eyes, he, like Marat, is a persecuted man, and, like Marat, he poses himself as a "martyr," but more skillfully and keeping within bounds, affecting the resigned and tender air of an innocent victim, who, offering himself as a sacrifice, ascends to Heaven, bequeathing to mankind the imperishable souvenir of his virtues.31124
"I arouse against me the pride of everybody;31125 I sharpen against me a thousand daggers. I am a sacrifice to every species of hatred. ... It is certain that my head will atone for the truths I have uttered. I have given my life, and shall welcome death almost as a boon. It is, perhaps, Heaven's will that my blood should indicate the pathway of my country to happiness and freedom. With what joy I accept this glorious destiny!"31126—
"It is hardly in order to live that one declares war against tyrants, and, what is still more dangerous, against miscreants.... The greater their eagerness to put an end to my career here below, the more eager I shall be to fill it with actions serving the welfare of my fellow-creatures."31127
"All these offenders outrage me;31128 actions which to others may appear insignificant or completely legitimate are for me crimes. As soon as someone becomes acquainted with me he is at once calumniated. Others are forgiven for their fortune, my zeal is considered a crime. Deprive me of my conscience and I am the most wretched of men. I do not even enjoy the rights of a citizen. I am not even allowed to perform my duty as a representative of the people.... To the enemies of my country, to whom my existence seems an obstacle to their heinous plots, I am ready to sacrifice it, if their odious empire is to endure..... Let their road to the scaffold be the pathway of crime, ours shall be that of virtue; let the hemlock be got ready for me, I await it on this hallowed spot. I shall at least bequeath to my country an example of constant affection for it, and to the enemies of humanity the disgrace of my death."
Naturally, and always just like Marat, he sees around himself only "the perverted, the plotters, the traitors."31129—Naturally, as with Marat, common sense with him is perverted, and, like Marat again, he thinks at random.
"I am not obliged to reflect," said he to Garat, "I always rely on first impressions."
"For him," says the same authority, "the best reasons are suspicions,"31130 and naught makes headway against suspicions, not even the most positive evidence. On September 4, 1792, talking confidentially with Pétion, and hard pressed with the questions that he put to him, he ends by saying, "Very well, I think that Brissot is on Brunswick's side."31131—Naturally, finally, he, like Marat, imagines the darkest fictions, but they are less improvised, less grossly absurd, more slowly worked out and more industriously interwoven in his calculating inquisitorial brain.
"Evidently," he says to Garat, "the Girondists are conspiring."31132
"And where?" demands Garat.
"Everywhere," Robespierre replies, "in Paris, throughout France, over all Europe. Gensonné, at Paris, is plotting in the Faubourg St. Antoine, going about among the shopkeepers and persuading them that we patriots mean to pillage their shops. The Gironde (department) has for a long time been plotting its separation from France so as to join England; the chiefs of its deputation are at the head of the plot, and mean to carry it out at any cost. Gensonné makes no secret of it; he tells all among them who will listen to him that they are not representatives of the nation, but plenipotentiaries of the Gironde. Brissot is plotting in his journal, which is simply a tocsin of civil war; we know of his going to England, and why he went; we know all about his intimacy with that Lebrun, minister of foreign affairs, a Liegois and creature of the Austrian house. Brissot's best friend is Clavière, and Clavière has plotted wherever he could breathe. Rabaut, treacherous like the Protestant and philosopher that he is, was not clever enough to conceal his correspondence with that courtier and traitor Montesquiou; six months ago they were working together to open Savoy and France to the Piedmontese. Servan was made general of the Pyrenean army only to give the keys of France to the Spaniards."
"Is there no doubt of this in your mind?" asks Garat.
"None, whatever."31133
Such assurance, equal to that of Marat, is terrible and worse in its effect, for Robespierre's list of conspirators is longer than that of Marat. Political and social, in Marat's mind, the list comprehends only aristocrats and the rich; theological and moral in Robespierre's mind, it comprehends all atheists and dishonest persons, that is to say, nearly the whole of his party. In this narrow mind, given up to abstractions and habitually classifying men under two opposite headings, whoever is not with him on the good side is against him on the bad side, and, on the bad side, the common understanding between the factious of every flag and the rogues of every degree, is natural.
"All aristocrats are corrupt, and every corrupt man is an aristocrat;" for, "republican government and public morality are one and the same thing."31134
Not only do evil-doers of both species tend through instinct and interest to league together, but their league is already perfected. One has only to open one's eyes to detect "in all its extent" the plot they have hatched, "the frightful system of destruction of public morality."31135 Guadet, Vergniaud, Gensonné, Danton, Hébert, "all of them artificial characters," had no other end in view: "they felt31136 that, to destroy liberty, it was necessary to favor by every means whatever tended to justify egoism, wither the heart and efface that idea of moral beauty, which affords the only rule for public reason in its judgment of the defenders and enemies of humanity."—Their heirs remain; but let those be careful. Immorality is a political offense; one conspires against the State merely by making a parade of materialism or by preaching indulgence, by acting scandalously, or by following evil courses, by stock-jobbing, by dining too sumptuously; by being vicious, scheming, given to exaggeration, or "on the fence;" by exciting or perverting the people, by deceiving the people, by finding fault with the people, by distrusting the people,31137 short, when one does not march straight along on the prescribed path marked out by Robespierre according to principles: whoever stumbles or turns aside is a scoundrel, a traitor. Now, not counting the Royalists, Feuillantists, Girondists, Hébertists, Dantonists, and others already decapitated or imprisoned according to their merit, how many traitors still remain in the Convention, on the Committees, amongst the representatives on mission, in the administrative bodies not properly weeded out, amongst petty tyrannical underlings and the entire ruling, influential class at Paris and in the provinces? Outside of "about twenty political Trappists in the Convention," outside of a small devoted group of pure Jacobins in Paris, outside of a faithful few scattered among the popular clubs of the departments, how many Fouchés, Vadiers, Talliens, Bourdons, Collots, remain amongst the so-called revolutionaries? How many dissidents are there, disguised as orthodox, charlatans disguised as patriots, and pashas disguised as sans-culottes?31138 Add all this vermin to that which Marat seeks to crush out; it is no longer by hundreds of thousands, but by millions, exclaim Baudot, Jeanbon-Saint-André and Guffroy, that the guilty must be counted and cut off their heads!—And all these heads, Robespierre, according to his maxims, must strike off. He is well aware of this; hostile as his intellect may be to precise ideas, he, when alone in his closet, face to face with himself, sees clearly, as clearly as Marat. Marat's chimera, on first spreading out its wings, bore its frenzied rider swiftly onward to the charnel house; that of Robespierre, fluttering and hobbling along, reaches the goal in its turn; in its turn, it demands something to feed on, and the rhetorician, the professor of principles, begins to assess the voracity of the monstrous brute on which he is mounted. Slower than the other, this one is still more ravenous, for, with similar claws and teeth, it has a vaster appetite. At the end of three years Robespierre has overtaken Marat, at that distant end of the line, at the station where Marat had established himself from the very beginning, and the theoretician now adopts the policy, the aim, the means, the work, and almost the vocabulary of a maniac:31139
armed dictatorship of the urban mob,
systematic perturbation of the bribed rabble,
war against the bourgeoisie,
extermination of the rich,
placing opposition writers, administrators and deputies outside the law.
Both monsters get the same food; only, to the ration of his monster, Robespierre adds "vicious men" as its special and favorite prey. Henceforth, he may in vain abstain from action, take refuge in his rhetoric, stop his chaste ears, and raise his hypocritical eyes to heaven, he cannot avoid seeing or hearing under his immaculate feet the streaming gore, and the bones crashing in the open jaws of the insatiable monster which he has fashioned and on which he rides.31140 These ever open and hungry jaws must be daily fed with an ampler supply of human flesh; not only is he bound to let it eat, but to furnish the food, often with his own hands, except that he must afterwards wash them, declaring, and even believing, that no spot of blood has ever soiled them. He is generally content to caress and flatter the brute, to excuse it, to let it go on. Nevertheless, more than once, tempted by the opportunity, he has launched it against his designated victim.31141 He is now himself starting off in quest of living prey; he casts the net of his rhetoric31142 around it; he fetches it bound to the open jaws; he thrusts aside with an uncompromising air the arms of friends, wives and mothers, the outstretched hands of suppliants begging for lives;31143 he suddenly throttles the struggling victims31144 and, for fear that they might escape, he strangles them in time. Near the end, this is no longer enough; the brute must have grander quarries, and, accordingly, a pack of hounds, beaters-up, and, willingly or not, it is Robespierre who equips, directs and urges them on, at Orange, at Paris,31145 ordering them to empty the prison's, and be expeditious in doing their work.—In this profession of slaughtering, destructive instincts, long repressed by civilization, become aroused. His feline physiognomy, at first "that of a domestic cat, restless but mild, changes into the savage appearance of the wildcat, and close to the ferocious exterior of the tiger. In the Constituent Assembly he speaks with a whine, in the Convention he froths at the mouth."31146 The monotonous drone of a stiff sub-professor changes into the personal accent of furious passion; he hisses and grinds his teeth;31147 Sometimes, on a change of scene, he affects to shed tears.31148 But his wildest outbursts are less alarming than his affected sensibility. The festering grudges, corrosive envies and bitter scheming which have accumulated in his breast are astonishing. The gall bladder is full, and the extravasated gall overflows on the dead. He never tires of re-executing his guillotined adversaries, the Girondists, Chaumette, Hébert and especially Danton,31149 probably because Danton was the active agent in the Revolution of which he was simply the incapable pedagogue; he vents his posthumous hatred on this still warm corpse in artful insinuations and obvious misrepresentations. Thus, inwardly corroded by the venom it distills, his physical machine gets out of order, like that of Marat, but with other symptoms. When speaking in the tribune "his hands crisp with a sort of nervous contraction;" sudden tremors agitate "his shoulders and neck, shaking him convulsively to and fro."31150 "His bilious complexion becomes livid," his eyelids quiver under his spectacles, and how he looks! "Ah," said a Montagnard, "you would have voted as we did on the 9th of Thermidor, had you seen his green eyeballs!" "Physically as well as morally," he becomes a second Marat, suffering all the more because his delirium is not steady, and because his policy, being a moral one, forces him to exterminate on a grander scale.
But he is a discreet Marat, of a timid temperament, anxious,31151 keeping his thoughts to himself, made for a school-master or a pleader, but not for taking the lead or for governing, always acting hesitatingly, and ambitious to be rather the pope, than the dictator of the Revolution.31152 Above all, he wants to remain a political Grandison31153; until the very end, he keeps his mask, not only in public but also to himself and in his inmost conscience. The mask, indeed, has adhered to his skin; he can no longer distinguish one from the other; never did an impostor more carefully conceal intentions and acts under sophisms, and persuade himself that the mask was his face, and that in telling a lie, he told the truth.
Taking his word for it, he had nothing to do with the September events.31154 "Previous to these events, he had ceased to attend the General Council of the Commune... He no longer went there." He was not charged with any duty, he had no influence there; he had not provoked the arrest and murder of the Girondists.31155 All he did was to "speak frankly concerning certain members of the Committee of Twenty-one;" as "a magistrate" and "one of a municipal assembly." Should he not" explain himself freely on the authors of a dangerous plot?" Besides, the Commune "far from provoking the 2nd of September did all in its power to prevent it." After all, only one innocent person perished, "which is undoubtedly one too many. Citizens, mourn over this cruel mistake; we too have long mourned over it! But, as all things human come to an end, let your tears cease to flow." When the sovereign people resumes its delegated power and exercises its inalienable rights, we have only to bow our heads.—Moreover, it is just, wise and good "in all that it undertakes, all is virtue and truth; nothing can be excess, error or crime."31156 It must intervene when its true representatives are hampered by the law "let it assemble in its sections and compel the arrest of faithless deputies."31157 What is more legal than such a motion, which is the only part Robespierre took on the 31st of May. He is too scrupulous to commit or prescribe an illegal act. That will do for the Dantons, the Marats, men of relaxed morals or excited brains, who if need be, tramp in the gutters and roll up their shirt-sleeves; as to himself, he can do nothing that would ostensibly derange or soil the dress proper to an honest man and irreproachable citizen. In the Committee of Public Safety, he merely executes the decrees of the Convention, and the Convention is always free. He a dictator! He is merely one of seven hundred deputies, and his authority, if he has any, is simply the legitimate ascendancy of reason and virtue.31158 He a murderer! If he has denounced conspirators, it is the Convention which summons these before the revolutionary Tribunal,31159 and the revolutionary Tribunal pronounces judgment on them. He a terrorist! He merely seeks to simplify the established proceedings, so as to secure a speedier release of the innocent, the punishment of the guilty, and the final purgation that is to render liberty and morals the order of the day.31160—Before uttering all this he almost believes it, and, when he has uttered it he believes it fully.31161 When nature and history combine, to produce a character, they succeed better than man's imagination. Neither Molière in his "Tartuffe," nor Shakespeare in his "Richard III.," dared bring on the stage a hypocrite believing himself sincere, and a Cain that regarded himself as an Abel.31162 There he stands on a colossal stage, in the presence of a hundred thousand spectators, on the 8th of June, 1794, the most glorious day of his life, at that fête in honor of the Supreme Being, which is the glorious triumph of his doctrine and the official consecration of his papacy. Two characters are found in Robespierre, as in the Revolution which he represents: one, apparent, paraded, external, and the other hidden, dissembled, inward, the latter being overlaid by the former.—The first one all for show, fashioned out of purely cerebral cogitations, is as artificial as the solemn farce going on around him. According to David's programme, the cavalcade of supernumeraries who file in front of an allegorical mountain, gesticulate and shout at the command, and under the eyes, of Henriot and his gendarmes,31163 manifesting at the appointed time the emotions which are prescribed for them. At five o'clock in the morning
"friends, husbands, wives, relations and children will embrace.... The old man, his eyes streaming with tears of joy, feels himself rejuvenated."
At two o'clock, on the turf-laid terraces of the sacred mountain,
"all will show a state of commotion and excitement: mothers here press to their bosoms the infants they suckle, and there offer them up in homage to the author of Nature, while youths, aglow with the ardor of battle, simultaneously draw their swords and hand them to their venerable fathers. Sharing in the enthusiasm of their sons, the deported old men embrace them and bestow on them the paternal benediction..... All the men distributed around the 'Field of Reunion' sing in chorus the (first) refrain.... All the Women distributed around the 'Field of Reunion' sing in unison the (second) refrain.... All Frenchmen partake of each other's sentiments in one grand fraternal embrace."
What could better than such an idyll, ruled with an iron hand, in the presence of moral symbols and colored pasteboard divinities, could better please the counterfeit moralist, unable to distinguish the false from the true, and whose skin-deep sensibility is borrowed from sentimental authors! "For the first time" his glowing countenance beams with joy, while "the enthusiasm"31164 of the scribe overflows, as usual, in book phraseology.
"Behold!" he exclaims, "that which is most interesting in humanity! The Universe is here assembled! O, Nature, how sublime, how exquisite is thy power! How tyrants must quail at the contemplation of this festival!"
Is not he himself its most dazzling ornament? Was not he unanimously chosen to preside over the Convention and conduct the ceremonies? Is he not the founder of the new cult, the only pure worship on the face of the earth, approved of by morality and reason? Wearing the uniform of a representative, nankeen breeches, blue coat, tri-colored sash and plumed hat,31165 holding in his hand a bouquet of flowers and grain, he marches at the head of the Convention and officiates on the platform; he sets fire to the veil which hides from view the idol representing "Atheism," and suddenly, through an ingenious contrivance, the majestic statue of "Wisdom" appears in its place. He then addresses the crowd, over and over again, exhorting, apostrophizing, preaching, elevating his soul to the Supreme Being, and with what oratorical combinations! What an academic swell of bombastic cadences, strung together to enforce his tirades! How cunning the even balance of adjective and substantive!31166 From these faded rhetorical flowers, arranged as if for a prize distribution or a funeral oration, exhales a sanctimonious, collegiate odor which he complacently breathes, and which intoxicates him. At this moment, he must certainly be in earnest; there is no hesitation or reserve in his self-admiration; he is not only in his own eyes a great writer and great orator, but a great statesman and great citizen his artificial, philosophic conscience awards him only praise.—But look underneath, or rather wait a moment. Signs of impatience and antipathy appear behind his back: Lecointre has braved him openly; numerous insults, and, worse than these, sarcasms, reach his ears. On such an occasion, and in such a place! Against the pontiff of Truth, the apostle of Virtue! The miscreants, how dare they! Silent and pale, he suppresses his rage, and,31167 losing his balance, closing his eyes, he plunges headlong on the path of murder: cost what it will, the miscreants must perish and without loss of time. To expedite matters, he must get their heads off quietly, and as "up to this time things have been managed confidentially in the Committee of Public Safety," he, alone with Couthon, two days after, without informing his colleagues,31168 draws up, brings to the Convention, and has passed the terrible act of Prairial which places everybody's life at his disposal.—In his crafty, blundering haste, he has demanded too much; each one, on reflection, becomes alarmed for himself; he is compelled to back out, to protest that he is misunderstood, admit that representatives are excepted, and, accordingly, to sheathe the knife he has already applied to his adversaries throats. But he still holds it in his grasp. He watches them, and, pretending to retreat, affects a renunciation, crouched in his corner,31169 waiting until they discredit themselves, so as to spring upon them a second time. He has not to wait long, for the exterminating machine he set up on the 22nd of Prairial, is in their hands, and it has to work as he planned it, namely, by making rapid turns and almost haphazard: the odium of a blind sweeping massacre rests with them; he not only makes no opposition to this, but, while pretending to abstain from it, he urges it on. Secluded in the private office of his secret police, he orders arrests;31170 he sends out his principal bloodhound, Herman; he first signs and then dispatches the resolution by which it is supposed that there are conspirators among those in confinement and which, authorizing spies or paid informers, is to provide the guillotine with those vast batches which purge and clean prisons out in a trice."31171—"I am not responsible," he states later on...." My lack of power to do any good, to arrest the evil, forced me for more than six weeks to abandon my post on the Committee of Public Safety."31172 To ruin his adversaries by murders committed by him, by those which he makes them commit and which he imputes to them, to whitewash himself and blacken them with the same stroke of the brush, what intense delight! If the natural conscience murmurs in whispers at moments, the acquired superposed conscience immediately imposes silence, concealing personal hatreds under public pretexts: the guillotined, after all, were aristocrats, and whoever comes under the guillotine is immoral. Thus, the means are good and the end better; in employing the means, as well as in pursuing the end, the function is sacerdotal.
Such is the scenic exterior of the Revolution, a specious mask with a hideous visage beneath it, under the reign of a nominal humanitarian theory, covering over the effective dictatorship of evil and low passions. In its true representative, as in itself, we see ferocity issuing from philanthropy, and, from the pedant (cuistre), the executioner.
3101 (return)
[ Harmand (de la
Meuse): "Anecdotes relatives à la Revolution." "He was dressed like a
tough cab-driver. He had a disturbed look and an eye always in motion; he
acted in an abrupt, quick and jerky way. A constant restlessness gave a
convulsive contraction to his muscles and features which likewise affected
his manner of walking so that he didn't walk but hopped."]
3102 (return)
[ Chevremont, "Jean
Paul Marat;" also Alfred Bougeard, "Marat" passim. These two works, with
numerous documents, are panegyrics of Marat.—Bougeat, I., II
(description of Marat by Fabre d'Eglantine); II., 259 and I., 83.—"Journal
de la Republique Française," by Marat, No.93, January 9, 1793. "I devote
only two out of the twenty four hours to sleep, and only one hour to my
meals, toilette and domestic necessities... I have not taken fifteen
minutes recreation for more than three years."]
3103 (return)
[ Chevremont, I., pp. I
and 2. His family, on the father's side, was Spanish, long settled in
Sardinia. The father, Dr. Jean Mara, had abandoned Catholicism and removed
to Geneva where he married a woman of that city; he afterwards established
himself in the canton of Neufchatel.]
3104 (return)
[ "Journal de la
République Française" No.98, description of "l'Ami du peuple" by himself.]
3105 (return)
[ Read his novel "Les
Aventures du jeune comte Potowski," letter 5, by Lucile: "I think of
Potowski only. My imagination, inflamed at the torch of love, ever
presents to me his sweet image." Letter of Potowski after his marriage.
"Lucile now grants to love all that modesty permits... enjoying such
transports of bliss, I believe that the gods are jealous of my lot."]
3106 (return)
[ Preface, XX.
"Descartes, Helvetius, Haller, Lelat all ignored great principles; Man,
with them, is an enigma, an impenetrable secret." He says in a foot-note,
"We find evidence of this in the works of Hume, Voltaire, Bonnet, Racine
and Pascal."]
3107 (return)
[ "Mémoires Académiques
sur la Lumière," pref., VII.—He especially opposes "the differential
refrangibility of heterogeneous rays" which is "the basis of Newton's
theory."]
3108 (return)
[ Chevremont, I., 74.
(See the testimony of Arago, Feb.24, 1844).]
3109 (return)
[ Ibid., I., 104.
(Sketch of a declaration of the rights of man and of the citizen).]
3110 (return)
[ See the epigraph of
his "Mémoires sur la Lumiere." "They will force their way against wind and
tide."—Ibid., preface, VII. "Déconvertes de Monsieur Marat," 1780,
2nd ed., p. 140.]
3111 (return)
[ "Recherches physiques
sur l'electricité," 1782, pp.13, 17.]
3112 (return)
[ Chevremont, I., 59.]
3113 (return)
[ "De l'Homme," preface
VII. and book IV.]
3114 (return)
[ "Journal de la
République Française," No 98.]
3115 (return)
[ "Journal de la
République Française," by Marat, No. I.]
3116 (return)
[ "L'Ami du Peuple" No.
173. (July 26, 1790). The memories of conceited persons, given to
immoderate self-expansion, are largely at fault. I have seen patients in
asylums who, believing in their exalted position, have recounted their
successes in about the same vein as Marat. (Chevremont, I., 40, 47, 54).
"The reports of extraordinary cures effected by me brought me a great
crowd of the sick. The street in front of my door was blocked with
carriages. People came to consult me from all quarters.... The abstract of
my experiments on Light finally appeared and it created a prodigious
sensation throughout Europe; the newspapers were all filled with it. I had
the court and the town in my house for six months.... The Academy, finding
that it could not stifle my discoveries tried to make it appear that they
had emanated from its body." Three academic bodies came in turn the same
day to see if he would not present himself as a candidate.—"Up to
the present time several crowned heads have sought me and always on
account of the fame of my works."]
3117 (return)
[ "Journal de la
République Française," July 6 1793.]
3118 (return)
[ Moniteur, (Session of
the Convention, Sep.25, 1792). Marat, indeed, is constantly claiming the
post of temporary dictator. ("L'Ami du peuple," Nos. 258, 268, 466, 668
and "Appel à la nation," p.53).]
3119 (return)
[ Moniteur, (Session of
the Convention, Sep.25, 1792). Marat, indeed, is constantly claiming the
post of temporary dictator. ("L'Ami du peuple," Nos. 258, 268, 466, 668
and "Appel à la nation," p.53).]
3120 (return)
[ Moniteur, (Session of
the Convention, Sep.25, 1792). Marat, indeed, is constantly claiming the
post of temporary dictator. ("L'Ami du peuple," Nos. 258, 268, 466, 668
and "Appel à la nation," p.53).]
3121 (return)
[ Chevremont, I., 40.
(Marat's letters, 1793).]
3122 (return)
[ Journal de la
Republique Française, No.98.]
3123 (return)
[ The words of Marat
and Panes. (Chevremont, I., 197, 203; also "The Revolution" II., 290, 2nd
note).]
3124 (return)
[ Michelet, "Histoire
de la Révolution," II., 89. (Narrated by M. Bourdier, Marat's physician,
to M. Serre, the physiologist). Barbaroux, "Mémoires," 355, (after a visit
to Marat): "You should see how superficially Marat composed his articles.
Without any knowledge of a public man he would ask the first person he met
what he thought of him and this he wrote down, exclaiming 'I'll crush the
rascal!'"]
3125 (return)
[ Chevremont, I., 361.
(From a pamphlet against Necker, by Marat, July, 1790).]
3126 (return)
[ "L'Ami du Peuple,"
No.552. (August 30, 1791).]
3127 (return)
[ Ibid., No.626. (Dec.
15, 1791). Cf. "The Revolution," II., 129, on the number of armed emigrés.
At this date the authorized number as published is four thousand.]
3128 (return)
[ His filthy
imputations cannot be quoted. See in Buchez et Roux, IX., 419 (April 26,
1791), and X., 220 (Nos. for June 17, 19 and 21), his statement against
Lafayette; again, his list with its vile qualifications of "rascals and
rogues," who are canvassing for election, and his letters on the
Academicians.]
3129 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, X.,
407 (Sept., 1791).—Cf. ibid., 473. According to Marat, "it is
useless to measure a degree of the meridian; the Egyptians having already
given this measure. The Academicians obtained an appropriation of one
thousand crowns for the expenses of this undertaking, a small cake which
they have fraternally divided amongst themselves."]
3130 (return)
[ Chevremont, I.,
238-249. "L'Ami du peuple," Nos. 419, 519, 543, 608, 641. Other falsehoods
just as extravagant are nearly all grotesque. No.630, (April 15, 1792).
"Simonneau, mayor of d'Etampes, is an infamous ministerial monopolizer."—No.
627, (April 12, 1792). Delessart, the minister, "accepts gold to let a
got-up decree be passed against him." No. 650, (May 10, 1792). "Louis XVI.
desired war only to establish his despotism on an indestructible
foundation."]
3131 (return)
[ Chevremont, I., 106.
(Draft of a declaration of the rights of man and of the citizen, 1789).—Ibid.,
I., 196.]
3132 (return)
[ "L'Ami du peuple,"
Nos. 24 and 274.—Cf. "Placard de Marat," Sept. 18, 1792. "The
National Convention should always be under the eye of the people, so that
the people may stone it if it neglects its duty."]
3133 (return)
[ "L'Ami du peuple,"
Nos. 108-111. (May 20-23, 1790).]
3134 (return)
[ Ibid., No. 258. (Oct.
22, 1790).]
3135 (return)
[ Ibid., No. 286 (Nov.
20, 1790).]
3136 (return)
[ Ibid., No. 198
(August 22, 1790).]
3137 (return)
[ Ibid., Nos. 523 and
524 (July 19 and 20, 1791).]
3138 (return)
[ Ibid., No.626 (Dec.
15, 1791).]
3139 (return)
[ Ibid., No.668 (July
8, 1792).—Cf. No. 649 (May 6, 1792). He approves of the murder of
General Dillon by his men, and recommends the troops everywhere to do the
same thing.]
3140 (return)
[ Ibid., No.677 (August
10, 1792). See also subsequent numbers, especially No. 680, Aug. 19th, for
hastening on the massacre of the Abbaye prisoners. And Aug. 21st: "As to
the officers, they deserve to be quartered like Louis Capet and his manège
toadies."]
3141 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXVIII., 105. (Letter of Chevalier Saint-Dizier, member of the first
committee of Surveillance, Sep.10, 1792.)—Michelet, II., 94. (In
December, 1790, he already demands twenty thousand heads).]
3142 (return)
[ Moniteur, Oct. 26,
1792. (Session of the Convention, Oct. 24th.) "N—: I know a member
of the convention, who heard Marat say that, to ensure public tranquility,
two hundred and seventy thousand heads more should fall."
Vermont: "I declare that Marat made that
statement in my presence."]
Marat: "Well, I did say so; that's my
opinion and I say it again."—
Up to the last he advocates surgical operations. (No. for July 12, 1793, the eve of his death.) Observe what he says on the anti-revolutionaries. "To prevent them from entering into any new military body I had proposed at that time, as an indispensable prudent measure, cutting off their ears, or rather their thumbs." He likewise had his imitators. (Buchez et Roux, XXXII., 186, Session of the Convention, April 4, 1796.) Deputies from the popular club of Cette "regret that they had not followed his advice and cut off three hundred thousand heads."]
3143 (return)
[ Danton never wrote or
printed a speech. "I am no writer," he says. (Garat, Memoires, 31.)]
3144 (return)
[ Garat, "Memoires,"
III.: "Danton had given no serious study to those philosophers who, for a
century past, had detected the principles of social art in human nature.
He had not sought in his own organization for the vast and simple
combinations which a great empire demands. He had that instinct for the
grand which constitutes genius and that silent circumspection which
constitutes judgment."]
3145 (return)
[ Garat, ibid., 311,
312.]
3146 (return)
[ The head of a State
may be considered in the same light as the superintendent of an asylum for
the sick, the demented and the infirm. In the government of his asylum he
undoubtedly does well to consult the moralist and the physiologist; but,
before following out their instructions he must remember that in his
asylum its inmates, including the keepers and himself, are more or less
ill, demented or infirm.]
3147 (return)
[ De Sybel: "Histoire
de l'Europe pendant la Revolution Française," (Dosquet's translation from
the German) II., 303. "It can now be stated that it was the active
operations of Danton and the first committee of Public Safety which
divided the coalition and gave the Republic the power of opposing
Europe... We shall soon see, on the contrary, that the measures of the
"Mountain" party, far from hastening the armaments, hindered them."]
3148 (return)
[ Ibid., I., 558, 562,
585. (The intermediaries were Westermann and Dumouriez.)]
3149 (return)
[ 2 Ibid., II., 28,
290, 291, 293.]
3150 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XXV.,
445. (Session of April 13, 1793.)]
3151 (return)
[ According to a
statement made by Count Theodore de Lameth, the eldest of the four
brothers Lameth and a colonel and also deputy in the Legislative Assembly.
During the Assembly he was well acquainted with Danton. After the
September massacre he took refuge in Switzerland and was put on the list
of emigrants. About a month before the King's death he was desirous of
making a last effort and came to Paris. "I went straight to Danton's
house, and, without giving my name, insisted on seeing him immediately.
Finally, I was admitted and I found Danton in a bath-tub. "You here!" he
exclaimed. "Do you know that I have only to say the word and send you to
the guillotine?" "Danton," I replied, "you are a great criminal, but there
are some vile things you cannot do, and one of them is to denounce me."
"You come to save the King?" "Yes." We then began to talk in a friendly
and confidential way. "I am willing," said Danton, "to try and save the
King, but I must have a million to buy up the necessary votes and the
money must be on hand in eight days. I warn you that although I may save
his life I shall vote for his death; I am quite willing to save his head
but not to lose mine." M. de Lameth set about raising the money; he saw
the Spanish ambassador and had the matter broached to Pitt who refused.
Danton, as he said he would, voted for the King's death, and then aided or
allowed the return of M. de Lameth to Switzerland. (I have this account
through M (probably Pasquier).... who had it from count Theodore de
Lameth's own lips.)]
3152 (return)
[ Garat. "Memoires,"
317. "Twenty times, he said to me one day, I offered them peace. They did
not want it. They refused to believe me in order to reserve the right of
ruining me."]
3153 (return)
[ Cf. the "Ancient
Regime," p. 501.]
3154 (return)
[ "Danton," by Dr.
Robinet, passim. (Notices by Béon, one of Danton's fellow-disciples.—Fragment
by Saint-Albin.)—"The Revolution," II., p.35, foot-note.]
3155 (return)
[ Emile Bos, "Les
Avocats du conseil du Roi," 515, 520. (See Danton's marriage-contract and
the discussions about his fortune. From 1787 to 1791, he is found engaged
as counsel only in three cases.)]
3156 (return)
[ Madame Roland,
"Memoires." (Statement of Madame Danton to Madame Roland.)]
3157 (return)
[ Expressions used by
Garat and Roederer.—Larévilliere-Lepaux calls him "the Cyclop."]
3158 (return)
[ Fauchet describes him
as "the Pluto of Eloquence."]
3159 (return)
[ Riouffe, "Mémoires
sur les prisons." "In prison every utterance was mingled with oaths and
gross expressions."]
3160 (return)
[ Terms used by Fabre
d'Eglantine and Garat.—Beugnot, a very good observer, had an
accurate impression of Danton ("Mémoires", I, 249-252).—M. Dufort de
Cheverney, (manuscript memoirs published by M. Robert de Crèveceur), after
the execution of Babeuf, in 1797, had an opportunity to hear Samson, the
executioner, talk with a war commissary, in an inn between Vendôme and
Blois. Samson recounted the last moments of Danton and Fabre d'Églantine.
Danton, on the way to the scaffold, asked if he might sing. "There is
nothing to hinder," said Samson. "All right. Try to remember the verses I
have just composed," and he sang the following to a tune in vogue:
Nous sommes menés au trépas We are led to our death
Par quantité de scélérats, by a gang of scoundrels
c'est ce qui nous désole. that makes us sad.
Mais bientot le moment viendra But soon the time shall come
Où chacun d'eux y passera, when all of them shall follow
c'est ce qui nous console." that's our consolation.]
3161 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XXI.,
108. Speech (printed) by Pétion: "Marat embraced Danton and Danton
embraced him. I certify that this took place in my presence."]
3162 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XXI.,
126. ("To Maximilian Robespierre and his royalists," a pamphlet by
Louvet.)—Beugnot, "Mémoires," I., 250, "On arriving in Paris as
deputy from my department (to the Legislative Assembly) Danton sought me
and wanted me to join his party. I dined with him three times, in the Cour
du Commerce, and always went away frightened at his plans and energy....
He contented himself by remarking to his friend Courtois and my colleague:
'Thy big Beugnot is nothing but a devotee—you can do nothing with
him.'"]
3163 (return)
[ The Cordeliers
district. (Buchez et Roux, IV., 27.) Assembly meeting of the Cordeliers
district, November 11th, 1789, to sanction Danton's permanent presidency.
He is always re-elected, and unanimously. This is the first sign of his
ascendancy, although sometimes, to save the appearance of his
dictatorship, he has his chief clerk Paré elected, whom he subsequently
made minister.]
3164 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, IV.,
295, 298, 401; V., 140.]
3165 (return)
[ Ibid., VIII., 28
(October, 1790).]
3166 (return)
[ Ibid., IX., 408: X.,
144, 234, 297, 417.—Lafayette "Mémoires," I., 359, 366. Immediately
after Mirabeau's death (April, 1791) Danton's plans are apparent, and his
initiative is of the highest importance.]
3167 (return)
[ "The Revolution,"
II., 238 (Note) and 283.—Garat, 309: "After the 20th of June
everybody made mischief at the chateau; the power of which was daily
increasing. Danton arranged the 10th of August and the chateau was
thunderstruck."—Robinet: "Le Procès des Dantonistes," 224, 229.
("Journal de la Societé des amis de la Constitution," No. 214, June 5,
1792.) Danton proposes "the law of Valerius Publicola, passed in Rome
after the expulsion of the Tarquins, permitting every citizen to kill any
man convicted of having expressed opinions opposed to the law of the
State, except in case of proof of the crime." (Ibid., Nos. 230 and 231,
July 13, 1792.) Danton induces the federals present "to swear that they
will not leave the capital until liberty is established, and before the
will of the department is made known on the fate of the executive power."
Such are the principles and the instruments, of "August 10th" and
"September 2nd."]
3168 (return)
[ Garat, 314. "He was
present for a moment on the committee of Public Safety. The outbreaks of
May 31st and June 2nd occurred; he was the author of both these days."]
3169 (return)
[ Decrees of April 6
and 7, 1793.]
3170 (return)
[ Decree of September
5, 1793.]
3171 (return)
[ Decree of March 10,
1793.]
3172 (return)
[ August 1 and 12,
1793.]
3173 (return)
[ See "The Revolution,"
vol. III., ch. I.-Buchez et Roux, XXV., 285. (Meeting of Nov.26, 1793.)—Moniteur,
XIX., 726. Danton (March 16, 1794) secures the passing of a decree that
"hereafter prose only shall be heard at the rostrum of the house."]
3174 (return)
[ Archives Nationales,
Papers of the committee of General Security, No 134.—Letter of
Delacroix to Danton, Lille, March 25, 1793, on the situation in Belgium,
and the retreat of Dumouriez.... "My letter is so long I fear that you
will not read it to the end... .Oblige me by forgetting your usual
indolence."—Letter of Chabot to Danton, Frimaire 12, year II. "I
know your genius, my dear colleague, and consequently your natural
indolent disposition. I was afraid that you would not read me through if I
wrote a long letter. Nevertheless I rely on your friendship to make an
exception in my favor."]
3175 (return)
[ Lagrange, the
mathematician, and senator under the empire, was asked how it was that he
voted for the terrible annual conscriptions. "It had no sensible effect on
the tables of mortality," he replied.]
3176 (return)
[ Garat, 305, 310, 313.
"His friends almost worshipped him."]
3177 (return)
[ Ibid., 317.—Thibeaudeau,
"Mémoires," I., 59.]
3178 (return)
[ Quinet, "La
Révolution," II., 304. (According to the unpublished memoirs of Baudot.)
These expressions by Danton's friends all bear the mark of Danton himself.
At all events they express exactly his ideas.]
3179 (return)
[ Riouffe, 67.]
3180 (return)
[ Miot de Melito,
"Mémoires," I., 40, 42.—Michelet, "Histoire de la Révolution
Française," VI., 34; V. 178, 184. (On the second marriage of Danton in
June, 1793, to a young girl of sixteen. On his journey to Arcis, March,
1794.)—Riouffe, 68. In prison "He talked constantly about trees, the
country and nature."]
3181 (return)
[ We can trace the
effect of his attitude on the public in the police reports, especially at
the end of 1793, and beginning of the year 1794. (Archives Nationales, F
7, 31167 report of Charmont, Nivôse 6, year II.) "Robespierre gains
singularly in public estimation, especially since his speech in the
Convention, calling on his colleagues to rally and crush out the monsters
in the interior, also in which he calls on all to support the new
revolutionary government with their intelligence and talents.... I have to
state that I have everywhere heard his name mentioned with admiration.
They wound up by saying that it would be well for all members of the
Convention to adopt the measures presented by Robespierre."—(Report
of Robin, Nivôse 8.) "Citizen Robespierre is honored everywhere, in all
groupes and in the cafe's. At the Café Manouri it was given out that his
views of the government were the only ones which, like the magnet, would
attract all citizens to the Revolution. It is not the same with citizen
Billaud-Varennes." (Report of the Purveyor, Nivôse 9.) "In certain clubs
and groups there is a rumor that Robespierre is to be appointed
dictator..... The people do justice to his austere virtues; it is noticed
that he has never changed his opinions since the Revolution began."]
3182 (return)
[ "Souvenirs d'un
déporté." by P. Villiers, (Robespierre's secretary for seven months in
1790,) p. 2. "Of painstaking cleanliness."—Buchez et Roux, XXXIV.,
94. Description of Robespierre, published in the newspapers after his
death: "His clothes were exquisitely clean and his hair always carefully
brushed."]
3183 (return)
[ D'Hericault, "La
Revolution du 9 Thermidor," (as stated by Daunou).—Meillan,
"Mémoires," p.4. "His eloquence was nothing but diffusive declamation
without order or method, and especially with no conclusions. Every time he
spoke we were obliged to ask him what he was driving at..... Never did he
propose any remedy. He left the task of finding expedients to others, and
especially to Danton."]
3184 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXXIII., 437, 438, 440, 442. (Speech by Robespierre, Thermidor 8, year
II.)]
3185 (return)
[ Ibid., XXX., 225,
226, 227, 228 (Speech, Nov. 17, 1793), and XXXI., 255 (Speech, Jan.26,
'794). "The policy of the London Cabinet largely contributed to the first
movement of our Revolution.... Taking advantage of political tempests (the
cabinet) aimed to effect in exhausted and dismembered France a change of
dynasty and to place the Duke of York on the throne of Louis XVI....
Pitt....is an imbecile, whatever may be said of a reputation that has been
much too greatly puffed up. A man who, abusing the influence acquired by
him on an island placed haphazard in the ocean, is desirous of contending
with the French people, could not have conceived of such an absurd plan
elsewhere than in a madhouse."—Cf. Ibid., XXX., 465.]
3186 (return)
[ Ibid., XXVI., 433,
441, (Speech on the Constitution, May 10, 1793); XXXI., 275. "Goodness
consists in the people preferring itself to what is not itself; the
magistrate, to be good, must sacrifice himself to the people.".... "Let
this maxim be first adopted that the people are good and that its
delegates are corruptible.".. . XXX., 464. (Speech, Dec.25, 1793): "The
virtues are the appanages of the unfortunate and the patrimony of the
people."]
3187 (return)
[ Cf. passim, Hamel,
"Histoire de Robespierre," 3 vols. An elaborate panegyric full of details.
Although eighty years have elapsed, Robespierre still makes dupes of
people through his attitudes and rhetorical flourishes. M. Hamel twice
intimates his resemblance to Jesus Christ. The resemblance, indeed, is
that of Pascal's Jesuits to the Jesus of the Gospel.]
3188 (return)
[ "The Ancient Regime,"
p.262.]
3189 (return)
[ Garat, "Mémoires,"
84. Garat who is himself an ideologist, notes "his eternal twadle about
the rights of man, the sovereignty of the people, and other principles
which he was always talking about, and on which he never gave utterance to
one precise or fresh idea."]
3190 (return)
[ Read especially his
speech on the constitution, (May 10, 1793), his report on the principles
of Republican Government, (Dec.15, 1793), his speech on the relationship
between religious and national ideas and republican principles (May 7,
1794) and speech of Thermidor 8.-Carnot: "Memoires," II., 512. "In all
deliberations on affairs he contributed nothing but vague generalities."]
3191 (return)
[ During this century
all important Jacobin leaders, Hitler, Mussolini, Lenin, Stalin, Castro
etc. have in their turn followed robespierre's example and bored their
captive audiences with their interminable speeches. (SR).]
3192 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXXIII., 406. (Speech delivered Thermidor 8th.) The printed copy of the
manuscript with corrections and erasures.]
3193 (return)
[ Ibid., 420, 422,
427.]
3194 (return)
[ Ibid., 428, 435, 436.
"O day forever blessed! What a sight to behold, the entire French people
assembled together and rendering to the author of nature the only homage
worthy of him! How affecting each object that enchants the eye and touches
the heart of man! O honored old age! O generous ardor of the young of our
country! O the innocent, pure joy of youthful citizens! O the exquisite
tears of tender mothers! O the divine charms of innocence and beauty! What
majesty in a great people happy in its strength, power and virtue!"—"No,
Charmette, No, death is not the sleep of eternity!"—"Remember, O,
People, that in a republic, etc."—"If such truths must be dissembled
then bring me the hemlock!"]
3195 (return)
[ Speech, May 7, 1794.
(On moral and religious ideas in relation to republican principles.)]
3196 (return)
[ Personifications.
From Greek to make persons. (SR).]
3197 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXXIII., 436. "The verres and Catilines of our country." (Speech of
Thermidor 8th.)—Note especially the speech delivered March 7, 1794,
crammed full of classical reminiscences.]
3198 (return)
[ Ibid., XXXIII., 421.
"Truth has touching and terrible accents which reverberate powerfully in
pure hearts as in guilty consciences, and which falsehood can no more
counterfeit than Salome can counterfeit the thunders of heaven."—437:
"Why do those who yesterday predicted such frightful tempests now gaze
only on the fleeciest clouds? Why do those who but lately exclaimed 'I
affirm that we are treading on a volcano' now behold themselves sleeping
on a bed of roses?"]
3199 (return)
[ Ibid., XXXII., 360,
361. (Portraits of the encyclopaedists and Hébertists.)]
31100 (return)
[ Ibid., XXXIII.,
408. "Here, I have to open my heart."—XXXII., 475-478, the
concluding part.]
31101 (return)
[ Hamel: "Histoire de
Robespierre," I., 34-76. An attorney at 23, a member of the Rosati club at
Arras at 24, a member of the Arras Academy at 25. The Royal Society of
Metz awarded him a second prize for his discourse against the prejudice
which regards the relatives of condemned criminals as infamous. His eulogy
of Gresset is not crowned by the Amiens Academy. He reads before the
Academy of Arras a discourse against the civil incapacities of
illegitimate children, and then another on reforms in criminal
jurisprudence. In 1789, he is president of the Arras Academy, and
publishes an eulogy of Dupaty and an address to the people from Artois on
the qualities necessary for future deputies.]
31102 (return)
[ See his eulogy of
Rousseau in the speech of May 7, 1794. (Buchez et Roux, XXXII., 369.—Garat,
85. "I hoped that his selection of Rousseau for a model of style and the
constant reading of his works would exert some good influence on his
character."]
31103 (return)
[ Fievée,
"correspondance" (introduction). Fievée, who heard him at the Jacobin
Club, said that he resembled a "tailor of the ancient regime." La
Réeveillère-Lepeaux, ´"Memoires."—Buchez et Roux, XXXIV., 94.—Malouet,
"Mémoires," II., 135. (Session of May 31, 1791, after the delivery of Abbé
Raynal's address.) "This is the first and only time I found Robespierre
clear and even eloquent.... He spun out his opening phrases as usual,
which contained the spirit of his discourse, and which, in spite of his
accustomed rigmarole, produced the effect he intended."]
31104 (return)
[ Courrier de
Provence, III., No. 52, (Oct. 7 and 8, 1789).—Buchez et Roux, VI.,
372. (Session of July 10, 1790.) Another similar blunder was committed by
him on the occasion of an American deputation. The president had made his
response, which was "unanimously applauded." Robespierre wanted to have
his say notwithstanding the objections of the Assembly, impatient at his
verbiage, and which finally put him down. Amidst the laughter, "M. l'Abbé
Maury demands ironically the printing of M. Robespierre's discourse."]
31105 (return)
[ L. Villiers, 2.]
31106 (return)
[ Cf. his principal
speeches in the constituent Assembly;—against martial law; against
the veto, even suspensive; against the qualification of the silver marc
and in favor of universal suffrage; in favor of admitting into the
National Guard non-acting citizens; of the marriage of priests; of the
abolition of the death penalty; of granting political rights to colored
men; of interdicting the father from favoring any one of his children; of
declaring the "Constituants" ineligible to the Legislative Assembly, etc.
On royalty: "The King is not the representative but the clerk of the
nation." On the danger of allowing political rights to colored men: "Let
the colonies perish if they cost you your honor, your glory, your
liberty!"]
31107 (return)
[ Hamel, I., 76.77,
(March, 1789). "My heart is an honest one and I stand firm; I have never
bowed beneath the yoke of baseness and corruption." He enumerates the
virtues that a representative of the Third Estate should possess (26, 83).
He already shows his blubbering capacity and his disposition to regard
himself as a victim: "They undertake making martyrs of the people's
defenders. Had they the power to deprive me of the advantages they envy,
could they snatch from me my soul and the consciousness of the benefits I
desire to confer on them."]
31108 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXXIII. "Who am I that am thus accused? The slave of freedom, a living
martyr to the Republic, at once the victim and the enemy of crime!" See
this speech in full.]
31109 (return)
[ Especially in his
address to the French people, (Aug., 1791), which, in a justificatory
form, is his apotheosis.—Cf. Hamel, II., 212; Speech in the Jacobin
club, (April 27, 1792).]
31110 (return)
[ Hamel, I., 517,
532, 559; II., 5.]
31111 (return)
[
Laréveillère-Lepeaux," Mémoires."—Barbaroux, "Mémoires," 358. (Both,
after a visit to him.)]
31112 (return)
[ Robespierre's
devotees constantly attend at the Jacobin club and in the convention to
hear him speak and applaud him, and are called, from their condition and
dress, "the fat petticoats."]
31113 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XX., 197. (Meeting of Nov. I, 1792.)—"Chronique de Paris," Nov. 9,
1792, article by Condorcet. With the keen insight of the man of the world,
he saw clearly into Robespierre's character. "Robespierre preaches,
Robespierre censures; he is animated, grave, melancholy, deliberately
enthusiastic and systematic in his ideas, and conduct. He thunders against
the rich and the great; he lives on nothing and has no physical
necessities. His sole mission is to talk, and this he does almost
constantly... His characteristics are not those of a religious reformer,
but of the chief of a sect. He has won a reputation for austerity
approaching sanctity. He jumps up on a bench and talks about God and
Providence. He styles himself the friend of the poor; he attracts around
him a crowd of women and 'the poor in spirit, and gravely accepts their
homage and worship.... Robespierre is a priest and never will be anything
else." Among Robespierre's devotees Madame de Chalabre must be mentioned,
(Hamel, I., 525), a young widow (Hamel, III., 524), who offers him her
hand with an income of forty thousand francs. "Thou art my supreme deity,"
she writes to him, "and I know no other on this earth! I regard thee as my
guardian angel, and would live only under thy laws."]
31114 (return)
[ Fievée,
"Correspondance," (introduction).]
31115 (return)
[ Report of Courtois
on the papers found in Robespierre's domicile. Justificatory documents
No.20, letter of the Secretary of the Committee of Surveillance of Saint
Calais, Nivôse 15, year II.]
31116 (return)
[ Ibid., No. 18.
Letter of V—, former inspector of "droits reservés," Feb. 5, 1792.]
31117 (return)
[ Ibid., No.8. Letter
of P. Brincourt, Sedan, Aug.29, 1793.]
31118 (return)
[ Ibid., No. I.
Letter of Besson, with an address of the popular club of Menosque,
Prairial 23, year II]
31119 (return)
[ Ibid., No.14.
Letter of D—, member of the Cordeliers Club, and former mercer,
Jan.31, 1792]
31120 (return)
[ Ibid., No.12.
Letter by C—, Chateau Thierry, Prairial 30, year II.]
31121 (return)
[ Hamel, III., 682.
(Copied from Billaud-Varennes' manuscripts, in the Archives Nationales).]
31122 (return)
[ Moniteur, XXII.,
'75. (Session of Vendémiaire i8, year III. Speech by Laignelot.)
"Robespierre had all the popular clubs under his thumb."]
31123 (return)
[ Garat, 85. "The
most conspicuous sentiment with Robespierre, and one, indeed, of which he
made no mystery, was that the defender of the people could never see
amiss."—(Bailleul, quoted in Carnot's Memoirs, I. 516.) "He regarded
himself as a privileged being, destined to become the people's regenerator
and instructor."]
31124 (return)
[ Speech of May 16,
1794, and of Thermidor 8, year II.]
31125 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, X.,
295, 296. (Session June 22, 1791, of the Jacobin Club.)—Ibid., 294.—Marat
spoke in the same vein: "I have made myself a curse for all good people in
France." He writes, the same date: "Writers in behalf of the people will
be dragged to dungeons. 'The friend of the people,' whose last sigh is
given for his country, and whose faithful voice still summons you to
freedom, is to find his grave in a fiery furnace." The last expression
shows the difference in their imaginations.]
31126 (return)
[ Hamel, II., 122.
(Meeting of the Jacobin Club, Feb.10, 1792.) "To obtain death at the hands
of tyrants is not enough—one must deserve death. If it be true that
the earliest defenders of liberty became its martyrs they should not
suffer death without bearing tyranny along with them into the grave."—Cf.,
ibid., II., 215. (Meeting of April 27, 1792.)]
31127 (return)
[ Hamel, II., 513.
(Speech in the Convention, Prairial 7, year II.)]
31128 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXXIII., 422, 445, 447, 457. (Speech in the Convention, Thermidor 8, year
II.)]
31129 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XX., 11, 18. (Meeting of the Jacobin Club, Oct.29, 1792.) Speech on
Lafayette, the Feuillants and Girondists. XXXI., 360, 363. (Meeting of the
Convention, May 7, 1794.) On Lafayette, the Girondists, Dantonists and
Hébertists.—XXXIII., 427. (Speech of Thermidor 8, year II.)]
31130 (return)
[ Garat, "Mémoires,"
87, 88.]
31131 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXI., 107. (Speech of Pétion on the charges made against him by
Robespierre.) Petion justly objects that "Brunswick would be the first to
cut off Brissot's head, and Brissot is not fool enough to doubt it."]
31132 (return)
[ Garat, 94. (After
the King's death and a little before the 10th of March, 1793.)]
31133 (return)
[ Ibid., 97. In 1789
Robespierre assured Garat that Necker was plundering the Treasury, and
that people had seen mules loaded with the gold and silver he was sending
off by millions to Geneva.—Carnot, "Mémoires," I. 512.
"Robespierre," say Carnot and Prieur, "paid very little attention to
public business, but a good deal to public officers; he made himself
intolerable with his perpetual mistrust of these, never seeing any but
traitors and conspirators."]
31134 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXXIII., 417. (Speech of Thermidor 8, year II.)]
31135 (return)
[ Ibid., XXXII., 361,
(Speech May 7, '794,) and 359. "Immorality is the basis of despotism, as
virtue is the essence of the Republic."]
31136 (return)
[ Ibid., 371.]
31137 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXXIII., 195. (Report of Couthon and decree in conformity therewith,
Prairial 22, year II.) "The revolutionary tribunal is organised for the
punishment of the people's enemies.. .. The penalty for all offences
within its jurisdiction is death. Those are held to be enemies of the
people who shall have misled the people, or the representatives of the
people, into measures opposed to the interests of liberty; those who shall
have sought to create discouragement by favoring the undertakings of
tyrants leagued against the Republic; those who shall have spread false
reports to divide or disturb the people; those who shall have sought to
misdirect opinion and impede popular instruction, produce depravity and
corrupt the public conscience, diminish the energy and purity of
revolutionary and republican principles, or stay their progress Those who,
charged with public functions, abuse them to serve the enemies of the
Revolution, vex patriots, oppress the people, etc."]
31138 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXXV., 290. (" Institutions," by Saint-Just.) "The Revolution is chilled.
Principles have lost their vigor. Nothing remains but red-caps worn by
intrigue."—Report by Courtois, "Pièces justificatives" No.20.
(Letter of Pays and Rompillon, president and secretary of the committee of
Surveillance of Saint-Calais, to Robespierre, Nivôse 15, year II.) "The
Mountain here is composed of only a dozen or fifteen men on whom you can
rely as on yourself; the rest are either deceived, seduced, corrupted or
enticed away. Public opinion is debauched by the gold and intrigues of
honest folks."]
31139 (return)
[ Report by Courtois,
N. 43.—Cf. Hamel, III., 43, 71.—(The following important
document is on file in the Archives Nationales, F 7, 4446, and consists of
two notes written by Robespierre in June and July, 1793): "Who are our
enemies? The vicious and the rich.... How may the civil war be stopped?
Punish traitors and conspirators, especially guilty deputies and
administrators.... make terrible examples.... proscribe perfidious writers
and anti-revolutionaries.... Internal danger comes from the bourgeois; to
overcome the bourgeois, rally the people. The present insurrection must be
kept up.... The insurrection should gradually continue to spread out...
The sans-culottes should be paid and remain in the towns. They ought to be
armed, worked up, taught."]
31140 (return)
[ The committee of
Public Safety, and Robespierre especially, knew of and commanded the
drownings of Nantes, as well as the principal massacres by Carrier,
Turreau, etc. (De Martel, "Etude sur Fouché," 257-265.)—Ibid.,
("Types revolutionnaires," 41-49.)—Buchez et Roux, XXXIII., 101 (May
26, 1794.) Report by Barère and decree of the convention ordering that "No
English prisoners should be taken." Robespierre afterwards speaks in the
same sense. Ibid., 458. After the capture of Newport, where they took five
thousand English prisoners, the French soldiers were unwilling to execute
the convention's decree, on which Robespierre (speech of Thermidor 8)
said: "I warn you that your decree against the English has constantly been
violated; England, so ill-treated in our speeches, is spared by our
arms."]
31141 (return)
[ On the Girondists,
Cf. "The Revolution," II., 216.]
31142 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXX., 157. Sketch of a speech on the Fabre d'Eglantine factim.—Ibid.,
336, Speech at the Jacobin Club against Clootz.—XXXII., abstract of
a report on the Chabot affair, 18.-Ibid., 69, Speech on maintaining
Danton's arrest.]
31143 (return)
[ Ibid., XXX., 378.
(Dec.10, 1793.) With respect to the women who crowd the Convention in
order to secure the liberty of their husbands: "Should the republican
women forget their virtues as citizens whenever they remembering that they
are wives?"]
31144 (return)
[ Hamel, III., 196.—Michelet,
V., 394, abstract of the judicial debates on the disposition of the
Girondists: "The minutes of this decree are found in Robespierre's
handwriting."]
31145 (return)
[ De Martel, "Types
revolutionnaires," 44. The instructions sent to the Revolutionary Tribunal
at Orange are in Robespierre's handwriting.—(Archives Nationales, F7
4439.)]
31146 (return)
[ Merlin de
Thionville.]
31147 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXXII., 71. (On Danton.) "Before the day is over we shall see whether the
convention will shatter an idol a long time rotten.... In what respect is
Danton superior to his fellow-citizens?.... I say that the man who now
hesitates is guilty..... The debate, just begun, is a danger to the
country."—Also the speech in full, against Clootz.]
31148 (return)
[ Ibid., XXX., 338.
"Alas, suffering patriots, what can we do, surrounded by enemies fighting
in our own ranks!... Let us watch, for the fall of our country is not far
off," etc.—These cantatas, with the accompaniments of the celestial
harp, are terrible if we consider the circumstances. For instance, on the
3rd of September, 1792, in the electoral assembly while the massacres are
going on: "M. Robespierre climbs up on the tribune and declares that he
will calmly face the steel of the enemies of public good, and carry with
him to his grave the satisfaction of having served his country, the
certainty of France having preserved its liberty".—(Archives
Nationales, C. II., 58-76.)]
31149 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXXII., 360, 371. (Speech of May 7, 1794.) "Danton! the most dangerous, if
he had not been the most cowardly, of the enemies of his country....
Danton, the coldest, the most indifferent, during his country's greatest
peril."]
31150 (return)
[ Ibid., XXXIV.,—Cf.
the description of him by Fievée, who saw him in the tribune at the
Jacobin Club.]
31151 (return)
[ Merlin de
Thionville "A vague, painful anxiety, due to his temperament, was the sole
source of his activity."]
31152 (return)
[ Barère, "Mémoires."
"He wanted to rule France influentially rather than directly."—Buchez
et Roux, XIV., 188. (Article by Marat.) During the early sessions of the
Legislative Assembly, Marat saw Robespierre on one occasion, and explained
to him his plans for exciting popular outbreaks, and for his purifying
massacres. "Robespierre listened to me with dismay, turned pale and kept
silent for some moments. This interview confirmed me in the idea I always
had of him, that he combined the enlightenment of a wise senator with the
uprightness of a genuine good man and the zeal of a true patriot, but that
he equally lacked the views and boldness of a statesman."—Thibaudeau,
"Mémoires," 58.—He was the only member of the committee of Public
Safety who did not join the department missions.]
31153 (return)
[ Someone is
"grandisonian" when he is like the novelist Richardson's hero, Sir Walter
Grandison, beneficient, polite and chivalrous. (SR).]
31154 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux XX.,
198. (Speech of Robespierre in the Convention, November 5, 1792.)]
31155 (return)
[ All these
statements by Robespierre are opposed to the truth.—("Procés-verbaux
des Séances de la Commune de Paris.") Sep. 1, 1792, Robespierre speaks
twice at the evening session.—The testimony of two persons, both
agreeing, indicate, moreover, that he spoke at the morning session, the
names of the speakers not being given. "The question," says Pétion (Buchez
et Roux, XXI., 103), "was the decree opening the barriers." This decree is
under discussion at the Commune at the morning session of September 1:
"Robespierre, on this question, spoke in the most animated manner,
wandering off in sombre flights of imagination; he saw precipices at his
feet and plots of liberticides; he designated the pretended conspirators."—Louvet
(ibid., 130), assigns the same date, (except that he takes the evening for
the morning session), for Robespierre's first denunciation of the
Girondists: "Nobody, then," says Robespierre, "dare name the traitors?
Very well, I denounce them. I denounce them for the security of the
people. I denounce the liberticide Brissot, the Girondist faction, the
villainous committee of twenty-one in the National Assembly. I denounce
them for having sold France to Brunswick and for having received pay in
advance for their baseness."—Sep. 2, ("Procès verbaux de la
Commune," evening session), "MM. Billaud-Varennes and Robespierre, in
developing their civic sentiments,.. denounce to the Conseil-Général the
conspirators in favor of the Duke of Brunswick, whom a powerful party want
to put on the throne of France."—September 3, at 6 o'clock in the
morning, (Buchez et Roux, 16, 132, letter of Louvet), commissioners of the
Commune present themselves at Brissot's house with an order to inspect his
papers; one of them says to Brissot that he has eight similar orders
against the Gironde deputies and that he is to begin with Guadet. (Letter
of Brissot complaining of this visit, Monitur, Sep. 7, 1792.) This same
day, Sep. 31 Robespierre presides at the Commune. (Granier de Cassagnac,
"Les Girondins" II., 63.) It is here that a deputation of the Mauconseil
section comes to find him, and he is charged by the "Conseil" with a
commission at the Temple.—Sept. 4 (Buchez et Roux, XXI., 106, Speech
of Petion), the Commune issues a warrant of arrest against Roland; Danton
comes to the Mayoralty with Robespierre and has the warrant revoked;
Robespierre ends by telling Petion: "I believe that Brissot belongs to
Brunswick."—Ibid., 506. "Robespierre (before Sept. 2), took the lead
in the Conseil"—Ibid., 107. "Robespierre," I said, "you are making a
good deal of mischief. Your denunciations, your fears, hatreds and
suspicions, excite the people."]
31156 (return)
[ Garat, 86.-Cf.
Hamel, I., 264. (Speech, June 9, 1791.)]
31157 (return)
[ "The Revolution,"
II., 338, 339. (Speech. Aug. 3, 1792.)]
31158 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXXIII., 420. (Speech, Thermidor 8.)]
31159 (return)
[ Ibid., XXXII., 71.
(Speech against Danton.) "What have you done that you have not done
freely?"]
31160 (return)
[ Ibid., XXXIII., 199
and 221. (Speech on the law of Prairial 22.)]
31161 (return)
[ Mirabeau said of
Robespierre: "Whatever that man has said, he believes in it.—Robespierre,
Duplay's guest, dined every day with Duplay, a juryman in the
revolutionary tribunal and co-operator for the guillotine, at eighteen
francs a day. The talk at the table probably turned on the current
abstractions; but there must have been frequent allusions to the
condemnations of the day, and, even when not mentioned, they were in their
minds. Only Robert Browning, at the present day, could imagine and revive
what was spoken and thought in those evening conversations before the
mother and daughters."]
31162 (return)
[ Today, more than
100 years later, where are we? Is it possible that man can thus lie to
himself and hence to others? Robert Wright, in his book "The Moral
Animal", describing "The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology", writes
(page 280): "The proposition here is that the human brain is, in large
part, a machine for winning arguments, a machine for convincing others
that its owner is in the right—and thus a machine for convincing its
owner of the same thing. The brain is like a good lawyer: given any set of
interests to defend, its sets about convincing the world of their moral
and logical worth, regardless of whether they in fact have any of either.
Like a lawyer, it is sometimes more admirable for skill than for virtue."
(SR).]
31163 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXXIII., 151.—Cf.. Dauban, "Paris en 1794," p.386 (engraving) and
392, "Fête de l'Être Suprême à Sceaux," according to the programme drawn
up by the patriot Palloy. "All citizens are requested to be at their
windows or doors, even those occupying the rear part of the main
buildings."—Ibid., 399. "Youthful citizens will strew flowers at
each station, fathers will embrace their children and mothers turn their
eyes upward to heaven."—Moniteur, XXX., 653. "Plan of the fête in
honor of the Supreme Being, drawn up by David, and decreed by the National
Convention."]
31164 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXXIII., 176. (Narrative by Valate.)]
31165 (return)
[ Hamel, III., 541.]
31166 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXVIII., 178, 180.]
31167 (return)
[ Ibid., 177
(Narrative by Vilate.) Ibid., 170, Notes by Robespierre on Bourdon (de
l'Oise) 417. Passages erased by Robespierre in the manuscript of his
speech of Thermidor 8.—249. Analogous passages in his speech as
delivered,—all these indications enable us to trace the depths of
his resentment.]
31168 (return)
[ Ibid., 183. Memoirs
of Billaud-Varennes, Collot d'Herbois, Vadier and Barère. "The next day
after Prairial 22, at the morning session (of the committee of Public
Safety).... I now see, says Robespierre, that I stand alone, with nobody
to support me, and, getting violently excited, he launched out against the
members of the committee who had conspired against him. He shouted so loud
as to collect together a number of citizens on the Tuileries terrace."
Finally, "he pushed hypocrisy so far as to shed tears." The nervous
machine, I imagine, broke down.—Another member of the committee,
Prieur, (Carnot, "Mémoires," II., 525), relates that, in the month of
Floréal, after another equally long and violent session, "Robespierre,
exhausted, became ill."]
31169 (return)
[ Carnot, "Mémoires,"
II. 526. "As his bureau was in a separate place, where none of us set
foot, he could retire to it without coming in contact with any of us, as
in effect, he did. He even made a pretence of passing through the
committee rooms, after the session was over, and he signed some papers;
but he really neglected nothing, except our common discussions. He held
frequent conferences in his house with the presidents of the revolutionary
tribunals, over which his influence was greater than ever."]
31170 (return)
[ Dauban, "Paris en
1794," 563.—Archives Nationales, AF.II., 58. The signature of
Robespierre, in his own handwriting, is found affixed to many of the
resolutions of the Committee of Public Safety, passed Thermidor 5 and 7,
and those of St. Just and Couthon after this, up to Thermidor 3, 6 and 7.
On the register of the minutes of the Committee of Public Safety,
Robespierre is always recorded as present at all meetings between Messidor
1 and Thermidor 8, inclusive.]
31171 (return)
[ Archives
Nationales, F.7, 4438. Report to the Committee of Public Safety by Herman,
Commissioner of the civil and Police administrations and of the Courts,
Messidor 3, year II. "The committee charged with a general supervision of
the prisons, and obliged to recognize that all the rascals mostly
concerned with liberticide plots are.... still in the prisons, forming a
band apart, and rendering surveillance very troublesome; they are a
constant source of disorder, always getting up attempts to escape, being a
daily assemblage of persons devoting themselves wholly to imprecations
against liberty and its defenders.... It would be easy to point out in
each prison, those who have served, and are to serve, the diverse
factions, the diverse conspiracies.... It may be necessary, perhaps, to
purge the prisons at once and free the soil of liberty of their filth, the
refuse of humanity." The Committee of Public Safety consequently "charges
the commission to ascertain in the prisons of Paris... who have been more
specially concerned in the diverse factions and conspiracies that the
National convention has destroyed." The word "approved" appears at the
foot of the resolution in Robespierre's handwriting, then the signature of
Robespierre, and lower down, those of Billaud and Barère. A similar
resolution providing for the 7th of Messidor, signed by the same parties
and five others, is dispatched the same day. (M. de Martel came across and
made use of this conclusive document before I did, most of it being quoted
in "Les Types Revolutionnaires.")]
31172 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXXIII., 434.]
Let us follow the operations of the new government from top to bottom, from those of its ruling bodies and leaders, to its assemblies, committees, delegates, administrators and underlings of every kind and degree. Like living flesh stamped with a red-hot iron, so will the situation put one their brows the two marks, each with its own different depth and discoloration. In vain do they, too, strive to conceal their scars: we detect under the crowns and titles they assume the brand of the slave or the mark of the tyrant.
The Convention.—The "Plain."—The "Mountain."—Degradation
of Souls.—Parades which the Convention is obligated to
make.
At the Tuileries, the omnipotent Convention sits enthroned in the theater, converted into an Assembly room. It carries on its deliberations daily, in grand style. Its decrees, received with blind obedience, startle France and upset all Europe. At a distance, its majesty is imposing, more august than that of the Republican senate in Rome. Near by, the effect is quite otherwise; these undisputed sovereigns are serfs who live in trances, and justly so, for, nowhere, even in prison, is there more constraint and less security than on their benches. After the 2nd of June, 1793, their inviolable precincts, the grand official reservoir from which legal authority flows, becomes a sort of tank, into which the revolutionary net plunges and successfully brings out its choicest fish, singly or by the dozen, and sometimes in vast numbers; at first, the sixty-seven Girondist deputies, who are executed or proscribed; then, the seventy-three members of the "Right," swept off in one day and lodged in the prison of La Force; next, the prominent Jacobins:
Osselin, arrested on the 19th of Brumaire, Bazire, Chabot, and Delaunay, accused by decree on the 24th Brumaire, Fabre d'Eglantine, arrested on the 24th of Nivôse, Bernard, guillotined on the 3rd of Pluviôse, Anacharsis Clootz guillotined on the 4th of Germinal, Hérault de Séchelles, Lacroix, Philippeaux, Camille Desmoulins and Danton, guillotined with four others on the 10th of Germinal, Simon, guillotined on the 24th of Germinal, and Osselin, guillotined on the 8th of Messidor.—Naturally, the others take warning and are careful. At the opening of the session they are seen entering the hall, looking uneasy, full of distrust,"3201 like animals driven into a pen and suspicious of a trap.
"Each," writes an eye-witness, "acted and spoke with circumspection, for fear of being charged with some crime: in effect, nothing was unimportant, the seat one took, a glance of the eye, a gesture, a murmur, a smile."
Hence, they flock instinctively to the side which is best sheltered, the left side.
"The tide flowed towards the summit of the Mountain; the right side was deserted.... Many took no side at all, and, during the session, often changed their seats, thinking that they might thus elude the spy by donning a mixed hue and keeping on good terms with everybody. The most prudent never sat down; they kept off the benches, at the foot of the tribune, and, on matters getting to be serious, slipped quietly out of the hall."
Most of them took refuge in their committee-rooms; each tries to be over-looked, to be obscure, to appear insignificant or absent.3202 During the four months following the 2nd of June, the hall of the Convention is half or three-quarters empty; the election of a president does not bring out two hundred and fifty voters;3203 only two hundred, one hundred, fifty votes, elect the Committees of Public Safety and General Security; about fifty votes elect the judges of the Revolutionary Tribunal; less than ten votes elect their substitutes;3204 not one vote is cast for the adoption of the decree indicting the deputy, Dulaure;3205 "no member rises for or against it; there is no vote;" the president, nevertheless, pronounces the act passed and the Marais lets things take their course."—"Marais frogs"3206 is the appellation bestowed on them before the 2nd of June, when, amongst the dregs of the "Center," they "broke" with the "Mountain;" now, they still number four hundred and fifty, three times as many as the "Montagnards;" but they purposely keep quiet; their old name "renders them, so to say, soft; their ears ring with eternal menaces; their hearts shrivel up with terror;3207 while their tongues, paralyzed by habitual silence, remain as if glued to the roofs of their mouths. In vain do they keep in the back-ground, consent to everything, ask nothing for themselves but personal safety, and surrender all else, their votes, their wills and their consciences; they feel that their life hangs by a thread. The greatest mute among them all, Siéyès, denounced in the Jacobin Club, barely escapes, and through the protection of his shoemaker, who rises and exclaims: "That Siéyès! I know him. He don't meddle with politics. He does nothing but read his book. I make his shoes and will answer for him."3208
Of course, previous to the 9th of Thermidor, none of them open their mouths; it is only the "Montagnards" who make speeches, and on the countersign being given. If Legendre, the admirer, disciple and confidential friend of Danton, dares at one time interfere in relation to the decree which sends his friend to the scaffold, asking that he may first be heard, it is only to retract immediately; that very evening, at the Jacobin club, for greater security, "he wallows in the mud;"3209 he declares "that he submits to the judgment of the revolutionary Tribunal," and swears to denounce "whoever shall oppose any obstacle to the execution of the decree."3210 Has not Robespierre taught him a lesson, and in his most pedantic manner? What is more beautiful, says the great moralist, more sublime, than an Assembly which purges itself?3211—Thus, not only is the net which has already dragged out so many palpitating victims still intact, but it is enlarged and set again, only, the fish are now caught on the "Left" as well as on the "Right," and preferably on the topmost benches of the "Mountain."3212 And better still, through the law of Prairial 22, its meshes are reduced in size and its width increased; with such admirable contraption, the fishpond could not fail to be exhausted. A little before the 9th of Thermidor, David, who was one of Robespierre's devoted adherents, himself exclaimed: "Will twenty of us be left on the Mountain?" About the same time, Legendic, Thuriot, Léonard Bourdon, Tallien, Bourdon de l'Oise, and others, each has a spy all day long at his heels. There are thirty deputies to be proscribed and their names are whispered about; whereupon, sixty stay out all night, convinced that they will be seized the next morning before they can get up.3213
Subject to such a system, prolonged for so many months, people sink down and become discouraged. "Everybody made themselves small so as to pass beneath the popular yoke.3214 Everybody became one of the low class.... Clothes, manners, refinement, cleanliness, the conveniences of life, civility and politeness were all renounced."—People wear their clothes indecently and curse and swear; they try to resemble the sans-culottes Montagnards "who are profane and dress themselves like so many dock-loafers;"3215 at Armonville, the carder, who presides (at a meeting) wears a woolen cap, and similarly at Cusset, a gauze-workman, who is always drunk. Only Robespierre dares appear in neat attire; among the others, who do not have his influence, among the demi-suspects with a pot-belly, such a residue of the ancient régime might become dangerous; they do well not to attract the attention of the foul-mouthed spy who cannot spell;3216 especially is it important at a meeting to be one of the crowd and remain unnoticed by the paid claqueurs, drunken swaggerers and "fat petticoats" of the tribunes. It is even essential to shout in harmony with them and join in their bar-room dances. The deputations of the popular clubs come for fourteen months to the bar of the house and recite their common-place or bombastic tirades, and the Convention is forced to applaud them. For nine months,3217 street ballad-singers and coffee-house ranters attend in full session and sing the rhymes of the day, while the Convention is obliged to join in the chorus. For six weeks,3218 the profaners of churches come to the hall and display their dance-house buffooneries, and the Convention has not only to put up with these, but also to take part in them.—Never, even in imperial Rome, under Nero and Heliogabalus, did a senate descend so low.
How the parades are carried out.—Its slavery and servility
—Its participation in crime.
Observe one of their parades, that of Brumaire 20th, 22nd or 30th, which masquerade often occurs several times a week and is always the same, with scarcely any variation.—Male and female wretches march in procession to the doors of the deputies' hall, still "drunk with the wine imbibed from chalices, after eating mackerel broiled in patens," besides refreshing themselves on the way. "Mounted astride of asses which they have rigged out in chasuble and which they guide with a stole," they halt at each low smoking-den, holding a drinking cup in their hand; the bartender, with a mug in his hand, fills it, and, at each station, they toss off their bumpers, one after the other, in imitation of the Mass, and which they repeat in the street in their own fashion.—On finishing this, they don copes, chasubles and dalmatica, and, in two long lines, file before the benches of the Convention. Some of them bear on hand-barrows or in baskets, candelabra, chalices, gold and silver salvers, monstrances, and reliquaries; others hold aloft banners, crosses and other ecclesiastical spoils. In the mean time "bands play the air of the carmagnole and 'Malbrook.'... On the entry of the dais, they strike up 'Ah! le bel oiseau;'"3219 all at once the masqueraders throw off their disguise, and, mitres, stoles, chasubles flung in the air, "disclose to view the defenders of the country in the national uniform." Peals of laughter, shouts and enthusiasm, while the instrumental din becomes louder! The procession, now in full blast, demands the carmagnole, and the Convention consents; even some of the deputies descend from their benches and cut the pigeon-wing with the merry prostitutes.—To wind up, the Convention decrees that it will attend that evening the fête of Reason and, in fact, they go in a body. Behind an actress in short petticoats wearing a red cap, representing Liberty or Reason, march the deputies, likewise in red caps, shouting and singing until they reach the new temple, which is built of planks and pasteboard in the choir of Notre Dame. They take their seats in the front rows, while the Goddess, an old frequenter of the suppers of the Duc de Soubise, along with "all the pretty dames of the Opera," display before them their operatic graces.3220 They sing the "Hymn to Liberty," and, since the Convention has that morning decreed that it must sing, I suppose that it also joined in.3221 After this there follows dancing; but, unfortunately, the authorities are wanting for stating whether the Convention danced or not. In any event, it is present at the dance, and thus consecrates an unique orgy, not Rubens' "Kermesse" in the open air, racy and healthy, but a nocturnal boulevard-jollification, a "Mardi-gras" composed of lean and haggard scapegraces.—In the great nave of the Cathedral, "the dancers, almost naked, with bare necks and breasts, and stockings down at the heel," writhe and stamp, "howling the carmagnole." In the side chapels, which are "shut off by high tapestries, prostitutes with shrill voices" pursue their avocation.3222—To descend to this low level so barefacedly, to fraternise with barrier sots, and wenches, to endure their embraces and hiccoughs, is bad enough, even for docile deputies. More than one half of them loathed it beforehand and remained at home; after this they do not feel disposed to attend the Convention.3223—But the "Mountain sends for them, and an officer brings them back;" it is necessary that they should co-operate through their presence and felicitations in the profanations and apostasies which follow;3224 it is necessary that they should approve of and decree that which they hold in horror, not alone folly and nonsense, but crime, the murder of innocent people, and that of their friends.—All this is done. "Unanimously, and with the loudest applause," the Left, united with the Right, sends Danton to the scaffold, its natural chieftain, the great promoter and leader of the Revolution.3225 "Unanimously, and with the loudest applause," the Right, united with the Left, votes the worse decrees of the Revolutionary government.3226 "Unanimously," with approving and enthusiastic cheers, manifesting the warmest sympathy for Collot d'Herbois, Couthon, and Robespierre,3227 the Convention, through multiplied and spontaneous re-elections, maintains the homicidal government which the Plain detests, because it is homicidal, and which the Mountain detests, because it is decimated by it. Plain and Mountain, by virtue of terror, majority after majority, end in consenting to and bringing about their own suicide: on the 22nd of Prairial, the entire Convention has stretched out its neck;3228 on the 8th of Thermidor, for a quarter of an hour after Robespierre's speech,3229 it has again stretched this out, and would probably have succumbed, had not five or six of them, whom Robespierre designated or named, Bourdon de l'Oise, Vadier, Cambon, Billaud and Panis, stimulated by the animal instinct of self-preservation, raised their arms to ward off the knife. Nothing but imminent, personal, mortal danger could, in these prostrated beings, supplant long-continued fear with still greater fear. Later on, Siéyès, on being asked how he acted in these times, replied, "I lived." In effect, he and others are reduced to that; they succeeded in doing this, at all costs, and at what a price!3230 His secret notes, his most private sketches confirm this3231...
"On the Committee of March 20, "Paillasse, half drunk, gives a dissertation on the way to carry on the war, and interrogates and censures the Minister. The poor Minister evades his questions with café gossip and a review of campaigns. These are the men placed at the head of the government to save the Republic!"—"H...., in his distraction, had the air of a sly fox inwardly smiling at his own knavish thoughts. Ruit irrevocabile vulgus... Jusque Datum sceleri."—"Are you keeping silent?"—"Of what use is my glass of wine in this torrent of ardent spirits?"—
All this is very well, but he did not merely keep silent and abstain. He voted, legislated and decreed, along with the unanimous Convention; he was a collaborator, not only passively, through his presence, but also through his active participation in the acts of the government which he elected and enthroned, re-elected twelve times, cheered every week, and flattered daily, authorizing and keeping on to the end its work of spoliation and massacre.
"Everybody is guilty here," said Carrier in the Convention, "even to the president's bell."
In vain do they constantly repeat to themselves that they were forced to obey under penalty of death: the conscience of the purest among them, if he has any, replies:
"You too, in spite of yourself, I admit; less than others, if you please, but you were a terrorist, that is to say, a brigand and an assassin."3232
The Men who do the work.—Carnot, Prieur de-la-Côte d'Or,
Jean Bon Saint André, Robert Lindet.
On a man becoming a slave, said old Homer, the Gods take away the half of his soul; the same is true of a man who becomes a tyrant.—In the Pavilion de Flore, alongside of and above the enslaved Convention, sit the twelve kings it has enthroned, twice a day,3233 ruling over it as well as over France.3234 Of course, some guarantee is required from those who fill this place; there is not one of them who is not a revolutionary of long standing, an impenitent regicide, a fanatic in essence and a despot through principle; but the fumes of omnipotence have not intoxicated them all to the same degree.—Three or four of them, Robert Lindet, Jean Bon St. André, Prieur de la Côte-d'Or and Carnot, confine themselves to useful and secondary duties; this suffices to keep them partially safe. As specialists, charged with an important service, their first object is to do this well, and hence they subordinate the rest to this, even theoretical exigencies and the outcries of the clubs.
Lindet's prime object is to feed the departments that are without wheat, and the towns that are soon to be short of bread.
Prieur's business is to see that biscuits, brandy, clothes, shoes, gunpowder and arms are manufactured.3235
Jean Bon, that vessels are equipped and crews drilled.
Carnot, to draw up campaign plans and direct the march of armies: the dispatch of so many bags of grain during the coming fortnight to this or that town, or warehouse in this or that district; the making up of so many weekly rations, to be deported during the month to certain places on the frontier; the transformation of so many fishermen into artillerymen or marines, and to set afloat so many vessels in three months; to expedite certain Corps of Cavalry, infantry and artillery, so as to arrive by such and such roads at this or that pass—
These are precise combinations which purge the brain of dogmatic phrases, which force revolutionary jargon into the background and keep a man sensible and practical; and all the more because three of them, Jean Bon, former captain of a merchantman, Prieur and Carnot, engineering officers, are professional men and go to the front to put their shoulders to the wheel on the spot. Jean Bon, always visiting the coasts, goes on board a vessel of the fleet leaving Brest to save the great American convoy; Carnot, at Watignies, orders Jourdan to make a decisive move, and, shouldering his musket, marches along with the attacking column.3236 Naturally, they have no leisure for speechmaking in the Jacobin club, or for intrigues in the Convention: Carnot lives in his own office and in the committee-room; he does not allow himself time enough to eat with his wife, dines on a crust of bread and a glass of lemonade, and works sixteen and eighteen hours a day;3237 Lindet, more overtasked than any body else, because hunger will not wait, reads every report himself, and passes days and nights at it;"3238 Jean Bon, in wooden shoes and woolen vest, with a bit of coarse bread and a glass of bad beer,3239 writes and dictates until his strength fails him, and he has to lie down and sleep on a mattress on the floor.—Naturally, again, when interfered with, and the tools in their hands are broken, they are dissatisfied; they know well the worth of a good instrument, and for the service, as they comprehend it, good tools are essential, competent, faithful employees, regular in attendance at their offices, and not at the club. When they have a subordinate of this kind they defend him, often at the risk of their lives, even to incurring the enmity of Robespierre. Cambon,3240 who, on his financial committee, is also a sort of sovereign, retains at the Treasury five or six hundred employees unable to procure their certificate of civism, and whom the Jacobins incessantly denounce so as to get their places. Carnot saves and employs eminent engineers, D'Arcon, de Montalembert, d'Obenheim, all of them nobles, and one of them an anti-Jacobin, without counting a number of accused officers whom he justifies, replaces, or maintains.3241—Through these courageous and humane acts, they solace themselves for their scruples, at least partially and for the time being; moreover, they are statesmen only because the occasion and superior force makes it imperative, more led by others than leading, terrorists through accident and necessity, rather than through system and instinct. If, in concert with ten others, Prieur and Carnot order wholesale robbery and murder, if they sign orders by twenties and hundreds, amounting to assassinations, it is owing to their forming part of a body. When the whole committee deliberates, they are bound, in important decrees, to submit to the preponderating opinion of the majority, after voting in the negative. In relation to secondary decrees, in which there has been no preliminary discussion in common, the only responsible member is the one whose signature stands first; the following signatures affixed, without reading the document, are simply a "formality which the law requires," merely a visa, necessarily mechanical; with "four or five hundred business matters to attend to daily," it is impossible to do otherwise. To read all and vote in every case, would be "a physical impossibility."3242—Finally, as things are, "is not the general will, at least the apparent general will, that alone on which the government can decide, itself ultra-revolutionary?"3243 In other words, should not the five or six rascals in a State who vociferate, be listened to, rather than a hundred honest folks who keep their mouths shut? With this sophism, gross as it is, but of pure Jacobin manufacture, Carnot ends by hoodwinking his honor and his conscience; otherwise intact, and far more so than his colleagues, he likewise undergoes moral and mental mutilation; constrained by the duties of his post and the illusions of his creed, he succeeded in an inward decapitation of the two noblest of human faculties, common-sense, the most useful, and the moral sense, the most exalted of all.
Billaud-Varennes, Collot d'Herbois, Robespierre, Couthon and
Saint-Just.—Conditions of this rule.—Dangers to which they
are subject.—Their dissensions.—Pressure of Fear and
Theory.
If such are the ravages which are made in an upright, firm and healthy personality, what must be the havoc in corrupt or weak natures, in which bad instincts already predominate!—And note that they are without the protection provided by a pursuit of some specific and useful objective. They are "government men," also "revolutionaries" or "the people in total control;"3244 they are in actual fact men with an overall concept of things, also direct these. The creation, organization and application of Terror belongs wholly to them; they are the constructors, regulators and engineers of the machine,3245 the recognized heads of the party, of the sect and of the government, especially Billaud and Robespierre, who never serve on missions,3246 nor relax their hold for a moment on the central motor. The former, an active politician, with Collot for his second, is charged with urging on the constituted authorities, the districts, the municipalities, the national agents, the revolutionary committees, and the representatives on mission in the interior.3247 The latter, a theologian, moralist, titular doctor and preacher, is charged with ruling the Convention and indoctrinating the Jacobins with sound principles; behind him stands Couthon, his lieutenant, with Saint-Just, his disciple and executor of works of great importance; in their midst, Barère, the Committee's mouthpiece, is merely a tool, but indispensable, conveniently at hand and always ready to start whatever drum-beating is required on any given theme in honor of the party which stuffs his brain. Below these comes the Committee of General Security, Vadier, Amar, Vouland, Guffroy, Panis, David, Jagot and the rest, those who undertook, reported on, and acted in behalf of universal proscription. All these bear the imprint of their service; they could be recognized by "their pallid hue, hollow and bloodshot eyes,"3248 habits of omnipotence stamped "on their brows, and on their deportment, something indescribably haughty and disdainful. The Committee of General Security reminded one of the former lieutenants of police, and the Committee of Public Safety, of the former ministers of state." In the Convention, "it is considered an honor to talk with them, and a privilege to shake hands with them; one seems to read one's duty on their brows." On the days on which their orders are to be converted into laws "the members of the Committee and the reporter of the bill, keep people waiting, the same as the heads and representatives of the former sovereign power; on their way to the Assembly hall, they are preceded by a group of courtiers who seem to announce the masters of the world."3249—In fact, they reign—but observe on what conditions.
"Make no complaints," said Barère,3250 to the composer of an opera, the performance of which had just been suspended: "as times go, you must not attract public attention. Do we not all stand at the foot of the guillotine, all, beginning with myself?" Again, twenty years later, in a private conversation, on being interrogated as to the veritable object, the secret motive of the Committee of Public Safety, he replied:
"As we were animated by but one sentiment,3251 my dear sir, that of self-preservation, we had but one desire, that of maintaining an existence which each of us believed to be menaced. You had your neighbor guillotined to prevent your neighbor from guillotining you."3252
The same apprehension exists in stouter souls, although there may have been, along with fear, motives of a less debased order.
"How many times," says Carnot,3253 "we undertook some work that required time, with the conviction that we should not be allowed to complete it!"—"It was uncertain3254 whether, the next time the clock struck the hour, we should not be standing before the revolutionary Tribunal on our way to the scaffold without, perhaps, having had time to bid adieu to our families.... We pursued our daily task so as not to let the machine stand still, as if a long life were before us, when it was probable that we should not see the next day's sun."
It is impossible to count on one's life, or that of another, for twenty-four hours; should the iron hand which holds one by the throat tighten its grasp, all will be over that evening.
"There were certain days so difficult that one could see no way to control circumstances; those who were directly menaced resigned themselves wholly to chance."3255—"The decisions for which we are so much blamed," says another,3256 "were not generally thought of two days, or one day, beforehand; they sprung out of the crisis of the moment. We did not desire to kill for the sake of killing... but to conquer at all hazards, remain masters, and ensure the sway of our principles."—That is true,—they are subjects as well as despots. At the Committee table, during their nocturnal sessions, their sovereign presides, a formidable figure, the revolutionary Idea which confers on them the right to slay, on condition of exercising it against everybody, and therefore on themselves. Towards two o'clock, or three o'clock in the morning, exhausted, out of words and ideas, not knowing where to slay, on the right or on the left, they anxiously turn to this figure and try to read its will in its fixed eyes.
"Who shall fall to-morrow?"—
Ever the same reply steadily expressed on the features of the impassable phantom: "the counter-revolutionaries," under which name is comprised all who by act, speech, thought or inmost sentiment, either through irritation or carelessness, through humanity or moderation, through egoism or nonchalance, through passive, neutral or indifferent feeling, serve well or ill the Revolution.3257—All that remains is to add names to this horribly comprehensive decree. Shall Billaud do it? Shall Robespierre do it? Will Billaud put down Robespierre's name, or Robespierre put down Billaud's, or each the name of the other, with those he chooses to select from among the two Committees? Osselin, Chabot, Bazire, Julien de Toulouse, Lacroix, Danton, were on them, and when they left, their heads fell.3258 Hérault-Séchelles, again, was on them, maintained in office with honor through the recent approbation of the Convention,3259 one of the titular twelve, and on duty when an order issued by the other eleven suddenly handed him over to the revolutionary Tribunal for execution.—Whose turn is it now among the eleven? Seized unawares, the docile Convention unanimously applauding, after three days of a judicial farce, the cart will bear him to the Place de la Révolution; Samson will tie him fast, shouters at thirty sous a day will clap their hands, and, on the following morning, the popular politicians will congratulate each other on seeing the name of a great traitor on the bulletin of the guillotined.3260 To this end, to enable this or that king of the day to pass from the national Almanac to the mortuary list, merely required an understanding among his colleagues, and, perhaps, this is already arrived at. Among whom and against whom?—It is certain that, as this idea occurs to the eleven, seated around the table, they eye each other with a shudder they calculate the chances and turn things over in their minds; words have been uttered that are not forgotten. Carnot often made this charge against Saint-Just: "You and Robespierre are after a dictatorship."3261 Robespierre replied to Carnot: "I am ready for you on the first defeat."3262 On another occasion, Robespierre, in a rage, exclaimed: "The Committee is conspiring against me!" and, turning to Billaud, "I know you, now!" Billaud retorted, "I know you too, you are a counter-revolutionary!"3263 There are conspirators and counter-revolutionaries, then, on the committee itself; what can be done to avoid this appellation, which is a sentence of death?—Silently, the fatal phantom enthroned in their midst, the Erinyes3264 through which they rule, renders his oracle and all take it to heart:
"All who are unwilling to become executioners are conspirators and counter-revolutionaries."
Official Jacobin organs.—Reports by Saint-Just are Barère.
—Quality of reports and reporters.
Thus do they march along during twelve months, goaded on by the two sharp thongs of theory and fear, traversing the red pool which they have created, and which is daily becoming deeper and deeper, all together and united, neither of them daring to separate from the group, and each spattered with the blood thrown in his face by the others' feet. It is not long before their eyesight fails them; they no longer see their way, while the degradation of their language betrays the stupor of their intellect.—When a government brings to the tribune and moves the enactment of important laws, it confronts the nation, faces Europe, and takes a historical position. If it cares for its own honor it will select reporters of bills that are not unworthy, and instruct them to support these with available arguments, as closely reasoned out as possible; the bill, discussed and adopted in full council, will show the measure of its capacity, the information it possesses and its common-sense.
To estimate all this, read the bills put forth in the name of the Committee; weigh the preambles, remark the tone, listen to the two reporters usually chosen, Saint-Just, who draws up the acts of proscription, special or general, and Barère, who draws up all acts indifferently, but particularly military announcements and decrees against the foreigner; never did public personages, addressing France and posterity, use such irrational arguments and state falsehoods with greater impudence.3265
The former, stiff in his starched cravat, posing "like the Holy Ghost," more didactic and more absolute than Robespierre himself, comes and proclaims to Frenchmen from the tribune, equality, probity, frugality, Spartan habits, and a rural cot with all the voluptuousness of virtue;3266 this suits admirably the chevalier Saint-Just, a former applicant for a place in the Count d'Artois' body-guard, a domestic thief, a purloiner of silver plate which he takes to Paris, sells and spends on prostitutes, imprisoned for six months on complaint of his own mother,3267 and author of a lewd poem which he succeeds in rendering filthy by trying to render it fanciful.—Now, indeed, he is grave; he no longer leers; he kills—but with what arguments, and what a style!3268 The young Laubardemont as well as the paid informers and prosecutors of imperial Rome, have less disgraced the human intellect, for these creatures of a Tiberius or a Richelieu still used plausible arguments in their reasoning, and with more or less adroitness. With Saint-Just, there is no connection of ideas; there is no sequence or march in his rhapsody; like an instrument strained to the utmost, his mind plays only false notes in violent fits and starts; logical continuity, the art then so common of regularly developing a theme, has disappeared; he stumbles over the ground, piling up telling aphorisms and dogmatic axioms. In dealing with facts there is nothing in his speech but a perversion of the truth; impostures abound in it of pure invention, palpable, as brazen as those of a charlatan in his booth;3269 he does not even deign to disguise them with a shadow of probability; as to the Girondists, and as to Danton, Fabre d'Eglantine and his other adversaries, whoever they may be, old or new, any rope to hang them with suffices for him; any rough, knotted, badly-twisted cord he can lay his hands on, no matter what, provided it strangles, is good enough; there is no need of a finer one for confirmed conspirators; with the gossip of the club and an Inquisition catechism, he can frame his bill of indictment.—Accordingly, his intellect grasps nothing and yields him nothing; he is a sententious and overexcited declaimer, an artificial spirit always on the stretch, full of affectations,3270 his talent reducing itself down to the rare flashes of a somber imagination, a pupil of Robespierre, as Robespierre himself is a pupil of Rousseau, the exaggerated scholar of a plodding scholar, always rabidly ultra, furious through calculation, deliberately violating both language and ideas,3271 confining himself to theatrical and funereal paradoxes, a sort of "grand vizier"3272 with the airs of an exalted moralist and the bearing of the sentimental shepherd.3273 Were one of a mocking humor one might shrug one's shoulders; but, in the present state of the Convention, there is no room for anything but fear. Launched in imperious tones, his phrases fall upon their ears in monotonous strokes, on bowed heads, and, after five or six blows from this leaden hammer, the stoutest are stretched out stupefied on the ground; discussion is out of the question; when Saint-Just, in the name of the Convention, affirms anything, it must be believed; his dissertation is a peremptory injunction and not an effort of reason; it commands obedience; it is not open to examination; it is not a report which he draws from his coat pocket, but a bludgeon.
The other reporter, Barère, is of quite another stamp, a "patent-right" haranguer, an amusing Gascon, alert, "free and easy," fond of a joke, even on the Committee of Public Safety,3274 unconcerned in the midst of assassinations, and, to the very last, speaking of the reign of Terror as "the simplest and most innocent thing in the world."3275 No man was ever less trammeled by a conscience; in truth, he has several, that of two days ago, that of the previous day, that of the present day, that of the morrow, of the following day, and still others, as many as you like, all equally pliant and supple, at the service of the strongest against the weakest, ready to swing round at once on the wind changing, but all joined together and working to one common end through physical instinct, the only one that lasts in the immoral, adroit and volatile being who circulates nimbly about, with no other aim than self-preservation, and to amuse himself.3276—In his dressing-gown, early in the morning, he receives a crowd of solicitors, and, with the ways of a "dandified minister," graciously accepts the petitions handed to him; first, those of ladies, "distributing gallantries among the prettiest;" he makes promises, and smiles, and then, returning to his cabinet, throws the papers in the fire: "There," he says, my correspondence is done."—He sups twice every decade in his fine house at Clichy, along with three more than accommodating pretty women; he is gay, awarding flatteries and attentions quite becoming to an amiable protector: he enters into their professional rivalries, their spites against the reigning beauty, their jealousy of another who wears a blonde wig and pretends "to set the fashion." He sends immediately for the National Agent and gravely informs him that this head-dress, borrowed from the guillotined, is a rallying point for anti-revolutionaries, whereupon, the next day, wigs are denounced at the Commune-council, and suppressed; "Barère roared with laughter on alluding to this piece of fun." The humor of an undertaker and the dexterity of a commercial drummer: he plays with Terror.—In like manner he plays with his reports, and at this latter exercise, he improvises; he is never embarrassed; it is simply necessary to turn the faucet and the water runs. "Had he any subject to treat, he would fasten himself on Robespierre, Hérault, Saint-Just, or somebody else, and draw them out; he would then rush off to the tribune and spin out their ideas; "they were all astonished at hearing their thoughts expressed as fully as if reflected in a mirror." No individual on the Committee, or in the Convention, equaled him in promptness and fluency, for the reason that he was not obliged to think before he spoke: with him, the faculty of speaking, like an independent organ, acted by itself, the empty brain or indifferent heart contributing nothing to his loquacity. Naturally, whatever issues from his mouth comes forth in ready-made bombast, the current jargon of the Jacobin club, sonorous, nauseous commonplace, schoolboy metaphors and similes derived from the shambles.3277 Not an idea is found in all this rhetoric, nothing acquired, no real mental application. When Bonaparte, who employed everybody, even Fouché, were disposed to employ Barère, they could make nothing out of him for lack of substance, except as a low newsmonger, common spy, or agent engaged to stir up surviving Jacobins; later on, a listener at keyholes, and a paid weekly collector of public rumors, he was not even fit for this vile service, for his wages were soon stopped Napoleon, who, having no time to waste, cut short his driveling verbiage.—It is this verbiage which, authorized by the Committee of Public Safety, now forms the eloquence of France; it is this manufacturer of phrases by the dozen, this future informer and prison-spy under the empire, this frolicking inventor of the blonde-wig conspiracy, that the government sends into the tribune to announce victories, trumpet forth military heroism and proclaim war unto death. On the 7th of Prairial,3278 Barère, in the name of the committee, proposes a return to savage law: "No English or Hanoverian prisoner shall henceforth be made;" the decree is endorsed by Carnot and passes the Convention unanimously. Had it been executed, as reprisals, and according to the proportion of prisoners, there would have been for one Englishman shot, three Frenchmen hung: honor and humanity would have disappeared from the camps; the hostilities between Christians would have become as deadly as among savages. Happily, French soldiers felt the nobleness of their profession; on the order being given to shoot the prisoners, a decent sergeant replied:
"We will not shoot—send them to the Convention. If the representatives delight in killing prisoners—let them do it themselves, and eat them, too, savages as they are!"
The sergeant, an ordinary man, is not on a level with the Committee, or with Barère; and yet Barère did his best in a bill of indictment of twenty-seven pages, full of grand flourishes, every possible ritornello, glaring falsehood and silly inflation, explaining how "the Britannic leopard" paid assassins to murder the representatives; how the London cabinet had armed little Cécile Renault, "the new Corday," against Robespierre; how the Englishman, naturally barbarous, "is unable to deny his origins; how he descends from the Carthaginians and Phenicians, and formerly dealt in the skins of wild beasts and slaves; how his trading occupation is not changed; how Cesar, formerly, on landing in the country, found nothing but a ferocious tribe battling with wolves in the forest and threatening to burn every vessel which would try to land there; and how he still remains like that." A lecture from a fairground surgeon who, using bombastic words, recommends extensive amputations, a fairground-prospectus so crude that it does not even deceive a poor sergeant,—such is the exposition of motives by a government for the purpose of enforcing a decree that might have been drawn up by redskins; to horrible acts he adds debased language, and employs the inept to justify their atrocities.
Representatives on Mission.—Their absolute power.—Their
perils and their fear.—Fit for their work.—Effect of this
situation.
A hundred or so representatives of the Committee of Public Safety, are sent to the provinces, "with unlimited power," to establish, enforce or exacerbate the revolutionary government, and their proclamations at once explain the nature of this government.3279—"Brave and vigorous sans-culottes!" writes a deputy on leaving a mission and announcing his successor,3280 "You seem to have desired a good b... of a representative, who has never swerved from his principles, that is to say, a regular Montagnard. I have fulfilled your wishes, and you will have the same thing in citizen Ingrand. Remember, brave sans-culottes, that, with the patriot Ingrand, you can do everything, get anything, cancel whatever you please, imprison, bring to trial, deport and guillotine every-body and regenerate society. Don't try to play with him; everybody is afraid of him, he overcomes all resistance and restores at once the most complete order!"—The representative arrives at the center of the department by post, and presents his credentials. All the authorities at once bow to the ground. In the evening, in his saber and plume, he harangues the popular club, blowing into a flame the smoldering embers of Jacobinism. Then, according to his personal acquaintances, if he has any in the place, or according to the votes of the Committee of General Security, if he is a new-comer, he selects five or six of the "warmest sans-culottes" there, and, forming them into a Revolutionary Committee, installs them permanently at his side, sometimes in the same building, in a room next to his own, where, on lists or with verbal communications furnished to him, he works with a will and without stopping.3281
First comes a purification of all the local authorities. They must always remember that "there can be no exaggeration in behalf of the people; he who is not imbued with this principle, who has not put it in practice, cannot remain on an advanced post;"3282 consequently, at the popular club, in the department, in the district, in the municipality, all doubtful men are excluded, discharged, or incarcerated; if a few weak ones are retained provisionally, or by favor, they are berated and taught their duty very summarily:
"They will strive, by a more energetic and assiduous patriotism, to atone for the evil committed by them in not doing all the good they could do."
Sometimes, through a sudden change of scene, the entire administrative staff is kicked out so as to give place to a no less complete staff, which the same kick brings up out of the ground. Considering that "everything stagnates in Vaucluse, and that a frightful moderation paralyses the most revolutionary measures," Maignet, in one order3283 appoints the administrators and secretary of the department, the national agent, the administrators and council-general of the district, the administrators, council-general and national agent of Avignon, the president, public prosecutor and recorder of the criminal court, members of the Tribunal de Commerce, the collector of the district, the post-master and the head of the squadron of gendarmerie. And the new functionaries will certainly go to work at once, each in his office. The summary process, which has brusquely swept away the first set of puppets, is going to brusquely install the second one. "Each citizen appointed to any of the above mentioned offices, shall betake himself immediately to his post, under penalty of being declared suspect," on the simple notification of his appointment. Universal and passive obedience of governors, as well as of the governed! There are no more elected and independent functionaries; all the authorities, confirmed or created by the representative, are in his hands; there is not one among them who does not subsist or survive solely through his favor; there is not one of them who acts otherwise than according to his approval or by his order. Directly, or through them, he makes requisitions, sequestrates or confiscates as he sees fit, taxes, imprisons, transports or decapitates as he see fit, and, in his circumscription, he is the pasha.
But he is a pasha with a chain around his neck, and at short tether.—From and after December, 1793, he is directed "to conform to the orders of the Committee of Public Safety and report to it every ten days."3284 The circumscription in which he commands is rigorously "limited;" "he is reputed to be without power in the other departments,"3285 while he is not allowed to grow old on his post. "In every magistrature the grandeur and extent of power is compensated by the shortness of its duration. Over-prolonged missions would soon be considered as birthrights."3286 Therefore, at the end of two or three months, often at the end of a month, the incumbent is recalled to Paris or dispatched elsewhere, at short notice, on the day named, in a prompt, absolute and sometimes threatening tone, not as a colleague one humors, but as a subordinate who is suddenly and arbitrarily revoked or displaced because he is deemed inadequate, or "used up." For greater security, oftentimes a member of the Committee, Couthon, Collot, Saint-Just, or some near relation of a member of the Committee, a Lebas or young Robespierre, goes personally to the spot to give the needed impulsion; sometimes, agents simply of the Committee, taken from outside the Convention, and without any personal standing, quite young men, Rousselin, Julien de la Drôme, replace or watch the representative with powers equal to his.—At the same time, from the top and from the center, he is pushed on and directed: his local counselors are chosen for him, and the directors of his conscience;3287 they rate him soundly on the choice of his agents or of his lodgings;3288 they force dismissals on him, appointments, arrests, executions; they spur him on in the path of terror and suffering.—Around him are paid emissaries,3289 while others watch him gratis and constantly write to the Committees of Public Safety and General Security, often to denounce him, always to report on his conduct, to judge his measures and to provoke the measures which he does not take.3290
Whatever he may have done or may do, he cannot turn his eyes toward Paris without seeing danger ahead, a mortal danger which, on the Committee, in the Convention, at the Jacobin Club, increases or will increase against him, like a tempest.—Briez, who, in Valenciennes under siege, showed courage, and whom the Convention had just applauded and added to the Committee of Public Safety, hears himself reproached for being still alive: "He who was at Valenciennes when the enemy took it will never reply to this question—are you dead?"3291 He has nothing to do now but to declare himself incompetent, decline the honor mistakenly conferred on him by the Convention, and disappear.—Dubois-Crancé took Lyons, and, as pay for this immense service, he is stricken off the roll of the Jacobin Club; because he did not take it quick enough, he is accused of treachery; two days after the capitulation, the Committee of Public Safety withdraw his powers; three days after the capitulation, the Committee of Public Safety has him arrested and sent to Paris under escort.3292—If such men after such services are thus treated, what is to become of the others? After the mission of young Julien, then Carrier at Nantes, Ysabeau and Tallien at Bordeaux, feel their heads shake on their shoulders; after the mission of Robespierre jr. in the East and South, Barras, Fréron and Bernard de Saintes believe themselves lost.3293 Fouché, Rovère, Javogue, and how many others, compromised by the faction, Hébertists or Dantonists, of which they are, or were belonging. Sure of perishing if their patrons on the Committee succumb; not sure of living if their patrons keep their place; not knowing whether their heads will not be exchanged for others; restricted to the narrowest, the most rigorous and most constant orthodoxy; guilty and condemned should their orthodoxy of to-day become the heterodoxy of to-morrow. All of them menaced, at first the hundred and eighty autocrats who, before the concentration of the revolutionary government, ruled for eight months boundlessly in the provinces; next, and above all, the fifty hard-fisted "Montagnards," unscrupulous fanatics or authoritarian high livers, who, at this moment, tread human flesh under foot and spread out in arbitrariness like wild boars in a forest, or wallow in scandal, like swine in a mud-pool.
There is no refuge for them, other than temporary, and temporary refuge only in zealous and tried obedience, such as the Committee demands proof of, that is to say, through rigor.—"The Committees so wanted it," says later on Maignet, the arsonist of Bédouin; "The Committees did everything..... Circumstances controlled me. ... The patriotic agents conjured me not to give way.... I did not fully carry out the most imperative orders."3294 Similarly, the great exterminator of Nantes, Carrier, when urged to spare the rebels who surrendered of their own accord:
"Do you want me to be guillotined? It is not in my power to save those people."3295
And another time:
"I have my orders; I must observe them; I do not want to have my head cut off!"
Under penalty of death, the representative on mission is a Terrorist, like his colleagues in the Convention and on the Committee of Public Safety, but with a much more serious disturbance of his nervous and his moral system; for he does not operate like them on paper, at a distance, against categories of abstract, anonymous and vague beings; his work is not merely an effort of the intellect, but also of the senses and the imagination. If he belongs to the region, like Lecarpentier, Barras, Lebon, Javogue, Couthon, André Dumont and many others, he is well acquainted with the families he proscribes; names to him are not merely so many letters strung together, but they recall personal souvenirs and evoke living forms. At all events, he is the spectator, artisan and beneficiary of his own dictatorship; the silver-plate and money he confiscates passes under his eye, through his hands; he sees the "suspects" he incarcerates march before him; he is in the court-room on the rendering of the sentence of death; frequently, the guillotine he has supplied with heads works under his windows; he sleeps in the mansion of an emigré he makes requisitions for the furniture, linen and wine belonging to the decapitated and the imprisoned,3296 lies in their beds, drinks their wine and revels with plenty of company at their expense, and in their place. In the same way as a bandit chief who neither kills nor robs with his own hands, but has murder and robbery committed in his presence, by which he substantially profits, not by proxy, but personally, through the well-directed blows ordered by him.—To this degree, and in such proximity to physical action, omnipotence is a noxious atmosphere which no state of health can resist. Restored to the conditions which poisoned man in barbarous times or countries, he is again attacked by moral maladies from which he was thenceforth believed to be exempt; he retrogrades even to the strange corruptions of the Orient and the Middle Ages; forgotten leprosies, apparently extinct, with exotic pestilences to which civilized lands seemed closed, reappear in his soul with their issues and tumors.
Eruption of brutal instincts.—Duquesnoy at Metz.—Dumont at
Amiens.—Drunkards.—Cusset, Bourbotte, Moustier, Bourdon de
l'Oise, Dartigoyte.
"It seems," says a witness who was long acquainted with Maignet, "that all he did for these five or six years was simply the delirious phase of an illness, after which he recovered, and lived on as if nothing had happened."3297 And Maignet himself writes "I was not made for these tempests." That goes for everyone but especially for the coarser natures; subordination would have restrained them while dictatorial power make the instincts of the brute and the mob appear.
Contemplate Duquesnoy, a sort of mastiff, always barking and biting, when gorged he is even more furious. Delegate to the army of the Moselle, and passing by Metz3298 he summoned before him Altmayer, the public prosecutor, although he had sat down to dinner. The latter waits three hours and a half in the ante-chamber, is not admitted, returns, and, at length received, is greeted with a thundering exclamation:
"Who are you?"
"The public prosecutor," he replies.
"You look like a bishop—you were once a curé or monk—you can't be a revolutionary.... I have come to Metz with unlimited powers. Public opinion here is not satisfactory. I am going to drill it. I am going to set folks straight here. I mean to shoot, here in Metz, as well as in Nancy, five or six hundred every fortnight."
The same at the house of General Bessières, commandant of the town encountering there M. Cledat, an old officer, the second in command, he measures him from head to foot:
"You look like a muscadin. Where did you come from? You must be a bad republican—you look as if you belonged to the ancient régime."
"My hair is gray," he responds, "but I am not the less a good republican: you may ask the General and the whole town."
"Be off! Go to the devil, and be quick about it, or I will have you arrested!"—
The same, in the street, where he lays hold of a man passing, on account of his looks; the justice of the peace, Joly, certifies to the civism of this person, and he "eyes" Joly:
"You too, you are an aristocrat! I see it in your eyes! I never make a mistake."
Whereupon, tearing off the Judge's badge, he sends him to prison.—Meanwhile, a fire, soon extinguished, breaks out in the army bakery; officers, townspeople, laborers, peasants and even children form a line (for passing water) and Duquesnoy appears to urge them on in his way: using his fists and his foot, he falls on whoever he meets, on an employee in the commissariat, on a convalescent officer, on two men in the line, and many others. He shouts to one of them, "You are a muscadin!" To another:
"I see by your eyes that you are an aristocrat!"
To another:
"You are a bloody beggar, an aristocrat, a rascal,"
and he strikes him in the stomach; he seizes a fourth by his collar and throws him down on the pavement.3299 In addition to this, all are imprisoned. The fire being extinguished, an indiscreet fellow, who stood by looking on, recommends "the dispenser of blows" to wipe his forehead." "You can't see straight—who are you? Answer me, I am the representative." The other replies mildly: "Representative, nothing could be more respectable." Duquesnoy gives the unlucky courtier a blow under the nose: "You are disputing—go to prison," "which I did at once," adds the docile subject.—That same evening, "whereas, in the conflagration, none of the inhabitants in good circumstances offered their services in extinguishing the fire,32100 and none but sans-culottes came thereto, from the garrison as well as from the commune," Duquesnoy orders "that a tax of 40,000 livres be imposed on the commune of Metz, levied on the fortunes of the rich and distributed among the poor, payable within ten days."32101—"Fais-moi f.... dedans tous ces b... là32102," "quatre j...f... à raccourcir;"32103 At Arras, as at Metz, the lout is ever the ruffian and the butcher.
Others are either jolly fellows, or blackguards. A certain André Dumont, an old village attorney, now king of Picardie, or sultan, as occasion offers, "figures as a white Negro," sometimes jovial, but generally as a rude hardened cynic, treating female prisoners and petitioners as in a kermesse.32104—One morning a lady enters his ante-room, and waits amidst about twenty sans-culottes, to solicit the release of her husband. Dumont appears in a morning-gown, seats himself and listens to the petitioner.
"Sit down, citoyenne."
He takes her on his lap, thrusts his hand in her bosom and exclaims:
"Who would suppose that the bust of a marchioness would feel so soft to one of the people's representatives."
The sans-culottes shout with laughter. He sends the poor woman away and keeps her husband locked up. In the evening he may write to the Convention that he investigates things himself, and closely examines aristocrats.—If one is to maintain the revolutionary enthusiasm at a high level it is helpful to have a drop too much in one's head, and most of them take precautions in this direction. At Lyons,32105 "the representatives sent to ensure the people's welfare, Albitte and Collot," call upon the Committee of Sequestrations to deliver at their house two hundred bottles of the best wine to be found, and five hundred bottles more of Bordeaux red wine, first quality, for table use.—In three months, at the table of the representatives who devastate la Vendée, nineteen hundred and seventy-four bottles of wine are emptied,32106 taken from the houses of the emigrés belonging to the town; for, "when one has helped to preserve a commune one has a right to drink to the Republic." Representative Bourbotte presides at this bar; Rossignol touches his glass, an ex-jeweler and then a September massacreur, all his life a debauchee and brigand, and now a major-general; alongside of Rossignol, stand his adjutants, Grammont, an old actor, and Hazard, a former priest; along with them is Vacheron, a good républican, who ravishes women and shoots them when they refuse to succumb;32107 in addition to these are some "brilliant" young ladies, undoubtedly brought from Paris, "the prettiest of whom share their nights between Rossignol and Bourbotte," whilst the others serve their subordinates: the entire band, male and female, is installed in a Hotel de Fontenay, where they begin by breaking the seals, so as t o confiscate "for their own benefit, furniture, jewelry, dresses, feminine trinkets and even porcelains."32108 Meanwhile, at Chantonney, representative Bourdon de l'Oise drinks with General Tunck, becomes "frantic" when tipsy, and has patriotic administrators seized in their beds at midnight, whom he had embraced the evening before.—Nearly all of them, like the latter, get nasty after a few drinks,—Carrier at Nantes, Petit-Jean at Thiers, Duquesnoy at Arras, Cusset at Thionville, Monestier at Tarbes. At Thionville, Cusset drinks like a "Lapithe" and, when drunk, gives the orders of a "vizier," which orders are executed.32109 At Tarbes, Monestier "after a heavy meal and much excited," warmly harangues the court, personally examines the prisoner, M. de Lasalle, an old officer, whom he has condemned to death, and signs the order to have him guillotined at once. M. de Lasalle is guillotined that very evening, at midnight, by torchlight. The following morning Monestier says to the president of the court: "Well, we gave poor Lasalle a famous fright last night, didn't we?" "How a famous fright? He is executed!" Monestier is astonished—he did not remember having issued the order.32110—With others, wine, besides sanguinary instincts, brings out the foulest instincts. At Nîmes; Borie, in the uniform of a representative, along with Courbis, the mayor, Géret, the justice and a number of prostitutes, dance the farandole around the guillotine. At Auch, one of the worst tyrants in the South, Dartigoyte, always heated with liquor "vomited every species of obscenity" in the faces of women that came to demand justice; "he compels, under penalty of imprisonment, mothers to take their daughters to the popular club," to listen to his filthy preaching; one evening, at the theatre, probably after an orgy, he shouts at all the women between the acts, lets loose upon them his smutty vocabulary, and, by way of demonstration, or as a practical conclusion, ends by stripping himself naked.32111—This time, the genuine brute appears. All the clothing woven during the past centuries and with which civilization had dressed him, the last drapery of humanity, falls to the ground. Nothing remains but the primitive animal, the ferocious, lewd gorilla supposed to be tamed, but which still subsists indefinitely and which a dictatorship, joined to drunkenness, revives in an uglier guise than in remotest times.
VIII. Delirium.
Approach of madness.—Loss of common-sense.—Fabre, Gaston,
Guiter, in the army of the Eastern Pyrenees.—Baudot, Lebas,
Saint-Just, and the predecessors and successors in the army
of the Rhine.—Furious excitement.—Lebon at Arras, and
Carrier at Nantes.
If intoxication is needed to awaken the brute, a dictatorship suffices to arouse the madman. The mental equilibrium of most of these new sovereigns is disturbed; the distance between what the man once was and what he now is, is too great. Formerly he was a petty lawyer, village doctor, or schoolmaster, an unknown mover of a resolution in a local club, and only yesterday he was one voter in the Convention out of seven hundred and fifty. Look at him now, the arbiter, in one of the departments, of all fortunes and liberties, and master of five thousand lives. Like a pair of scales into which a disproportionate weight has been thrown, his reason totters on the side of pride. Some of them regard their competency unlimited, like their powers, and having just joined the army, claim the right of being appointed major-generals.32112 "Declare officially," writes Fabre to the Committee of Public Safety,32113 "that, in future, generals shall be simply the lieutenants of the delegates to the Convention." Awaiting the required declaration, they claim command and, in reality, exercise it. "I know of neither generals nor privates," says Gaston, a former justice of the peace, to the officers; "as to the Minister, he is like a bull in a china shop; I am in command here and must be obeyed." "What are generals good for?" adds his colleague Guiter; "the old women in our faubourgs know as much as they do. Plans, formal maneuvers, tents, camps, redoubts? All this is of no use! The only war suitable to Frenchmen after this will be a rush with side arms." To turn out of office, guillotine, disorganize, march blindly on, waste lives haphazard, force defeat, sometimes get killed themselves, is all they know, and they would lose all if the effects of their incapacity and arrogance were not redeemed by the devotion of the officers and the enthusiasm of the soldiers.—The same spectacle is visible at Charleroy where, through his absurd orders, Saint-Just does his best to compromise the army, leaving that place with the belief that he is a great man.32114—There is the same spectacle in Alsace, where Lacoste, Baudot, Ruamps, Soubrany, Muhaud, Saint-Just and Lebas, through their excessive rigor, do their best to break up the army and then boast of it. The revolutionary Tribunal is installed at headquarters, soldiers are urged to denounce their officers, the informer is promised money and secrecy, he and the accused are not allowed to confront each other, no investigation, no papers allowed, even to make exception to the verdict—a simple examination without any notes, the accused arrested at eight o'clock, condemned at nine o'clock, and shot at ten o'clock.32115
Naturally, under such a system, no one wants to command; already, before Saint Just's arrival, Meunier had consented to act as Major-General only ad interim; "every hour of the day" he demanded his removal; unable to secure this, he refused to issue any order. The representatives, to procure his successor, are obliged to descend down to a depot captain, Carlin, bold enough or stupid enough to allow himself to take a commission under their lead, which was a commission for the guillotine.—If such is their presumption in military matters, what must it be in civil affairs! On this side there is no external check, no Spanish or German army capable of at once taking them in flagrante delicto, and of profiting by their ambitious incapacity and mischievous interference. Whatever the social instrumentality may be—judiciary, administration, credit, commerce, manufactures, agriculture—they can dislocate and destroy it with impunity.—They never fail to do this, and, moreover, in their dispatches, they take credit to themselves for the ruin they cause. That, indeed, is their mission; otherwise, they would be regarded as bad Jacobins; they would soon become "suspects;" they rule only on condition of being infatuated and destructive; the overthrow of common-sense is with them an act of State grace, a necessity of the office, and, on this common ground of compulsory unreason, every species of physical delirium may be set established.
With those that we can follow closely, not only is their judgment perverted, but the entire nervous apparatus is affected; a permanent over-excitement and a morbid restlessness has begun.—Consider Joseph Lebon, son of a sergeant-at-arms, subsequently, a teacher with the Oratoriens of Beaune, next, curé of Neuville-Vitasse, repudiated as an interloper by the élite of his parishioners, not respected, without house or furniture, and almost without a flock.32116 Two years after this, finding himself sovereign of his province, his head is spinning. Lesser events would have made it turn; his is only a twenty-eight-year-old head, not very solid, without any inside ballast,32117 already disturbed by vanity, ambition, rancor, and apostasy, by the sudden and complete volteface which puts him in conflict with his past educational habits and most cherished affections: it breaks down under the vastness and novelty of this greatness.—In the costume of a representative, a Henry IV hat, tri-color plume, waving scarf, and saber dragging the ground, Lebon orders the bell to be rung and summons the villagers into the church, where, aloft in the pulpit in which he had formerly preached in a threadbare cassock, he displays his metamorphosis.
"Who would believe that I should have returned here with unlimited powers!"32118
And that, before his counterfeit majesty, each person would be humble, bowed down and silent! To a member of the municipality of Cambray who, questioned by him, looked straight at him and answered curtly, and who, to a query twice repeated in the same terms, dared to answer twice in the same terms, he says:
"Shut up! You disrespect me, you do not behave properly to the national representative."
He immediately commits him to prison.32119—One evening, at the theater, he enters a box in which the ladies, seated in front, keep their places. In a rage, he goes out, rushes on the stage and, brandishing his great saber, shouts and threatens the audience, taking immense strides across the boards and acting and looking so much like a wild beast that several of the ladies faint away:
"Look there!" he shouts, at those muscadines who do not condescend to move for a representative of twenty-five millions of men! Everybody used to make way for a prince—they will not budge for me, a representative, who am more than a king!"32120
The word is spoken. But this king is frightened, and he is one who thinks of nothing but conspiracy;32121 in the street, in open daylight, the people who are passing him are plotting against him either by words or signs. Meeting in the main street of Arras a young girl and her mother talking Flemish,—that seems to him "suspect." "Where are you going?" he demands. "What's that to you?" replies the child, who does not know him. The girl, the mother and the father are sent to prison.32122—On the ramparts, another young girl, accompanied by her mother, is taking the air, and reading a book. "Give me that book," says the representative. The mother hands it to him; it is the "History of Clarissa Harlowe." The young girl, extending her hand to receive back the book, adds, undoubtedly with a smile: "That is not 'suspect.'" Lebon deals her a blow with his fist on her stomach which knocks her down; both women are searched and he personally leads them to the guard-room.—The slightest expression, a gesture, puts him beside himself; any motion that he does not comprehend makes him start, as with an electric shock. Just arrived at Cambray, he is informed that a woman who had sold a bottle of wine below the maximum, had been released after a procès-verbal. On reaching the Hotel-de-ville, he shouts out: "Let everybody here pass into the Consistory!" The municipal officer on duty opens a door leading into it. Lebon, however, not knowing who he is, takes alarm. "He froths at the mouth," says the municipal officer, "and cries out as if possessed by a demon. 'Stop, stop, scoundrel, you are running off!' He draws his saber and seizes me by the collar; I am dragged and borne along by him and his men. 'I have hold of him, I have hold of him!' he exclaims, and, indeed, he did hold me with his teeth, legs, and arms, like a madman. At last, 'scoundrel, monster, bastard,' says he, 'are you a marquis?' 'No,' I replied, 'I am a sans-culotte.' 'Ah, well people, you hear what he says,' he exclaims, 'he says that he is a sans-culotte, and that is the way he greets a denunciation on the maximum! I remove him. Let him be kicked in prison!'"32123 It is certain that the King of Arras and Cambray is not far from a raging fever; with such symptoms an ordinary individual would be sent to an asylum.
Not so vain, less fond of parading his royalty, but more savage and placed in Nantes amidst greater dangers, Carrier, under the pressure of more somber ideas, is much more furious and constant in his madness. Sometimes his attacks reach hallucination. "I have seen him," says a witness, "so carried away in the tribune, in the heat of his harangue when trying to overrule public opinion, as to cut off the tops of the candles with his saber," as if they were so many aristocrats' heads.32124 Another time, at table, after having declared that France could not feed its too numerous population, and that it was decided to cut down the excess, all nobles, magistrates, priests, merchants, etc., he becomes excited and exclaims, "Kill, kill!" as if he were already engaged in the work and ordering the operation.32125 Even when fasting, and in an ordinary condition, he is scarcely more cooled down. When the administrators of the department come to consult with him,32126 they gather around the door to see if he looks enraged, and is in a condition to hear them. He not only insults petitioners, but likewise the functionaries under him who make reports to him, or take his orders; his foul nature rises to his lips and overflows in the vilest terms:
"Go to hell and be damned. I have no time."32127
They consider themselves lucky if they get off with a volley of obscene oaths, for he generally draws his saber:
"The first bastard that mentions supplies, I will cut his head off."32128
And to the president of the military commission, who demands that verdicts be rendered before ordering executions:
"You, you old rascal, you old bastard, you want verdicts, do you! Go ahead! If the whole pen is not emptied in a couple of hours I will have you and your colleagues shot!"
His gestures, his look have such a powerful effect upon the mind that the other, who is also a "bruiser," dies of the shock a few days after.32129 Not only does he draw his saber, but he uses it; among the petitioners, a boatman, whom he is about to strike, runs off as fast as he can; he draws General Moulins into the recess of a window and gives him a cut.32130—People "tremble" on accosting him, and yet more in contradicting him. The envoy of the Committee of Public Safety, Julien de la Drôme, on being brought before him, takes care to "stand some distance off, in a corner of the room," wisely trying to avoid the first spring; wiser still, he replies to Carrier's exclamations with the only available argument:
"If you put me out of the way to-day, you yourself will be guillotined within a week!"32131
On coming to a stand before a mad dog one must aim the knife straight at its throat; there is no other way to escape its fangs and slaver. Accordingly, with Carrier, as with a mad dog, the brain is mastered by the steady mechanical reverie, by persistent images of murder and death. He exclaims to President Tronjolly, apropos of the Vendean children:
"The guillotine, always the guillotine!"32132
In relation to the drownings:
"You judges must have verdicts; pitch them into the water, which is much more simple."
Addressing the popular club of Nantes, he says:
"The rich, the merchants, are all monopolizers, all anti-revolutionists; denounce them to me, and I will have all their heads under the national razor. Tell me who the fanatics are that shut their shops on Sunday and I will have them guillotined." "When will the heads of those rascally merchants fall?"—"I see beggars here in rags; you are as big fools at Ancenis as at Nantes. Don't you know that the money, the wealth of these old merchants, belongs to you, and is not the river there?" "My brave bastards, my good sansculottes your time is come! Denounce them to me! The evidence of two good sans-culottes is all I want to make the heads of those old merchants tumble!"—"We will make France a grave-yard rather than not regenerate it in our own way."32133—His steady howl ends in a cry of anguish:
"We shall all be guillotined, one after the other!"32134—
Such is the mental state to which the office of representative on mission leads. Below Carrier, who is on the extreme verge, the others, less advanced, likewise turn pale at the lugubrious vision, which is the inevitable effect of their work and their mandate. Beyond every grave they dig, they catch a glimpse of the grave already dug for them. There is nothing left for the gravedigger but to dig mechanically day after day, and, in the meantime, make what he can out of his place; he can at least render himself insensible by having "a good time."
The development of vice.—Vanity and the need of gambling.—
Collot d'Herbois, Ysabeau, Tallien.—The Robbers.—Tallien,
Javogues, Rovère, Fouché.—Two sources of cruelty.—Need of
demonstrating one's power.—Saint-Just in the Pas-de-Calais
department, and in Alsace.—Collot d'Herbois at Lyons.—
Pressure exercised by the Representatives on the tribunals.
—Pleasure caused by death and suffering.—Monestier, Fouché,
Collot d'Herbois, Lebon and Carrier.
Most of them follow this course, some instinctively and through lassitude, and others because the display they make adds to their authority. "Dragged along in Carriages with six horses, surrounded by guards, seated at sumptuous tables set for thirty persons, eating to the sound of music along with a Cortege of actors, courtesans and praetorians,"32135 they impress the imagination with an idea of their omnipotence, and people bow all the lower because they make a grand show.—At Troyes, on the arrival of young Rousselin, cannon are discharged as if for the entry of a prince. The entire population of Nevers is called upon to honor the birth of Fouché's child; the civil and military authorities pay their respects to him, and the National Guards are under arms.32136 At Lyons, "The imposing display of Collot d'Herbois resembles that of the Grand Turk. It requires three successive applications to obtain an audience; nobody approaches nearer than a distance of fifteen feet; two sentinels with muskets stand on each side of him, with their eyes fixed on the petitioners."32137—Less menacing, but not less imposing, is the pomp which surrounds the representatives at Bordeaux; to approach them, requires "a pass from the captain of the guards,"32138 through several squads of sentinels. One of them, Ysabeau, who, after having guillotined to a considerable extent, has become almost tractable, allows adulation, and, like a Duc de Richelieu coming down from Versailles, tries to play the popular potentate, with all the luxuries which the situation affords. At the theaters, in his presence, they give a ballet in which shepherds form with garlands of flowers the words "Ysabeau, Liberty, Equality." He allows his portrait to pass from hand to hand, and condescendingly smiles on the artist who inscribes these words at the bottom of an engraving of the day: "An event which took place under Ysabeau, representative of the people." "When he passes in the street people take off their hats to him, cheer him, and shout 'Hurrah for Ysabeau! Hurrah for the savior of Bordeaux, our friend and father!' The children of aristocrats come and apostrophize him in this way, even at the doors of his carriage; for he has a Carriage, and several of them, with a coachman, horses, and the equipage of a former noble, gendarmes preceding him everywhere, even on excursions into the country," where his new courtiers call him "great man," and welcome him with "Asiatic magnificence." There is good cheer at his table, "superb white bread," called "representatives' bread," whilst the country folk of the neighborhood live on roots, and the inhabitants of Bordeaux can scarcely obtain more than four ounces of musty bread per day.—There is the same feasting with the representatives at Lyons, in the midst of similar distress. In the reports made by Collot we find a list of bottles of brandy at four francs each, along with partridges, capons, turkeys, chickens, pike, and crawfish, note also the white bread, the other kind, called "equality bread," assigned to simple mortals, offends this august palate. Add to this the requisitions made by Albitte and Fouché, seven hundred bottles of fine wine, in one lot, another of fifty pounds of coffee, one hundred and sixty ells of muslin, three dozen silk handkerchiefs for cravats, three dozen pairs of gloves, and four dozen pairs of stockings: they provide themselves with a good stock.32139—Among so many itinerant tyrants, the most audaciously sensual is, I believe, Tallien, the Septembriseur at Paris and guillotineur at Bordeaux, but still more rake and robber, caring mostly for his palate and stomach. Son of the cook of a grand seignior, he is doubtless swayed by family traditions: for his government is simply a larder where, like the head-butler in "Gil Blas," he can eat and turn the rest into money. At this moment, his principal favorite is Teresa Cabarrus, a woman of society, or one of the demi-monde, whom he took out of prison; he rides about the streets with her in an open carriage, "with a courier behind and a courier in front," sometimes wearing the red cap and holding a pike in her hand,32140 thus exhibiting his goddess to the people. And this is the sentiment which does him the most credit; for, when the crisis comes, the imminent peril of his mistress arouses his courage against Robespierre, and this pretty woman, who is good-natured, begs him, not for murders, but for pardons.32141—Others, as gallant as he is, but with less taste, obtain recruits for their pleasures in a rude way, either as fast-livers on the wing, or because fear subjects the honor of women to their caprices, or because the public funds defray the expenses of their guard-room habits. At Blois, for this kind of expenditure, Guimberteau discharges his obligations by drafts on the proceeds of the revolutionary tax.32142 Carrier, at Nantes, appropriates to himself the house and garden of a private person for "his seraglio"; the reader may judge whether, on desiring to be a third party in the household, the husband would make objections. At other times, in the hotel Henry IV., "with his friends and prostitutes brought under requisition, he has an orgy;" he allows himself the same indulgence on the galiot during the drownings; there at the end of a drunken frolic, he is regaled with merry songs, for example, "la gamelle":32143 he needs his amusements.
Some, who are shrewd, think of the more substantial and look out for the future. Foremost among these is Tallien, the king of robbers, but prodigal, whose pockets, full of holes, are only filled to be at once emptied; Javogues, who makes the most of Montbrison; Rovère, who, for eighty thousand francs in assignats, has an estate adjudged to him worth five hundred thousand francs in coin; Fouché, who, in Nièvre, begins to amass the twelve or fourteen millions which he secures later on;32144 and so many others, who were either ruined or impoverished previous to the outbreak of the Revolution, and who are rich when it ends: Barras with his domain of Gros Bois; André Dumont, with the Hotel de Plouy, its magnificent furniture, and an estate worth four hundred thousand livres; Merlin de Thionville, with his country-houses, equipages, and domain of Mont-Valérien, and other domains; Salicetti, Reubell, Rousselin, Chateauneuf-Randon, and the rest of the gluttonous and corrupted members of the Directory. Without mentioning the taxes and confiscations of which they render no account, they have, for their hoard, the ransoms offered underhandedly by "suspects" and their families; what is more convenient?32145 And all the more, because the Committee of General Security, even when informed, let things take their course: to prosecute "Montagnards," would be "making the Revolution take a step backward." One is bound to humor useful servants who have such hard work, like that of the September killings, to do. Irregularities, as with these September people, must be overlooked; it is necessary to allow them a few perquisites and give them gratuities.32146
All this would not suffice to keep them at work if they had not been held by an even greater attraction.—To the common run of civilized men, the office of Septembriseur is at first disagreeable; but, after a little practice, especially with a tyrannical nature, which, under cover of the theory, or under the pretext of public safety, can satiate its despotic instincts, all repugnance subsides. There is keen delight in the exercise of absolute power; one is glad, every hour, to assert one's omnipotence and prove it by some act, the most conclusive of all acts being some act of destruction. The more complete, radical and prompt the destruction is, the more conscious one is of one's strength. However great the obstacle, one is not disposed to recede or stand still; one breaks away all the barriers which men call good sense, humanity, justice, and the satisfaction of breaking them down is great. To crush and to subdue becomes voluptuous pleasure, to which pride gives keener relish, affording a grateful incense of the holocaust which the despot consumes on his own altar; at this daily sacrifice, he is both idol and priest, offering up victims to himself that he may be conscious of his divinity.—Such is Saint-Just, all the more a despot because his title of representative on mission is supported by his rank on the Committee of Public Safety: to find natures strained to the same pitch as his, we must leave the modern world and go back to a Caligula, or to a caliph Hakem in Egypt in the tenth century.32147 He also, like these two monsters, but with different formulae, regards himself as a God, or God's vicegerent on earth, invested with absolute power through Truth incarnated in him, the representative of a mysterious, limitless and supreme power, known as the People; to worthily represent this power, it is essential to have a soul of steel.32148 Such is the soul of Saint-Just, and only that. All other sentiments merely serve to harden it; all the metallic agencies that compose it—sensuality, vanity, every vice, every species of ambition, all the frantic outbursts and melancholy vaporings of his youth—are violently commingled and fused together in the revolutionary mold, so that his soul may take the form and rigidity of trenchant steel. Suppose this an animated blade, feeling and willing in conformity with its temper and structure; it would delight in being brandished, and would need to strike; such is the need of Saint-Just. Taciturn, impassible, keeping people at a distance, as imperious as if the entire will of the people and the majesty of transcendent reason resided in his person, he seems to have reduced his passions to the desire of dashing everything to atoms, and to creating dismay. It may be said of him that, like the conquering Tartars, he measures his self-attributed grandeur by what he fells; no other has so extensively swept away fortunes, liberties and lives; no other has so terrifically heightened the effect of his deeds by laconic speech and the suddenness of the stroke. He orders the arrest and close confinement of all former nobles, men and women, in the four departments, in twenty-four hours; he orders the bourgeoisie of Strasbourg to pay over nine millions in twenty-four hours; ten thousand persons in Strasbourg must give up their shoes in twenty-four hours; random and immediate discharges of musketry on the officers of the Rhine army—such are the measures.32149 So much the worse for the innocent; there is no time to discern who they are; "a blind man hunting for a pin in a dust-heap takes the whole heap."32150—And, whatever the order, even when it cannot be executed, so much the worse for him to whom it is given, for the captain who, directed by the representative to establish this or that battery in a certain time, works all night with all his forces, "with as many men as the place will hold."32151 The battery not being ready at the hour named, Saint-Just sends the captain to the guillotine.—The sovereign having once given an order it cannot be countermanded; to take back his words would be weakening himself;32152 in the service of omnipotence, pride is insatiable, and, to mollify it, no barbaric act is too great.—The same appetite is visible in Collot d'Herbois, who, no longer on the stage, plays before the town the melo-dramatic tyrant with all becoming ostentation. One morning, at Lyons, he directs the revolutionary Tribunal to arrest, examine and sentence a youthful "suspect" before the day is over. "Towards six o'clock,32153 Collot being at table enjoying an orgy with prostitutes, buffoons and executioners, eating and drinking to choice music, one of the judges of the Tribunal enters; after the usual formalities, he is led up to the Representative, and informs him that the young man had been arrested and examined, and the strictest inquiries made concerning him; he is found irreproachable and the Court decided to set him free. Collot, without looking at the judge, raises his voice and says to him:
"I ordered you to punish that young man and I want him out of the way before night. If the innocent are spared, too many of the guilty will escape. Go."
The music and gaiety begin again, and in an hour the young man is shot."—And so in most of the other pachalics; if any head mentally condemned by the pacha escapes or does not fall soon enough, the latter is indignant at the delays and forms of justice, also against the judges and juries, often selected by himself. Javogues writes an insulting letter to the commission of Feurs which has dared acquit two former nobles. Laignelot, Lecarpentier, Michaud, Monestier, Lebon, dismiss, recompose, or replace the commissions of Fontenoy, Saint-Malo, and Perpignan, and the tribunals of Pau, Nîmes, and Arras, whose judgments did not please them.32154 Lebon, Bernard de Saintes, Dartigoyte and Fouché re-arrest prisoners on the same charge, solemnly acquitted by their own tribunals. Bô, Prieur de la Marne, and Lebon, send judges and juries to prison that do not always vote death.32155 Barras and Fréron dispatch, from brigade to brigade, to the revolutionary Tribunal in Paris, the public prosecutor and president of the revolutionary Tribunal of Marseilles, for being indulgent to anti-revolutionaries, because, out of five hundred and twenty-eight prisoners, they guillotined only one hundred and sixty-two.32156—To contradict the infallible Representative! That of itself is an offense. He owes it to himself to punish those who are not docile, to re-arrest absolved delinquents, and to support cruelty with cruelty.
When for a long time someone has been imbibing a strong and nauseating drink, not only does the palate get accustomed, but it often acquires a taste for it; it soon wants to have it stronger; finally, it swallows it pure, completely raw, with no admixture or condiment to disguise its repulsiveness—Such, to certain imaginations, is the spectacle of human gore; after getting accustomed to it they take delight in seeing it. Lequinio, Laignelot and Lebon invite the executioner to dine with them;32157 Monestier, "with his cut-throats, is going himself in search of prisoners in the dungeons, so that he may accompany them to the Tribunal and overwhelm them with charges, if they are disposed to defend themselves; after their condemnation, he attends in uniform" at their execution.32158 Fouché, lorgnette in hand, looks out of his window upon a butchery of two hundred and ten Lyonnese. Collot, Laporte and Fouché feast together in a large company on the days when executions by shooting takes place, and, at each discharge, stand up and cheer lustily, waving their hats.32159 At Toulon, Fréron, in person, orders and sees executed, the first grand massacre on the Champ de Mars.32160—On the Place d'Arras, M. de Vielfort, already tied and stretched out on the plank, awaits the fall of the knife. Lebon appears on the balcony of the theatre, makes a sign to the executioner to stop, opens the newspaper, and, in a loud voice, reads off the recent successes of the French armies; then, turning to the condemned man, exclaims: "Go, wretch, and take the news of our victories to your brethren."32161 At Feurs, where the shootings take place at the house of M. du Rosier, in the great avenue of the park, his daughter, quite a young woman, advances in tears to Javogues, and asks for the release of her husband. "Oh, yes, my dear," replies Javogues, "you shall have him home to-morrow." In effect, the next day, her husband is shot, and buried in the avenue.32162—It is evident that they get to liking the business. Like their September predecessors, they find amusement in murdering: people around them allude gaily to "the red theater" and "the national razor." An aristocrat is said to be "putting his head at the national window," and "he has put his head through the cathole."32163 They themselves have the style and humor of their trade. "To-morrow, at seven o'clock," writes Hugues, "let the sacred guillotine be erected!"—"The demoiselle guillotine," writes Lecarlier, "keeps steadily agoing."32164—"The relatives and friends of emigrés and of refractory priests," writes Lebon, "monopolize the guillotine.. .32165 Day before yesterday, the sister of the former Comte de Bethune sneezed in the sack." Carrier loudly proclaims "the pleasure he has derived" from seeing priests executed: "I never laughed in my life as I did at the faces they made in dying."32166 This is the extreme perversity of human nature, that of a Domitian who watches the features of the condemned, to see the effect of suffering, or, better still, that of the savage who holds his sides with laughter at the aspect of a man being impaled. And this delight of contemplating death throes, Carrier finds it in the sufferings of children. Notwithstanding the remonstrances of the revolutionary Tribunal and the entreaties of President Phélippes-Tronjolly,32167 he signs on the 29th of Frimaire, year II., a positive order to guillotine without trial twenty-seven persons, of whom seven are women, and, among these, four sisters, Mesdemoiselles de la Metayrie, one of these twenty-eight years old, another twenty-seven, the third twenty-six, and the fourth seventeen. Two days before, notwithstanding the remonstrances of the same tribunal and the entreaties of the same president, he signed a positive order to guillotine twenty-six artisans and farm-hands, among them two boys of fourteen, and two of thirteen years of age. He was driven "in a cab to the place of execution and he followed it up in detail. He could hear one of the children of thirteen, already bound to the board, but too small and having only the top of the head under the knife, ask the executioner, "Will it hurt me much?" What the triangular blade fell upon may be imagined! Carrier saw this with his own eyes, and whilst the executioner, horrified at himself, died a few days after in consequence of what he had done, Carrier put another in his place, began again and continued operations.
3201 (return)
[ Thibaudeau:
"Mémoires," I., 47, 70.—Durand-Maillane, "Mémoires," 183.—Vatel,
"Charlotte Corday et les Girondins," II., 269. Out of the seventy-six
presidents of the convention eighteen were guillotined, eight deported,
twenty-two declared outlaws, six incarcerated, three who committed
suicide, and four who became insane, in all sixty-one. All who served
twice perished by a violent death.]
3202 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVIII., 38.
(Speech by Amar, reporter, Oct. 3. '793.) "The apparently negative
behavior of the minority in the convention, since the 2nd of June, is a
new plot hatched by Barbaroux."]
3203 (return)
[ Mortimer-Ternaux,
VIII., 44. Election of Collot d'Herbois as president by one hundred and
fifty-one out of two hundred and forty-one votes, June 13, 1793.-Moniteur,
XVII., 366. Election of Hérault-Sechelles as president by one hundred and
sixty-five out of two hundred and thirty-six votes, Aug. 3, 1793.]
3204 (return)
[ "The Revolution,"
vol. III., ch. I.—Mortimer-Ternaux, VII., 435. (The three
substitutes obtain, the first, nine votes, the second, six votes, and the
third, five votes.)]
3205 (return)
[ Marcelin Boudet, "Les
conventionnels d' Auvergne," 206.]
3206 (return)
[ Le Marais or the
Swamp (moderate party in the French Revolution). SR.]
3207 (return)
[ Dussault: "Fragment
pour servir a' l'histoire de la convention."]
3208 (return)
[ Sainte-Beuve
"causeries du Lundi," V., 216. (According to the unpublished papers of
Siéyès.)]
3209 (return)
[ Words of Michelet.]
3210 (return)
[ Moniteur, XX., 95,
135. (Sessions of Germinal II. in the Convention and at the Jacobin
club.)]
3211 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXXII., 17. (Sessions of Ventôse 26, year II. Speech of Robespierre.) "In
what country has a powerful senate ever sought in its own bosom for the
betrayers of the common cause and handed them over to the sword of the
law? Who has ever furnished the world with this spectacle? You, my fellow
citizens."]
3212 (return)
[ Miot de Melito,
"Mémoires," I. 44. Danton, at table in the ministry of Foreign Affairs,
remarked: "The Révolution, like Saturn, eats its own children." As to
Camille Desmoulins, "His melancholy already indicated a presentiment of
his fate; the few words he allowed to escape him always turned on
questions and observations concerning the nature of punishment, inflicted
on those condemned by the revolutionary Tribunal and the best way of
preparing oneself for that event and enduring it."]
3213 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXXIII., 363.357. (Police reports on the deputies, Messidor 4, and
following days.)—Vilate: "coups secrètes de la Revolution du 9 et 10
Thermidor," a list designated by Barère.—Denunciation by Lecointre.
(2nd ed. p.13.)]
3214 (return)
[ Thibaudeau, I., 47.
"Just as in ordinary times one tries to elevate oneself, so does one
strive in these times of calamity to lower oneself and be forgotten, or
atone for one's inferiority by seeking to degrade oneself."]
3215 (return)
[ Madame Roland:
"Mémoires," I., 23.]
3216 (return)
[ Archives Nationales,
F.7, 31167. This set of papers contains five hundred and thirty-seven
police reports, especially those of Nivôse, year II. The following is a
sample Report of Nivôse 25, year II. "Being on a deputation to the
convention, some colleagues took me to dine in the old Breteuil gardens,
in a large room with a nice floor.... The bill-of-fare was called for, and
I found that after having eaten a ritz soup, some meat, a bottle of wine
and two potatoes, I had spent, as they told me, eight francs twelve sous,
because I am not rich. 'Foutre!' I say to them how much do the rich pay
here?... It is well to state that I saw some deputies come into this large
hall, also former marquises, counts and knights of the poniard of the
ancient regime... but I confess that I cannot remember the true names of
these former nobles.... for the devil himself could not recognize those
bastards, disguised like sans-culottes."]
3217 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXVIII., 237, 308. (July 5 and 14, 1793.)—Moniteur, XIX., 716.
(Ventôse 26, year II.) Danton secures the passage of a decree "that
nothing but prose shall be heard at the bar." Nevertheless, after his
execution, this sort of parade begins again. On the 12th of Messidor, "a
citizen admitted to the bar reads a poem composed by him in honor of the
success of our arms on the Sambre." (Moniteur, XVI., 101.)]
3218 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVIII. 369,
397, 399, 420, 455, 469, 471, 479, 488, 492, 500, etc.—Mercier, "Le
Nouveau Paris," II., 96.—Dauban, "La Demagogie en 1793," 500, 505.
(Articles by Prudhomme and Diurnal by Beaulieu.)]
3219 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVIII.,
420, 399.—"Ah, le bel oiseau," was a song chosen for its symbolic
and double meaning, one pastoral and the other licentious.]
3220 (return)
[ De Goncourt, "La
Societé française pendant la Révolution," 418. (Article from" Pêre
Duchesne ".)—Dauban, ibid., 506. (Article by Prud'homme.) "Liberty
on a seat of verdure, receives the homage of republicans, male and
female,... and then.... she turns and bestows a benevolent regard on her
friends."]
3221 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVIII.,
399. Session of Brumaire 20, on motion of Thuriot: "I move that the
convention attends the temple of Reason to sing the hymn to Liberty."—"The
motion of Thuriot is decreed."]
3222 (return)
[ Mercier, ibid., 99.
(Similar scenes in the churches of St. Eustache and St. Gervais.)]
3223 (return)
[ Durand-Maillane,
'"Mémoires," 182.—Gregoire, "Mémoires," II., 34. On the 7th of
November, 1793, in the great scene of the abjurations, Grégoire alone
resisted, declaring: "I remain a bishop; I invoke freedom of worship."
"Outcries burst forth to stifle my voice the pitch of which I raised
proportionately.... A demoniac scene occurred, worthy of Milton.... I
declare that in making this speech I thought I was pronouncing sentence of
death on myself." For several days, emissaries were sent to him, either
deputies or bandits, to try and make him retract. On the 11th of November
a placard posted throughout Paris declared him responsible for the
continuance of fanaticism. "For about two years, I was almost the only one
in Paris who wore the ecclesiastical costume."]
3224 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVIII.,
480. (Session of Brumaire 30.) N...."I must make known the ceremony which
took place here to-day. I move that the speeches and details of this day
be inserted in full in the bulletin, and sent to all the departments."
(Another deputy): "And do not neglect to state that the Right was never so
well furnished." (Laughter and applause.)]
3225 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXXII., 103. (Germinal 11.)—Moniteur, XX., 124. (Germinal 15.)
Decree for cutting short the defense of Danton and his accused
associates.]
3226 (return)
[ Moniteur, XX., 226.
(Germinal 26. Report by Saint-Just and decree on the police.)—Ibid.,
XIX., 54. (Report by Robespierre, and decree on the principles of
revolutionary government, Nivôse 5.)—Ibid., XX., 567, 589. Prairial
6, (Decree forbidding the imprisonment of any Englishman or Hanoverian),
and XXI., 13. (Messidor 16.)]
3227 (return)
[ Moniteur, XX., 544.
After the effort of L'Admiral against Collot d'Herbois, the latter appears
in the tribune. "The loudest applause greets him from all sides of the
house."—Ibid., XXI., 173. (Messidor 21.) On the report of Barère who
praises the conduct of Joseph Lebon, criticizing nothing but "somewhat
harsh formalities," a decree is passed to the order of the day, which is
"adopted unanimously with great applause."]
3228 (return)
[ Moniteur, XX., 698,
715, 716, 719. (Prairial 22 and 24.) After the speeches of Robespierre and
Couthon "Loud and renewed applause; the plaudits begin over again and are
prolonged." Couthon, having declared that the Committee of Public Safety
was ready to resign, "on all sides there were cries of No, No."—Ibid.,
XXI., 268. (Thermidor 2.) Eulogy of the revolutionary government by Barère
and decree of the police "unanimously adopted amidst the loudest
applause."]
3229 (return)
[ Moniteur, XXI., 329.]
3230 (return)
[ Lafayette,
"Mémoires," IV., 330. "At last came the 9th of Thermidor. It was not due
to people of common sense. Their terror was so great that an estimable
deputy, to whom one of his colleagues put the question, no witness being
present, 'how long must we endure this tyranny?' was upset by it to such a
degree as to denounce him."]
3231 (return)
[ Sainte-Beuve,
"Causeries du Lundi," V., 209. (Siéyès' unpublished papers.)—Moniteur,
XVIII., 631, containing an example of both the terror and style of the
most eminent men, among others of Fourcroy the celebrated chemist, then
deputy, and later, Counselor of State and Minister of Public Instruction.
He is accused in the Jacobin Club, Brumaire 18, year II., of not
addressing the Convention often enough, to which he replies: "After twenty
years' devotion to the practice of medicine I have succeeded in supporting
my sans-culotte father and my sans-culottes sisters.... As to the charge
made by a member that I have given most of my time to science. ... I have
attended the Lycée des Arts but three times, and then only for the purpose
of sans-culotteising it."]
3232 (return)
[ Michelet,
(1798-1874), "Histoire de la Révolution," V., preface XXX (3rd ed.). "When
I was young and looking for a job, I was referred to an esteemed Review,
to a well-known philanthropist, devoted to education, to the people, and
to the welfare of humanity. I found a very small man of a melancholic,
mild and tame aspect. We were in front of the fire, on which he fixed his
eyes without looking at me. He talked a long time, in a didactic,
monotonous tone of voice. I felt ill at ease and sick at heart, and got
away as soon as I could. It was this little man, I afterwards learned, who
hunted down the Girondists, and had them guillotined, and which he
accomplished at the age of twenty."—This man's name was Julien de la
Drôme. I (Taine) saw him once when quite young. He is well known; first,
through his correspondence, and next, by his mother's diary. ("Journal
d'une bourgeoise pendant la Revolution," ed. Locroy.)—We have a
sketch of David ("La Demagogie à Paris en 1793," by Dauban, a fac-simile
at the beginning of the volume), representing Queen Marie Antoinette led
to execution. Madame Julien was at a window along with David looking at
the funeral convoy, whilst he made the drawing.—Madame Julien writes
in her "Journal," September 3, 1792: "To attain this end we must will the
means. No barbarous humanity! The people are aroused, the people are
avenging the crimes of the past three years."—Her son, a sort of
raw, sentimental Puritan, fond of bloodshed, was one of Robespierre's most
active agents. He remembered what he had done, as is evident by Michelet's
narrative, and cast his eyes down, well knowing that his present
philanthropy could not annihilate past acts.]
3233 (return)
[ Archives Nationales,
AF. II., 46. Register of the Acts of the Committee of Public Safety, vol.
II., orders of August 3, 1793.]
3234 (return)
[ On the concentration
and accumulation of business, cf. Archives Nationales, ibid., acts of Aug.
4, 5, 6, 1793; and AF. II., 23, acts of Brumaire I and 15, year II.—On
the distribution and dispatch of business in the Committee and the hours
devoted to it, see Acts of April 6, June 13, 17, 18, Aug. 3, 1793, and
Germinal 27, year II.—After August 3, two sessions were held daily,
from 8 o'clock in the morning to 1 o'clock in the afternoon, and from 7 to
10 o'clock in the evening; at 10 o'clock, the Executive Council met with
the Committee of Public Safety, and papers were signed about 2 or 3
o'clock in the morning.—The files of AF. II., 23 to 42, contain an
account of the doings of the Committee, the minutes of its meetings and of
its correspondence. A perusal of these furnishes full details concerning
the initiative and responsibility of the Committee. For example, (Nivôse
4, year II., letters to Freron and Barras, at Marseilles,) "The Committee
commend the vigorous measures you have sanctioned in your orders at
Marseilles.—Marseilles, through you, affords a great example.
Accustomed, as you are, to wielding thunderbolts, you are best calculated
for still governing it... How glorious, citizen colleagues, to be able
like you, after long continued labors and immortal fame, how gratifying,
under such auspices, to return to the bosom of the National Convention!"—(AF.
II., 36, Pluviôse 7, year II., letter to the representatives on mission at
Bordeaux, approving of the orders issued by them against merchants.)
"concealed behind the obscurity of its complots, mercantilism cannot
support the ardent, invigorating atmosphere of Liberty; Sybaritic
indolence quails before Spartan virtue. "—(AF. II., 37, Pluviôse 20,
letter to Prieur de la Marne, sent to Nantes to replace Carrier.)
"Carrier, perhaps, has been badly surrounded;.... his ways are harsh, the
means he employs are not well calculated to win respect for the national
authority;... he is used up in that city. He is to leave and go
elsewhere."—(AF. II., 36, Nivôse 21, letter to Fouché, Laporte, and
Albitte, at Commune-affranchie, signed by Billaud-Varennes and composed by
him.) "The convention, Nivôse I, has approved of the orders and other
measures taken by you. We can add nothing to its approval. The Committee
of Public Safety subjects all operations to the same principles, that is
to say, it conforms to yours and acts with you."]
3235 (return)
[ Sainte-Beuve,
"Nouveaux Lundis," VIII., 105. (Unpublished report by Vice-admiral
Villaret-Joyeuse, May 28, 1794.)]
3236 (return)
[ Carnot, "Mémoires,"
I., 107.]
3237 (return)
[ Ibid., I., 450, 523,
527, "we often ate only a morsel of dry bread on the Committee's table."]
3238 (return)
[ Moniteur, XXI., 362.
(Speech by Cambon, Session of Thermidor 11, year II.)]
3239 (return)
[ Beugnot, "Mémoires,"
II., 15. (Stated by Jean Bon himself in a conversation at Mayence in
1813.)]
3240 (return)
[ Gaudia, duc de Gaéte,
"Mémoires," I., 16, 28. "I owed my life to Cambon personally, while,
through his firmness, he preserved the whole Treasury department,
continually attacked by the all-powerful Jacobin club."—On the 8th
of Thermidor, Robespierre was "very severe on the administration of the
Treasury, which he accused of an aristocratic and anti-revolutionary
spirit.... Under this pretext, it was known that the orator meant to
propose an act of accusation against the representative charged with its
surveillance, as well as against the six commissioners, and bring them
before the Revolutionary Tribunal, whose verdict could not be doubtful."—Buchez
et Roux, XXXIII., 431, 436, 441. Speech by Robespierre, Thermidor 8, year
II... ". Machiavellian designs against the small fund-holders of the
State.. .. A contemptible financial system, wasteful, irritating,
devouring, absolutely independent of your supreme oversight....
Anti-revolution exists in the financial department.... Who are its head
administrators? Brissotins, Feuillants, aristocrats and well-known knaves—the
Cambons, the Mallarmés, the Ramels!"]
3241 (return)
[ Carnot, "Mémoires,"
I., 425.]
3242 (return)
[ Moniteur, XXIV., 47,
50. (Session of Germinal 2, year II.) Speeches by Lindet and Carnot with
confirmatory details.—Lindet says that he had signed twenty thousand
papers.—Ibid., XXXIII., 591. (Session of Ventôse 12, year III.
Speech by Barère.) "The labor of the Committee was divided amongst the
different members composing it, but all, without distinction, signed each
other's work. I, myself, knowing nothing of military affairs, have
perhaps, in this matter, given four thousand signatures."—Ibid.,
XXIV., 74. (Session of Germinal 6, year III.) Speech of Lavesseur, witness
of an animated scene between Carnot and Robespierre concerning two of
Carnot's clerks, arrested by order of Robespierre.—Carnot adds "I
had myself signed this order of arrest without knowing it."—Ibid.,
XXII., 116. (Session of Vendémiaire 8, year II., speech by Carnot in
narrating the arrest of General Huchet for his cruelties in Vendée.) On
appearing before the committee of Public Safety, Robespierre defended him
and he was sent back to the army and promoted to a higher rank; I was
obliged to sign in spite of my opposition."]
3243 (return)
[ Carnot, "Mémoires,"
I., 572. (Speech by Carnot, Germinal 2, year III.)]
3244 (return)
[ Sénart, "Mémoires,"
145, 153. (Details on the members of the two Committees.)]
3245 (return)
[ Reports by Billaud on
the organization of the revolutionary government, November 18, 1793 and on
the theory of democratic government, April 20, 1794.—Reports by
Robespierre on the political situation of the Republic, November 17, 1793;
and on the principles of revolutionary government, December 5, 1793.—Information
on the genius of revolutionary laws, signed principally by Robespierre and
Billaud, November 29, 1793.—Reports by Robespierre on the principles
of political morality which ought to govern the Convention, February 5,
1794; and on the relationship between religious and moral ideas and
republican principles, May 7, 1794.]
3246 (return)
[ Billaud no longer
goes on mission after he becomes one of the Committee of Public Safety.
Robespierre never went. Barère, who is of daily service, is likewise
retained at Paris.—All the others serve on the missions and several
repeatedly, and for a long time.]
3247 (return)
[ Moniteur, XXIV., 60.
The words of Carnot, session of Germinal 2, year III.—Ibid., XXII.,
138, words of Collot, session of Vendémiaire 12, year III. "Billaud and
myself have sent into the departments three hundred thousand written
documents, and have made at least ten thousand minutes (of meetings) with
our own hand."]
3248 (return)
[ Dussault "Fragment
pour servir à l'histoire de la Convention."]
3249 (return)
[ Thibaudeau, I., 49.]
3250 (return)
[ Arnault, "Souvenirs
d'un Sexagenaire," II., 78.]
3251 (return)
[ "Mémoires d'un
Bourgeois de Paris," by Veron, II., 14. (July 7, 1815.)]
3252 (return)
[ Cf. Thibaudeau,
"Mémoires," I., 46. "It seemed, then, that to escape imprisonment, or the
scaffold, there was no other way than to put others in your place."]
3253 (return)
[ Carnot, "Mémoires."
I., 508.]
3254 (return)
[ Carnot, I., 527.
(Words of Prieur de la Côte d'Or.)]
3255 (return)
[ Carnot, ibid., 527.
(The words of Prieur.)]
3256 (return)
[ "La Nouvelle
Minerve," I., 355, (Notes by Billaud-Varennes, indited at St. Domingo and
copied by Dr. Chervin.) "We came to a decision only after being wearied
out by the nightly meetings of our Committee."]
3257 (return)
[ Decree of September
17, 1793, on "Suspects." Ordinance of the Paris Commune, October 10, 1793,
extending it so as to include "those who, having done nothing against the
Revolution, do nothing for it."—Cf. "Papers seized in Robespierre's
apartments," II., 370, letter of Payan. "Every man who has not been for
the Revolution has been against it, for he has done nothing for the
country.... In popular commissions, individual humanity, the moderation
which assumes the veil of justice, is criminal."]
3258 (return)
[ Mortimer-Ternaux,
VIII., 394, and following pages; 414 and following pages, (on the
successive members of the two Committees).]
3259 (return)
[ Wallon, "Histoire du
Tribunal Révolutionaire," III., 129-131. Hérault de Sechelles, allied with
Danton, and accused of being indulgent, had just given guarantees,
however, and applied the revolutionary regime in Alsace with a severity
worthy of Billaud. (Archives des Affaires étrangères, vol. V., 141.)
"Instructions for civil commissioners by Hérault, representative of the
people," (Colmar, Frimaire 2, year II.,) with suggestions as to the
categories of persons that are to be "sought for, arrested and immediately
put in jail," probably embracing nineteen-twentieths of the inhabitants.]
3260 (return)
[ Dauban, "Paris" en
1794, 285, and following pages. (Police Reports, Germinal, year II.)
Arrest of Hébert and associates "Nothing was talked about the whole
morning but the atrocious crimes of the conspirators. They were regarded
as a thousand times more criminal than Capet and his wife. They ought to
be punished a thousand times over.... The popular hatred of Hébert is at
its height... . The people cannot forgive Hébert for having deceived
them.... Popular rejoicings were universal on seeing the conspirators led
to the scaffold."]
3261 (return)
[ Moniteur, XXIV., 53.
(Session of Germinal 2, year III.) Words of Prieur de la Côte-d'Or: "The
first quarrel that occurred in the Committee was between Saint-Just and
Carnot; the latter says to the former, 'I see that you and Robespierre are
after a dictatorship.'"—Ibid., 74. Levasseur makes a similar
statement.-Ibid., 570. (Session of Germinal 2, year III., words of
Carnot): "I had a right to call Robespierre a tyrant every time I spoke to
him. I did the same with Saint-Just and Couthon."]
3262 (return)
[ Carnot, I., 525.
(Testimony of Prieur.) Ibid., 522. Saint-Just says to Carnot: "You are in
league with the enemies of the patriots. It is well for you to know that a
few lines from me could send you to the guillotine in two days."]
3263 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XXX.,
185. (Reply of Billaud, Collot, Vadier and Barère to the renewed charges
against them by Lecointre.)—Moniteur, XXIV., 84. (Session of
Germinal 7, year III.) Words of Barère: "On the 4th of Thermidor, in the
Committee, Robespierre speaks like a man who had orders to give and
victims to point out."—"And you, Barère," he replies, "remember the
report you made on the 2nd of Thermidor,"]
3264 (return)
[ Heraclitus ( c.
540-480 BC) pre-Socratic philosopher, who believed in a cosmic justice
where sinners would be punished and haunted by the Erinyes, (the furies)
the handmaids of justice. (SR).]
3265 (return)
[ Saint-Just, report on
the Girondists, July 8, 1793; on the necessity of imprisoning persons
inimical to the Revolution, Feb.26, 1794; on the Hébertists, March 13; on
the arrest of Herault-Séchelles and Simond, March 17; on the arrest of
Danton and associates March 31; on a general policy, April 15.—Cf.,
likewise, his report on declaring the government revolutionary until peace
is declared, Oct. 10, 1793, and his report of the 9th of Thermidor, year
II.]
3266 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXXI., 346. (Report of March 13, 1794.)—XXXII., 314. (Report of
April 15.)]
3267 (return)
[ See "The Revolution,"
II., 313.]
3268 (return)
[ A single phrase often
suffices to give the measure of a man's intellect and character. The
following by Saint-Just has this merit. (Apropos of Louis XVI. who,
refraining from defending himself, left the Tuileries and took refuge in
the Assembly on the 10th of August.) "He came amongst you; he forced his
way here.... He resorted to the bosom of the legislature; his soldiers
burst into the asylum.. .. He made his way, so to say, by sword thrusts
into the bowels of his country that he might find a place of
concealment."]
3269 (return)
[ Particularly in the
long report on Danton containing a historic survey of the factions,
(Buchez et Roux, XXXII., 76,) and the report on the general police,
(Ibid., 304,) with another historic document of the same order. "Brissot
and Ronsin (were) recognized royalists.. .. Since Necker a system of
famine has been devised.... Necker had a hand in the Orleans faction....
Double representation (of the Third Estate) was proposed for it." Among
other charges made against Danton; after the fusillade on the Champ de
Mars in July, 1791 "You went to pass happy days at Arcis-sur-Aube, if it
is possible for a conspirator against his country to be happy.... When you
knew that the tyrant's fall was prepared and inevitable you returned to
Paris on the 9th of August. You wanted to go to bed on that evil night....
Hatred, you said, is insupportable to me and (yet) you said to us 'I do
not like Marat,' etc." There is an apostrophe of nine consecutive pages
against Danton, who is absent.]
3270 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
Ibid., 312. "Liberty emanated from the bosom of tempests; its origin dates
with that of the world issuing out of chaos along with man, who is born
dissolved in tears." (Applause.)—Ibid., 308. Cf. his portrait, got
up for effect, of the "revolutionary who is a treasure of good sense and
probity."]
3271 (return)
[ Ibid., 312. "Liberty
is not the chicanery of a palace; it is rigidity towards evil."]
3272 (return)
[ Barère, "Mémoires,"
I. 347. "Saint-Just... discussed like a vizier."]
3273 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXXII., 314. "Are the lessons furnished by history, the examples afforded
by all great men, lost to the universe? These all counsel us to lead
obscure lives; the lowly cot and virtue form the grandeurs of this world.
Let us seek our habitations on the banks of streams, rock the cradles of
our children and educate them in Disinterestedness and Intrepidity."—As
to his political or economic capacity and general ideas, read his speeches
and his "Institutions," (Buchez et Roux, XXVIII., 133; XXX., 305, XXXV.,
369,) a mass of chemical and abstract rant.]
3274 (return)
[ Carnot, I., 527.
(Narrated by Prieur.) "Often when hurriedly eating a bit of dry bread at
the Committee table, Barère with a jest, brought a smile on our lips."]
3275 (return)
[ Veron, II.,
14.-Arnault, II., 74.—Cf., passim, "Mémoires de Barère," and the
essay on Barère by Macaulay.]
3276 (return)
[ Vilate, Barère
Edition, 184, 186, 244. "Fickle, frank, affectionate, fond of society,
especially that of women, in quest of luxuries and knowing how to spend
money."—Carnot, II. 511. In Prieur's eyes, Barère was simply "a good
fellow."]
3277 (return)
[ Moniteur, XXI., 173.
(Justification of Joseph Lebon and "his somewhat harsh ways.") "The
Revolution is to be spoken of with respect, and revolutionary measures
with due regard. Liberty is a virgin, to raise whose veil is a crime."—And
again: "The tree of Liberty grows when watered with the blood of
tyrants."]
3278 (return)
[ Moniteur, XX., 580,
582, 583, 587.—"Campagnes de la Révolution Française dans les
Pyrénées-Orientales," by Fervel, II., 36 and following pages.—General
Dugommier, after the capture of Toulouse, spared the English general
O'Hara, taken prisoner in spite of the orders of the Convention. and
received the following letter from the committee of Public Safety. "The
Committee accepts your victory and your wound as compensations." On the
24th of December, Dugommier, that he may not be present at the Toulon
massacres, asks to return to the convention and is ordered off to the army
of the eastern Pyrenees.—In 1797, there were thirty thousand French
prisoners in England.]
3279 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVIII.,
291. (Speech by Barère, session of Brumaire 8, year II.) At this rate,
there are one hundred and forty deputies on mission to the armies and in
the departments.—Before the institution of the Committee of Public
Safety, (April 7, 1793) there were one hundred and sixty representatives
in the departments, sent there to hasten the levy of two hundred thousand
men. (Moniteur, XVII., 99, speech by Cambon, July 11, 1793.) The Committee
gradually recalled most of these representatives and, on the 16th July,
only sixty-three were on mission.—(Ibid., XVII., 152, speech by
Gossuin, July 16.)—On the 9th of Nivôse, the committee designated
fifty-eight representatives to establish the revolutionary government in
certain places and fixing the limits of their jurisdictions. (Archives
Nationales, AF., II., 22.) Subsequently, several were recalled, and
replaced by others.—The letters and orders of the representatives on
mission are filed in the National Archives according to departments, in
two series, one of which comprises missions previous to Thermidor 9, and
the other missions after that date.]
3280 (return)
[ Thibaudeau, "Histoire
du Terrorisme dans le department de la Vienne," p.4. "Paris, Brumaire 15,
the sans-culotte Piorry, representative of the people to the sans-culottes
composing the popular club of Poitiers."]
3281 (return)
[ Archives Nationales,
AF., II., 116. (Letter of Laplanche, Orleans, September 10, 1793.—"Also
procès-verbaux of the Orleans sections, September 7.) "I organized them,
after selecting them from the popular club, into a revolutionary
committee. They worked under my own eye, their bureau being in an
adjoining chamber... I required sure, local information, which I could not
have had without collaborators of the country.... The result is that I
have arrested this night more than sixty aristocrats, strangers or
'suspects."—"De Martel, Études sur Fouche," 84. Letter of Chaumette,
who posted Fouché concerning the Nevers Jacobins. "Surrounded by
royalists, federalists and fanatics, representative Fouché had only 3 or 4
persecuted patriots to advise him."]
3282 (return)
[ Archives Nationales,
AF., II., 88. Speech by Rousselin, Frimaire 9—Ibid., F.7, 4421.
Speech and orders issued by Rousselin, Brumaire 25.—Cf.. Albert
Babeau, "Histoire de Troyes pendant la Revolution," vol. II. Missions of
Gamier de Rousselin and Bô.]
3283 (return)
[ Archives Nationales,
AF., II., 145. (Order of Maignet, Avignon, Floreal 13, year II., and
proclamation of Floréal 14.)—Ibid., AF., II., 111, Grenoble.
Prairial 8, year II. Similar orders issued by Albitte and Laporte, for
renewing all the authorities of Grenoble.—Ibid, AF., II., 135.
Similar order of Ricord at Grasse, Pluviôse 28, and throughout the Var.—Ibid.,
AF., II., 36. Brumaire, year II., circular of the Committee of Public
Safety to the representatives on mission in the departments: "Before
quitting your post, you are to effect the most complete purification of
the constituted authorities and public functionaries."]
3284 (return)
[ Decrees of Frimaire 6
and 14, year II.]
3285 (return)
[ Archives Nationales,
AF., II., 22. Acts of the committee of Public Safety, Nivôse 9, year II.]
3286 (return)
[ Ibid., AF., II., 37.
Letter to the Committee on the War, signed by Barère and Billaud-Varennes,
Pluviôse 23,, year II.]
3287 (return)
[ Ibid., AF., II., 36.
Letter of the Committee of Public Safety to Le Carpentier, on mission in
l'Orne, Brumaire 19, year II. "The administrative bodies of Alençon, the
district excepted, are wholly gangrened; all are Feuillants, or infected
with a no less pernicious spirit.... For the choice of subjects, and the
incarceration of individuals, you can refer to the sans-culottes: the most
nervous are Symaroli and Préval.—At Montagne, the administration
must be wholly removed, as well as the collector of the district, and the
post-master;... purify the popular club, expel nobles and limbs of the
law, those that have been turned out of office, priests, muscadins,
etc.... Dissolve two companies, one the grenadiers and the other the
infantry who are very muscadin and too fond of processions.... Re-form the
staff and officers of the National Guard. To secure more prompt and surer
execution of these measures of security you may refer to the present
municipality, the Committee of Surveillance and the Cannoneers.]
3288 (return)
[ Ibid., AF.,II., 37.
To Ricord, on mission at Marseilles, Pluviôse 7, year II, a strong and
rude admonition: he is going soft, he has gone to live with Saint-Même, a
suspect; he is too biased in favor of the Marseilles people who, during
the siege "made sacrifices to procure subsistences;" he blamed their
arrest, etc.—Floréal 13, year II., to Bouret on mission in the
Manche and at Calvados. "The Committee are under the impression that you
are constantly deceived by an insidious secretary who, by the bad
information he has given you, has often led you to give favorable terms to
the aristocracy, etc."—Ventôse 6, year II., to Guimberteau, on
mission near the army on the coasts of Cherbourg: "The committee is
astonished to find that the military commission established by you,
undoubtedly for striking off the heads of conspirators, was the first to
let them off. Are you not acquainted with the men who compose it? For what
have you chosen them? If you do not know them, how does it happen that you
have summoned them for such duties?"—Ibid., and Ventôse 23, order to
Guimberteau to investigate the conduct of his secretary]
3289 (return)
[ See especially in the
"Archives des Affaires étrangères," vols. 324 to 334, the correspondence
of secret agents sent into the interior.]
3290 (return)
[ Archives Nationales,
AF.,II., 37, to Fromcastel on mission in Indre-et-Loire, Floréal 13, year
II. "The Committee sends you a letter from the people's club of Chinon,
demanding the purging and organization of all the constituted authorities
of this district. The committee requests you to proceed at once to carry
out this important measure."]
3291 (return)
[ Words of Robespierre,
session of the convention September 24, 1793.—On another
representative, Merlin de Thionville, who likewise stood fire, Robespierre
wrote as follows: "Merlin de Thionville, famous for surrendering Mayence,
and more than suspected of having received his reward."]
3292 (return)
[ Guillon, II., 207.—"Fouché,"
by M. de Martel, 292.]
3293 (return)
[ Hamel, III., 395, and
following pages.—Buchez et Roux, XXX., 435. (Session of the Jacobin
club, Nivôse 12, year II. Speech of Collot d'Herbois.) "To-day I no longer
recognize public opinion; had I reached Paris three days later, I should
probably have been indicted."]
3294 (return)
[ Marcelin Boudet, "Les
conventionnels d'Auvergne," 438. (Unpublished memoir of Maignet.)]
3295 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXXIV., 165, 191. (Evidence of witnesses on the trial of Carrier.)—Paris,
II., 113, "Histoire de Joseph Lebon." "The prisons," says Le Bon,
"overflowed at Saint-Pol. I was there and released two hundred persons.
Well, in spite of my orders, several were put back by the committee of
Surveillance, authorised by Lebas, a friend of Darthé. What could I do
against Darthé supported by Saint-Just and Lebas? He would have denounced
me."—Ibid., 128, apropos of a certain Lefèvre, "veteran of the
Revolution," arrested and brought before the revolutionary tribunal by
order of Lebon. "It was necessary to take the choice of condemning him, or
of being denounced and persecuted myself, without saving him."—Beaulieu,
"Essai," V., 233. "I am afraid and I cause fear was the principle of all
the revolutionary atrocities."]
3296 (return)
[ Ludovic Sciout,
"Histoire de la Constitution civile du Clergé," IV., 136. (Orders of Pinét
and Cavaignac, Pluviôse 22, and Ventôse 2.)—Moniteur, XXIV., 469.
(Session of Prairial 30, year III., denunciation of representative
Laplanche at the bar of the house, by Boismartin.) On the 24th of
Brumaire, year II., Laplanche and General Seepher installed themselves at
St. Lô in the house of an old man of seventy, a M. Lemonnier then under
arrest. "Scarcely had they entered the house when they demanded provisions
of every kind, linen, clothes, furniture, jewelry, plate, vehicles and
title-deeds—all disappeared." Whilst the inhabitants of St. Lô were
living on a few ounces of brown bread, "the best bread, the choicest
wines, pillaged in the house of Lemonnier, were lavishly given in pans and
kettles to General Seepher's horses, also to those of representative
Laplanche." Lemonnier, set at liberty, could not return to his emptied
dwelling then transformed into a storehouse. He lived at the inn, stripped
of all his possessions, valued at sixty thousand livres, having saved from
his effects only one silver table-service, which he had taken with him
into prison.]
3297 (return)
[ Marcelin Boudet, 446.
(Notes of M. Ignace de Barante.) Also 440. (Unpublished memoir of
Maignet).]
3298 (return)
[ Archives Nationales,
AF., II., 59. Extract from the minutes of the meetings of the People's
club of Metz, and depositions made before the committee of Surveillance of
the club, Floreal 12, year II., on the conduct of representative
Duquesnoy, arrived at Metz the evening before at six o'clock.—There
are thirty-two depositions, and among others those of M. Altmayer, Joly
and Clédat. One of the witnesses states: "As to these matters, I regarded
this citizen (Duquesnoy) as tipsy or drunk, or as a man beside himself."—This
is customary with Duquesnoy.—Cf. Paris, "His. de Joseph Lebon," I.,
273, 370.-"Archives des Affaires étrangères," vol. 329. Letter of Gadolle,
September 11, 1793. "I saw Duquesnoy, the deputy, dead drunk at Bergues,
on Whit-Monday, at 11 o'clock in the evening."—"Un Séjour en France,
1792 to 1796, p. 136. "His naturally savage temper is excited to madness
by the abuse of strong drink. General de .....assures us that he saw him
seize the mayor of Avesnes, a respectable old man, by the hair on his
presenting him with a petition relating to the town, and throw him down
with the air of a cannibal." "He and his brother were dealers in hops at
retail, at Saint Pol. He made this brother a general."]
3299 (return)
[ Alexandrine des
Echerolles, "Une famile noble sous la Terreur," 209. At Lyons, Marin, the
commissioner, "a tall, powerful, robust man with stentorian lungs," opens
his court with a volley of "republican oaths... ".. The crowd of
supplicants melts away. One lady alone dared present her petition. "Who
are you?" She gives her name. "What! You have the audacity to mention a
traitor's name in this place?" Get away and, giving her a push, he put her
outside the door with a kick.]
32100 (return)
[ Ibid. A mass of
evidence proves, on the contrary, that people of every class gave their
assistance, owing to which the fire was almost immediately extinguished.]
32101 (return)
[ Ibid. The popular
club unanimously attests these facts, and despatches six delegates to
enter a protest at the convention. Up to the 9th of Thermidor, no relief
is granted, while the tax imposed by Duquesnoy is collected. On the 5th
Fructidor, year II., the order of Duquesnoy is cancelled by the committee
of Public Safety, but the money is not paid back.]
32102 (return)
[ Paris, I., 370.
(Words of Duquesnoy to Lebon.)]
32103 (return)
[ Carnot, "Mémoires,"
I., 414. (Letter of Duquesnoy to the central bureau of representatives at
Arras.) The import of these untranslatable profanities being sufficiently
clear I let them stand as in the original.-Tr.]
32104 (return)
[ "Un Sejour en
France," 158, 171.—Manuscript journal of Mallet du Pan (January,
1795).—Cf. his letters to the convention, the jokes of jailors and
sbirri, for instance.—(Moniteur, XVIII., 214, Brumaire I, year II.)—Lacretelle,
"Dix Années d'Epreuves," 178. "He ordered that everybody should dance in
his fief of Picardy. They danced even in prison. Whoever did not dance was
"suspect." He insisted on a rigid observance of the fêtes in honor of
Reason, and that everybody should visit the temple of the Goddess each
decadi, which was the cathedral (at Noyon). Ladies, bourgeoises,
seamstresses, and cooks, were required to form what was called the chain
of Equality. We dragoons were forced to be performers in this strange
ballet."]
32105 (return)
[ De Martel,
"Fouché," 418. (Orders of Albitte and Collot, Nivôse 13, year II.)]
32106 (return)
[ Camille Boursier,
"Essai sur la Terreur en Anjou," 225. Letter of Vacheron, Frimaire 15,
year II.) "Republiquain, it is absolutely necessary, immediately, that you
have sent or brought into the house of the representatives, a lot of red
wine, of which the consumption is greater than ever. People have a right
to drink to the Republic when they have helped to preserve the commune you
and yours live in. I hold you responsible for my demand." Signed, "le
republiquain, Vacheron."]
32107 (return)
[ Ibid., 210.
Deposition of Madame Edin, apropos of Quesnoy, a prostitute, aged
twenty-six, Brumaire 12, year III.; and of Rose, another prostitute.
Similar depositions by Benaben and Scotty.]
32108 (return)
[ Dauban, "La
Demagogie en 1793," p.369. (Extracts from the unpublished memoirs of
Mercier de Rocher.)—Ibid., 370. "Bourdon de l'Oise had lived with
Tuncq at Chantonney, where they kept busy emptying bottles of fine wine.
Bourdon is an excellent patriot, a man of sensibility, but, in his fits of
intoxication, he gives himself up to impracticable views. "Let those
rascally administrators," he says, "be arrested!" Then, going to the
window,—he heard a runaway horse galloping in the street—"That's
another anti-revolutionary! Let 'em all be arrested!"—Cf.
"Souvenirs," by General Pélleport, p.21. At Perpignan, he attended the
fête of Reason. "The General in command of the post made an impudent
speech, even to the most repulsive cynicisim. Some prostitutes, well known
to this wretch, filled one of the tribunes; they waved their handkerchiefs
and shouted "Vive la Raison!" After listening to similar harangues by
representatives Soubrang and Michaud, Pélleport, although half cured (of
his wound) returns to camp: "I could not breathe freely in town, and did
not think that I was safe until facing the enemy along with my comrades."]
32109 (return)
[ Archives des
Affaires étrangères, vol.332; correspondence of secret agents, October,
1793. "Citizen Cusset, representative of the people, shows no dignity in
his mission; he drinks like a Lapithe, and when intoxicated commits the
arbitrary acts of a vizier." For the style and orthography of Cusset, see
one of his letters. (Dauban, "Paris en 1794," p 14.)—Berryat St.
Prix, "La Justice Révolutionnaire," (2nd ed.) 339.]
32110 (return)
[ Ibid., 371.
(According to "Piecès et Documents" published by M. Fajon.)—Moniteur,
XXIV., 453. (Session of Floréal 24, year III.) Address of the commune of
Saint-Jean du Gard.—XXI., 528. (Session of Fructidor 2, year III.)
Address of the Popular club of Nîmes.]
32111 (return)
[ Moniteur, XXIV.,
602. (Session of Prairial 13, year III.) Report of Durand Meillan: "This
denunciation is only too well supported by documents. It is for the
convention to say whether it will hear them read. I have to state
beforehand that it can hear nothing more repulsive nor better
authenticated."—De Martel, "Fouché, 246. (Report of the constituted
authorities of la Nièvre on the missions of Collot d'Herbois, Laplanche,
Fouché and Pointe, Prairial 19, year III.) Laplanche, a former
Benedictine, is the most foul-mouthed." In his speech to the people of
Moulins-Engelbert, St. Pierre-le-Montier, and Nevers, Laplanche asked
girls to surrender themselves and let modesty go. "Beget children," he
exclaims, "the Republic needs them. continence is the virtue of fools."
Bibliotheque Nationale, Lb. 41, No. 1802. (Denunciation, by the six
sections of the Dijon commune to the convention, of Leonard Bourdon and
Piochefer Bernard de Saintes, during their mission in Côte-d'Or.) Details
on the orgies of Bernard with the municipality, and on the drunkenness and
debaucheries of Bourdon with the riff-raff~ of the country; authentic
documents proving the robberies and assassinations committed by Bernard.
He pillaged the house of M. Micault, and, in four hours, had this person
arrested, tried and guillotined; he attended the execution himself, and
that evening, in the dead man's house, danced and sang before his daughter
with his acolytes.]
32112 (return)
[ "Souvenirs," by
General Pélleport, p.8. He, with his battalion, is inspected in the Place
du Capitale, at Toulouse, by the representative on mission. "It seems as
if I can still see that charlatan: He shook his ugly plumed head and
dragged along his saber like a merry soldier, wishing to appear brave. It
made me feel sad."]
32113 (return)
[ Fervel, "Campagnes
des Français dans les Pyrenees Orientals," I., 169. (October, 1793.)—Ibid.,
201, 206.—Cf. 188. Plan of Fabre for seizing Roses and Figuières,
with eight thousand men, without provisions or transports. "Fortune is on
the side of fools," he said. Naturally the scheme fails. Collioure is
lost, and disasters accumulate. As an offset to this the worthy general
Dagobert is removed. Commandant Delatre and chief-of-staff Ramel are
guillotined. In the face of the impracticable orders of the
representatives the commandant of artillery commits suicide. On the
devotion of the officers and enthusiasm of the troops, Ibid., 105, 106,
130, 131, 162.]
32114 (return)
[ Sybel (Dosquet's
translation, French:), II., 435; III., 132, 140. (For details and
authorities, cf. the Memoirs of Marshal Soult.)]
32115 (return)
[ Gouvion St. Cyr,
"Mémoires sur les campagnes de 1792 à la paix de Campio-Formio," I., pp.91
to 139.—Ibid., 229. "The effect of this was to lead men who had any
means to keep aloof from any sort of promotion."—Cf., ibid., II.,
131 (November, 1794,) the same order of things still kept up. By order of
the representatives the army encamps during the winter in sheds on the
left bank of the Rhine, near Mayence, a useless proceeding and mere
literary parade. "They would listen to no reason; a fine army and
well-mounted artillery were to perish with cold and hunger, for no object
whatever, in quarters that might have been avoided." The details are
heart-rending. Never was military heroism so sacrificed to the folly of
civilian commanders.]
32116 (return)
[ See Paris,
"Histoire de Joseph Lebon," I., ch. I, for biographical details and traits
of character.]
32117 (return)
[ Ibid., I., 13.—His
mother became crazy and was put in an asylum. Her derangement, he says,
was due to "her indignation at his oath of allegiance (to the Republic)
and at his appointment to the curacy of Nouvelle-Vitasse."]
32118 (return)
[ Ibid., I., 123.
Speech by Lebon in the church of Beaurains.]
32119 (return)
[ Ibid., II., 71, 72.—Cf.
85. "Citizen Chamonart, wine-dealer, standing at the entrance of his
cellar, sees the representative pass, looks at him and does not salute
him. Lebon steps up to him, arrests him, treats him as an agent of Pitt
and Cobourg."...."They search him, take his pocket-book and lead him off
to the Anglaises (a prison)."]
32120 (return)
[ Ibid., II., 84.]
32121 (return)
[ Moniteur, XXV.,
201. (Session of Messidor 22, year III.) "When in the tribune (of the
Convention) prison conspiracies were announced. ... my dreams were wholly
of prison conspiracies."]
32122 (return)
[ Ibid., 211.
(Explanations given by Lebon to the Convention.)—Paris, II., 350,
351. (Verdict of the jury.)]
32123 (return)
[ Paris, II., 85.]
32124 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXXIV., 181. (Depositions of Monneron, a merchant.)]
32125 (return)
[ Ibid., 184.
(Deposition of Chaux.)—Cf. 200. (Depositions of Monneron and
Villemain, merchants.)]
32126 (return)
[ Ibid., 204.
(Deposition of Lamarie, administrator of the department.)]
32127 (return)
[ Ibid., 173.
(Deposition of Erard, a copyist.)—168. (Deposition of Thomas, health
officer.) "To all his questions, Carrier replied in the grossest
language."]
32128 (return)
[ Ibid., 203.
(Deposition of Bonami, merchant.)]
32129 (return)
[ Ibid., 156.
(Deposition of Vaujois, public prosecutor to the military commission.)]
32130 (return)
[ Ibid., 169.
(Deposition of Thomas.)—Berryat Saint-Prix, pp. 34, 35..—Buchez
et Roux, 118. "He received the members of the popular club with blows,
also the municipal officers with saber thrusts, who came to demand
supplies"...."He draws his saber (against the boatman) and strikes at him,
which he avoids only by running away."]
32131 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXXIV., 196. (Deposition of Julien.) "Carrier said to me in a passion: 'It
is you, is it, you damned beggar, who presumes to denounce me to the
Committee of Public Safety.... As it is sometimes necessary for the public
interests to get rid of certain folks quickly, I won't take the trouble to
send you to the guillotine, I'll be your executioner myself!"]
32132 (return)
[ Ibid., 175.
(Deposition of Tronjolly.) 295. (Depositions of Jean Lavigne, a
shopkeeper; of Arnandan, civil commissioner; also of Corneret, merchant.)
179. (Deposition of Villemain).—Berryat Saint-Prix, 34. "Carrier,
says the gendarme Desquer, who carried his letters, was a roaring lion
rather than an officer of the people." "He looked at once like a charlatan
and a tiger," says another witness.]
32133 (return)
[ Ibid., XXXIV., 204.
(Deposition of Lamarie.)]
32134 (return)
[ Ibid., 183.
(Deposition of Caux.)]
32135 (return)
[ Mallet-Dupan,
"Mémoires," II., 6. (Memorial of Feb. I, 1794.) On André Dumont, "Un
Séjour en France," 158, 171.—On Merlin de Thionville, Michelet, VI.,
97.]
32136 (return)
[ De Martel, "Fouché"
100.]
32137 (return)
[ Mallet-Dupan, II.,
46.]
32138 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXXII., 413, 423. (Letter of Julien to Robespierre.)]
32139 (return)
[ Archives
Nationales, AF., II., III. An order issued by Bourbotte, Tours, Messidor
5, year II., "requiring the district administration to furnish him
personally, as well as for the citizens attached to his commission, forty
bottles of red wine and thirty of white wine, to be taken from the cellars
of emigrés, or from those of persons condemned to death; and, besides
this, fifty bottles of common wine other than white or red."—On the
2nd of Messidor, ale is drunk and there is a fresh order for fifty bottles
of red wine, fifty of common wine, and two bottles of brandy.—De
Martel, "Fouché," 419, 420.—Moniteur, XXIV., 604. (Session of
Prairial 13, par III.) "Dugué reads the list of charges brought against
Mallarmé. He is accused.... of having put in requisition whatever pleased
him for his table and for other wants, without paying for anything, not
even for the post-horses and postillions that carried him."—Ibid.
602. Report of Perès du Gers. "He accuses Dartigoyte... of having taken
part with his secretaries in the auction of the furniture of Daspe, who
had been condemned; of having kept the most valuable pieces for himself,
and afterwards fixing their price; of having warned those who had charge
of the sale that confinement awaited whoever should bid on the articles he
destined for himself."—Laplanche, ex-Benedictine, said in his
mission in Loiret, that "those who did not like the Revolution must pay
those who make it."]
32140 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXXII., 426. (Extract from the Memoirs of Sénart.)—Hamel, III., 565.
(Description of Teresa's domicile by the Marquis de Paroy, a petitioner
and eye-witness.)]
32141 (return)
[ The reader might
read about Tallien in the book written by Thérèse Chatrles-Vallin:
"Tallien," "Le mal-aimé de la Révolution", Ed. Jean Picollec, Paris 1997.
(SR).]
32142 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXXIII., 12. (Extract from the Memoirs of Sénart.) "The certified copies
of these drafts are on file with the committee of General Security."]
32143 (return)
[ Report of Courtois,
360. (Letters of Julien to Robespierre, Pluviôse 15 and 16, year II.)—Buchez
et Roux, XXXIV., 199, 200, 202, 203, 211. (Depositions of Villemain,
Monneron, Legros, Robin.)—Berryat Saint-Prix, 35. (Depositions of
Fourrier, and of Louise Courant, sempstress.)]
32144 (return)
[ See, on Tallien,"
Mémoires de Sénart."—On Javogues, Moniteur, XXIV., 461, Floreal 24,
III. Petition against Javogues, with several pages of signatures,
especially those of the inhabitants of Montbrison: "In the report made by
him to the Convention he puts down coin and assignats at seven hundred and
seventy-four thousand six hundred and ninety-six francs, while the spoils
of one person provided him with five hundred thousand francs in cash."—On
Fouché, De Martel, 252.—On Dumont, Mallet-Dupan, "Manuscript notes."
(January, 1795.) On Rovère, Michelet, VI., 256.—Carnot, II., 87.
(According to the Memoirs of the German Olsner, who was in Paris under the
Directory:) "The tone of Barras' Salon was that of a respectable gambling
house; the house of Reubell resembled the waiting-room of an inn at which
the mail-coach stops."]
32145 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXXII., 391, and XXXIII., 9. (Extracts from the Memoirs of Sénart.)]
32146 (return)
[ Carnot, "Mémoires,"
I. 416. Carnot, having shown to the Committee of Public Safety, proofs of
the depredations committed on the army of the North, Saint-Just got angry
and exclaimed: "It is only an enemy of the Republic that would accuse his
colleagues of depredations, as if patriots hadn't a right to everything!"]
32147 (return)
[ As to Caligula see
Suetonius and Philo.—With respect to Hakem, see "L'Exposé de la
Religion des Druses," by M. de Sacy.]
32148 (return)
[ Saint-Just,
speaking in the Convention, says: "What constitutes a republic is the
utter destruction of whatever is opposed to it."]
32149 (return)
[ Orders issued by
Saint-Just and Lebas for the departments of Pas-de-Calais, Nord, la Somme
et l'Aisne.—Cf. "Histoire de l'Alsace," by Stroebel, and "Recueil de
pieces authentiques pour servir à l'histoire de la Révolution à
Strasbourg," 3 vols.-Archives Nationales AF., II., 135, orders issued
Brumaire 10, year II., and list of the one hundred and ninety-three
persons taxed.]
32150 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXXI., 32. (Saint-Just's reply to Mayor Monet.)—De Sybel, II., 447,
448. At the first interview Saint-Just said to Schneider: "Why use so much
ceremony? You know the crimes of the aristocrats? In the twenty-four hours
taken for one investigation you might have twenty-four condemned."]
32151 (return)
[ "Journal de marche
du sergent Fricasse," p.34. (Narrative by Marshal Soult.)]
32152 (return)
[ Cf. in the Bible,
the story of Ahasuerus who, out of respect for his own majesty, can-not
retract the order he has issued against the Jews, but he turns the
difficulty by allowing them to defend themselves.]
32153 (return)
[ Mallet-Dupan, II.,
47.]
32154 (return)
[ Berryat Saint-Prix,
"La Justice Revolutionnaire," XVII.-Marcelin Boudet, "Les Conventionnels
d'Auvergne," 269.—Moniteur, Brumaire 27, year III., report by
Calès.]
32155 (return)
[ Paris, "Histoire de
Joseph Lebon," I., 371; II., 341, 344.-De Martel, "Fouché," 153.—Berryat
Saint-Prix, 347, 348.]
32156 (return)
[ Berryat Saint-Prix,
390.—Ibid., 404. (On Soubrié, executioner at Marseilles, letter of
Lazare Giraud, public prosecutor): "I put him in the dungeon for having
shed tears on the scaffold, in executing the anti-revolutionists we sent
to be executed."]
32157 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVIII.,
413. (Session of the Convention, letter of Lequinio and Laignelot,
Rochefort, Brumaire 17, year II.) "We have appointed the patriot Anse
guilloteneur and we have invited him, in dining with us, to come and
assume his prescribed powers, and water them with a libation in honor of
the Republic."—Paris, II., 72.]
32158 (return)
[ Marcelin Boudet,
270. (Testimony of Bardanèche de Bayonne.)]
32159 (return)
[ Guil1on, "Histoire
de la ville de Lyons pendant la Revolution," II., 427, 431, 433.]
32160 (return)
[ "Mémoire du Citoyen
Fréron," (in the Barrière collection,) p.357. (Testimony of a survivor.)]
32161 (return)
[ Paris, II., 32]
32162 (return)
[ Delandine,
"Tableaux des prisons de Lyons," p.14.]
32163 (return)
[ Camille Boursier,
"Essai sur la Terreur en Anjou," 164. (Letter of Boniface, ex-Benedictine,
president of the Revolutionary committee, to Representative Richard,
Brumaire 3, year II.) "We send you the said Henri Verdier, called de la
Saurinière.... It will not be long before you will see that we make the
guillotine a present.... The Committee begs you to send him sacram sanctam
guillotinam, and the republican minister of his worship... Not an hour of
the day passes that new members do not come to us whom we desire to
initiate in its mysteries, (sic)."]
32164 (return)
[ Thibaudeau,
"Histoire du Terrorisme dans le départment de la Vienne," 34, 48.—Berryat
Saint-Prix, 239.]
32165 (return)
[ Archives Nationales
F.7, 4435. (Letter of Lebon, Floréal 23, year II.)—Paris, I. 241.]
32166 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXXIV., 184, 200. (Depositions of Chaux, Monneron and Villemain.)]
32167 (return)
[ Register of the
Revolutionary Tribunal of Nantes, copied by M. Chevrier. (M. Chevrier has
kindly sent me his manuscript copy.)—Berryat Saint-Prix, 94.—Archives
Nationales, F7. 4591. (Extract from the acts of the Legislative Committee,
session of Floréal 3, year III. Restitution of the confiscated property of
Alexander Long to his son.) Dartigoyte, at Auch, did what Carrier did at
Nantes. "It follows from the above abstract duly signed that on the 27th
Germinal, year II., between eight and nine o'clock in the evening,
Alexandre Long, Sr., was put to death on the public square of the commune
of Auch by the executioner of criminal sentences, without any judgment
having been rendered against the said Long."—In many places an
execution becomes a spectacle for the Jacobins of the town and a party of
pleasure. For instance, at Arras, on the square devoted to executions, a
gallery was erected for spectators with a room for the sale of
refreshments, and, during the execution of M. de Montgon, the "Ça ira" is
played on the bass drum. (Paris, II., 158, and I., 159.) A certain
facetious representative has rehearsals of the performance in his own
house. "Lejeune, to feed his bloodthirsty imagination, had a small
guillotine put up, on which he cut off the heads of all the poultry
consumed at his table.... Often, in the middle of the repast, he had it
brought in and set to work for the amusement of his guests." (Moniteur,
XXIV., 607, session of June 1, 1795, letter from the district of Besançon,
and with the letter, the confirmatory document.) "This guillotine, says
the reporter, is deposited with the Committee of Legislation."]
The administrative body at Paris.—Composition of the group
out of which it was recruited.—Deterioration of this
group.—Weeding-out of the Section Assemblies.—Weeding out
of the popular clubs.—Pressure of the government.
To provide these local sovereigns with the subordinate lieutenants and agents which they require, we have the local Jacobin population, and we have seen the composition of the recruits,3301
* the distressed and the perverted of every class and degree, especially the lowest,
* the castaways,
* envious and resentful subordinates,
* small shopkeepers in debt,
* the migrating, high-living workers,
* barflies,
* vagrants,
* men of the gutters,
* street-walkers,
—in short, every species of "anti-social vermin," male and female,3302 including a few honest crack-brains into which the fashionable theory had freely found its way; the rest, and by far the largest number, are veritable beasts of prey, speculating on the established order of things and adopting the revolutionary faith only because it provides food for their appetites.—In Paris, they number five or six thousand, and, after Thermidor, there is about the same number, the same appetites rallying them around the same dogma,3303 levelers and terrorists, "some because they are poor, others because they have broken off the habit of working at their trade," furious with "the scoundrels who own a coach house, against the rich and the hoarders of objects of prime necessity." Many of them "having soiled themselves during the Revolution, ready to do it again provided the rich rascals, monopolists and merchants can all be killed," all "frequenters of popular clubs who think themselves philosophers, although most of them are unable to read," at the head of them the remnant of the most notorious political bandits,
* the famous post-master, Drouet, who, in the tribune at the Convention, declared himself a "brigand,"3304
* Javogues, the robber of Montbrison and the "Nero of Ain,"
* the drunkard Casset, formerly a silk-worker and later the pasha of Thionville,
* Bertrand, the friend of Charlier, the ex-mayor and executioner of Lyons,
* Darthé, ex-secretary of Lebon and the executioner at Arras,
* Rossignol and nine other Septembriseurs of the Abbaye and the Carmelites, and, finally, the great apostle of despotic communism,
* Babeuf, who, sentenced to twenty years in irons for the falsification of public contracts, and as needy as he is vicious, rambles about Paris airing his disappointed ambitions and empty pockets along with the swaggering crew who, if not striving to reach the throne by a new massacre,3305 tramp through the streets slipshod, for lack of money "to redeem a pair of boots at the shoemakers," or to sell some snuff-box their last resource, for a morning dram.3306
In this class we see the governing rabble fully and distinctly. Separated from its forced adherents and the official robots who serve it as they would any other power, it stands out pure and unalloyed by any neutral influx; we recognize here the permanent residue, the deep, settled slime of the social sewer. It is to this sink of vice and ignorance that the revolutionary government betakes itself for its staff-officers and its administrative bodies.
Nowhere else could they be found. For the daily task imposed upon them, and which must be done by them, is robbery and murder; excepting the pure fanatics, who are few in number, only brutes and blackguards have the aptitudes and tastes for such business. In Paris, as in the provinces, it is from the clubs or popular associations in which they congregate, that they are sought for.—Each section of Paris contains one of these clubs, in all forty-eight, rallied around the central club in the Rue St. Honoré, forty-eight district alliances of professional rioters and brawlers, the rebels and blackguards of the social army, all the men and women incapable of devoting themselves to a regular life and useful labor,3307 especially those who, on the 31st of May and 2nd of June, had aided the Paris Commune and the "Mountain" in violating the Convention. They recognize each other by this sign that, "each would be hung in case of a counter-revolution,"3308 laying it down "as an incontestable fact that, should a single aristocrat be spared, all of them would mount the scaffold."3309 They are naturally wary and they stick together: in their clique "everything is done on the basis of good fellowship;"3310 no one is admitted except on the condition of having proved his qualifications "on the 10th of August and 31st of May."3311 And, as they have made their way into the Commune and into the revolutionary committees behind victorious leaders, they are able, through the certificates of civism which these arbitrarily grant or refuse, to exclude, not only from political life but, again, from civil life, whoever is not of their party.
"See," writes one of Danton's correspondents,3312 "the sort of persons who easily obtain these certificates,—the Ronsins, the Jourdans, the Maillards, the Vincents, all bankrupts, keepers of gambling-hells and cut-throats. Ask these individuals whether they have paid the patriotic contribution, whether they regularly pay the usual taxes, whether they give to the poor of their sections, to the volunteer soldiers, etc.; whether they mount guard or see it regularly done, whether they have made a loyal declaration for the forced loan. You will find that they have not.... The Commune issues certificates of civism to its satellites and refuses them to the best citizens."
The monopoly is obvious; they make no attempt to conceal it; six weeks later,3313 it becomes official: several revolutionary committees decide not to grant certificates of civism to citizens who are not members of a popular club." And strict exclusion goes on increasing from month to month. Old certificates are canceled and new ones imposed, which new certificates have new formalities added to them, a larger number of endorsers being required and certain kinds of guarantees being rejected; there is greater strictness in relation to the requisite securities and qualifications; the candidate is put off until fuller information can be obtained about him; he is rejected at the slightest suspicion:3314 he is only too fortunate if he is tolerated in the Republic as a passive subject, if he is content to be taxed and taxed when they please, and if he is not sent to join the "suspects" in prison; whoever does not belong to the band does not belong to the community.
Amongst themselves and in their popular club it is worse, for
"the eagerness to get any office leads to every one denouncing each other; "3315
consequently, at the Jacobin club in the rue St. Honoré, and in the branch clubs of the quarter, there is constant purging, and always in the same sense, until the faction is cleansed of all honest or passable alloy and only a minority remains, which has its own way at every balloting. One of them announces that, in his club, eighty doubtful members have already been gotten rid of; another that, in his club, one hundred are going to be excluded.3316 On Ventose 23, in the "Bon-Conseil" club, most of the members examined are rejected: "they are so strict that a man who cannot show that he acted energetically in critical times, cannot form part of the assembly; he is set aside for a mere trifle." On Ventôse 13, in the same club, "out of twenty-six examined, seven only are admitted; one citizen, a tobacco dealer, aged sixty-eight, who has always performed his duty, is rejected for having called the president Monsieur, and for having spoken in the tribune bareheaded; two members, after this, insisted on his being a Moderate, which is enough to keep him out." Those who remain, consist of the most restless and most loquacious, the most eager for office, the self-mutilated club being thus reduced to a nucleus of charlatans and scoundrels.
To these spontaneous eliminations through which the club deteriorates, add the constant pressure through which the Committee of Public Safety frightens and degrades it. The lower the revolutionary government sinks, and the more it concentrates its power, the more servile and sanguinary do its agents and employees become. It strikes right and left as a warning; it imprisons or decapitates the turbulent among its own clients, the secondary demagogues who are impatient at not being principal demagogues, the bold who think of striking a fresh blow in the streets, Jacques Roux, Vincent, Momoro, Hébert, leaders of the Cordeliers club and of the Commune. After these, the indulgent who are disposed to exercise some discernment or moderation in terrorism, Camille Desmoulins, Danton and their adherents; and lastly, many others who are more or less doubtful, compromised or compromising, wearied or eccentric, from Maillard to Chaumette, from Antonelle to Chabot, from Westermann to Clootz. Each of the proscribed has a gang of followers, and suddenly the whole gang are obliged to do a volte-face; those who were able to show initiative, grovel, while those who could show mercy, become hardened. Henceforth, amongst the subaltern Jacobins, the roots of independence, humanity, and loyalty, hard to extirpate even in an ignoble and cruel nature, are eradicated even to the last fiber, the revolutionary staff, already so debased, becoming more and more degraded, until it is worthy of the office assigned to it. The confidants of Hébert, those who listen to Chaumette, the comrades of Westermann, the officers of Ronsin, the faithful readers of Camille, the admirers and devotees of Danton, all are bound to publicly repudiate their incarcerated friend or leader and approve of the decree which sends him to the scaffold, to applaud his calumniators, to overwhelm him on trial: this or that judge or juryman, who is one of Danton's partisans, is obliged to stifle a defense of him, and, knowing him to be innocent, pronounce him guilty; one who had often dined with Desmoulins is not only to guillotine him, but, in addition to this, to guillotine his young widow. Moreover, in the revolutionary committees, at the Commune, in the offices of the Committee of General Safety, in the bureau of the Central Police, at the headquarters of the armed force, at the revolutionary Tribunal, the service to which they are compelled to do becomes daily more onerous and more repulsive. To denounce neighbors, to arrest colleagues, to go and seize innocent persons, known to be such, in their beds, to select in the prisons the thirty or forty unfortunates who form the daily food of the guillotine, to "amalgamate" them haphazard, to try them and condemn them in a lot, to escort octogenarian women and girls of sixteen to the scaffold, even under the knife-blade, to see heads dropping and bodies swinging, to contrive means for getting rid of a multitude of corpses, and for removing the too-visible stains of blood. Of what species do the beings consist, who can accept such a task, and perform it day after day, with the prospect of doing it indefinitely? Fouquier-Tinville himself succumbs. One evening, on his way to the Committee of Public Safety, "he feels unwell" on the Pont-Neuf and exclaims: "I think I see the ghosts of the dead following us, especially those of the patriots I have had guillotined!"3317 And at another time: "I would rather plow the ground than be public prosecutor. If I could, I would resign."—The government, as the system becomes aggravated, is forced to descend lower still that it may find suitable instruments; it finds them now only in the lowest depths: in Germinal, to renew the Commune, in Floréal, to renew the ministries, in Prairial, to re-compose the revolutionary Tribunal, month after month, purging and re-constituting the committees of each quarter3318 of the city. In vain does Robespierre, writing and re-writing his secret lists, try to find men able to maintain the system; he always falls back on the same names, those of unknown persons, illiterate, about a hundred knaves or fools with four or five second-class despots or fanatics among them, as malevolent and as narrow as himself.—The purifying crucible has been used too often and for too long a time; it has overheated; what was sound, or nearly so, in the elements of the primitive fluid has been forcibly evaporated; the rest has fermented and become acid; nothing remains in the bottom of the vessel but the lees of stupidity and wickedness, their concentrated and corrosive dregs.
Quality of subaltern leaders.—How they rule in the section
assemblies.—How they seize and hold office.
Such are the subordinate sovereigns3319 who in Paris, during 14 months dispose as they please, of fortunes, liberties and lives.—And first, in the section assemblies, which still maintain a semblance of popular sovereignty, they rule despotically and uncontested.—
"A dozen or fifteen men wearing a red cap,3320 well-informed or not, claim the exclusive right of speaking and acting, and if any other citizen with honest motives happens to propose measures which he thinks proper, and which really are so, no attention is paid to these measures, or, if it is, it is only to show the members composing the assemblage of how little account they are. These measures are accordingly rejected, solely because they are not presented by one of the men in a red cap, or by somebody like themselves, initiated in the mysteries of the section."
"Sometimes," says one of the leaders,3321 "we find only ten members of the club at the general assembly of the section; but there are enough of us to intimidate the rest. Should any citizen of the section make a proposition we do not like, we rise and shout that he is an schemer, or a signer (of former constitutional petitions). In this way we impose silence on those who are not in line with the club."—
Since September, 1793, operation is all the easier because the majority, is now composed of beasts of burden, ruled with an iron hand.
"When something has to be effected that depends on intrigue or on private interest,3322 the motion is always put by one of the members of the Revolutionary Committee of the section, or by one of those fanatical patriots who join in with the Committee, and otherwise act as its spies. Immediately the ignorant men, to whom Danton has allowed forty sous for each meeting, and who, from now on crowd an assembly, where they never came before, welcome the proposition with loud applause, shouting and demanding a vote, and the act is passed unanimously, notwithstanding the contrary opinions of all well-informed and honest citizens. Should any one dare make an objection, he would run the risk of imprisonment as a suspect,3323 after being treated as an aristocrat or federalist, or at least, refused a certificate of civism, ( a serious matter) if he had the misfortune to need one, did his survival depend on this, either as employee or pensioner."—In the Maison-Commune section, most of the auditory are masons, "excellent patriots," says one of the clubbists of the quarter:3324 they always vote on our side; we make them do what we want." Numbers of day-laborers, cab-drivers, cartmen and workmen of every class, thus earn their forty sous, and have no idea that anything else might be demanded from them. On entering the hall, when the meeting opens, they write down their names, after which they go out "to take a drink," without thinking themselves obliged to listen to the rigmarole of the orators; towards the end, they come back, make all the noise that is required of them with their lungs, feet and hands, and then go and "take back their card and get their money."3325—With paid applauders of this stamp, they soon get the better of any opponents, or, rather, all opposition is suppressed beforehand. "The best citizens keep silent" in the section assemblies, or "stay away;" these are simply "gambling-shops" where "the most absurd, the most unjust, the most impolitic of resolutions are passed at every moment.3326 Moreover, citizens are ruined there by the unlimited sectional expenditure, which exceeds the usual taxation and the communal expenses, already very heavy. At one time, some carpenter or locksmith, member of the Revolutionary Committee, wants to construct, enlarge or decorate a hall, and it is necessary to agree with him. Again, a poor speech is made, full of exaggeration and political extravagance, of which three, four, five and six thousand impressions are ordered to be printed. Then, to cap the climax, following the example of the Commune, no accounts are rendered, or, if this is done for form's sake, no fault must be found with them, under penalty of suspicion, etc."—The twelve leaders, proprietors and distributors of civism, have only to agree amongst themselves to share the profits, each according to his appetite; henceforth, cupidity and vanity are free to sacrifice the common weal, under cover of the common interest.—The pasture is vast and it is at the disposal of the leaders. In one of his orders of the day, Henriot says:3327
"I am very glad to announce to my brethren in arms that all the positions are at the disposal of the government. The actual government, which is revolutionary, whose intentions are pure, and which merely desires the happiness of all,.... will search everywhere, even into the attics for virtuous men,.... poor and genuine sans-culottes." And there is enough to satisfy them thirty-five thousand places of public employment in the capital alone:3328 it is a rich mine; already, before the month of May, 1793, "the Jacobin club boasted of having placed nine thousand agents in the administration,"3329 and since the 2nd of June, "virtuous men, poor, genuine sans-culottes," arrive in crowds from "their garrets," dens and hired rooms, each to grab his share.—They besiege and install themselves by hundreds the ancient offices in the War, Navy and Public-Works departments, in the Treasury and Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Here they rule, constantly denouncing all the remaining, able employees thus creating vacancies in order to fill them.3330 Then there are twenty new administrative departments which they keep for themselves: commissioners of the first confiscation of national property, commissioners of national property arising from emigrants and the convicted, commissioners of conscripted carriage-horses, commissioners on clothing, commissioners on the collecting and manufacturing of saltpeter, commissioners on monopolies, civil-commissioners in each of the forty-eight sections, commissioners on propagandas in the departments, Commissioners on provisions, and many others. Fifteen hundred places are counted in the single department of subsistence in Paris,3331 and all are salaried. Here, already, are a number of desirable offices.—Some are for the lowest rabble, two hundred, at twenty sous a day, paid to "stump-speakers," employed to direct opinion in the Palais-Royal, also among the Tuileries groups, as well as in the tribunes of the Convention and of the Hôtel-de-Ville;3332 two hundred more at four hundred francs per annum, to waiters in coffee-houses, gambling-saloons and hotels, for watching foreigners and customers; hundreds of places at two, three, and five francs a day with meals, for the guardians of seals, and for garrisoning the domiciles of "suspects"; thousands, with premiums, pay, and full license, for brigands who, under Ronsin, compose the revolutionary army, and for the gunners, paid guard and gendarmes of Henriot.—The principal posts, however, are those which subject lives and freedom to the discretion of those who occupy them: for, through this more than regal power, they possess all other power, and such is that of the men composing the forty-eight revolutionary committees, the bureaus of the Committee of General Security and of the Commune, and the staff-officers of the armed force. They are the prime-movers and active incentives of the system of Terror, all picked Jacobins and tested by repeated selection, all designated or approved by the Central Club, which claims for itself the monopoly of patriotism, and which, erected into a supreme council of the party, issues no patent of orthodoxy except to its own henchmen.3333
They immediately assume the tone and arrogance of dictatorship. " Pride has reached its highest point:3334... One who, yesterday, had no post and was amiable and honest, has become haughty and insolent because, deceived by appearances, his fellow-citizens have elected him commissioner, or given him some employment or other." Henceforth, he behaves like a Turkish agha amongst infidels, and, in command, carries things out with a high hand.—On the 20th of Vendémiaire, year II., "in the middle of the night," the committee of the Piques section summons M. Bélanger, the architect. He is notified that his house is wanted immediately for a new Bastille.—"But, said he, 'I own no other, and it is occupied by several tenants; it is decorated with models of art, and is fit only for that purpose.'—'Your house or you go to prison!'—'But I shall be obliged to indemnify my tenants.'—'Either your house or you go to prison; as to indemnities, we have vacant lodgings for your tenants, as well as for yourself, in (the prisons of) La Force, or Sainte-Pélagie.' Twelve sentinels on the post start off at once and take possession of the premises; the owner is allowed six hours to move out and is forbidden, henceforth, to return; the bureaus, to which he appeals, interpret his obedience as 'tacit adhesion,' and, very soon, he himself is locked up."3335—Administrative tools that cut so sharply need the greatest care, and, from time to time, they are carefully oiled:3336 on the 20th of July, 1793, two thousand francs are given to each of the forty-eight committees, and eight thousand francs to General Henriot, "for expenses in watching anti-revolutionary maneuvers;" on the 7th of August, fifty thousand francs "to indemnify the less successful members of the forty-eight committees;" three hundred thousand francs to Gen. Henriot "for thwarting conspiracies and securing the triumph of liberty;" fifty thousand francs to the mayor, "for detecting the plots of the malevolent;" on the 10th of September, forty thousand francs to the mayor, president and procureur-syndic of the department, "for measures of security;" on the 13th of September, three hundred thousand francs to the mayor "for preventing the attempts of the malevolent;" on the 15th of November, one hundred thousand francs to the popular clubs, "because these are essential to the propagation of sound principles."—Moreover, besides gratuities and a fixed salary, there are the gratifications and perquisites belonging to the office.3337 Henriot appoints his comrades on the staff of paid spies and denunciators, and, naturally, they take advantage of their position to fill their pockets; under the pretext of incivism, they multiply domiciliary visits, make the master of the house ransom himself, or steal what suits them on the premises.3338—In the Commune, and on the revolutionary-committees, every extortion can be, and is, practiced.
"I know," says Quevremont, "two citizens who have been put in prison, without being told why, and, at the end of three weeks or a month, let out and do you know how? By paying, one of them, fifteen thousand livres, and the other, twenty-five thousand.... Gambron, at La Force, pays one thousand five hundred livres a month for a room not to live amongst lice, and besides this, he had to pay a bribe of two thousand livres on entering. This happened to many others who, again, dared not speak of it, except in a whisper."3339
Woe to the imprudent who, never concerning themselves with public affairs, and relying on their innocence, discard the officious broker and fail to pay up at once! Brichard, the notary, having refused or tendered too late, the hundred thousand crowns demanded of him, is to put his head "at the red window."—And I omit ordinary rapine, the vast field open to extortion through innumerable inventories, sequestrations and adjudications, through the enormities of contractors, through hastily executed purchases and deliveries, through the waste of two or three millions given weekly by the government to the Commune for supplies for the capital, through the requisitions of grain which give fifteen hundred men of the revolutionary army an opportunity to clean out all the neighboring farms, as far as Corbeil and Meaux, and benefit by this after the fashion of the chauffeurs.3340—With such a staff, these anonymous thefts cannot surprise us. Babeuf, the falsifier of public contracts, is secretary for provisions to the Commune; Maillard, the Abbaye Septembriseur, receives eight thousand francs for his direction, in the forty-eight sections, of the ninety-six observers and leaders of public opinion; Chrétien, whose smoking-shop serves as the rendezvous of rowdies, becomes a juryman at eighteen francs a day in the revolutionary Tribunal, and leads his section with uplifted saber;3341 De Sade, professor of crimes, is now the oracle of his quarter, and, in the name of the Piques Section, he reads addresses to the Convention.
A Minister of Foreign Affairs.—A General in command.—The
Paris Commune.—A Revolutionary Committee.
Let us examine some of these figures closely: the nearer they are to the eye and foremost in position, the more the importance of the duty brings into light the unworthiness of the potentate.—There is already one of them, whom we have seen in passing, Buchot, twice noticed by Robespierre under his own hand as "a man of probity, energetic and capable of fulfilling the most important functions,"3342 appointed by the Committee of Public Safety "Commissioner on External Relations," that is to say, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and kept in this important position for nearly six months. He is a school-master from the Jura,3343 recently disembarked from his small town and whose "ignorance, low habits and stupidity surpass anything that can be imagined... The chief clerks have nothing to do with him; he neither sees nor asks for them. He is never found in his office, and when it is indispensable to ask for his signature on any legislative matter, the sole act to which he has reduced his functions, they are compelled to go and force it from him in the Café Hardy, where he usually passes his days." It must be borne in mind that he is envious and spiteful, avenging himself for his incapacity on those whose competency makes him sensible of his incompetence; he denounces them as Moderates, and, at last, succeeds in having a warrant of arrest issued against his four chief clerks; on the morning of Thermidor 9, with a wicked leer, he himself carries the news to one of them, M. Miot. Unfortunately for him, after Thermidor, he is turned out and M. Miot is put in his place. With diplomatic politeness, the latter calls on his predecessor and "expresses to him the usual compliments." Buchot, insensible to compliments, immediately thinks of the substantial, and the first thing he asks for is to keep provisionally his apartment in the ministry. On this being granted, he expresses his thanks and tells M. Miot that it was very well to appoint him, but "for myself, it is very disagreeable. I have been obliged to come to Paris and quit my post in the provinces, and now they leave me in the street." Thereupon, with astounding impudence, he asks the man whom he wished to guillotine to give him a place as ministerial clerk. M. Miot tries to make him understand that for a former minister to descend so low would be improper. Buchot regards such delicacy as strange, and, seeing M. Miot's embarrassment, he ends by saying: "If you don't find me fit for a clerk, I shall be content with the place of a servant." This estimate of himself shows his proper value.
The other, whom we have also met before, and who is already known by his acts,3344 general in Paris of the entire armed force, commander-in-chief of one hundred and ten thousand men, is that former servant or under-clerk of the procureur Formey, who, dismissed by his employer for robbery, shut up in Bicêtre, by turns a runner and announcer for a traveling show, barrier-clerk and September assassin, has purged the Convention on the 2nd of June—in short, the famous Henriot, and now simply a brute and a sot. In this latter capacity, spared on the trial of the Hébertists, he is kept as a tool, for the reason, doubtless, that he is narrow, coarse and manageable, more compromised than anybody else, good for any job, without the slightest chance of becoming independent, unemployed in the army,3345 having no prestige with true soldiers, a general for street parade and an interloper and lower than the lowest of the mob; his mansion, his box at the Opera-Comique, his horses, his importance at festivals and reviews, and, above all, his orgies make him perfectly content.—Every evening, in full uniform, escorted by his aides-de-camp, he gallops to Choisy-sur-Seine, where, in the domicile of a flatterer named Fauvel, along with some of Robespierre's confederates or the local demagogues, he revels. They toss off the wines of the Duc de Coigny, smash the glasses, plates and bottles, betake themselves to neighboring dance-rooms and kick up a row, bursting in doors, and breaking benches and chairs to pieces—in short, they have a good time.—The next morning, having slept himself sober, he dictates his orders for the day, veritable masterpieces in which the silliness, imbecility and credulity of a numskull, the sentimentality of the drunkard, the clap-trap of a mountebank and the tirades of a cheap philosopher form an unique compound, at once sickening and irritating, like the fiery, pungent mixtures of cheap bars, which suit his audience better because they contain the biting, mawkish ingredients that compose the adulterated brandy of the Revolution.—He is posted on foreign maneuvers, and enlarges upon the true reasons for the famine: "A lot of bread has been lately found in the privies: the Pitts and Cobourgs and other rascals who want to enslave justice and reason, and assassinate philosophy, must be called to account for this. Headquarters, etc."3346 He has theories on religions and preaches civic modesty to all dissenters: "The ministers and sectaries of every form of worship are requested not to practice any further religious ceremonies outside their temples. Every good sectarian will see the propriety of observing this order. The interior of a temple is large enough for paying one's homage to the Eternal, who requires no rites that are repulsive to every thinking man. The wise agree that a pure heart is the sublimest homage that Divinity can desire. Headquarters, etc."—He sighs for the universal idyllic state, and invokes the suppression of the armed force:
"I beg my fellow-citizens, who are led to the criminal courts out of curiosity, to act as their own police; this is a task which every good citizen should fulfill wherever he happens to be. In a free country, justice should not be secured by pikes and bayonets, but through reason and philosophy. These must maintain a watchful eye over society; these must purify it and proscribe thieves and evil-doers. Each individual must bring his small philosophic portion with him and, with these small portions, compose a rational totality that will turn out to be of benefit and to the welfare of all. Oh, for the time when functionaries shall be rare, when the wicked shall be overthrown, when the law shall become the sole functionary in society! Headquarters, etc. "—Every morning, he preaches in the same pontifical strain. Imagine the scene—Henriot's levee at head-quarters, and a writing table, with, perhaps, a bottle of brandy on it; on one side of the table, the rascal who, while buckling on his belt or drawing on his boots, softens his husky voice, and, with his nervous twitchings, flounders through his humanitarian homily; on the other side the mute, uneasy secretary, who may probably be able to spell, but who dares not materially change the grotesque phraseology of his master.
The Commune which employs the commanding-general is of about the same alloy, for, in the municipal sword, the blade and hilt, forged together in the Jacobin shop, are composed of the same base metal.—Fifty-six, out of eighty-eight members, whose qualifications and occupations are known, are decidedly illiterate, or nearly so, their education being rudimentary, or none at all.3347 Some of them are petty clerks, counter-jumpers and common scribblers, one among them being a public writer; others are small shopkeepers, pastry-cooks, mercers, hosiers, fruit-sellers and wine-dealers; yet others are simple mechanics or even laborers, carpenters, joiners, cabinet-makers, locksmiths, and especially three tailors, four hair-dressers, two masons, two shoemakers, one cobbler, one gardener; one stone-cutter, one paver, one office-runner, and one domestic. Among the thirty-two who are instructed, one alone has any reputation, Paris, professor at the University and the assistant of Abbé Delille. Only one, Dumetz, an old engineer, steady, moderate and attending to the supplies, seems a competent and useful workman. The rest, collected from amongst the mass of unknown demagogues, are six art-apprentices or bad painters, six business-agents or ex-lawyers, seven second or third-rate merchants, one teacher, one surgeon, one unfrocked married priest, all of whom, under the political direction of Mayor Fleuriot-Lescot and Payen, the national agent, bring to the general council no administrative ability, but the faculty for verbal argumentation, along with the requisite amount of talk and scribbling indispensable to a deliberative assembly. And it is curious to see them in session. Toward the end of September, 1793,3348 one of the veterans of liberal philosophy and political economy, belonging to the French Academy and ruined by the Revolution, the old Abbé Morellet, needs a certificate of civism, to enable him to obtain payment of the small pension of one thousand francs, which the Constituent Assembly had voted him in recompense for his writings; the Commune, desiring information about this, selects three of its body to inquire into it. Morellet naturally takes the preliminary steps. He first writes "a very humble, very civic note," to the president of the General Council, Lubin Jr., formerly an art-apprentice who had abandoned art for politics, and is now living with his father a butcher, in the rue St. Honoré; he calls on this authority, and passes through the stall, picking his way amongst the slaughterhouse offal; admitted after some delay, he finds his judge in bed, before whom he pleads his cause. He then calls upon Bernard, an ex-priest, "built like an incendiary and ill-looking," and respectfully bows to the lady of the house, "a tolerably young woman, but very ugly and very dirty." Finally, he carries his ten or a dozen volumes to the most important of the three examiners, Vialard, "ex-ladies' hair-dresser;" the latter is almost a colleague, "for," says he, "I have always liked technicians, having presented to the Academy of Sciences a top which I invented myself." Nobody, however, had seen the petitioner in the streets on the 10th of August, nor on the 2nd of September, nor on the 31st of May; how can a certificate of civism be granted after such evidences of lukewarmness? Morellet, not disheartened, awaits the all-powerful hair-dresser at the Hôtel-de-Ville, and accosts him frequently as he passes along. He, "with greater haughtiness and distraction than the most unapproachable Minister of War would show to an infantry lieutenant," scarcely listens to him and walks on; he goes in and takes his seat, and Morellet, much against his will, has to be present at ten or twelve of these meetings. What strange meetings, to which patriotic deputations, volunteers and amateurs come in turn to declaim and sing; where the president, Lubin, "decorated with his scarf," shouts the Marseilles Hymn five or six times, "Ca Ira," and other songs of several stanzas, set to tunes of the Comic Opera, and always "out of time, displaying the voice, airs and songs of an exquisite Leander.. . I really believe that, at the last meeting, he sung alone in this manner three quarters of an hour at different times, the assembly repeating the last line of the verse."—"How odd!" exclaims a common woman alongside of Morellet, "how droll, passing all their time here, singing in that fashion! Is that what they come here for?"—Not alone for that: after the circus-parade is over, the ordinary haranguers, and especially the hair-dresser, come and propose measures for murder "in infuriate language and with fiery gesticulation." Such are the good speakers3349 and men for show. The others, who remain silent, and hardly know to write, act and do the rough work. A certain Chalaudon, member of the Commune,3350 is one of this kind, president of the Revolutionary Committee of the section of "L'Homme armé," and probably an excellent man-hunter; for "the government committees assigned to him the duty of watching the right bank of the Seine, and, with extraordinary powers conferred on him, he rules from his back shop one half of Paris. Woe to those he has reason to complain of, those who have withdrawn from, or not given him, their custom! Sovereign of his quarter up to Thermidor 10, his denunciations are death-warrants. Some of the streets, especially that of Grand Chantier, he "depopulates." And this Marais exterminator is a "cobbler," a colleague in leather, as well as in the Commune, of Simon the shoemaker, the preceptor and murderer of the young Dauphin.
Still lower down than this admirable municipal body, let us try to imagine, from at least one complete example, the forty-eight revolutionary committees who supply it with hands.—There is one of them of which we know all the members, where the governing class, under full headway, can be studied on the spot and in action.3351 This consists of the underworld, nomadic class which is revolutionary only through its appetites; no theory and no convictions animate it; during the first three years of the Revolution it pays no attention to, or cares for, public matters; if, since the 10th of August, and especially since the 2nd of June, it takes any account of these, it is to get a living and gorge itself with plunder.—Out of eighteen members, simultaneously or in succession, of the "Bonnet Rouge," fourteen, before the 10th of August and especially since the 2nd of June, are unknown in this quarter, and had taken no part in the Revolution. The most prominent among these are three painters, heraldic, carriage and miniature, evidently ruined and idle on account of the Revolution, a candle-dealer, a vinegar-dealer, a manufacturer of saltpeter, and a locksmith; while of these seven personages, four have additionally enhanced the dignity of their calling by vending tickets for small lotteries, acting as pawnbrokers or as keepers of a biribi3352 saloon. Seated along with these are two upper-class domestics, a hack-driver, an ex-gendarme dismissed from the corps, a cobbler on the street corner, a runner on errands who was once a carter's boy, and another who, two months before this, was a scavenger's apprentice, the latter penniless and in tatters before he became one of the Committee, and since that, well clad, lodged and furnished. Finally, a former dealer in lottery-tickets, himself a counterfeiter by his own admission, and a jail-bird. Four others have been dismissed from their places for dishonesty or swindling, three are known drunkards, two are not even Frenchmen, while the ring-leader, the man of brains of this select company is, as usual, a seedy, used-up lawyer, the ex-notary Pigeot, and expelled from his professional body on account of bankruptcy. He is probably the author of the following speculation: After the month of September, 1793, the Committee, freely arresting whomsoever it pleased in the quarter, and even outside of it, makes a haul of "three hundred heads of families" in four months, with whom it fills the old barracks it occupies in the rue de Sèvres. In this confined and unhealthy tenement, more than one hundred and twenty prisoners are huddled together, sometimes ten in one room, two in the same bed, and, for their keeping, they pay three hundred francs a day. As sixty-two francs of this charge are verified, there is of this sum, (not counting other extortions or concessions which are not official), two hundred and thirty-eight francs profit daily for these 'honest' contractors. Accordingly, they live freely and have "the most magnificent dinners" in their assembly chamber; the contribution of ten or twelve francs apiece is "nothing" for them.—But, in this opulent St. Germain quarter, so many rich and noble men and women form a herd which must be conveniently stalled, so as to be the more easily milked. Consequently, toward the end of March, 1794, the Committee, to increase its business and fill up the pen, hires a large house on the corner of the boulevard possessing a court and a garden, where the high society of the quarter is assigned lodgings of two rooms each, at twelve francs a day, which gives one hundred and fifty thousand livres per annum, and, as the rent is twenty-four hundred francs, the Committee gain one hundred and forty-seven thousand six hundred livres by the operation; we must add to this twenty sorts of profit in money and other matters—taxes on the articles consumed and on supplies of every description, charges on the dispatch and receipt of correspondence and other gratuities, such as ransoms and fees. A penned-up herd refuses nothing to its keepers,3353 and this one less than any other; for if this herd is plundered it is preserved, its keepers finding it too lucrative to send it to the slaughter-house. During the last six months of Terror, but two out of the one hundred and sixty boarders of the "Bonnet Rouge" Committee are withdrawn from the establishment and handed over to the guillotine. It is only on the 7th and 8th of Thermidor that the Committee of Public Safety, having undertaken to empty the prisons, breaks in upon the precious herd and disturbs the well-laid scheme, so admirably managed.—It was only too well managed, for it excited jealousy; three months after Thermidor, the "Bonnet Rouge" committee is denounced and condemned; ten are sentenced to twenty years in irons, with the pillory in addition, and, among others, the clever notary,3354 amidst the jeering and insults of the crowd.—And yet these are not the worst; their cupidity had mollified their ferocity. Others, less adroit in robbing, show greater cruelty in murdering. In any event, in the provinces as well as in Paris, in the revolutionary committees paid three francs a day for each member, the quality of one or the other of the officials is about the same. According to the pay-lists which Barère keeps, there are twenty-one thousand five hundred of these committees in France.3355
The administrative staff in the provinces.—Jacobinism less
in the departmental towns than in Paris.—Less in the
country than in the towns.—The Revolutionary Committees in
the small communes.—Municipal bodies lukewarm in the
villages.—Jacobins too numerous in bourgs and small towns.
—Unreliable or hampered as agents when belonging to the
administrative bodies of large or moderate-sized towns.
—Deficiency of locally recruited staff.
Had the laws of March 21 and September 5, 1793, been strictly enforced, there would, instead of 21,500 have been 45,000 of these revolutionary committees. They would have been composed of 540,000 members costing the public 591 millions per year.3356 This would have made the regular administrative body, already twice as numerous and twice as costly as under the ancient régime, an extra corps expending, "simply in surveillance," one hundred millions more than the entire taxation of the country, the greatness of which had excited the people against the ancient régime.—Happily, the poisonous and monstrous fungal growth was only able to achieve half its intended size; neither the Jacobin seed nor the bad atmosphere it required to make it spread could be found anywhere. "The people of the provinces," says a contemporary,3357 "are not up to the level of the Revolution; it opposes old habits and customs and the resistance of inertia to innovations which it does not understand." "The plowman is an estimable man," writes a missionary representative, "but he is generally a poor patriot."3358 Actually, there is on the one hand, less of human sediment in the departmental towns than in the great Parisian sink, and, on the other hand, the rural population, preserved from intellectual miasmas, better resists social epidemics than the urban population. Less infested with vicious adventurers, less fruitful in disordered intellects, the provinces supply a corps of inquisitors and terrorists with greater difficulty.
And first, in the thousands of communes which have less than five hundred inhabitants,3359 in many other villages of greater population, but scattered3360 and purely agricultural, especially in those in which patois is spoken, there is a scarcity of suitable subjects for a revolutionary committee. People make use of their hands too much; horny hands do not write every day; nobody desires to take up a pen, especially to keep a register that may be preserved and some day or other prove compromising. It is already a difficult matter to recruit a municipal council, to find a mayor, the two additional municipal officers, and the national agent which the law requires; in the small communes, these are the only agents of the revolutionary government, and I fancy that, in most cases, their Jacobin fervor is moderate. Municipal officer, national agent or mayor, the real peasant of that day belongs to no party, neither royalist nor republican;3361 his ideas are rare, too transient and too sluggish, to enable him to form a political opinion. All he comprehends of the Revolution is that which nettles him, or that which he sees every day around him, with his own eyes; to him '93 and '94 are and will remain "the time of bad paper (money) and great fright," and nothing more.3362 Patient in his habits., he submits to the new as he did to the ancient régime, bearing the load put on his shoulders, and stooping down for fear of a heavier one. He is often mayor or national agent in spite of himself; he has been obliged to take the place and would gladly throw the burden off. For, as times go, it is onerous; if he executes decrees and orders, he is certain to make enemies; if he does not execute them, he is sure to be imprisoned; he had better remain, or go back home "Gros-Jean," as he was before. But he has no choice; the appointment being once made and confirmed, he cannot decline, nor resign, under penalty of being a "suspect;" he must be the hammer in order not to become the anvil. Whether he is a wine-grower, miller, ploughman or quarry-man, he acts reluctantly, "submitting a petition for resignation," as soon as the Terror diminishes, on the ground that "he writes badly," that "he knows nothing whatever about law and is unable to enforce it;" that "he has to support himself with his own hands;" that "he has a family to provide for, and is obliged to drive his own cart" or vehicle; in short, entreating that he "may be relieved of his charge."3363—These involuntary recruits are evidently nothing more than common laborers; if they drag along the revolutionary cart they do it like their horses, because they are pressed into the service.
Above the small communes, in the large villages possessing a revolutionary committee, and also in certain bourgs, the horses in harness often pretend to draw and do not, for fear of crushing some one.—At this epoch, a straggling village, especially when isolated, in an out-of-the-way place and on no highway, is a small world in itself, much more secluded than now-a-days, much less accessible to Parisian verbiage and outside pressure; local opinion here preponderates; neighbors support each other; they would shrink from denouncing a worthy man whom they had known for twenty years; the moral sway of honest folks suffices for keeping down "blackguards."3364 If the mayor is republican, it is only in words, perhaps for self-protection, to protect his commune, and because one must howl along with the other wolves.—-Moreover, in other bourgs, and in the small towns, the fanatics and rascals are not sufficiently numerous to fill all the offices, and, in order to fill the vacancies, those who are not good Jacobins have been pushed forward or admitted into the new administrative corps, lukewarm, indifferent, timid or needy men, who take the place as an asylum or ask for it as a means of subsistence. "Citizens," one of the recruits, more or less under restraint, writes later on,3365 "I was put on the Committee of Surveillance of Aignay by force, and installed by force." Three or four madmen on it ruled, and if one held any discussion with them, "it was always threats.... Always trembling, always afraid,—that is the way I passed eight months doing duty in that miserable place."—Finally, in medium-sized or large towns, the dead-lock produced by collective dismissals, the pell-mell of improvised appointments, and the sudden renewal of an entire set of officials, threw into the administration, willingly or not, a lot of pretended Jacobins who, at heart, are Girondists or Feuillantists, but who, having been excessively long-winded, are assigned offices on account of their stump-speeches, and who thenceforth sit alongside of the worst Jacobins, in the worst employment. "Members of the Feurs Revolutionary Committee—those who make that objection to me," wrote a lawyer in Clermont,3366 "are persuaded that those only who secluded themselves, felt the Terror. They are not aware, perhaps, that nobody felt it more than those who were compelled to execute its decrees. Remember that the handwriting of Couthon which designated some citizen for an office also conveyed a threat, and in case of refusal, of being declared 'suspect,' a threat which promised in perspective the loss of liberty and the sequestration of property! Was I free, then, to refuse?"—Once installed, the man must act, and many of those who do act let their repugnance be seen in spite of themselves: at best, they cannot be got to do more than mechanical service.
"Before going to court," says a judge at Cambray, "I swallowed a big glass
of spirits to give me strength enough to preside."
He leaves his house with no other intention than to finish the job, and, the sentence once pronounced, to return home, shut himself up, and close his eyes and ears.
"I had to pronounce judgment according to the jury's declaration—what could I do?"3367
Nothing, but remain blind and deaf: "I drank. I tried to ignore everything, even the names of the accused."—It is plain enough that, in the local official body, there are too many agents who are weak, not zealous, without any push, unreliable, or even secretly hostile; these must be replaced by others who are energetic and reliable, and the latter must be taken wherever they can be found.3368 This reservoir in each department or district is the Jacobin nursery of the principal town; from this, they are sent into the bourgs and communes of the conscription. The central Jacobin nursery for France is in Paris, from whence they are dispatched to the towns and departments.
Importation of a staff of strangers.—Paris Jacobins sent
into the provinces.—Jacobins of enthusiastic towns deported
to moderate ones.—The Jacobins of a district headquarters
spread through the district.—Resistance of public opinion.
—Distribution and small number of really Jacobin agents.
Consequently, swarms of Jacobin locusts spread from Paris out over the provinces, and from the local country-towns over the surrounding country.—In this cloud of destructive insects, there are various figures of different sizes: in the front rank, are the representatives on mission, who are to take command in the departments; in the second rank, "the political agents," who, assigned the duty of watching the neighboring frontier, take upon themselves the additional duty of leading the popular club of the town they reside in, or of urging on its administrative body.3369 Besides that, there issue from the Paris headquarters in the rue St. Honoré, select sans-culottes who, authorized or delegated by the Committee of Public Safety, proceed to Lyons, Marseilles, Bordeaux, Tonnerre, Rochefort and elsewhere, to act as missionaries among the too inert population, or form the committees of action and the tribunals of extermination that are recruited with difficulty on the spot.3370—Sometimes also, when a town has a bad record, the popular club of a sounder-minded city sends its delegates there, to bring it into line; thus, four deputies of the Metz club arrive without notice in Belfort, catechize their brethren, associate with them on the local Revolutionary Committee, and, suddenly, without consulting the municipality, or any other legal authority, draw up a list of "moderates, fanatics and egoists," on whom they impose an extraordinary tax of one hundred and thirty-six thousand six hundred and seventeen livres;3371 in like manner, sixty delegates from the club of Côte-d'Or, Haute-Marne, Vosges, Moselle, Saone-et-Loire and Mont-Terrible, all "tempered by the white heat of Pére Duchesne," proceed to Strasbourg at the summons of the representatives, where, under the title of "propagandists," they are to regenerate the town.—At the same time, in each department, the Jacobins of the principal town are found scattered along the high ways, that they may inspect their domain and govern their subjects. Sometimes, it is the representative on mission, who, personally, along with twenty "hairy devils," makes his round and shows off his traveling dictatorship; again, it is his secretary or delegate who, in his place and in his name, comes to a second-class town and draws up his documents.3372 At another time, it is "a committee of investigation and propaganda" which, "chosen by the club and provided with full powers," comes, in the name of the representatives, to work up for a month all the communes of the district.3373 Again, finally, it is the revolutionary committee of the principal town, which," declared central for the whole department,"3374 delegates one or the other of its members to go outside the walls, and purge and recompose suspected municipalities.—Thus does Jacobinism descend and spread itself, story after story, from the Parisian center to the smallest and remotest commune: throughout provincial France, whether colorless or of uncertain color, the imposed or imported administration imposes its red stigma.
But the stamp is only superficial; for the sans-culottes, naturally, are not disposed to confer offices on any but men of their sort, while in the provinces, especially in the rural districts, such men are rare. As one of the representatives says: there is a "dearth of subjects."—At Mâcon, Javogues tries in vain;3375 he finds in the club only "disguised federalists;" the people, he says, "will not open their eyes it seems to me that this blindness is due to the physique of the country, which is very rich." Naturally, he storms and dismisses; but, even in the revolutionary committee, none but dubious candidates are presented to him for selection; he does not know how to manage in order to renew the local authorities. "They play into each others' hands," and he ends by threatening to transfer the public institutions of the town elsewhere, if they persist in proposing to him none but bad patriots.—At Strasbourg,3376 Couturier, and Dentzel, on mission, report that: "owing to an unexampled coalition among all the capable citizens, obstinately refusing to take the office of mayor, in order, by this course, to clog the wheels, and subject the representatives to repeated and indecent refusals," he is compelled to appoint a young man, not of legal age, and a stranger in the department.—At Marseilles, write the agents,3377 "in spite of every effort and our ardent desire to republicanize the Marseilles people, our pains and fatigues are nearly all fruitless.... Public spirit among owners of property, mechanics and journey-men is everywhere detestable.... The number of discontented seems to increase from day to day. All the communes in Var, and most of those in this department are against us.... they constitute a race to be destroyed, a country to be colonized anew....
"I repeat it, the only way to work out the Revolution in the federalized departments, and especially in this one, is to deport all the indigenous population who are able to bear arms, scatter them through the armies and put garrisons in their places, which, again, will have to be changed from time to time."—At the other extremity of the territory, in Alsace, "republican sentiments are still in the cradle; fanaticism is extreme and incredible; the spirit of the inhabitants in general is in no respect revolutionary... Nothing but the revolutionary army and the venerated guillotine will cure them of their conceited aristocracy. The execution of the laws depends on striking off the heads of the guilty, for nearly all the rural municipalities are composed only of the rich, of clerks of former bailiffs, almost always devoted to the ancient régime."3378—And in the rest of France, the population, less refractory, is not more Jacobin; here where the people appear "humble and submissive" as in Lyons and Bordeaux, the inspectors report that it is wholly owing to terror;3379 there, where opinion seems enthusiastic, as at Rochefort and Grenoble, they report that it is "artificial heat."3380 At Rochefort, zeal is maintained only "by the presence of five or six Parisian Jacobins." At Grenoble, Chépy, the political agent and president of the club, writes that "he is knocked up, worn out, and exhausted, in trying to keep up public spirit and maintain it on a level with events," but he is "conscious that, if he should leave, all would crumble."—There are none other than Moderates at Brest, at Lille, at Dunkirk; if this or that department, the Nord, for instance, hastened to accept the "Montagnard" constitution, it is only a pretense: "an infinitely small portion of the population answered for the rest."3381—At Belfort, where "from one thousand to twelve hundred fathers of families alone are counted," writes the agent,3382 "one popular club of thirty or forty members, at the most, maintains and enforces the love of liberty."—In Arras, "out of three or four hundred members composing the popular club" the weeding-out of 1793 has spared but "sixty-three, one tenth of whom are absent."3383 At Toulouse, "out of about fourteen hundred members" who form the club, only three or four hundred remain after the weeding-out of 1793,3384 "mere machines, for the most part," and "whom ten or a dozen intriguers lead as they please."—The same state of things exists elsewhere, a dozen or two determined Jacobins-twenty-two at Troyes, twenty-one at Grenoble, ten at Bordeaux, seven at Poitiers, as many at Dijon-constitute the active staff of a large town:3385 the whole number might sit around one table.—The Jacobins, straining as they do to swell their numbers, only scatter their band; careful as they are in making their selections, they only limit their number. They remain what they always have been, a small feudality of brigands superposed on conquered France.3386 If the terror they spread around multiplies their serfs, the horror they inspire diminishes their proselytes, while their minority remains insignificant because, for their collaborators, they can have only those just like themselves.
Quality of staff thus formed.—Social state of the agents.
—Their unfitness and bad conduct.—The administrators in
Seine-et-Marne.—Drunkenness and feasting.—Committees and
Municipalities in the Côte-d'Or.—Waste and extortions.
—Traffickers in favors at Bordeaux.—Seal breakers at Lyons.
—Monopolizers of national possessions.—Sales of personal
property.—Embezzlements and Frauds.-A procès-verbal in the
office of the mayor of Strasbourg.—Sales of real-estate.
—Commissioners on declarations at Toulouse.—The
administrative staff and clubs of buyers in Provence.—The
Revolutionary Committee of Nantes.
But when we regard the final and last set of officials of the revolutionary government closely, in the provinces as well as at Paris, we find among them we hardly anyone who is noteworthy except in vice, dishonesty and misconduct, or, at the very least, in stupidity and grossness.—First, as is indicated by their name, they all must be, and nearly all are, sans-culottes, that is to say, men who live from day to day on their daily earnings, possessing no income from capital, confined to subordinate places, to petty trading, to manual services, lodged or encamped on the lowest steps of the social ladder, and therefore requiring pay to enable them to attend to public business;3387 it is on this account that decrees and orders allow them wages of three, five, six, ten, and even eighteen francs a day.—At Grenoble, the representatives form the municipal body and the revolutionary committee, along with two health-officers, three glovers, two farmers, one tobacco-merchant, one perfumer, one grocer, one belt-maker, one innkeeper, one joiner, one shoemaker, one mason, while the official order by which they are installed, appoints "Teyssière, licoriste," national agent.3388—At Troyes,3389 among the men in authority we find a confectioner, a weaver, a journeyman-weaver, a hatter, a hosier, a grocer, a carpenter, a dancing-master, and a policeman, while the mayor, Gachez, formerly a private soldier in the regiment of Vexin, was, when appointed, a school-teacher in the vicinity.—At Toulouse,3390 a man named Terrain, a pâté dealer, is installed as president of the administration; the revolutionary committee is presided over by Pio, a journeyman-barber; the inspiration, "the soul of the club," is a concierge, that of the prison.—The last and most significant trait is found at Rochefort,3391 where the president of the popular club is the executioner.—If such persons form the select body of officials in the large towns, what must they be in the small ones, in the bourgs and in the villages?" Everywhere they are of the meanest"3392 cartmen, sabot—(wooden shoe) makers, thatchers, stone-cutters, dealers in rabbit-skins, day laborers, unemployed craftsmen, many without any pursuit, or mere vagabonds who had already participated in riots or jacqueries, bar flies, having given up work and designated for a public career only by their irregular habits and incompetence to follow a private career.—Even in the large towns, it is evident that discretionary power has fallen into the hands of nearly raw barbarians; one has only to note in the old documents, at the Archives, the orthography and style of the committees empowered to grant or refuse civic cards, and draw up reports on the opinions and pursuits of prisoners. "His opinions appear insipid (Ces opignons paroisse insipide)3393.... He is married with no children." (Il est marie cent (sans) enfants).... Her profession is wife of Paillot-Montabert, she is living on her income, his relations are with a woman we pay no attention to; we presume her opinions are like her husband's."3394 The handwriting, unfortunately, cannot be represented here, being that of a child five years old.3395
"As stupid as they are immoral,"3396 says Representative Albert, of the Jacobins he finds in office at Troyes. Low, indeed, as their condition may be, their feeling and intelligence are yet lower because, in their professions or occupations, they are the refuse instead of the élite, and, especially on this account, they are turned out after Thermidor, some, it is true, as Terrorists, but the larger number as either dolts, scandalous or crazy, simply intruders, or mere valets.—At Rheims, the president of the district is3397 "a former bailiff, on familiar terms with the spies of the Robespierre régime, acting in concert with them, but without being their accomplice, possessing none of the requisite qualities for administration." Another administrator is likewise "a former bailiff, without means, negligent in the highest degree and a confirmed drunkard." Alongside of these sit "a horse-dealer, without any means, more fit for shady dealings than governing, moreover a drunkard, a dyer, lacking judgment, open to all sorts of influences, pushed ahead by the Jacobin faction, and having used power in the most arbitrary manner, rather, perhaps, through ignorance than through cruelty, a shoemaker, entirely uninstructed, knowing only how to sign his name," and others of the same character. In the Tribunal, a judge is noted as
"true in principle, but whom poverty and want of resources have driven to every excess, a turncoat according to circumstances in order to get a place, associated with the leaders in order to keep the place, and yet not without sensibility, having, perhaps, acted criminally merely to keep himself and his family alive."
In the municipal body, the majority is composed of an incompetent lot, some of them being journeymen-spinners or thread twisters, and others second-hand dealers or shopkeepers, "incapable," "without means," with a few crack-brains among them: one, "his brain being crazed, absolutely of no account, anarchist and Jacobin;" another, "very dangerous through lack of judgment, a Jacobin, over-excited;" a third, "an instrument of tyranny, a man of blood capable of every vice, having assumed the name of Mutius Scoevola, of recognized depravity and unable to write."—Similarly, in the Aube districts, we find some of the heads feverish with the prevailing epidemic, for instance, at Nogent, the national agent, Delaporte, "who has the words 'guillotine' and 'revolutionary tribunal' always on his lips, and who declares that if he were the government he would imprison doctor, surgeon and lawyer, who delights in finding people guilty and says that he is never content except when he gets three pounds' weight of denunciations a day." But, apart from these madcaps, most of the administrators or judges are either people wholly unworthy of their offices, because they are "inept," "too uneducated," "good for nothing," "too little familiar with administrative forms," "too little accustomed to judicial action," "without information," "too busy with their own affairs," "unable to read or write," or, because "they have no delicacy," are "violent," "agitators," "knaves," "without public esteem," and more or less dishonest and despised.3398—As an example a fellow from Paris, who was at first at Troyes, a baker's apprentice,3399 and afterwards a dancing-master; then he appeared at the Club, making headway, doubtless, through his Parisian chatter, until he stood first and soon became a member of the district. Appointed an officer in the sixth battalion of Aube, he behaved in such a manner in Vendée that, on his return, "his brethren in arms" broke up the banner presented to him, "declaring him unworthy of such an honor, because he cowardly fled before the enemy." Nevertheless, after a short plunge, he came back to the surface and, thanks to his civil compeers, was reinstated in his administrative functions; during the Terror, he was intimate with all the Terrorists, being one of the important men of Troyes.—The mayor of the town, Gachez, an old soldier and ex-schoolmaster, is of the same stuff as this baker's apprentice. He, likewise, was a Vendéan hero; only, he was unable to distinguish himself as much as he liked, for, after enlisting, he failed to march; having pocketed the bounty of three hundred livres, he discovered that he had infirmities and, getting himself invalidated, he served the nation in a civil capacity. "His own partisans admit that he is a drunkard and that he has committed forgery." Some months after Thermidor he is sentenced to eight years imprisonment and put in the pillory for this crime. Hence, "almost the entire commune is against him; the women in the streets jeer him, and the eight sections meet together to request his withdrawal." But Representative Bô reports that he is every way entitled to remain, being a true Jacobin, an admirable terrorist and "the only sans-culotte mayor which the commune of Troyes has to be proud of."33100
It would be awarding too much honor to men of this stamp, to suppose that they had convictions or principles; they were governed by animosities and especially by their appetites,33101 to satiate which they33102 made the most of their offices.—At Troyes, "all provisions and foodstuffs are drawn upon to supply the table of the twenty-four" sans-culottes33103 to whom Bô entrusted the duty of weeding-out the popular club; before the organization of "this regenerating nucleus" the revolutionary committee, presided over by Rousselin, the civil commissioner, carried on its "gluttony" in the Petit-Louvre tavern, "passing nights bozing" and in the preparation of lists of suspects.33104 In the neighboring provinces of Dijon, Beaune, Semur and Aignayle-Duc, the heads of the municipality and of the club always meet in taverns and bars. At Dijon, we see "the ten or twelve Hercules of patriotism traversing the town, each with a chalice under his arm:"33105 this is their drinking-cup; each has to bring his own to the Montagnard inn; there, they imbibe copiously, frequently, and between two glasses of wine "declare who are outlaws." At Aignay-le-Duc, a small town with only half a dozen patriots "the majority of whom can scarcely write, most of them poor, burdened with families, and living without doing anything, never quit the bars, where, night and day, they revel;" their chief, a financial ex-procureur, now "concierge, archivist, secretary and president of the popular club," holds municipal council in the tavern. "Should they go out it was to chase female aristocrats," and one of them declares "that if the half of Aignay were slaughtered the other half would be all the better for it."—There is nothing like drinking to excite ferocity to the highest pitch. At Strasbourg the sixty mustachioed propagandist lodged in the college in which they are settled fixtures, have a cook provided for them by the town, and they revel day and night "on the choice provisions put in requisition," "on wines destined to the defenders of the country."33106 It is, undoubtedly, when coming out from one of these orgies that they proceed, sword in hand, to the popular club,33107 vote and force others to vote "death to all prisoners confined in the Seminary to the number of seven hundred, of every age and of both sexes, without any preliminary trial." For a man to become a good cut-throat, he must first get intoxicated;33108 such was the course pursued in Paris by those who did the work in September: the revolutionary government being an organized, prolonged and permanent Septembrisade, most of its agents are obliged to drink hard.33109—For the same reasons when the opportunity, as well as the temptation, to steal, presents itself, they steal.—At first, during six months, and up to the decree assigning them pay, the revolutionary committees "take their pay themselves;"33110 they then add to their legal salary of three and five francs a day about what they please: for it is they who assess the extraordinary taxes, and often, as at Montbrison, "without making any list or record of collections." On Frimaire 16, year II., the financial committee reports that "the collection and application of extraordinary taxes is unknown to the government; that it was impossible to supervise them, the National treasury having received no sums whatever arising from these taxes."33111 Two years after, four years after, the accounts of revolutionary taxation of forced loans, and of pretended voluntary gifts, still form a bottomless pit; out of forty billions of accounts rendered to the National Treasury only twenty are found to be verified; the rest are irregular and worthless. Besides, in many cases, not only is the voucher worthless or not forthcoming, but, again, it is proved that the sums collected disappeared wholly or in part. At Villefranche, out of one hundred and thirty-eight thousand francs collected, the collector of the district deposited but forty-two thousand; at Baugency, out of more than five hundred thousand francs collected, there were only fifty thousand deposited; at la Réole, out of at least five hundred thousand francs collected, there were but twenty-two thousand six hundred and fifty deposited. "The rest," says the collector at Villefranche, "were wasted by the Committee of Surveillance." "The tax-collectors," writes the national-agent at Orleans, "after having employed terror gave themselves up to orgies and are now building palaces."33112—As to the expenses which they claim, they almost always consist of "indemnities to members of revolutionary committees, to patriots, and to defray the cost of patriotic missions," to maintaining and repairing the meeting-rooms of the popular clubs, to military expeditions, and to succoring the poor, so that three or four hundred millions in gold or silver, extorted before the end of 1793, hundreds of millions of assignats extorted in 1793 and 1794, in short, almost the entire product of the total extraordinary taxation33113 was consumed on the spot and by the sans-culottes. Seated at the public banqueting table they help themselves first, and help themselves copiously.
A second windfall, equally gross. Enjoying the right to dispose arbitrarily of fortunes, liberties and lives, they can traffic in these, while no traffic can be more advantageous, both for buyers and sellers. Any man who is rich or well-off, in other words, every man who is likely to be taxed, imprisoned or guillotined, gladly consents "to compound," to redeem himself and those who belong to him. If he is prudent, he pays, before the tax, so as not to be over-taxed; he pays, after the tax, to obtain a diminution or delays; he pays to be admitted into the popular club. When danger draws near he pays to obtain or renew his certificate of civism, not to be declared "suspect," not to be denounced as a conspirator. After being denounced, he pays to be allowed imprisonment at home rather than in the jail, to be allowed imprisonment in the jail rather than in the general prison, to be well treated if he gets into this, to have time to get together his proofs in evidence, to have his record (dossier) placed and kept at the bottom of the file among the clerk's registers, to avoid being inscribed on the next batch of cases in the revolutionary Tribunal. There is not one of these favors that is not precious; consequently, ransoms without number are tendered, while the rascals33114 who swarm on the revolutionary committees, need but open their hands to fill their pockets. They run very little risk, for they are held in check only by their own kind, or are not checked at all. In any large town, two of them suffice for the issue of a warrant of arrest save a reference to the Committee within twenty-four hours, with the certainty that their colleagues will kindly return the favor.33115 Moreover, the clever ones know how to protect themselves beforehand. For example, at Bordeaux, where one of these clandestine markets had been set up, M. Jean Davilliers, one of the partners in a large commercial house, is under arrest in his own house, guarded by four sans-culottes; on the 8th of Brumaire, he is taken aside and told "that he is in danger if he does not come forward and meet the indispensable requirements of the Revolution in its secret expenditures." An important figure, Lemoal, member of the revolutionary committee and administrator of the district, had spoken of these requirements and thought that M. Davilliers should contribute the sum of one hundred and fifty thousand livres. Upon this, a knock at the door is heard; Lemoal enters and all present slip out of the room, and Lemoal pronounces these words only: "Do you consent?"—"But I cannot thus dispose of my partners' property."—"Then you will go to prison." At this threat the poor man yields and gives his note to Lemoal at twenty days, payable to bearer, for one hundred and fifty thousand livres, and, at the end of a fortnight, by dint of pushing his claims, obtains his freedom. Thereupon, Lemoal thinks the matter over, and deems it prudent to cover up his private extortion by a public one. Accordingly, he sends for M. Davilliers: "It is now essential for you to openly contribute one hundred and fifty thousand livres more for the necessities of the Republic. I will introduce you to the representatives to whom you should make the offer." The chicken being officially plucked in this way, nobody would suppose that it had been first privately plucked, and, moreover, the inquisitive, if there were any, would be thrown off the scent by the confusion arising from two sums of equal amount. M. Davilliers begs to be allowed to consult his partners, and, as they are not in prison, they refuse. Lemoal, on his side, is anxious to receive the money for his note, while poor Davilliers, "struck with terror by nocturnal arrests," and seeing that Lemoal is always on the top of the ladder, concludes to pay; at first, he gives him thirty thousand livres, and next, the charges, amounting in all to forty-one thousand livres, when, being at the end of his resources, he begs and entreats to have his note returned to him. Lemoal, on this, considering the chicken as entirely stripped, becomes mollified, and tears off in presence of his debtor "the signature in full of the note," and, along with this, his own receipts for partial payments underneath. But he carefully preserves the note itself, for, thus mutilated, it will show, if necessary, that he had not received anything, and that, through patriotism, he had undoubtedly wished to force a contribution from a merchant, but, finding him insolvent, had humanely canceled the written obligation.33116—Such are the precautions taken in this business. Others, less shrewd, rob more openly, among others the mayor, the seven members of the military commission surnamed "the seven mortal sins," and especially their president, Lacombe, who, by promising releases, extracts from eight or nine captives three hundred and fifty-nine thousand six hundred livres.33117 "Through such schemes," writes a rigid Jacobin,33118 "many of those who had been declared outlaws returned to Bordeaux by paying; of the number who thus redeemed their lives, some did not deserve to lose it, but, nevertheless, they were threatened with execution if they did not consent to everything. But material proofs of this are hard to obtain. These men now keep silent, for fear, through open denunciation, of sharing in the penalty of the traffickers in justice, and being unwilling to expose (anew) the life they have preserved." In short, the plucked pigeon is mute, so as not to attract attention, as well as to avoid the knife; and all the more, because those who pluck him hold on to the knife and might, should he cry out, dispatch him with the more celerity. Even if he makes no noise, they sometimes dispatch him so as to stifle in advance any possible outcry, which happened to the Duc du Chatelet and others. There is but one mode of self-preservation33119 and that is, "to settle with such masters by installments, to pay them monthly, like wet nurses, on a scale proportionate to the activity of the guillotine."—In any event, the pirates are not disturbed, for the trade in lives and liberties leaves no trace behind it, and is carried on with impunity for two years, from one end of France to the other, according to a tacit understanding between sellers and buyers.
There is a third windfall, not less large, but carried on in more open sunshine and therefore still more enticing.—Once the "suspect is incarcerated, whatever he brings to prison along with him, whatever he leaves behind him at home, becomes plunder; for, with the incompleteness, haste and irregularity of papers,33120 with the lack of surveillance and known connivance, the vultures, great and small, could freely use their beaks and talons.—At Toulouse, as in Paris and elsewhere, commissioners take from prisoners every object of value and, accordingly, in many cases, all gold, silver, assignats, and jewelry, which, confiscated for the Treasury, stop half-way in the hands of those who make the seizure.33121 At Poitiers, the seven scoundrels who form the ruling oligarchy, admit, after Thermidor, that they stole the effects of arrested parties.33122 At Orange, "Citoyenne Riot," wife of the public prosecutor, and "citoyennes Fernex and Ragot," wives of two judges, come in person to the record-office to make selections from the spoils of the accused, taking for their wardrobe silver shoe-buckles, laces and fine linen.33123—But all that the accused, the imprisoned and fugitives can take with them, amounts to but little in comparison with what they leave at home, that is to say, under sequestration. All the religious or seignorial chateaux and mansions in France are in this plight, along with their furniture, and likewise most of the fine bourgeois mansions, together with a large number of minor residences, well-furnished and supplied through provincial economy; besides these, nearly every warehouse and store belonging to large manufacturers and leading commercial houses; all this forms colossal spoil, such as was never seen before, consisting of objects one likes to possess, gathered in vast lots, which lots are distributed by hundreds of thousands over the twenty-six thousand square miles of territory. There are no owners for this property but the nation, an indeterminate, invisible personage; no barrier other than so many seals exists between the spoils and the despoilers, that is to say, so many strips of paper held fast by two ill-applied and indistinct stamps. Bear in mind, too, that the guardians of the spoil are the sans-culottes who have made a conquest of it; that they are poor; that such a profusion of useful or precious objects makes them feel the bareness of their homes all the more; that their wives would like to lay in a stock of furniture; moreover, has it not held out to them from the beginning of the Revolution, that "forty-thousand mansions, palaces and chateaux, two-thirds of the property of France, would be the reward of their valor?"33124 At this very moment, does not the representative on mission authorize their greed? Are not Albitte and Collot d'Herbois at Lyons, Fouché at Nevers, Javogues at Montbrison, proclaiming that the possessions of anti-revolutionaries and a surplus of riches form "the patrimony of the sans-culottes?"33125 Do they not read in the proclamations of Monestier,33126 that the peasants "before leaving home may survey and measure off the immense estates of their seigneurs, choose, for example, on their return, whatever they want to add to their farm.. .. tacking on a bit of field or rabbit-warren belonging to the former count or marquis?" Why not take a portion of his furniture, any of his beds or clothes-presses—It is not surprising that, after this, the slip of paper which protects sequestrated furniture and confiscated merchandise should be ripped off by gross and greedy hands! When, after Thermidor, the master returns to his own roof it is generally to an empty house; in this or that habitation in the Morvan,33127 the removal of the furniture is so complete that a bin turned upside down serves for a table and chairs, when the family sit down to their first meal.
In the towns the embezzlements are often more brazenly carried out than in the country. At Valenciennes, the Jacobin chiefs of the municipality are known under the title of "seal-breakers and patriotic robbers."33128 At Lyons, the Maratists, who dub themselves "the friends of Chalier," are, according to the Jacobins' own admission, "brigands, thieves and rascals."33129 They compose, to the number of three or four hundred, the thirty-two revolutionary committees; one hundred and fifty of leaders, "all of them administrators," form the popular club; in this town of one hundred and twenty thousand souls they number, as they themselves state, three thousand, and they firmly rely on "sharing with each other the wealth of Lyons. This huge cake belongs to them; they do not allow that strangers, Parisians, should have a slice,33130 and they intend to eat the whole of it, at discretion, without control, even to the last crumb. As to their mode of operations, it consists in "selling justice, in trading on denunciations, in holding under sequestration at least four thousand households," in putting seals everywhere on dwellings and warehouses, in not summoning interested parties who might watch their proceedings, in expelling women, children and servants who might testify to their robberies, in not drawing up inventories, in installing themselves as "guardians at five francs a day," themselves or their boon companions, and in "general squandering, in league with the administrators." It is impossible to stay their hands or repress them, even for the representatives. Take them in the act,33131 and you must shut your eyes or they will all shout at the oppression of patriots; they do this systematically so that nobody may be followed up.
We passed an order forbidding any authority to remove seals without our consent, and, in spite of the prohibition, they broke into a storehouse under sequestration,.... forced the locks and pillaged, under our own eyes, the very house we occupy. And who are these devastators? Two commissioners of the Committee who emptied the storehouse without our warrant, and even without having any power from the Committee."—It is a sack in due form, and day after day; it began on the 10th of October, 1793; it continued after, without interruption, and we have just seen that, on Floréal 28, year II., that is to say, April 26, 1794, after one hundred and twenty-three days, it is still maintained.
The last mad scramble and the most extensive of all.—In spite of the subterfuges of its agents, the Republic, having stolen immensely, and although robbed in its turn, could still hold on to a great deal; and first, to articles of furniture which could not be easily abstracted, to large lots of merchandise, also to the vast spoil of the palaces, chateaux and churches; next, and above all, to real estate, fixtures and buildings. To meet its expenses it put all that up for sale, and whoever wants anything has only to come forward as a buyer, the last bidder becoming the legal owner and at a cheap rate. The wood cut down in one year very often pays for a whole forest.33132 Sometimes a chateau can be paid for by a sale of the iron-railings of the park, or the lead on the roof.—Here are found chances for a good many bargains, and especially with objects of art. "The titles alone of the articles carried off, destroyed or injured, would fill volumes."33133 On the one hand, the commissioners on inventories and adjudications, "having to turn a penny on the proceeds of sales," throw on the market all they can, "avoiding reserving" objects of public utility and sending collections and libraries to auction with a view to get their percentages. On the other hand, nearly all these commissioners are brokers or second-hand dealers who alone know the value of rarities, and openly depreciate them in order to buy them in themselves, "and thus ensure for themselves exorbitant profits." In certain cases the official guardians and purchasers who are on the look-out take the precaution to disfigure "precious articles" so as to have them bought by their substitutes and accomplices: "for instance, they convert sets of books into odd volumes, and take machines to pieces; the tube and object-glass of a telescope are separated, which pieces the rogues who have bought them cheap know how to put together again." Often, in spite of the seals, they take in advance antiques, pieces of jewelry, medals, enamels and engraved stones;" nothing is easier, for "even in Paris in Thermidor, year II., agents of the municipality use anything with which to make a stamp, buttons, and even large pennies, so that whoever has a sou can remove and re-stamp the seals as he pleases;" having been successful, "they screen their thefts by substituting cut pebbles and counterfeit stones for real ones." Finally, at the auction sales, "fearing the honesty or competition of intelligent judges, they offer money (to these) to stay away from the sales; one case is cited where they have knocked a prospective bidder down." In the meantime, at the club, they shout with all their might; this, with the protection of a member of the municipality or of the Revolutionary Committee, shelters them from all suspicion. As for the protector, he gets his share without coming out into the light. Accuse, if you dare, a republican functionary who secretly, or even openly, profits by these larcenies; he will show clean hands.—Such is the incorruptible patriot, the only one of his species, whom the representatives discover at Strasbourg, and whom they appoint mayor at once. On the 10th of Vendémiaire, year III.,33134 there is found "in his apartments" a superb and complete assortment of ecclesiastical objects, "forty-nine copes and chasubles, silk or satin, covered with gold or silver; fifty-four palles of the same description;" a quantity of "reliquaries, vases and spoons, censers, laces, silver and gold fringe, thirty-two pieces of silk," etc. None of these fine things belong to him; they are the property of citizen Mouet, his father. This prudent parent, taking his word for it, "deposited them for safe keeping in his son's house during the month of June, 1792 (old style);"—could a good son refuse his father such a slight favor? It is very certain that, in '93 and '94, during the young man's municipal dictatorship, the elder did not pay the Strasbourg Jew brokers too much, and that they did business in an off-hand way. By what right could a son and magistrate prevent his father, a free individual, from looking after "his own affairs" and buying according to trade principles, as cheap as he could?
If such are the profits on the sale of personal property, what must they be on the sale of real estate?—It is on this traffic that the fortunes of the clever terrorists are founded. It accounts for the "colossal wealth peaceably enjoyed," after Thermidor, of the well-known "thieves" who, before Thermidor, were so many "little Robespierres," each in his own canton, "the patriots" who, around Orleans, "built palaces," who, "exclusives" at Valenciennes, "having wasted both public and private funds, possess the houses and property of emigrants, knocked down to them at a hundred times less than their value."33135 On this side, their outstretched fingers shamelessly clutch all they can get hold of; for the obligation of each arrested party to declare his name, quality and fortune, as it now is and was before the Revolution, gives local cupidity a known, sure, direct and palpable object.—At Toulouse, says a prisoner,33136 "the details and value of an object were taken down as if for a succession," while the commissioners who drew up the statement, "our assassins, proceeded, beforehand and almost under our eyes, to take their share, disputing with each other on the choice and suitableness of each object, comparing the cost of adjudication with the means of lessening it, discussing the certain profits of selling again and of the transfer, and consuming in advance the pickings arising from sales and leases."—In Provence, where things are more advanced and corruption is greater than elsewhere, where the purport and aims of the Revolution were comprehended at the start, it is still worse. Nowhere did Jacobin rulers display their real character more openly, and nowhere, from 1789 to 1799, was this character so well maintained. At Toulon, the demagogues in the year V., as in the year II., are33137 "former workmen and clerks in the Arsenal who had become 'bosses' by acting as informers and through terrorism, getting property for nothing, or at an insignificant price, and plotting sales of national possessions, petty traders from all quarters with stocks of goods acquired in all sorts of ways, through robberies, through purchases of stolen goods from servants and employees in the civil, war and navy departments, and through abandoned or bought-up claims; in a word, men who, having run away from other communes, pass their days in coffee-houses and their nights in houses of ill-fame."—At Draguignan, Brignolles, Vidauban, Fréjus, at Marseilles, after Thermidor, the intermittent returns to Terrorism always restore the same quarries of the justiciary and the police to office.33138 "Artisans, once useful, but now tired of working, and whom the profession of paid clubbists, idle guardians," and paid laborers "has totally demoralized," scoundrels in league with each other and making money out of whatever they can lay their hands on, like thieves at a fair, habitually living at the expense of the public, "bestowing the favors of the nation on those who share their principles, harboring and aiding many who are under the ban of the law and calling themselves model patriots,33139 that is, in the pay of gambling hells and houses of prostitution."—In the rural districts, the old bands "consisting of hordes of homeless brigands" who worked so well during the anarchy of the Constituent and Legislative assemblies, form anew during the anarchy of the Directory; they make their appearance in the vicinity of Apt "commencing with petty robberies and then, strong in the impunity and title of sans-culottes, break into farm-houses, rob and massacre the inmates, strip travelers, put to ransom all who happen to cross their path, force open and pillage houses in the commune of Gorges, stop women in the streets, tear off their rings and crosses," and attack the hospital, sacking it from top to bottom, while the town and military officers, just like them, allow them to go on.33140—Judge by this of their performances in the time of Robespierre, when the vendors and administrators of the national possessions exercised undisputed control. Everywhere, at that time, in the departments of Var, Bouches-du-Rhône, and Vaucluse, "a club of would-be patriots" had long prepared the way for their exactions. It had "paid appraisers for depreciating whatever was put up for sale, and false names for concealing real purchasers; "a person not of their clique, was excluded from the auction-room; if he persisted in coming in they would, at one time, put him under contribution for the privilege of bidding," and, at another time, make him promise not to bid above the price fixed by the league, while, to acquire the domain, they paid him a bonus. Consequently, "national property" was given away "for almost nothing," the swindlers who acquired it never being without a satisfactory warrant for this in their own eyes. Into whose hands could the property of anti-revolutionists better fall than into those of patriots? According to Marat, the martyr apostle and canonised saint of the Revolution, what is the object of the Revolution but to give to the lowly the fortunes of the great?33141 In all national sales everywhere, in guarding sequestrations, in all revolutionary ransoms, taxes, loans and seizures, the same excellent argument prevails; nowhere, in printed documents or in manuscripts, do I find any revolutionary committee which is at once terrorist and honest. Only, it is rare to find specific and individual details regarding all the members of the same committee.—Here, however, is one case, where, owing to the lucky accident of an examination given in detail, one can observe in one nest, every variety of the species and of its appetites, the dozen or fifteen types of the Jacobin hornet, each abstracting what suits him from whatever he lights on, each indulging in his favorite sort of rapine.—At Nantes, "Pinard, the great purveyor of the Committee,33142 orders everything that each member needs for his daily use to be carried to his house."—"Gallou takes oil and brandy," and especially "several barrels from citizen Bissonneau's house."—"Durassier makes domiciliary visits and exacts contributions;" among others "he compels citizen Lemoine to pay twenty-five hundred livres, to save him from imprisonment."—"Naud affixes and removes seals in the houses of the incarcerated, makes nocturnal visits to the dwellings of the accused and takes what suits him."—"Grandmaison appropriates plate under sequestration, and Bachelier plate given as a present."—"Joly superintends executions and takes all he can find, plate, jewelry, precious objects."—"Bolognié forces the return of a bond of twenty thousand livres already paid to him."—Perrochaux demands of citoyenne Ollemard-Dudan "fifty thousand livres, to prevent her imprisonment," and confiscates for his own benefit sixty thousand livres worth of tobacco, in the house of the widow Daigneau-Mallet, who, claiming it back, is led off by him to prison under the pretext of interceding for her.—Chaux frightens off by terrorism his competitors at auction sales, has all the small farms on the Baroissière domain knocked down to him, and exclaims concerning a place which suits him: "I know how to get it! I'll have the owner arrested. He'll be very glad to let me have his ground to get out of prison.' "—The collection is complete, and gathered on a table, it offers specimens which can be found scattered all over France.
The Armed Force, the National Guard and the Gendarmerie.
—Its purgation and composition.—The Revolutionary Armies in
Paris and in the departments.—Quality of the recruits.
—Their employment.—Their expeditions into the countryside
and the towns.—Their exploits in the vicinity of Paris and
Lyons.—The company of Maratists, the American Hussars and
the German Legion at Nantes.—General character of the
Revolutionary government and of the administrative staff of
the Reign of Terror.
The last manipulators of the system remain, the hands which seize, the armed force which takes bodily hold of men and things.—The first who are employed for this purpose are the National Guard and the ordinary gendarmerie. Since 1790, these bodies are of course constantly weeded out until only fanatics and robots are left;33143 nevertheless, the weeding-out continues as the system develops itself. At Strasbourg,33144 on Brumaire 14, the representatives have dismissed, arrested and sent to Dijon the entire staff of the National Guard to serve as hostages until peace is secured; three days afterwards, considering that the cavalry of the town had been mounted and equipped at its own expense, they deem it aristocratic, bourgeois, and "suspect," and seize the horses and put the officers in arrest.—At Troyes, Rousselin, "National civil commissioner," dismisses, for the same reason, and with not less dispatch, all of the gendarmes at one stroke, except four, and "puts under requisition their horses, fully equipped, also their arms, so as to at once mount well known and tried sans-culottes." On principle, the poor sans-culottes, who are true at heart and in dress, alone have the right to bear arms, and should a bourgeois be on duty he must have only a pike, care being taken to take it away from him the moment he finishes his rounds.33145
But, alongside of the usual armed force, there is still another, much better selected and more effective, the reserve gendarmerie, a special, and, at the same time, movable and resident body, that is to say, the "revolutionary army," which, after September 5, 1793, the government had raised in Paris and in most of the large towns.—That of Paris, comprising six thousand men, with twelve hundred cannoneers, sends detachments into the provinces—two thousand men to Lyons, and two hundred to Troyes;33146 Ysabeau and Tallien have at Bordeaux a corps of three thousand men; Salicetti, Albitte and Gasparin, one of two thousand men at Marseilles; Ysoré and Duquesnoy, one of one thousand men at Lille; Javogues, one of twelve hundred at Montbrison. Others, less numerous, ranging from six hundred down to two hundred men, hold Moulins, Grenoble, Besançon, Belfort, Bourg, Dijon, Strasbourg, Toulouse, Auch and Nantes.33147 When, on March 27, 1794, the Committee of Public Safety, threatened by Hébert, has them disbanded for being Hébertists, in any of them are to remain at least as a nucleus, under various forms and names, either as kept by the local administration under the title of "paid guards,"33148 or as disbanded soldiers, loitering about and doing nothing, getting themselves assigned posts of rank in the National Guard of their town on account of their exploits; in this way they keep themselves in service, which is indispensable, for it is through these that the régime is established and lasts. "The revolutionary army,33149 say the orders and decrees promulgated, "is intended to repress anti-revolutionaries, to execute, whenever it is found necessary, revolutionary laws and measures for public safety," that is to say, "to guard those who are shut up, arrest 'suspects,' demolish chateaux, pull down belfries, ransack vestries for gold and silver objects, seize fine horses and carriages," and especially "to seek for private stores and monopolies," in short, to exercise manual constraint and strike every one on the spot with physical terror.—We readily see what sort of soldiers the revolutionary army is composed of.
Naturally, as it is recruited by voluntary enlistment, and all candidates have passed the purifying scrutiny of the clubs, it comprises none but ultra-Jacobins. Naturally, the pay being forty sous a day, it comprises none but the very lowest class. Naturally, as the work is as loathsome as it is atrocious, it comprises but few others33150 than those out of employment and reduced to an enlistment to get a living, "hairdressers without customers, lackeys without places, vagabonds, wretches unable to earn a living by honest labor," "thick and hard hitters" who have acquired the habit of bullying, knocking down and keeping honest folks under their pikes, a gang of confirmed scoundrels making public brigandage a cloak for private brigandage, inhabitants of the slums glad to bring down their former superiors into the mud, and themselves take precedence and strut about in order to prove by their arrogance and self-display that they, in their turn, are princes.—"Take a horse, the nation pays for it!"33151 said the sans-culottes of Bordeaux to their comrades in the street, who, "in a splendid procession," of three carriages, each drawn by six horses, escorted by a body on horseback, behind, in front, and each side, conducting Riouffe and two other "suspects" to the Réole prison. The commander of the squad who guards prisoners on the way to Paris, and who "starves them along the road to speculate on them," is an ex-cook of Agen, having become a gendarme; he makes them travel forty leagues extra, "purposely to glorify himself," and "let all Agen see that he has government money to spend, and that he can put citizens in irons." Accordingly, in Agen, "he keeps constantly and needlessly inspecting the vehicle," winking at the spectators, "more triumphant than if he had made a dozen Austrians prisoners and brought them along himself." At last, to show the crowd in the street the importance of his capture, he summons two blacksmiths to come out and rivet, on the legs of each prisoner, a cross-bar cannon-ball weighing eighty pounds.33152 The more display these henchmen make of their brutality, the greater they think themselves. At Belfort, a patriot of the club dies, and a civic interment takes place; a detachment of the revolutionary army joins the procession; the men are armed with axes; on reaching the cemetery, the better to celebrate the funeral, "they cut down all the crosses (over the graves) and make a bonfire of them, while the carmagnole ends this ever memorable day."33153—Sometimes the scene, theatrical and played by the light of flambeaux, makes the actors think that they have performed an extraordinary and meritorious action, "that they have saved the country." "This very night," writes the agent at Bordeaux,33154 nearly three thousand men have been engaged in an important undertaking, with the members of the Revolutionary Committee and of the municipality at the head of it. They visited every wholesale dealer's store in town and in the Faubourg des Chartrons, taking possession of their letter-books, sealing up their desks, arresting the merchants and putting them in the Seminiare.... Woe to the guilty!"—If the prompt confinement of an entire class of individuals is a fine thing for a town, the seizure of a whole town itself is still more imposing. Leaving Marseilles with a small army,33155 commanded by two sans-culottes, they surround Martigne and enter it as if it were a mill. The catch is superb; in this town of five thousand souls there are only seventeen patriots; the rest are Federalists or Moderates. Hence a general disarmament and domiciliary visits. The conquerors depart, carrying off every able-bodied boy, "five hundred lads subject to the conscription, and leave in the town a company of sans-culottes to enforce obedience." It is certain that obedience will be maintained and that the garrison, joined to the seventeen patriots, will do as they like with their conquest.
In effect, all, both bodies and goods, are at their disposal, and they consequently begin with the surrounding countryside, entering private houses to get at their stores, also the farmhouses to have the grain threshed, in order to verify the declarations of their owners and see if these are correct: if the grain is not threshed out at once it will be done summarily and confiscated, while the owner will be sentenced to twelve months in irons; if the declaration is not correct, he is condemned as a monopolist and punished with death. Armed with this order,33156 each band takes the field and gathers together not only grain, but supplies of every description. "That of Grenoble, the agent writes,33157 does wonderfully; in one little commune alone, four hundred measures of wheat, twelve hundred eggs, and six hundred pounds of butter had been found. All this was quickly on the way to Grenoble." In the vicinity of Paris, the forerunners of the throng, provided "with pitchforks and bayonets, rush to the farms, take oxen out of their stalls, grab sheep and chickens, burn the barns, and sell their booty to speculators."33158 "Bacon, eggs, butter and chickens—the peasants surrender whatever is demanded of them, and thenceforth have nothing that they can take to market. They curse the Republic which has brought war and famine on them, and nevertheless they do what they are told: on being addressed, 'Citizen peasant, I require of you on peril of your head,'... it is not possible to refuse."33159—Accordingly, they are only too glad to be let off so cheaply. On Brumaire 19, about seven o'clock in the evening, at Tigery, near Corbeil, twenty-five men "with sabers and pistols in their belts, most of them in the uniform of the National Guards and calling themselves the revolutionary army," enter the house of Gibbon, an old ploughman, seventy-one years of age, while fifty others guard all egress from it, so that the expedition may not be interfered with. Turlot, captain, and aid-de-camp to General Henriot, wants to know where the master of the house is.—"In his bed," is the reply.—"Wake him up."—The old man rises.—Give up your arms."—His wife hands over a fowling-piece, the only arm on the premises. The band immediately falls on the poor man, "strikes him down, ties his hands, and puts a sack over his head," and the same thing is done to his wife and to eight male and two female servants. "Now, give us the keys of your closets;" they want to be sure that there are no fleur-de-lys or other illegal articles. They search the old man's pockets, take his keys, and, to dispatch business, break into the chests and seize or carry off all the plate, "twenty-six table-dishes, three soup-ladles, three goblets, two snuff-boxes, forty counters, two watches, another gold watch and a gold cross." "We will draw up a procès-verbal of all this at our leisure in Meaux. Now, where's your silver? If you don't say where it is, the guillotine is outside and I will be your executioner." The old man yields and merely requests to be untied. But it is better to keep him bound, "so as to make him 'sing.'" They carry him into the kitchen and "put his feet into a heated brazier." He shouts with pain, and indicates another chest which they break open and then carry off what they find there, "seventy-two francs in coin and five or six thousand livres in assignats, which Gibbon had just received for the requisitions made on him for corn." Next, they break open the cellar doors, set a cask of vinegar running, carry wine upstairs, eat the family meal, get drunk and, at last, clear out, leaving Gibbon with his feet burnt, and garroted, as well as the other eleven members of his household, quite certain that there will be no pursuit.33160—In the towns, especially in federalist districts, however, these robberies are complicated with other assaults. At Lyons, whilst the regular troops are lodged in barracks, the revolutionary army is billeted on the householders, two thousand vile, sanguinary blackguards from Paris, and whom their general, Ronsin himself, calls "scoundrels and brigands," alleging, in excuse for this, that "honest folks cannot be found for such business." How they treat their host, his wife and his daughters may be imagined; contemporaries glide over these occurrences and, through decency or disgust, avoid giving details.33161 Some simply use brutal force; others get rid of a troublesome husband by the guillotine; in the most exceptional cases they bring their wenches along with them, while the housekeeper has to arouse herself at one o'clock at night and light a fire for the officer who comes in with the jolly company.—And yet, there are others still worse, for the worst attract each other. We have seen the revolutionary committee at Nantes, also the representative on mission in the same city; nowhere did the revolutionary Sabbat rage so furiously, and nowhere was there such a traffic in human lives. With such band-leaders as Carrier and his tools on the Committee, one may be sure that the instrumentalists will be worthy.
Accordingly, several members of the Committee themselves oversee executions and lend a hand in the massacres.—One of these, Goullin, a creole from St. Domingo, sensual and nervous, accustomed to treating a Negro as an animal and a Frenchman as a white Negro, a Septembriseur on principle, chief instigator and director of the "drownings," goes in person to empty the prison of Bouffay, and, verifying that death, the hospital or releases, had removed the imprisoned for him, adds, of his own authority, fifteen names, taken haphazard, to reach his figures.—Joly, a commissioner on the Committee, very expert in the art of garroting, ties the hands of prisoners together two and two and conducts them to the river.33162—Grand-maison, another member of the Committee, a former dancing-master, convicted of two murders and pardoned before the Revolution, strikes down with his saber the imploring hands stretched out to him over the planks of the lighter.33163—Pinard, another Committee-commissioner, ransoms, steals off into the country and himself kills, through preference, women and children.33164 Naturally, the three bands which operate along with them, or under their orders, comprise only men of their species. In the first one, called the Marat company, each of the sixty members swears, on joining it, to adopt Marat's principles and carry out Marat's doctrine. Goullin,33165 one of the founders, demands in relation to each member, "Isn't there some one still more rascally? For we must have that sort to bring the aristocrats to reason!"33166 After Frimaire 5 "the Maratists" boast of their arms being "tired out" with striking prisoners with the flat of their sabers to make them march to the Loire,33167 and we see that, notwithstanding this fatigue, the business suited them, as their officers tried to influence Carrier to be detailed on the "drowning" service and because it was lucrative. The men and women sentenced to death, were first stripped of their clothes down to the shirt, and even the shift; it would be a pity to let valuable objects go to the bottom with their owners, and therefore the drowners divide these amongst themselves; a wardrobe in the house of the adjutant Richard is found full of jewelry and watches.33168 This company of sixty must have made handsome profits out of the four or five thousand drowned.-The second band, called "the American Hussars," and who operated in the outskirts, was composed of blacks and mulattos, numerous enough in this town of privateers. It is their business to shoot women, whom they first violate; "they are our slaves," they say; "we have won them by the sweat of our brows." "Those who have the misfortune to be spared, become in their hands mad in a couple of days; in any event they are re-arrested shortly afterwards and shot.—The last band, which is styled "The German Legion," is formed out of German deserters and mercenaries speaking little or no French. They are employed by the Military Commission to dispatch the Vendeans picked up along the highways, and who are usually shot in groups of twenty five. "I came," says an eye-witness,33169 "to a sort of gorge where there was a semi-circular quarry; there, I noticed the corpses of seventy-five women naked and lying on their backs." The victims of that day consisted of girls from sixteen to eighteen years of age. One of them says to her conductor, "I am sure you are taking us to die," and the German replies in his broken jargon, probably with a coarse laugh," No, it is for a change of air. They are placed in a row in front of the bodies of the previous day and shot. Those who do not fall, see the guns reloaded; these are again shot and the wounded dispatched with the butt ends of the muskets. Some of the Germans then rifle the bodies, while others strip them and "place them on their backs."—To find workmen for this task, it is necessary to descend, not only to the lowest wretches in France but, again, to the brutes of a foreign race and tongue, and yet lower still, to an inferior race degraded by slavery and perverted by license.
Such, from the top to the bottom of the ladder, at every stage of authority and obedience, is the ruling staff of the revolutionary government.33170 Through its recruits and its work, through its morals and modes of proceeding, it evokes the almost forgotten image of its predecessors, for there is an image of it in the period from the fourteenth to the seventeenth century. At that time also, society was frequently overcome and ravaged by barbarians; dangerous nomads, malevolent outcasts, bandits turned into soldiers suddenly pounced down on an industrious and peaceful population. Such was the case in France with the "Routiers" and the "Tard-venus," at Rome with the army of the Constable of Bourbon, in Flanders with the bands of the Duke of Alba and the Duke of Parma, in Westphalia and in Alsace, with Wallenstein's veterans, and those of Bernard of Saxe-Weimar. They lived upon a town or province for six months, fifteen months, two years, until the town or province was exhausted. They alone were armed, master of the inhabitants, using and abusing things and persons according to their caprices. But they were declared bandits, calling themselves scorchers, (ecorcheurs) riders and adventurers, and not pretending to be humanitarian philosophers. Moreover, beyond an immediate and personal enjoyment, they demanded nothing; they employed brutal force only to satiate their greed, their cruelty, their lust.—The latter add to private appetites a far greater devastation, the systematic and gratuitous ravages enforced upon them by the superficial theory with which they are imbued.
3301 (return)
[ "The Revolution,"
II., pp. 298-304, and p. 351.]
3302 (return)
[ "The Revolution,"
II., pp.298-304, and p. 351. Should the foregoing testimony be deemed
insufficient, the following, by those foreigners who had good
opportunities for judging, may be added: (Gouverneur Morris, letter of
December 3, 1794.) "The French are plunged into an abyss of poverty and
slavery, a slavery all the more degrading because the men who have plunged
them into it merit the utmost contempt."—Meissner, "Voyage à Paris,"
(at the end of 1795,) p. 160. "The (revolutionary) army and the
revolutionary committees were really associations organized by crime for
committing every species of injustice, murder, rapine, and brigandage with
impunity. The government had deprived all men of any talent or integrity
of their places and given these to its creatures, that is to say, to the
dregs of humanity."—Baron Brinckmann, Chargé d'Affaires from Sweden.
(Letter of July 11, 1799.) "I do not believe that the different classes of
society in France are more corrupt than elsewhere; but I trust that no
people may ever be ruled by as imbecile and cruel scoundrels as those that
have ruled France since the advent of its new state of freedom... The
dregs of the people, stimulated from above by sudden and violent
excitement, have everywhere brought to the surface the scum of
immorality."]
3303 (return)
[ Fleury, "Babeuf,"
139, 150.—Granier de Cassagnac, "Histoire du Directoire," II.,
24-170.—(Trial of Babeuf, passim.) The above quotations are from
documents seized in Babeuf's house, also from affidavits made by
witnesses, and especially by captain Grizel.]
3304 (return)
[ Moniteur, session of
September 5, 1793. "Since our virtue, our moderation, our philosophic
ideas, are of no use to us, let us be brigands for the good of the people;
let us be brigands!"]
3305 (return)
[ Babeuf, "Le Tribun du
Peuple," No.40. Apologia for the men of September, "who have only been the
priests, the sacrificers of a just immolation for public security. If
anything is to be regretted it is that a larger and more general Second of
September did not sweep away all starvers and all despoilers."]
3306 (return)
[ Granier de Cassagnac,
II., 90. (Deposition of Grisel.) Rossignol said, "That snuff-box is all I
have left, here it is so that I may exist."—"Massard owned a pair of
boots which he could not collect because he had no money with which to pay
the shoemaker."]
3307 (return)
[ Archives Nationales,
Cf. 31167. (Report of Robin, Nivôse 9.): "The women always had a
deliberative voice in the popular assemblies of the Pantheon section," and
in all the other clubs they attended the meetings.]
3308 (return)
[ Moniteur, XIX., 103.
(Meeting of the Jacobin club, Dec. 28, 1793.) Dubois-Crancé introduces the
following question to each member who is subjected to the weeding-out
vote: "What have you done that would get you hung in case of a counter
revolution?"]
3309 (return)
[ Ibid., XVII., 410.
(Speech by Maribon-Montaut, Jacobin club, Brumaire 21, year II.)]
3310 (return)
[ Dauban, "Paris in
1794," 142. (Police report of Ventôse 13, year II.)]
3311 (return)
[ Morellet, "Mémoires,"
II. 449.]
3312 (return)
[ Dauban, ib.,, 35.
(Note drawn up in January, 1794, probably by the physician Quêvremont de
Lamotte.)—Ibid., 82.—Cf. Morellet, II., 434-470. (Details on
the issue of certificates of civism, in September, 1793.)]
3313 (return)
[ Archives Nationales,
F.7, 31167. (Report by Latour-Lamontagne, Ventôse 1, year II.): "It is
giving these associations too much influence; it is destroying the
jurisdiction of the general assemblies (of the section.) We find
accordingly, that these are being deserted and that the plotters and
intriguers succeed in making popular clubs the centers of public business
in order to control affairs more easily."]
3314 (return)
[ Dauban, ibid., 203.
(Report by Bacon-Tacon, Ventose 19.) "In the general assembly of the
Maison Commune section all citizens of any rank in the companies have been
weeded out. The slightest stain of incivism, the slightest negligence in
the service, caused their rejection. Out of twenty-five who passed
censorship-nineteen at least were rejected....Most of them due to their
trade such as eating-house keeper, shoe-maker, cook, carpenter, tailor
etc."]
3315 (return)
[ Ibid., 141. (Report
by Charmont, Ventôse 12.)—Ibid, 140. "There is only one way, it is
said at the Café des Grands Hommes, on the boulevard, to keep from being
arrested, and that is to scheme for admission into the civil and
revolutionary committees when there happens to be a vacancy. Before
salaries were attached to these places nobody wanted them; since that,
there are disputes as to who shall be appointed."]
3316 (return)
[ Ibid., 307. (Report
of Germinal 7.)]
3317 (return)
[ Wallon, "Histoire du
Tribunal Revolutionaire," IV., 129.]
3318 (return)
[ Archives Nationales,
AF., II., 46. (Act of the Committee of Public Safety, Prairial 15.):
"Citizens Pillon, Gouste and Né, members of the Revolutionary committee of
the Marat section, are removed. Their duties will be performed by citizens
Martin, Majon and Mirel. Mauvielle, rue de la Liberté, No. 32, is
appointed on the said Revolutionary Committee to complete it, as it was
only composed of eleven members."—And other similar acts.]
3319 (return)
[ Duverger, decree of
Frimaire 14, year II. "The application of revolutionary laws and measures
of general security and public safety is confided to the municipalities
and revolutionary committees." See, in chapter II., the extent of the
domain thus defined. It embraces nearly everything. It suffices to run
through the registers of a few of the revolutionary committees, to verify
this enormous power and see how they interfere in every detail of
individual life]
3320 (return)
[ Archives Nationales,
F.7, 31167. (Report, Nivôse 1, year II., by Leharival.)]
3321 (return)
[ Dauban, "Paris en
1794," 307. (Report of March 29, 1794.) It here relates to the "Piques"
Section, Place Vendome.]
3322 (return)
[ Dauban, ib., 308.
(Note found among Danton's papers and probably written by the physician,
Quevremont de Lamotte.)]
3323 (return)
[ Dauban, ib., 125.
(Report of Bérard, Ventôse 10.) In the words of a woman belonging to the
Bonne-Novelle section: "My husband has been in prison four months. And
what for? He was one of the first at the Bastille; he has always refused
places so that the good sans-culottes might have them, and, if he has made
enemies, it was because he was unwilling to see these filled by
ignoramuses or new-comers, who, vociferating and apparently thirsting for
blood, have created a barrier of partisans around them."]
3324 (return)
[ Dauban, ibid., 307.
(Report of March 29, 1794.)]
3325 (return)
[ Ibid., 150. (Report
of Ventôse 14.)—Archives Nationales, F.7, 31167. (Reports of Nivôse
9 and 25.): "A great many citizens are found in the sections who are
called out after the meeting, to get forty sous. I notice that most of
them are masons, and even a few coach drivers belonging to the nation, who
can do without the nation's indemnity, which merely serves them for drink
to make them very noisy."—"The people complain, because the persons
to whom the forty sous are given, to attend the section assemblies do
nothing all day, being able to work at different trades.... and they relay
upon these forty sous."]
3326 (return)
[ Dauban, ibid., 312.
(Note by Quevremont.)—Moniteur, XVIII., 568, (Meeting of the
commune, Frimaire 11, year II.): "The Beaurepaire section advertises that
wishing to put a stop to the cupidity of the wine-dealers of the
arrondissement, it has put seals on all their cellars."]
3327 (return)
[ Dauban, ibid., 345.
(Order of the day by Henriot, Floreal 9.)]
3328 (return)
[ Mallet-Dupan, II.,
56. (March, 1794.)]
3329 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXVII., 10. (Speech by Barbaroux, May 14, 1793.)—Report on the
papers found in Robespierre's apartment by Courtois, 285. (Letter by
Collot d'Herbois Frimaire 3, year II., demanding that Paris Jacobins be
sent to him at Lyons.) "If I could have asked for our old ones I should
have done... but they are necessary at Paris, almost all of them having
been made mayors."]
3330 (return)
[ Meissner, "Voyage à
Paris," (at the end of 1795,) 160. "Persons who can neither read nor write
obtain the places of accountants of more or less importance."? Archives
des Affaires étrangères, vol. 324. (Denunciations of Pio to the club,
against his colleagues.)—Dauban, ibid., 35. (Note by Quevremont,
Jan., 1794.): "The honest man who knows how to work cannot get into the
ministerial bureaux, especially those of the War and Navy departments, as
well as those of the Commune and of the Departments, without having a lump
in his throat.—Offices are mostly filled by creatures of the Commune
who very often have neither talent nor integrity. Again, the
denunciations, always welcomed, however frivolous and baseless they may
be, turn everything upside down."]
3331 (return)
[ Moniteur, XXIV., 397
(Speech of Dubois-Crancé in the Convention Floréal 16, year III.)—Archives
Nationales, F.7, 31167. (Report by Rolin, Nivôse 7, year II.) "The same
complaints are heard against the civil Commissioners of the section, most
of whom are unintelligent, not even knowing how to read."]
3332 (return)
[ Archives des Affaires
étrangères, vol. 1411. (August, 1793.) "Plan adopted" for the organization
of the Police, "excepting executive modifications." In fact, some months
later, the number of claqueurs, male and female, is much greater, and
finally reaches a thousand. (Beaulieu, "Essais," V., l10.)—The same
plan comprehends fifteen agents at two thousand four hundred francs,
"selected from the frequenters of the clubs," to revise the daily morning
lists; thirty at one thousand francs, for watching popular clubs, and
ninety to twelve hundred francs for watching the section assemblies.]
3333 (return)
[ Archives Nationales,
F.7, 4436. (Letter of Bouchotte, Minister of war, Prairial 5, year II.)
"The appointment of Ronsin, as well as of all his staff, again excited
public opinion. The Committee, to assure itself, sent the list to the
Jacobin club, where they were accepted."—Ibid., AF.,II., 58. "Paris,
Brumaire II, year II., club of the Friends of Liberty and Equality, in
session at the former Jacobin club, rue St. Honoré. List of the citizens
who are to set out for Lyons and act as national commissioners. (Here
follow their names.) All the citizens designated have undergone the
inspection of the said club, at its meeting this day." (Here follow the
signatures of the President and three secretaries.)—"Journal des
Débats et Correspondence de la Société des Jacobins, No.543, 5th day of
the 3rd month of the year II.—In relation to the formation of a new
Central club, "Terrasson is of opinion that this club may become
liberticide, and demands a committee to examine into it and secure its
extinction. The committee demanded by Terrasson is appointed."—It is
evident that they hold on energetically to this monopoly.—Cf.
Moniteur, XIX., 637. (Ventôse 13.) Motion adopted in the Jacobin club,
obliging the ministers to turn out of office any individual excluded from
the club.]
3334 (return)
[ Dauban, ibid., 307.
(Report of Germinal 9.)]
3335 (return)
[ Moniteur, XXII. 353.
(Session of Brumaire 20, year III. Reclamation made by M. Bélanger at the
bar of the Convention.)]
3336 (return)
[ Archives Nationales,
AF., II., 40. (Acts passed by the Committee of Public Safety at the dates
indicated.) Beaulieu, "Essais," v., 200. (Ibid.) The registers of the
Committee of Public Safety contain a number of similar gratuities paid to
provincial clubs and patriots, for instance, AF., II. 58, (Brumaire 8),
fifty thousand francs to Laplanche, and, (Brumaire 9), fifty thousand
francs to Couthon, "to maintain public spirit in Calvados, to revive
public spirit in Lyons, to aid, as required, the less successful patriots
who zealously devote their time to the service of their country."]
3337 (return)
[ Dauban, ibid., 171,
(report of Ventôse 17), and 243, (report of Ventôse 25), on the
civil-committees and revolutionary committees, who order meat served to
them before serving it to the sick, and who likewise serve the good
friends of their wives.? Ibid., 146. (Report of Ventôse 10.)... Archives
Nationales F.7, 2475. (Register of the deliberations of the revolutionary
committee of the Piques sections, Brumaire 27, year II.) "The Committee
orders that the two-horse cab belonging to Lemarche be henceforth at the
service of the section and of the Committee when measures of security are
concerned." In this register, and others of the same series, we clearly
see the inside of a committee and its vast despotism. Style and
orthography, with almost all, are of the same low order.]
3338 (return)
[ Archives des Affaires
étrangères, vol. 1411. (Report of Aug.21 and 22, 1793.) "General Henriot
sent me several.... who made use of the authority of the Committee of
Public Safety and General Security, as well as of that which he delegated
to me, to make domiciliary visits at the houses of individuals who were
not assured patriots; but that did not warrant their receiving money and
even abstracting it."]
3339 (return)
[ Dauban, ibid., 36 and
48. (Case of the Notary, Brichard.)]
3340 (return)
[ Cf. "The Revolution,"
II., 302, 303.—Mercier, "Paris pendant la Revolution," I., 151.—Moniteur,
XVIII., 660. (Session of Frimaire 24, speech by Lecomtre in the
Convention.)—On robberies and the bribes paid, see, among other
documents, "Mémoires sur les Prisons," I., 290. (Eighty thousand francs of
bribes given to the head of the police force by Perisial, keeper of an
eating-house, for the privilege of feeding prisoners in St. Lazare.)]
3341 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXXV., 77. (Trial of Fouquier-Tinville.) Testimony of Robillard: "Another
day, in the general assembly, he struck a citizen with his saber."]
3342 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXXV., 407. (Lists in Robespierre's handwriting.)]
3343 (return)
[ Miot de Melito,
"Mémoires," I., 46-51.-Buchot is not the only one of his species in the
ministry of Foreign Affairs. In the archives of this ministry, vol. 324,
may be found the sayings and doings of a certain Pio, an Italian refugee
who slipped into the place, simulating poverty, and displaying patriotism,
and who denounces his chief and colleagues.-The ex-notary Pigeot,
condemned to twenty years in irons and put in the pillory, Frimaire 9,
year III., will come to the surface; he is encountered under the Directory
as introducer of ambassadors.-Concerning one of the envoys of the
Directory to Switzerland, here is a note b~ Mallet-Dupan. ("Anecdotes
manuscrites," October, 1797.) "The Directonal ambassador, who has come to
exact from the Swiss the expulsion of the body-guard, is named Mingot, of
Belfort, a relation of Reubell's, former body-guard to M. le Comte
d'Artois.-He came to Zurich with a prostitute, a seamstress of Zurich,
established in Berne. He was living with her at the expense of the Zurich
government. Having invited the family of this creature, that is to say a
common horse-driver with his wife and some other persons, to dinner, they
drank and committed such excesses that the driver's wife, who was big with
child, gave birth to it in the midst of the banquet. This creature gave
Mingot a disease which has laid him up at Basle."]
3344 (return)
[ "The Revolution,"
II., 338, 348, 354.]
3345 (return)
[ Martel, "Types
Révolutionnaires," 136-144.—The Minister of War appoints Henriot
brigadier-general, July 3, 1793, and major-general on the 19th of
September, and says in a postscript, "Please communicate your service
record to me," unknown in the ministry because they were of no account.—On
the orgies at Choisy-sur-Seine, V. (Archives, W2, 500-501), see
investigation of Thermidor 18 and 19, year II., made at Boisy-sur-Seine by
Blache, agent of the committee of General Security. Boulanger,
brigadier-general, and Henriot's first lieutenant, was an ex-companion
jeweller.]
3346 (return)
[ Archives des Affaires
étrangères, vol. 1411. Orders of the day by Henriot, September 16,
Vendémiaire 29, year II., and Brumaire 19, year II. Many of these orders
of the day are published in Dauban, ("Paris en 1794"), p. 33. "Let our
enemies pile up their property, build houses and palaces, let them have
them, what do we care, we republicans, we do not want them! All we need to
shelter us is a cabin, and as for wealth, simply the habits, the virtues
and the love of our country. Headquarters, etc."—P. 43: "Yesterday
evening a fire broke out in the Grand Augustins.... Everybody worked at it
and it was put out in a very short time. Under the ancient regime the fire
would have lasted for days. Under the system of freemen the fire lasted
only an hour. What a difference!.. Headquarters, etc."]
3347 (return)
[ Wallon, "Histoire du
Tribunal Révolutionnaire de Paris," V.252, 420. (Names and qualifications
of the members of the Commune of Paris, guillotined Thermidor 10 and 11.)
The professions and qualifications of some of its members are given in
Lymery's Biographical Dictionary, in Morellet's Memoirs and in Arnault's
Souvenirs.??Moniteur?? XVI., 719. (Verdicts of the Revolutionary Tribunal,
Fructidor 15, year II.) Forty-three members of the civil or revolutionary
committees, sectional commissioners, officers of the National Guard and of
the cannoneers, signed the list of the council-general of the commune as
present on the 9th of Thermidor and are put on trial as Robespierre's
adherents. But they promptly withdrew their signatures, all being
acquitted except one. They are leaders in the Jacobin quarter and are of
the same sort arid condition as their brethren of the Hôtel-de-ville. One
only, an ex-collector of rentes, may have had an education; the rest are
carpenters, floor-tilers, shoemakers, tailors, wine-dealers, eating-house
keepers, cartmen, bakers, hair-dressers, and joiners. Among them we find
one ex-stone-cutter, one ex-office runner, one ex-domestic and two sons of
Samson the executioner.]
3348 (return)
[ Morellet, "Mémoires,"
I., 436-472.]
3349 (return)
[ On the ascendancy of
the talkers of this class see Dauban ("Paris en 1794," pp. 118-143).
Details on an all-powerful clothes-dealer in the Lombards Section. If we
may believe the female citizens of the Assembly "he said everywhere that
whoever was disagreeable to him should be turned out of the popular club."
(Ventôse 13, year II.)]
3350 (return)
[ Arnault, "Souvenirs
d'un Sexagénaire," III., 111. Details on another member of the commune,
Bergot, ex-employee at the Halle-aux-Cuirs and police administrator, may
be found in "Mémoires des Prisons," I., 232, 239, 246, 289, 290. Nobody
treated the prisoners more brutally, who protested against the foul food
served out to them, than he. "It is too good for bastards who are going to
be guillotined.".... "He got drunk with the turnkeys and with the
commissioners themselves. One day he staggered in walking, and spoke only
in hiccoughs: he would go in that condition. The house-guard refused to
recognize him; he was arrested" and the concierge had to repeat her
declarations to make the officer of the post "give up the hog."]
3351 (return)
[ "Mémoires sur les
Prisons," I., 211. (" Tableau Historique de St. Lazare.") The narrator is
put into prison in the rue de Sèvres in October, 1793.—II., 186.
("An historical account of the jail in the rue de Sèvres.") The narrator
was confined there during the last months of the Reign of Terror.]
3352 (return)
[ A game of chance.]
3353 (return)
[ "Un Séjour en France
de 1792 à 1795," 281. "We had an appointment in the afternoon with a
person employed by the committee on National Domains; he was to help my
friend with her claims. This man was originally a valet to the Marquise's
brother; on the outbreak of the Revolution he set up a shop, failed and
became a rabid Jacobin, and, at last, member of a revolutionary committee.
As such, he found a way.... to intimidate his creditors and obtain two
discharges of his indebtedness without taking the least trouble to pay his
debts.".... "I know an old lady who was kept in prison three months for
having demanded from one of these patriots three hundred livres which he
owed her." (June 3, 1795.) "I have generally noticed that the republicans
are either of the kind I have just indicated, coffee-house waiters,
jockeys, gamblers, bankrupts, and low scribblers, or manual laborers more
earnest in their principles, more ignorant and more brutal, all spending
what they have earned in vulgar indulgence."]
3354 (return)
[ Schmidt, "Tableaux
Historiques de la Revolution Française," II., 248, 249. (Agent's reports,
Frimaire 8, year 111.) "The prosecution of Carrier is approved by the
public, likewise the condemnation of the former revolutionary committee
called the "BonnetRouge." Ten of its members are condemned to twenty years
in irons. The public is overjoyed."—Ibid., (Frimaire 9), "The people
rushed in crowds to the square of the old commune building to see the
members of the former revolutionary committee of the Bonnet-Rouge
sections, who remained seated on the bench until six o'clock, in the light
of flambeaux. They had to put up with many reproaches and much
humiliation."—"Un Sejour en France," 286, (June 6, 1795). "I have
just been interrupted by a loud noise and cries under my window; I heard
the names Scipio and Solon distinctly pronounced in a jeering and
insulting tone of voice. I sent Angelique to see what was the matter and
she tells me that it is a crowd of children following a shoemaker of the
neighborhood who was member of a revolutionary committee... and had called
himself Scipio Solon. As he had been caught in several efforts at stealing
he could no longer leave his shop without being reviled for his robberies
and hooted at under his Greek and Roman names."]
3355 (return)
[ Barère, "Mémoires,"
II., 324.]
3356 (return)
[ Montieur, XXII., 742.
(Report by Cambon, Frimaire 6, year II.) Ibid., 22.—Report by
Lindet, September 20, 1794): "The land and navy forces, war and other
services, deprive agricultural pursuits and other professions of more than
one million five hundred thousand citizens. It would cost the Republic
less to support six million men in all the communes."—"Le
Departement des Affaires étrangères," by Fr. Masson, 382. (According to
"Paris à la fin du dix-huitieme siecle," by Pujoulx, year IX.): "At Paris
alone there are more than thirty thousand (government) clerks; six
thousand at the most do the necessary writing; the rest cut away quills,
consume ink and blacken paper. In old times, there were too many clerks in
the bureaux relatively to the work; now, there are three times as many,
and there are some who think that there are not enough."]
3357 (return)
[ "Souvenirs de M.
Hua," a parliamentary advocate, p.96. (A very accurate picture of the
small town Coucy-le-Chateau, in Aisne, from 1792 to 1794.)—"Archives
des Affaires étrangères," vol.334. (Letter of the agents, Thionville,
Ventôse 24, year II.) The district of Thionville is very patriotic,
submits to the maximum and requisitions, but not to the laws prohibiting
outside worship and religious assemblies. "The apostles of Reason preached
in vain to the people, telling them that, up to this time, they had been
deceived and that now was the time to throw off the yoke of prejudice: 'we
are willing to believe that, thus far, we have been deceived, but who will
guarantee us that you will not deceive us in your turn?'"]
3358 (return)
[ Lagros: "La
Révolution telle qu'elle est." (Unpublished correspondence of the
committee of Public Safety, I., 366. Letter of Prieur de la Marne.) "In
general, the towns are patriotic; but the rural districts are a hundred
leagues removed from the Revolution.. .. Great efforts will be necessary
to bring them up to the level of the Revolution."]
3359 (return)
[ According to the
statistics of 1866 (published in 1869) a district of one thousand square
kilometres contains on an average, thirty-three communes above five
hundred souls, twenty-three from five hundred to one thousand, seventeen
bourgs and small towns from one thousand to five thousand, and one average
town, or very large one, about five thousand. Taking into account the
changes that have taken place in seventy years, one may judge from these
figures of the distribution of the population in 1793. This distribution
explains why, instead of forty-five thousand revolutionary committees,
there were only twenty-one thousand five hundred.]
3360 (return)
[ "Souvenirs des M.
Hua," 179. "This country (Coucy-le-Chateau) protected by its bad roads and
still more by its nullity, belonged to that small number in which the
revolutionary turmoil was least felt."]
3361 (return)
[ Among other documents
of use in composing this picture I must cite, as first in importance, the
five files containing all the documents referring to the mission of the
representative Albert, in Aisne and Marne. (Ventôse and Germinal, year
III.) Nowhere do we find more precise details of the sentiments of the
peasant, of the common laborer and of the lower bourgeois from 1792 to
1795. (Archives Nationales, D. PP 2 to 5.)]
3362 (return)
[ Daubari, "La
Demagogie en 1793," XII. (The expression of an old peasant, near
Saint-Émilion, to M. Vatel engaged in collecting information on the last
days of Petion, Guadet and Buzot.)]
3363 (return)
[ Archives Nationales,
D. p I., 5. (Petition of Claude Defert, miller, and national agent of
Turgy.) Numbers of mayors, municipal officers, national agents,
administrators and notables of districts and departments solicit
successors, and Albert compels many of them to remain in office.—(Joint
letter of the entire municipality of Landreville; letter of Charles,
stone-cutter, mayor of Trannes; Claude Defert, miller, national agent of
Turgy; of Elegny, meat-dealer; of a wine-grower; municipal official at
Merrex, etc.) The latter writes: "The Republic is great and generous; it
does not desire that its children should ruin themselves in attending to
its affairs; on the contrary, its object is to give salaried
(emolumentaires) places to those who have nothing to live on."—Another,
Mageure, appointed mayor of Bar-sur-Seine writes, Pluviôse 29, year III.:
"I learned yesterday that some persons of this community would like to
procure for me the insidious gift of the mayoralty," and he begs Albert to
turn aside this cup.]
3364 (return)
[ "Souvenirs de M.
Hua," 178-205. "M. P..., mayor of Crépy-au-Mont, knew how to restrain some
low fellows who would have been only too glad to revolutionize his
village.... And yet he was a republican.... One day, speaking of the
revolutionary system, he said: 'They always say that it will not hold on;
meanwhile, it sticks like lice.' "—"A general assembly of the
inhabitants of Coucy and its outskirts was held, in which everybody was
obliged to undergo an examination, stating his name, residence,
birth-place, present occupation, and what he had done during the
Revolution." Hua avoids telling that he had been a representative in the
Legislative Assembly, a recognized fact in the neighborhood: "Not a voice
was raised to compromise me."—Ibid., 183. (Reply of the Coucy
Revolutionary Committee to that of Meaux.)]
3365 (return)
[ "Frochot," by Louis
Passy, 175. (Letter of Pajot, member of the Revolutionary committee of
Troyes, Vendémiaire, year III.)—Archives Nationales, F.7, 4421.
(Register of the Revolutionary committee of Troyes.) Brumaire 27, year II.
Incarceration of various suspects, among others of "Lerouge, former
lawyer, under suspicion of having constantly and obstinately refused
revolutionary offices." Also, a person named Corps, for "having refused
the presidency of the district tribunal at the time of its organization,
under the pretext of consulting the Chambre des Comptes; also for being
the friend of suspects, and for having accepted office only after the
Revolution had assumed an imposing character."]
3366 (return)
[ Marcelin Boudet, "Les
conventionnels d'Auvergne," 161. (Justification of Etienne Bonarmé, the
last months of 1794.)]
3367 (return)
[ Pans, "Histoire de
Joseph Lebon," II., 92. (Declaration by Guérard, lawyer, appointed judge
at Cambrai, by the Cambrai Revolutionary committee.)—Ibid., 54.
(Declaration by Lemerre, appointed juryman without his knowledge, in the
Cambrai court.) "What was my surprise, I, who never was on a jury in my
life! The summons was brought to me at a quarter to eleven (à onze heur
moin un car—specimen of the orthography) and I had to go at eleven
without having time to say good-by to my family."]
3368 (return)
[ Report by Courtois on
the papers found in Robespierre's domicile, 370. (Letter of Maignet to
Payan, administrator of the department of Drôme, Germinal 20, year II.)
"You know the dearth of subjects here. .. Give me the names of a dozen
outspoken republicans... . If you cannot find them in this department
(Vaucluse) hunt for them either in the Drôme or the Isère, or in any
other. I should like those adapted to a revolutionary tribunal. I should
even like, in case of necessity, to have some that are qualified to act as
national agents."]
3369 (return)
[ Archives des Affaires
étrangères, vols. 322 to 334, and 1409 to 1411.—These agents reside
in Nîmes, Marseilles, Toulouse, Tarbes, Bordeaux, Auch, Rochefort, Brest,
Bergues, Givet, Metz, Thionville, Strasbourg, Colmar, Belfort and
Grenoble, and often betake themselves to towns in the vicinity.—The
fullest reports are those of Chepy, at Grenoble, whose correspondence is
worthy of publication; although an ultra Jacobin, he was brought before
the revolutionary Tribunal as a moderate, in Ventôse, year II. Having
survived (the Revolution) he became under the Empire a general commissary
of Police at Brest. Almost all of them are veritable Jacobins, absolutist
at bottom, and they became excellent despotic tools.]
3370 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XXX.,
425.—Twenty-four commissioners, drawn by lot from the Jacobins of
Paris, are associated with Collot d'Herbois. One of them, Marino, becomes
president of the temporary Committee of Surveillance, at Lyons. Another,
Parrien, is made president of the Revolutionary Committee.—Archives
Nationales, AF., II., 59. (Deliberations in the Paris Jacobin club,
appointing three of their number to go to Tonnerre and request the
Committee of Public Safety "to give them the necessary power, to use it as
circumstances may require, for the best good of the Republic." Frimaire 6,
year II.)—"Order of the Committee of Public Safety, allowing two
thousand francs to the said parties for their traveling expenses."—Archives
des Affaires Étrangères, vol. 333. The agents sent to Marseilles affix
their signatures, "sans-culottes, of Paris," and one of them, Brutus,
becomes president of the Marseilles revolutionary tribunal.]
3371 (return)
[ Archives Nationales,
AF., II., 49. Papers relating to the revolutionary tax of Belfort, giving
all the amounts and names. (Brumaire 30, year II.) Here is the formula:
"citizen X... (male or female) will pay in one hour the sum of—,
under penalty of being considered suspect and treated as such."—"Recueil
des Pièces Authentiques concernant la Révolution à Strasbourg," I., 128,
187. (Expressions of the representative Baudot in a letter dated Brumaire
29, year II.)]
3372 (return)
[ Archives Nationales:
the acts and letters of the representatives on mission are classed by
departments.—On the delegates of the representatives on mission, I
will cite but one text. (Archives des Affaires étrangères, vol. 333,
letter of Garrigues, Auch, Pluviôse 24, year II.): "A delegate of
Dartigoyte goes to l'Isle and, in the popular club, wants the curé of the
place to get rid of his priestly attributes. The man answers, so they tell
me, that he would cheerfully abstain from his duties, but that, if, in
addition to this, they used force he would appeal to the convention, which
had no idea of interfering with freedom of opinion. 'Very well,' replied
Dartigoyte emissary, 'I appeal to a gendarme,' and he at once ordered his
arrest."]
3373 (return)
[ Lallier, "Une
commission D'énquete et de Propagande," p.7. (It is composed of twelve
members, selected by the club of Nantes, who overrun the district of
Ancenis, six thousand francs of fees being allowed it.)—Babeau, II.,
280. (Dispatch of sixty commissioners, each at six francs a day by the
Troyes administration, to ascertain the state of the supplies on hand,
Prairial, year II.)]
3374 (return)
[ For example, at
Bordeaux and at Troyes.—Archives Nationales F7, 4421. Register of
the Revolutionary committee of Troyes, fol. 164. Two members of the
committee travel to the commune of Lusigny, dismiss the mayor and justice,
and appoint in the place of the latter "the former curé of the country,
who, some time ago, abjured sacerdotal fanaticism."—Archives des
Affaires étrangères, vol.332. (Letter of Desgranges, Bordeaux, Brumaire
15, year II.) The representatives have just instituted "a revolutionary
committee of surveillance composed of twelve members, selected with the
greatest circumspection. All the committees established in the department
are obliged to correspond with it, and fulfill its requisitions."]
3375 (return)
[ Archives Nationales,
AF., II, 58. (Letter of Javogues to Collot d'Herbois, Brumaire 28, year
II.)]
3376 (return)
[ "Recueil des Pièces
Authentiques," etc., I., 195. (Acts passed Jan.21, 1793.)]
3377 (return)
[ Archives des Affaires
étrangères, vol. 326. (Letters from Brutus, September 24; from
Topino-Lebrun, jr., September 25 and October 6, 1793.—Vol. 330.
Letters from Brutus, Nivôse 6, year II.) The character of the agent is
often indicated orthographically. For example, vol.334, letter from
Galon-Boyer, Brumaire 18, year II. "The public spirit is generally bad.
Those who claim to be patriots know no restraint. The rest are lethargic
and federalism appears innate."]
3378 (return)
[ Archives des Affaires
étrangères, vol.1411. (Letter of Haupt, Brumaire 26, year II.)—Vol.
333. (Letter of Blessman and Haüser, Pluviôse 4, year II.)]
3379 (return)
[ Archives des Affaires
étrangères, vol. 333. (Letter of Chartres and of Caillard, Cornmune
Aifranchie, Nivôse 21.)—Vol. 331. (Letters of Desgranges, at
Bordeaux, Brumaire 8 and Frimaire 3.) "The offerings in plate and coin
multiply indefinitely; all goes right. The court-martial has condemned
Dudon to death, son of the ex-procureur-général in the former parliament
at Bordeaux, Roullat, procureur-syndic of the department, Sallenave,
merchant. These executions excite sympathy, but nobody murmurs."]
3380 (return)
[ Ibid., vol. 333.
(Letter of Cuny, sr., Nivôse 20.) Vols. 331, 332. (Letters of Chepy,
passim, and especially those dated Frimaire II.)—Vol. 329. (Letter
of Chépy, August 24, 1793.) "At Annecy, the women have cut down the
liberty-pole and burnt the archives of the club and of the commune. At
Chambéry, the people wanted to do the same thing."—Ibid. (September
18, 1793.) "The inhabitants around Mont Blanc show neither spirit nor
courage; the truth is, an anti-revolutionary spirit animates all minds."—Ibid.
(Letter of August 8, 1793.) "Not only have the citizens of Grenoble, who
were drawn by lot, not set out on the expedition to Lyons, but, even of
those who have obeyed the laws, several have returned with their arms and
baggage. No commune between St. Laurent and Lyons would march. The rural
municipalities, badly tainted with the federal malady, ventured to give
the troops very bad quarters, especially those who had been drafted."]
3381 (return)
[ Ibid. (Letter of
Cuny, jr., Brest, Brumaire 6.) "There are, in general, very few patriots
at Brest; the inhabitants are nearly all moderates."—(Letter of
Gadolle, Dunkirk, July 26, 1793.)—(Letter of Simon, Metz, Nivôse,
year II.) "Yesterday, on the news of the capture of Toulon being announced
in the theatre,... I noticed that only about one-third of the spectators
gave way to patriotic enthusiasm; the other two-thirds remained cold, or
put on a long face."]
3382 (return)
[ Ibid. (Letter of
Haupt, Belfort, September 1, 1793.)]
3383 (return)
[ Report by Courtois on
the papers found in Robespierre's domicile, p. 274. (Letter of Darthé,
Ventôse 29, year II.)]
3384 (return)
[ "Tableau des Prisons
de Toulouse," by citizen Pescayre (published in year III.), p.101.]
3385 (return)
[ Archives Nationales,
F.7, 4421. (Register of the Revolutionary Committee, established at
Troyes, Brumaire II, year II.)—Albert Babeau, vol. II., passim.—Archives
des Affaires étrangères, vol. 332, Chépy (letter, Brumaire 6, Grenoble).
"The sections had appointed seven committees of surveillance. Although
weeded out by the club, they nevertheless alarmed the sans-culottes....
Representative Petit-Jean has issued an order, directing that there shall
be but one committee at Grenoble composed of twenty-one members. This
measure is excellent and ensures the triumph of sans-culotteism."—Archives
Nationales, F.7, 4434. (Letter of Pérrieu to Brissot, Bordeaux, March 9,
1793.) Before June 2, the national club "of Bordeaux, composed of
Maratists, did not comprise more than eight or ten individuals at most."—Moniteur,
XXII., 133. (Speech by Thibeaudeau on the popular club of Poitiers,
Vendémiaire II, year III.)—Ibid. (Session of Brumaire 5, year III.,
letter of Calès, and session of Brumaire 17, year III., report by Calès.)
"The popular club of Dijon made all neighboring administrative bodies,
citizens and districts tremble. All were subject to its laws, and three or
four men in it made them. This club and the municipality were one body."
"The Terror party does not exist here, or, if it does exist, it does not
amount to much: out of twenty thousand inhabitants there are not six who
can legitimately be suspected of belonging to it."]
3386 (return)
[ Baroly, "Les Jacobins
Demasqués," (IV. 8vo., of 8pp., year II). "The Jacobin club, with its four
hundred active members at Paris, and the four thousand others in the
provinces, not less devoted, represent the living force of the
Revolution."]
3387 (return)
[ Archives Nationales,
D. P I., 10. (Orders of representatives Delacroix, Louchet, and Legendre,
Nivôse 12, year II.) "On the petition of the Committee of Surveillance of
Evreux, which sets forth that all its members are without means, and that
it will be impossible for them to continue their duties since they are
without resources for supporting their families," the representatives
allow three of them two hundred and seventy francs each, and a fourth one
hundred and eighty francs, as a gratuity (outside of the three francs a
day.)]
3388 (return)
[ Ibid. AF., II., 111.
(Order of Albitte and La Porte, Prairial 18, year II.)]
3389 (return)
[ Albert Babeau, II.,
154-157.—Moniteur, XXII. 425. (Session of Brumaire 13, year III.
Speech by Cambon.) "A government was organized in which surveillance alone
cost 591 millions per annum. Every man who tilled the ground or worked in
a shop, at once abandoned his pursuit for a place on the Revolutionary
Committees... where he got five francs a day."]
3390 (return)
[ "Tableau des Prisons
de Toulouse," by citizen Pescare, 162, 166, 435.]
3391 (return)
[ Berryat Saint-Prix,
"La Justice Révolutionaire," (second edition) p. XIX.—Ibid., XIV. At
Rochefort there is on the revolutionary tribunal a mason, a shoemaker, a
caulker, and a cook; at Bordeaux, on the military commission, an actor, a
wine-clerk, a druggist, a baker, a journeyman-gilder, and later, a cooper
and a leather-dresser.]
3392 (return)
[ I heard these
expressions during my conversations with old peasants.—Archives
Nationales, AF.,II., 111. (Order of the Representative Ichon, Messidor 18,
year II.) "The popular club of Chinon will be immediately regenerated.
Citizens (I omit their names), the following showing their occupations:
shoemaker, policeman. sabot-maker, cooper, carter, shoemaker, joiner,
butcher carpenter and mason, will form the committee which is to do the
weeding-out and choose successors among those that offer to become members
of the club."? Ibid., D., PI, 10. (Orders of the Representatives
Delacroix, Louchet and Legendre, on mission in the department of
Seine-Inférieure for the purpose of removing, at Conchez, the entire
administration, and for forming there a new revolutionary committee, with
full powers, Frimaire 9, year II.) The members of the committee, the
nature of which is indicated, are two coopers, one gardener, two
carpenters, one merchant, a coach-driver and a tailor. (One finds in the
archives, in the correspondence of the representatives, plenty of orders
appointing authorities of the same sort.)]
3393 (return)
[ Albert Babeau, II.,
296.]
3394 (return)
[ The French text
reads: "Sa profession est fame de Paillot-Montabert; son revenu est vivre
de ses revenus; ces relation son d'une fame nous ny portons point
d'atantion; ces opignons nous les présumons semblable à ceux de son
mary."]
3395 (return)
[ Archives Nationales,
F7, 4421. Order of the Committee of Surveillance of the third section of
Troyes, refusing civic certificates to seventy-two persons, or sending
them before the central committee as "marchands d'argant, aristocrate,
douteux, modére, intrigant, egoiste fanatique. Fait et areté par nous,
membre du Comité."—Ib., Mémoire des Commissaires de la 5e seiscion
dite de la liberté nommé par le citoyen de Baris (Paris) pour faire les
visite de l'argenteri ché les citoyens de la liste fait par les citoyens
Diot et Bailly et Jaquin savoir depence du 13 et 14 et 15 Frimaire pour
leur nouriture du troyes jour monte à 24 fr.]
3396 (return)
[ Albert Babeau, II.,
154.]
3397 (return)
[ Archives Nationales,
D., PI, 5. (Mission of Representative Albert, in Aube and in Marne.)—These
notes are made on the spot, with a thorough knowledge of the situation, by
zealous republicans who are not without common-sense and of average
honesty, (chiefly in Pluviôse and Ventôse, year III).—Letter of
Albert to the directories of the two departments, Prairial 3, year II. "I
am satisfied, during the course of my mission, of the necessity of
reorganizing the municipalities throughout both departments."]
3398 (return)
[ Ibid. Orders of
Albert, Ventôse 5, and Pluviôse 29, year III., reorganizing the courts and
administrations in the districts of Ervy, Arcis and Nogent-sur-Seine, with
a tabular statement of the names of those removed and the reasons for so
doing.]
3399 (return)
[ Petition of Jean
Nicolas Antoine, former member of the Directory of the district of Troyes
for twenty-eight months. (Ventose 9, year II I.) Shut up in Troyes, he
asks permission to go to Paris, "I have a small lot of goods which it is
necessary for me to sell in Paris. It is my native town and I know more
people there than anywhere else."-Ibid. Information furnished on Antoine
by the Conseil-general of the Commune of Troyes.]
33100 (return)
[ Archives
Nationales, AF., II., 59. (Memorials dated Messidor 28, year II., by an
emissary of the Committee of Public Safety, sent to Troyes, Prairial 29,
to report on the situation of things and on the troubles in Troyes.)—Albert
Babeau, II., 203, 205 and 112, 122.—Cf. 179. "Gachez, intoxicated,
about eleven o'clock at night, with several women as drunk as himself,
compelled the keeper of the Temple of Reason to open the doors,
threatening him with the guillotine."—Ibid., 166. He addressed the
sans-culottes in the popular club: "Now is the time to put yourselves in
the place of the rich. Strike, and don't put it off!"—Ibid., 165."
42,633 livres were placed in the hands of Gachez and the committee, as
secret revolutionary service money.... Between December 4 and 10 Gachez
received 20,000 livres, in three orders, for revolutionary expenses and
provisional aid.... The leaders of the party disposed of these sums
without control and, it may be added, without scruple; Gachez hands over
only four thousand livres to the sectional poor-committee. On Nivôse 12,
there remains in the treasury of the poor fund only 3738 livres, 12 000
having been diverted or squandered."]
33101 (return)
[ "Frochot," by Louis
Passy, 172. (Letter of Pajot, member of the revolutionary committee of
Aignay-le-Duc.) "Denunciations occupied most of the time at our meetings,
and it is there that one could see the hatreds and vengeance of the
colleagues who ruled us."]
33102 (return)
[ Archives
Nationales, D., P I, No.4. The following is a sample among others of the
impositions of the revolutionary committees. (Complaint of Mariotte,
proprietor, former mayor of Chatillon-sur-Seine, Floréal 27, year II.) "On
Brumaire 23, year II., I was stopped just as I was taking post at Mussy,
travelling on business for the Republic, and provided with a commission
and passport from the Minister of war.... I was searched in the most
shameful manner; citizen Ménétrier, member of the committee, used towards
me the foulest language.... I was confined in a tavern; instead of two
gendarmes which would have been quite sufficient to guard me, I had the
whole brigade, who passed that night and the next day drinking, until, in
wine and brandy the charge against me in the tavern amounted to sixty
francs. And worse still, two members of the same committee passed a night
guarding me and made me pay for it. Add to this, they said openly before
me that I was a good pigeon to pluck. ... They gave me the escort of a
state criminal of the highest importance, three national gendarmes,
mounted, six National Guards, and even to the Commandant of the National
Guard; citizen Mièdan, member of the revolutionary committee, put himself
at the head of the cortege, ten men to conduct one!.... I was obliged to
pay my torturers, fifty francs to the commandant, and sixty to his men."]
33103 (return)
[ Moniteur, XXI.,
261. (Speech by an inhabitant of Troyes in the Jacobin Club, Paris,
Messidor 26, year II.)]
33104 (return)
[ Albert Babeau, II.,
164. (Depositions of the tavern-keeper and of the commissioner, Garnier.)]
33105 (return)
[ "Frochot," by Louis
Passy, 170, 172. (Letter by Pajot and petition of the Aignay municipality,
March 10, 1795.)—Bibliotheque Nationale, L., 41. No.1802.
(Denunciation by six sections of the commune of Dijon to the National
Convention.)]
33106 (return)
[ "Recueil de Pièces
Authentiques sur la Révolution de Strasbourg," I., 187, and letter of
Burger, Thermidor 25, year II.]
33107 (return)
[ Archives
Nationales, D., P I, 6 (file 37)—Letter of the members of the
Strasbourg revolutionary committee, Ventôse 13, year III., indicating to
the mayor and municipal officers of Chalons-sur-Marne certain Jacobins of
the town as suitable members of the Propaganda at Strasbourg.]
33108 (return)
[ "Recueil de Pièces
Authentiques concernant la Révolution à Strasbourg," I.,71. Deposition of
the recorder Weis on the circuit of the Revolutionary Tribunal, composed
of Schneider, Clavel and Taffin. "The judges never left the table without
having become intoxicated with everything of the finest, and, in this
state, they gathered in the tribunal and condemned the accused to death."—Free
living and "extravagant expenditure" were common even "among the employees
of the government." "I encountered," says Meissner, "government carters
served with chickens, pastry and game, whilst at the traveler's table
there was simply an old leg of mutton and a few poor side-dishes."
("Voyage en France," toward the end of 1795, p.371.)]
33109 (return)
[ Some of them,
nevertheless, are not ugly, but merely sots. The following is a specimen.
A certain Velu, a born vagabond, formerly in the alms-house and brought up
there, then a shoemaker or a cobbler, afterwards teaching school in the
faubourg de Vienne, and at last a haranguer and proposer of tyrannicide
motions, short, stout and as rubicund as his cap, is made President of the
Popular club at Blois, then delegate for domiciliary visits, and,
throughout the reign of Terror, he is a principal personage in the town,
district and department. (Dufort de Cheverney, "Mémoires," (MS.) March 21,
1793 and June, 1793.) In June, 1793, this Velu is ordered to visit the
chateau de Cheverney, to verify the surrender of all feudal documents. He
arrives unexpectedly, meets the steward, Bambinet, enters the mayor's
house, who keeps an inn, and drinks copiously, which gives Bambinet time
to warn M. Dufort de Cheverney and have the suspicious registers
concealed.—This done, "Velu is obliged to leave his bottle and march
to the chateau.—He assumed haughtiness and aimed at familiarity; he
would put his hand on his breast and, taking yours, address you: "Good
day, brother."—He came there at nine o'clock in the morning,
advanced, took my hand and said: "Good-day, brother, how are you?" "Very
well, citizen, and how are you?" "You do not tutoyer—you are not up
to the Revolution?"We'll see—will you step in the parlor?" "Yes,
brother, I'll follow you."—We enter; he sees my wife who, I may say,
has an imposing air. He boldly embraces her and, repeating his gesture on
the breast, takes her hand and says: "Good-day, sister." "Come," I
interpose, "let us take breakfast, and, if you please, you shall dine with
me." "Yes, but on one condition, that tu me tutoie." "I will try, but I am
not in the habit of it." After warming up his intellect and heart with a
bottle of wine, we get rid of him by sending him to inspect the
archives-room, along with my son and Bambinet. It is amusing, for he can
only read print... Bambinet, and the procureur, read the titles aloud, and
pass over the feudalisms. Velu does not notice this and always tells them
to go on.—After an hour, tired out, he comes back: "All right," he
says, "now let me see your chateau, which is a fine one." He had heard
about a room where there were fantocini, in the attic. He goes up, opens
some play-books, and, seeing on the lists of characters the name of King
and Prince, he, says to me: "You must scratch those out, and play only
republican pieces." The descent is by a back-stairs. On the way down he
encounters a maid of my wife's, who is very pretty; he stops and,
regarding my son, says: "You must as a good Republican, sleep with that
girl and marry her." I look at him and reply: "Monsieur Velu, listen; we
are well behaved here, and such language cannot be allowed. You must
respect the young people in my house." A little disconcerted, he tames
down and is quite deferential to Madame de Cheverney.—"You have pen
and ink on your table," he says, "bring them here." "What for," I ask, "to
take my inventory?" "No, but I must make a procès-verbal. You help me; it
will be better for you, as you can fix it to suit you" This was not badly
done, to conceal his want of knowledge.—We go in to dinner. My
servants waited on the table; I had not yielded to the system of a general
table for all of us, which would not have pleased my servants any more
than myself. Curiosity led them all to come in and see us dining together.—"Brother,"
says Velu to me, "don't these people eat with you?" (He saw the table set
for only four persons.) I reply: "Brother, that would not be any more
agreeable to them than to myself. Ask them."—He ate little, drank
like an ogre, and was talkative about his amours; getting carried away he
got so close to being naughty that he upset my wife, without actually
going to far. Apropos of the Revolution, and the danger we incurred, he
said innocently: "Don't I run as much risk as anybody? It is my opinion
that, in three months, I shall have my head off! But we must all take our
chance!"—Now and then, he indulged in sans-culottisms. He seized the
servant's hand, who changed his plate: "Brother, I beg you to take my
place, and let me wait on you in my turn "—He drank the cordials,
and finally left, pleased with his reception.—Returning to the inn,
he stays until nine o'clock at night and stuffs himself, but is not
intoxicated. One bottle had no effect on him; he could empty a cask and
show no signs of it.]
33110 (return)
[ Moniteur, XXII.,
425. (Session of Brumaire 13, year III.) Cambon, in relation to the
revolutionary committees, says: "I would observe to the Assembly that they
were never paid." A member replies: "They took their pay themselves."
("Yes, yes."—Applause.)]
33111 (return)
[ Moniteu, XXII.,
711. (Report by Cambon, Frimaire 6, year III.)—Cambon stated,
indeed, Frimaire 26, year II., (Moniteur, XVIII., 680), concerning these
taxes "Not one word, not one sou has yet reached the Treasury; they want
to override the Convention which made the Revolution."]
33112 (return)
[ Ibid., 720. "The
balances reported, of which the largest portion is already paid into the
vaults of the National Treasury, amount to twenty millions one hundred and
sixty-six thousand three hundred and thirty livres."—At Paris,
Marseilles, and Bordeaux, in the large towns where tens of millions were
raised in three-quarters of the districts, Cambon, three months after
Thermidor, could not yet obtain, I will not say the returns, but a
statement of the sums raised. The national agents either did not reply to
him, or did it vaguely, or stated that in their districts there was
neither civic donation nor revolutionary tax, and particularly at
Marseilles, where a forced loan had been made of four millions.—Cf.
De Martel, "Fouché," P.245. (Memorial of the central administration of
Nièvre, Prairial 19, year III.) "The account returned by the city of
Nevers amounts to eighty thousand francs, the use of which has never been
verified.... This tax, in part payment of the war subsidy, was simply a
trap laid by the political actors in order to levy a contribution on
honest, credulous citizens."—Ibid., 217. On voluntary gifts and
forced taxation cf. at Nantes, the use made of revolutionary taxes,
brought out on the trial of the revolutionary committee.]
33113 (return)
[ Ludovic Sciout,
IV., 19. Report of Representative Becker. (Journal des Débats et Décrets,
p.743, Prairial, year III.) He returns from a mission to Landau and
renders an account of the executions committed by the Jacobin agents in
the Rhenish provinces. They levied taxes, sword in hand, and threatened
the refractory with the guillotine at Strasbourg. The receipts which
passed under the reporter's eyes "presented the sum of three millions
three hundred and forty-five thousand seven hundred and eighty-five
livres, two deniers, whilst our colleague, Cambon, reports only one
hundred and thirty-eight thousand paid in."]
33114 (return)
[ Moniteur, XXII.,
754. (Report of Grégoire, Frimaire 24, year III.) "Rascallery—this
word recalls the old revolutionary committees, most of which formed the
scum of society and which showed so many aptitudes for the double function
of robber and persecutor."]
33115 (return)
[ Archives
Nationales, AF., II., 107. (Orders of Representatives Ysabeau and Tallien,
Bordeaux, Brumaire 11 and 17, year II.)—Third order, promulgated by
the same parties, Frimaire 2, year II., replacing this committee by
another of twelve members and six deputies, each at two hundred francs a
month. Fourth order, Pluviôse 16, year II., dismissing the members of the
foregoing committee, as exagérés and disobedient. It is because they
regard their local royalty in quite a serious light.-Ibid., AF., II., 46.
("Extracts from the minutes of the meetings of the revolutionary committee
of Bordeaux," Prairial, year II.) This extract, consisting of eighteen
pages, shows in detail the inside workings of a revolutionary committee
the number of arrested goes on increasing; on the 27th of Prairial there
are 1524. The committee is essentially a police office; it delivers
certificates of civism, issues warrants of arrest, corresponds with other
committees, even very remote, at Limoges, and Clermont-Ferrand, delegates
any of its members to make investigations or domicialiary searches, to
affix seals, and it receives and transmits denunciations, summons the
denounced to appear before it, reads interrogations, writes to the
Committee of Public Safety, etc. The following are samples of its warrants
of arrest: "Muller, a riding-master, will be confined in the former Petit
Seminaire, under suspicion of aristocracy, according to public opinion."—Another
example, (Archives Nationales, F.7, 2475. Register of the procès-verbaux
of the revolutionary committee of the Piques section, Paris, June 3,
1793.) Warrant of arrest against Boucher, grocer, rue Neuve du Luxembourg,
"suspect" of incivisme and "having cherished wicked and perfidious
intentions against his wife." Boucher, arrested, declares that, "what he
said and did in his own house, concerned nobody but himself." On which he
was led to prison.]
33116 (return)
[ Archives
Nationales, AF., II., 30 (No.105). Examination of Jean Davilliers, and
other ransomed parties.]
33117 (return)
[ Berryat Saint-Prix,
313. (Trial of Lacombe and his accomplices after Thermidor.)]
33118 (return)
[ Archives
Nationales, AF., II., 46. (Letter of Julien to the Committee of Public
Safety, Bordeaux, Messidor 12, year II.)—Moniteur, XXII., 713.
(Report by Cambon, Frimaire 6, year III.) At Verins, citizens were
imprisoned and then set at liberty "on consideration of a fee."—Albert
Babeau, II., 164, 165, 206. (Report by Cambon, Frimaire 6, year II.)
"Citoyenne (madame) Deguerrois, having come to procure the release of her
husband, a public functionary demanded of her ten thousand livres, which
he reduced to six thousand for doing what she desired."—"One
document attests that Massey paid two thousand livres, and widow Delaporte
six hundred livres, to get out of prison."]
33119 (return)
[ Mallet-Dupan,
"First letter to a Genoa merchant," (March I, 1796), pp.33-35. "One of the
wonders of the reign of Terror is the slight attention given to the
trafficking in life and death, characteristic of terrorism.... We scarcely
find a word on the countless bargains through which 'suspect' citizens
bought themselves out of captivity, and imprisoned citizens bought off the
guillotine. ... Dungeons and executions were as much matters of trade as
the purchase of cattle at a fair." This traffic "was carried on in all the
towns, bourgs and departments surrendered to the Convention and
Revolutionary Committees.".... "It has been established since the 10th of
August." "I will only cite among a multitude of instances the unfortunate
Duc du Châtelet: never did anybody pay more for his execution!"—Wallon,
"Histoire du Tribunal Revolutionnaire de Paris," VI., 88. (Denunciation of
Fouquier-Tinville, signed Saulnie.) According to Saulnie he dined
regularly twice a week at No 6 rue Serpente, with one Demay, calling
himself a lawyer and living with a woman named Martin. In this death-trap,
in the middle of orgies, the freedom or death of those in prison was
bargained for in money with impunity. One head alone, belonging to the
house of Boufflers, escaping the scaffold through the intrigues of these
vampires, was worth to them thirty thousand livres, of which one thousand
were paid down and a bond given for the rest, payable on being set at
liberty.—Morellet, "Memoires," II., 32. The agent of Mesdames de
Bouffiers was Abbé Chevalier, who had formerly known Fouquier-Tinville in
the office of a procureur an Parliament and who, renewing the
acquaintance, came and drank with Fouquier. "He succeeded in having the
papers of the ladies Bouffiers, which were ready to be sent to the
Tribunal, placed at the bottom of the file."—Mallet-Dupan, "
Memoires," II., 495. "Fouquier-Tinville received a pension of one thousand
crowns a month from Mesdames de Bouffiers; the ransom increased one
quarter each month on account of the atrocity of the circumstances. This
method saved these ladies, whilst those who paid a sum in gross lost their
lives... It was Du Vaucel, fermier-general, who saved the Princess of
Tarente....for five hundred louis, after having saved two other ladies for
three hundred louis, given to one of the Jacobin leaders."]
33120 (return)
[ "Tableau des
Prisons de Toulouse," 324. Coudert, of the Municipal Council, shoemaker,
charged with the duty of taking silver-plate from the accused, did not
know how, or was unwilling, to draw up any other than an irregular and
valueless procès-verbal. On this, an accused party objected and refused to
sign. "Take care, you," exclaims Coudert in a rage, "with your damned
cleverness, you are playing the stubborn. You are nothing but a bloody
fool! You are getting into a bad box! If you don't sign, I'll have you
guillotined." Frequently, there are no papers at all. (De Martel,
"Fouché," p.236. Memorial by the authorities of Allier, addressed to the
Convention, document 9.) October 30, 1793. Order of the revolutionary
committee enjoining nocturnal visits in all "suspect" houses in Moulins,
to remove all gold, silver and copper. "Eleven parties are made up.. ..
each to visit eight or ten houses. Each band is headed by one of the
committee, with one municipal officer, accompanied by locksmiths and a
revolutionary guard. The dwellings of the accused and other private
individuals are searched. They force secretaries and wardrobes of which
they do not find the keys. They pillage the gold and silver coin. They
carry off plate, jewels, copper utensils and other effects, bed-clothes,
docks, vehicles, etc. No receipt is given. No statement is made of what is
carried off. They rest content by at the end of the month, reporting, in a
sort of procès-verbal drawn up at a meeting of the committee, that,
according to returns of the visits made, very little plate was found, and
only a little money in gold and silver, all without any calculation or
enumeration."—"Souvenirs et Journal d'un Bourgeois d'Evreux," p.93.
(February 25, 1795.) The meetings of the popular club "were largely
devoted to reading the infamous doings and robberies of the revolutionary
committee.... The members who designated 'suspects' often arrested them
themselves, and drew up a procès-verbal in which they omitted to state the
jewels and gold they found."]
33121 (return)
[ Ibid., 461.
(Vendemaire 24, year III. Visit of Representative Malarmé.) The former Duc
de Narbonne-Lorra aged eighty-four, says to Malarmé: "Citizen
representative, excuse me if I keep my cap on; I lost my hair in that
prison, without having been able to get permission to have a wig made; it
is worse than being robbed on the road." "Did they steal anything from
you?" "They stole one hundred and forty five louis d'or and paid me with
an acquittance for a tax for the sans-culottes, which is another robbery
done to the citizens of this commune where I have neither home nor
possessions." "Who committed this robbery?" "It was Citizen Berger, of the
municipal council." "Was nothing else taken from you?" "They took a silver
coffee-pot, two soap-cases and a silver shaving-dish" "Who took those
articles?" "It was Citizen Miot (a notable of the council)." Miot
confesses to having kept these objects and not taken them to the
Mint.-Ibid., 178. (Ventôse 20, year II.) Prisoners all have their shoes
taken, even those who had but one pair, a promise being made that they
should have sabots in exchange, which they never got. Their cloaks also
were taken with a promise to pay for them, which was never done.—"Souvenirs
et Journal d'un Bourgeois d'Evreux," p.92. (February 25, 1795.) "The
sessions of the popular club were largely devoted to reading the infamies
and robberies of the revolutionary committee. Its members, who designated
the suspects, often arrested them themselves; they made levies and reports
of these in which they omitted the gold and jewels found."]
33122 (return)
[ Moniteur, XXII.
133. (Session of Vendémiaire II, year III.) Report by Thibaudeau. "These
seven individuals are reprobates who were dismissed by the people's
representatives for having stolen the effects of persons arrested. A
document is on record in which they make a declaration that, not
remembering the value of the effects embezzled, they agree to pay damages
to the nation of twenty-two francs each."]
33123 (return)
[ Berryat Saint-Prix,
447. Judge Ragot was formerly a joiner at Lyons, and Viot, the public
prosecutor, a former deserter from the Penthièvre regiment. "Other accused
persons were despoiled. Little was left them other than their clothes,
which were in a bad state. Nappier, the bailiff, was, later, (Messidor,
year III.), condemned to irons for having appropriated a part of the
effects, jewels and assignats belonging to persons under accusation."]
33124 (return)
[ The words of
Camille Desmoulins in "La France Libre," (August, 1782).]
33125 (return)
[ De Martel,
"Fouché," 362.-Ibid.,, 132, 162, 179, 427, 443.—Lecarpentier, in La
Manche, constantly stated: "Those who do not like the Revolution, must pay
those who make it."]
33126 (return)
[ Marcelin Boudet,
175. (Address of Monestier to the popular clubs of Puy-de-Dome, February
23, 1793.)]
33127 (return)
[ Alexandrine des
Echerolles, "Une famille noble sous la Terreur."]
33128 (return)
[ Archives
Nationales, AF., II., 65. (Letter of General Kermorvan to the president of
the committee of Public Safety, Valenciennes, Fructidor 12, year III.)]
33129 (return)
[ Report by Courtois,
"Sur les papiers de Robespierre," (Pieces justificatives, pp. 312-324),
Letters of Reverchon, Germinal 29, Floréal 7 and 23, and by La Porte,
Germinal 24, year II.]
33130 (return)
[ Ibid. Letter by La
Porte "I do not know what fatality induces patriots here not to tolerate
their brethren whom they call strangers ... They have declared to us that
they would not suffer any of them to hold office." The representatives
dared arrest but two robbers and despoilers, who are now free and
declaiming against them at Paris. "Countless grave and even atrocious
circumstances are daily presented to us on which we hesitate to act, lest
we should strike patriots, or those who call themselves such... Horrible
depredations are committed."]
33131 (return)
[ Ibid. Letter by
Reverchon: "These fanatics all want the Republic simply for
themselves."... "They call themselves patriots only to cut the throats of
their brethren and get rich."—Guillon de Montléon, "Histoire de la
ville de Lyons Pendant la Révolution III.", 166. (Report by Fouché, April,
1794.) "Innocent persons, acquitted by the terrible tribunal of the
Revolutionary committee, were again consigned to the dungeons of criminals
through the despotic orders of the thirty-two committees, because they
were so unfortunate as to complain that, on returning home, they could not
find the strictly necessary objects they had left there."]
33132 (return)
[ Meissner, "Voyage
en France dans les Derniers Mois de 1795," p.343. "A certain domain was
handed over to one of their creatures by the revolutionary departments for
almost nothing, less than the proceeds of the first cut of wood."—Moniteur,
XXIII., 397. (Speech by Bourdon de l'Oise, May 6, 1795.) "A certain farmer
paid for his farm worth five thousand francs by the sale of one horse."]
33133 (return)
[ Moniteur, XXII.,
82. (Report by Grégoire, Fructidor 14, year II.) Ibid., 775. (Report by
Grégoire, Frimaire 24, year III.)]
33134 (return)
[ "Recueil de Pièces
Authentiques sur la Révolution à Strasbourg," II., p. I. (Procès-verbal,
drawn up in the presence of the elder Mouet and signed by him.)]
33135 (return)
[ Moniteur, XXII.,
775. (Report of Grégoire, Frimaire 24, year III.)—Ibid., 711.
(Report by Cambon, Frimaire 6, year III.)—Archives Nationales, AF.,
II., 65. (Letter of General Kermorvan, Valenciennes, Fructidor 12, year
III.)]
33136 (return)
[ "Tableau des
Prisons de Toulouse," 184. (Visit of Ventôse 27, year II.)]
33137 (return)
[ Archives
Nationales, F.7, 7164. (Department of Var "Ideé générale et appréciation
avec détails sur chaque canton," year V.)]
33138 (return)
[ Ibid., F.7, 7171
(No. 7915).—(Department of Bouches-du-Rhône, "Ideé générale," year
V.)—(Letters of Miollis, commissioner of the Directory in the
department, Ventôse 14 and 16, year V. Letter of Gen. Willot to the
Minister, Ventôse 10, and of Gen. Merle to Gen. Willot, Ventôse 17, year
V.) "Several sections of anarchists travel from one commune to another
exciting weak citizens to riots and getting them to take part in the
horrors they are meditating."—Ibid., F 7, 7164. Letter of Gen.
Willot to the Minister, Aries, Pluviôse 12, year V., with supporting
documents, and especially a letter of the director of the jury, on the
violence committed by, and the reign of, the Jacobins in Aries.) Their
party "is composed of the vilest artisans and nearly all the sailors." The
municipality recruited amongst former terrorists, "has enforced for a year
back the agrarian law, devastation of the forests, pillage of the
wheat-crops, by bands of armed men under pretext of the right of gleaning,
the robbery of animals at the plough as well as of the flocks," etc.]
33139 (return)
[ Ibid., F.7, 7171.
"These commissioners (of the quarter) notify the exclusives, and even
swindlers, when warrants are out against them.... The same measures
carried out in the primary assemblies on the 1st of Thermidor last, in the
selection of municipal officers, have been successfully revived in the
organization of the National Guard—threats, insults, shouting,
assaults, compulsory ejection from meetings then governed by the
amnestied, finally, the appointment of the latter to the principal
offices. In effect, all, beginning with the places of battalion leaders
and reaching to those of corporals, are exclusively filled by their
partisans. The result is that the honest, to whom serving with men
regarded by them with aversion is repugnant, employ substitutes instead of
mounting guard themselves, the security of the town being in the hands of
those who themselves ought to be watched."]
33140 (return)
[ Archives
Nationales, F.7, 3273. (Letter of Mérard, former administrator and judge
in 1790 and 1791, in years III., IV. and V., to the Minister, Apt,
Pluviôse 15, year III., with personal references and documentary
evidence.) "I can no longer refrain at the sight of so many horrors....
The justices of the peace and the director of the jury excuse themselves
on the ground that no denunciations or witnesses are brought forward. Who
would dare appear against men arrogating to themselves the title of
superior patriots, foremost in every revolutionary crisis, and with
friends in every commune and protectors in all high places? The favor they
enjoyed was such that the commune of Gordes was free of any levy of
conscripts and from all requisitions. People thus disposed, they said, to
second civic and administrative views, could not be humored too much.....
This discouraging state of things simply results from the weakness,
inexperience, ignorance, apathy and immorality of the public functionaries
who, since the 18th of Fructidor, year V., swarm, with a few exceptions
only, among the constituted authorities. Whatever is most foul and
incompetent is in office, every good citizen being frightened to death."—Ibid.
(Letter of Montauban, director of the registry since 1793 to the Minister
of the Interior, a compatriot, Avignon, Pluviôse 7, year VII.) "Honest
folks are constantly annoyed and put down by the authors and managers of
the 'Glaciere'.... . by the tools of the bloody tribunal of Orange and the
incendiaries of Bedouim." He enjoins secrecy on this letter, which, "if
known to the Glacièrists, or Orangeists, would cost him his life."]
33141 (return)
[ Ibid., F.7, 7164.
(Department of Var, year V., "Ideé Générale.") "National character is
gone; it is even demoralized: an office-holder who has not made his
fortune quickly is regarded as a fool."]
33142 (return)
[ Moniteur, XXII.,
240. (Indictment of the fourteen members of the Revolutionary committee of
Nantes, and the summing-up of the examination, Vendémiaire 23, year II.)
When there is no special information concerning the other committees the
verdict, on the whole, is nearly always as overwhe1ming.-Ibid. (Session of
Vendémiaire 12, year III. complaint of a deputation from Ferney-Voltaire.)
"The Gex district was, for over a year, a prey to five or six scoundrels
who took refuge there. Under the mask of patriotism they succeeded in
getting possession of all the offices. Vexations of every kind, robberies
of private houses, squandering of public money, were committed by these
monsters." (The Ferney deputies brought with them the testimony of
witnesses.)—Ibid., 290. (Letters of Representative Goupilleau,
Beziers, Vendémiaire 28, year III. on the terrorists of Vaucluse.) "These
carnivorous fellows, regretting the times when they could rob and massacre
with impunity.... Who, six months ago, were starving and who now live in
the most scandalous opulence... Squanderers of the public funds, robbers
of private fortunes... Guilty of rapine, of forced contributions, of
extortions," etc.—Prudhomme, "Les crimes de la Révolution," VI., 79.
(On the Revolutionary committee installed by Fouché at Nevers.) The local
investigation shows that the eleven leaders were men of vile character,
unfrocked and disreputable priests, lawyers and notaries driven out of
their professional bodies, and even from the popular clubs, on account of
their dishonesty, penniless actors, surgeons without patients, depraved,
ruined, incapable men, and two jail-birds.]
33143 (return)
[ Beaulieu, III.,
754.—Cf. "The Revolution," vol. II., ch. I., P 9.]
33144 (return)
[ "Recueil de pièces
authentiques sur la Révolution à Strasbourg," I., 21.—Archives
Nationales D., I., P 6. (Orders by Rousselin, Frimaire II, year II.)]
33145 (return)
[ "Un Sejour en
France de 1792 à 1795," p.409.]
33146 (return)
[ I have not found a
complete list of the towns and departments which had a revolutionary army.
The correspondence of representatives on mission and published documents
verify the presence of revolutionary armies in the towns mentioned.]
33147 (return)
[ De Martel,
"Fouché," 338. (Text of the orders of the commissioners of Public Safety.)
The detachment sent to Lyons comprises twelve hundred fusiliers, six
hundred gunners, one hundred and fifty horses. Three hundred thousand
livres are remitted as traveling expenses to the commissary, fifty
thousand to Collot d'Herbois, and nineteen thousand two hundred to the
Jacobin civilians accompanying them.]
33148 (return)
[ Moniteur. (Session
of Brumaire 17 year III.) Letter of Representative Calès to the
Convention. "Under the pretext of guarding the prisons, the municipality
(of Dijon) had a revolutionary army which I broke up two days ago, as it
cost six thousand francs a month, and would not obey the commander of the
armed force, and served as a support to intriguers. These soldiers, who
were all workmen out of employment, do nothing but post themselves in the
tribunes of the clubs, where they, with the women they bring along with
them, applaud the leaders, and so threaten citizens who are disposed to
combat them, and force these to keep their mouths shut."??De Martel,
"Fouché," 425. "Javogues, to elude a decree of the Convention (Frimaire
14) suppressing the revolutionary army in the departments, converted the
twelve hundred men he had embodied in it in the Loire into paid
soldiers."? Ibid., 132. (Letter of Goulin, Bourg, Frimaire 23.)
"Yesterday, at Bourg-Régeriéré, I found Javogues with about four hundred
men of the revolutionary army whom he had brought with him on the 20th
instant."]
33149 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXIX., 45.—Moniteur, XX., 67. (Report of Barère, Germinal 7.)—Sauzay,
IV., 303. (Orders of Representative Bassal at Bésançon.)]
33150 (return)
[ We see by Barère's
report (Germinal 7, year II.) that the revolutionary army of Paris,
instead of being six thousand men, was only four thousand, which is
creditable to Paris.—Mallet-Dupan, II., 52. (cf. "The Revolution,"
II., 353.)—Gouvion St. Cyr, I., 137. "In these times, the
representatives had organized in Haut-Rhin what they called a
revolutionary army, composed of deserters and all the vagabonds and scamps
they could pick up who had belonged to the popular club; they dragged
along after it what they called judges and a guillotine."—"Hua,
Souvenirs d'un Avocat," 196.]
33151 (return)
[ Riouffe, "Memoires
d'un deténue." P.31.]
33152 (return)
[ Ibid., "These balls
were brought out ostentatiously and shown to the people beforehand. The
tying of our hands and passing three ropes around our waists did not seem
to him sufficient. We kept these irons on the rest of the route, and they
were so heavy that, if the carriage had tilted to one side, we should
inevitably have had our legs broken. The gate-keepers of the conciergerie
of Paris, who had held their places nine-teen years, were astonished at
it."]
33153 (return)
[ Archives des
Affaires étrangères, vol.331. (Letter of Haupt, Belfort, Frimaire 13, year
II.)]
33154 (return)
[ Ibid. (Letter by
Desgranges, Bordeaux, Frimaire 10.)]
33155 (return)
[ Ibid., vol.332.
(Letter of Thiberge, Marseilles, Frimaire 14.) "I surrounded the town with
my small army."]
33156 (return)
[ Ibid., 331. (Orders
of Representative Bassal, Besançon Frimaire 5.) "No citizen shall keep in
his house more than four months' supplies.... Every citizen with more than
this will deposit the surplus in the granary 'd'abondance' provided for
the purpose... . Immediately on receipt of the present order, the
municipality will summon all citizens that can thresh and proceed
immediately, without delay, to the threshing-ground, under penalty of
being prosecuted as refractory to the law.... The revolutionary army is
specially charged with the execution of the articles of this order, and
the revolutionary tribunals, following this army with the enforcement of
the penalties inflicted according to this order."—Other documents
show us that the revolutionary army, organized in the department of Doubs
and in the five neighboring departments, comprises, in all, two thousand
four hundred men. (Ibid., vol., 1411. Letter of Meyenfeld to Minister
Desforges, Brumaire 27, year II.)—Archives Nationales, AF., II.,
111. (Order of Couthon, Maignet, Chateauneuf, Randon, La Porte and
Albitte, Commune-Affranchie, Brumaire 9, year II., establishing in the ten
surrounding departments a revolutionary army of one thousand men per
department, for the conscription of grain. Each army is to be directed by
commissioners, strangers to the department, and is to operate in other
departments than in the one where it is raised.)]
33157 (return)
[ Archives des
Affaires étrangères, 331. (Letter of Chépy, Frimaire II.)—Writing
one month before this, (Brumaire 6) he says: "The farmers show themselves
very hostile against the towns and the law of the maximum. Nothing can be
done without a revolutionary army."]
33158 (return)
[ Mercier, "Paris
Pendant la Révolution," I., 357.]
33159 (return)
[ Hua, 197. I do not
find in any printed or manuscript document but one case of resistance,
that of the brothers Chaperon, in the hamlet of Leges, near Sens, who
declare that they have no wheat except for their own use, and who defend
themselves by the use of a gun. The gendarmerie not being strong enough to
overcome them, the tocsin is sounded and the National Guard of Sens and
the neighborhood is summoned; bringing cannon, the affair ends with the
burning of the house. The two brothers are killed. Before being overcome,
however, they had struck down the captain of the National Guard of Sens
and killed or wounded nearly forty of their assailants. A surviving
brother and a sister are guillotined. (June, 1794. Wallon, IV., 352.)]
33160 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVIII.,
663. (Session of Frimaire 24, report by Lecointre.) "The communes of
Thieux, Jully and many others were victims to their brigandage."—"The
stupor in the country is such that the poor sufferers dare not complain of
these vexations because, they say, they are only too lucky to have escaped
with their lives."—This time, however, these public brigands made a
mistake. Gibbon's son happens to be Lecointre's tenant farmer. Moreover,
it is only accidentally that he mentions the circumstance to his landlord;
"he came to see him for another purpose."—Cf. "The Revolution," vol.
II., 302. (There is a similar scene in the house of one Ruelle, a farmer,
in the commune of Lisse.)]
33161 (return)
[ Passim Alfred
Lallier, "Le sans-culotte Goullin."—Wallon, "Histoire du Tribunal
révolutionnaire de Paris," V., 368. (Deposition of Lacaille.)—In
addition to this, the most extraordinary monsters are met with in other
administrative bodies, for example, in Nantes, a Jean d'Héron, tailor, who
becomes inspector of military stores. "After the rout at Clisson, says the
woman Laillet, he appeared in the popular club with a brigand's ear
attached to his hat by way of cockade. His pockets were full of ears,
which he took delight in making the women kiss. He exposed other things
which he made them kiss and the woman Laillet adds certain details which I
dare not transcribe." (" Le patriote d'Héron," by L. de la Sicotière, pp.9
and 10. Deposition of the woman Laillet, fish-dealer, also the testimony
of Mellinet, vol. VIII., p.256.)]
33162 (return)
[ Wallon, V., 368.
(Deposition of de Laillet.)]
33163 (return)
[ Ibid., V., 37'.
(Deposition of Tabouret.)]
33164 (return)
[ Ibid., V., 373.
(Deposition of Mariotte.)]
33165 (return)
[ Monieur, XXII.,
321. (Deposition of Philippe Troncjolly.)—Berryat Saint-Prix, "La
Justice Révolutionnaire," 39.]
33166 (return)
[ Campardon,
"Histoire du Tribunal Révolutionnaire," II., 30. They have ten francs a
day, and full powers conferred on them. (Orders of Carrier and Francastel,
October 28, 1793.) "The representatives.... confer collectively and
individually, on each member of the revolutionary company, the right of
surveillance over all 'suspect' citizens in Nantes, over strangers who
come to or reside there, over monopolists of every sort.... The right to
make domiciliary visits wherever they may deem it advisable.... The armed
force will everywhere respond to the demands made upon it in the name of
the company, or of any individual member composing it."—Berryat
Saint-Prix, p. 42.—Alfred Lallier, "Les Noyades de Nantes," p.20.
(Deposition of Gauthier.) Ibid., p.22. "Damn," exclaims Carrier, "I kept
that execution for Lamberty. I'm sorry that it was done by others."]
33167 (return)
[ Alfred Lallier,
ibid., pp.21 and 90.—Cf. Moniteur, XXII., 331. (Deposition of
Victoire Abraham.) "The drowners made quite free with the women, even
using them for their own purposes when pleased with them, which women, in
token of their kindness, enjoyed the precious advantage of not being
drowned."]
33168 (return)
[ Campardon, II., 8.
(Deposition of Commeret.)—Berryat Saint-Prix, p. 42.-Ibid., p.28.
Other agents of Carrier, Fouquet and Lamberty, were condemned specially,
"for having saved from national vengeance Madame de Martilly and her
maid... They shared the woman Martilly and the maid between them." In
connection with the "dainty taste" of Jacobins for silk dresses M. Berryat
Saint-Prix cites the following answer of a Jacobin of 1851 to the judge
d'instruction of Rheims; on the objection being made to him that the
Republic, as he understood it, could not last long, he replied: "Possibly,
but say it lasts three months. That's long enough to fill one's pocket and
belly and rumple silk dresses?" Another of the same species said in 1871:
"We shall anyhow have a week's use of it." Observers of human nature will
find analogous details in the history of the Sepoy rebellion in India
against the English in 1803, also in the history of the Indians in the
United States. The September massacres in Paris and the history of the
combat of 1791 and 1792 have already provided us with the same
characteristic documents.]
33169 (return)
[ Alfred Lallier,
"Les Fusillades de Nantes," P.23. (Depositions of Picard, commander of the
National Guards of the escort.—Cf. the depositions of Jean Jounet,
paver, and of Henri Ferdinand, joiner.)]
33170 (return)
[ Sauzay, "Histoire
de la Persécution Révolutionnaire dans le Département du Doubs," VII.,
687. (Letter of Grégoire, December 24, 1796.) "An approximative
calculation makes the number of the authors of so many crimes three
hundred thousand, for in each commune there were about five or six of
these ferocious brutes who, named Brutus, perfected the art of removing
seals, drowning and cutting throats. They consumed immense amounts in
constructing 'Mountains,' in reveling, and in fetes every three months
which, after the first parade, became parodies, represented by three or
four actors in them, and with no audience. These consisted, finally, of a
drum-beater and the musical officer; and the latter, ashamed of himself,
often concealed his scarf in his pocket, on his way to the Temple of
Reason. ... But these 300 000 brigands had 2 or 300 directors, members of
the National convention, who cannot be called anything but scoundrels,
since the language provides no other epithet so forcible."]
Magnitude of revolutionary destructiveness.—The four ways
of effecting it.—Expulsion from the country through forced
emigration and legal banishment.—Number of those expelled.
—Privation of liberty.—Different sorts of imprisonment.
—Number and situation of those imprisoned.—Murders after
being tried, or without trial.—Number of those guillotined
or shot after trial.—Indication of the number of other
lives destroyed.—Necessity and plan for wider destruction.
—Spoliation.—Its extent.—Squandering.—Utter losses.—Ruin
of individuals and the State.—The Notables the most
oppressed.
The object of the Jacobin, first of all, is the destruction of his adversaries, avowed or presumed, probable or possible. Four violent measures concur, together or in turn, to bring about the physical or social extermination of all Frenchmen who no longer belong to the sect or the party.
The first operation consists in expelling them from the territory.—Since 1789, they have been chased off through a forced emigration; handed over to jacqueries, or popular uprisings, in the country, and to insurrections in the cities,4101 defenseless and not allowed to defend themselves, three-fourths of them have left France, simply to escape popular brutalities against which neither the law nor the government afforded them any protection. According as the law and the administration, in becoming more Jacobin, became more hostile to them, so did they leave in greater crowds. After the 10th of August and 2nd of September, the flight necessarily was more general; for, henceforth, if any one persisted in remaining after that date it was with the almost positive certainty that he would be consigned to a prison, to await a massacre or the guillotine. About the same time, the law added to the fugitive the banished, all unsworn priests, almost an entire class consisting of nearly 40 000 persons.4102 It is calculated that, on issuing from the reign of Terror, the total number of fugitives and banished) amounted to 150 0004103 the list would have been still larger, had not the frontier been guarded by patrols and one had to cross it at the risk of one's life; and yet, many do risk their lives in attempting to cross it, in disguise, wandering about at night, in mid-winter, exposed to gunshots, determined to escape cost what it will, into Switzerland, Italy, or Germany, and even into Hungary, in quest of security and the right of praying to God as one pleases.4104—If any exiled or deported person ventures to return, he is tracked like a wild beast, and, as soon as taken, he is guillotined.4105 For example, M. de Choiseul, and other unfortunates, wrecked and cast ashore on the coast of Normandy, are not sufficiently protected by the law of nations. They are brought before a military commission; saved temporarily through public commiseration, they remain in prison until the First Consul intervenes between them and the homicidal law and consents, through favor, to deport them to the Dutch frontier.—If they have taken up arms against the Republic they are cut off from humanity; a Pandour4106 taken prisoner is treated as a man; an émigré made prisoner is treated like a wolf—they shoot him on the spot. In some cases, even the pettiest legal formalities are dispensed with. "When I am lucky enough to catch 'em," writes Gen. Vandamme, "I do not trouble the military commission to try them. They are already tried—my saber and pistols do their business."4107
The second operation consists in depriving "suspects" of their liberty, of which deprivation there are several degrees; there are various ways of getting hold of people.—Sometimes, the "suspect" is "adjourned," that is to say, the order of arrest is simply suspended; he lives under a perpetual menace that is generally fulfilled; he never knows in the morning that he will not sleep in a prison that night. Sometimes, he is put on the limits of his commune. Sometimes, he is confined to his house with or without guards, and, in the former case, he is obliged to pay them. Again, finally, and which occurs most frequently, he is shut up in this or that common jail.—In the single department of Doubs, twelve hundred men and women are "adjourned;" three hundred put on the limits of the commune, fifteen hundred confined to their houses, and twenty two hundred imprisoned.4108 In Paris, thirty-six such prisons and more than "violins", or temporary jails, soon filled by the revolutionary committees, do not suffice for the service.4109 It is estimated that, in France, not counting more than 40,000 provisional jails, twelve hundred prisons, full and running over, contain each more than two hundred inmates.4110 At Paris, notwithstanding the daily void created by the guillotine, the number of the imprisoned on Floréal 9, year II., amounts to 7,840; and, on Messidor 25 following, notwithstanding the large batches of 50 and 60 persons led in one day, and every day, to the scaffold, the number is still 7,502.4111 There are more than one thousand persons in the prisons of Arras, more than one thousand five hundred in those of Toulouse, more than three thousand in those of Strasbourg, and more than thirteen thousand in those of Nantes. In the two departments alone of Bouches du-Rhône and Vaucluse, Representative Maignet, who is on the spot, reports from 12,000 to 15,000 arrests.4112 "A little before Thermidor," says Representative Beaulieu, "the number of incarcerated arose to nearly 400,000, as is apparent on the lists and registers then before the Committee of General Security."4113—Among these poor creatures, there are children, and not alone in the prisons of Nantes where the revolutionary searches have collected the whole of the rural population; in the prisons of Arras, among twenty similar cases, I find a coal-dealer and his wife with their seven sons and daughters, from seventeen down to six years of age; a widow with her four children from nineteen down to twelve years of age; another noble widow with her nine children, from seventeen down to three years of age, and six children, without father or mother, from twenty-three down to nine years of age.4114—These prisoners of State were treated, almost everywhere, worse than robbers and assassins under the ancient régime. They began by subjecting them to rapiotage, that is to say, stripping them naked or, at best, feeling their bodies under their shirts; women and young girls fainted away under this examination, formerly confined to convicts on entering the bagnio.4115—Frequently, before consigning them to their dungeons or shutting them up in their cells, they would be left two or three nights pell-mell in a lower hall on benches, or in the court on the pavement, "without beds or straw." "The feelings are wounded in all directions, every point of sensibility, so to say, being played upon. They are deprived one after the other of their property, assignats, furniture, and food, of daylight and lamp-light, of the assistance which their wants and infirmities demand, of a knowledge of public events, of all communication, either immediate or written, with fathers, sons and husbands."4116 They are obliged to pay for their lodgings, their keepers, and for what they eat; they are robbed at their very doors of the supplies they send for outside; they are compelled to eat at a mess-table; they are furnished with scant and nauseous food, "spoilt codfish, putrid herrings and meat, rotten vegetables, all this accompanied with a mug of Seine water colored red with some drug or other."4117 They starve them, bully them, and vex them purposely as if they meant to exhaust their patience and drive them into a revolt, so as to get rid of them in a mass, or, at least, to justify the increasing rapid strokes of the guillotine. They are huddled together in tens, twenties and thirties, in one room at La Force, "eight in a chamber, fourteen feet square," where all the beds touch, and many overlap each other, where two out of the eight inmates are obliged to sleep on the floor, where vermin swarm, where the closed sky-lights, the standing tub, and the crowding together of bodies poisons the atmosphere.—In many places, the proportion of the sick and dying is greater than in the hold of a slave-ship. "Of ninety individuals with whom I was shut up two months ago," writes a prisoner at Strasbourg, "sixty-six were taken to the hospital in the space of eight days."4118 In the prisons of Nantes, 3000 out 13,000 prisoners die of typhoid fever and of the rot in two months.4119 400 priests4120 confined on a vessel between decks, in the roadstead of Aix, stowed on top of each other, wasted with hunger, eaten up by vermin, suffocated for lack of air, half-frozen, beaten, mocked at, and constantly threatened with death, suffer still more than Negroes in a slave-hold; for, through interest in his freight, the captain of the slaver tries to keep his human consignment in good health, whilst, through revolutionary fanaticism, the crew of the Aix vessel detests its cargo of "black-frocks" and would gladly send them to the bottom.—According to this system, which, up to Thermidor 9, grows worse and worse, imprisonment becomes a torture, oftentimes mortal, slower and more painful than the guillotine, and to such an extent that, to escape it, Champfort opens his veins and Condorcet swallows poison.4121The third expedient consists of murder, with or without trial.—178 tribunals, of which 40 are ambulatory, pronounce in every part of the territory sentences of death which are immediately executed on the spot.4122 Between April 6, 1793, and Thermidor 9, year II., (July 27th, 1794) that of Paris has 2,625 persons guillotined,4123 while the provincial judges do as much work as the Paris judges. In the small town of Orange alone, they guillotine 331 persons. In the single town of Arras they have 299 men and 93 women guillotined. At Nantes, the revolutionary tribunals and military committees have, on the average, 100 persons a day guillotined, or shot, in all 1,971. In the city of Lyons the revolutionary committee admit 1,684, while Cadillot, one of Robespierre's correspondents, advises him of 6,000.4124—The statement of these murders is not complete, but 17,000 have been enumerated,4125 "most of them effected without any formality, evidence or direct charge," among others the murder of "more than 1200 women, several of whom were octogenarians and infirm;"4126 particularly the murder of 60 women or young girls, condemned to death, say the warrants, for having attended the services of unsworn priests, or for having neglected the services of a sworn priest.
"The accused, ranged in order, were condemned at sight. Hundreds of death-sentences took about a minute per head. Children of seven, five and four years of age, were tried. A father was condemned for the son, and the son for the father. A dog was sentenced to death. A parrot was brought forward as a witness. Numbers of accused persons whose sentences could not be written out were executed."
At Angers, the sentences of over four hundred men and three hundred and sixty women, executed for the purpose of relieving the prisons, were mentioned on the registers simply by the letters S or G (shot or guillotined).4127 At Paris, as in the provinces, the slightest pretext4128 served to constitute a crime. The daughter of the celebrated painter, Joseph Vernet,4129 was guillotined for being a " receiver," for having kept fifty pounds of candles in her house, distributed among the employees of La Muette by the liquidators of the civil list. Young de Maillé,4130 aged sixteen years, was guillotined as a conspirator, "for having thrown a rotten herring in the face of his jailer, who had served it to him to eat." Madame de Puy-Verin was guillotined as "guilty" because she had not taken away from her deaf, blind and senile husband a bag of card-counters, marked with the royal effigy.—In default of any pretext,4131 there was the supposition of a conspiracy; blank lists were given to paid emissaries, who undertook to search the various prisons and select the requisite number of heads; they wrote names down on them according to their fancy, and these provided the batches for the guillotine.
"As for myself," said the juryman Vilate, "I am never embarrassed. I am always convinced. In a revolution, all who appear before this tribunal ought to be condemned."—
At Marseilles, the Brutus Commission,4132 "sentencing without public prosecutor or jurymen, sent to the prisons for those it wished to put to death. After having demanded their names, professions and wealth they were sent down to a cart standing at the door of the Palais de Justice; the judges then stepped out on the balcony and pronounced the death-sentence." The same proceedings took place at Cambrai, Arras, Nantes, Le Mans, Bordeaux, Nîmes, Lyons, Strasbourg, and elsewhere.—Evidently, the judicial comedy is simply a parade; they make use of it as one of the respectable means, among others less respectable, to exterminate people whose opinions are not what they should be, or who belong to the proscribed classes;4133 Samson, at Paris, and his colleagues in the provinces, the execution-platoons of Lyons and Nantes, are simply the collaborators of murderers properly so called, while legal massacres complete other massacres pure and simple.
Of this latter description, the fusillades of Toulon come first, where the number of those who are shot largely surpasses one thousand;4134 next the great drownings of Nantes, in which 4,800 men, women and children perished,4135 the other drownings, for which no figures may be given;4136 then the countless popular murders committed in France between July 14, 1789, and August 10, 1792; the massacre of one 1,300 prisoners in Paris, in September, 1792; the long train of assassinations which, in July, August and September, 1789, extends over the entire territory; finally, the dispatch of the prisoners, either shot or sabered, without trial at Lyons and in the West. Even excepting those who had died fighting or who, taken with arms in their hands, were shot down or sabered on the spot, there were 10,000 persons slaughtered without trial in the province of Anjou alone:4137 accordingly, the instructions of the Committee of Public Safety, also the written orders of Carrier and Francastel, direct generals to "bleed freely" the insurgent districts,4138 and spare not a life: it is estimated that, in the eleven western departments, the dead of both sexes and of all ages exceeded 400,000.4139—Considering the program and principles of the Jacobin sect this is no great number; they might have killed a good many more. But time was wanting; during their short reign they did what they could with the instrument in their hands. Look at their machine, the gradual construction of its parts, the successive stages of its operation from its starting up to Thermidor 9, and see how limited the period of its operation was. Organized March 30 and April 6, 1793, the Revolutionary Committees and the Revolutionary Tribunal had but seventeen months in which to do their work. They did not drive ahead with all their might until after the fall of the Girondists, and especially after September, 1763 that is to say for a period of eleven months. Its loose wheels were not screwed up and the whole was not in running order under the impulse of the central motor until after December, 1793, that is to say during eight months. Perfected by the law of Prairial 22, it works for the past two months, faster and better than before, with an energy and rapidity that increase from week to week.—At that date, and even before it, the theorists have taken the bearings of their destinies and accepted the conditions of their undertaking. Being sectarians, they have a faith, and as orthodoxy tolerates no heresy, and as the conversion of heretics is never sincere or durable, heresy can be suppressed only by suppressing heretics. "It is only the dead," said Barère, Messidor 16, "who never return." On the 2nd and 3rd of Thermidor,4140 the Committee of Public Safety sends to Fouquier-Tinville a list of four hundred and seventy-eight accused persons with orders "to bring the parties named to trial at once." Baudot and Jean Bon St. Andre, Carrier, Antonelle and Guifroy, had already estimated the lives to be taken at several millions and, according to Collot d' Herbois, who had a lively imagination, "the political perspiration should go on freely, and not stop until from twelve to fifteen million Frenchmen had been destroyed."4141
To make amends, in the fourth and last division of their work, that is to say, in spoliation, they went to the last extreme: they did all that could be done to ruin individuals, families and the State; whatever could be taken, they took.—The Constituent and Legislative Assemblies had, on their side, begun the business by abolishing tithes and all feudal rights without indemnity, and by confiscating all ecclesiastical property; the Jacobin operators continue and complete the job; we have seen by what decrees and with what hostility against collective and individual property, whether they attribute to the State the possession of all corporations whatever, even laic, such as colleges, schools and scientific or literary societies, hospitals and communes, or whether they despoil individuals, indirectly through assignats and the maximum, or directly through the forced loan, revolutionary taxes,4142 seizures of gold and silver coin, requisitions of common useful utensils,4143 sequestrations of prisoners' property, confiscations of the possessions of emigrants and exiles and of those deported or condemned to death. No capital invested in real or personal property, no income in money or produce, whatever its source, whether leases, mortgages, private credits, pensions, agricultural, industrial or commercial gains, the fruits of economy or labor, from the farmers', the manufacturers' and the merchant's stores to the robes, coats, shirts and shoes, even to the beds and bed-rooms of private individuals—nothing escapes their rapacious grasp: in the country, they carry off even seed reserved for planting; at Strasbourg and in the Upper Rhine, all kitchen utensils; in Auvergne and elsewhere, even the shepherd's pots. Every object of value, even those not in public use, comes under requisition: for instance,4144 the Revolutionary Committee of Bayonne seizes a lot of "cotton cloth and muslin," under the pretext of making "breeches for the country's defenders." On useful objects being taken it is not always certain that they will be utilized; between their seizure and putting them to service, robbery and waste intervene. At Strasbourg,4145 on a requisition being threatened by the representatives, the inhabitants strip themselves and, in a few days, bring to the municipality "6,879 coats, breeches and vests, 4,767 pairs of stockings, 16,921 pairs of shoes, 863 pairs of boots, 1351 cloaks, 20,518 shirts, 4,524 hats, 523 pairs of gaiters, 143 skin vests, 2,673, 900 blankets, besides 29 quintals of lint, 21 quintals of old linen, and a large number of other articles."
But "most of these articles remain piled up in the storehouses, part of them rotten, or eaten by rats, the rest being abandoned to the first-comer.... The end of spoliation was attained."—Utter loss to individuals and no gain, or the minimum of a gain, to the State. Such is the net result of the revolutionary government. After having laid its hand on three-fifths of the landed property of France; after having wrested from communities and individuals from ten to twelve billions of real and personal estate; after having increased, through assignats and territorial warrants, the public debt, which was not five billions in 1789, to more than fifty billions;4146 no longer able to pay its employees; reduced to supporting its armies as well as itself by forced contributions on conquered territories, it ends in bankruptcy; it repudiates two-thirds of its debt, and its credit is so low that the remaining third which it has consolidated and guaranteed afresh, loses eighty-three per cent. the very next day. In its hands, the State has itself suffered as much as the private individuals.—Of the latter, more than 1 200 000 have suffered physically: several millions, all who owned anything, great or small, have suffered through their property.4147 But, in this multitude of the oppressed, it is the notables who are chiefly aimed at and who, in their possessions as well as in their persons, have suffered the most.
Various kinds and degrees of Notables in 1789.—The great
social staff.—Men of the world.—Their breeding.—Their
intellectual culture.—Their humanity and philanthropy.
—Their moral temper.—Practical men.—Where recruited,—Their
qualifications.—Their active benevolence.—Scarcity of them
and their worth to a community.
On estimating the value of a forest you begin by dividing its vegetation into two classes; on the one hand the full-grown trees, the large or medium-sized oaks, beeches and aspens, and, on the other, the saplings and the undergrowth. In like manner, in estimating society, you divide the individuals composing it into two groups, one consisting of its notables of every kind and degree, and the other, of the common run of men. If the forest is an old one and has not been too badly managed, nearly the whole of its secular growth is found in its clusters of full-grown trees. Nearly all the useful wood is to be found in the mature forest. A few thousand large handsome trees and the three or four hundred thousand saplings, young and old, of the reserve, contain more useful and valuable wood than the twenty or thirty millions shrubs, bushes and heathers put together. It is the same in a community which has existed for a long time under a tolerably strict system of justice and police; almost the entire gain of a secular civilization is found concentrated in its notables, which, taking it all in all, was the state of French society in 1789.4148
Let us first consider the most prominent personages.—It is certain, that, among the aristocracy, the wealthiest and most conspicuous families had ceased to render services proportionate to the cost of their maintenance. Most of the seigniors and ladies of the Court, the worldly bishops, abbés, and parliamentarians of the drawing-room, knew but little more than how to solicit with address, make a graceful parade of themselves and spend lavishly. An ill-understood system of culture had diverted them from their natural avocations, and converted them into showy and agreeable specimens of vegetation, often hollow, blighted, sapless and over-pruned, besides being very costly, over-manured and too freely watered; and the skillful gardening which shaped, grouped and arranged them in artificial forms and bouquets, rendered their fruit abortive that flowers might be multiplied.—But the flowers were exquisite, and even in a moralist's eyes, such flowering counts for something. On the side of civility, good-breeding and deportment, the manners and customs of high life had reached a degree of perfection, which never, in France or elsewhere, had been attained before, and which has never since been revived;4149 and of all the arts through which men have emancipated themselves from primitive coarseness, that which teaches them mutual consideration is, perhaps, the most precious. The observance of this, not alone in the drawing-room, but in the family, in business, in the street, with regard to relatives, inferiors, servants and strangers, gives dignity, as well as a charm, to human intercourse. Delicate regard for what is proper becomes a habit, an instinct, a second nature, which nature, superimposed on the original nature, is the best, inasmuch as the internal code which governs each detail of action and speech, prescribes the standard of behavior and respect for oneself, as well as respect and refined behavior towards others.—To this merit, add mental culture. Never was there an aristocracy so interested in general ideas and refinement of expression; it was even too much so; literary and philosophical preoccupation excluded all others of the positive and practical order; they talked, instead of acting. But, in this limited circle of speculative reason and of pure literary forms, it excelled; writings and how to write furnished the ordinary entertainment of polite society; every idea uttered by a thinker caused excitement in the drawing-room: the talent and style of authors were shaped by its taste;4150 it was in the drawing-rooms that Montesquieu, Voltaire, Rousseau, d'Alembert, the Encyclopedists, great and little, Beaumarchais, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, Champfort, and Rivarol, involuntarily sought listeners and found them, not merely admirers and entertainers, but friends, protectors, patrons, benefactors and followers.—Under the instruction of the masters, the disciples had become philanthropists; moreover, the amenities of manners developed in all souls compassion and benevolence: "Nothing was more dreaded by opulent men than to be regarded as insensitive."4151 They concerned themselves with children, with the poor, with the peasantry, setting their wits to work to afford them relief; their zeal was aroused against oppression, their pity was excited for every misfortune. Even those whose duties compelled them to be rigid tempered their rigidity with explanations or concessions.
"Ten years before the Revolution," says Roederer,4152 "the criminal courts of France were no longer like before.... Their attitude had changed.. . All the young magistrates, and this I can bear witness to, for I was one myself, pronounced judgments more in accordance with the principles of Beccaria,4153 than according to law."—
As to the men in authority, military administrators and commandants, it was impossible to be more patient, more mindful of human blood. Their qualities turned also here into defects, for, through excess of humanity, they were unable to maintain order, as is evident when facing the insurrections that took place between 1789 and 1792. Even with the force in their own hands, amidst gross insults and extreme dangers, they dreaded to make use of it; they could not bring themselves to repressing brutes, rascals and maniacs: following the example of Louis XVI., they considered themselves as shepherds of the people, and let themselves be trampled upon rather than fire upon their flock.—In reality, they had noble, and even generous and big hearts: in the bailiwick assemblies, in March, 1789, long before the night of August 4, they voluntarily surrendered every pecuniary privilege; under severe trials, their courage, heightened by polished manners, adds even to their heroism, elegance, tact and gaiety. The most corrupt, a Duke of Orleans, the most frivolous and the most blasé, a Duc de Biron, meet death with stoical coolness and disdain.4154 Delicate women who complain of a draught in their drawing-rooms, make no complaint of a straw mattress in a damp, gloomy dungeon, where they sleep in their clothes so that they may not wake up stiffened, and they come down into the court of the Conciergerie with their accustomed cheerfulness. Men and women, in prison, dress themselves as formerly, with the same care, that they may meet and talk together with the same grace and spirit, in a corridor with an iron grating within a step of the revolutionary Tribunal, and on the eve of the scaffold.4155—This moral temper is evidently of the rarest; if it errs on either side it is on that of being too refined, bad for use, good for ornament.
And yet, in the upper class there were associated with two or three thousand idlers amongst a frivolous aristocracy, as many serious men, who, to their drawing-room experience, added experience in business. Almost all who held office or had been in the service, were of this number, either ambassadors, general officers or former ministers, from Marshal de Brogue down to Machaut and Malesherbes; resident bishops, like Monseigneur de Durfort, at Besançon;4156 vicars-general and canons who really governed their dioceses on the spot; prelates, like those in Provence, Languedoc and Brittany, who, by right, had seats in the provincial "Etats", agents and representatives of the clergy at Paris; heads of Orders and Congregations; the chief and lieutenant commandants of the seventeen military departments, intendants of each generalité head-clerks of each ministry, magistrates of each parliament, farmers-general, collectors-general, and, more particularly in each province, the dignitaries and local proprietors of the two first orders, and all leading manufacturers, merchants, ship-owners, bankers and prominent bourgeois; in short, that élite of the nobles, clergy, and Third Estate, which, from 1778 to 1789, constituted the twenty-one provincial assemblies, and which certainly formed in France the great social staff.—Not that they were superior politicians: for in those days there were none, scarcely a few hundred competent men, almost all of them being specialists. Nevertheless, it was in these few men that nearly the entire political capacity, information and common sense of France was to be found. Outside of their heads the other twenty-six millions of brains contained but little else than dangerous and barren formulas; as they alone had commanded, negotiated, deliberated and governed, they were the only ones who understood men and things tolerably well, and, consequently, the only ones who were not completely disqualified for their management. In the provincial Assemblies they were seen originating and conducting the most important reforms; they had devoted themselves to these effectively and conscientiously, with as much equity and patriotism as intelligence and thoroughness; most of the heads and sub-heads of the leading public and private branches of the service, guided by philosophy and supported by current opinion for twenty years, had likewise given evidence of active benevolence.4157—Nothing is more precious than men of this stamp, for they are the life and soul of their respective branches of service, and are not to be replaced in one lot, at a given moment, by persons of equal merit. In diplomacy, in the finances, in judicature, in administration, in extensive commerce and large manufacturing, a practical, governing capacity is not created in a day; affairs in all these are too vast and too complicated; there are too many diverse interests to take into account, too many near and remote contingencies to foresee; lacking a knowledge of technical details, it is difficult to grasp the whole; one tries to make short work of it, one shatters right and left and ends with the sword, obliged to fall back on systematic brutality to complete the work of audacious bungling. Except in war, where apprenticeship takes less time than elsewhere, ten years of preparatory education plus ten years of practical experience are required for the good government of men and the management of capital assets. Add to this, against the temptations of power which are strong, a stability of character established through professional honor, and, if it so happens, by family traditions.
After having directed financial matters for two years, Cambon4158 is not yet aware that the functions of the fermiers-généraux of indirect taxes differ from those of the receveurs-géneraux of direct taxes;4159 accordingly, he includes, or allows to be included, the forty-eight receveurs in the decree which sends the sixty fermiers before the revolutionary Tribunal, that is to say, to the guillotine; and, in fact, all of them would have been sent there had not a man familiar with the business, Gaudin, Commissioner of the Treasury, heard the decree proclaimed in the street and run to explain to the Committee on Finances that "there was nothing in common" between the two groups of outlaws; that the fermiers were holders of leases on probable profits while the receveurs were paid functionaries at a fixed salary, and the crimes of the former, proved or not proved, were not imputable to the latter. Great astonishment on the part of these improvised financiers!"They make an outcry," says Gaudin, "and assert that I am mistaken. I insist, and repeat what I have told the President, Cambon; I affirm on says to one of the members, 'Since that is so, go to the bureau of procès-verbaux and scratch out the term receveurs-généraux from the decree passed this morning.' my honor and offer to furnish them the proof of it; finally, they are satisfied and the President "—Such are the gross blunders committed by interlopers, and even carried out, when not warned and restrained by veterans in the service. Cambon, accordingly, in spite of the Jacobins, retains in his bureaux all whom he can among veteran officials. If Carnot manages the war well, it is owing to his being himself an educated officer and to maintaining in their positions d'Arcon, d'Obenheim, de Grimoard, de Montalembert and Marescot, all eminent men bequeathed to him by the ancient régime.4160 Reduced, before the 9th of Thermidor, to perfect nullity, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is not again to become useful and active until the professional diplomats, Miot, Colchen, Otto and Reinhart,4161 resume their ascendancy and influence. It is a professional diplomat, Barthélemy, who, after the 9th of Thermidor, really directs the foreign policy of the Convention, and brings about the peace of Basle.
The Nobility.—Its physical and moral preparation through
feats of arms.—The military spirit.—High character.
—Conduct of officers in 1789-1792.—Service for which these
nobles were adapted.
Three classes, the nobles, the clergy and the bourgeoisie, provided this superior élite, and, compared with the rest of the nation, they themselves formed an élite.—Thirty thousand gentlemen, scattered through the provinces, had been brought up from infancy to the profession of arms; generally poor, they lived on their rural estates without luxuries, comforts or curiosity, in the society of wood-rangers and game-keepers, frugally and with rustic habits, in the open air, in such a way as to ensure robust constitutions. A child, at six years of age, mounted a horse; he followed the hounds, and hardened himself against inclemencies;4162 afterwards, in the academies, he rendered his limbs supple by exercise and obtained that rugged health which is necessary for living under a tent and following a campaign. From early childhood, he was imbued with a military spirit; his father and uncles at table talked of nothing but their perils in war and feats of arms; his imagination took fire; he got accustomed to looking upon their pursuits as the only ones worthy of a man of rank and feeling, and he plunged ahead with a precocity which we no longer comprehend. I have read many records of the service of gentlemen who were assassinated, guillotined or emigrés; they nearly always began their careers before the age of sixteen, often at fourteen, thirteen and eleven.4163 M. des Echerolles,4164 captain in the Poitou regiment, had brought along with him into the army his only son, aged nine, and a dozen little cousins of the same age. Those children fought like old soldiers; one of them had his leg fractured by a ball; young des Echerolles received a saber stroke which cut away his cheek from the ear to the upper lip, and he was wounded seven times; still young, he received the cross of St. Louis. To serve the State, seek conflict and expose one's life, seemed an obligation of their rank, a hereditary debt; out of nine or ten thousand officers who discharged this debt most of them cared only for this and looked for nothing beyond. Without fortune and without influence, they had renounced promotion, fully aware that the higher ranks were reserved for the heirs of great families and the courtiers at Versailles. After serving fifteen or twenty years, they returned home with a captain's commission and the cross of St. Louis, sometimes with a small pension, contented with having done their duty and conscious of their own honor. On the approach of the Revolution, this old spirit, illumined by the new ideas, became an almost civic virtue:4165 we have seen how they behaved between 1789 and 1792, their moderation, their forbearance, their sacrifice of self-love, their abnegation and their stoical impassability, their dislike to strike, the coolness with which they persisted in receiving without returning blows, and in maintaining, if not public order, at least the last semblance of it. Patriots as much as soldiers, through birth, education and conviction, they formed a natural, special nursery, eminently worthy of preserving, inasmuch as it furnished society with ready-made instruments for defense, internally against rascals and brutes, and externally against the enemy. Less calm in disposition and more given to pleasure than the rural nobles of Prussia, under slacker discipline and in the midst of greater worldliness, but more genial, more courteous and more liberal-minded, the twenty-six thousand noble families of France upheld in their sons the traditions and prejudices, the habits and aptitudes, those energies of body, heart and mind4166 through which the Prussian "junkers" were able to constitute the Prussian army, organize the German army and make Germany the first power of Europe.
Where recruited.—Professional inducements.—Independence of
ecclesiastics.—Their substantial merits.—Their theoretical
and practical information.—Their distribution over the
territory.—Utility of their office.—Their conduct in
1790-1800.—Their courage, their capacity for self-sacrifice.
Likewise in the Church where nearly all its staff, the whole of the lower and middle-class clergy, curés, vicars, canons and collegiate chaplains, teachers or directors of schools, colleges and seminaries, more than sixty-five thousand ecclesiastics, formed a healthy, well organized body, worthily fulfilling its duties.
"I do not know," says de Tocqueville,4167 "all in all, and notwithstanding the vices of some of its members, if there ever was in the world a more remarkable clergy than the Catholic clergy of France when the Revolution took them by surprise, more enlightened, more national, less entrenched behind their private virtues, better endowed with public virtues, and, at the same time, more strong in the faith. ... I began the study of the old social system full of prejudices against them; I finish it full of respect for them."
And first, which is a great point, most of the incumbents in the town parishes, in the three hundred collegial churches, in the small canonicates of the cathedral chapters, belonged to better families than at the present day.4168 Children were then more numerous, not merely among the peasants, but among the inferior nobles and the upper bourgeoisie; each family, accordingly, was glad to have one of its sons take orders, and no constraint was necessary to bring this about. The ecclesiastical profession then had attractions which it no longer possesses; it had none of the inconveniences incident to it at the present time. A priest was not exposed to democratic distrust and hostility; he was sure of a bow from the laborer in the street as well as from the peasant in the country; he was on an equal footing with the local bourgeoisie, almost one of the family, and among the first; he could count on passing his life in a permanent situation, honorably and serenely, in the midst of popular deference and enjoying the good will of the public.—On the other hand, he was not bridled as in our day. A priest was not a functionary salaried by the State; his pay, like his private income, earmarked and put aside beforehand, furnished through special appropriations, through local taxes, out of a distinct treasury, could never be withheld on account of a préfect's report, or through ministerial caprice, or be constantly menaced by budget difficulties and the ill-will of the civil powers. In relation to his ecclesiastical superiors he was respectful but independent. The bishop in his diocese was not what he has become since the Concordat, an absolute sovereign free to appoint and remove at will nine curés out of ten. In three vacancies out of four, and often in fourteen out of fifteen,4169 it was not the bishop who made the appointment; the new incumbent was designated sometimes by the cathedral chapter or corporation; again, by a collegial church or corporation; again, by the metropolitan canon or by the abbé or prior, the patron of the place; again, by the seignior whose ancestors had founded or endowed the Church; in certain cases by the Pope, and, occasionally, by the King or commune. Powers were limited through this multiplicity and inter-crossing of authorities. Moreover, the canon or curé being once appointed he possessed guarantees; he could not be arbitrarily dismissed; in most cases, his removal or suspension required a previous trial according to prescribed formalities, accompanied with an examination, pleadings, and arguments before the officialité or ecclesiastical court. He was, in fact, permanently placed, and very generally his personal merit sufficed to keep him in his place.—For, if the highest positions were bestowed according to birth and favor, the intermediate positions were reserved to correct habits and attainments. Many canons and vicars-general, and almost all the curés in the towns were doctors of divinity or of canon law, while ecclesiastical studies, very thorough, had occupied eight or nine years of their youth.4170 Although the method was out of date, much was learned at the Sorbonne and St. Sulpice; at the very least, one became a good logician through prolonged and scientific intellectual gymnastics. "My dear Abbé," said Turgot, smiling, to Morellet, "it is only you and I who have taken our degree who can reason closely." Their theological drill, indeed, was about as valuable as our philosophical drill; if it expanded the mind less, it supplied this better with applicable concepts; less exciting, it was more fruitful. In the Sorbonne of the nineteenth century, the studies consist of the speculative systems of a few isolated, divergent intellects who have exercised no authority over the multitude, while in the Sorbonne of the eighteenth century, the studies consisted of the creed, morality, discipline, history and canons of a Church which had already existed seventeen centuries and which, comprising one hundred and fifty millions of souls, still sways one-half of the civilized world.—To a theoretical education add practical education. A curé and with still more reason, a canon, an archdeacon, a bishop, was not a passing stranger, endowed by the State, wearing a surplice, as little belonging to his age through his ministry as through his dress, and wholly confined to his spiritual functions: he managed the revenues of his dotation, he granted leases, made repairs, built, and interested himself in the probabilities of the crops, in the construction of a highway or canal, while his experiences in these matters were equal to those of any lay proprietor. Moreover, being one of a small proprietary corporation, that is to say, a chapter or local vestry, and one of a great proprietary corporation of the diocese and Church of France, he took part directly or indirectly in important temporal affairs, in assemblies, in deliberations, in collective expenditures, in the establishment of a local budget and of a general budget, and hence, in public and administrative matters, his competence was analogous and almost equal to that of a mayor, sub-delegate, farmer-general or intendant. In addition to this he was liberal: never has the French clergy been more earnestly so, from the latest curés back to the first archbishops.4171—Lastly, remark the distribution of the clergy over the territory. There was a curé or vicar in the smallest of the forty thousand villages. In thousands of small, poor, remote communes, he was the only man who could readily read and write; none other than he in many of the larger rural communes,4172 except the resident seignior and some man of the law or half-way schoolmaster, was at all learned.4173 Actually, for a man who had finished his studies and knowing Latin, to consent, for six hundred francs or three hundred francs a year, to live isolated, and a celibate, almost in indigence, amongst rustics and the poor, he must be a priest; the quality of his office makes him resigned to the discomforts of his situation. A preacher of the Word, a professor of morality, a minister of Charity, a guide and dispenser of spiritual life, he taught a theory of the world, at once consoling and self-denying, which he enforced with a cult, and this cult was the only one adapted to his flock; manifestly, the French, especially those devoted to manual and hard labor, could not regard this world as ideal, except through his formulas; history, the supreme judge, had on this point rendered its verdict without appeal; no heresy, no schism, not the Reformation nor Jansenism, had prevailed against hereditary faith; through infinitely multiplied and deeply penetrating roots this faith suited national customs, temperament, and peculiar social imagination and sensibility. Possessing the heart, the intellect, and even the senses, through fixed, immemorial traditions and habits, it had become an unconscious, almost corporeal necessity, and the Catholic orthodox curé, in communion with the Pope, was about as indispensable to the village as the public fountain; he also quenched thirst, the thirst of the soul; without him, the inhabitants could find no drinkable water. And, if we keep human weaknesses in mind, it may be said that nobleness of character in the clergy corresponded with nobleness of profession; in all points no one could dispute their capacity for self-sacrifice, for they willingly suffered for what they believed to be the truth. If, in 1790, a number of priests took the oath to the civil constitution of the clergy, it was with reservations, or because they deemed the oath licit; but, after the dismissal of the bishops and the Pope's disapprobation, many of them withdrew it at the risk of their lives, so as not to fall into schism; they fell back into the ranks and gave themselves up voluntarily to the brutality of the crowd and the rigors of the law. Moreover, and from the start, notwithstanding threats and temptations, two-thirds of the clergy would not take the oath; in the highest ranks, among the mundane ecclesiastics whose skepticism and laxity were notorious, honor, in default of faith, maintained the same spirit; nearly the whole of them, great and small, had subordinated their interests, welfare and security to the maintenance of their dignity or to scruples of conscience. They had allowed themselves to be stripped of everything; they let themselves be exiled, imprisoned, tortured and made martyrs of, like the Christians of the primitive church; through their invincible meekness, they were going, like the primitive Christians, to exhaust the rage of their executioners, wear out persecutions, transform opinion and compel the admission, even with those who survived in the eighteenth century, that they were true, deserving and courageous men.
Where recruited.—Difference between the functionary of the
ancient regime and the modern functionary.—Appointments
seen as Property.—Guilds.—Independence and security of
office-holders.—Their ambitions are limited and satisfied.
—Fixed habits, seriousness and integrity.—Ambition to
secure esteem.—Intellectual culture.—Liberal ideas.
—Respectability and public zeal.—Conduct of the bourgeoisie
in 1789-1791.
Below the nobles and the clergy, a third class of notables, the bourgeoisie, almost entirely confined to the towns,4174 verged on the former classes through its upper circles, while its diverse groups, ranging from the parliamentarian to the rich merchant or manufacturer, comprised the remainder of those who were tolerably well educated, say 100 000 families, recruited on the same conditions as the bourgeoisie of the present day: they were "bourgeois living nobly," meaning by this, living on their incomes, large manufacturers and traders, engaged in liberal pursuits-lawyers, notaries, procureurs, physicians, architects, engineers, artists, professors, and especially the government officials; the latter, however, very numerous, differed from ours in two essential points. On the one hand, their office, as nowadays with the notaries' étude, or a membership of the stock-board, was personal property. Their places, and many others, such as posts in the judiciary, in the finances, in bailiwicks, in the Présidial, in the Election,4175 in the salt-department, in the customs, in the Mint, in the department of forests and streams, in presidencies, in councils, as procureurs du roi in various civil, administrative and criminal courts, holding places in the treasury, auditors and collectors of the various branches of the revenue—all of which offices, and many others, had been alienated for more than a century by the State in return for specified sums of ready money; thenceforth, they fell into the hands of special purchasers; the title of each possessor was as good as that of a piece of real property, and he could legally sell his title, the same as he had bought it, at a given price, on due advertisement!4176 On the other hand, the different groups of local functionaries in each town formed their own associations, similar to our notarial chambers, or those of our stock-brokers; these small associations had their own by-laws, meetings and treasury, frequently a civil status and the right of pleading, often a political status and the right of electing to the municipal council;4177 consequently, besides his personal interests, each member cherished the professional interests of his guild. Thus was his situation different from what it now is, and, through a natural reaction, his character, manners and tastes were different. First, he was much more independent; he was not afraid of being discharged or transferred elsewhere, suddenly, unawares, on the strength of an intendant's report, for political reasons, to make room for a deputy's candidate or a minister's tool. This would have cost too much it would have required first of all a reimbursement of the sum paid for his office, and at a rate of purchase ten times, at least, the revenue of the office.4178 Besides, in defending himself, in protesting against and forestalling his disgrace, he would have been supported by his entire professional guild, oftentimes by other similar bodies, and frequently by the whole town, filled with his relations, clients and comrades. The entire hive protected the bee against the caprices of favoritism and the brutalities of despotism. At Paris, a certain procureur, supported by his colleagues, is known to have imposed on a noble who had insulted him, the most humiliating atonement.4179 In fact, under the ancient régime, it was almost impossible for a functionary to be removed; hence, he could fulfill his duties securely and with dignity, without being obliged to keep daily watch of the capital, of going to Paris to see how the official wind blew, to look after all the influences in his favor, to nurse his relations with the government and live like a bird on a branch.—In the second place, there was a limit to his ambition; he did not keep constantly thinking of mounting a step higher in the hierarchy; or how to pass from a small town to a large one and hold on to his title; this would have been a too troublesome and complicated matter; he would first have had to find a purchaser and then sell his place, and next find a seller and buy another at a higher price; a stock broker at Bordeaux, a notary at Lyons, is not an aspirant for the post of stock broker or notary at Paris.—Nothing then bore any resemblance to the itinerant groups of functionaries of the present day which, in obedience to orders from above, travels about governing each of our towns, strangers on the wing, with no personal standing, without local landed property, interests or means, encamped in some hired apartment, often in a furnished room, sometimes stopping at a hotel, eternal nomads awaiting a telegram, always prepared to pack up and leave for another place a hundred leagues off in consideration of a hundred crowns extra pay, and doing the same detached work over again. Their predecessor, belonging to the country, was a stable fixture and contented; he was not tormented by a craving for promotion; he had a career within the bounds of his corporation and town; cherishing no wish or idea of leaving it, he accommodated himself to it; he became proud of his office and professional brethren, and rose above the egoism of the individual; his self-love was bent on maintaining every prerogative and interest belonging to his guild. Established for life in his native town, in the midst of old colleagues, numerous relatives and youthful companions, he esteemed their good opinion. Exempt from vexatious or burdensome taxes, tolerably well off, owning at least his own office, he was above sordid preoccupations and common necessities. Used to old fashioned habits of simplicity, soberness and economy, he was not tormented by a disproportion between his income and expenses, by the requirements of show and luxury, by the necessity of annually adding to his revenue.—Thus guided and free, the instincts of vanity and generosity, the essence of French character, took the ascendant; the councilor or comptroller, the King's agent, regarded himself as a man above the common run, as a noble of the Third-Estate; he thought less of making money than of gaining esteem; his chief desire was to be honored and honorable; "he passed life comfortably and was looked up to,... in the discharge of his duty,... with no other ambition than to transmit to his children.... along with their inheritance an unsullied reputation."4180 Among the other groups of the bourgeoisie the same corporate system, the same settled habits, the same security, the same frugality, the same institutions, the same customs,4181 promoted the growth of nearly the same sentiments, while the intellectual culture of these men was not insignificant. Having leisure, they were given to reading; as they were not overwhelmed with newspapers they read books worth reading; I have found in old libraries in the provinces, in the houses of the descendants of a manufacturer or lawyer in a small town, complete editions of Voltaire, Rousseau, Montesquieu, Buffon and Condillac, with marks in each volume showing that the volume had been read by someone in the house before the close of the eighteenth century. Nowhere else, likewise, had all that was sound and liberal in the philosophy of the eighteenth century found such a welcome; it is from this class that the patriots of 1789 were recruited; it had furnished not only the majority of the Constituent Assembly, but again all the honest men who, from July, 1789 to the end of 1791 performed their administrative duties so disinterestedly, and with such devotion and zeal, amidst so many difficulties, dangers and disappointments. Composed of Feuillants or Monarchists, possessing such types of men as Huez of Troyes or Dietrich of Strasbourg, and for representatives such leaders as Lafayette and Bailly, it comprised the superior intelligence and most substantial integrity of the Third-Estate. It is evident that, along with the nobles and clergy, the best fruits of history were gathered in it, and most of the mental and moral capital accumulated, not only by the century, but, again, by preceding centuries.
Where recruited.—Village and trade syndics.—Competency of
their electors.—Their interest in making good selections.
—Their capacity and integrity.—The sorting of men under the
ancient regime.—Conditions of a family's maintenance and
advancement.—Hereditary and individual right of the Notable
to his property and rank.
Like a fire lit on a hilltop overlooking a cold and obscure countryside, a civilization, kept alive with much expense on peaks in a sea of human barbarity, radiating while its rays grow dim; its light and warmth fading just as its gleams reach remoter and deeper strata. Nevertheless, both penetrate yet sufficiently far and deep before wholly dying out. If we want to appraise their power in France at the close of the eighteenth century we must add to the notables the half-notables of society, namely, the men who, like the people, were devoted to manual labor, but who, among the people, led the way, say one hundred and fifty thousand families, consisting of well-to-do farmers, small rural proprietors, shopkeepers, retailers, foremen and master-workmen, village syndics and guild syndics,4182 those who were established and had some capital, owning a plot of land and a house, with a business or stock of tools, and a set of customers, that is to say, with something ahead and credit, not being obliged to live from hand to mouth, and therefore, beginning to be independent and more influential, in short, the overseers of the great social work-house, the sergeants and corporals of the social army.—They, too, were not unworthy of their rank. In the village or trade community, the syndic, elected by his equals and neighbors, was not blindly nominated; all his electors in relation to him were competent; if peasants, they had seen him turning up the soil; if blacksmiths or joiners, they had seen him at work in his forge, or at the bench. And, as their direct, present and obvious interests were concerned, they chose him for the best, not on the strength of a newspaper recommendation, in deference to a vague declamatory platform or sounding, empty phrases, but according to their personal experiences, and the thorough knowledge they had of him. The man sent by the village to represent them to the intendant and selected by the guild to sit in the town council, was its most capable, and most creditable man, one of those, probably, who, through his application, intelligence, honesty and economy, had proved the most prosperous, some master-workman or farmer that had gained experience through long years of assiduity, familiar with details and precedents, of good judgment and repute, more interested than anybody else in supporting the interests of the community and with more leisure than others to attend to public affairs.4183 This man, through the nature of things, imposed himself on the attention, confidence, and deference of his peers, and, because he was their natural representative, he was their legal representative.
Upon the whole, if, in this old society, the pressure was unequally distributed, if the general equilibrium was unstable, if the upper parts bore down too heavily on the lower ones, the sorting, at least, which goes on in every civilized State, constantly separating the wheat from the chaff, went on tolerably well; except at the center and at the Court, where the winnowing machine had worked haphazard and, frequently, in an opposite sense for a century, the separation proceeded regularly, undoubtedly slower, but, perhaps, more equitably than in our contemporary democracy. The chance that a notable by right could become a notable de facto was then much greater: it was less difficult, and the inclination to found, maintain and perpetuate a family or a business was much stronger; people looked more often beyond themselves; the eyes naturally turned outside the narrow circle of one's personality, looking backward as well as beyond this present life. The (later) institution of an equal partition of property, the (later) system of obligatory partition and the rule of partition in kind, with other prescriptions of the (new) civil code, did not split up an heritage and ruin the home.4184 Parental negligence and the children's lack of respect and consideration had not yet upset the authority and abolished respect in the family. Useful and natural associations were not yet stifled in the germ nor arrested in their development by the systematic hostility of the law. The ease and cheapness of transportation, the promiscuity of schools, the excitement of competition, everyone's rush to placement and office, the increasing excitement of ambition and greed, had not (yet) immeasurably multiplied the class of irresponsible malcontents and mischievous nomads. In the political order of things, inaptitude, envy, brutality were not sovereign; universal suffrage did not exclude from power the men, born, bred and qualified to exercise it; countless public posts were not offered as a prey to charlatanism and to the intrigues of politicians. France was not then, as now-a-days, on a way to become a vast lodging-house administered by casual managers, condemned to periodical failures, inhabited by anonymous residents, indifferent to each other, lacking local ties, lacking engagements and having no corporate loyalties, merely tenants and passing consumers, placed in numerical order around a common mess-table where each thinks only of himself, gets served quickly, consumes what he can lay his hands on, and ends by finding out that, in a place of this sort, the best condition, the wisest course, is to put all one's property into an annuity and live a bachelor.—Formerly, among all classes and in all the provinces, there were a large number of families that had taken root on the spot, living there a hundred years and more. Not only among the nobles, but among the bourgeoisie and the Third-Estate, the heir of any enterprise was expected to continue his calling. This was so with the seignorial chateau and extensive domain, as with the bourgeois dwelling and patrimonial office, the humble rural domain, farm, shop and factory, all were transmitted intact from one generation to another.4185 Great or small, the individual was not exclusively interested in himself; his thoughts also traveled forward to the future and back to the past, on the side of ancestors and on that of descendants, along the endless chain of which his own life was but a link; he possessed traditions, he felt bound to set examples. Under this twofold title, his domestic authority was uncontested;4186 his household and all his employees followed his instructions without swerving and without resistance. When, by virtue of this domestic discipline, a family had maintained itself upright and respected on the same spot for a century, it could easily advance a degree; it could introduce one of its members into the upper class, pass from the plow or trade to petty offices, and from these to the higher ones and to parliamentary dignities, from the four thousand posts that ennoble to the legalized nobility, from the lately made nobles to the old nobility. Apart from the two or three thousand gilded drones living on the public honey at Versailles, apart from the court parasites and their valets, three or four hundred thousand notables and half-notables of France thus acquired and kept their offices, consideration and fortune; they were therefore their legitimate possessors. The peasant-proprietor and master-artisan had risen from father to son, at four o'clock in the morning, toiled all day and never drank. From father to son, the trader, notary, lawyer and office-holder, had been careful, economical, skillful and attentive to business, correct in their papers, precise in their accounts. From father to son, the nobleman had served bravely, the parliamentarian had judged equitably, as a point of honor, with a salary inferior to the interest of the sum paid by him to acquire his rank or post. Each of these men received no more than his due; his possessions and his rank were the savings of his ascendants, the price of social services rendered by the long file of deserving dead, all that his ancestors, his father and himself had created or preserved of any stable value; each piece of gold that remained in the hereditary purse represented the balance of a lifetime, the enduring labor of some one belonging to his line, while among these gold pieces, he himself had provided his share.—For, personal services counted, even among the upper nobility; and all the more among the lower class, in the Third-Estate, and among the people. Among the notables of every degree just described, most of them, in 1789, were fully grown men, many of them mature, a goodly number advanced in years, and some quite aged; consequently, in justification of his rank and emoluments, or of his gains and his fortune, each could allege fifteen, twenty, thirty and forty years of labor and honorability in private or public situations, the grand-vicar of the diocese as well as the chief-clerk of the ministry, the intendant of the généralité as well as the president of the royal tribunal, the village curé, the noble officer, the office-holder, the lawyer, the procureur, the large manufacturer, the wholesale dealer, as well as the well-to-do farmer, and the well-known handicraftsman.—Thus, not only were they an élite corps, the most valuable portion of the nation, the best timber of the forest, but again, the wood of each branch belonged to that trunk; it grew there, and was the product of its own vegetation; it sprung out of the trunk wholly through the unceasing and spontaneous effort of the native sap, through time-honored and recent labor, and, on this account, it merited respect.—Through a double onslaught, at once against each human branch and against the entire French forest, the Jacobin wood-choppers seek to clear the ground. Their theory results in this precept, that not one of the noble trees of this forest, not one valuable trunk from the finest oak to the smallest sapling, should be left standing.
All superiorities of rank are illegitimate.—Bearing of this
principle.—Incivique benefits and enjoyments.—How
revolutionary laws reach the lower class.—Whole populations
affected in a mass.—proportion of the lowly in the
proscription lists. How the revolutionary laws specially
affect those who are prominent among the people.
Not that the ravages which they make stop there! The principle extended far beyond that. The fundamental rule, according to Jacobin maxims, is that every public or private advantage which any citizen enjoys and which is not enjoyed by another citizen, is illegitimate.—On Ventôse 19, year II., Henriot, general in command, having surrounded the Palais Royal and made a sweep of "suspects," renders an account of his expedition as follows:4187 "One hundred and thirty muscadins have been arrested.... These gentlemen are transferred to the Petits-Pêres. Being well-fed and plump, they cannot be sans-culottes." Henriot was right, for, to live well is incivique. Whoever lays in stores of provisions is criminal, even if he has gone a good ways for them, even if he has not overpaid the butcher of his quarter, even if he has not diminished by an ounce of meat the ration of his neighbor; when he is found out, he is punished and his hoard confiscated. "A citizen4188 had a little pig brought to him from a place six leagues from Paris, and killed it at once. Three hours afterwards, the pig was seized by commissioners and distributed among the people, without the owner getting a bit of it;" moreover, the said owner "was imprisoned."—He is a monopolist! To Jacobin people, to empty stomachs, there is no greater crime; this misdeed, to their imaginations, explains the arrest of Hébert, their favorite: "It is said at the Halle (the covered Paris market)4189 that he has monopolized a brother of the order of Saint-Antoine4190 as well as a pot of twenty-five pounds of Brittany butter," which is enough; they immediately and "unanimously consign Père Duchesne to the guillotine." (Note that the Père Duchesne, founded by Hébert, was the most radical and revolutionary journal. (SR.)—Of all privileges, accordingly, that of having a supply of food is the most offensive; "it is now necessary for one who has two dishes to give one of them to him who has none;"4191 every man who manages to eat more than another is a robber; for, in the first place, he robs the community, the sole legitimate owner of aliments, and next, he robs, and personally, all who have less to eat than he has.
The same rule applies to other things of which the possession is either agreeable or useful: in an equalizing social system, that now established, every article of food possessed by one individual to the exclusion of others, is a dish abstracted from the common table and held by him to another's detriment. On the strength of this, the theorists who govern agree with the reigning ragamuffins. Whoever has two good coats is an aristocrat, for there are many who have only one poor one.4192 Whoever has good shoes is an aristocrat, for many wear wooden ones, and others go barefoot. Whoever owns and rents lodgings is an aristocrat, for others, his tenants, instead of receiving money, pay it out. The tenant who furnishes his own rooms is an aristocrat, for many lodge in boarding-houses and others sleep in the open air. Whoever possesses capital is an aristocrat, even the smallest amount in money or in kind, a field, a roof over his head, half-a-dozen silver spoons given to him by his parents on his wedding-day, an old woollen stocking into which twenty or thirty crowns have been dropped one by one, all one's savings, whatever has been laid by or economized, a petty assortment of eatables or merchandise, one's crop for the year and stock of groceries, especially if, disliking to give them up and letting his dissatisfaction be seen, he, through revolutionary taxation and requisitions, through the maximum and the confiscation of the precious metals, is constrained to surrender his small savings gratis, or at half their value.—Fundamentally, it is only those who have nothing of their own that are held to be patriots, those who live from day to day,4193 "the wretched," the poor, vagabonds, and the famished; the humblest laborer, the least instructed, the most ill at his ease, is treated as criminal, as an enemy, as soon as he is suspected of having some resources; in vain does he show his scarified or callous hands; he escapes neither spoliation, the prison, nor the guillotine. At Troyes, a poor shop-girl who had set up a small business on borrowed money, but who is ruined by a bankruptcy and completely so by the maximum, infirm, and consuming piecemeal the rest of her stock, is taxed five hundred livres.4194 In the villages of Alsace, an order is issued to arrest the five, six or seven richest persons in the commune, even if there are no rich; consequently, they seize the least poor, simply because they are so; for instance, at Heiligenberg, six "farmers" one of whom is a day-laborer, "or journey-man," "suspect," says the register of the jail, "because he is comfortably off."4195 On this account nowhere are there so many "suspects" as among the people; the shop, the farm and the work-room harbor more aristocrats than the rectory and the chateau. In effect, according to the Jacobins,4196 "nearly all farmers are aristocrats;" "the merchants are all essentially anti-revolutionary,"4197 and especially all dealers in articles of prime necessity, wine-merchants, bakers and butchers; the latter especially are open "conspirators," enemies "of the interior," and "whose aristocracy is insupportable." Such, already, among the lower class of people, are the many delinquents who are punished.
But there are still more of them to punish, for, besides the crime of not being destitute, of possessing some property, of withholding articles necessary for existence, there is the crime of aristocracy, necessarily so called, namely, repugnance to, lack of zeal, or even indifference for the established régime, regret for the old one, relationship or intercourse with a condemned or imprisoned émigré of the upper class, services rendered to some outlaw, the resort to some priest; now, numbers of poor farmers, mechanics, domestics and women servants, have committed this crime;4198 and in many provinces and in many of the large cities nearly the whole of the laboring population commits it and persists in it; such is the case, according to Jacobin reports, in Alsace, Franche-Comté, Provence, Vaucluse, Anjou, Poitou, Vendée, Brittany, Picardie and Flanders, and in Marseilles, Bordeaux and Lyons. In Lyons alone, writes Collot d'Herbois, "there are sixty thousand persons who never will become republicans. They should be dealt with, that is made redundant, and prudently distributed all over the surface of the Republic."4199—Finally, add to the persons of the lower class, prosecuted on public grounds, those who are prosecuted on private grounds. Among peasants in the same village, workmen of the same trade and shopkeepers in the same quarter, there is always envy, enmities and spites; those who are Jacobins become local pashas and are able to gratify local jealousies with impunity, something they never fail to do.41100
Hence, on the lists of the guillotined, the incarcerated and of emigrés, the men and women of inferior condition are in much greater number, far greater than their companions of the superior and middle classes all put together. Out of 12,000 condemned to death whose rank and professions have been ascertained, 7,54541101 are peasants, cultivators, ploughmen, workmen of various sorts, innkeepers, wine-dealers, soldiers and sailors, domestics, women, young girls, servants and seamstresses. Out of 1,900 emigrés from Doubs, nearly 1,100 belong to the lower class. Towards the month of April, 1794, all the prisons in France overflow with farmers;41102 in the Paris prisons alone, two months before Thermidor 9, there are 2 000 of them.41103 Without mentioning the eleven western departments in which four or five hundred square leagues of territory are devastated and twenty towns and one thousand eight hundred villages destroyed,41104 where the avowed purpose of the Jacobin policy is a systematic and total destruction of the country, man and beast, buildings, crops, and even trees, there are cantons and even provinces where the entire rural and working population is arrested or put to flight. In the Pyrenees, the old Basque populations "torn from their natal soil, crowded into the churches with no means of subsistence but that of charity," in the middle of winter, so that sixteen hundred of those incarcerated die "mostly of cold and hunger;"41105 at Bédouin, a town of two thousand souls, in which a tree of liberty is cut down by some unknown persons, four hundred and thirty-three houses are demolished or burned, sixteen persons guillotined and forty-seven shot, while the rest of the inhabitants are driven out, reduced to living like vagabonds on the mountain, or in holes which they dig in the ground;41106 in Alsace, fifty thousand farmers who, in the winter of 1793, take refuge with their wives and children on the other side of the Rhine.41107 In short, the revolutionary operation is a complete prostration of people of all classes, the trunks as well as the saplings being felled, and often in such a way as to clear the ground entirely.
But in this ruthless felling, however, the notables of the people, making all due allowances, suffer more than the ordinary people. It is obvious that the Jacobin wood-chopper persecutes, insistently and selectively, the veterans of labor and savings, the large cultivators who from father to son and for many generations have possessed the same farm, the master-craftsmen whose shops are well stocked and who have good customers, the respectable, well-patronized retailers, who owe nothing; the village-syndics and trades-syndics, all those showing more deeply and visibly than the rest of their class, the five or six blazes which summon the ax. They are better off, better provided with desirable comforts and conveniences, which is of itself an offense against equality. Having accumulated a small hoard, a few pieces of plate, sometimes a few crowns,41108 a store of linen and clothes, a stock of provisions or goods, they do not willingly submit to being plundered, which is the offense of egoism. Being egoists, it is presumed that they are hostile to the system of fraternity, at least indifferent to it, as well as lukewarm towards the Republic, that is to say, Moderates, which is the worst offense of all.41109 Being the foremost of their class, they are haughty like the nobles or the bourgeois and regard themselves as superior to a poor man, to a vagabond, to a genuine sans-culotte, the fourth and most inexcusable of all offenses. Moreover, from the fact of their superior condition, they have contracted familiarities and formed connections with the proscribed class; the farmer, the intendant, the overseer is often attached to his noble proprietor or patron;41110 many of the farmers, shopkeepers and craftsmen belonging to old families are considered as affiliated with the bourgeoisie or the clergy,41111 through a son or brother who has risen a degree in trade, or by some industrial pursuit, or who, having completed his studies, has become a curé or lawyer, or else through some daughter, or well-married sister, or through one who has become a nun: now, this relation, ally, friend or comrade of a "suspect "is himself a "suspect,"—the last anti-revolutionary and decisive barrier. Sober and well-behaved persons, having prospered or maintained themselves under the ancient régime, must naturally cherish respect for former institutions; they must involuntarily retain a deep feeling of veneration for the King, and especially for religion; they are devout Catholics, and therefore are chagrined to see the churches shut up, worship prohibited and ecclesiastics persecuted, and would again be glad to go to Mass, honor Easter, and have an orthodox curé who could administer to them available sacraments, a baptism, an absolution, a marriage-rite, a genuine extreme unction.41112—Under all these headings, they have made personal enemies of the rascals who hold office; on all these grounds, they are struck down; what was once meritorious with them is now disgraceful. Thus, the principal swath consists of the élite of the people, selected from amongst the people itself; it is against the "subordinate aristocracy," those most capable of doing and conducting manual labor, the most creditable workmen, through their activity, frugality and good habits, that the Revolution, in its rigor against the inferior class, rages with the greatest fury.
The rigor of the revolutionary laws increase according to
the elevation of the class.—The Notables properly so called
attacked because of their being Notables.—Orders of
Taillefer, Milhaud, and Lefiot.—The public atonement of
Montargis.
For the same reason, as far as the notables, properly so-called, are concerned, it bears down still more heavily, not merely on the nobles because of ancient privileges, not merely on ecclesiastics on the score of being insubordinate Catholics, but on nobles, ecclesiastics and bourgeois in their capacity of notables, that is to say, born and bred above others, and respected by the masses on account of their superior condition.—In the eyes of the genuine Jacobin, the notables of the third class are no less criminal than the members of the two superior classes. "The bourgeois,41113 the merchants, the large proprietors," writes a popular club in the South, "all have the pretension of the old set (des ci-dévants)." And the club complains of "the law not providing means for opening the eyes of the people with respect to these new tyrants." It is horrible! The stand they take is an offense against equality and they are proud of it! And what is worse, this stand attracts public consideration! Consequently, "the club requests that the revolutionary Tribunal be empowered to consign this proud class to temporary confinement," and then "the people would see the crime it had committed and recover from the sort of esteem in which they had held it."—Incorrigible and contemptuous heretics against the new creed, they are only too lucky to be treated somewhat like infidel Jews in the middle-ages. Accordingly, if they are tolerated, it is on the condition that they let themselves be pillaged at discretion, covered with opprobrium and subdued through fear.—At one time, with insulting irony, they are called upon to prove their dubious civism by forced donations. "Whereas,"41114 says Representative Milhaud, "all the citizens and citoyennes of Narbonne being in requisition for the discharge and transport of forage; whereas, this morning, the Representative, in person, having inspected the performance of this duty," and having observed on the canal "none but sans-culottes and a few young citizens; whereas, not finding at their posts any muscadin and no muscadine; whereas, the persons, whose hands are no doubt too delicate, even temporarily, for the glorious work of robust sans-culottes, have, on the other hand, greater resources in their fortune, and, desiring to afford to the rich of Narbonne the precious advantage of being equally useful to the republic," hereby orders that "the richest citizens of Narbonne pay within twenty-four hours" a patriotic donation of one hundred thousand livres, one-half to be assigned to the military hospitals, and the other half, on the designation thereof by a "Committee of Charity, composed of three reliable revolutionary sans-culottes," to be distributed among the poor of the Commune. Should any "rich egoist refuse to contribute his contingent he is to be immediately transferred to the jail at Perpignan."—Not to labor with one's own hands, to be disqualified for work demanding physical strength, is of itself a democratic stain, and the man who is sullied by this draws down on himself, not alone an augmentation of pecuniary taxation, but frequently an augmentation of personal compulsory labor. At Villeneuve, Aveyron, and throughout the department of Cantal,41115 Representative Taillefer and his delegate Deltheil, instruct the Revolutionary Committees to "place under military requisition and conscription all muscadins above the first class," that is to say, all between twenty-five and forty years of age who are not reached by the law. "By muscadins is meant all citizens of that age not married, and exercising no useful profession," in other words, those who live on their income. And, that none of the middle or upper class may escape, the edict subjects to special rigor, supplementary taxes, and arbitrary arrest, not alone property-holders and fund-holders, but again all persons designated under the following heads,—aristocrats, Feuillants, moderates, Girondists, federalists, muscadins, the superstitious, fanatics the abettors of royalism, of superstition and of federation, monopolists, jobbers, egoists, "suspects" of incivism, and, generally, all who are indifferent to the Revolution, of which local committees are to draw up the lists.
Occasionally, in a town, some steps taken collectively, either a vote or petition, furnish a ready-made list;41116 it suffices to read this to know who are notables, the most upright people of the place; henceforth, under the pretext of political repression, the levellers may give free play to their social hatred.—At Montargis, nine days after the attempt of June 20, 1792,41117 two hundred and twenty-eight notables sign an address in testimony of their respectful sympathy for the King; a year and nine months later, in consequence of a retroactive stroke, all are hit, and, with the more satisfaction, inasmuch as in their persons the most respected in the town fall beneath the blow, all whom flight and banishment had left there belonging to the noble, ecclesiastic, bourgeois or popular aristocracy. Already, "on the purification of the constituted authorities of Montargis, the representative had withdrawn every signer from places of public trust and kept them out of all offices." But this is not sufficient; the punishment must be more exemplary. Four of them, the ex-mayor, an ex-collector, a district administrator and a notable are sent to the revolutionary Tribunal in Paris, to be guillotined in deference to principles. Thirty-two former officers—chevaliers of St. Louis, mousquetaires, nobles, priests, an ex-procureur-royal, an ex-treasurer of France, a former administrator of the department, and two ladies, one of them designated as "calling herself a former marchioness"—are confined, until peace is secured, in the jail at Montargis. Other former municipal officers and officers in the National Guard—men of the law, notaries and advocates, physicians, surgeons, former collectors, police commissioners, postmasters, merchants and manufacturers, men and women, married or widows and widowers—are to make public apology and be summoned to the Temple of Reason to undergo there the humiliation of a public penance on the 20th of Ventôse at three o'clock in the afternoon. They all go, for the summons says, "whoever does not present himself on the day and hour named will be arrested and confined until peace is declared." On reaching the church, purified by Jacobin adoration, "in the presence of the constituted authorities of the popular club and of the citizens convoked in general assembly," they mount one by one into a tribune raised three steps above the floor," in such a way as to be in full sight. One by one the national agent, or the mayor, reprimands them in the following language:
"You have been base enough to sign a fawning address to Louis XVI., the most odious and the vilest of tyrants, an ogre of the human species guilty of every sort of crime and debauchery. You are hereby censured by the people. You are moreover warned that on committing the first act of incivism, or manifesting any anti-revolutionary conduct, the surveillance of the constituted authorities will be extended to you in the most energetic manner; the tribunals will show you less leniency and the guillotine will insure prompt and imposing justice."
Each, called by name, receives in turn the threatened admonition, and, descending from the tribune amidst hues and cries, all sign the procès-verbal. But shame and guilt are often absent, and some of them do not seem to be sufficiently penitent. Consequently, at the close of the ceremony, the National Agent calls the attention of the assembly to "the impudence manifested by certain aristocrats, so degraded that even national justice fails to make them blush;" and the Revolutionary Committee, "considering the indifference and derisive conduct of four women and three men, just manifested in this assembly; considering the necessity of punishing an inveterate aristocracy which seems to make sport of corrective acts that bear only (sic) on morals, in a most exemplary manner, decides that the seven delinquents "shall be put under arrest, and confined in the jail of Sainte-Marie." The three who have shown indifference, are to be confined three months; the four who have shown derision, are to be confined until peace is restored. Besides this, the decree of the National Agent and the minutes of the meeting are to be printed and six thousand impressions struck off at the expense of the signers, "the richest and most 'suspect,' "—a former treasurer of France, a notary, a grocer, the wife of the former commandant of the gendarmerie, a widow and another woman,—all, says the agent, "of very solid wealth and aristocracy." "Bravo!" shouts the assembly, at this witticism; applause is given and it sings "the national hymn." It is nine o'clock in the evening. This public penitence lasts six hours and the Jacobins of Montargis retire, proud of their work; having punished as a public affront, an old and legal manifestation of respect for the public magistrate; having sent either to the scaffold or to prison, and fined or disgraced the small local élite; having degraded to the level of prostitutes and felons under surveillance, reputable women and honorable men who are, by law, most esteemed under a normal system of government and who, under the revolutionary system are, by law, the least so.41118
Two characteristics of the upper class, wealth and
education.—Each of these is criminal.—Measures against
rich and well-to-do people.—Affected in a mass and by
categories.—Measures against cultivated and polite people.
—Danger of culture and distinction.—Proscription of "honest
folks."
Two advantages, fortune and education, each involving the other, cause a man to be ranked in the upper class; hence, one or the other, whether each by itself or both together, mark a man out for spoliation, imprisonment and death.—In vain may he have demonstrated his Jacobinism, and Jacobinism of the ultra sort. Hérault-Séchelles, who voted for murdering the King, who belongs to the Committee of Public Safety, who, in the Upper-Rhine, has just carried out the worst revolutionary ordinances,41119 but who has the misfortune to be rich and a man of the world, is led to the scaffold, and those devoted to the guillotine readily explain his condemnation: he is no patriot,—how could he be, enjoying an income of two hundred thousand livres, and, moreover, is he not a general-advocate?41120 One of these offenses is sufficient.—Alone and by itself, "opulence," writes Saint-Just, "is a disgrace," and, according to him, a man is opulent "who supports fewer children than he has thousands of livres income; in effect, among the persons confined as "rich and egoists" we find, according to the very declaration of the Revolutionary Committee, persons with incomes of only 4,000, 3,700, 1,500, and even 500 livres.41121 Moreover, a fortune or a competence, inspires its possessor with anti-revolutionary sentiments; consequently, he is for the moment an obstruction; "You are rich," says Cambon, making use of a personification, "you cherish an opinion, which compels us to be on the defensive; pay then, so as to indemnify us and be thankful for our indulgence which, precautionary and until peace is declared, keeps you under bolt and bar."41122 Rich, anti-revolutionary, and vicious," according to Robespierre,41123 "these three traits depend on each other, and, therefore, the possession of the superfluous is an infallible sign of aristocracy, a visible mark of incivism" and, as Fouché says, "a stamp of reprobation." "The superfluous is an evident and unwarrantable violation of the people's rights; every man who has more than his wants call for, cannot use, and therefore he must only abuse."41124 Whoever does not make over to the masses the excess of what is strictly necessary.... places himself in the rank of 'suspects.' Rich egoists, you are the cause of our misfortunes!"41125 "You dared to smile contemptuously on the appellation of sans-culottes;41126 you have enjoyed much more than your brethren alongside of you dying with hunger; you are not fit to associate with them, and since you have disdained to have them eat at your table, they cast you out eternally from their bosom and condemn you, in turn, to wear the shackles prepared for them by your indifference or your maneuvers." In other words, whoever has a good roof over his head, or wears good clothes, man or woman, idler or industrious, noble or commoner, is available for the prison or the guillotine, or, at the very least, he is a taxable and workable serf at pleasure; his capital and accumulations, if not spontaneously and immediately handed over, form a criminal basis and proof of conviction.—The orders of arrest are generally issued against him on account of his wealth; in order to drain a town of these offenders one by one, all are penned together according to their resources; at Strasbourg,41127 193 persons are taxed, each from 6,000 to 300,000 livres, in all 9 million livres, payable within twenty-four hours, by the leading men of each profession or trade, bankers, brokers, merchants, manufacturers, professors, pastors, lawyers, physicians, surgeons, publishers, printers, upholsterers, glass-dealers, rope-makers, master-masons, coffee-house and tavern keepers. And let there be no delay in responding to these orders within the prescribed time! Otherwise the delinquents will be placed in the stocks, on the scaffold, face to face with the guillotine. "One of the best citizens in the commune, who had steadily manifested his attachment to the Revolution, being unable to realize a sum of 250,000 livres in one day, was fastened in the pillory."41128 Sometimes the orders affected an entire class, not alone nobles or priests, but all the members of any bourgeois profession or even of any handicraft. At Strasbourg, a little later, "considering that the thirst for gold has always controlled the brewers of the commune," they are condemned to 250,000 livres fine, to be paid in three days under penalty of being declared rebels, with the confiscation of their possessions;" then, upon another similar consideration, the bakers and flour dealers are taxed three hundred thousand livres.41129 In addition to this, writes Representative Milhaud, at Guyardin,41130 "We have ordered the arrest of all bankers, stock-brokers and notaries.... All their wealth is confiscated; we estimate the sums under seal at 2 or 3 millions in coin, and 15 or 16 in assignats." There is the same haul of the net at Paris. By order of Lhuillier, procureur of the department, "seals are placed in the offices of all the bankers, stock-brokers, silversmiths, etc.," and they themselves are shut up in the Madelonettes; a few days after, that they may pay their drafts, they are let out as a favor, but on condition that they remain under arrest in their homes, at their own expense, under guard of two good sans-culottes.41131 In like manner, at Nantes,41132 Lyons, Marseilles and Bordeaux, the prisons are filled and the guillotine works according to the categories. At one time they are "all of the Grand Théatre," or the principal merchants, "to the number of more than 200," are incarcerated at Bordeaux in one night.41133 At another time, Paris provides a haul of farmer-generals or parliamentarians. Carts leave Toulouse conveying its parliamentarians to Paris to undergo capital punishment. At Aix, writes an agent,41134
"the guillotine is going to work on former lawyers a few hundred heads legally taken off will do the greatest good."
And, as new crimes require new terms to designate them, they add to "incivisme" and "moderantisme," the term "negociantisme," all of which are easily stated and widespread crimes.
"The rich and the merchants," writes an observer,41135 "are here, as elsewhere, born enemies of equality and lovers of hideous federalism, the only aristocracy that remains to be crushed out."
Barras, with still greater precision, declares in the tribune that, "commerce is usurious, monarchical and anti-revolutionary."41136 Considered in itself, it may be defined as an appeal to bad instincts; it seems a corrupting, incivique, anti-fraternal institution, many Jacobins having proposed either to interdict it to private persons and attribute it wholly to the State, or suppress it along with the arts and manufactures which nourish it, in order that only a population of agriculturists and soldiers may be left in France.41137
The second advantage and the second crime of the notables is superiority of education. "In all respectable assemblages," writes a Dutch traveler in 1795,41138 "you may be sure that one-half of those present have been in prison. Add the absent, the guillotined, the exiled, emigrés, the deported, and note this, that, in the other favored half, those who did not quaff the prison cup had had a foretaste of it for, each expected daily to receive his warrant of arrest; "the worst thing under Robespierre, as several old gentlemen have told me, was that one never knew in the morning whether one would sleep in one's own bed at night." There was not a well-bred man who did not live in dread of this; examine the lists of "suspects," of the arrested, of exiles, of those executed, in any town, district or department,41139 and you will see immediately, through their quality and occupations, first, that three-quarters of the cultivated are inscribed on it, and next, that intellectual culture in itself is suspect. "They were equally criminal,"41140 write the Strasbourg administrators, "whether rich or cultivated.... The (Jacobin) municipality declared the University federalist; it proscribed public instruction and, consequently, the professors, regents, and heads of schools, with all instructors, public as well as private, even those provided with certificates of civism, were arrested;.... every Protestant minister and teacher in the Lower-Rhine department was incarcerated, with a threat of being transferred to the citadel at Besançon."—Fourcroy, in the Jacobin Club at Paris, excusing himself for being a savant, for giving lectures on chemistry, for not devoting his time to the rantings of the Convention and of the clubs, is obliged to declare that he is poor, that he lives by his work, that he supports "his father, a sans-culotte, and his sans-culotte sisters;" although a good republican, he barely escapes, and the same with others like him. All educated men were persecuted," he states a month after Thermidor 9;41141 "to have acquaintances, to be literary, sufficed for arrest, as an aristocrat.... Robespierre... with devilish ingenuity, abused, calumniated and overwhelmed with gall and bitterness all who were devoted to serious studies, all who professed extensive knowledge;... he felt that cultivated men would never bend the knee to him 41142..... Instruction was paralyzed; they wanted to burn the libraries..... Must I tell you that at the very door of your assembly errors in orthography are seen? Nobody learns how to read or write."—At Nantes, Carrier boasts of having "dispersed the literary chambers," while in his enumeration of the evil-minded he adds "to the rich and merchants," "all gens d'esprit."41143 Sometimes on the turnkey's register we read that such an one was confined "for being clever and able to do mischief," another for saying "good-day, gentlemen, to the municipal councillors."41144
Politeness has, like other signs of a good education, become a stigma; good manners are considered, not only as a remnant of the ancient régime, but as a revolt against the new institutions; now, as the governing principle of these is, theoretically, abstract equality and, practically, the ascendancy of the low class, one rebels against the established order of things when one repudiates coarse companions, familiar oaths, and the indecent expressions of the common workman and the soldier. In sum, Jacobinism, through its doctrines and deeds, its dungeons and executioners, proclaims to the nation over which it holds the rod:41145
"Be rude, that you may become republican, return to barbarism that you may show the superiority of your genius; abandon the customs of civilized people that you may adopt those of galley slaves; mar your language with a view to improve it; use that of the populace under penalty of death. Spanish beggars treat each other in a dignified way; they show respect for humanity although in tatters. We, on the contrary, order you to assume our rags, our patois, our terms of intimacy. Don the carmagnole and tremble; become rustics and dolts, and prove your civism by the absence of all education."
This is true to the letter.
"Education,41146" says another contemporary, "amiable qualities, gentle ways, a mild physiognomy, bodily graces, a cultivated mind, all natural endowments are henceforth the inevitable causes of proscription."
One is self-condemned if one has not converted oneself into a sans-culotte and proletarian, in accordance with affected modes, air, language and dress. Hence,
"through a hypocritical contest hitherto unknown men who were not vicious deemed it necessary to appear so."
And worse still,
"one was even afraid to be oneself; one changed one's name, one went in disguise, wearing a vulgar and tasteless attire; everybody shrunk from being what he was."
For, according to the Jacobin program, all Frenchmen must be recast41147 in one uniform mold; they must be taken when small; all must be subject to the same enforced education, that of a mechanic, rustic and soldier's boy. Be warned, ye adults, by the guillotine, reform yourselves beforehand according to the prescribed pattern! No more costly, elegant or delicate crystal or gold vases! All are shattered or are still being shattered. Henceforth, only common ware is to be tolerated or ordered to be made, all alike in substance, shape and color, manufactured by thousands at wholesale and in public factories, for the common and plain uses of rural and military life; all original and superior forms are to be rejected.
"The masters of the day," writes Daunou,41148 "deliberately aimed their sword thrusts at superior talent, at energetic characters; they mowed down as well as they could in so short a time, the flower and hope of the nation."
In this respect they were consistent; equality-socialism41149 allows none but automatic citizens, mere tools in the hands of the State, all alike, of a rudimentary fashion and easily managed, without personal conscience, spontaneity, curiosity or integrity; whoever has cultivated himself, whoever has thought for himself and exercised his own will and judgment rises above the level and shakes off the yoke; to obtain consideration, to be intelligent and honorable, to belong to the élite, is to be anti-revolutionary. In the popular club of Bourg-en-Bresse,41150 Representative Javogues declared that,
"the Republic could be established only on the corpse of the last of the respectable men."
Prisoners in the rue de Sévres and the "Croix-Rouge"
revolutionary committee.—The young Dauphin and Simon his
preceptor.—Judges, and those under their jurisdiction.
—Trenchard and Coffinhal, Lavoisier and André Chénier.
Here we have, on one side, the élite of France, almost every person of rank, fortune, family, and merit, those eminent for intelligence, culture, talent and virtue, all deprived of common rights, in exile, in prison, under pikes, and on the scaffold. On the other side, those above common law, possessing every office and omnipotent in the irresponsible dictatorship, in the despotic proconsulships, in the sovereignty of justice, a horde of the outcasts of all classes, the parvenus of fanaticism, charlatanism, imbecility and crime. Often, when these personalities meet, one sees the contrast between the governed and the governors in such strong relief that one almost regards it as calculated and arranged beforehand; the colors and brush of the painter, rather than words, are necessary to represent it. In the western section of Paris, in the prisons of the rue de Sévres41151 the prisoners consist of the most distinguished personages of the Quartier Saint Germain, prelates, officers, grand-seigniors, and noble ladies,—Monseigneur de Clermont-Tonnerre, Monseigneur de Crussol d'Amboise, Monseigneur de Hersaint, Monseigneur de Saint Simon, bishop of Agde, the Comtesse de Narbonne-Pelet, the Duchesse de Choiseul, the Princesse de Chimay, the Comtesse de Raymond-Narbonne and her daughter, two years of age, in short, the flower of that refined society which Europe admired and imitated and which, in its exquisite perfection, equalled or surpassed all that Greece, Rome and Italy had produced in brilliancy, polish and amiability. Contrast with these the arbiters of their lives and deaths, the potentates of the same quarter who issue the warrants of arrest against them, who pen them in to speculate on them, and who revel at their expense and before their eyes: these consist of the members of the revolutionary committee of the Croix-Rouge, the eighteen convicted rogues and debauchees previously described,41152 ex-cab-drivers, porters, cobblers, street-messengers, stevedores, bankrupts, counterfeiters, former or future jail-birds, all clients of the police or alms-house riff-raff.—At the other end of Paris, in the east, in the tower of the Temple, separated from his sister and torn from his mother, still lives the little Dauphin: no one in France merits more pity or respect than him. For, if France exists, it is owing to the thirty-five military chiefs and crowned kings of which he is the last direct scion; without their thousand years of hereditary rule and preserving policy the intruders into the Tuileries who have just profaned their tombs at St. Denis and thrown their bones into a common ditch,41153 would not be Frenchmen. At this moment, were suffrages free, the immense majority of the people, nineteen Frenchmen out of twenty, would recognize this innocent and precious child for their King, the heir of the people of which their nation and country is formed, a child of eight years, of rare precociousness, as intelligent as he is good, and of a gentle and winning expression. Look at the other figure alongside of him, his fist raised and with insults on his lips, with a hang-dog face, bloated with brandy, titular governor, official preceptor, and absolute master of this child, the cobbler Simon, malignant, foul-mouthed, mean in every way, forcing him to become intoxicated, starving him, preventing him from sleeping, thrashing him, and who, obeying orders, instinctively visits on him all his brutality and corruption that he may pervert, degrade and deprave him.41154—In the Palais de Justice, midway between the tower of the Temple and the prison in the rue de Sèvres, an almost similar contrast, transposing the merits and demerits, daily brings together in opposition the innocent with the vile. There are days when the contrast, still more striking, seats criminals on the judges' bench and judges on the bench of criminals. On the first and second of Floréal, the old representatives and trustees of liberty under the monarchy, twenty-five magistrates of the Paris and Toulouse parliaments, many of them being eminent intellects of the highest culture and noblest character, embracing the greatest historical names of the French magistracy,—Etienne Pasquier, Lefèvre d'Ormesson, Molé de Champlatreux, De Lamoignon, de Malesherbes,—are sent to the guillotine41155 by the judges and juries familiar to us, assassins or brutes who do not take the trouble, or who have not the capacity, to give proper color to their sentences. M. de Malesherbes exclaims, after reading his indictment, "If that were only common-sense!"—In effect those who pronounce judgment are, by their own admission, "substantial jurymen, good sans-culottes, natural people." And such a nature! One of these, Trenchard, an Auvergnat carpenter, portrays himself accurately in the following note addressed to his wife before the trial comes on:
"If you are not alone, and the companion can work, you may come, my dear, and see the twenty-four gentlemen condemned, all of them former presidents or councillors in the parliaments of Toulouse and Paris. I recommend you to bring something along with you (to eat), it will be three hours before we finish. I embrace you, my dear friend and wife."41156
In the same court, Lavoisier, the founder and organizer of chemistry, the great discoverer, and condemned to death, asks for a reprieve of his sentence for a fortnight to complete an experiment, and the president, Coffinhal, another Auvergnat, replies,
"The Republic has no need of savants."41157
And it has no need of poets. The first poet of the epoch, André Chénier, the delicate and superior artist who reopens antique sources of inspiration and starts the modern current, is guillotined; we possess the original manuscript indictment of his examination, a veritable master-piece of gibberish and barbarism, of which a full copy is necessary to convey an idea of its "turpitudes of sense and orthography."41158 The reader may there see, if he pleases, a man of genius delivered up to brutes, coarse, angry, despotic animals, who listen to nothing, who comprehend nothing, who do not even understand terms in common use, who stumble through their queries, and who, to ape intelligence, draggle their pens along in supreme stupidity.
The overthrow is complete. France, subject to the Revolutionary Government, resembles a human being forced to walk with his head down and to think with his feet.
4101 (return)
[ Cf. "The Revolution,"
book I., ch. 3, and book III., chs. 9 and 10.]
4102 (return)
[ Grégoire, "Memoires,"
II., 172. "About eighteen thousand ecclesiastics are enumerated among the
émigrés of the first epoch. About eighteen thousand more took themselves
off, or were sent off, after the 2nd of September."]
4103 (return)
[ Ibid., 26. "The chief
of the émigré bureau in the police department (May 9, 1805) enumerates
about two hundred thousand persons reached, or affected, by the laws
concerning emigration."—Lally-Tolendal, "Défense des Emigrés," (2nd
part, p. 62 and passim). Several thousand persons inscribed as émigrés did
not leave France. The local administration recorded them on its lists
either because they lived in another department, and could not obtain the
numerous certificates exacted by the law in proof of residence, or because
those who made up the lists treated these certificates with contempt. It
was found convenient to manufacture an émigré in order to confiscate his
possessions legally, and even to guillotine him, not less legally, as a
returned émigré.—Message of the Directory to the "Five Hundred,"
Ventôse 3, year V.: "According to a rough estimate, obtained at the
Ministry of Finances, the number enrolled on the general list of émigres
amounts to over one hundred and twenty thousand; and, again, the lists
from some of the departments have not come in."—Lafayette,
"Mémoires," vol. II., 181. (Letters to M. de Maubourg, Oct. 17, 1799
(noté) Oct. 19, 1800.) According to the report of the Minister of Police,
the list of émigrés, in nine vols., still embraced one hundred and
forty-five thousand persons, notwithstanding that thirteen thousand were
struck off by the Directory, and twelve hundred by the consular
government.]
4104 (return)
[ Cf. Mémoires of
Louvet, Dulaure and Vaublanc.—Mallet-Dupan, "Mémoires," II., 7.
"Several, to whom I have spoken, literally made the tour of France in
various disguises, without having been able to find an outlet; it was only
after a series of romantic adventures that they finally succeeded in
gaining the Swiss frontier, the only one at all accessible."—Sauzay,
V., 210, 220, 226, 276. (Emigration of fifty-four inhabitants of
Charquemont, setting out for Hungary.)]
4105 (return)
[ Ibid., vols. IV., V.,
VI., VII. (On the banished priests remaining and still continuing their
ministrations, and on those who returned to resume them.)—To obtain
an idea of the situation of the emigrés and their relations and friends,
it is necessary to read the law of Sep.15, 1794 (Brumaire 25, year III.),
which renews and generalizes previous laws; children of fourteen years and
ten years are affected by it. It was with the greatest difficulty, even if
one did not leave France, that a person could prove that he had not
emigrated.]
4106 (return)
[ Pandour, an 18th
century Croatian foot-soldier in the Austrian service: a robber. (SR)]
4107 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVIII.,
215. (Letter of Brigadier-general Vandamme to the convention, Ferney,
Brumaire I, year II.) The reading of this letter calls forth "reiterated
applause."]
4108 (return)
[ Sauzay, V., 196. (The
total is five thousand two hundred. Some hundreds of names might be added,
inasmuch as many of the village lists are wanting.)]
4109 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXXIV., 434. (Trial of Fouquier-Tinville, deposition of Therriet-Grandpré,
one of the heads of the commission on civil Police and Judicial
Administration, 51st witness.)]
4110 (return)
[ Report by Saladin,
March 4, 1795.]
4111 (return)
[ Wallon, "La Terreur,"
II., 202.]
4112 (return)
[ Duchatelier, "Brest
Pendant la Terreur," p. 105.—Paris, "Histoire de Joseph Lebon," II.,
370.—"Tableau des Prisons de Toulouse," by Pescayre, p. 409.—"Recueil
de Pièces Authentiques sur la Révolution à Strasbourg," I., 65. (List of
arrests after Prairial 7, year II.) "When the following arrests were made
there were already over three thousand persons confined in Strasbourg."—Alfred
Lallier, "Les Noyades de Nantes," p.90.—Berryat Saint-Prix, p.436.
(Letter of Maignet to Couthon, Avignon, Floreal 4, year II.)]
4113 (return)
[ Baulieu, "Essais,"
V., 283. At the end of December, 1793, Camille Desmoulins wrote: "Open the
prison doors to those two hundred thousand citizens whom you call
'suspects'!"—The number of prisoners largely increased during the
seven following months. ("Le Vieux Cordelier," No. IV., Frimaire 30, year
II.)—Beaulieu does not state precisely what the committee of General
Security meant by the word déténu. Does it merely relate to those
incarcerated? Or must all who were confined at their own houses be
included?—We are able to verify his statement and determine the
number, at least approximatively, by taking one department in which the
rigor of the revolutionary system was average and where the lists handed
in were complete. According to the census of 1791, Doubs contained two
hundred and twenty-one thousand inhabitants; France had a population of 26
millions, and we have just seen the number of each category that were
under confinement; the proportion for France gives 258 000 persons
incarcerated, and 175 000 confined to their houses, and 175 000 persons
besides these on the limits in their communes, or ajournées, that is to
say, 608 000 persons deprived of their liberty. The first two categories
form a total of 433 000 persons, sufficiently near Beaulieu's figures.]
4114 (return)
[ Paris, "Histoire de
Joseph Lebon," II., 371, 372, 375, 377, 379, 380.—"Les Angoisses de
la Mort," by Poirier and Monjay of Dunkirk (second edition, year III.).
"Their children and trusty agents still remained in prison; they were
treated no better than ourselves... . we saw children coming in from all
quarters, infants of five years, and, to withdraw them from paternal
authority, they had sent to them from time to time, commissioners who used
immoral language with them."]
4115 (return)
[ Mémoires sur les
Prisons," (Barrière et Berville collection), II., 354, and appendix F.
Ibid., II., 2262.—The women were the first to pass under rapiotage."
(Prisons of Arras and that of Plessis, at Paris.)]
4116 (return)
[ "Documents on
Daunou," by Taillandier. (Narrative by Daunou, who was imprisoned in turn
in La Force, in the Madelonettes, in the English Benedictine
establishment, in the Hotel des Fermes, and in Port-Libre.)—On
prison management cf., for the provinces, "Tableaux des Prisons de
Toulouse," by Pescayre; "Un Sejour en France," and "Les Horreurs des
Prisons d'Arras," for Arras and Amiens; Alexandrines des Echerolles, "Une
Famille noble sous la Terreur," for Lyons; the trial of Carrier for
Nantes; for Paris, "Histoire des Prisons" by Nougaret, 4 vols., and the
"Mémoires sur les Prisons," 2 vols.]
4117 (return)
[ Testimony of
Representative Blanqui, imprisoned at La Force, and of Representative
Beaulieu, imprisoned in the Luxembourg and at the Madelonettes.—Beaulieu,
"Essais," V., 290: "The conciergerie was still full of wretches held for
robbery and assassination, poverty-stricken and repulsive.—It was
with these that counts, marquises, voluptuous financiers, elegant dandies,
and more than one wretched philosopher, were shut up, pell-mell, in the
foulest cells, waiting until the guillotine could make room in the
chambers filled with camp-bedsteads. They were generally put with those on
the straw, on entering, where they sometimes remained a fortnight... It
was necessary to drink brandy with these persons; in the evening, after
having dropped their excrement near their straw, they went to sleep in
their filth.... I passed those three nights half-sitting, half-stretched
out on a bench, one leg on the ground and leaning against the wall."—Wallon,
"La Terreur," II., 87. (Report of Grandpré on the Conciergerie, March 17,
1793. "Twenty-six men collected into one room, sleeping on twenty-one
mattresses, breathing the foulest air and covered with half-rotten rags."
In another room forty-five men and ten straw-beds; in a third, thirty-nine
poor creatures dying in nine bunks; in three other rooms, eighty miserable
creatures on sixteen mattresses filled with vermin, and, as to the women,
fifty-four having nine mattresses and standing up alternately.—The
worst prisons in Paris were the Conciergerie, La Force, Le Plessis and
Bicêtre.—"Tableau des Prisons de Toulouse," p. 316. "Dying with
hunger, we contended with the dogs for the bones intended for them, and we
pounded them up to make soup with."]
4118 (return)
[ "Recueil de Pièces,
etc.," i., p.3. (Letter of Frédéric Burger, Prairial 2, year II.)]
4119 (return)
[ Alfred Lallier, "Les
Noyades de Nantes," p. 90.—Campardon, "Histoire de Tribunal
Révolutionnaire de Paris," (trial of Carrier), II., 55. (Deposition of the
health-officer, Thomas.) "I saw perish in the revolutionary hospital (at
Nantes) seventy-five prisoners in two days. None but rotten mattresses
were found there, on each of which the epidemic had consumed more than
fifty persons. At the Entrepot, I found a number of corpses scattered
about here and there. I saw children, still breathing, drowned in tubs
full of human excrement."]
4120 (return)
[ Narrative of the
sufferings of unsworn priests, deported in 1794, in the roadstead of Aix,
passim.]
4121 (return)
[ "Histoire des
Prisons," I., 10. "Go and visit," says a contemporary, (at the
Conciergerie), "the dungeons called 'the great Cæsar,' 'Bombie,' 'St.
Vincent.' 'Bel Air,' etc., and say whether death is not preferable to such
an abode." Some persons, indeed, the sooner to end the matter, wrote to
the public prosecutor, accusing themselves, demanding a king and priests,
and are at once guillotined, as they hoped to be.—Cf. the narrative
of "La Translation des 132 à Nantois Paris," and Riouffe, "Mémoires," on
the sufferings of prisoners on their way to their last prison.]
4122 (return)
[ Berryat Saint-Prix,
p. IX., passim.]
4123 (return)
[ Campardon, II., 224.]
4124 (return)
[ Berryat Saint-Prix,
445.—Paris, "Histoire de Joseph Lebon," II., 352.—Alfred
Lallier, p. 90.—Buchez et Roux, XXXII., 394.]
4125 (return)
[ Berryat Saint-Prix,
pp.23, 24.]
4126 (return)
[ Berryat Saint-Prix,
p.458. "At Orange, Madame de Latour-Vidan, aged eighty and idiotic for
many years, was executed with her son. It is stated that, on being led to
the scaffold, she thought she was entering a carriage to pay visits and so
told her son."—Ibid., 471. After Thermidor, the judges of the Orange
commission having been put on trial, the jury declared that "they refused
to hear testimony for the defense and did not allow the accused even
informal lawyers to defend them."]
4127 (return)
[ Camille Boursier," La
Terreur en Anjou," p.228. (Deposition of Widow Edin.) "La Persac, a nun
ill and infirm, was ready to take the oath. Nicolas, Vacheron's agent,
assisted by several other persons, dragged her out of bed and put her on a
cart; from ninety to ninety-four others were shot along with her."]
4128 (return)
[ Berryat Saint-Prix,
p. 161. The following are samples of these warrants: "S. (shot), Germinal
13, Widow Menard, seventy-two years old, an old aristocrat, liking nobody,
habitually living by herself."—"Warrant of the Marseilles committee,
Germinal 28, year II., condemning one Cousinéri for having continually
strayed off as if to escape popular vengeance, to which he was liable on
account of his conduct and for having detested the Revolution."—Camille
Boursier, p.72, Floréal 15, year II., execution of "Gerard, guilty of
having scorned to assist at the planting of a Liberty-pole, in the commune
of Vouille, Sep., 1792, and inducing several municipal officers to join
him in his insolent and liberticide contempt."]
4129 (return)
[ Wallon, "Histoire du
Tribunal Révolutionnaire de Paris," V., 145.]
4130 (return)
[ Ibid., v., 109.
(Deposition of Madame de Maillé.)—V., 189. (Deposition of Lhullier.)—Cf.
Campardon, in the same affairs.]
4131 (return)
[ Campardon, II., 189,
190, 193, 197. (Depositions of Beaulieu, Duclos, Tirard, Ducray, etc.)]
4132 (return)
[ Berryat Saint-Prix,
395. (Letter of Representative Moyse Bayle,)—Ibid., 216. (Words of
Representative Lecarpentier at Saint-Malo.) "Why such delays? Of what use
are these eternal examinations? What need is there of going so deep into
this matter? The name, profession and the upshot, and the trial is over."—"He
publicly stated to the informers: You don't know what facts you require to
denounce the Moderates? Well, a gesture, one single gesture, suffices."]
4133 (return)
[ Letter of Payan to
Roman Formosa, judge at Orange: "In the commissions charged with punishing
the conspirators, no formalities should exist; the conscience of the judge
is there as a substitute for these... The commissions must serve as
political courts; they must remember that all the men who have not been on
the side of the Revolution are against it, since they have done nothing
for the country... I say to all judges, in the name of the country, do not
risk saving a guilty man."—Robespierre made the same declaration in
the Jacobin Club. Frimaire 19, year II.: "We judge, in politics, with the
suspicions of an enlightened patriotism."]
4134 (return)
[ "Mémoires de Fréron"
and on Fréron, (collection Barrière et Berville,) p.364. Letter of Fréron,
Toulon, Nivôse 16. "More than eight hundred Toulonese have already been
shot."]
4135 (return)
[ Lallier, p.90. (The
eleven distinct drownings ascertained by M. Lallier extend up to Pluviôse
12, year II.)]
4136 (return)
[ Moniteur, XXII., 227.
(Official documents read in the Convention, Ventôse 21, year III.) These
documents authenticate an ulterior drowning. Ventôse 9, year II., by order
of Lefévre, adjutant general, forty-one persons were drowned, among whom
were two men seventy-eight years of age and blind, twelve women, twelve
young girls, fifteen children, of which ten were between six and ten years
old, and five at the breast. The drowning took place in the Bourgneuf
bay.-Carrier says in the Convention, (Moniteur, XXII., p.578), in relation
to the drowning of pregnant women: "At Laval, Angers, Saumur,
Chaban-Gontier, everywhere the same things took place as at Nantes."]
4137 (return)
[ Camille Boursier,
p.159.]
4138 (return)
[ Ibid., 203.
Representative Francastel announces "the firm determination to purge, to
bleed freely this Vendean question." This same Francastel wrote to General
Grignon: "Make those brigands tremble! Give them no quarter! The prisons
in Vendée are overflowing with prisoners!... The conversion of this
country into a desert must be completed. Show no weakness and no mercy...
These are the views of the Convention.... I swear that Vendée shall be
depopulated."]
4139 (return)
[ Granier de Cassagnac,
"His. du Directoire," II., 241.—(Letter of General Hoche to the
Minister of the Interior, Feb. 2, 1796.) "Only one out of five remains of
the population of 1789."]
4140 (return)
[ Campardon, II., 247,
249, 251, 261, 321. (Examination of Fouquier-Tinville, Cambon's words.)]
4141 (return)
[ Article by Guffroy,
in his journal Le Rougiff: "Down with the nobles, and so much the worse
for the good ones, if there are any! Let the guillotine stand permanently
throughout the Republic. Five millions of inhabitants are enough for
France!"—Berryat Saint-Prix, 445. (Letter of Fauvety, Orange,
Prairial 14, year II.) "We have but two confined in our arrondissement.
What a trifle!"—Ibid., 447. (Letter of the Orange Committee to the
Committee of Public Safety, Messidor 3.) "As soon as the Committee gets
fully agoing it is to try all the priests, rich merchants and ex-nobles."—(Letter
of Juge, Messidor 2.) "Judging by appearances more than three thousand
heads will fall in the department."—Ibid., 311. At Bordeaux, a huge
scaffold is put up, authorized by the Military Committee, with seven
doors, two of which are large and like barn-doors, called a four-bladed
guillotine, so as to work faster and do more. The warrant and orders for
its construction bear date Thermidor 3 and 8, year II.—Berryat
Saint-Prix, 285. Letter of Representative Blutel, on mission at Rochefort,
after Thermidor: "A few men, sunk in debauchery and crime, dared proscribe
(here) virtues, patriotism, because it was not associated with their
sanguinary excitement: the tree of Liberty, they said, required for its
roots ten feet of human gore."]
4142 (return)
[ "Recueil de Pièces
Authentiques, concernant le Revolution à Strasbourg," I., 174, 178.
Examples of revolutionary taxes.—Orders of Representatives Milhaud,
Ruamps, Guyadin, approving of the following contributions, Brumaire 20,
year II.
On 3 individuals of Stutzheim......150,000 livres.
" 3 " Offenheim....................30,000 "
" 21 " Molsheim.....................367,000 "
" 17 " Oberenheim....................402,000 "
" 84 " Rosheim.......................503,000 "
" 10 " Mutzig........................114,000 "
Another order by Daum and Tisseraud, members of the committee who temporarily replace the district administrators: "Whereas, it is owing to the county aristocrats that the Republic supports the war," they approve of the following taxes:
On the aristocrats of Geispolzheim, 400,000 livres.
ditto of Oberschoeffolsheim 200,000 "
ditto of Düttlenheim 150,000 "
ditto of Duppigheim 100,000 "
ditto of Achenheim 100,000 "
List of contributions raised in the rural communes of the district of Strasbourg, according to an assessment made by Stamm, procureur pro tem. of the district, amounting to three millions one hundred and ninety-six thousand one hundred livres.]
4143 (return)
[ "Recueil des Pieces
Authentiques," etc., I., 23. By order of the representatives under date of
Brumaire 25, year II. "The municipality of Strasbourg stripped the whole
commune of shoes in twenty-four hours, sending for them from house to
house."—Ibid.. p.32. Orders of Representatives Lemaire and Baudot,
Frimaire I, year II., declaring that kitchen-utensils, boilers,
sauce-pans, stew-pans, kettles and other copper and lead vessels, as well
as copper and lead not worked-up, found at Strasbourg and in the
departments, be levied on."—Archives Nationales, AF., I., 92.
(Orders of Taillefer, Brumaire 3, year II. Villefranche 1'Avergnon.)
Formation of a Committee of ten persons directed to make domiciliary
visits, and authorized to take possession of all the iron, lead, steel and
copper found in the houses of "suspects," all of which kitchen utensils,
are to be turned into cannon.—Mallet-Dupan, "Mémoires," I., 15.]
4144 (return)
[ Moniteur, XXV., 188.
(Speech by Blutels, July 9, 1795.)]
4145 (return)
[ "Recueil du Pièces
Authentiques," etc., I., 24.—Grégoire, reports on Vandalism,
Fructidor 14, year II., and Brumaire 14, year III. (Moniteur, XXII., 86
and 751.)—Ibid., Letter of December 24, 1796: "Not millions, but
billions have been destroyed."—Ibid.,, "Mémoires," I., 334: "It is
incalculable, the loss of religious, scientific and literary objects. The
district administrations of Blanc (Indre) notified me that to ensure the
preservation of a library, they had the books put in casks."—Four
hundred thousand francs were expended in smashing statues of the Fathers
of the church, forming a circle around the dome of the Invalides.—A
great many objects became worthless through a cessation of their use: for
example, the cathedral of Meaux was put up at auction and found no
purchaser at six hundred francs. The materials were valued at forty-five
thousand francs, but labor (for taking it down) was too high. (Narrative
by an inhabitant of Meaux.)]
4146 (return)
[ "Les Origines du
Système Financier Actuel," by Eugene Sturm, p.53, 79.]
4147 (return)
[ Meissner, "Voyage à
Paris," (end of 1795), p. 65. "The class of those who may have really
gained by the Revolution.... is composed of brokers, army contractors, and
their subordinates, a few government agents and fermiers, enriching
themselves by their new acquisitions, and who are cool and shrewd enough
to hide their grain, bury their gold and steadily refuse assignats."—Ibid.,
68, 70. "On the road, he asks to whom a fine chateau belongs, and they
tell him with a significant look, 'to a former scruffy wretch.'—'Oh,
monsieur,' said the landlady at Vesoul, 'for every one that the Revolution
has made rich, you may be sure that it has made a thousand poor.'"]
4148 (return)
[ The following
descriptions and appreciations are the fruit of extensive investigation,
scarcely one tenth of the facts and texts that have been of service being
cited. I must refer the reader, accordingly, to the series of printed and
written documents of which I have made mention in this and the three
preceding volumes.]
4149 (return)
[ "The Ancient Regime,"
book II., ch 2, P IV.]
4150 (return)
[ Ibid., book IV., chs.
I., II., III.]
4151 (return)
[ Lacretelle, "Histoire
de France au 18eme Siecle," V., 2.—" The Ancient Regime," pp. 163,
300.]
4152 (return)
[ Morellet, "Mémoires,"
I., 166. (Letter by Roederer to Beccaria's daughter, May 20, 1797).]
4153 (return)
[ Beccaria (Cesare
Bonesana, marquis de) (Milan 1738—id. 1794). Italian jurist, whose
"Traité des délits et des peines" (1764) contributed to the reforms and
the softening of of European penal law. (SR)]
4154 (return)
[ Mallet-Dupan,
"Mémoires," II., 493. "While the Duke of Orleans was undergoing his
examination he read a newspaper."—Ibid., 497. "Nobody died with more
firmness, spirit and dignity than the Duke of Orleans. He again became a
royal prince. On being asked in the revolutionary tribunal whether he had
any defense to make, he replied, 'Rather die to-day than to-morrow:
deliberate about it.'" His request was granted.—The Duc de Biron
refused to escape, considering that, in such a dilemma, it was not worth
while. "He passed his time in bed, drinking Bordeaux wine.... Before the
tribunal, they asked his name and he replied, 'Cabbage, turnip, Biron, as
you like, one is as good as the other.' 'How!' exclaimed the judges, 'you
are insolent!' 'And you—you are windbags! I Come to the point;
Guillotine, that is all you have to say, while I have nothing to say.'"
Meanwhile they proceeded to interrogate him on his pretended treachery in
Vendée, etc. "'You do not know what you are talking about! You ignoramuses
know nothing about war! Stop your questions. I reported at the time to the
Committee of Public Safety, which approved of my conduct. Now, it has
changed and ordered you to take my life. Obey, and lose no more time.'
Biron asked pardon of God and the King. Never did he appear better than on
the (executioner's) cart."]
4155 (return)
[ Morellet, II.,
31.-"Mémoires de la Duchesse de Tourzel," "de Mlle. des Écherolles,"
etc.-Beugnot, "Mémoires, I., 200-203. "The wittiest remarks, the most
delicate allusions, the most brilliant repartees were exchanged on each
side of the grating. The conversation was general, without any subject
being dwelt on. There, misfortune was treated as if it were a bad child to
be laughed at, and, in fact, they did openly make sport of Marat's
divinity, Robespierre's sacerdoce and the magistracy of Fouquier. They
seemed to say to all these bloody menials: 'You may slaughter us when you
please, but you cannot hinder us in being aimable'"-Archives Nationales,
F.7, 31167. (Report by the watchman, Charmont, Nivôse 29, year II.) "The
people attending the executions are very much surprised at the firmness
and courage they show (sic) on mounting the scaffold. They say that it
looks (sic) like going to a wedding. People cannot get used to it, some
declaring that it is supernatural."]
4156 (return)
[ Sauzay, I..
introduction.—De Tocqueville, "L'Ancien Regime et la Revolution,"
166. "I have patiently read most of the reports and debates of the
provincial États,' and especially those of Languedoc, where the clergy
took much greater part than elsewhere in administrative details, as well
as the procès-verbaux of the provincial assemblies between 1779 and 1787,
and, entering on the study with the ideas of my time, I was surprised to
find bishops and abbés, among whom were several as eminent for their piety
as their learning, drawing up reports on roads and canals, treating such
matters with perfect knowledge of the facts, discussing with the greatest
ability and intelligence the best means for increasing agricultural
products, for ensuring the well-being of the people and the property of
industrial enterprises, oftentimes much better than the laymen who were
interested with them in the same affairs."]
4157 (return)
[ "The Ancient Regime,"
p.300.—"The Revolution," vol. I., p. 116. Buchez et Roux, I., 481.
The list of notables convoked by the King in 1787 gives an approximate
idea of this social staff. Besides the leading princes and seigniors we
find, among one hundred and thirty-four members, twelve marshals of
France, eight Councillors of State, five maîtres de requêtes, fourteen
bishops and archbishops, twenty presidents and seventeen procureurs
géneraux des parlements, or of royal councils, twenty-five mayors, prévôts
des marchands, capitouls, and equerries of large towns, the deputies of
the "Etats" of Burgundy, Artois, Brittany and Languedoc, three ministers
and two chief clerks.—The capacities were all there, on hand, for
bringing about a great reform; but there was no firm, strong, controlling
hand, that of a Richelieu or Frederic II.]
4158 (return)
[ See "The Revolution
II" Ed. Lafont page 617. US edition P. 69. (SR.)]
4159 (return)
[ "Mémoires de Gaudin,"
duc de Gaëte.]
4160 (return)
[ Mallet-Dupan,
"Mémoires," II., 25, 24. "The War Committee is composed of engineer and
staff-officers, of which the principal are Meussuer, Favart, St. Fief,
d'Arcon, Lafitte-Clavé and a few others. D'Arcon directed the raising of
the siege of Dunkirk and that of Maubenge.... These officers were selected
with discernment; they planned and carried out the operations; aided by
immense resources, in the shape of maps, plans and reconnaissances
preserved in the war department, they really operated according to the
experience and intelligence of the great generals under the monarchy."]
4161 (return)
[ Miot de Melito,
"Mémoires," I., 47.—Andre Michel, "Correspondance de Mallet-Dupan
avec la Cour de Vienne," I., 26. (January 3, 1795.) "The Convention feels
so strongly the need of suitable aids to support the burden of its
embarrassments as to now seek for them among pronounced royalists. For
instance, it has just offered the direction of the royal treasury to M.
Dufresne, former chief of the department under the reign of the late King,
and retired since 1790. It is the same spirit and making a still more
extraordinary selection, which leads them to appoint M. Gerard de Rayneval
to the Commissariat of Foreign Affairs, chief-clerk of correspondence
since the ministry of the Duc de Choiseul until that of the Comte de
Montmorin inclusive. He is a man of decided opinions and an equally
decided character; in 1790 I saw him abandon the department through
aversion to the maxims which the Revolution had forcibly introduced into
it."]
4162 (return)
[ Marshal Marmont,
"Mémoires." At nine years of age he rode on horseback and hunted daily
with his father.]
4163 (return)
[ Among other
manuscript documents, a letter of M. Symn de Carneville, March II, 1781.
(On the families of Carneville and Montmorin-Saint-Herem, in 1789.) The
latter family remains in France; two of its members are massacred, two
executed, a fifth "escaped the scaffold by forestalling the justice of the
people;" the sixth, enlisted in the revolutionary armies, received a shot
at nineteen years of age which made him blind. The other family emigrated,
and its chiefs, the count and viscount Carneville commanded, one, a free
company in the Austrian service, and the other, a regiment of hussars in
Conde's army. Twelve officers of these two corps were brothers-in-law,
nephews, first-cousins and cousins of the two commanders, the first of
whom entered the service at fifteen, and the second at eleven.—Cf.
"Mémoires du Prince de Ligne." At seven or eight years of age I had
already witnessed the din of battle, I had been in a besieged town, and
saw three sieges from a window. A little older, I was surrounded by
soldiers; old retired officers belonging to various services, and living
in the neighborhood fed my passion.—Turenne said "I slept on a
gun-carriage at the age of ten. My taste for war was so great as to lead
me to enlist with a captain of the 'Royal Vaissiaux,' in garrison two
leagues off. If war had been declared I would have gone off and let nobody
know it. I joined his company, determined not to owe my fortune to any but
valorous actions."—Cf. also "Mémoires du Maréchal de Saxe." A
soldier at twelve, in the Saxon legion, shouldering his musket, and
marching with the rest, he completed each stage on foot from Saxony to
Flanders, and before he was thirteen took part in the battle of
Malplaquet.]
4164 (return)
[ Alexandrine des
Echerolles, "Un Famille Noble sous la Terreur," p.25.—Cf.
"Correspondance de Madelle de Féring," by Honore Bonhomme. The two
sisters, one sixteen and the other thirteen, disguised as men, fought with
their father in Dumouriez' army.—See the sentiment of young nobles
in the works of Berquin and Marmontel. (Les Rivaux d' Eux-meme.)]
4165 (return)
[ "The Revolution," I.,
158, 325. Ibid., the affair of M. de Bussy, 306; the affair of the
eighty-two gentlemen of Caen, 316.—See in Rivarol ("Journal
Politique Nationale") details of the admirable conduct of the Body-guards
at Versailles, Oct. 5 and 6, 1789.]
4166 (return)
[ The noble families
under the ancient regime may be characterized as so many families of
soldiers' children.]
4167 (return)
[ "L'Ancien Régime et
la Revolution," by M. de Tocqueville, p.169. My judgment, likewise based
on the study of texts, and especially manuscript texts, coincides here as
elsewhere with that of M. de Tocqueville. Biographies and local histories
contain documents too numerous to be cited.]
4168 (return)
[ Sauzay, I.,
introduction, and Ludovic Sciout, "Histoire de la Constitution Civile du
Clergé," I., introduction. (See in Sauzay, biographical details and the
grades of the principal ecclesiastical dignitaries of the diocese
Besançon.) The cathedral chapter, and that of the Madeleine, could be
entered only through nobility or promotion; it was requisite for a
graduate to have a noble for a father, or a doctor of divinity, and
himself be a doctor of divinity or in canon law. Analogous titles,
although lower down, were requisite for collegiate canons, and for
chaplains or familiars.]
4169 (return)
[ "The Revolution," I.,
233.—Cf. Emile Ollivier, "L'Eglise et l'Etat au Concile du Vatican,"
I., 134, II., 511.]
4170 (return)
[ Morellet, "Mémoires,"
I., 8, 31. The Sorbonne, founded by Robert Sorbon, confessor to St. Louis,
was an association resembling one of the Oxford or Cambridge colleges,
that is to say, a corporation possessing a building, revenues, rules,
regulations and boarders; its object was to afford instruction in the
theological sciences; its titular members, numbering about a hundred, were
mostly bishops, vicars-general, canons, curés in Paris and in the
principal towns. Men of distinction were prepared in it at the expense of
the Church.—The examinations for the doctorate were the tentative,
the mineure, the Sorbonique and the majeure. A talent for discussion and
argument was particularly developed.—Cf. Ernest Renan, "Souvenirs
d'Enfance et de Jeunesse," p.279, (on St. Sulpice and the study of
Theology).]
4171 (return)
[ Cf. the files of the
clergy in the States-General, and the reports of ecclesiastics in the
provincial assemblies.]
4172 (return)
[ "The Revolution,"
p.72. (Ed. Lafont I, p 223 etc.)]
4173 (return)
[ In some dioceses,
notably that of Besançon, the rural parishes were served by distinguished
men. (Sauzay, I., 16.) "It was not surprising to encounter a man of
European reputation, like Bergier, so long curé of Flangebouche; an
astronomer of great merit, like M. Mongin, curé of la Grand Combe des
Bois, whose works occupy an honorable place in Lalande's bibliography, all
passing their lives in the midst of peasants. At Rochejean, a priest of
great intelligence and fine feeling, M. Boillon, a distinguished
naturalist, had converted his house into a museum of natural history as
well as into an excellent school.... It was not rare to find priests
belonging to the highest social circles, like MM. de Trevillers, of
Trevillers, Balard de Bonnevaux of Bonétage, de Mesmay of Mesmay, du
Bouvot, at Osselle, cheerfully burying themselves in the depths of the
country, some on their family estates, and, not content to share their
income with their poor parishioners, but on dying, leaving them a large
part of their fortunes."]
4174 (return)
[ De Tocqueville,
"L'Ancien Regime," 134, 137.]
4175 (return)
[ Terms signifying
certain minor courts of law.]
4176 (return)
[ Albert Babeau, "La
Ville sous l'Ancien Régime," p. 26.—(Advertisements in the "Journal
de Troyes," 1784, 1789.) "For sale, the place of councillor in the
Salt-department at Sézannes. Income from eight to nine hundred livres.
Price ten thousand livres."—"A person desires to purchase in this
town (Troyes) an office in the Magistracy or Finances, at from twenty-five
thousand to sixty thousand livres; cash paid down if required."]
4177 (return)
[ De Tocqueville,
"L'Ancien Régime," p.356. The municipal body of Angers comprised, among
other members, two deputies of the présidial, two of the Forest and
Streams department, two of the Election, two of the Salt-department, two
of the Customs, two of the Mint, two Council judges. The system of the
ancient regime, universally, is the grouping together of all individuals
in one body with a representative of all these bodies, especially those of
the notables. The municipal body of Angers, consequently, comprises two
deputies of the society of lawyers and procureurs, two of the notarial
body, one of the University, one of the Chapter, a Syndic of the clerks,
etc.—At Troyes (Albert Babeau," Histoire de Troyes Pendant la
Révolution," p.23.) Among the notables of the municipality may be found
one member of the clergy, two nobles, one officer of the bailiwick, one
officer of the other jurisdictions, one physician, one or two bourgeois,
one lawyer, one notary or procureur, four merchants and two members of the
trade guild.]
4178 (return)
[ Albert Babeau, "La
Ville," p.26. (Cf. note on preceding page.) The Collector's Office at
Reteil, in 1746, is sold at one hundred and fifty thousand livres; it
brings in from eleven thousand to fourteen thousand livres.—The
purchaser, besides, has to pay to the State the "right of the golden marc"
(a tax on the transfer of property); in 1762, this right amounted to nine
hundred and forty livres for the post of Councillor to the bailiwick of
Troyes. D'Esprémenil, councillor in the Paris Parliament, had paid fifty
thousand livres for his place, besides ten thousand livres taxation of the
"golden marc."]
4179 (return)
[ Emile Bos, "Les
Avocats au conseil du Roi," p.340. Master Peruot, procureur, was seated on
the balcony of the Theatre Français when Count Moreton Chabrillant arrives
and wants his place. The procureur resists and the count calls the guard,
who leads him off to prison. Master Peruot enters a complaint; there is a
trial, intervention of the friends of M. de Chabrillant before the garde
des sceaux, petitions of the nobles and resistance of the entire guild of
advocates and procureurs. M. de Chabrillant, senior, offers Peruot forty
thousand livres to withdraw his suit, which Peruot refuses to do. Finally,
the Count de Chabrillant is condemned, with six thousand livres damages,
(which are given to the poor and to prisoners), as well as to the expense
of printing two hundred impressions of the verdict.—Duport de
Cheverney, "Mémoires," (unpublished), communicated by M. Robert de
Crevecoeur: "Formerly a man paid fifty thousand livres for an office with
only three hundred livres income; the consideration, however, he enjoyed
through it, and the certainty of remaining in it for life, compensated him
for the sacrifice, while the longer he kept it, the greater was the
influence of himself and children."]
4180 (return)
[ Albert Babeau, "La
Ville," p. 27;—"Histoire de Troyes," p. 21.—This portrait is
drawn according to recollections of childhood and family narrations. I
happen to have known the details of two or three small provincial towns,
one of about six thousand inhabitants where, before 1800, nearly all the
notables, forty families, were relations; to-day all are scattered. The
more one studies documents, the more does Montesquieu's definition of the
incentive of society under the ancient régime seem profound and just, this
incentive consisting of honor. In the bourgeoisie who were confounded with
the nobility, namely the Parliamentarians, their functions were nearly
gratuitous; the magistrate received his pay in deference. (Moniteur, V.,
520. Session of August 30, 1790, speech by d'Espremenil.) "Here is what it
cost a Councillor; I take myself as an example. He paid fifty thousand
livres for his place, and ten thousand more for the tax of the 'marc
d'or.' He received three hundred and eighty-nine livres ten sous salary,
from which three hundred and sixty-seven livres 'capitation' had to be
deducted. The King allowed us forty-five livres for extra service of 'La
Tournelle'. How about the fees? is asked. The (grande chambre) superior
court, asserted to have received the largest amount, was composed of one
hundred and eighty members; the fees amounted to two hundred and fifty
thousand livres, which were not a burden on the nation, but on the
litigants. M. Thouret, who practiced in the Rouen parliament, will bear
witness to this. I appeal to him to say conscientiously what sum a
Councillor derived from his office—not five hundred livres... When a
judgment cost the litigant nine hundred livres the King's portion was six
hundred livres... To sum up, the profits of an office were seven livres
ten sous."]
4181 (return)
[ Albert Babeau, "La
Ville," ch. II., and "Histoire de Troyes," I., ch. 1. At Troyes, fifty
merchants, notables, elected the judge-consul and two consuls; the
merchants' guild possessed its own hall and had its own meetings. At
Paris, the drapers, mercers, grocers, furriers, hatters and jewelers
formed the six bodies of merchants. The merchants' guild everywhere took
precedence of other industrial communities and enjoyed special privileges.
"The merchants," says Loyseau, "hold rank (qualité d'honneur), being
styled honorable men, honest persons and bourgeois of the towns,
qualifications not attributed to husbandmen, nor to sergeants, nor to
artisans, nor to manual laborers."—On paternal authority and
domestic discipline in these old bourgeois families see the History of
Beaumarchais and his father. (" Beaumarchais," by M. de Lomenie, vol. I.)]
4182 (return)
[ Albert Babeau, "Le
village sous l'Ancien Régime," p. 56, ch. III and IV., (on the village
syndics), and pp. 357 and 359. "The peasants had the right to deliberate
on their own affairs directly and to elect their principal agents. They
understood their own needs, were able to make a sacrifice for school and
church.... for repairs of the town clock and the belfry. They appointed
their own agents and generally elected the most capable."—Ibid, "La
Ville sous 1'Ancien Regime," p.29. The artisans' guilds numbered at Paris
one hundred and twenty-four. at Amiens sixty-four, and at Troyes fifty,
also Chalons-sur-Marne, at Angers twenty-seven. The edicts of 1776 reduced
them to forty-four at Paris, and to twenty as the maximum for the
principal towns within the jurisdiction of the Paris parliament.—"Each
guild formed a city within a city... Like the communes, it had its special
laws, its selected chiefs, its assemblies, its own building or, at least,
a chamber in common, its banner, coat-of-arms and colors."—Ibid.,
"Histoire de Troyes Pendant la Revolution," I., 13, 329. Trade guilds and
corporations bear the following titles, drawn up in 1789, from the files
of complaints: apothecaries, jewelers and watch-makers, booksellers and
printers, master-barbers, grocers, wax and candle-makers, bakers and
tailors, master shoemakers, eating-house-keepers, inn-keepers and hatters,
master-masons and plasterers in lime and cement, master-joiners, coopers
and cabinet-makers, master-cutlers, armorers, and polishers; founders,
braziers, and pin-makers; master-locksmiths, ironmongers, tinsmiths and
other metal workers, vinegar-makers, master-shearers, master rope-makers,
master-tanners, dealers and master-dyers and dressers; master saddle and
harness-makers, charcoal-burners, carters, paper-makers and
band-box-makers, cap-makers and associates in arts and trades.—In
some towns one or two of these natural guilds kept up during the
Revolution and still exist, as, for example, that of the butchers at
Limoges.]
4183 (return)
[ F. Leplay, "Les
Ouvriers Européens," V., 456, 2nd ed., (on workmen's guilds), Charpentier,
Paris.]
4184 (return)
[ F. Leplay, "Les
Quvriers Européens," (2nd ed.) IV., 377, and the monographs of four
families (Bordier of Lower Brittany, Brassier of Armagnac, Savonnier of
Lower Provence, Paysan of Lavedan, ch. 7, 8 and 9).—Ibid.,
"L'Organization de la Famille," p.62, and the whole volume.—M.
Leplay, in his exact, methodical and profound researches, has rendered a
service of the highest order to political science and, consequently, to
history. He has minutely observed and described the scattered fragments of
the old organization of society; his analysis and comparison of these
fragments shows the thickness and extent of the stratum almost gone, to
which they belonged. My own observations on the spot, in many provinces in
France, as well as the recollections of my youth, agree with M. Leplay's
discoveries.—On the stable, honest and prosperous families of small
rural proprietors, Cf. Ibid., p. 68, (Arthur Young's observation in
Béarn), and p.75. Many of these families existed in 1789, more of them
than at the present time, especially in Gascony, Languedoc, Auvergne,
Dauphiny, Franch-Comté, Alsace and Normandy.—Ibid., "L'Organization
du Travail," pp.499, 503, 508. (Effects of the "Code Civile" on the
transmission of a manufactory and a business establishment in France, and
on cultivation in Savoy; the number of suits in France produced by the
system of forced partition of property.)]
4185 (return)
[ F. Leplay,
"L'Organization de la Famille," p.212. (History of the Mélonga family from
1856 to 1869 by M. Cheysson.) Also p.269. (On the difficulty of partitions
among ascendants, by M. Claudio Jannet.)]
4186 (return)
[ Rétif de la Bretonne,
"Vie de mon Pere," (paternal authority in a peasant family in Burgundy).
The reader, on this point, may test the souvenirs of his grand-parents.
With reference to the bourgeoisie I have cited the family of Beaumarchais.
Concerning the nobles, see the admirable letter by Buffon June 22, 1787,
(correspondence of Buffon, two vols., published by M. Nadaud de Buffon),
telling his son how he ought to act on account of his wife's behavior.]
4187 (return)
[ Moniteur, XIX., 669.]
4188 (return)
[ Dauban, "Paris en
1794," p.245. (Report by Bacon, Ventôse 25, year II.)]
4189 (return)
[ Ibid. (Report by
Perrière, Ventôse 26.)]
4190 (return)
[ Ironical, slang for a
hog. TR.]
4191 (return)
[ Ibid., 245. (Report
by Bacon, speech of an orator to the general assembly of the section
"Contrat-Social," Ventôse 25.)]
4192 (return)
[ "Un Sejour en
France." (Sep., 1792.) Letter of a Parisian: "It is not yet safe to walk
the streets in decent clothes. I have been obliged to procure and put on
pantaloons, jacket, colored cravat and coarse linen, before attempting to
go outdoors."—Beaulieu, "Essais," V., 281. "Our dandies let their
moustaches grow long; while they rumpled their hair, dirtied their hands
and donned nasty garments. Our philosophers and literary men wore big fur
caps with long fox-tails dangling over their shoulders; some dragged great
trailing sabers along the pavement—they were taken for Tartars....
In public assemblies, in the theatre boxes, nothing was seen in the front
rows but monstrous red bonnets. All the galériens of all the convict
prisons in Europe seem to have come and set the fashion in this superb
city which had given it to all Europe."—"Un Séjour en France," p.
43. (Amiens, September, 1792.) "Ladies in the street who are well-dressed
or wear colors that the people regard as aristocratic are commonly
insulted. I, myself, have been almost knocked down for wearing a straw hat
trimmed with green ribbons."—Nolhac, "Souvenirs de Trois Années de
la Révolution at Lyons," p.132. "It was announced that whoever had two
coats was to fetch one of them to the Section, so as to clothe some good
republican and ensure the reign of equality."]
4193 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXVI., 455. (Speech by Robespierre, in the Jacobin club, May 10, 1793.):
"The rich cherish hopes for an anti-revolution; it is only the wretched,
only the people who can save the country."—Ibid., XXX. (Report by
Robespierre to the Convention, December 25, 1793.): "Virtue is the
appanage of the unfortunate and the people's patrimony."—Archives
Nationales, AF.,II., 72. (Letter of the municipality of Montauban,
Vendémiaire 23, year IV.) Many workmen in the manufactories have been
perverted "by excited demagogues and club orators who have always held out
to them equality of fortunes and presented the Revolution as the prey of
the class they called sans-culottes.... The law of the 'maximum,' at first
tolerably well carried out, the humiliation of the rich, the confiscation
of the immense possessions of the rich, seemed to be the realization of
these fine promises."]
4194 (return)
[ Archives Nationales,
F.7, 4421. Petition of Madeleine Patris.—Petition of Quétrent
Cogniér, weaver, "sans-culotte, and one of the first members of the Troyes
national guard."—(The Style and orthography of the most barbarous
kind.)]
4195 (return)
[ bid., AF., II. 135.
(Extract from the deliberations of the Revolutionary Committee of the
commune of Strasbourg, list of prisoners and reasons for arresting them.)
At Oberschoeffolsheim, two farmers "because they are two of the richest
private persons in the commune."—"Recueil de Pieces, etc.," I.. 225.
(Declaration by Welcher, revolutionary commissioner). "I, the undersigned,
declare that, on the orders of citizen Clauer, commissioner of the canton,
I have surrendered at Strasbourg seven of the richest in Obershoeffolsheim
without knowing why." Four of the seven were guillotined.]
4196 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXVI., 341. (Speech by Chasles in the Convention, May 2, 1793.)]
4197 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVIII.,
452. (Speech by Hébert in the Jacobin club, Brumaire 26.)-Schmidt,
"Tableaux de la Révolution Française," 19. (Reports of Dutard, June II.—Archives
Nationales. F7., 31167. (Report of the Pourvoyeur, Nivôse 6, year II.)
"The people complain (se plain) that there are still some conspirators in
the interior, such as butchers and bakers, but particularly the former,
who are (son) an intolerable aristocracy. They (il) will sell no more
meat, etc. It is frightful to see what they (il) give the people."]
4198 (return)
[ "Recueil de Police,"
etc., I., 69 and 91. At Strasbourg a number of women of the lower class
are imprisoned as "aristocrats and fanatics," with no other alleged
motive. The following are their occupations: dressmaker, upholsteress,
housewife, midwife, baker, wives of coffee-house keepers, tailors, potters
and chimney-sweeps.—Ibid., II., 216. "Ursule Rath, servant to an
émigré arrested for the purpose of knowing what her master had
concealed.... Marie Faber, on suspicion of having served in a priest's
house."—Archives Nationales, AF., II., 135. (List of the occupations
of the suspected women detained in the cells of the National college.)
Most of them are imprisoned for being either mothers, sisters, wives or
daughters of émigrés or exiled priests, and many are the wives of
shopkeepers or mechanics. One, a professional nurse, is an "aristocrat and
fanatic." (Another list describes the men); a cooper as "aristocrat;" a
tripe-seller as "very incivique, never having shown any attachment to the
Revolution;" a mason has never shown "patriotism," a shoemaker is
aristocrat at all times, having accepted a porter's place under the
tyrant;" four foresters "do not entertain patriotic sentiments," etc.—"Recueil
de Pièces, etc.," II., 220. Citoyenne Genet, aged 75, and her daughter,
aged 44, are accused of having sent, May 22, 1792, thirty-six francs in
silver to the former's son, an émigré and were guillotined.—Cf.
Sauzay, vols. III., IV., and V. (appendices), lists of émigrés and
prisoners in Doubs, where titles and professions, with motives for
confining them, will be found.—At Paris, even (Archives Nationales,
F.7, 31167. report of Latour-Lamontagne, September 20, 1793), aversion to
the government descends very low. "Three women (market-women) all agree on
one point-the necessity of a new order of things. They complain of the
authorities without exception.... If the King is not on their lips, it is
much to be feared that he is already in their hearts. A woman in the
Faubourg St. Antoine, said: If our husbands made the Revolution we know
how to make a counter-revolution if that should be necessary."]
4199 (return)
[ See above ch. V., P
4.—Archives Nationales, F.7, 4435, No. 10. (Letter of Collot
d'Herbois to Couthon, Frimaire 11, year II.)]
41100 (return)
[ Archives des
Affaires étrangères, vol.331. (Letter of Bertrand, Nîmes, Frimaire 3.) "We
are sorry to see patriots here not very delicate in the way they cause
arrests, in ascertaining who are criminal, and the precious class of
craftsmen is no exception."]
41101 (return)
[ Berryat Saint-Prix,
"La Justice Révolutionnaire," 1st ed., p.229.]
41102 (return)
[ "Un Séjour en
France," p. 186. "I notice that most of the arrests now made are farmers."
(In consequence of the requisitions for grain, and on account of the
applications of the law of the maximum.)]
41103 (return)
[ "Bulletin du
Tribunal Révolutionnaire," No.431. (Testimony of Tontin, secretary of the
court.) Twelve hundred of these poor creatures were set free after
Thermidor 9.]
41104 (return)
[ Moniteur, session
of June 29, 1797. (Report of Luminais.) Danican, "Les Brigands Démasqués,"
p. 194.]
41105 (return)
[ Meillan,
"Mémoires," p. 166.]
41106 (return)
[ Berryat Saint-Prix,
"La Justice Révolutionnaire," p. 419.—Archives Nationales, AF., II.,
145. (Orders issued by Representative Maignet, Floréal 14, 15 and 17, year
II.) "The criminal court will try and execute the principal criminals; the
rest of the inhabitants will abandon their houses in twenty-four hours,
and take their furniture along with them. The town will then be burnt. All
rebuilding or tillage of the soil is forbidden. The inhabitants will be
apportioned among neighboring communes; nobody is allowed to leave the
commune assigned to him under penalty of being treated as an emigré. All
must appear once every ten days at the municipality under penalty of being
declared 'suspect' and imprisoned."]
41107 (return)
[ "Recueil de Piecès,
etc.," I., 52. (Carret de Beudot and La Coste, Pluviôse 6, year II.)
"Whereas, it being impossible to find jurors within an extent of one
hundred leagues, two-thirds of the inhabitants having emigrated."—Moniteur,
Aug.28 and 29, 1797. (Report by Harmand de la Meuse.)—Ibid., XIX.,
714. (Session of Ventôse 26, year II., speech by Baudot.) "Forty thousand
persons of all ages and both sexes in the districts alone of Haguenau and
Wissembourg, fled from the French territory on the lines being retaken.
The names are in our hands, their furniture in the depot at Saverne and
their property is made over to the Republic."]
41108 (return)
[ Albert Babeau,
"Histoire de Troyes," II., 160. "A gardener had carefully accumulated
eight thousand two hundred and twenty-three livres in gold, the fruit of
his savings; threatened with imprisonment, he was obliged to give them
up."]
41109 (return)
[ Archives
Nationales, AF.,II., 116. (Orders of Representative Paganel, Toulouse,
Brumaire 12, year II.) "The day has arrived when apathy is an insult to
patriotism, and indifference a crime. We no longer reply to the objections
of avarice; we will force the rich to fulfill the duties of fraternity
which they have abjured."—Ibid. (Extract from the minutes of the
meetings of the Central committee of Montauban, April II, 1793, with the
approval of the representative, Jeanbon-Saint-André.) "The moment has at
length come when moderatism, royalism and pusillanimity, and all other
traitorous or useless sects to the country, should disappear from the soil
of Liberty." All opinions opposed to those of sans-culotterie are blamable
and merit punishment.]
41110 (return)
[ Archives
Nationales, F.7, 2471. (Minutes of the Revolutionary Committee of the
Tuileries section, meeting of September 17, 1793.) List of seventy-four
persons put under arrest and among them, M. de Noailles, with the
following note opposite his name: "The entire family to be arrested,
including their heir Guy, and Hervet, their old intendant, rue St.
Honoré."]
41111 (return)
[ Archives des
Affaires étrangères, vol. 322. (Letters of Ladonay, Chalons, September 17
and 20, 1792.) "At Meaux, the brigands have cut the throats of fifteen
prisoners, seven of whom are priests whose relations belong to the town or
its environs. Hence an immense number of malcontents."—Sauzay, I.,
97. "The country curés are generally recruited from among the rural
bourgeoisie and the most respected farmers' families."]
41112 (return)
[ Sauzay, passim,
especially vols. 3, 4, 5, and 6.]
41113 (return)
[ Archives
Nationales, F.7, 4437. Address of the popular club of Clavisson (Gard.),
Messidor 7, year II.—Rodolphe Reuss, "Séligman Alexandre, sur les
Tribulations d'un Israelite Strasbourgeois Pendant la Terreur," p. 37.
Order issued by General Diéche to Coppin, in command of the "Seminaire"
prison. "Strive with the utmost zeal to suppress the cackle of
aristocrats." Such is the sum of the instructions to jail keepers.]
41114 (return)
[ Archives
Nationales, AF., II., 88. (Edict issued by Representative Milhaud,
Narbonne, Ventôse 9, year II.) Article II. "The patriotic donation will be
doubled if, in three days, all boats are not unloaded and all carts loaded
as fast as they arrive." Article IV. "The municipality is charged, on
personal responsibility, to proportion the allotment on the richest
citizens of Narbonne." Article VII. "If this order is not executed within
twenty-four hours, the municipality will designate to the commandant of
the post the rich egoists who may have refused to furnish their
contingent, etc." Article VIII. "The commandant is specially charged to
report (the arrests of the refractory rich) to the representative of the
people within twenty-four hours, he being responsible on his head for the
punctual execution of the present order."—Ibid., AF., II. 135.
(Orders of Saint-Just and Lebas, Strasbourg, Brumaire 10, year II.) The
following is equally ironical; the rich of Strasbourg are represented as
"soliciting a loan on opulent persons and severe measures" against
refractory egoists.]
41115 (return)
[ Archives
Nationales, AF., II., 92. Orders of Representative Taillefer,
Villefranche, Aveyron, Brumaire 3, year II., and of his delegate,
Deitheil, Brumaire 11, year II.]
41116 (return)
[ This is the case in
Lyons, Bordeaux, Marseilles, and at Paris, as we see in the signatures of
the petition of the eight thousand, or that of the twenty thousand, and
for members of the Feuillants clubs, etc.]
41117 (return)
[ Archives
Nationales, AF., II., 116. (Minutes of the public session of Ventôse 20,
year II., held at Montargis, in the Temple of Reason, by Benon, "national
agent of the commune and special agent of the people's representative."
Previous and subsequent orders, by Representative Lefert.) Eighty-six
persons signed, subject to public penance, among them twenty-four wives or
widows, which, with the four names sent to the Paris tribunal and the
thirty-two imprisoned, makes one hundred and twenty-two. It is probable
that the one hundred and six who are wanting to complete the list of two
hundred and twenty-eight had emigrated, or been banished in the interval
as unsworn priests.—Ibid., D.S., I., 10. (Orders by Delacroix,
Bouchet and Legendre, Conches, Frimaire 8 and 9, year II.) The
incarceration of the municipal officers of Conches for an analogous
petition and other marks of Feuillantism.]
41118 (return)
[ The real sentiments
and purposes of the Jacobins are well shown at Strasbourg. ("Recueil de
Pieces, etc.," I., 77. Public meeting of the municipal body, and speech by
Bierlyn, Prairial 25, year II.) " How can the insipid arrogance of these
(Strasbourg) people be represented to you, their senseless attachment to
the patrician families in their midst, the absurd feuil1antism of some and
the vile sycophancy of others? How is it, they say, that moneyless
interlopers, scarcely ever heard of before, dare assume to have credit in
a town of sensible inhabitants and honest families, from father to son,
accustomed to governing and renowned for centuries?"—Ibid., 113.
(Speech of the mayor Mouet, Floréal 21, year II.) "Moral purification (in
Strasbourg) has become less difficult through the reduction of fortunes
and the salutary terror excited among those covetous men.. . Civilization
has encountered mighty obstacles in this great number of well-to-do
families who have nourished souvenirs of, and who regret the privileges
enjoyed by, these families under the Emperors; they have formed a caste
apart from the State carefully preserving the gothic pictures of their
ancestors they were united only amongst themselves. They are excluded from
all public functions. Honest artisans, now taken from all pursuits, impel
the revolutionary cart with a vigorous hand."]
41119 (return)
[ Archives des
Affaires étrangères, vol. 1411. (Instructions for the civil commissioners
by Hérault, representative of the people, Colmar, Frimaire 2, year II.) He
enumerates the diverse categories of persons who were to be arrested,
which categories are so large and numerous as to include nine out of ten
of the inhabitants.]
41120 (return)
[ Dauban, "Paris en
1794," p.264. (Report of Pourveyeur, Ventôse 29.) "They remark (sic) that
one is not (sic) a patriot with twenty-thousand livres (sic) income, and
especially a former advocate-general."]
41121 (return)
[ De Martel,
"Fouché," p.226, 228. For instance, at Nevers, a man of sixty-two years of
age, is confined "as rich, egoist, fanatic, doing nothing for the
Revolution, a proprietor, and having five hundred livres revenue."]
41122 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXVI., '77. (Speech by Cambon, April 27, 1793.)]
41123 (return)
[ "Who are our
enemies? The vicious and the rich."—"All the rich are vicious, in
opposition to the Revolution." (Notes made by Robespierre in June and
July, 1793, and speech by him in the Jacobin club, May 10, 1793.)]
41124 (return)
[ Guillon, II., 355.
(Instructions furnished by Collot d'Herbois and Fouché, Brumaire 26, year
II.)]
41125 (return)
[ De Martel, 171,
181. (Orders of Fouché, Nevers, August 25 and October 8, 1793.)]
41126 (return)
[ Guillon.-Archives
des Affaires étrangères, F. 1411. Reports by observers at Paris, Aug. 12
and 13, 1793. "The rich man is the sworn enemy of the Revolution."]
41127 (return)
[ Archives
Nationales, AF., II., 135. (Orders of Saint-Just and Lebas, Strasbourg,
Brumaire 10, year II., with the list of names of one hundred and
ninety-three persons taxed, together with their respective amounts of
taxation.)—Among others, "a widow Franck, banker, two hundred
thousand livres."—Ibid., AF., II., 49. (Documents relating to the
revolutionary tax at Belfort.) "Vieillard, Moderate and egoist, ten
thousand francs; Keller, rich egoist, seven thousand; as aristocrats, of
whom the elder and younger brother are imprisoned, Barthélémy the younger
ten thousand, Barthélémy senior, three thousand five hundred, Barthelemy
junior seven thousand, citoyenne Barthélémy, mother, seven thousand,
etc."]
41128 (return)
[ "Recueil de Pièces,
etc.," I., 22. (Letter of the Strasbourg authorities.) De Martel, p. 288.
(Letter of the authorities of Allier.) "Citizens Sainay, Balome, Heulard
and Lavaleisse were exposed on the scaffold in the most rigorous season
for six hours (at Moulins) with this inscription—'bad citizen who
has given nothing to the charity-box.'"]
41129 (return)
[ "Recueil de Pièces,
etc.," I., 16.]
41130 (return)
[ Ibid., I., 159.
(Orders of Brumaire 15, year II.)]
41131 (return)
[ Archives
Nationales, F.7, 2475. (Minutes of the Revolutionary committee of the
Piques section.) September 9, 1793, at 3 o'clock in the morning, the
committee declares that, for its part, "it has arrested twenty-one persons
of the category below stated." October 8, it places two sans-culottes as
guards in the houses of all those named below, in the quarter, even those
who could not be arrested on account of absence. "It is time to take steps
to make sure of all whose indifference (sic) and moderatism is ruining the
country."]
41132 (return)
[ Berryat Saint-Prix,
pp.36, 38. carrier declares suspect "merchants and the rich."]
41133 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVIII.,
641. (Letter of the representatives imprisoned at Bordeaux, Frimaire 10,
year II.)]
41134 (return)
[ Archives des
Affaires étrangères, vol.329. (Letter of Brutus, October 3, 1793.)]
41135 (return)
[ Ibid., vol.329.
(Letter of Charles Duvivier, Lille, Vendémiaire 15, year II.)]
41136 (return)
[ Speech by Barère,
Ventôse 17, year II.]
41137 (return)
[ Archives des
Affaires étrangères, vol. 331. Letter by Darbault, political agent,
Tarbes, Frimaire II, year II. (Project for doing away with middle men in
trade, brokers and bankers.) "The profession of a banker is abolished. All
holders of public funds are forbidden to sell them under a year and one
day after the date of their purchase. No one must be at the same time
wholesale and retail dealer, etc." Projects of this sort are numerous. As
to the establishment of a purely agricultural and military Republic, see
the papers of Saint-Just, and the correspondence of the Lyons Terrorists.
According to them the new France needs no silk-weavers. The definite
formulas of the system are always found among the Babeuvists. "Let the
arts perish, if it must be so, provided real Equality remains." (Sylvain
Maréchal," Maniféste des Egaux.")]
41138 (return)
[ "Revue Historique,"
November, 1878. (Letter of M. Falk, Paris, Oct.19, 1795.)]
41139 (return)
[ "Etude sur
l'histoire de Grenoble Pendant la Terreur," by Paul Thibault. (List of
notorious "suspects" and of ordinary "suspects" for each district in the
Isere, April and May, 1793.)—Cf. the various lists of Doubs in
Sauzay, and of Troyes, in Albert Babeau.]
41140 (return)
[ "Recueil de Pièces,
etc.," I., 19, and the second letter of Frederic Burger, Thermidor 25.—Archives
Nationales, AF., II.,111.(Order of Representatives Merlincourt and Amar,
Grenoble, April 27, 1793.) "The persons charged with the actual government
of and instruction in the public establishments known in this town under
the titles of, 1st, Orphelines; 2nd Presentins; 3rd Capuchins; 4th, Le
Propagation; 5th, Hospice for female servants.... are put under arrest and
are forbidden to take any part whatever in the functions relating to
teaching, education or instruction."]
41141 (return)
[ Moniteur, XXI.,
645. (Session of the Convention, Fructidor 14, year II.)—"Bibliotèque
nationale," LB41, 1802, (Denounciation of the six sections of the commune
of Dijon), 3: "Woe betide those are seen in any way, either due to an
honest affluence, a good education, an elegant dress or some talent or
other, as being different from their fellow citizens! They are likely to
be persecuted or to be killed."]
41142 (return)
[ Perhaps there is a
connection with Mao Zedong and the Chinese Cultural Revolution. (SR.)]
41143 (return)
[ Moniteur, XVIII.,
51. (Letter by Carrier, Brumaire 17, year II.)—Berryat Saint-Prix,
pp.36 and 38.]
41144 (return)
[ Berriat-Saint-Prix,
240 (The imprisoned at Brest.)—Duchaltelier ("Brest pendant la
Terreur," 205). "Of the 975 prisoners, 106 were former nobles, 239 female
nobles, 174 priests or monks, 206 nuns, 111 seamstresses, female workers
etc, 56 were farmers, 46 artisans or workers, 17 merchants, 3 with a
liberal profession. One is imprisoned for having secret opinions, a girl,
for being witty and laughing at the patriots."]
41145 (return)
[ Mallet-Dupan,
"Correspondance Politique." Introduction, p. VIII. (Hamburg, 1796.)]
41146 (return)
[ Portalis, "De la
Révision des Jugements," 1795. (Saint-Beuve, "Causeries du Lundi," V.,
452.)—Moniteur. XXII, 86 (Report of Grégoire, 14 Fructidor, year
II): "Dumas said that all clever men (les hommes d'esprit) should be sent
to the guillotine... Henriot proposed to burn the National Library.... and
his proposal is repeated in Marseille... The systematic persecution of
talented persons was organized.... Shouts had been heard in the sections:
Beware of that man as he as written a book."]
41147 (return)
[ "Tableau des
Prisons de Toulouse" by Pescayre, prisoner, year III, p. 317 ( Messidor
22nd, year II). Pinson, secretary of the reception, indoctrinated as
follows the old duke de Lesparre: "Citoyen, your detention is used by your
country as a means of conversion. Eight of your immediate family have,
because they did not take advantage of his opportunity, carried their
heads to the scaffold. What have you done to avoid the sword of justice?
Speak! What are your feelings? Let us hear your principles. Have you at
last renounced the arrogance of the ancient regime? Do you believe in
equality established by nature and ordained by the Convention? Who are the
sans-culottes you associate with? Is your cell not a meeting place for the
aristocrats?... It is I, who in the future will be your company; I, who
will make you familiar with the republican principles, who will make you
love them, and who will take care of your improvement."]
41148 (return)
[ Taillandier,
Mémoires écrits par Daunau, à Port-Libre, in Aug. 1794, p.51, 52.]
41149 (return)
[ Granier du
Cassagnac, "Histoire du Directoire," i., 107. (Trial of Babeuf, extracts
from Buonarotti, programme des "Egaux.") "All literature in favor of
Revelation must be prohibited: children are to be brought up in common;
the child will no longer bear his father's name; no Frenchman shall leave
France; towns shall be demolished, chateaux torn down and books
proscribed; all Frenchmen shall wear one special costume; armies shall be
commanded by civil magistrates; the dead shall be prosecuted and obtain
burial only according to the favorable decision of the court; no written
document shall be published without the consent of the government, etc."—Cf.
"Les Meditations de Saint-Just."]
41150 (return)
[ Guillon de
Montléon, II., 174.]
41151 (return)
[ "Memoires sur les
Prisons," I., 211, II., 187.—Beaulieu, "Essais," V., 320. "The
prisons became the rendezvous of good society."]
41152 (return)
[ "The Revolution,"
vol.3, ch. 6, ante.]
41153 (return)
[ Chateaubriand:
"Génie du Christianisme," part 4, book II., notes on the exhumations at
St. Denis taken by a monk, an eye-witness. Destruction, August 6 and 8,
1793, of fifty-one monuments. Exhumation of bodies, October 12 and 25,
1793.—Camille Boursier, "Essai sur la Terreur en Anjou," p.223.
(Testimony of Bordier-Langlois.) "I saw the head of our good Duke Réné,
deposited in the chapel of St. Bernardin, in the Cordéliers at Angers,
tossed like a ball by some laborers from one to the other."]
41154 (return)
[ R. Chantelauze,
"Louis XVII.," (according to unpublished documents). This book, free of
declamation and composed according to the critical method, sets this
question at rest.]
41155 (return)
[ Wallon, "Histoire
du Tribunal Revolutionnaire," III., 285.—Campardon, "Hist. du
Tribunal Révolutionnaire de Paris," I., 306. Brochet, one of the jury, was
formerly a lackey.]
41156 (return)
[ The above simply
conveys the sense of the document, which is here given in the original:
"Si tu n'est pas toute seulle et que le compagnion soit a travailier tu
peus ma chaire amie venir voir juger 24 mesieurs tous si-deven président
on conselier au parlement de Paris et de Toulouse. Je t' ainvite a prendre
quelque choge aven de venir parcheque nous naurons pas fini de 3 hurres.
Je tembrase ma chère amie et épouge." (TR).]
41157 (return)
[ Wallon, III., 402.]
41158 (return)
[ Campardon, II.,
350.—Cf. Causeries du Lundi," II., 164. Saint-Beuve's comment on the
examination. "André Chénier, natife de Constantinoble....son frère
vice-consulte en Espagne. "Remark the questions on his health and
correspondence and the cock-and-bull story about the 'maison a cotté.' "—They
ask him where his servant was on the 10th of August, 1792, and he replies
that he could not tell. "A lui representé qua lepoque de cette journee que
touts les bons citoyent ny gnoroit point leurs existence et quayant
enttendue batte la générale cettait un motife de plus pour reconnoitre
tous les bons citoyent et le motife au quelle il setait employée pour
sauvee la Republique. A repondue quil avoit dite l'exacte véritée. A lui
demandée quel etoit dite l'exacte veritée—a repondue que cetoit
toutes ce qui etoit cy dessue."]
Complexity of the economical operation by which articles of
prime necessity reach the consumer.—Conditions of the
operation.—Available resources.—Cases in which these are
not available.—Case of the holder of these being no longer
disposed to make them.
Suppose a man forced to walk with his feet in the air and his head downward. By using extremely energetic measures he might, for a while, be made to maintain this unwholesome attitude, and certainly at the expense of a bruised or broken skull; it is very probable, moreover, that he would use his feet convulsively and kick terribly. But it is certain that if this course were persisted in, the man would experience intolerable pain and finally sink down; the blood would stop circulating and suffocation would ensue; the trunk and limbs would suffer as much as the head, and the feet would become numb and inert.—Such is more or less the history of France under its Jacobin pedagogues; their rigid theory and persistent brutality impose on the nation an attitude against nature; consequently she suffers, and each day suffers more and more; the paralysis increases; the functions get out of order and cease to act, while the last and principal one,4201 the most urgent, namely, physical support and the daily nourishment of the living individual, is so badly accomplished, against so many obstacles, interruptions, uncertainties and deficiencies, that the patient, reduced to extreme want, asks if to-morrow will not be worse than to-day, and whether his semi-starvation will not end in complete starvation.
Nothing, apparently, is simpler, and yet really more complex, than the physiological process by which, in the organized body, the proper restorative food flows regularly to the spot where it is needed, among the innumerably diverse and distant cells. In like manner, nothing is simpler at the first glance, and yet more complex, than the economical process by which, in the social organism, provisions and other articles of prime necessity, flow of themselves to all points of the territory where they are needed and within reach of each consumer. It is owing to this that, in the social body as in the organized body, the terminal act presupposes many others anterior to and co-ordinate with it, a series of elaborations, a succession of metamorphoses, one elimination and transportation after another, mostly invisible and obscure, but all indispensable, and all of them carried out by infinitely delicate organs, so delicate that, under the slightest pressure, they get out of order, so dependent on each other that an injury to one affects the operations of the rest, and thus suppresses or perverts the final result to which, nearly or remotely, they all contribute.
Consider, for a moment, these precious economical organs and their mode of operation. In any tolerably civilized community that has lasted for any length of time, they consist, first in rank, of those who possess wealth arising from the accumulation of old and recent savings, that is to say, those who possess any sort of security, large or small, in money, in notes, or in kind, whatever its form, whether in lands, buildings or factories, in canals, shipping or machinery, in cattle or tools, as well as in every species of merchandise or produce.—And see what use they make of these: each person, reserving what he needs for daily consumption, devotes his available surplus to some enterprise, the capitalist his ready money, the real-estate owner his land and tenements, the farmer his cattle, seed and farming implements, the manufacturer his mills and raw material, the common-carrier his vessels, vehicles and horses, the trader his warehouses and stock of goods for the year, and the retailer his shop and supplies for a fortnight. To which everybody, the agriculturist, merchant and manufacturer, necessarily adds his cash on hand, the deposits in his bank for paying the monthly salaries of his clerks, and at the end of the week, the wages of his workmen.—Otherwise, it would be impossible to till the soil, to build, to fabricate, to transport, to sell; however useful the work might be, it could not be perfected, or even begun, without a preliminary outlay in money or in kind. In every enterprise, the crop presupposes labor and seed corn. If I want to dig a hole I am obliged to hire a pick and the arms to wield it, or, in other terms, to make certain advances. But these advances are made only on two conditions: first, that he who makes them is able to make them, that is to say, that he is the possessor of an available surplus; and next, being the owner of this surplus, that he desires to make them, with this proviso that he may gain instead of losing by the operation.—If I am wholly or partially ruined, if my tenants and farmers do not pay their rent,4202 if my lands or goods do not bring half their value in the market, if the net proceeds of my possessions are threatened with confiscation or pillage, not only have I fewer securities to dispose of, but, again, I become more and more uneasy about the future; over and above my immediate consumption I have to provide for a prospective consumption; I add to my reserve stores especially of coin and provisions; I hold on to the remnant of my securities for myself and those who belong to me; they are no longer available and I can no longer make loans or enter upon my enterprise. And, on the other hand, if the loan or enterprise, instead of bringing me a profit, brings me loss; if the law is powerless or fails to do me justice and adds extra to ordinary risks; if my work once perfected is to become the prey of the government, of brigands or of whoever pleases to seize it; if I am compelled to surrender my wares and merchandise at one-half their cost; if I cannot produce, put in store, transport or sell except by renouncing all profit and with the certainty of not getting back my advances, I will no longer make loans or enter upon any under-taking whatever.
Such is the disposition and situation of people able to make advances in anarchical times, when the State falters and no longer performs its customary service, when property is no longer adequately protected by the public force, when jacqueries overspread the country and insurrections break out in the towns, when chateaux are sacked, archives burnt, shops broken into, provisions carried off and transportation is brought to a halt, when rents and leases are no longer paid, when the courts dare no longer convict, when the constable no longer dares serve a warrant, when the gendarmerie holds back, when the police fails to act, when repeated amnesties shield robbers and incendiaries, when a revolution brings into local and central power dishonest and impoverished adventurers hostile to every one that possesses property of any kind.—Such is the disposition and situation of all who are in possession of the means to initiate projects in socialistic times
* when the usurping State, instead of protecting private property, destroys or seizes it;
* when it takes for itself the property of many of the great corporations;
* when it suppresses legally established credits without indemnity;
* when, by dint of expenditure and the burdens this creates, it becomes insolvent;
* when, through its paper-money and forced circulation, it annuls indebtedness in the hands of the creditor, and allows the debtor to go scot-free;
* when it arbitrarily seizes current capital;
* when it makes forced loans and requisitions;
* when its tax on productions surpasses the cost of production and on merchandise the profit on its sale;
* when it constrains the manufacturer to manufacture at a loss and the merchant to sell at a loss;
* when its principles, judged by its acts, indicate a progression from partial to a universal confiscation.—
Ineluctably every phase of disease engenders the evil which follows: it is like a poison the effects of which spread or pass onwards. Each function, affected by the derangement of the adjacent one, becoming disturbed in its turn. The perils, mutilation and suppression of property diminish available securities as well as the courage that risks them, that is to say, the mode of, and disposition to, make advances. Through a lack of funds, useful enterprises languish, die out or are not undertaken. Consequently, the production, supply, and sale of indispensable articles slacken, become interrupted and cease altogether. There is less soap and sugar and fewer candles at the grocery, less wood and coal in the wood-yard, fewer oxen and sheep in the markets, less meat at the butcher's, less grain and flour at the corn-exchange, and less bread at the bakeries. As articles of prime necessity are scarce they become dear; as people contend for them their dearness increases; the rich man ruins himself in the struggle to get hold of them, while the poor man never gets any, and the bare necessities become unattainable.
Economical effect of the Jacobin policy from 1789 to 1793.
—Attacks on property.—Direct attacks.—Jacqueries, effective
confiscations and proclamation of the socialist creed.
—Indirect attacks.—Bad administration of the public funds.
—Transformation of taxation and insignificance of the
returns.—Increased expenditures.—The War-budget and
subsistence after 1793.—Paper money.—Enormous issues of
it.—Credit of the Assignats run down.—Ruin of Public
creditors and of all private credit.—Rate of interest
during the Revolution.—Stoppage of trade and industry.—Bad
management of new land-owners.—Decrease of productive
labor.—Only the small rural land-owner works
advantageously.—Why he refuses Assignats.—He is no longer
obliged to sell his produce at once.—High cost of food.—It
reaches a market with difficulty and in small quantities.
—The towns buy at a high price and sell at a low one.—Food
becomes dearer and famine begins.—Prices during the first
six months of 1793.
Such is the hardship in France at the moment when the Jacobin conquest has been completed, a misery of which the Jacobins are the cause due to the systematic war they have waged against property during the preceding four years.
From below, they have provoked, excused, amnestied, or tolerated and authorized all the popular attacks on property,4203 countless insurrections, seven successive jacqueries, some of them so extensive as to cover eight or ten departments at the same time. The last one let loose on all France a universal and lasting brigandage, the arbitrary rule of paupers, vagabonds and ruffians; every species of robbery, from a refusal to pay rents and leases to the sacking of chateaux and ordinary domiciles, even to the pillage of markets and granaries. Free scope was given to mobs which, under a political pretext, tax and ransom the "suspects" of all classes at pleasure, not alone the noble and the rich but the peaceable farmer and well-to-do artisan. In short, the country reverted back to a natural state, the sovereignty of appetites, greed and lust, to mankind's return to a savage, primitive life in the forests. Only a short time before, in the month of February, 1793, through Marat's recommendation, and with the connivance of the Jacobin municipality, the Paris riff-raff had broken into twelve hundred groceries and divided on the spot, either gratis or at the price it fixed, sugar, soap, brandy and coffee.
From above, they had undertaken, carried out and multiplied the worst assaults on property, vast spoliations of every sort; the suppression of hundreds of millions of incomes and the confiscation of billions of capital; the abolition without indemnity of tithes and quitrents; the expropriation of the property of the clergy, of emigrés, that of the order of Malta, that of the pious, charitable and educational associations and endowments, even laic; seizures of plate, of the sacred vessels and precious ornaments of the churches. And, because they have the power, others still more vast. After August 10, their newspapers in Paris and their commissioners in the departments,4204 have preached
"the agrarian law, the holding of all property in common, the leveling of fortunes, the right of each fraction of the sovereign people" to help itself by force to all food and stores at the expense of the owner, to hunt down the rich, proscribe "land-owners, leading merchants, financiers and all men in possession of whatever is superfluous."
Rousseau's dogma that "the fruit belongs to everybody and the soil to no one" is established at an early date as a maxim of State in the Convention, while in the deliberations of the sovereign assembly socialism, openly avowed, becomes ascendant, and, afterwards, supreme. According to Robespierre,4205
"whatever is essential to preserve life is common property to society at large. It is only the excess which may be given up to individuals and surrendered to commercial enterprise."
With still greater solemnity, the pontiff of the sect, in the Declaration of Rights which, unanimously adopted by the all-powerful Jacobin club, is to serve as the corner-stone of the new institutions, pens the following formula heavy with their consequences:4206
"Society must provide for the support of all its members. The aid required by indigence is a debt of the rich to the poor. The right of property is limited, and applies only to that portion which the law guarantees. Every ownership, any trade, which bears prejudicially on the existence of our fellow-creatures is necessarily illicit and immoral."
The meaning of this is more than clear: the Jacobin populace, having decided that the possession of, and trade in, groceries was prejudicial to its existence, the grocers' monopoly is, therefore, immoral and illicit, and consequently, it pillages their shops. Under the rule of the populace and of the "Mountain," the Convention applies the theory, seizes capital wherever it can be found, and notifies the poor, in its name,
"that they will find in the pocket-books of the rich whatever they need to supply their wants."4207
Over and above these striking and direct attacks, an indirect and hidden attack, even more significant, which slowly undermines the basis of all present and future property. State affairs are everybody's affairs, and, when the State ruins itself, everybody is ruined along with it. For, it is the country's greatest debtor and its greatest creditor, while there is no debtor so free of seizure and no creditor so absorbing, since, making the laws and possessing the force, it can, firstly, repudiate indebtedness and send away the fund-holder with empty hands, and next, increase taxation and empty the taxpayer's pocket of his last penny. There is no greater menace to private fortunes than the bad administration of the public fortune. Now, under the pressure of Jacobin principles and of the Jacobin faction, the trustees of France have administered the country as if they purposely meant to ruin their ward; every known means for wasting a fortune have been brought into play by them.—In the first place, they have deprived him of three-fourths of his income. To please the people and enforce the theory, the taxes on articles consumed, on salt, with the excise subsidies and the octroi duties on liquors, meat, tobacco, leather and gunpowder, have been abolished, while the new imposts substituted for the old ones, slowly fixed, badly apportioned and raised with difficulty have brought in no returns. On the 1st of February, 1793,4208 the Treasury had received on the real and personal taxation of 1791, but one hundred and fifty millions instead of three hundred millions. On the same taxes for 1792, instead of three hundred millions it had obtained nothing at all. At this date, and during the four years of the Revolution, the total arrears of taxation amounted to six hundred and thirty-two millions—a bad debt that can hardly be recovered, and, in fact, it is already reduced one-half, since, even if the debtor could and was disposed to pay, he would pay in assignats, which, at this time, were at a discount of fifty per cent.—In the second place, the new managers had quadrupled the public expenditure.4209 What with the equipment and excursions of the National Guards federations, patriotic festivals and parades, the writing, printing and publication of innumerable documents, reimbursements for suppressed offices, the installation of new administrations, aid to the indigent and to its charity workshops, purchases of grain, indemnities to millers and bakers, it was under the necessity of providing for the cost of the universal demolition and reconstruction. Now, the State had, for the most part, defrayed all these expenses. At the end of April, 1793, it had already advanced to the city of Paris alone, one hundred and ten million francs, while the Commune, insolvent, kept constantly extorting fresh millions.4210 By the side of this gulf, the Jacobins had dug another, larger still, that of the war. For the first half of the year 1793 they threw into this pit first, one hundred and forty millions, then one hundred and sixty millions, and then one hundred and ninety million francs; in the second six months of 1793 the war and provisions swallowed up three hundred million francs per month, and the more they threw into the two gulfs the deeper they became.4211
Naturally, when there is no collecting a revenue and expenses go on increasing, one is obliged to borrow on one's resources, and piecemeal, as long as these last. Naturally, when ready money is not to be had on the market, one draws notes and tries to put them in circulation; one pays tradesmen with written promises in the future, and thus exhausts one's credit. Such is paper money and the assignats, the third and most efficient way for wasting a fortune and which the Jacobins did not fail to make the most of.—Under the Constituent Assembly, through a remnant of good sense and good faith, efforts were at first made to guarantee the fulfillment of written promises the holders of assignats were almost secured by a first mortgage on the national possessions, which had been given to them coupled with an engagement not to raise more money on this guarantee, as well as not to issue any more assignats.4212 But they did not keep faith. They rendered the security afforded by this mortgage inoperative and, as all chances of re-payment disappeared, its value declined. Then, on the 27th of April, 1792, according to the report of Cambon, there begins an unlimited issue; according to the Jacobin financiers, nothing more is necessary to provide for the war than to turn the wheel and grind out promises to pay: in June, 1793, assignats to the amount of four billion three hundred and twenty millions have already been manufactured, and everybody sees that the mill must grind faster. This is why the guarantee, vainly increased, no longer suffices for the monstrous, disproportionate mortgage; it exceeds all limits, covers nothing, and sinks through its own weight. At Paris, the assignat of one hundred francs is worth in specie, in the month of June, 1791, eighty-five francs, in January, 1792, only sixty-six francs, in March, 1792, only fifty. three francs; rising in value at the end of the Legislative Assembly, owing to fresh confiscations, it falls back to fifty-five francs in January, 1793, to forty-seven francs in April, to forty francs in June, to thirty-three francs in July.4213—Thus are the creditors of the State defrauded of a third, one-half, and two-thirds of their investment, and not alone the creditors of the State but every other creditor, since every debtor has the right to discharge his obligations by paying his debts in assignats. Enumerate, if possible, all who are defrauded of private claims, all money-lenders and stockholders who have invested in any private enterprise, either manufacturing or mercantile, those who have loaned money on Contracts of longer or shorter date, all sellers of real estate, with stipulations in their deeds for more or less remote payment, all landowners who have leased their grounds or buildings for a term of years, all holders of annuities on private bond or on an estate, all manufacturers, merchants and farmers who have sold their wares, goods and produce on time, all clerks on yearly salaries and even all other employees, underlings, servants and workmen receiving fixed salaries for a specified term. There is not one of these persons whose capital, or income payable in assignats, is not at once crippled in proportion to the decline in value of assignats, so that not only the State falls into bankruptcy but likewise every creditor in France, legally bankrupt along with it through its fault.
In such a situation how can any enterprise be commenced or maintained? Who dares take a risk, especially when disbursements are large and returns remote? Who dares lend on long credits—? If loans are still made they are not for a year but for a month, while the interest which, before the Revolution was six, five or even four per cent. per annum, is now two per cent. a month on securities." It soon runs up higher and, at Paris and Strasbourg we see it rising, as in India and the Barbary States, to four, five, six and even seven per cent. a month.4214
What holder of raw material, or of manufactured goods, would dare make entries on his books as usual and allow his customer the indispensable credit of three months? What large manufacturer would presume to make goods up, what wholesale merchant would care to make shipments, what man of wealth or with a competence would build, drain and construct dams and dykes, repair, or even maintain them with the positive certainty of delays in getting back only one-half his outlays and with the increasing certainty of getting nothing?
During a few years the large establishments collapsed in droves:
* After the ruin of the nobles and the departure of wealthy foreigners, every craft dependent on luxurious tastes, those of Paris and Lyons, which were the standard for Europe, all the manufactories of rich fabrics and furniture, and other artistic, elegant and fashionable articles.
* After the insurrection of the blacks in St. Domingo, and other troubles in the West Indies, the great colonial trade and remarkable prosperity of Nantes and Bordeaux, including all the industrial enterprises by which the production, transportation and circulation of cotton, sugar and coffee were affected;4215
* After the declaration of war with England, the shipping interest;
* After the declaration of war with all Europe, the commerce of the continent.4216
Failure after failure, an universal crash, utter cessation of extensively organized and productive labor: instead of productive industries, I see none now but destructive industries, those of the agricultural and commercial vermin, those of dealers in junk and speculators who dismantle mansions and abbeys, and who demolish chateaux and churches so as to sell the materials as cheap as dirt, who bargain away national possessions, so as to make a profit on the transaction. Imagine the mischief a temporary owner, steeped in debt, needy and urged on by the maturity of his engagements, can and must do to an estate held under a precarious title and of suspicious acquirement, which he has no idea of keeping, and from which, meanwhile, he derives every possible benefit:4217 not only does he put no spokes in the mill-wheel, no stones in the dyke, no tiles on the roof, but he buys no manure, exhausts the soil, devastates the forest, alienates the fields, and dismembers the entire farm, damaging the ground and the stock of tools and injuring the dwelling by selling its mirrors, lead and iron, and oftentimes the window-shutters and doors. He turns all into cash, no matter how, at the expense of the domain, which he leaves in a run-down condition, unfurnished and for a long time unproductive. In like manner, the communal possessions, ravaged, pillaged and then pieced out and divided off, are so many organisms which are sacrificed for the immediate relief of the village poor, but of course to the detriment of their future productiveness and an abundant yield.4218
Alone, amongst these millions of men who have stopped working, or work the wrong way, the petty cultivator labors to advantage; free of taxes, of tithes and of feudal imposts, possessing a scrap of ground which he has obtained for almost nothing or without stretching his purse strings, he works in good spirits.4219 He is sure that henceforth his crop will no longer be eaten up by the levies of the seignior, of the décimateur and of the King, that it will belong to him, that it will be wholly his, and that the worse the famine in the towns, the dearer he will sell his produce. Hence, he has ploughed more vigorously than ever; he has even cleared waste ground; getting the soil gratis, or nearly so, and having to make but few advances, having no other use for his advances, consisting of seed, manure, the work of his cattle and of his own hands, he has planted, reaped and raised grain with the greatest energy. Perhaps other articles of consumption will be scarce; it may be that, owing to the ruin of other branches of industry, it will be hard to get dry-goods, shoes, sugar, soap, oil, candles, wine and brandy; it may happen that, owing to the bungling way in which agricultural transformations have been effected, all produce of the secondary order, meat, vegetables, butter and eggs, may become scarce. In any event, French foodstuffs par excellence is on hand, standing in the field or stored in sheaves in the barns; in 1792 and 1793, and even in 1794, there is enough grain in France to provide every French inhabitant with his daily bread.4220
But that is not enough. In order that each Frenchman may obtain his bit of bread every day, it is still essential that grain should reach the markets in sufficient quantities, and that the bakers should every day have enough flour to make all the bread that is required; moreover, the bread offered for sale in the bakeries should not exceed the price which the majority of consumers can afford to pay. Now, in fact, through a forced result of the new system, neither of these conditions is fulfilled.—In the first place, wheat, and hence bread, is too dear. Even at the old rate, these would still be too dear for the innumerable empty or half-empty purses, after so many attacks on property, industry and trade, now that so many hundreds of workmen and employees are out of work, now that so many land-owners and bourgeois receive no rents, now that incomes, profits, wages and salaries have diminished by hundreds of thousands. But wheat, and, consequently, bread, has not remained at old rates. Formerly a sack of wheat in Paris was worth 50 francs. In February, 1793, it is worth sixty-five francs; in May, 1793, one hundred francs and then one hundred and fifty; and hence bread, in Paris, early in 1793, instead of being three sous the pound, costs six sous, in many of the southern departments seven and eight sous, and in other places ten and twelve sous.4221 The reason is, that, since August 10, 1792, after the King's fall and the wrenching away of the ancient keystone of the arch which still kept the loosened stones of the social edifice in place, the frightened peasant would no longer part with his produce; he determined not to take assignats, not to let his grain go for anything but ringing coin. To exchange good wheat for bad, dirty paper rags seemed to him a trick, and justly so, for, on going to town every month he found that the dealers gave him less merchandise for these rags. Being distrustful and a hoarder, he must have good, old fashioned crowns, with the ancient effigy, so as to lay them away in a jar or old woollen stocking; give him specie or he will keep his grain. For he is not, as formerly, obliged to part with it as soon as it is cut, to pay taxes and rent; the bailiff and sheriff are no longer there to constrain him; in these times of disorder and demagoguism, under impotent or partial authorities, neither the public nor the private creditor has the power to compel payment, while the spurs which formerly impelled the farmer to seek the nearest market are blunted or broken. He therefore stays away, and he has excellent reasons for so doing. Vagabonds and the needy stand by the roadside and at the entrances of the towns to stop and pillage the loaded carts; in the markets and on the open square, women cut open bags of grain with their scissors and empty them, or the municipality, forced to do it by the crowd, fixes the price at a reduced rate.4222—The larger a town, the greater the difficulty in supplying its market; for its provisions are drawn from a distance; each department, each canton, each village keeps its own grain for itself by means of legal requisitions or by brutal force; it is impossible for wholesale dealers in grain to make bargains; they are styled monopolists, and the mob, breaking into their storehouses, hangs them out of preference.4223 As the government, accordingly, has proclaimed their speculations "crimes," it is going to interdict their trade and substitute itself for them.4224—But this substitution only increases the penury still more; in vain do the towns force collections, tax their rich men, raise money on loan, and burden themselves beyond their resources;4225 they only make the matter worse. When the municipality of Paris expends twelve thousand francs a day for the sale of flour at a low price in the markets, it keeps away the flour-dealers, who cannot deliver flour at such low figures; the result is that there is not flour enough in the market for the six hundred thousand mouths in Paris; when it expends seventy-five thousand francs daily to indemnify the bakers, it attracts the outside population, which rushes into Paris to get bread cheap, and for the seven hundred thousand mouths of Paris and the suburbs combined, the bakers have not an adequate supply. Whoever comes late finds the shop empty; consequently, everybody tries to get there earlier and earlier, at dawn, before daybreak, and then five or six hours before daybreak in February, 1793, long lines of people are already waiting at the bakers' door, these lines growing longer and longer in April, while in June they are enormously long.4226 Naturally, for lack of bread, people fall back on other aliments, which also grow dearer; add to this the various contrivances and effects of Jacobin politics which still further increase the dearness of food of all sorts, and also of every other necessary article: for instance, the extremely bad condition of the roads, which renders transportation slower and more costly; the prohibition of the export of coin and hence the obtaining of food from abroad; the decree which obliges each industrial or commercial association, at present or to come, to "pay annually into the national treasury one-quarter of the amount of its dividends;" the revolt in Vendée, which deprives Paris of six hundred oxen a week; the feeding of the armies, which takes one-half of the cattle brought to the Poissy market; shutting off the sea and the continent, which ruins manufacturers and extensive commercial operations; the insurrections in Bordeaux, Marseilles and the South, which still further raise the price of groceries, sugar, soap, oil, candles, wine and brandy.4227—Early in 1793, a pound of beef in France is worth on the average, instead of six sous twenty sous; in May, at Paris, brandy which, six months before, cost thirty-five sous, costs ninety-four sous; in July, a pound of veal, instead of five sous, costs twenty-two sous. Sugar, from twenty sous, advances to four francs ten sous; a candle costs seven sous. France, pushed on by the Jacobins, approaches the depths of misery, entering the first circle of its Inferno; other circles follow down deeper and deeper, narrower still and yet more somber; under Jacobin impulsion is she to descend to the lowest?
First and general cause of privations.—The socialist
principle of the Revolutionary government.—Measures against
large as well as small properties.—Expropriation of all
remaining corporations, enormous issues of paper-money.
forced rates of its circulation, forced loans, requisitions
of coin and plate, revolutionary taxes, suppression of
special organs of labor on a large scale.—New measures
against small proprietorship.—The Maximum, requisitions for
food and labor.—Situation of the shop-keeper, cultivator
and laborer.—Effect of the measures on labor on a small
scale. Stoppage of sales.
Obviously, if the people is not being fed properly and in places not at all, it is because one of the central and most important fibers of the economical machine has been incapacitated. It is evident that this fiber controls the sentiment by which man holds on to his property, fears to risk it, refuses to depreciate it, and tries to increase it.4228 Obviously in the real human being, such as he actually is made up, this intense sentiment, tenacious, always stirring and active, is the magazine of inward energy which provides for three-fourths, almost the whole, of that unremitting effort, that calculating attention, that determined perseverance which leads the individual to undergo privation, to contrive and to exert himself, to turn to profitable account the labor of his hands, brain and capital, and to produce, save and create for himself and for others various resources and comforts.
(It is probable that disinterested motives, pure love for one's neighbor, for humanity, for country, do not form a hundredth part of the total energy that produces human activity. It must not be forgotten that the actions of men are alloyed with motives of a lower order, such as love of fame, the desire of self-admiration and of self-approval, fear of punishment and hope of reward beyond the grave, all of these being interested motives, and without which disinterested motives would be inoperative excepting in two or three souls among ten thousand.4229)
Thus far, in society as a whole, this sentiment has been only partially touched, and the injury has mainly been to the well-to-do or rich classes. At first only one-half of its useful energy has been destroyed since only those services rendered by the rich and wealthy classes have been dispensed with. Little else than the labor of the capitalist, proprietor or contractor has been suppressed, whose far-reaching, combined, comprehensive labor, the rewards of which consist of objects of luxury and convenience, ensure for society that abundant supplies are always on hand, through ready and spontaneous distribution of indispensable commodities. There remains (for the Jacobins) to crush out what is left of this laborious and nutritive fiber; the remnant of useful energy has to be destroyed down to its extirpation among the people. Here there must be a suppression, as far as possible, of all manual, rude labor even on a small scale, and of its rudimentary fruits; the discouragement of the insignificant shopkeeper, mechanic and ploughman must be effected; the corner-grocer must be prevented from selling his sugar and candles, and the cobbler from mending shoes: the miller must think of giving up his mill and the wagoner of abandoning his cart; the farmer must be convinced that the best thing he can do is to get rid of his horses, eat his pork himself,4230 let his oxen famish and leave his crops to rot on the ground.—The Jacobins are to do all this, for it is the inevitable result of the theory that they have proclaimed and which they apply. According to this theory the stern, strong, deep-seated instinct through which the individual stubbornly holds on to what he has, to what he makes for himself and for those that belong to him, is just the unwholesome fiber that must be rooted out or paralyzed at any cost; its true name is "egoism, incivism," and its operations consist of outrages on the community, which is the sole legitimate proprietor of property and products, and, yet more, of all persons and services. Body and soul, all belongs to the State, nothing to individuals, and, if need be, the State has the right to take not only lands and capital, but, again, to claim and tax at whatever rate it pleases all corn and cattle, all vehicles and the animals that draw them, all candles and sugar; it has the right to appropriate to itself and tax at whatever rate it pleases, the labor of shoemaker, tailor, miller, wagoner, ploughman, reaper and thrasher. The seizure of men and things is universal, and the new sovereigns do their best at it; for, in practice, necessity urges them on; insurrection thunders at their door; their supporters, all crackbrains with empty stomachs, the poor and the idle, and the Parisian populace, listen to no reason and blindly insist on things haphazard; they are bound to satisfy their patrons at once, to issue one on top of the other all the decrees they call for, even when impracticable and mischievous to starve the provinces so as to feed the city, to starve the former to-morrow so as to feed the latter to-day.—Subject to the clamors and menaces of the street they dispatch things rapidly; they cease to care for the future, the present being all that concerns them; they take and take forcibly; they uphold violence by brutality, they support robbery with murder; they expropriate persons by categories and appropriate objects by categories, and after the rich they despoil the poor.—During fourteen months the revolutionary government thus keeps both hands at work, one hand completing the confiscation of property, large and medium, and the other proceeding to the entire abolition of property even on a small scale.
Against large or medium properties it suffices to extend and aggravate the decrees already passed.—The spoliation of the last of existing corporations must be effected: the government, confiscates the property of hospitals, communes, and all scientific or literary associations.4231
To this we must add the spoliation of State credits and all other credits: it issues in fourteen months 5 100 millions of assignats, at one time and with one decree 1,400 million and another time 2,000 millions. It thus condemns itself to complete future bankruptcy. It also calls in the 1,500 million of assignats bearing the royal stamp (à face royale) and thus arbitrarily converts and reduces the public debt on the Grand Ledger, which is already, in fact, a partial and declared bankruptcy. Six months imprisonment for whoever refuses to accept assignats at par, twenty years in irons if the offence is repeated and the guillotine if there is an incivique intention or act, which suffices for all other creditors.4232
The spoliation of individuals, a forced loan of a billion on the rich, requisitions for coin against assignats at par, seizures of plate and jewels in private houses, revolutionary taxes so numerous as not only to exhaust the capital, but likewise the credit, of the person taxed,4233 and the resumption by the State of the public domain pledged to private individuals for the past three centuries. How many years of labor are requisite to bring together again so much available capital, to reconstruct in France and to refill once again those private reservoirs which are to contain the accumulated savings essential for the out-flow required to drive the great wheel of each general enterprise? Take into account, moreover, the enterprises which are directly destroyed, root and branch, by revolutionary executions, enforced against the manufacturers and traders of Lyons, Marseilles and Bordeaux, proscribed in a mass,4234 guillotined, imprisoned, or put to flight, their factories stopped, their storehouses put under sequestration, with their stocks of brandy, soap, silk, muslins, leather, paper, serges, cloth, canvas, cordage and the rest; the same at Nantes under Carrier, at Strasbourg under Saint-Just, and everywhere else.4235—"Commerce is annihilated," writes a Swiss merchant,4236 from Paris, and the government, one would say, tries systematically to render it impossible. On the 27th of June, 1793, the Convention closes the Bourse; on the 15th of April, 1794, it suppresses "financial associations" and "prohibits all bankers, merchants and other persons from organizing any establishment of the said character under any pretext or title whatsoever." On the 8th of September, 1793, the Commune places seals "in all the counting-houses of bankers, stockbrokers, agents and silver-dealers,"4237 and locks up their owners; as a favor, considering that they are obliged to pay the drafts drawn on them, they are let out, but provisionally, and on condition that they remain under arrest at home, "under the guard of two good citizens," at their own expense. Such is the case in Paris and in other cities, not alone with prominent merchants, but likewise with notaries and lawyers, with whom funds are on deposit and who manage estates; a sans-culotte with his pike stands in their cabinet whilst they write, and he accompanies them in the street when they call on their clients. Imagine the state of a notary's office or a counting-room under a system of this sort! The master of it winds up his business as soon as he can, no matter how, makes no new engagements and does as little as possible. Still more inactive than he, his colleagues, condemned to an indefinite listlessness, under lock and key in the common prison, no longer attend to their business.—There is a general, total paralysis of those natural organs which, in economic life, produce, elaborate, receive, store, preserve, exchange and transmit in large quantities; and as an after effect, embarrass, saturate, or weaken all the lesser subordinate organs to which the superior ones no longer provide outlets, intermediary agencies or aliment.
It is now the turn of the small enterprises. Whatever their sufferings may be they are ordered to carry their work out as in normal times, and they will be forced to do this. The Convention, pursuing its accustomed rigid logical course with its usual shortsightedness, lays on them its violent and inept hands; they are trodden down, trampled upon and mauled for the purpose of curing them. Farmers are forbidden to sell their produce except in the markets, and obliged to bring to these a quota of so many sacks per week, military raids compelling them to furnish their quotas.4238 Shopkeepers are ordered "to expose for sale, daily and publicly, all goods and provisions of prime necessity" that they have on hand, while a maximum price is established, above which no one shall sell "bread, flour and grain, vegetables and fruits, wine, vinegar, cider, beer and brandy, fresh meat, salt meat, pork, cattle, dried, salted, smoked or pickled fish, butter, honey, sugar, sweet-oil, lamp-oil, candles, firewood, charcoal and other coal, salt, soap, soda, potash, leather, iron, steel, castings, lead, brass, hemp, linen, woolens, canvas and woven stuffs, sabots, shoes and tobacco." Whoever keeps on hand more than he consumes is a monopolist and commits a capital crime; the penalty, very severe, is imprisonment or the pillory, for whoever sells above the established price:4239 such are the simple and direct expedients of the revolutionary government, and such is the character of its inventive faculty, like that of the savage who hews down a tree to get at its fruit.—Consequently, after the first application of the "maximum" the shopkeeper is no longer able to carry on business; his customers, attracted by the sudden depreciation in price of his wares, flock to his shop and empty it in a few days;4240 having sold his goods for half what they cost him,4241 he has got back only one-half of his advances; therefore, he can only one-half renew his assortment, less than a half, since he has not paid his bills, and his credit is declining, the (Jacobin) representatives on mission having taken all his coin, plate and assignats. Hence, during the following month, buyers find on his unfurnished counters nothing but rubbish and refuse.
In like manner, after the proclamation of the maximum,4242 the peasant refuses to bring his produce to market, while the revolutionary army is not everywhere on hand to take it from him by force: he leaves his crop unthrashed as long as he can, and complains of not finding the men to thrash it. If necessary, he hides it or feeds it out to his animals. He often barters it away for wood, for a side of bacon or in payment for a day's work. At night, he carts it off six leagues to a neighboring district, where the local maximum is fixed at a higher rate. He knows who, in his own vicinity, still has specie in his pocket and he underhandedly supplies him with his stores. He especially conceals his superabundance and, as formerly, pretends to be poor and suffering. He is on good terms with the village authorities, with the mayor and national agent who are as interested as he is in evading the law, and, on a bribe being necessary, he gives it. At last, he allows himself to be sued, and his property attached; he goes to prison and tires the authorities out with his obstinacy. Hence, from week to week, less flour and grain and fewer cattle come to market, while meat becomes scarcer at the butcher's, and bread at the baker's.—Having thus paralyzed the lesser organs of supply and demand the Jacobins now have only to paralyze labor itself, the skilled hands, the active and vigorous arms. This is simply done by replacing the independent private workshop by the compulsory national workshop in this way replacing piece-work by work by the day, and the attentive, energetic workman who minds his business and expects to earn money in return by inattentive apathic workmen pressed into a poorly paid service but paid even when they botch the job or laze about.—This is what the Jacobins do by forcibly commanding the services of all sorts of laborers,4243 "all who help handle, transport and retail produce and articles of prime necessity," "country people who usually get in the crops," and, more particularly, thrashers, reapers, carters, rafts men, and also shoemakers, tailors, blacksmiths and the rest.—At every point of the social organism, the same principle is applied with the same result. Substitute everywhere an external, artificial and mechanical constraint for the inward, natural and animating stimulant, and you get nothing but an universal atrophy. Deprive people of the fruits of their labor, and yet more, force them to produce by fear, confiscate their time, their painstaking efforts and their persons, reduce them to the condition of fellahs, create in them the sentiments of fellahs, and you will have nothing but the labor and productions of fellahs, that is to say, a minimum of labor and production, and hence, insufficient supplies for sustaining a very dense population, which, multiplied through a superior and more productive civilization, will not long subsist under a barbarous, inferior and unproductive régime. When this systematic and complete expropriation terminates we see the final result of the system, no longer a dearth, but famine, famine on a large scale, and the destruction of lives by millions.—Among the Jacobins,4244 some of the maddest who are clear-sighted, on account of their fury, Guffroy, Antonelle, Jean Bon Saint-André, Collot d'Herbois, foresee the consequences and accept them along with the principle. Others, who avoid seeing it, are only the more determined in the application of it. However, they all work together with all their might to aggravate the misery of which the lamentable spectacle is so vainly exposed under their eyes.
Famine.—In the provinces.—At Paris.—People standing in
lines under the Revolutionary government to obtain food.
—Its quality.—Distress and chagrin.
Collot d'Herbois wrote from Lyons on November 6, 1793: "There is not two days' supply of provisions here." On the following day: "The present population of Lyons is one hundred and thirty thousand souls at least, and there is not sufficient subsistence for three days." Again the day after: "Our situation in relation to food is deplorable." Then, the next day: "Famine is beginning."4245—Near by, in the Montbrison district, in February, 1794, "there is no food or provisions left for the people;" all has been taken by requisition and carried off, even seed for planting, so that the fields lie fallow.4246—At Marseilles, "since the maximum, everything is lacking; even the fishermen no longer go out (on the sea) so that there is no supply of fish to live on."4247—At Cahors, in spite of multiplied requisitions, the Directory of Lot and Representative Taillefer4248 state that "the inhabitants, for more than eight days, are reduced wholly to maslin bread composed of one-fifth of wheat and the rest of barley, barley-malt and millet."—At Nîmes,4249 to make the grain supply last, which is giving out, the bakers and all private persons are ordered not to sift the meal, but to leave the bran in it and knead and bake the "dough such as it is."—At Grenoble,4250 "the bakers have stopped baking; the country people no longer bring wheat in; the dealers hide away their goods, or put them in the hands of neighborly officials, or send them off."—"It goes from bad to worse," write the agents of Huningue;4251 one might say even, that they would give this or that article to their cattle rather than sell it in conformity with the tax."—The inhabitants of towns are everywhere put on rations, and so small a ration as to scarcely keep them from dying with hunger. "Since my arrival in Tarbes," writes another agent,4252 "every person is limited to half a pound of bread a day, composed one-third of wheat and two-thirds of corn meal." The next day after the fête in honor of the tyrant's death there was absolutely none at all. "A half-pound of bread is also allowed at Evreux,4253 "and even this is obtained with a good deal of trouble, many being obliged to go into the country and get it from the farmers with coin." And even "they have got very little bread, flour or wheat, for they have been obliged to bring what they had to Evreux for the armies and for Paris."
It is worse at Rouen and at Bordeaux: at Rouen, in Brumaire, the inhabitants have only one quarter of a pound per head per diem of bread; at Bordeaux, "for the past three months," says the agent,4254 "the people sleep at the doors of the bakeries, to pay high for bread which they often do not get... There has been no baking done to-day, and to-morrow only half a loaf will be given to each person. This bread is made of oats and beans... On days that there is none, beans, chestnuts and rice are distributed in very small quantities," four ounces of bread, five of rice or chestnuts. "I, who tell you this, have already eaten eight or ten meals without bread; I would gladly do without it if I could get potatoes in place of it, but these, too, cannot be had." Five months later, fasting still continues, and it lasts until after the reign of Terror, not alone in the town, but throughout the department. "In the district of Cadillac, says Tallien,4255 "absolute dearth prevails; the citizens of the rural districts contend with each other for the grass in the fields; I have eaten bread made of dog-grass." Haggard and worn out, the peasant, with his pallid wife and children, resorts to the marsh to dig roots, while there is scarcely enough strength in his arms to hold the plough.—The same spectacle is visible in places which produce but little grain, or where the granaries have been emptied by the revolutionary drafts. "In many of the Indre districts," writes the representative on missions,4256 "food is wanting absolutely. Even in some of the communes, many of the inhabitants are reduced to a frightful state of want, feeding on acorns, bran and other unhealthy food.... The districts of Châtre and Argenton, especially, will be reduced to starvation unless they are promptly relieved.... The cultivation of the ground is abandoned; most of the persons in the jurisdiction wander about the neighboring departments in search of food."—And it is doubtful whether they find it. In the department of Cher, "the butchers can no longer slaughter; the dealers' stores are all empty." In Allier, "the slaughterhouses and markets are deserted, every species of vegetable and aliment having disappeared; the inns are closed." In one of the Lozère districts, composed of five cantons, of which one produces an extra quantity of rye, the people live on requisitions imposed on Gard and the Upper Loire; the extortions of the representatives in these two departments "were distributed among the municipalities, and by these to the most indigent: many entire families, many of the poor and even of the rich, suffered for want of bread during six or eight days, and this frequently."4257 Nevertheless they do not riot; they merely supplicate and stretch forth their hands "with tears in their eyes. "—Such is the diet and submission of the stomach in the provinces. Paris is less patient. For this reason, all the rest is sacrificed to it,4258 not merely the public funds, the Treasury from which it gets one or two millions per week,4259 but whole districts are starved for its benefit, six departments providing grain, twenty six departments providing pork,4260 at the rate of the maximum, through requisitions, through the prospect of imprisonment and of the scaffold in case of refusal or concealment, under the predatory bayonets of the revolutionary army. The capital, above all, has to be fed. Let us see, under this system of partiality, how people live in Paris and what they feed on.
"Frightful crowds" at the doors of the bakeries, then at the doors of the butchers and grocers, then at the markets for butter, eggs, fish and vegetables, and then on the quay for wine, firewood and charcoal—such is the steady refrain of the police reports.4261—And this lasts uninterruptedly during the fourteen months of revolutionary government: long lines of people waiting in turn for bread, meat, oil, soap and candles, "queues for milk, for butter, for wood, for charcoal, queues everywhere!"4262 "There was one queue beginning at the door of a grocery in the Petit Carreau stretching half way up the rue Montorgueil."4263 These queues form at three o'clock in the morning, one o'clock and at midnight, increasing from hour to hour. Picture to yourself, reader, the file of wretched men and women sleeping on the pavement when the weather is fine4264 and when not fine, standing up on stiff tottering legs; above all in winter, "the rain pouring on their backs," and their feet in the snow, for so many weary hours in dark, foul, dimly lighted streets strewed with garbage; for, for want of oil, one half of the street lamps are extinguished, and for lack of money, there is no repaving, no more sweeping, the offal being piled up against the walls.4265 The crowd draggles along through it, likewise, nasty, tattered and torn, people with shoes full of holes, because the shoemakers do no more work for their customers, and in dirty shirts, because no more soap can be had to wash with, while, morally as well as physically, all these forlorn beings elbowing each other render themselves still fouler.—Promiscuousness, contact, weariness, waiting and darkness afford free play to the grosser instincts; especially in summer, natural bestiality and Parisian mischievousness have full play. "Lewd women"4266 pursue their calling standing in the row; it is an interlude for them; "their provoking expressions, their immoderate laughter," is heard some distance off and they find it a convenient place: two steps aside, on the flank of the row, are "half open doors and dark alleys" which invite tête-à-tête; many of these women who have brought their mattresses "sleep there and commit untold abominations." What an example for the wives and daughters of steady workmen, for honest servants who hear and see! Men stop at each row and choose their dulcinea, while others, less shameless, pounce on the women like bulls and kiss them one after the other." Are not these the fraternal kisses of patriotic Jacobins? Do not Mayor Pache's wife and daughter go to the clubs and kiss drunken sans-culottes? And what says the guard?—It has enough to do to restrain another blind and deaf animal instinct, aroused as it is by suffering, anticipation and deception.
On approaching each butcher's stall before it opens "the porters, bending under the weight of a side of beef, quicken their steps so as not to be assailed by the crowd which presses against them, seeming to devour the raw meat with their eyes." They force a passage, enter the shop in the rear, and it seems as if the time for distributing the meat had come; the gendarmes, spurring their horses to a gallop, scatter the groups that are too dense; "rascals, in pay of the Commune," range the women in files, two and two, "shivering" in the cold morning air of December and January, awaiting their turn. Beforehand, however, the butcher, according to law, sets aside the portion for the hospitals, for pregnant women and others who are confined, for nurses, and besides, notwithstanding the law, he sets aside another portion for the revolutionary committee of the section, for the assistant commissioner and superintendent, for the pashas and semi pashas of the quarter, and finally for his rich customers who pay him extra.4267 To this end, "porters with broad shoulders form an impenetrable rampart in front of the shop and carry away whole oxen;" after this is over, the women find the shop stripped, while many, after wasting their time for four mortal hours," go away empty handed.—With this prospect before them the daily assemblages get to be uneasy and the waves rise; nobody, except those at the head of the row, is sure of his pittance those that are behind regard enviously and with suppressed anger the person ahead of them. First come outcries, then jeering and then scuffling; the women rival the men in struggling and in profanity,4268 and they hustle each other. The line suddenly breaks; each rushes to get ahead of the other; the foremost place belongs to the most robust and the most brutal, and to secure it they have to trample down their neighbors.
There are fisticuffs every day. When an assemblage remains quiet the spectators take notice of it. In general "they fight,4269 snatch bread out of each other's hands; those who cannot get any forcing whoever gets a loaf weighing four pounds to share it in small pieces. The women yell frightfully.... Children sent by their parents are beaten," while the weak are pitched into the gutter. "In distributing the meanest portions of food4270 it is force which decides," the strength of loins and arms; "a number of women this morning came near losing their lives in trying to get four ounces of butter.—More sensitive and more violent than men, "they do not, or will not, listen to reason,4271 they pounce down like harpies" on the market wagons; they thrash the drivers, strew the vegetables and butter on the ground, tumble over each other and are suffocated through the impetuosity of the assault; some, "trampled upon, almost crushed, are carried off half dead." Everybody for himself. Empty stomachs feel that, to get anything, it is important to get ahead, not to await for the distribution, the unloading or even the arrival of the supplies.—"A boat laden with wine having been signaled, the crowd rushed on board to pillage it and the boat sunk," probably along with a good many of its invaders.4272 Other gatherings at the barriers stop the peasants' wagons and take their produce before they reach the markets. Outside the barriers, children and women throw stones at the milkmen, forcing them to get down from their carts and distribute milk on the spot. Still further out, one or two leagues off on the highways, gangs from Paris go at night to intercept and seize the supplies intended for Paris. "This morning," says a watchman, "all the Faubourg St. Antoine scattered itself along the Vincennes road and pillaged whatever was on the way to the city; some paid, while others carried off without paying.... The unfortunate peasants swore that they would not fetch anything more," the dearth thus increasing through the efforts to escape it.
In vain the government makes its requisitions for Paris as if in a state of siege, and fixes the quantity of grain on paper which each department, district, canton, and commune, must send to the capital.—Naturally, each department, district, canton and commune strives to retain its own supplies, for charity begins at home.4273 Especially in a village, the mayor and members of a municipality, themselves cultivators, are lukewarm when the commune is to be starved for the benefit of the capital. They declare a less return of grain than there really is; they allege reasons and pretexts. They mystify or suborn the commissioner on provisions, who is a stranger, incompetent and needy; they make him drink and eat, and, now and then, fill his pocket book. He slips over the accounts, he gives the village receipts on furnishing three-quarters or a half of the demand, often in spoilt or mixed grain or poor flour, while those who have no rusty wheat get it of their neighbors. Instead of parting with a hundred quintals they part with fifty, while the quantity of grain in the Paris markets is not only insufficient, but the grain blackens or sprouts and the flour grows musty. In vain the government makes clerks and depositaries of butchers and grocers, allowing them five or ten per cent. profit on retail sales of the food it supplies them with at wholesale, and thus creates in Paris, at the expense of all France, an artificial drop in prices. Naturally, the bread4274 which, thanks to the State, costs three sous in Paris, is furtively carried out of Paris into the suburbs, where six sous are obtained for it. There is the same furtive leakage for other food furnished by the State on the same conditions to other dealers; the tax is a burden which forces them to go outside their shops. Food finds its level like water, not alone outside of Paris, but in Paris itself.
* Naturally, "the grocers peddle their goods" secretly, "sugar, candles, soap, butter, dried vegetables, meat pies and the rest," amongst private houses, in which these articles are bought at any price.
* Naturally, the butcher keeps his large pieces of beef and choice morsels for the large eating houses, and for rich customers who pay him whatever profit he asks.
* Naturally, whoever is in authority, or has the power, uses it to supply himself first, largely, and in preference; we have seen the levies of the revolutionary committees, superintendents and agents; as soon as rations are allotted to all mouths, each potentate will have several rations delivered for his mouth alone; in the meantime4275 the patriots who guard the barriers appropriate all provisions that arrive, and the next morning, should any scolding appear in the orders of the day, it is but slight.
Such are the two results of the system: not only is the food which is supplied to Paris scant and poor, but the regular consumers of it, those who take their turn to get it, obtain but a small portion, and that the worst.4276 A certain inspector, on going to the corn market for a sample of flour, writes "that it cannot be called flour;4277 it is ground bran," and not a nutritive substance; the bakers are forced to take it, the markets containing for the most part no other supply than this flour."—Again, three weeks later, "Food is still very scarce and poor in quality. The bread is disagreeable to the taste and produces maladies with which many citizens are suffering, like dysentery and other inflammatory ailments." The same report, three months later during the month of Nivôse: "Complaints are constantly made of the poor quality of flour, which, it is said, makes a good many people ill; it causes severe pain in the intestines, accompanied with a slow fever.—During Ventôse, "the scarcity of every article is extremely great,"4278 especially of meat. Some women in the Place Maubert, pass six hours in a line waiting for it, and do not get the quarter of a pound; in many stalls there is none at all, not "an ounce" being obtainable to make broth for the sick. Workmen do not get it in their shops and do without their soup; they live on "bread and salted herrings." A great many people groan over "not having eaten bread for a fortnight;" women say that "they have not had a dish of meat and vegetables (pot au feu) for a month." Meanwhile "vegetables are astonishingly scarce and excessively dear.... two sous for a miserable carrot, and as much for two small leeks." Out of two thousand women who wait at the central market for a distribution of beans, only six hundred receive any. Potatoes increase in price in one week from two to three francs a bushel, and oatmeal and ground peas triple in price. "The grocers have no more brown sugar, even for the sick," and sell candles and soap only by the half pound.—A fortnight later candles are wholly wanting in certain quarters, except in the section storehouse, which is almost empty, each person being allowed only one. A good many households go to rest at sundown for lack of lights and do not cook any dinner for lack of coal. Eggs, especially, are "honored as invisible divinities," while the absent butter "is a god."4279 "If this lasts," say the workmen, "we shall have to cut each other's throats, since there is nothing left to live on."4280 "Sick women,4281 children in their cradles, lie outstretched in the sun," in the very heart of Paris, in rue Vivienne, on the Pont-Royal, and remain there "late in the night, demanding alms of the passers-by." "One is constantly stopped by beggars of both sexes, most of them healthy and strong," begging, they say, for lack of work. Without counting the feeble and the infirm who are unable to stand in a line, whose sufferings are visible, who gradually waste away and die without a murmur at home, "one encounters in the streets and markets" only famished and eager visages, "an immense crowd of citizens running and dashing against each other," crying out and weeping, "everywhere presenting an image of despair."4282
Revolutionary remedies.—Rigor against the refractory.
—Decrees and orders rendering the State the only depositary
and distributor of food.—Efforts made to establish a
conscription of labor.—Discouragement of the Peasant.—He
refuses to cultivate.—Decrees and orders compelling him to
harvest.—His stubbornness.—Cultivators imprisoned by
thousands.—The Convention is obliged to set them at
liberty.—Fortunate circumstances which save France from
extreme famine.
This penury only exists, say the Jacobins, because the laws against monopoly, and sales above the "maximum" prices are not being obeyed to the letter of the law. The egoism of the cultivator and the cupidity of dealers are not restrained by fear and delinquents escape too frequently from the legal penalty. Let us enforce this penalty rigorously; let us increase the punishment against them and their instruments; let us screw up the machine and give them a new wrench. A new estimate and verification of the food supply takes place, domiciliary searches, seizures of special stores regarded as too ample,4283 limited rations for each consumer, a common and obligatory mess table for all prisoners, brown, égalité bread, mostly of bran, for every mouth that can chew, prohibition of the making of any other kind, confiscation of boulters and sieves,4284 the "individual," personal responsibility of every administrator who allows the people he directs to resist or escape providing the demanded supplies, the sequestration of his property, imprisonment, fines, the pillory and the guillotine to hurry up requisitions, or stop free trading,—every terrifying method is driven to the utmost against the farmers and cultivators of the soil.
After April, 1794,4285 crowds of this class are found filling the prisons to overflowing; the Revolution has struck them also. They stroll about in the court yard, and wander through the corridors with a sad, stupefied expression, no longer comprehending the way things are going on in the world. In vain are efforts made to explain to them that "their crops are national property and that they are simply its depositaries;"4286 never had this new principle entered into, nor will it enter, their rude brains; always, through habit and instinct, will they work against it.—Let them be spared the temptation. Let us (the Jacobins) relieve them from, and, in fact, take their crops; let the State in France become the sole depositary and distributor of grain; let it solely buy and sell grain at a fixed rate. Consequently, at Paris,4287 the Committee of Public Safety first puts "in requisition all the oats that can be found in the Republic; every holder of oats is required to deposit his stock on hand within eight days, in the storehouse indicated by the district administration "at the maximum" price; otherwise he is "a 'suspect' and must be punished as such." In the meantime, through still more comprehensive orders issued in the provinces, Paganel in the department of Tarn, and Dartigoyte in those of Gers and the Upper-Garonne,4288 enjoin each commune to establish public granaries. "All citizens are ordered to bring in whatever produce they possess in grain, flour, wheat, maslin, rye, barley, oats, millet, buckwheat" at the "maximum" rate. Nobody shall keep on hand more than one month's supply, fifty pounds of flour or wheat for each person; in this way, the State, which holds in its hands the keys of the storehouses, may "carry out the salutary equalization of provisions" between department and department, district and district, commune and commune, individual and individual. A storekeeper will look after each of these well filled granaries; the municipality will itself deliver rations and, moreover, "take suitable steps to see that beans and vegetables, as they mature, be economically distributed under its supervision," at so much per head, and always at the rate of the "maximum." Otherwise, dismissal, imprisonment and prosecution "in the extraordinary criminal tribunal. "-This being accomplished, and the fruits of labor duly allotted, there remains only the allotment of labor itself. To effect this, Maignet,4289 in Vaucluse, and in the Bouches du Rhône, prescribes for each municipality the immediate formation of two lists, one of day laborers and the other of proprietors. "All proprietors in need of a cultivator by the day," are to appear and ask for one at the municipality, which will assign the applicant as many as he wants, "in order on the list," with a card for himself and numbers for the designated parties. The laborer who does not enter his name on the list, or who exacts more than the "maximum" wages, is to be sentenced to the pillory with two years in irons. The same sentence with the addition of a fine of three hundred livres, is for every proprietor who employs any laborer not on the list or who pays more than the "maximum rate of wages.
After this, nothing more is necessary, in practice, than to
* draw up and keep in sight the new registries of names and figures made by the members of thirty thousand municipal boards, who cannot keep accounts and who scarcely know how to read and write;
* build a vast public granary, or put in requisition three or four barns in each commune, in which half dried and mixed grain may rot;
* pay two hundred thousand incorruptible storekeepers and measurers who will not divert anything from the depots for their friends or themselves;
* add to the thirty five thousand employees of the Committee on Provisions,4290 five hundred thousand municipal scribes disposed to quit their trades or ploughs for the purpose of making daily distributions gratuitously; but more precisely, to maintain four or five millions of perfect gendarmes, one in each family, living with it, to help along the purchases, sales and transactions of each day and to verify at night the contents of the locker.
In short, to set one half of the French people as spies on the other half.—These are the conditions which secure the production and distribution of food, and which suffice for the institution throughout France of a conscription of labor and the captivity of grain.
Unfortunately, the peasant does not understand this theory, but he understands business; he makes close calculations, and the positive, patent, vulgar facts on which he reasons lead to other conclusions:4291
"In Messidor last they took all my last years' oats, at fourteen francs in assignats, and, in Thermidor, they are going to take all this year's oats, at eleven francs in assignats. At this rate I shall not sow at all. Besides, I do not need any for myself, as they have taken my horses for the army wagons. To raise rye and wheat, as much of it as formerly, is also working at a loss; I will raise no more than the little I want for myself, and again, I suppose that this will be put in requisition, even my supplies for the year! I had rather let my fields lie fallow. Just see now, they are taking all the live three months' pigs! Luckily, I killed mine be forehand and it is now in the pork barrel. But they are going to claim all salt provisions like the rest. The new grabbers are worse than the old ones. Six months more, and we shall all die of hunger. It is better to cross one's arms at once and go to prison; there, at least, we shall be fed and not have to work."
In effect, they allow themselves to be imprisoned, the best of the small cultivators and proprietors by thousands, and Lindet,4292 at the head of the Commission on Provisions, speaks with dismay of the ground being no longer tilled, of cattle in France being no more abundant than the year before, and of nothing to be had to cut this year.
For a strange thing has happened, unheard of in Europe, almost incredible to any one familiar with the French peasant and his love of work. This field which he has ploughed, manured, harrowed and reaped with his own hands, its precious crop, the crop that belongs to him and on which he has feasted his eyes for seven months, now that it is ripe, he will not take the trouble to gather it; it would be bothering himself for some one else. As the crop that he sees there is for the government, let the government defray the final cost of getting it in; let it do the harvesting, the reaping, the putting it in sheaves, the carting and the thrashing in the barn.—Thereupon, the representatives on mission exclaim, each shouting in a louder or lower key, according to his character.
"Many of the cultivators," writes Dartigoyte,4293 "affect a supreme indifference for this splendid crop. One must have seen it, as I have, to believe how great the neglect of the wheat is in certain parts, how it is smothered by the grass.... Draft, if the case requires it, a certain number of inhabitants in this or that commune to work in another one.... Every man who refuses to work, except on the 'decade' day, must be punished as an ill-disposed citizen, as a royalist."—
"Generous friends of nature," writes Ferry,4294 introduce amongst you, perpetuate around you, the habit of working in common and begin with the present crop. Do not spare either indolent women or indolent men, those social parasites, many of whom you doubtless have in your midst. What! allow lazy men and lazy women where we are! Where should we find a Republican police?... Immediately on the reception of this present order the municipal officers of each commune will convoke all citoyennes in the Temple of the Eternal and urge them, in the name of the law, to devote themselves to the labors of harvesting. Those women who fail in this patriotic duty, shall be excluded from the assemblies, from the national festivals, while all good citoyennes are requested to repel them from their homes. All good citizens are requested to give to this rural festivity that sentimental character which befits it."
—And the programme is carried out, here in idyllic shape and there under compulsion. Around Avignon,4295 the commanding officer, the battalions of volunteers, and patriotic ladies, "the wives and daughters of patriots," inscribe themselves as harvesters. Around Arles, "the municipality drafts all the inhabitants; patrols are sent into the country to compel all who are engaged on other work to leave it and do the harvesting." The Convention, on its side, orders4296 the release, "provisionally, of all ploughmen, day-laborers, reapers, and professional artisans and brewers, in the country and in the market towns and communes, the population of which is not over twelve hundred inhabitants, and who are confined as 'suspects.' "—In other terms, physical necessity has imposed silence on the inept theory; above all things, the crop must be harvested, and indispensable arms be restored to the field of labor. The governors of France are compelled to put on the brake, if only for an instant, at the last moment, at sight of the yawning abyss, of approaching and actual famine; France was then gliding into it, and, if not engulfed, it is simply a miracle.
Four fortunate circumstances, at the last hour, concur to keep her suspended on the hither brink of the precipice.—The winter chances to be exceptionally mild.4297 The vegetables which make up for the absence of bread and meat provide food for April and May, while the remarkably fine harvest, almost spontaneous, is three weeks in advance.—Another, and the second piece of good fortune, consists in the great convoy from America, one hundred and sixteen vessels loaded with grain, which reached Brest on the 8th of June, 1794, in spite of English cruisers, thanks to the sacrifice of the fleet that protected it and which, eight days previously, had succumbed in its behalf. The third stroke of fortune is the entry of a victorious army into the enemies country and feeding itself through foreign requisitions, in Belgium, in the Palatinate and on the frontier provinces of Italy and Spain.—Finally, most fortunate of all, Robespierre, Saint Just and Couthon, the Paris commune and the theorist Jacobins, are guillotined on the 23rd of July, and with them falls despotic socialism. Henceforth, the Jacobin edifice crumbles, owing to great crevices in its walls. The "maximum," in fact, is no longer maintained, while the Convention, at the end of December, 1794, legally abolishes it. The farmers now sell as they please and at two prices, according as they are paid in assignats or coin; their hope, confidence and courage are restored; in October and November, 1794, they voluntarily do their own plowing and planting, and still more gladly will they gather in their own crops in July, 1795. Nevertheless, we can judge by the discouragement into which they had been plunged by four months of the system, the utter prostration into which they would have fallen had the system lasted an indefinite time. It is very probable that cultivation at the end of one or two years would have proved unproductive or have ceased altogether. Already, subject to every sort of exhortation and threat, the peasant had remained inert, apparently deaf and insensible, like an overloaded beast of burden which, so often struck, grows obstinate or sinks down and refuses to move. It is evident that he would have never stirred again could Saint-Just, holding him by the throat, have bound him hand and foot, as he had done at Strasbourg, in the multiplied knots of his Spartan Utopia. We should have seen what labor and the stagnation it produces comes to, when managed through State maneuvers by administrative manikins and humanitarian automatons. This experiment had been tried in China, in the eleventh century, and according to principles, long and regularly, by a well manipulated and omnipotent State, on the most industrious and soberest people in the world, and men died in myriads like flies. If the French, at the end of 1794 and during the following years did not die like flies, it was because the Jacobin system was relaxed too soon.4298
Relaxation of the Revolutionary system after Thermidor.
—Repeal of the Maximum.—New situation of the peasant.—He
begins to cultivation again.—Requisition of grain by the
State.—The cultivator indemnifies himself at the expense of
private persons.—Multiplication and increasing decline of
Assignats. The classes who have to bear the burden.—Famine
and misery during year III, and the first half of year IV.
—In the country.—In the small towns.—In large towns and
cities.
But, if the Jacobin system, in spite of its surviving founders, gradually relaxes after Thermidor; if the main ligature tied around the man's neck, broke just as the man was strangling, the others that still bind him hold him tight, except as they are loosened in places; and, as it is, some of the straps, terribly stiffened, sink deeper and deeper into his flesh.—In the first place, the requisitions continue there is no other way of provisioning the armies and the cities; the gendarme is always on the road, compelling each village to contribute its portion of grain, and at the legal rate. The refractory are subject to keepers, confiscations, fines and imprisonment; they are confined and kept in the district lock ups "at their own expense," men and women, twenty two on Pluviôse 17, year III., in the district of Bar-sur-Aube; forty five, Germinal 7, in the district of Troyes; forty-five, the same day, in the district of Nogent-sur-Seine, and twenty others, eight days later, in the same district, in the commune of Traine alone.4299—The condition of the cultivator is certainly not an easy one, while public authority, aided by the public force, extorts from him all it can at a rate of its own; moreover, it will soon exact from him one half of his contributions in kind, and, it must be noted, that at this time, the direct contributions alone absorb twelve and thirteen sous on the franc of the revenue. Nevertheless, under this condition, which is that of laborers in a Muslim country, the French peasant, like the Syrian or Tunisian peasant, can keep himself alive; for, through the abolition of the "maximum," private transactions are now free, and, to indemnify himself on this side, he sells to private individuals and even to towns,42100 by agreement, on understood terms, and as dear as he pleases; all the dearer because through the legal requisitions the towns are half empty, and there are fewer sacks of grain for a larger number of purchasers; hence his losses by the government are more than made up by his gains on private parties; he gains in the end, and that is why he persists in farming.
The weight, however, of which he relieves himself falls upon the overburdened buyer, and this weight, already excessive, goes on increasing, through another effect of the revolutionary institution, until it becomes ten-fold and even a hundred-fold.—The only money, in fact, which private individuals possess melts away in their hands, and, so to say, destroys itself. When the guillotine stops working, the assignat, losing its official value, falls to its real value. In August, 1794, the loss on it is sixty six per cent., in October, seventy two per cent., in December, seventy eight per cent., in January, 1795, eighty one per cent., and after that date the constant issues of enormous amounts, five hundred millions, then a billion, a billion and a half, and, finally, two billions a month, hastens its depreciation.42101 The greater the depreciation of the assignats the greater the amount the government is obliged to issue to provide for its expenses, and the more it issues the more it causes their depreciation, so that the decline which increases the issue increases the depreciation, until, finally, the assignat comes down to nothing. On March II, 1795, the louis d'or brings two hundred and five francs in assignats, May 11, four hundred francs, June 12, one thousand francs, in the month of October, one thousand seven hundred francs, November 13, two thousand eight hundred and fifty francs, November 21 three thousand francs, and six months later, nineteen thousand francs. Accordingly, an assignat of one hundred francs is worth in June, 1795, four francs, in August three francs, in November fifteen sous, in December ten sous, and then five sous. Naturally, all provisions rise proportionately in price. A pound of bread in Paris, January 2, 1796, costs fifty francs, a pound of meat sixty francs, a pound of candles one hundred and eighty francs, a bushel of potatoes two hundred francs, a bottle of wine one hundred francs. The reader may imagine, if he can, the distress of people with small incomes, pensioners and employees, mechanics and artisans in the towns out of work,42102 in brief, all who have nothing but a small package of assignats to live on, and who have nothing to do, whose indispensable wants are not directly supplied by the labor of their own hands in producing wine, candles, meat, potatoes and bread.
Immediately after the abolition of the "maximum,"42103 the cry of hunger increases. From month to month its accents become more painful and vehement in proportion to the increased dearness of provisions, especially in the summer of 1795, as the harvesting draws near, when the granaries, filled by the crop of 1794, are getting empty. And these hungering cries go up by millions: for a good many of the departments in France do not produce sufficient grain for home consumption, this being the case in fertile wheat departments, and likewise in certain districts; cries also go up from the large and small towns, while in each village numbers of peasants fast because they have no land to provide them with food, or because they lack strength, health, employment and wages. "For a fortnight past," writes a municipal body in Seine-et-Marne,42104 "at least two hundred citizens in our commune are without bread, grain and flour; they have had no other food than bran and vegetables. We see with sorrow children deprived of nourishment, their nurses without milk, unable to suckle them; old men falling down through inanition, and young men in the fields too weak to stand up to their work." And other communes in the district "are about in the same condition." The same spectacle is visible throughout the Ile-de-France, Normandy, and in Picardy. Around Dieppe, in the country,42105 entire communes support themselves on herbs and bran. "Citizen representatives," write the administrators, "we can no longer maintain ourselves. Our fellow citizens reproach us with having despoiled them of their grain in favor of the large communes."—"All means of subsistence are exhausted," writes the district of Louviers;42106 "we are reduced here for a month past to eating bran bread and boiled herbs, and even this rude food is getting scarce. Bear in mind that we have seventy-one thousand people to govern, at this very time subject to all the horrors of famine, a large number of them having already perished, some with hunger and others with diseases engendered by the poor food they live on. "—In the Caen district,42107 "the unripe peas, horse peas, beans, and green barley and rye are attacked;" mothers and children go after these in the fields in default of other food; "other vegetables in the gardens are already consumed; furniture, the comforts of the well to do class, have become the prey of the farming egoist; having nothing more to sell they consequently have nothing with which to obtain a morsel of bread."
"It is impossible," writes the representative on mission, "to wait for the crop without further aid. As long as bran lasted the people ate that; none can now be found and despair is at its height. I have not seen the sun since I came. The harvest will be a month behind. What shall we do? What will become of us?"—"In Picardy," writes the Beauvais district, "the great majority of people in the rural communes search the woods" to find mushrooms, berries and wild fruits.42108 "They think themselves lucky," says the Bapaume district, "if they can get a share of the food of animals." "In many communes," the district of Vervier reports, "the inhabitants are reduced to living on herbage." "Many families, entire communes," reports the Laon commissary, "have been without bread two or three months and live on bran or herbs.... Mothers of families, children, old men, pregnant women, come to the (members of the) Directory for bread and often faint in their arms.
And yet, great as the famine is in the country it is worse in the towns; and the proof of it is that the starving people flock into the country to find whatever they can to live on, no matter how, and, generally speaking, in vain.—"Three quarters of our fellow citizens," writes the Rozoy municipality,42109 "are forced to quit work and overrun the country here and there, among the farmers, to obtain bread for specie, and with more entreaty than the poorest wretches; for the most part, they return with tears in their eyes at not being able to find, not merely a bushel of wheat, but a pound of bread." "Yesterday," writes the Montreuil-sur-Mer municipality,42110 "more than two hundred of our citizens set out to beg in the country," and, when they get nothing, they steal. "Bands of brigands42111 spread through the country and pillage all dwellings anywise remote. ... Grain, flour, bread, cattle, poultry, stuffs, etc., all come in play. Our terrified shepherds are no longer willing to sleep in their sheep pens and are leaving us." The most timid dig Carrots at night or, during the day, gather dandelions; but their town stomachs cannot digest this food. "Lately," writes the procureur—syndic of Saint-Germain,42112 "the corpse of a father of a family, found in the fields with his mouth still filled with the grass he had striven to chew, exasperates and arouses the spirit of the poor creatures awaiting a similar fate."
What then, do people in the towns do in order to survive?—In small towns or scattered villages, each municipality, using what gendarmes it has, makes legal requisitions in its vicinity, and sometimes the commune obtains from the government a charitable gift of wheat, oats, rice or assignats. But the quantity of grain it receives is so small, one asks how it is that, after two months, six months or a year of such a system, that half of the inhabitants are not in the grave yard. I suppose that many of them live on what they raise in their gardens, or on their small farms; others are helped by their relations, neighbors and companions; in any event, it is clear that the human body is very resistant, and a few mouthfuls suffice to keep it going a long time.—At Ervy,42113 in Aube, "not a grain of wheat has been brought in the last two market days." "To morrow,42114 Prairial 25, in Bapaume, the main town of the district, there will be only two bushels of flour left (for food of any sort)." "At Boulogne-sur-Mer, for the past ten days, there has been distributed to each person only three pounds of bad barley, or maslin, without knowing whether we can again distribute this miserable ration next decade." Out of sixteen hundred inhabitants in Brionne, "twelve hundred and sixty42115 are reduced to the small portion of wheat they receive at the market, and which, unfortunately, for too long a time, has been reduced from eight to three ounces of wheat for each person, every eight days." For three months past, in Seine et Marne,42116 in "the commune of Meaux, that of Laferté, Lagny, Daumartin, and other principal towns of the canton, they have had only half a pound per head, for each day, of bad bread." In Seine et Oise, "citizens of the neighborhood of Paris and even of Versailles42117 state that they are reduced to four ounces of bread." At Saint-Denis,42118 with a population of six thousand, "a large part of the inhabitants, worn out with suffering, betake themselves to the charity depots. Workmen, especially, cannot do their work for lack of food. A good many women, mothers and nurses, have been found in their houses unconscious, without any sign of life in them, and many have died with their infants at their breasts." Even in a larger and less forsaken town, Saint-Germain,42119 the misery surpasses all that one can imagine. "Half-a-pound of flour for each inhabitant," not daily, but at long intervals; "bread at fifteen and sixteen francs the pound and all other provisions at the same rate; a people which is sinking, losing hope and perishing. Yesterday, for the fête of the 9th of Thermidor, not a sign of rejoicing; on the contrary, symptoms of general and profound depression, tottering specters in the streets, mournful shrieks of ravaging hunger or shouts of rage, almost every one, driven to the last extremity of misery, welcoming death as a boon."
Such is the aspect of these huge artificial agglomerations, where the soil, made sterile by habitation, bears only stones, and where twenty, thirty, fifty and a hundred thousand suffering stomachs have to obtain from ten, twenty and thirty leagues off their first and last mouthful of food. Within these close pens long lines of human sheep huddle together every day bleating and trembling around almost empty troughs, and only through extraordinary efforts do the shepherds daily succeed in providing them with a little nourishment. The central government, strenuously appealed to, enlarges or defines the circle of their requisitions; it authorizes them to borrow, to tax themselves; it lends or gives to them millions of assignats;42120 frequently, in cases of extreme want, it allows them to take so much grain or rice from its storehouses, for a week's supply.—But, in truth, this sort of life is not living, it is only not dying. For one half, and more than one half of the inhabitants simply subsist on rations of bread obtained by long waiting for it at the end of a string of people and delivered at a reduced price. What rations and what bread!"It seems," says the municipality of Troyes, "that42121 the country has anathematized the towns. Formerly, the finest grain was brought to market; the farmer kept the inferior quality and consumed it at home. Now it is the reverse, and this is carried still further, for, not only do we receive no wheat whatever, but the farmers give us sprouted barley and rye, which they reserve for our commune; the farmer who has none arranges with those who have, so as to buy it and deliver it in town, and sell his good wheat elsewhere. Half a pound per day and per head, in Pluviôse, to the thirteen thousand or fourteen thousand indigent in Troyes; then a quarter of a pound, and, finally, two ounces with a little rice and some dried vegetables, "which feeble resource is going to fail us."42122 Half a pound in Pluviôse, to the twenty thousand needy in Amiens, which ration is only nominal, for "it often happens that each individual gets only four ounces, while the distribution has repeatedly failed three days in succession,'' and this continues. Six months later, Fructidor 7, Amiens has but sixty nine quintals of flour in its market storehouse, "an insufficient quantity for distribution this very day; to morrow, it will be impossible to make any distribution at all, and the day after to morrow the needy population of this commune will be brought down to absolute famine."—"Complete desperation! There are already "many suicides."42123 At other times, rage predominates and there are riots. At Evreux,42124 Germinal 21, a riot breaks out, owing to the delivery of only two pounds of flour per head and per week, and because three days before, only a pound and a half was delivered. There is a riot at Dieppe,42125 Prairial 14 and 15, because "the people are reduced here to three or four ounces of bread." There is another at Vervins, Prairial 9, because the municipality which obtains bread at a cost of seven and eight francs a pound, raises the price from twenty-five to fifty sous. At Lille, an insurrection breaks out Messidor 4, because the municipality, paying nine francs for bread, can give it to the poor only for about twenty and thirty sous.—Lyons, during the month of Nivôse, remains without bread "for five full days."42126 At Chartres, Thermidor 15,42127 the distribution of bread for a month is only eight ounces a day, and there is not enough to keep this up until the 20th of Thermidor. On the fifteenth of Fructidor, La Rochelle writes that "its public distributions, reduced to seven or eight ounces of bread, are on the point of failing entirely." For four months, at Painboeuf, the ration is but the quarter of a pound of bread.42128 And the same at Nantes, which has eighty-two thousand inhabitants and swarms with the wretched; "the distribution never exceeded four ounces a day," and that only for the past year. The same at Rouen, which contains sixty thousand inhabitants; and, in addition, within the past fortnight the distribution has failed three times. In other reports, those who are well-off suffer more than the indigent because they take no part in the communal distribution, "all resources for obtaining food being, so to say, interdicted to them."—Five ounces of bread per diem for four months is the allowance to the forty thousand inhabitants of Caen and its district.42129 A great many in the town, as well as in the country, live on bran and wild herbs." At the end of Prairial, "there is not a bushel of grain in the town storehouses, while the requisitions, enforced in the most rigorous and imposing style, produce nothing or next to nothing." Misery augments from week to week: "it is impossible to form any idea of it; the people of Caen live on brown bread and the blood of cattle. ... Every countenance bears traces of the famine... Faces are of livid hue.... It is impossible to await the new crop, until the end of Fructidor."—Such are the exclamations everywhere. The object now, indeed, is to cross the narrowest and most terrible defile; a fortnight more of absolute fasting and hundreds of thousands of lives would be sacrificed.42130 At this moment the government half opens the doors of its storehouses; it lends a few sacks of flour on condition of re-payment,—for example, at Cherbourg a few hundreds of quintals of oats; by means of oat bread, the poor can subsist until the coming harvest. But above all, it doubles its guard and shows its bayonets. At Nancy, a traveler sees42131 "more than three thousand persons soliciting in vain for a few pounds of flour." They are dispersed with the butt-ends of muskets.—Thus are the peasantry taught patriotism and the townspeople patience. Physical constraint exercised on all in the name of all; this is the only procedure which an arbitrary socialism can resort to for the distribution of food and to discipline starvation.
Famine and misery at Paris.—Steps taken by the government
to feed the capital.—Monthly cost to the Treasury.—Cold
and hunger in the winter of 1794-1795.—Quality of the
bread.—Daily rations diminished.—Suffering, especially of
the populace.—Excessive physical suffering, despair,
suicides, and deaths from exhaustion in 1795.—Government
dinners and suppers.—Number of lives lost through want and
war.—Socialism as applied, and its effects on comfort,
well-being and mortality.
Anything that a totalitarian government may do to ensure that the capital is supplied with food is undertaken and carried out by this one, for here is its seat, and one more degree of dearth in Paris would overthrow it. Each week, on reading the daily reports of its agents,42132 it finds itself on the verge of explosion; twice, in Germinal and Prairial, a popular outbreak does overthrow it for a few hours, and, if it maintains itself, it is on the condition of either giving the needy a piece of bread or the hope of getting it. Consequently, military posts are spaced out around Paris, up to eighteen leagues off, on all the highways; permanent patrols in correspondence with each other to urge on the wagoners and draft relays of horses on the spot. Escorts dispatched from Paris to meet convoys;42133 requisition "all the carts and all the horses whatever to effect transportation in preference to any other work or service." All communes traversed by a highway are ordered to put rubble and manure on the bad spots and cover the whole way with a layer of soil, so that the horses may drag their loads in spite of the slippery road. The national agents are ordered to draft the necessary number of men to break the ice around the water-mills.42134 A requisition is made for "all the barley throughout the length and breadth of the Republic, "this must be utilized to produce "the mixture for making bread," while the brewers are forbidden to use barley in the manufacture of beer; the starch makers are forbidden to convert potatoes into starch, with penalty of death against all offenders "as destroyers of alimentary produce;" the breweries and starch-factories42135 are to be closed until further notice. Paris must have grain, no matter of what kind, no matter how, and at any cost, not merely in the following week, but to-morrow, this very day, because hunger chews and swallows everything, and it will not wait.—Once the grain is obtained, a price must be fixed which people can pay. Now, the difference between the selling and cost price is enormous; it keeps on increasing as the assignat declines and it is the government which pays this. "You furnish bread at three sous," said Dubois-Crancé, Floréal 16, year III,42136 "and it costs you four francs. Paris consumes 8,000 quintals of meal daily, which expenditure alone amounts to 1,200 millions per annum." Seven months later, when a bag of flour brings 13,000 francs, the same expenditure reaches 546 millions per month.—Under the ancient régime, Paris, although overgrown, continued to be an useful organism; if it absorbed much, it elaborated more; its productiveness compensated for what it consumed, and, every year, instead of exhausting the public treasury it poured 77 millions into it. The new régime has converted it into a monstrous canker in the very heart of France, a devouring parasite which, through its six hundred thousand leeches, drains its surroundings for a distance of forty leagues, consumes one-half the annual revenue of the State, and yet still remains emaciated in spite of the sacrifices made by the treasury it depletes and the exhaustion of the provinces which supply it with food.
Always the same alimentary system, the same long lines of people waiting at, and before, dawn in every quarter of Paris, in the dark, for a long time, and often to no purpose, subject to the brutalities of the strong and the outrages of the licentious! On the 9th of Thermidor, the daily trot of the multitude in quest of food has lasted uninterruptedly for seventeen months, accompanied with outrages of the worst kind because there is less terror and less submissiveness, with more obstinacy because provisions at free sale are dearer, with greater privation because the ration distributed is smaller, and with more sombre despair because each household, having consumed its stores, has nothing of its own to make up for the insufficiencies of public charity.—And to cap it all, the winter of 1794-1795 is so cold42137 that the Seine freezes and people cross the Loire on foot. Rafts no longer arrive and, to obtain fire-wood, it is necessary "to cut down trees at Boulogne, Vincennes, Verrières, St. Cloud, Meudon and two other forests in the vicinity." Fuel costs "four hundred francs per cord of wood, forty sous for a bushel of charcoal, twenty sous for a small basket. The needy are seen in the streets sawing the wood of their bedsteads to cook with and to keep from freezing." On the resumption of transportation by water amongst the cakes of ice "rafts are sold as fast as the raftsmen can haul the wood out of the water, the people being obliged to pass three nights at the landing to get it, each in turn according to his number." "On Pluviôse 3 at least two thousand persons are at the Louviers landing," each with his card allowing him four sticks at fifteen sous each. Naturally, there is pulling, hauling, tumult and a rush; "the dealers take to flight for fear, and the inspectors come near being murdered;" they get away along with the police commissioner and "the public helps itself." Likewise, the following day, there is "an abominable pillage;" the gendarmes and soldiers placed there to maintain order, "make a rush for the wood and carry it away together with the crowd." Bear in mind that on this day the thermometer is sixteen degrees below zero, that one hundred, two hundred other lines of people likewise stand waiting at the doors of bakers and butchers, enduring the same cold, and that they have already endured it and will yet endure it a month and more. Words are wanting to describe the sufferings of these long lines of motionless beings, during the night, at daybreak, standing there five or six hours, with the blast driving through their rags and their feet freezing.—Ventôse is beginning, and the ration of bread is reduced to a pound and a half;42138 Ventôse ends, and the ration of bread, kept at a pound and a half for the three hundred and twenty-four laborers, falls to one pound; in fact, a great many get none at all, many only a half and a quarter of a pound. Germinal follows and the Committee of Public Safety, finding that its magazines are giving out, limits all rations to a quarter of a pound. Thereupon, on the 12th of Germinal, an insurrection of workmen and women breaks out; the Convention is invaded and liberated by military force. Paris is declared in a state of siege and the government, again in the saddle, tightens the reins. Thenceforth, the ration of meat served out every four or five days, is a quarter of a pound; bread averages every day, sometimes five, sometimes six and sometimes seven ounces, at long intervals eight ounces, often three, two and one ounce and a half, or even none at all; while this bread, black and "making mischief," becomes more and more worthless and detestable.42139 People who are well off live on potatoes, but only for them, for, in the middle of Germinal, these cost fifteen francs the bushel and, towards the end, twenty francs; towards the end of Messidor, forty-five francs; in the first month of the Directory, one hundred and eighty francs, and then two hundred and eighty-four francs, whilst other produce goes up at the same rates.—After the abolition of the "maximum" the evil springs not from a lack of provisions, but from their dearness: the shops are well supplied. Whoever comes with a full purse gets what he wants42140: The former rich, the property owners and large capitalists, may eat on the condition that they hand their bundles of assignats over, that they withdrawing their last louis from its hiding-place, that they sell their jewelry, clocks, furniture and clothes. And the nouveaux rich, the speculators, the suppliers, the happy and extravagant robbers, spend four hundred, one thousand, three thousand, then five thousand francs for their dinner, and revel in the great eating establishments on fine wines and exquisite cheer: the burden of the scarcity is transferred to other shoulders.—At present, the class which suffers, and which suffers beyond all bounds of patience is, together with employees and people with small incomes,42141 the crowd of workmen, the City plebeians, the low Parisian populace
* which lives from day to day,
* which is Jacobin at heart,
* which made the Revolution in order to better itself,
* which finds itself worse off,
* which gets up one insurrection more on the 1st of Prairial,
* which forcibly enters the Tuileries yelling "Bread and the Constitution of '93,"
* which installs itself as sovereign in the Convention,
* which murders the Representative Féraud,
* which decrees a return to Terror, but which, put down by the National Guard, disarmed and forced back into lasting obedience, has only to submit to the consequences of its own outrages, the socialism it has itself instituted and the economical system it itself has organized.
Because the workers of Paris have been usurpers and tyrants they are now beggars. Owing to the ruin brought on proprietors and capitalists by them, individuals can no longer employ them. Owing to the ruin they have brought on the Treasury, the State can provide them with only the semblance of charity, and hence, while all are compelled to go hungry, a great many die, and many commit suicide.
* On Germinal 6th, "Section of the Observatory,"42142 at the distribution, "forty-one persons had been without bread; several pregnant women desired immediate confinement so as to destroy their infants; others asked for knives to stab themselves."
* On Germinal 8th," a large number of persons who had passed the night at the doors of the bakeries were obliged to leave without getting any bread."
* On Germinal 24th, "the police commissioner of the Arsenal section states that many become ill for lack of food, and that he buries quite a number.... The same day, he has heard of five or six citizens, who, finding themselves without bread, and unable to get other food, throw themselves into the Seine."
* Germinal 27, "the women say that they feel so furious and are in such despair on account of hunger and want that they must inevitably commit some act of violence.... In the section of 'Les Amis de la Patrie,' one half have no bread.... Three persons tumbled down through weakness on the Boulevard du Temple."
* Floréal 2, "most of the workmen in the 'République' section are leaving Paris on account of the scarcity of bread."
* Floréal 5, "eighteen out of twenty-four inspectors state that patience is exhausted and that things are coming to an end."
* Floréal 14, "the distribution is always unsatisfactory on account of the four-ounce ration; two thirds of the citizens do without it. One woman, on seeing the excitement of her husband and her four children who had been without bread for two days, trailed through the gutter tearing her hair and striking her head; she then got up in a state of fury and attempted to drown herself."
* Floréal 20, "all exclaim that they cannot live on three ounces of bread, and, again, of such bad quality. Mothers and pregnant women fall down with weakness."
* Floréal 21, "the inspectors state that they encounter many persons in the streets who have fallen through feebleness and inanition."
* Floréal 23, "a citoyenne who had no bread for her child tied it to her side and jumped into the river. Yesterday, an individual named Mottez, in despair through want, cut his throat."
* Floréal 25, "several persons, deprived of any means of existence, gave up in complete discouragement, and fell down with weakness and exhaustion.... In the 'Gravilliers' section, two men were found dead with inanition.... The peace officers report the decease of several citizens; one cut his throat, while another was found dead in his bed." Floréal 28, "numbers of people sink down for lack of something to eat; yesterday, a man was found dead and others exhausted through want."
* Prairial 24, "Inspector Laignier states that the indigent are compelled to seek nourishment in the piles of garbage on the corners."
* Messidor 1,42143 "the said Picard fell through weakness at ten o'clock in the morning in the rue de la Loi, and was only brought to at seven o'clock in the evening; he was carried to the hospital on a hand-barrow."
* Messidor 11, "There is a report that the number of people trying to drown themselves is so great that the nets at St. Cloud scarcely suffice to drag them out of the water."
* Messidor 19, "A man was found on the corner of a street just dead with hunger."
* Messidor 27, "At four o'clock in the afternoon, Place Maubert, a man named Marcelin, employed in the Jardin des Plantes, fell down through starvation and died while assistance was being given to him." On the previous evening, the anniversary of the taking of the Bastille, a laborer on the Pont-au-Change, says "I have eaten nothing all day. ''Another replies: "I have not been home because I have nothing to give to my wife and children, dying with hunger." About the same date, a friend of Mallet-Dupan writes to him "that he is daily witness to people amongst the lower classes dying of inanition in the streets; others, and principally women, have nothing but garbage to live on, scraps of refuse vegetables and the blood running out of the slaughter houses. Laborers, generally, work on short time on account of their lack of strength and of their exhaustion for want of food."42144—
Thus ends the rule of the Convention. Well has it looked out for the interests of the poor! According to the reports of its own inspectors, "famished stomachs on all sides cry vengeance, beat to arms and sound the tocsin of alarm42145.... Those who have to dwell daily on the sacrifices they make to keep themselves alive declare that there is no hope except in death." Are they going to be relieved by the new government which the Convention imposes on them with thunders of artillery and in which it perpetuates itself?42146—
* Brumaire 28, "Most of the workmen in the 'Temple' and 'Gravilliers' sections have done no work for want of bread."
* Brumaire 24, "Citizens of all classes refuse to mount guard because they have nothing to eat."
* Brumaire 25, "In the 'Gravilliers' section the women say that they have sold all that they possessed, while others, in the 'Faubourg-Antoine' section, declare that it would be better to be shot down."
* Brumaire 30, "A woman beside herself came and asked a baker to kill her children as she had nothing to give them to eat."
* Frimaire 1, 2, 3, and 4, "In many of the sections bread is given out only in the evening, in others at one o'clock in the morning, and of very poor quality.... Several sections yesterday had no bread."
* Frimaire 7, the inspectors declare that "the hospitals soon will not be vast enough to hold the sick and the wretched."
* Frimaire 14, At the central market a woman nursing her child sunk down with inanition." A few days before this, "a man fell down from weakness, on his way to Bourg l'Abbé."
"All our reports," say the district administrators, "resound with shrieks of despair." People are infatuated; "it seems to us that a crazy spirit prevails universally, we often encounter people in the street who, although alone, gesticulate and talk to themselves aloud." "How many times," writes a Swiss traveller,42147 who lived in Paris during the latter half of 1795, "how often have I chanced to encounter men sinking through starvation, scarcely able to stand up against a post, or else down on the ground and unable to get up for want of strength!" A journalist states that he saw "within ten minutes, along the street, seven poor creatures fall on account of hunger, a child die on its mother's breast which was dry of milk, and a woman struggling with a dog near a sewer to get a bone away from him."42148 Meissner never leaves his hotel without filling his pockets with pieces of the national bread. "This bread," he says, "which the poor would formerly have despised, I found accepted with the liveliest gratitude, and by well educated persons;" the lady who contended with the dog for the bone was a former nun, without either parents or friends and everywhere repulsed." "I still hear with a shudder," says Meissner, "the weak, melancholy voice of a well-dressed woman who stopped me in the rue du Bac, to tell me in accents indicative both of shame and despair: 'Ah, Sir, do help me! I am not an outcast. I have some talent—you may have seen some of my works in the salon. I have had nothing to eat for two days and I am crazy for want of food.'" Again, in June, 1796, the inspectors state that despair and despondency have reached the highest point, only one cry being heard-misery!.... Our reports all teem with groans and complaints.. .. Pallor and suffering are stamped on all faces.... Each day presents a sadder and more melancholy aspect." And repeatedly,42149 they sum up their scattered observations in a general statement:
* "A mournful silence, the deepest distress on every countenance;
* the most intense hatred of the government in general developed in all conversations;
* contempt for all existing authority;
* an insolent luxuriousness, insulting to the wretchedness of the poor rentiers who expire with hunger in their garrets, no longer possessing the courage to crawl to the Treasury and get the wherewithal to prolong their misery for a few days;
* the worthy father of a family daily deciding what article of furniture he will sell to make up for what is lacking in his wages that he may buy a half-pound of bread;
* every sort of provision increasing in price sixty times an hour;
* the smallest business dependent on the fall of assignats;
* intriguers of all parties overthrowing each other only to get offices;
* the intoxicated soldier boasting of the services he has rendered and is to render, and abandoning himself shamelessly to every sort of debauchery;
* commercial houses transformed into dens of thieves;
* rascals become traders and traders become rascals; the most sordid cupidity and a mortal egoism—such is the picture presented by Paris."42150
One group is wanting in this picture, that of the governors who preside over this wretchedness, which group remains in the background; one might say that it was so designed and composed by some great artist, a lover of contrasts, an inexorable logician, whose invisible hand traces human character unvaryingly, and whose mournful irony unfailingly depicts side by side, in strong relief, the grotesqueness of folly and the seriousness of death. How many perished on account of this misery? Probably more than a million persons.42151—
Try to take in at a glance the extraordinary spectacle presented on twenty-six thousand square leagues of territory:
* The immense multitude of the starving in town and country,
* the long lines of women for three years waiting for bread in all the cities,
* this or that town of twenty-three thousand souls in which one-third of the population dies in the hospitals in three months,
* the crowds of paupers at the poor-houses,
* the file of poor wretches entering and the file of coffins going out,
* the asylums deprived of their property, overcrowded with the sick, unable to feed the multitude of foundlings pining away in their cradles the very first week, their little faces in wrinkles like those of old men,
* the malady of want aggravating all other maladies, the long suffering of a persistent vitality amidst pain and which refuses to succumb, the final death-rattle in a garret or in a ditch.
Contrast this with this the small, powerful, triumphant group of Jacobins which, having understood how to place themselves in the good places, is determined to stay there at any cost.—About ten o'clock in the morning,42152 Cambacérès, president of the Committee of Public Safety, is seen entering its hall in the Pavillon de l'Egalité. He is a large, cautious and shrewd personage who will, later on, become arch-chancellor of the Empire and famous for his epicurean inventions and other peculiar tastes revived from antiquity. Scarcely seated, he orders an ample pat-au-feu to be placed on the chimney hearth and, on the table, "fine wine and fine white bread; three articles," says a guest, "not to be found elsewhere in all Paris." Between twelve and two o'clock, his colleagues enter the room in turn, take a plate of soup and a slice of meat, swallow some wine, and then proceed, each to his bureau, to receive his coterie, giving this one an office and compelling another to pay up, looking all the time after his own special interests. At this moment, especially, towards the close of the Convention, there are no public interests, all interests being private and personal.—In the mean time, the deputy in charge of provisions, Roux de la Haute Marne, an unfrocked Benedictine, formerly a terrorist in the provinces, subsequently the protégé and employee of Fouché, with whom he is to be associated in the police department, keeps the throng of women in check which daily resorts to the Tuileries to beg for bread. He is well adapted for this duty, being tall, chubby, ornamental, and with vigorous lungs. He has taken his office in the right place, in the attic of the palace, at the top of long, narrow and steep stairs, so that the line of women stretching up between the two walls, piled one above the other, necessarily becomes immovable. With the exception of the two or three at the front, no one has her hands free to grab the haranguer by the throat and close the oratorical stop-cock. He can spout his tirades accordingly with impunity, and for an indefinite time. On one occasion, his sonorous jabber rattles away uninterruptedly from the top to the bottom of the staircase, from nine o'clock in the morning to five o'clock in the afternoon. Under such a voluble shower, his hearers become weary and end by going home.—About nine or ten o'clock in the evening, the Committee of Public Safety reassembles, but not to discuss business. Danton and La Révellière preach in vain; each is too egoistic and too worn-out; they let the rein slacken on Cambacérès. As to him, he would rather keep quiet and drag the cart no longer; but there are two things necessary which he must provide for on pain of death.—"It will not do," says he in plaintive tones, "to keep on printing the assignats at night which we want for the next day. If that lasts, ma foi, we run the risk of being strung up at a lantern...Go and find Hourier-Eloi, as he has charge of the finances, and tell him that we entreat him to keep us a-going for a fortnight or eighteen days longer, when the executive Directory will come in and do what it pleases." "But food—shall we have enough for to-morrow?
"Aha, I don't know—I'll send for our colleague Roux, who will post us on that point." Roux enters, the official spokesman, the fat, jovial tamer of the popular dog. "Well, Roux, how do we stand about supplying Paris with food?" "The supply, citizen President, is just as abundant as ever, two ounces per head,—at least for most of the sections." "Go to the devil with your abundant supply! You'll have our heads off!" All remain silent, for this possible dénouement sets them to thinking. Then, one of them exclaims: "President, are there any refreshments provided for us? After working so hard for so many days we need something to strengthen us!" "Why, yes; there is a good calf's-tongue, a large turbot, a large piece of pie and some other things." They cheer up, begin to eat and drink champagne, and indulge in drolleries. About eleven or twelve o'clock the members of other Committees come in; signatures are affixed to their various decrees, on trust, without reading them over. They, in their turn, sit down at the table and the conclave of sovereign bellies digests without giving itself further trouble about the millions of stomachs that are empty.
4201 (return)
[ On the other more
complicated functions, such as the maintenance of roads, canals, harbors,
public buildings, lighting, cleanliness, hygiene, superior secondary and
primary education, hospitals, and other asylums, highway security, the
suppression of robbery and kindred crimes, the destruction of wolves,
etc., see Rocquam, "Etat de la France au 18 Brumaire," and the
"Statistiques des Departements," published by the prefets, from years IX.
to XIII.—These branches of the service were almost entirely
overthrown; the reader will see the practical results of their suppression
in the documents referred to.]
4202 (return)
[ "St. John de
Crêvecoeur," by Robert de Crêvecoeur, p.216. (Letter of Mdlle. de Gouves,
July, 1800.) "We are negotiating for the payment of, at least, the
arrearages since 1789 on the Arras property." (M. de Gouves and his
sisters had not emigrated, and yet they had had no income from their
property for ten years.)]
4203 (return)
[ Cf. "The Revolution,"
vol. I., 254-261, 311-352; vol. II., 234-272.]
4204 (return)
[ Cf. "The Revolution,"
II., 273-276.]
4205 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXII., 178. (Speech by Robespierre in the Convention, December 2, 1792.)—Mallet-Dupan,
"Mémoires." I., 400. About the same date, "a deputation from the
department of Gard expressly demands a sum of two hundred and fifty
millions, as indemnity to the cultivator, for grain which it calls
national property."—This fearful sum of two hundred and fifty
millions, they add, is only a fictive advance, placing at its disposal
real and purely national wealth, not belonging in full ownership to any
distinct member of the social body any more than the pernicious metals
minted as current coin."]
4206 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXVI., 95. (Declaration of Rights presented in the Jacobin Club, April 21,
1793.)]
4207 (return)
[ Decrees in every
commune establishing a tax on the rich in order to render the price of
bread proportionate to wages, also in each large city to raise an army of
paid sans-culottes, that will keep aristocrats under their pikes, April
5-7.—Decree ordering the forced loan of a billion on the rich, May
20-25—Buchez et Roux, XXV., 156. (Speech by Charles, March 27.—Gorsas,
"Courrier des Départements," No. for May I5, 1793. (Speech by Simon in the
club at Annecy.)—Speech by Guffroy at Chartres, and of Chalier and
associates at Lyons, etc.]
4208 (return)
[ Report by Minister
Claviéres, February 1, 1793, p. 27.—Cf. Report of M. de Montesquiou,
September 9, 1791, p. 47. "During the first twenty-six months of the
Revolution the taxes brought in three hundred and fifty-six millions less
than they should naturally have done."—There is the same deficit in
the receipts of the towns, especially on account of the abolition of the
octroi. Paris, under this head, loses ten millions per annum.]
4209 (return)
[ Report by Cambon,
Pluviôse 3, year III. "The Revolution and the war have cost in four years
five thousand three hundred and fifty millions above the ordinary
expenses." (Cambon, in his estimates, purposely exaggerates ordinary
expenses of the monarchy. According to Necker's budget, the expenditure in
1759 was fixed at five hundred and thirty-one millions and not, as Cambon
states, seven hundred millions. This raises the expenses of the Revolution
and of the war to seven thousand one hundred and twenty-one millions for
the four and a half years, and hence to one thousand five hundred and
eighty-one millions per annum, that is to say, to triple the ordinary
expenses.) The expenses of the cities are therefore exaggerated like those
of the State and for the same reasons.]
4210 (return)
[ Schmidt, "Pariser
Zustände," I. 93, 96. "During the first half of the year 1789 there were
seventeen thousand men at twenty sous a day in the national workshops at
Montmartre. In 1790, there were nineteen thousand. In 1791, thirty-one
thousand costing sixty thousand francs a day. In 1790, the State expends
seventy-five millions for maintaining the price of bread in Paris at
eleven sous for four pounds.—Ibid., 113. During the first six months
of 1793 the State pays the Paris bakers about seventy-five thousand francs
a day to keep bread at three sous the pound.]
4211 (return)
[ Ibid. I., 139-144.]
4212 (return)
[ Decree of September
27, 1790. "The circulation of assignats shall not extend beyond one
billion two hundred millions.... Those which are paid in shall be
destroyed and there shall be no other creation or emission of them,
without a decree of the Corps Legislatif, always subject to this condition
that they shall not exceed the value of the national possessions nor
obtain a circulation above one billion two hundred millions.]
4213 (return)
[ Schmidt, ibid., I.,
104, 138, 144.]
4214 (return)
[ Felix Rocquam,
"L'Etat de la France au 18 Brumaire," p.240. (Report by Lacuée, year IX.—Reports
by préfets under the Consulate (Reports of Laumont, préfet of the
Lower-Rhine, year X.; of Coichen, préfet of the Moselle, year XI., etc.)—Schmidt,
Pariser Zustände," III., 205. ("The rate of interest during the Revolution
was from four to five per cent. per month; in 1796 from six to eight per
cent. per month, the lowest rate being two per cent. per month with
security.")]
4215 (return)
[ Arthur Young, "Voyage
en France," II., 360. (Fr. translation.) "I regard Bordeaux as richer and
more commercial than any city in England except London."]
4216 (return)
[ Ibid., II., 357. The
statistics of exports in France in 1787 give three hundred and forty-nine
millions, and imports three hundred and forty millions (leaving out
Lorraine. Alsace, the three Evéchés and the West Indies).-Ibid., 360. In
1786 the importations from the West Indies amounted to one hundred and
seventy-four millions, of which St. Domingo furnished one hundred and
thirty-one millions; the exports to the West Indies amounted to sixty-four
millions, of which St. Domingo had forty-four millions. These exchanges
were effected by five hundred and sixty-nine vessels carrying one hundred
and sixty-two thousand tons, of which Bordeaux provided two hundred and
forty-six vessels, carrying seventy-five thousand tons.—On the ruin
of manufactures cf. the reports of préfets in the year X., with details
from each department.—Arthur Young (II., 444) states that the
Revolution affected manufactures more seriously than any other branch of
industry.]
4217 (return)
[ Reports of préfets.
(Orme, year IX.) "The purchasers have speculated on the profits for the
time being, and have exhausted their resources. Many of them have
destroyed all the plantations, all the enclosures and even the fruit
trees."—Felix Rocquam, ibid., 116. (Report by Fourcroy on Brittany.)
"The condition of rural structures everywhere demands considerable
capital. But no advances, based on any lasting state of things, can be
made."—Ibid., 236. (Report of Lacuée on the departments around
Paris.) "The doubtful owners of national possessions cultivate badly and
let things largely go to ruin."]
4218 (return)
[ Reports by préfets,
years X. and XI. In general, the effect of the partition of communal
possessions was disastrous, especially pasture and mountain grounds.—(Doubs.)
"The partition of the communal property has contributed, in all the
communes, rather to the complete ruin of the poor than to any amelioration
of their fate."—(Lozére.) "The partition of the communal property by
the law of June 10, 1792, has proved very injurious to cultivation." These
partitions were numerous. (Moselle.) "Out of six hundred and eighty-six
communes, one hundred and seven have divided per capitum, five hundred and
seventy-nine by families, and one hundred and nineteen have remained
intact."]
4219 (return)
[ Ibid. (Moselle.)
Births largely increase in 1792. "But this is an exceptional year. All
kinds of abuses, paper-money, the non-payment of taxes and claims, the
partition in the communes, the sale for nothing of national possessions,
has spread so much comfort among the people that the poorer classes, who
are the most numerous, have had no dread of increasing their families, to
which they hope some day to leave their fields and render them happy."]
4220 (return)
[ Mallet-Dupan,
"Memoires," II., 29. (February 1, 1794.) "The late crop in France was
generally good, and, in some provinces, it was above the average... I have
seen the statements of two returns made from twenty-seven departments;
they declare an excess of fifteen, twenty, thirty and thirty-five thousand
bushels of grain. There is no real dearth."]
4221 (return)
[ Schmidt, ibid., I.,
110, and following pages.—Buchez et Roux, XX., 416. (Speeches of
Lequinio, November 27, 1792.)—Moniteur, XVII., 2. (Letter by
Clement, Puy-de-Dome, June 15, 1793.) "For the past fifteen days bread has
been worth sixteen and eighteen sous the pound. There is the most
frightful distress in our mountains. The government distributes one-eighth
of a bushel to each person, everybody being obliged to wait two days to
take his turn. One woman was smothered and several were wounded."]
4222 (return)
[ Cf. "La Revolution,"
I., 208; II., 294, 205, 230.—Buchez et Roux, XX., 431. (Report of
Lecointe-Puyraveau, Nov. 30, 1792.) (Mobs of four, five and six thousand
men in the departments of Eure-et-Loire, Eure, Orme, Calvados,
Indre-et-Loire, Loiret, and Sarthe cut down the prices of produce. The
three delegates of the Convention disposed to interfere have their lives
saved only on condition of announcing the rate dictated to them.—Ibid.,
409. (Letter of Roland, Nov.27, 1792.)—XXI., 198. (Another letter by
Roland, Dec. 6, 1792.) "All convoys are stopped at Lissy, la Ferté, Milan,
la Ferté-sous-Jouarre... Carts loaded with wheat going to Paris have been
forced to go back near Lonjumeau and near Meaux."]
4223 (return)
[ Archives Nationales,
F. 7, 3265. (Letter of David, cultivator, and administrator of the
department of Seine-Inférieure, Oct.11, 1792; letter of the special
committee of Rouen, Oct.22; letter of the delegates of the executive
power, Oct.20, etc.) "Reports from all quarters state that the farmers who
drive to market are considered and treated in their parishes as
aristocrats..... Each department keeps to itself: they mutually repel each
other."]
4224 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XX.,
409. (Letter of Roland, Nov. 271 1792.) "The circulation of grain has for
a long time encountered the greatest obstacles; scarcely a citizen now
dares to do that business."—Ibid., 417. (Speech by Lequinio.) "The
monopoly of wheat by land-owners and farmers is almost universal. Fright
is the cause of it.... And where does this fear come from? From the
general agitation, and threats, with the bad treatment in many places of
the farmers, land-owners and traffickers in wheat known as bladiers."—Decrees
of Sep.16, 1792, and May 4, 1793.]
4225 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XIX.
(Report by Cambon, Sep.22, 1792.) "The taxes no longer reach the public
treasury, because they are used for purchasing grain in the departments."
Ibid., XIX., 29. (Speech by Cambon, Oct.12, 1792.) "You can bear witness
in your departments to the sacrifices which well-to-do people have been
obliged to make in helping the poor class. In many of the towns extra
taxes have been laid for the purchase of grain and for a thousand other
helpful measures."]
4226 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux, XX.,
409. (Letter of Roland, Nov.29, 1792)—XXI., 199. (Deliberations of
the provisional executive council, Sep. 3, 1792.)—Dauban, "La
Demagogie en 1793," p. 64. (Diary kept by Beaulieu.) Ibid., 152.)]
4227 (return)
[ Schmidt, I., 110-130.—Decrees
against the export of coin or ingots, Sep. 5 and 15, 1792.-Decree on
stocks or bonds payable to bearer, Aug.14, 1792.]
4228 (return)
[ We might today call
this sentiment a desire to acquire and retain. (Sentiment of acquisiton).
(SR.)]
4229 (return)
[ Taine's remark in a
footnote. (SR.)]
4230 (return)
[ Archives Nationales,
D., 55, I., file 2. (Letter by Joifroy, national agent in the district of
Bar-sur-Aube, Germinal 5, year III.) "Most of the farmers, to escape the
requisition, have sold their horses and replaced them with oxen."—Memoirs
(in ms.) of M. Dufort de Cheverney (communicated by M. Robert de
Crévecoeur). In June, 1793, "the requisitions fall like hail, every week,
on wheat, hay, straw, oats, etc.," all at prices fixed by the contractors,
who make deductions, postpone and pay with difficulty. Then come
requisitions for hogs. "This was depriving all the country folks of what
they lived on." As the requisitions called for live hogs, there was a hog
St. Bartholomew. Everybody killed his pig and salted it down." (Environs
of Blois.) In relation to refusing to gather in crops, see further on.—Dauban,
"Paris in 1794, p.229. (Ventose 24, general orders by Henriot.) "Citizen
Guillon being on duty outside the walls, saw with sorrow that citizens
were cutting their wheat to feed rabbits with."]
4231 (return)
[ Decree of Messidor
23, year II., on the consolidation with the national domain of the assets
and liabilities of hospitals and other charitable institutions. (See
reports of prefets on the effect of this law, on the ruin of the
hospitals, on the misery of the sick, of foundlings and the infirm, from
years IX. to XIII.)—Decrees of August 8 and 12, 1793, and July 24,
1794, on academies and literary societies.—Decree of August 24,
1793, P 29, on the assets and liabilities of communes.]
4232 (return)
[ Schmidt, I., 144.
(Two billions September 27, 1793; one billion four hundred millions June
19, 1794.)—Decree of August 24, September 13, 1793, on the
conversion of title-deeds and the formation of the Grand Ledger.—Decrees
of July 31, August 30 and September 5, on calling in the assignats à face
royale.—Decrees of August 1 and September 5, 1793, on the refusal to
accept assignats at par.]
4233 (return)
[ Archives Nationales,
F.7, 4421. (Documents on the revolutionary taxes organized at Troyes,
Brumaire 11, year II.) Three hundred and seventy-three persons are taxed,
especially manufacturers, merchants and land-owners; the minimum of the
tax is one hundred francs, the maximum fifty thousand francs, the total
being one million seven hundred and sixty-two thousand seven hundred
francs. Seventy-six petitions attached to the papers show exactly the
situation of things in relation to trade, manufactures and property, the
state of fortunes and credit of the upper and lower bourgeois class.]
4234 (return)
[ Mallet-Dupan,
"Mémoires," II., 17. "I have seen the thirty-second list of émigrés at
Marseilles, merely of those whose possessions have been confiscated and
sold; there are twelve thousand of them, and the lists were not finished."—Reports
of préfets. (Var by Fanchet, year IX.) "The emigration of 1793 throws upon
Leghorn and the whole Italian coast a very large number of Marseilles and
Toulon traders. These men, generally industrious, have established (there)
more than one hundred and sixty soap factories and opened a market for the
oil of this region. This event may be likened to the Revocation of the
Edict of Nantes."—Cf. the reports on the departments of the Rhône,
Aude, Lot and Garonne, Lower Pyrenees, Orme, etc.]
4235 (return)
[ Archives des Affaires
Étrangères, vol. 332. (Letter of Désgranges, Bordeaux, Brumaire 12, year
II.) "Nobody here talks about trade any more than if it had never
existed."]
4236 (return)
[ Dr. Jaïn, "Choix de
documents et lettres privées trouvees dans des papiers de famille," p.144.
(Letter of Gédëon Jaïn, banker at Paris, November 18, 1793.) "Business
carried on with difficulty and at a great risk occasion frequent and
serious losses, credit and resources being almost nothing."]
4237 (return)
[ Archives Nationales,
F.7, 2475. (Letters of Thullier, procureur-syndic of the Paris department,
September 7 and 10, 1793.—Report by a member of the Piques section,
September 8 and 10, 1793.—Cf. the petitions of traders and lawyers
imprisoned at Troyes, Strasbourg, Bordeaux, etc.—Archives
Nationales, AF.,II., 271. Letter of Francastel: "At least three thousand
monopolist aristocrats have been arrested at Nantes.... and this is not
the last purification."]
4238 (return)
[ Decrees of May 4, 15,
19, 20 and 23, and of August 30, 1793.—Decrees of July 26, August
15, September II, 1793, and February 24, 1794.—Camille Boursier,
"Essai sur la Terreur en Anjou," p. 254. (Letter of Buissart to his friend
Maximilian Robespierre, Arras, Pluviose 14, year II.) "we are dying with
starvation in the midst of abundance; I think that the mercantile
aristocracy ought to be killed out like the nobles and priests. The
communes, with the help of a storehouse of food and goods must alone be
allowed to trade. This idea, well carried out, can be realized; then, the
benefits of trade will turn to the advantage of the Republic, that is to
say, to the advantage of buyer and seller."]
4239 (return)
[ Archives Nationales,
AF., II., 49. (Documents on the levy of revolutionary taxes, Belfort,
Brumaire 30, year II.) "Verneur, sr., taxed at ten thousand livres, for
having withheld goods deposited with him by his sister, in order to save
them from the coming taxation." Campardon I., 292. (Judgments of the
revolutionary commission at Strasbourg.)—"The head-clerk in Hecht's
apothecary shop is accused of selling two ounces of rhubarb and manna at
fifty-four sous; Hecht, the proprietor, is condemned to a fine of fifteen
thousand livres. Madeleine Meyer, at Rosheim, a retailer, is accused of
selling a candle for ten sous and is condemned to a fine of one thousand
livres, payable in three days. Braun, butcher and bar-keeper, accused of
having sold a glass of wine for twenty sous, is condemned to a fine of
forty thousand francs, to be imprisoned until this is paid, and to
exposure in the pillory before his own house for four hours, with this
inscription: debaser of the national currency."—"Recueil de Pieces,
etc., at Strasbourg," (supplement, pp. 21, 30, 64). "Marie Ursule
Schnellen and Marie Schultzmann, servant, accused of monopolising milk.
The former is sentenced to the pillory for one day under a placard,
monopoliser of milk, and to hold in one hand the money and, in the other,
the milk-pot; the other, a servant with citizen Benner. ... he, the said
Benner, is sentenced to a fine of three hundred livres, payable in three
days."—"Dorothy Franz, convicted of having sold two heads of salad
at twenty sous, and of thus having depreciated the value of assignats, is
sentenced to a fine of three thousand livres, imprisonment for six weeks
and exposure in the pillory for two hours."—Ibid., I., 18. "A
grocer, accused of having sold sugar-candy at lower than the rate,
although not comprised in the list, is sentenced to one hundred thousand
livres fine and imprisonment until peace is declared."—Orders by
Saint-Just and Lebas, Nivose 3, year II. "The criminal court of the
department of the Lower-Rhine is ordered to destroy the house of any one
convicted of having made sales below the rates fixed by the maximum,"
consequently, the house of one Schauer, a furrier, is torn down, Nivose
7.]
4240 (return)
[ Archives des Affaires
Étrangères, vol. 322. (Letter by Haupt, Belfort, Brumaire 3, year II.) "On
my arrival here, I found the law of the maximum promulgated and in
operation... (but) the necessary steps have not been taken to prevent a
new monopoly by the country people, who have flocked in to the shops of
the dealers, carried off all their goods and created a factitious
dearth."]
4241 (return)
[ Archives Nationales,
F.7, 4421. (Petitions of merchants and shop-keepers at Troyes in relation
to the revolutionary tax, especially of hatters, linen, cotton and woollen
manufacturers, weavers and grocers. There is generally a loss of one-half,
and sometimes of three-fourths of the purchase money.)]
4242 (return)
[ Archives des Affaires
étrangères, vol.330. (Letter of Brutus, Marseilles, Nivose 6, year II.)
"Since the maximum everything is wanting at Marseilles."—Ibid.
(Letter by Soligny and Gosse, Thionville, Nivose 5, year II.) "No peasant
is willing to bring anything to market... They go off six leagues to get a
better price and thus the communes which they once supplied are
famishing.. According as they are paid in specie or assignats the
difference often amounts to two hundred per cent., and nearly always to
one hundred per cent."—"Un Sejour en France," pp. 188-189.—Archives
Nationales, D.. P I., file 2. (Letter of Representative Albert, Germinal
19, year II., and of Joffroy, national agent, district of Bar-sur-Aube,
Germinal 5, year III. "The municipalities have always got themselves
exempted from the requisitions, which all fall on the farmers and
proprietors unable to satisfy them.... The allotment among the tax-payers
is made with the most revolting inequality.... Partiality through
connections of relatives and of friendship."]
4243 (return)
[ Decrees of September
29, 1793 (articles 8 and 9); of May 4 and 20, and June 26, 1794.—Archives
Nationales, AF., II., 68-72. (Orders of the Committee of Public Safety,
Prairial 26, year II.) "The horses and wagons of coal peddlers, the
drivers accustomed to taking to Paris by law a portion of the supply of
coal used in baking in the department of Seine-et-Marne, are drafted until
the 1st of Brumaire next, for the transportation of coal to Paris. During
this time they cannot be drafted for any other service." (A good many
orders in relation to provisions and articles of prime necessity may be
found in these files, mostly in the handwriting of Robert Lindet.)]
4244 (return)
[ Cf. "The Revolution,"
II., 69.—Dauban, "Paris en 1794." (Report by Pouvoyeur, March 15,
1794.) "A report has been long circulated that all the aged were to be
slaughtered; there is not a place where this falsehood is not uttered."]
4245 (return)
[ Archives Nationales,
F.7, 4435, file 10, letters of Collot d'Herbois, Brumaire 17 and 19, year
II.—De Martel, "Fouché," 340, 341. Letters of Collot d'Herbois,
November 7 and 9, 1793.]
4246 (return)
[ De Martel, ibid.,
462. (Proclamation by Javogues, Pluviose 13, year II.)]
4247 (return)
[ Archives des Affaires
étrangères, vol. 330. (Letter of Brutus, political agent, Nivôse 6.)]
4248 (return)
[ Archives Nationales,
AF., II., 116. (Orders of Taillefer and Marat-Valette, and Deliberations
of the Directory of Lot, Brumaire 20, year II.)]
4249 (return)
[ Archives des Affaires
étrangères, vol. 331. (Letter of the agent Bertrand, Frimaire 3.)]
4250 (return)
[ Ibid., vol. 1332.
(Letter of the agent Chépy, Brumaire 2.)]
4251 (return)
[ Ibid., vol.1411.
(Letter of Blessmann and Hauser, Brumaire 30.)—Ibid. (Letter of
Haupt, Belfort, Brumaire 29.) "I believe that Marat's advice should be
followed here and a hundred scaffolds be erected; there are not
guillotines enough to cut off the heads of the monopolists. I shall do
what I can to have the pleasure of seeing one of these damned bastards
play hot cockles."]
4252 (return)
[ Ibid., vol.333.
(Letter of Garrigues, Pluviôse 16.)]
4253 (return)
[ "Souvenirs et Journal
d'un Bourgeois d'Evreux," pp.83-85. (June and July, 1794.)—Ibid., at
Nantes.—Dauban, "Paris en 1794," p.194, March 4.]
4254 (return)
[ Archives des Affaires
étrangères, vols. 331 and 332. (Letters of Désgranges, Frimaire 3 and 8
and 10.) "Many of the peasants have eaten no bread for a fortnight. Most
of them no longer work." Buchez et Roux, XVIII., 346. (Session of the
convention, Brumaire 14, Speech by Legendre.)]
4255 (return)
[ Moniteur, xix., 671.
(Speech by Tallien, March 12, 1794.) Buchez et Roux, XXXII., 423. (Letter
of Jullien, June 15, 1794.)]
4256 (return)
[ Archives Nationales,
AF., II., 111. (Letters of Michaud, Chateauroux, Pluviôse 18 and 19, year
II.)]
4257 (return)
[ Dauban, "Paris en
1794," 410, 492, 498. (Letters frora the national agent of the district of
Sancoins, Thermidor 9, year II.; from the Directory of Allier, Thermidor
9; from the national agent of the district of Villefort, Thermidor 9.)—Gouverneur
Morris, April 10, 1794, says in a letter to Washington that the famine in
many places is extremely severe. Men really die of starvation who have the
means to buy bread if they could only get it.]
4258 (return)
[ Volney, "Voyage en
Orient," II., 344. "When Constantinople lacks food twenty provinces are
starved for its supply."]
4259 (return)
[ Archives Nationales,
AF., II, 46, 68. (Decree of committee of Public Safety.) The Treasury pays
over to the city of Paris for subsistence, on Aug. 2, 1793, two millions,
August 14, three, and September 2nd, one million; September 8, 16, and 23,
one million each, and so on.... Between August 7, 1793 and Germinal '9,
year II., the Treasury paid over to Paris, thirty one millions.]
4260 (return)
[ Ibid, AF., II., 68.
Decrees of Brumaire 14, Nivôse 7 and Germinal 22 on the departments
assigned to the supply of Paris. Buchez et Roux, XXVIII., 489. (Speech by
Danton in Jacobin club, Aug.28, '793.) "I constantly asserted that it was
necessary to give all to the mayor of Paris if he exacted it to feed its
inhabitants.. .. Let us sacrifice one hundred and ten millions and save
Paris and through it, the Republic."]
4261 (return)
[ Archives des Affaires
étrangères, vols. 1410 and 1411. Reports of June 20 and 21, 1793, July 21,
22, 28, 29 and 31, and every day of the months of August and September,
1793. Schmidt, "Tableaux de la Revolution Française," vol. II., passim—Dauban,
"Paris in 1794," (especially throughout Ventôse, year II.).—Archives
Nationales, F.7, 31167. (Reports for Nivôse, year II.)]
4262 (return)
[ Dauban, "Paris en
1794,". (Report of Ventôse 2.)]
4263 (return)
[ Mercier, "Paris
Pendant la Revolution," I., 355.]
4264 (return)
[ Archives des Affaires
étrangères, 141 I. (Reports of August 1 and 2, 1763.) "At one o'clock in
the morning, we were surprised to find men and women lying along the sides
of the houses patiently waiting for the shops to open."—Dauban, 231.
(Report of Ventôse 24.) To obtain the lights of a hog, at the slaughter
house near the Jardin des Plantes, at the rate of three francs ten sous,
instead of thirty sous as formerly, women "were lying on the ground with
little baskets by their side and waiting four and five hours."]
4265 (return)
[ Archives Nationales,
F.7, 31167. (Reports of Nivôse 9 and 28.) "The streets of Paris are always
abominable; they are certainly afraid to use those brooms." Dauban, 120.
(Ventôse 9.) "The rue St. Anne is blocked up with manure. In that part of
it near the Rue Louvois, heaps of this stretch along the walls for the
past fortnight."]
4266 (return)
[ Archives des Affaires
étrangères, vol.1411. (Reports of August 9, 1793.) Mercier, I., 353.—Dauban,
530. (Reports of Fructidor 27, year II. "There are always great gatherings
at the coal depots. They begin at midnight. one, two o'clock in the
morning. Many of the habitués take advantage of the obscurity and commit
all sorts of indecencies."]
4267 (return)
[ Schmidt, "Tableaux de
la Revolution Française," II., 155. (Reports of Ventôse 25.)—Dauban,
188. (Reports of Ventôse 19).—Ibid., (Reports of Ventôse 2.) Ibid.,
126. (Reports of Ventôse 10.)—Archives Nationales, F. 7, 31167.
(Reports of Nivôse 28, year II.) The women "denounce the butchers and pork
sellers who pay no attention to the maximum law, giving only the poorest
meat to the poor." Ibid., (Reports of Nivôse 6.) "It is frightful to see
what the butchers give the people."]
4268 (return)
[ Mercier, 363. "The
women struggled with all their might against the men and contracted the
habit of swearing. The last on the row knew how to worm themselves up to
the head of it." Buchez et Roux, XXVIII., 364. ("Journal de la Montague,"
July 28, 1793. "One citizen was killed on Sunday, July 21, one of the
Gravilliers (club) in trying to hold on to a six pound loaf of bread which
he had just secured for himself and family. Another had a cut on his arm
the same day in the Rue Froid-Manteau. A pregnant woman was wounded and
her child died in her womb."]
4269 (return)
[ Archives des Affaires
étrangères, vol.1410. (Reports of August 6 and 7, 1793.)]
4270 (return)
[ Dauban, 144. (Reports
of Ventôse 19.)]
4271 (return)
[ Dauban, 199. (Reports
of Ventôse 19.)—Dauban, "La Demagogie en 1793," p. 470. "Scarcely
had the peasants arrived when harpies in women's clothes attacked them and
carried off their goods.... Yesterday, a peasant was beaten for wanting to
sell his food at the 'maximum' rate." (October 19, 1793.)—Dauban,
"Paris en 1794," 144, 173, 199. (Reports of Ventôse 13, 17 and 19.)—Archives
des Affaires étrangères, vol. 1410. (Reports of June 26 and 27, 1793.)
Wagons and boats are pillaged for candles and soap.]
4272 (return)
[ Dauban, 45. (Reports
of Pluviôse 17.) 222. (Reports of Ventôse 23.)—160. (Reports of
Ventôse 15.)—340. (Reports of Germinal 28.)—87. (Reports of
Ventôse 5.)]
4273 (return)
[ Archives Nationales,
AF., II., 116. (Order of Paganel, Castres, Pluviôse 6 and 7, year II. "The
steps taken to obtain returns of food have not fulfilled the object....
The statements made are either false or inexact.") Cf., for details, the
correspondence of the other representatives on mission.—Dauban,"
Paris en 1794." 190. (Speech by Fouquier-Tinville in the Convention,
Ventôse 19.) "The mayor of Pont St. Maxence has dared to say that 'when
Paris sends us sugar we will then see about letting her have our eggs and
butter.'"]
4274 (return)
[ Archives des Affaires
étrangères, vol. 1411. (Reports of August 7 and 8, 1793.) "Seven thousand
five hundred pounds of bread, about to be taken out, have been stopped at
the barriers."—Dauban, 45. (Orders of the day. Pluviôse 17.) Lamps
are set up at all the posts, "especially at la Greve and Passy, so as to
light up the river and see that no eatables pass outside."—Mercier,
I., 355.—Dauban, 181. (Reports of Ventôse 18.)—210. (Reports
of Ventôse 21.)—190. Speech by Fouquier, Ventôse 19.) "The butchers
in Paris who cannot sell above the maximum carry the meat they buy to the
Sèvres butchers and sell it at any price they please. "—257.
(Reports of Ventôse 27.) "You see, about ten o'clock in the evening,
aristocrats and other egoists coming to the dealers who supply Egalité's
mansion (the Duke of Orleans) and buy chickens and turkeys which they
carefully conceal under their overcoats."]
4275 (return)
[ Dauban, 255. (Orders
of the day by Henriot, Ventôse 27.) "I have to request my brethren in arms
not to take any rations whatever. This little deprivation will silence the
malevolent who seek every opportunity to humble us."—Ibid.,359. "On
Floreal 29, between five and six o'clock in the morning, a patrol of about
fifteen men of the Bonnet Rouge section, commanded by a sort of
commissary, stop subsistences on the Orleans road and take them to their
section."]
4276 (return)
[ Dauban, 341. (Letter
of the Commissioner on Subsistences, Germinal 23.) "The supplies are
stolen under the people's eyes, or what they get is of inferior quality."
The commissioner is surprised to find that, having provided so much, so
little reaches the consumers.]
4277 (return)
[ Archives des Affaires
étrangères, vol.1411. (Reports of August 11-12 and 31, and Sept. 1, 1793.)—Archives
Nationales, F. 7, 31167.) (Reports of Nivôse 7 and 12, year II.)]
4278 (return)
[ Dauban, "Paris" en
1794, 60, 68, 69, 71, 82, 93, 216, 231.—Schmidt, "Tableaux de
Paris," 187, 190.—Archives Nationales, F. 7, 31167. (Report of
Leharivel, Nivôse 7.)—The gunsmiths employed by the government
likewise state that they have for a long time had nothing to eat but bread
and cheese.]
4279 (return)
[ Dauban, 231. (Report
of Perriére, Ventôse 24.) "Butter of which they make a god."]
4280 (return)
[ Ibid., 68. (Report of
Ventôse 2.)]
4281 (return)
[ Archives Nationales,
F.7, 31167. (Report of Nivôse 28.)—Dauban, 144. (Report of Nivôse
14.)]
4282 (return)
[ Dauban, 81. (Report
of Latour-Lamontagne, Ventôse 4.)]
4283 (return)
[ "Souvenirs et Journal
d'un Bourgeois d'Evreux," 83. "Friday, June 15, 1794, a proclamation is
made that all who have any provisions in their houses, wheat, barley, rye,
flour and even bread, must declare them within twenty four hours under
penalty of being regarded as an enemy of the country and declared
'suspect,' put under arrest and tried by the courts."—Schmidt,
"Tableaux de la Revolution Française," II.. 214. A seizure is made at
Passy of two pigs and forty pounds of butter, six bushels of beans, etc.,
in the domicile of citizen Lucet who had laid in supplies for sixteen
persons of his own household.]
4284 (return)
[ Archives Nationales,
AF., II., 68. Orders of the Committee of Public Safety, Pluviôse 23,
referring to the law of Brumaire 25, forbidding the extraction of more
than fifteen pounds of bran from a quintal of flour. Order directing the
removal of bolters from bakeries and mills; he who keeps or conceals these
on his property "shall be treated as 'suspect' and put under arrest until
peace is declared."—Berryat Saint Prix, 357, 362. At Toulouse, three
persons are condemned to death for monopoly. At Montpelier, a baker, two
dealers and a merchant are guillotined for having invoiced, concealed and
kept a certain quantity of gingerbread cakes intended solely for
consumption by anti-revolutionaries.]
4285 (return)
[ "Un Séjour en
France," (April 22, 1794).]
4286 (return)
[ Ludovic Sciout, IV.,
236. (Proclamation of the representatives on mission in Finisterre.)
"Magistrates of the people tell all farmers and owners of land that their
crops belong to the nation and that they are simply its depositaries."
Archives Nationales, AF., II., 92. (Orders by Bô, representative in
Cautal, Pluviôse 8.) "Whereas, as all citizens in a Republic form one
family.... all those who refuse to assist their brethren and neighbors
under the specious pretext that they have not sufficient supplies must be
regarded as 'suspect' citizens."]
4287 (return)
[ Archives Nationales,
AF., II., 68. (Orders of the Committee of Public Safety, Prairial 28.) The
maximum price is fourteen francs the quintal; after Messidor 30, it is not
to be more than eleven francs.]
4288 (return)
[ Ibid., AF., II., 116
and 106, orders of Paganel, Castres, Pluviôse 6 and 7. Orders of
Dartigoyte, Floréal 23, 25, and 29.]
4289 (return)
[ Ibid., AF., II., 147.
(Orders of Maignet, Avignon, Prairial 2.)]
4290 (return)
[ Moniteur, XXIII., 397
(Speech by Dubois-Crancé, May 5, 1795.) "The Committee on Commerce (and
Supplies) had thirty-five thousand employees in its service."]
4291 (return)
[ Archives Nationales,
AF., II., 68. (Orders of the Committee of Public Safety, Prairial 28.)
Decret of Messidor 8, year II. "All kinds of grain and the hay of the
present crop are required by the government." A new estimate is made, each
farmer being obliged to state the amount of his crop; verification,
confiscation in case of inaccurate declarations, and orders to thrash out
the sheaves.—Dauban, 490. (Letter of the national agent of
Villefort, Thermidor 19.) Calculations and the reasoning of farmers with a
view to avoid sowing and planting: "Not so much on account of the lack of
hands as not to ruin oneself by sowing and raising an expensive crop
which, they say, affords them small returns when they sell their grain at
so low a price." Archives Nationales, AF., II. 106. (Letter of the
national agent in Gers and Haute-Garonne, Floréal 25.) "They say here,
that as soon as the crop is gathered, all the grain will be taken away,
without leaving anything to live on. It is stated that all salt provisions
are going to be taken and the agriculturists reduced to the horrors of a
famine."]
4292 (return)
[ Moniteur, XXII., 21.
(Speech by Lindet, September 7, 1794.) "We have long feared that the
ground would not be tilled, that the meadows would be covered with cattle
while the proprietors and farmers were kept in prison." Archives
Nationales, D., P I, No. I. (Letter from the district of Bar-sur-Seine,
Ventôse 14, year III.) "The 'maximum' causes the concealment of grain. The
quit-claims ruined the consumers and rendered them desperate. How many
wretches, indeed, have been arrested,—attacked, confiscated, fined
and ruined for having gone off fifteen or twenty leagues to get grain with
which to feed their wives and children?"]
4293 (return)
[ AF., II., 106.
(Circular by Dartigoyte, Floréal 25.) "You must apply this rule, that is,
make the municipal officers responsible for the non cultivation of the
soil." "If any citizen allows himself a different kind of bread, other
than that which all the cultivators and laborers in the commune use, I
shall have him brought before the courts conjointly with the municipality
as being the first culprit guilty of having tolerated it... Reduce, if
necessary, three fourths of the bread allowed to non laboring citizens
because muscadins and muscadines: have resources and, besides, lead an
idle life."]
4294 (return)
[ AF., II., III.
(Letters of Ferry, Bourges, Messidor 23, to his "brethren in the popular
club," and "to the citoyennes (women) of Indre-et-Cher.")]
4295 (return)
[ Moniteur, XXI., 171.
(Letter from Avignon, Messidor 9, and letter of the Jacobins of Arles.]
4296 (return)
[ Moniteur, XXI., 184.
(Decree of Messidor 21.)]
4297 (return)
[ Gouverneur Morris.
(correspondence with Washington. Letters of March 27 and April 10, 1794.)
He says that there is no record of such an early spring. Rye has headed
out and clover is in flower. It is astonishing to see apricots in April as
large as pigeons' eggs. In the south, where the dearth is most severe, he
has good reason to believe that the ground is supplying the inhabitants
with food. A frost like that of the year before in the month of May (1793)
would help the famine more than all the armies and fleets in Europe.]
4298 (return)
[ Stalin was to test
the system and prove Taine right. (SR.)]
4299 (return)
[ Archives Nationales,
AF., II., 73. (Letter by the Directory of Calvados, Prairial 26, year
III.) "We have not a grain of wheat in store, and the prisons are full of
cultivators." Archives Nationales, D., p 1, file No.3. (Warrants of arrest
issued by Representative Albert, Pluviôse 19, year III., Germinal 7 and
16.) On the details of the difficulties and annoyances attending the
requisitions, cf. this file and the five preceding or following files.
(Letter of the National agent, district of Nogent-sur-Seine, Germinal 13.)
"I have had summoned before the district court a great many cultivators
and proprietors who are in arrears in furnishing the requisitions made on
them by their respective municipalities.... A large majority declared that
they were unable to furnish in full even if their seed were taken. The
court ordered the confiscation of the said grain with a fine equal to the
value of the quantity demanded of those called upon.. It is now my duty to
execute the sentence. But, I must observe to you, that if you do not
reduce the fine, many of them will be reduced to despair. Hence I await
your answer so that I may act accordingly." (Another letter from the same
agent, Germinal 9.) "It is impossible to supply the market of Villarceaux;
seven communes under requisition prevented it through the district of
Sozannes which constantly keeps an armed force there to carry grain away
as soon as thrashed."—It is interesting to remark the inquisitorial
sentimentality of the official agents and the low stage of culture.
(Proces verbal of the Magincourt municipality, Ventôse 7.) Of course I am
obliged to correct the spelling so as to render it intelligible. The said
Croiset, gendarme, went with the national agent into the houses of
citizens in arrears, of whom, amongst those in arrears, nobody refused but
Jean Mauchin, whom we could not keep from talking against him, seeing that
he is wholly egoist and only wants for himself. He declared to us that,
if, the day before his harvesting he had any left, he would share it with
the citizens that needed it.. .. Alas, yes, how could one refrain from
shutting up such an egoist who wants only for himself to the detriment of
his fellow citizens? A proof of the truth is that he feeds in his house
three dogs, at least one hundred and fifty chickens and even pigeons,
which uses up a lot of grain, enough to hinder the satisfaction of all the
requisitions. He might do without dogs, as his court is enclosed he might
likewise content himself with thirty chickens and then be able to satisfy
the requisitions." This document is signed "Bertrand, Agen."—Mauchin,
on the strength of it, is incarcerated at Troyes "at his own expense."]
42100 (return)
[ Ibid. Letter from
the district of Bar sur Seine, Ventôse 14, year III. Since the abolition
of the "maximum," "the inhabitants travel thirty and forty leagues to
purchase wheat." (Letter from the municipality of Troyes, Ventôse 15.)
"According to the price of grain, which we keep on buying, by agreement,
bread will cost fifteen sous (the pound) next decade."]
42101 (return)
[ Schmidt, "Pariser
Zustände," 145-220. The re-opening of the Bourse, April 25, 1795; ibid.,
322, II., 105.—"Memoirs of Theobald Wolf," vol. I., p.200, (February
3, 1796). At Havre, the louis d'or is then worth five thousand francs, and
the ecu of six francs in proportion. At Paris (February 12), the louis
d'or is worth six thousand five hundred; a dinner for two persons at the
Palais Royal costs one thousand five hundred francs.—Mayer,
("Frankreich in 1796.") He gives a dinner for ten persons which costs
three hundred thousand francs in assignats. At this rate a cab ride costs
one thousand francs, and by the hour six thousand francs.]
42102 (return)
[ "Correspondance de
Mallet du Pan avec la cour de Vienne," I., 253 (July 18, 1795). "It is not
the same now as in the early days of the Revolution, which then bore
heavily only on certain classes of society; now, everybody feels the
scourge, hourly, in every department of civil life. Goods and provisions
advance daily (in price) in much greater proportion than the decline in
assignats.... Paris is really a city of furnishing shops... The immense
competition for these objects raises all goods twenty five per cent. a
week.... It is the same with provisions. A sack of wheat weighing three
quintals is now worth nine thousand francs, a pound of beef thirty six
francs, a pair of shoes one hundred francs. It is impossible for artisans
to raise their wages proportionately with such a large and rapid
increase."—Cf. "Diary of Lord Malmesbury," III., 290 (October 27,
1796). After 1795, the gains of the peasants, land owners and producers
are very large; from 1792 to 1796 they accumulate and hide away most of
the current coin. They were courageous enough and smart enough to protect
their hoard against the violence of the revolutionary government; "hence,
at the time of the depreciation of assignats, they bought land
extraordinarily cheap." In 1796 they cultivate and produce a great deal.]
42103 (return)
[ Archives
Nationales, AF., II., 72. (Letter of the administrators of the district of
Montpelier to the Convention, Messidor 26, year II.) "Your decree of
Nivôse 4 last, suppressed the 'maximum,' which step, provoked by justice
and the 'maximum,' did not have the effect you anticipated." The dearth
ceases, but there is a prodigious increase in prices, the farmer selling
his wheat at from four hundred and seventy to six hundred and seventy
francs the quintal.]
42104 (return)
[ Archives
Nationales, AF., II., 71. (Deliberations of the commune of Champs, canton
of Lagny, Prairial 22, year III. Letter of the procureur-syndic of Meaux,
Messidor 3. Letter of the municipality of Rozoy, Seine et Marne, Messidor
4.)—Ibid., AF., II., 74. (Letter of the municipality of
Emérainville, endorsed by the Directory of Meaux, Messidor 14.) "The
commune can procure only oat-bread for its inhabitants, and, again, they
have to go a long way to get this. This food, of so poor a quality, far
from strengthening the citizen accustomed to agricultural labor,
disheartens him and makes him ill, the result being that the hay cannot be
got in good time for lack of hands."—At Champs, "the crop of hay is
ready for mowing, but, for want of food, the laborers cannot do the
work."]
42105 (return)
[ Ibid., AF., II.,
73. (Letter from the Directory of the district of Dieppe, Prairial 22.)]
42106 (return)
[ Ibid. (Letter of
the administrators of the district of Louviers, Prairial 26.)]
42107 (return)
[ Ibid. (Letter of
the procureur-syndic of the Caen district, Caen, Messidor 23.—Letter
of Representative Porcher to the Committee of Public Safety, Messidor 26.—Letter
of the same, Prairial 24. "The condition of this department seemed to me
frightful.... The privations of the department with respect to subsistence
cannot be over-stated to you; the evil is at its height."]
42108 (return)
[ Archives
Nationales, AF. II., 74. (Letter of the Beauvais administrators, Prairial
15.—Letter of the Bapaume administrator, Prairial 24.—Letter
of the Vervier administrator, Messidor 7.—Letter of the commissary
sent by the district of Laon, Messidor.)—Cf., I6id., letter from the
Abbeville district, Prairial 11. "The quintal of wheat is sold at one
thousand assignats, or rather, the farmers will not take assignats any
more, grain not to be had for anything but coin, and, as most people have
none to give they are hard-hearted enough to demand of one his clothes,
and of another his furniture, etc."]
42109 (return)
[ Ibid., AF., II.,
71. (Letter of the Rozoy municipality. Seine-et-Marne, Messidor 4, year
III.) A bushel of wheat in the vicinity of Rozoy brings three hundred
francs.]
42110 (return)
[ Ibid., AF., II.,
74. (Letter of the Montreuil-sur-Mer municipality, Prairial 29.)]
42111 (return)
[ Ibid. (Letter of
the Vervins administrators, Prairial 11 Letter of the commune of La
Chapelle-sur-Somme, Prairial 24.)]
42112 (return)
[ Ibid., AF., II.,
70. (Letter of the procureur-syndic of the district of Saint-Germain,
Thermidor 10.) This file, which depicts the situation of the communes
around Paris, is specially heartrending and terrible. Among other
instances of the misery of workmen the following petition of the men
employed on the Marly water-works may be given, Messidor 28. "The workmen
and employees on the machine at Marly beg leave to present to you the
wretched state to which they are reduced by the dearness of provisions.
Their moderate wages, which at the most have reached only five livres
twelve sous, and again, for four months past, having received but two
francs sixteen sous, no longer provide them with half a pound of bread,
since it costs fifteen and sixteen francs per pound. We poor people have
not been wanting in courage nor patience, hoping that times would mend. We
have been reduced to selling most of our effects and to eating bread made
of bran of which a sample is herewith sent, and which distresses us very
much (nous incommode beaucoup); most of us are ill and those who are not
so are in a very feeble state."—Schmidt, "Tableaux de Paris,"
Thermidor 9. "Peasants on the market square complain bitterly of being
robbed in the fields and on the road, and even of having their sacks (of
grain) plundered."]
42113 (return)
[ Archives
Nationales, D., P I, file 2. (Letter of the Ervy municipality, Floréal 17,
year III.) "The indifference of the egoist farmers in the country is at
its height; they pay no respect whatever to the laws, killing the poor by
refusing to sell, or unwilling to sell their grain at a price they can
pay."—(It would be necessary to copy the whole of this file to show
the alimentary state of the departments.)]
42114 (return)
[ Ibid., AF., II.,
74. (Letter of the district administrators of Bapaume, Prairial 24.—Letter
of the municipality of Boulogne-sur-Mer, Prairial 24.)]
42115 (return)
[ Ibid.,, AF., II.,
73. (Letter of the municipality of Brionne, district of Bernay, Prairial
7.) The farmers do not bring in their wheat because they sell it elsewhere
at the rate of fifteen hundred and two thousand francs the sack of three
hundred and thirty pounds.]
42116 (return)
[ Ibid., AF., II.,
71. (Letter of the procureur-syndic of the district of Meaux, Messidor 2.)
"Their fate is shared by many of the rural communes" and the whole
district has been reduced to this dearth "to increase the resources of
Paris and the armies."]
42117 (return)
[ Schmidt, "Tableaux
de Paris." (Reports of the Police, Pluviôse 6, year III.)—Ibid.,
Germinal 16. "A letter from the department of Drome states that they are
dying of hunger there, bread selling at three francs the pound."]
42118 (return)
[ Archives
Nationales, AF., II., 70. (Deliberations of the council-general of
Franciade, Thermidor 9, year III.)]
42119 (return)
[ Ibid. (Letter of
the procureur-syndic of the district of Saint-Germain, Thermidor 10.)—Delécluze,
"Souvenirs de Soixante Années," p. 10. (The Delécluze family live in
Mendon in 1794 and for most of 1795. M. Delécluze, senior, and his son go
to Meaux and obtain of a farmer a bag of good flour weighing three hundred
and twenty five pounds for about ten louis d'or and fetch it home, taking
the greatest pains to keep it concealed. Both father and son "after having
covered the precious sack with hay and straw in the bottom of the cart,
follow it on foot at some distance as the peasant drives along." Madame
Delécluze kneads the bread herself and bakes it.]
42120 (return)
[ Archives
Nationales, AF., II., 74. The following shows some of the municipal
expenditures. (Deliberations of the commune of Annecy, Thermidor 8, year
II I.) "Amount received by the commune from the government, 1,200,000
francs. Fraternal subscriptions, 400,000 francs. Forced loan, 2,400,000
francs. Amount arising from grain granted by the government, but not paid
for, 400,000 francs." (Letter from the municipality of Lille, Fructidor 7
) "The deficit, at the time we took hold of the government, which, owing
to the difference between the price of grain bought and the price obtained
for bread distributed among the necessitous, had amounted to 2,270,023
francs, so increased in Thermidor as to amount to 8,312,956 francs."
consequently, the towns ruin themselves with indebtedness to an incredible
extent.—Archives Nationales, AF., II., 72. (Letter of the
municipality of Tours, Vendémiaire 19, year IV.) Tours has not sufficient
money with which to buy oil for its street lamps and which are no longer
lit at night. A decree is passed to enable the agent for provisions at
Paris to supply its commissaries with twenty quintals of oil which, for
three hundred and forty lamps, keeps one hundred agoing up to Germinal 1.
The same at Toulouse. (Report of Destrene, Moniteur, June 24, 1798.) On
November 26, 1794, Bordeaux is unable to pay seventy two francs for thirty
barrels of water to wash the guillotine. (Granier de Cassagnac, I., 13.
Extract from the archives of Bordeaux.) Bordeaux is authorized to sell one
thousand casks of wine which had formerly been taken on requisition by the
government, the town to pay for them at the rate at which the Republic
bought them and to sell them as dear as possible in the way of regular
trade. The proceeds are to be employed in providing subsistence for its
inhabitants. (Archives Nationales, AF., II., 72, orders of Vendémiaire 4,
year IV.) As to aid furnished by the assignats granted to towns and
departments cf. the same files; 400,000 francs to Poitiers, Pluviôse 18,
four millions to Lyons, Pluviôse 17, three millions a month to Nantes,
after Thermidor 14, ten millions to the department of Herault in Frimaire
and Pluviôse, etc.]
42121 (return)
[ Archives
Nationales, II., P 1, file 2. (Deliberations of the commune of Troyes,
Ventôse 15, year III.)—"Un Sejour en France." (Amiens, May 9, 1795.)
"As we had obtained a few six franc crowns and were able to get a small
supply of wheat.... Mr. D and the servants eat bread made of three fourths
bran and one fourth flour. When we bake it we carefully close the doors,
paying no attention to the door bell, and allow no visitor to come in
until every trace of the operation is gone... The distribution now
consists of a mixture of sprouted wheat, peas, rye, etc., which scarcely
resembles bread." (April 12.) "The distribution of bread (then) was a
quarter of a pound a day. Many of those who in other respects were well
off, got nothing at all."]
42122 (return)
[ Ibid. (Letters of
the municipality of Troyes, Ventôse 15, year III., and Germinal 6.) Letter
of the three deputies, sent by the municipality to Paris, Pluviôse, year
III. (no date.)]
42123 (return)
[ "Un Sejour en
France." (Amiens, Jan. 30, 1795.) Archives Nationales. AF.,II., 74.
(Deliberation of the commune of Amiens, Thermidor 8, and Fructidor 7, year
III.)]
42124 (return)
[ "Souvenirs et
Journal d'un Bourgeois d'Evreux," p. 97. (The women stop carts loaded with
wheat, keep them all night, stone and wound Representative Bernier, and
succeed in getting, each, eight pounds of wheat.)]
42125 (return)
[ Archives
Nationales, AF.,II., 73. (Letter of the municipality of Dieppe, Prairial
22.)—AF.,II., 74. (Letter of the municipality of Vervins, Messidor
7. Letter of the municipality of Lille, Fructidor 7.)]
42126 (return)
[ "Correspondance de
Mallet du Pan avec la Cour de Vienne," I., 90. Ibid., 131. One month later
a quintal of flour at Lyons is worth two hundred francs and a pound of
bread forty-five sous.]
42127 (return)
[ Archives
Nationales, AF., II., 13. (Letter of the deputies extraordinary of the
three administrative bodies of Chartres, Thermidor 15: "In the name of
this commune dying of hunger ")—"The inhabitants of Chartres have
not even been allowed to receive their rents in grain; all has been poured
into the government storehouses."]
42128 (return)
[ Ibid. (Petition of
the commune of La Rochelle, Fructidor 25, that of Painboeuf, Fructidor 9,
that of the municipality of Nantes, Thermidor 14, that of Rouen, Fructidor
1.)—Ibid., AF.,II, 72. (Letter of the commune of Bayonne, Fructidor
1.) "Penury of provisions for more than two years.... The municipality,
the past six months, is under the cruel necessity of reducing its subjects
to half-a-pound of corn-bread per day.... at the rate of twenty-five sous
the pound, although the pound costs over five francs." After the
suppression of the "maximum" it loses about twenty-five thousand francs
per day.]
42129 (return)
[ Ibid. (Letter of
Representative Porcher, Caen, Prairial 24, Messidor 3 and 26. Letter of
the municipality of Caen, Messidor 3.)]
42130 (return)
[ Ibid. AF.,II., 71.
(Letter of the municipality of Auxerre, Messidor 19.) "We have kept alive
thus far through all sorts of expedients as if by miracle. It has required
incalculable efforts, great expenditure, and really supernatural means to
accomplish it. But there is still one month between this and the end of
Thermidor. How are we going to live! Our people, the majority of whom are
farmers and artisans, are rationed at half-a-pound a day for each person
and this will last but ten or twelve days at most."]
42131 (return)
[ Meissner, "Voyage à
Paris," 339. "There was not a morsel of bread in our inn. I went myself to
five or six bakeries and pastry shops and found them all stripped." He
finds in the last one about a dozen of small Savoy biscuits for which he
pays fifteen francs.—See, for the military proceedings of the
government in relation to bread, the orders of the Committee of Public
Safety, most of them by the hand of Lindet, AF., II., 68-74.]
42132 (return)
[ Schmidt, "Tableaux
de Paris," vols. II. and III.,passim.]
42133 (return)
[ Archives
Nationales, AF.,II., 68. (Orders of Ventôse 20, year III.; Germinal 19 and
20; Messidor 8, etc.)]
42134 (return)
[ ibid. Orders of
Nivôse 5 and 22.]
42135 (return)
[ Ibid. Orders of
Pluviôse 19, Ventôse 5, Floréal 4 and 24. (The fourteen brewers which the
Republic keeps agoing for itself at Dunkirk are excepted.)—The
proceedings are the same in relation to other necessary articles,—returns
demanded of nuts, rape-seed, and other seeds or fruits producing oil, also
the hoofs of cattle and sheep, with requisitions for every other article
entering into the manufacture of oil, and orders to keep oil-mills agoing.
"All administrative bodies will see that the butchers remove the fat from
their meat before offering it for sale, that they do not themselves make
candles out of it, and that they do not sell it to soap-factories, etc. "—(Orders
of Veridémiaire 28, year III.) The executive committee will collect eight
hundred yoke of oxen and distribute them among the dealers in hay in order
to transport wood and coal from the woods and collieries to the yards.
They will distribute proportionately eight hundred sets of wheels and
harness. The wagoners will be paid and guarded the same as military
convoys, and drafted as required. To feed the oxen, the district
administrators will take by pre-emption the necessary fields and
pasturages, etc." (Orders of Pluviôse 10, year III.)]
42136 (return)
[ Moniteur, XXIV.,
397.—Schmidt, "Tableaux de Paris." (Reports of Frimaire 16, year
IV.) "Citizens in the departments wonder how it is that Paris costs them
five hundred and forty six millions per month merely for bread when they
are starving. This isolation of Paris, for which all the benefits of the
Revolution are exclusively reserved. has the worst effect on the public
mind."—Meissner, 345.]
42137 (return)
[ Mercier, "Paris
Pendant la Révolution," I., 355-357.—Schmidt, "Pariser Zustande,"
I., 224. (The Seine is frozen over on November 23 and January 23, the
thermometer standing at sixteen degrees (Centigrade) below zero.)—Schmidt,
"Tableaux de Paris." (Reports of the Police, Pluviôse 2, 3 and 4.)]
42138 (return)
[ Schmidt, "Pariser
Zustande," I., 228, and following pages. (February 25, the distribution of
bread is reduced to one and one-half pounds per person; March 17, to one
and onehalf pounds for workmen and one pound for others. Final reduction
to one-quarter of a pound, March 31.)—Ibid., 251, for ulterior
rates.—Dufort de Cheverney, (MS. Mémoires, August, 1795.) M. de
Cheverney takes up his quarters at the old Louvre with his friend Sedaine.
"I had assisted them with food all I could: they owned to me that, without
this, they would have died of starvation notwithstanding their means."]
42139 (return)
[ Schmidt, "Tableaux
de Paris." (Reports of Germinal 15 and 27, and Messidor 28, year III.,
Brumaire 14 and Frimaire 23, year IV.)—Ibid. (Germinal 15, year
III.) Butter is at eight francs the pound, eggs seven francs for four
ounces.—Ibid., (Messidor 19) bread is at sixteen francs the pound,
(Messidor 28) butter at fourteen francs the pound, (Brumaire 29) flour at
14,000 francs the bag of 325 pounds.]
42140 (return)
[ Ibid. (Report of
Germinal 12, year III.) "The eating houses and pastry-cooks are better
supplied than ever."?"Memoires (manuscript) of M. de Cheverney." "My
sister-in-law, with more than forty thousand livres income, registered in
the 'Grand Ledger,' was reduced to cultivating her garden, assisted by her
two chambermaids. M. de Richebourg, formerly intendant-general of the
Post-Office, had to sell at one time a clock and at another time a
wardrobe to live on. 'My friends,' he said to us one day, 'I have been
obliged to put my clock in the pot.' "—Schmidt. (Report of Frimaire
17, year IV.) "A frequenter of the Stock-Exchange sells a louis at five
thousand francs. He dines for one thousand francs and loudly exclaims: 'I
have dined at four francs ten sous. They are really superb, these
assignats! I couldn't have dined so well formerly at twelve francs.'"]
42141 (return)
[ Schmidt. (Reports
of Frimaire 9, year IV.) "The reports describe the sad condition of those
who, with small incomes and having sold their clothes, are selling their
furniture, being, so to say, at their last piece; and, soon without
anything, are reduced to the last extremity by committing suicide."—Ibid.,
Frimaire 2, "The rentier is ruined, not being able to buy food. Employees
are all in the same situation."—Naturally, the condition of
employees and rentiters grows worse with the depreciation of assignats.
Here are house-keeping accounts at the end of 1795. (Letter of
Beaumarchais' sister Julie to his wife, December, 1794. "Beaumarchais et
son temps," by De Lomenie, p.486.) "When you gave me those four thousand
francs (assignats), my dear friend, my heart went pit-a-pat. I thought
that I should go crazy with such a fortune. I put them in my pocket at
once and talked about other things so as to get the idea out of my mind.
On returning to the house, get some wood and provisions as quick as
possible before prices go higher! Dupont (the old domestic) started off
and did his best. But the scales fell from my eyes on seeing, not counting
food for a month, the result of those 4,275 francs:
1 load of wood 1460 francs
9 pounds of candles, from 8 to 100 francs per pound 900
4 pounds of sugar, at 100 francs per pound 400
3 measures of grain, at 40 francs 120
7 pounds oil, at 100 francs 700
12 wicks, at 5 francs 60
1 1/2 bushels potatoes, at 200 francs per bushel 300
1 month's washing 215
1 pound ground powder 70
2 ounces pomatum (formerly 3 sous, now 25 francs) 50
Sub-total 4,275 francs
There remains the month's supply of butter and eggs,
as you know, 200 francs, meat 25 or 30 francs, and
other articles in proportion 507
There was no bread for two days... I have bought only
four pounds the last two days, at 45 francs 180
Total 5,022 francs.
"When I think of this royal outlay, as you call it, which makes me spend from18,000 to 20,000 francs for nothing, I wish the devil had the system.... 10,000 francs which I have scattered about the past fortnight, alarm and trouble me so much that I do not know how to calculate my income in this way. In three days the difference (in the value of assignats) has sent wood up from 4,200 to 6,500 francs, and extras in proportion so that, as I wrote you, a load piled up and put away costs me 7,100 francs. Every week now, the pot-au-feu and other meats for ragouts, without any butter, eggs and other details, cost from seven to eight hundred francs. Washing also goes up so fast that eight thousand francs do not suffice. All this puts me out of humor, while in all this expenditure I declare on my honor (je jure par la saine vérité de mon coeur) that for two years I have indulged no fancy of my own or spent anything except on household expenses. Nevertheless, I have urgent need of some things for which I should require piles of assignats."—We see by Beaumarchais' correspondence that one of his friends travels around in the environs of Paris to find bread. "It is said here (he writes from Soizy, June 5, 1795) that flour may be had at Briare. If this were so I would bargain with a reliable man there to carry it to you by water-carriage between Briare and Paris... In the mean time I do not despair of finding a loaf."—Letter of a friend of Beaumarchais: "This letter costs you at least one hundred francs, including paper, pen, ink, and lamp-oil. For economy's sake I write it in your house."]
42142 (return)
[ Cf. Schmidt,
"Tableaux de Paris," vols. II. and III. (Reports of the Police, at the
dates designated.)]
42143 (return)
[ Dauban, "Paris en
1794," pp.562, 568, 572.]
42144 (return)
[ Mallet-Dupan,
"Correspondance avec la cour de Vienne," I., 254. (July 18, 1795.)]
42145 (return)
[ Schmidt, ibid.
(Report of Fructidor 3, year III.)]
42146 (return)
[ Schmidt, ibid.,
vols. II. and III. (Reports of the police at the dates designated.)]
42147 (return)
[ Meissner, "Voyage à
Paris," 132. Ibid., 104. "Bread is made with coarse, sticky black flour,
because they put in potatoes, beans, Indian corn and millet, and moreover
it is badly baked."—Granier de Cassagnac, "Histoire du Directoire,"
I., 51. (Letter of M. Andot to the author.) "There were three-quarter
pound days, one-half pound and one-quarter pound days and many at two
ounces. I was a child of twelve and used to go and wait four hours in the
morning in a line, rue de l'Ancienne Comédie. There was a fourth part of
bran in the bread, which was very tender and very soft.... and it
contained one-fourth excess of water. I brought back eight ounces of bread
a day for the four persons in our household."]
42148 (return)
[ Dauban, 586.]
42149 (return)
[ Schmidt, ibid.
(Reports of Brumaire 24, and Frimaire 13, year IV.)]
42150 (return)
[ This state of
misery is prolonged far beyond this epoch in Paris and the provinces. ~f.
Schmidt, "Tableaux de Paris," vol. III.-Felix Rocquam, "L'Etat de la
France au 18e Brumaire," p.156. (Report by Fourcroy, Nivôse 5, year IX.)
Convoys of grain fail to reach Brest because the English are masters at
sea, while the roads on land are impassable. "we are assured that the
people of Brest have long been on half-rations and perhaps on
quarter-rations."]
42151 (return)
[ 1st It is difficult
to arrive at even approximate figures, but the following statements will
render the idea clear. I. Wherever I have compared the mortality of the
Revolution with that of the ancient regime I have found the former greater
than the latter, even in those parts of France not devastated by the civil
war; and the increase of this mortality is enormous, especially in years
II. and III.—At Troyes, with 25,282 inhabitants (in 1790), during
the five years of 1786, 1787, 1788, 1789 and 1792 (1790 and 1791 are
missing), the average annual mortality is 991 deaths, or 39 per thousand
inhabitants; during the years II, III, IV, this average is 1,166 or 47 per
thousand inhabitants; the increase is then 7 deaths per year, nearly one
fifth. (Documents provided by M. Albert Babeau.)—At Rheims, the
average mortality from 1780 to 1789 is 1,350, which, for a population of
35,597, (1790), gives 41 deaths per annum to every thousand inhabitants.
In the year II., there are 1,836 deaths which gives for each of the two
years 64 deaths to every thousand persons; the increase is 23 deaths a
year, that is to say more than one-half above the ordinary rate.
(Statistics communicated by M. Jadart, archiviste at Rheims.)—At
Limoges, the yearly average of mortality previous to 1789 was 825 to
20,000 inhabitants, or at the rate of 41 to a thousand. From January 1,
1792, to September 22, 1794, there are 3,449 deaths, that is to say, a
yearly average of 63 deaths to one thousand inhabitants, that is to say,
22 extra per annum, while the mortality bears mostly on the poor, for out
of 2,073 persons who die between January 17, 1793, and September 22, 1794,
over one-half, 1,100, die in the hospital.—(Louis Guibert, "Ancien
registre des paroisses de Limoges," pp. 40, 45, 47.)—At Poitiers, in
year IX., the population is 18,223, and the average mortality of the past
ten years was 724 per annum. But in year II., there are 2,094 deaths, and
in year III. 2,032, largely in the hospitals. Thus, even on comparing the
average mortality of the ten years of the Revolution with the mortality of
years II. and III., the average rate has almost trebled.—The same
applies to Loudens, where the average death-rate being 151, in year II.,
it rises to 425. Instead of the triple for Chatellerault, it is double,
where, the average rate being 262, the death-rate rises to 482,
principally in the military hospitals. ("Statistique de la Vienne," by
Cochon, préfet, year IX.)—At Niort, population 11,000, the annual
mortality of the ten years preceding 1793 averaged 423, or 38 per
thousand. In year II., there are 1,872, or 170 per thousand inhabitants,
the number being more than quadrupled. In year III., there are 1,122
deaths, or 122, which is almost the triple. ("Statistique des
Deux-Sèvres," by Dupin, prefet, 2nd memorial, year IX.)—At
Strasbourg, ("Recueil des Pièces Authentiques," etc., vol. I., p.32,
declaration of the Municipality,) "twice as many died last year (year II.)
as during any of the preceding years."—According to these figures
and the details we have read, the annual mortality during years II. and
III. and most of year IV., may be estimated as having increased one-half
extra. Now, previous to 1789, according to Moheau and Necker, (Peuchet,
"Statistique elementaire de la France," 1805, p.239,) the yearly mortality
in France was one person to every thirty, that is to say, 866,666 deaths
to a population of 26 millions. One-half in addition to this for two and a
half years gives, consequently, one million and eighty thousand deaths.
2nd. During the whole of the Directory episode, privation lasted and the rate of mortality rose very high, especially for sick children, the infirm and the aged, because the convention had confiscated the possessions of the hospitals and public charity was almost null. For example, at Lyons, "The Asylums having been deprived of sisters of charity during years II., III. and IV., and most of year V., the children gathered into them could neither be fed nor suckled and the number that perished was frightful." ("Statistique du Rhone," by Vernier, prefet, year X.)—In Necker's time, there were about eight hundred asylums, hospitals and charitable institutions, with one hundred thousand or one hundred and ten thousand inmates. (Peuchet, ibid., 256.) For lack of care and food they die in myriads, especially foundlings, the number of which increases enormously: in 1790, the figures do not exceed 23,000; in year IX., the number surpasses 62,000, (Peuchet, 260): "It is a 'perfect deluge,'" say the reports; in the department of Aisne, there are 1,097 instead of 400; in that of Lot-et-Garonne, fifteen hundred, (Statistiques des préfets de l'Aisne, Gers, Lot-et-Garonne), and they are born only to die. In that of Eure, after a few months, it is six out of seven; at Lyons, 792 out of 820; (Statistique des Prefets du Rhone et de l'Eure). At Marseilles, it is ´600 out of 618; at Toulon, 101 out of 104; in the average, 19 out of 20. (Rocquam, "Etat de France au 18e Brumaire," p.33. Report of François de Nantes.) At Troyes, out of 164 brought in in year IV., 134 die; out of 147 received in year VII., 136 die. (Albert Babeau, II., 452.) At Paris, in year IV., out of 3,122 infants received 2,907 perish. (Moniteur, year V., No. 231.)—The sick perish the same. "At Toulon, only seven pounds of meat are given each day to eighty patients; I saw in the civil Asylum," says François de Nantes, "a woman who had just undergone a surgical operation to whom they gave for a restorative a dozen beans on a wooden platter." (Ibid., 16, 31, and passim, especially for Bordeaux, Caen, Alençon, St. Lô, etc.)—As to beggars, these are innumerable: in year IX., it is estimated that there are 3 or 4,000 by department, at least 300,000 in France. "In the four Brittany departments one can truly say that a third of the population live at the expense of the other two-thirds, either by stealing from them or through compelling assistance." (Rocquain, "Report by Barbé-Marbois," p.93.)
3rd. In year IX., the Consells-generaux are called upon to ascertain whether the departments have increased or diminished in population since 1789. ("Analyse des procés-verbaux des Conseils-Generaux de l'an XI." In four volumes.) Out of 58 which reply, 37 state that the population with them has diminished; 12, that it has increased; 9, that it remains stationary. Of the 22 others, 13 attribute the maintenance or increase of population, at least for the most part, to the multiplication of early marriages in order to avoid conscription and to the large number of natural children.—Consequently, the average rate of population is kept up not through preserving life, but through the substitution of new lives for the old ones that are sacrificed. Bordeaux, nevertheless, lost one-tenth of its population, Angers one-eighth, Pau one-seventh, Chambery one-fourth, Rennes one-third. In the departments where the civil-war was carried on, Argenton-Château lost two-thirds of its population, Bressuire fell from 3,000 to 630 inhabitants; Lyons, after the siege, fell from a population of 140,000 thousand to 80,000. ("Analyse des procés-verbaux des Conseils-Generaux" and Statistiques des Prefets.")]
42152 (return)
[
Lareveillère-Lepeaux, "Mémoires." I, 248. (He belongs to the Committee and
is an eye-witness.)]
The Convention after Thermidor 9.—Reaction against the
Terrorists.—Aversion to the Constitutionalists.—The danger
they run if they lose power.
Nevertheless they too, these glutted sovereigns, are anxious, and very much so, we have just seen why; it's a question of remaining in office in order to remain alive, and henceforth this is their sole concern.—A good Jacobin, up to the 9th of Thermidor, could, by shutting his eyes, still believe in his creed.5101 After the 9th of Thermidor, unless born blind, like Soubrany, Romme and Goujon, a fanatic whose intellectual organs are as rigid as the limbs of a fakir, nobody in the Convention can any longer believe in the Contrat-Social, in a despotic equalizing socialism, in the merits of Terror, in the divine right of the pure. For, to escape the guillotine of the pure, the purest had to be guillotined, Saint-Just, Couthon and Robespierre, the high-priest of the sect. That very day the "Montagnards," in giving up their doctor, abandoned their principles, and there is no longer any principle or man to which the Convention could rally. In effect, before guillotining Robespierre and his associates as orthodox, it guillotined the Girondins, Hébert and Danton, as heretics. Now, "the existence of popular idols and of head charlatans is irrevocably ended."5102 Ever the same conventional symbol before the empty sanctuary in the blood-stained temple, and ever the same loud-intoned anthem; but faith is gone, and only the acolytes remain to drone out the revolutionary litany, old train-bearers and swingers of incense, the subaltern butchers who, through a sudden stroke, have become pontiffs; in short, the valets of the church who have donned the mitres and croziers of their masters after having assassinated them.
From month to month, under the pressure of public opinion, they detach themselves from the worship at which they have officiated, for, however blunted or perverted their consciences, they cannot avoid admitting that Jacobinism, as they have practiced it, was the religion of robbery and murder. Previous to Thermidor an official phraseology5103 drowned with its doctrinal roar the living truth, while each Conventional sacristan or beadle, confined to his own chapel, saw clearly only the human sacrifices in which he himself had taken part. After Thermidor, the friends and kindred of the dead, the oppressed, make their voices heard, and he is forced to see collectively and in detail all the crimes to which, nearly or remotely, he has contributed either through his assent or through his vote, the same as in Mexico, the priest of Huichilobos walks about in the midst of the six hundred thousand skulls amassed in the vaults of his temple.—In quick succession, during the whole of year III., through the freedom of the press and the great public discussions, the truth becomes known. First, comes an account of the funereal journey of one hundred and thirty-two Nantese, dragged from Nantes to Paris,5104 and the solemn acquittal, received with transports, of the ninety-four who survive. After this, come the trials of the most prominent terrorists, that of Carrier and the Revolutionary Committee of Nantes, that of Fouquier-Tinville and the old revolutionary Tribunal of Paris, that of Joseph Lebon,5105 and, during thirty or forty consecutive sessions, hundreds of minute, verified depositions ending in the most complete and satisfactory testimony.—In the mean time, revelations multiply at the tribune of the Convention; these consist of the letters of the new representatives on mission and the denunciations of the towns against their overthrown tyrants; against Maignet, Dartigoyte, Piochefer-Bernard, Levasseur, Crassous, Javogues, Lequinio, Lefiot, Piorry, Pinet, Monestier, Fouché, Laplanche, Lecarpentier, and many others. Add to these the reports of commissions charged with examining into the conduct of old dictators, Collot d'Herbois, Billaud-Varennes, Barère, Amar, Vouland, Vadier and David, the reports of the representatives charged with investigating certain details of the abolished system, that of Grégoire on revolutionary vandalism, that of Cambon on revolutionary taxes, that of Courtois on Robespierre's papers.—All these rays combine in a terrible illumination which imposes itself even on the eyes that turn away from it: It is now but too plain that France, for fourteen months, has been devastated by a gang of bandits. All that can be said in favor of the least perverted and the least vile is that they were born so, or had become crazy.5106—The majority of the Convention cannot evade this growing testimony and the Montagnards excite its horror; and all the more, because it bears them a grudge: the 73 who were imprisoned and the sixteen who were proscribed have resumed their seats, the 400 silent who have for so long held their seats under the knife, remember the oppression to which they have been subject. They now recover and turn first against the most tainted scoundrels, and then against the members of the old committees.—Whereupon the "Mountain," as was its custom, launches its customary supporters, the starved populace, the Jacobin rabble, in the riots of Germinal and Prairial, in year III., and proclaims anew the reign of Terror; the Convention again sees the knife over its head. Saved by young men, by the National Guard, it becomes courageous through fear, and, in its turn, it terrorizes the terrorists. The Faubourg Saint-Antoine is disarmed, ten thousand Jacobins are arrested,5107 and more than sixty Montagnards are decreed under indictment; Collot, Billaud, Barère and Vadier are to be deported; nine other members of former committees are to be imprisoned. The last of the veritable fanatics, Romme, Goujon, Soubrany, Duquesnoy, Bourbotte and Duroy are condemned to death, Immediately after the sentence five of them stab themselves on the stairs of the tribunal; two of the wounded who survive are borne, along with the sixth, to the scaffold and guillotined. Two Montagnards of the same stamp, Rhul and Maure, kill themselves before their sentence.—Henceforth the purged Convention regards itself as pure; its final rigor has expiated its former baseness, the guilty blood which it spills washing away the stains of the innocent blood it had shed before.
Unfortunately, in condemning the terrorists, it pronounced its own condemnation; for it has authorized and sanctioned all their crimes. On its benches, in its committees, often in the president's chair, at the head of the ruling coterie, still figure the members of the revolutionary government, many of the avowed terrorists like Bourdon de l'Oise, Bentabolle, Delmas, and Reubell; presidents of the September commune like Marie Chénier; those who carried out "the 31st of May," like Legendre and Merlin de Douai, author of the decree which created six hundred thousand suspects in France; provincial executioners of the most brutal and most ferocious sort, the greatest and most cynical robbers like André Dumont, Fréron, Tallien and Barras. Under Robespierre, the four hundred mutes "du ventre" were the reporters, the voters, the claqueurs, and the agents of the worst decrees against religion, property and persons. The foundations of Terror were all laid by the seventy-three in confinement before they were imprisoned, and by the sixteen who were proscribed before their proscription. Excepting ten or a dozen who stayed away, the Convention, in a mass, pronounced judgment against the King and declared him guilty; more than one-half of the Convention, the Girondists at the head of them, voted his death. The hall does not contain fifty honorable men in whom character sustains conscience, and who had a right to carry their heads erect.5108 In no law they passed, good or bad, did the other seven hundred have in view the interests of their constituents. In all their laws, good or bad, they solely regarded their own interests. So long as the attacks of the "Mountain" and of the rabble affected the public only, they lauded them, decreed them and had them executed. If they finally rebelled against the "Mountain," and against the rabble, it was at the last moment, and solely to save their lives. Before, as after the 9th of Thermidor, before, as after the 1st of Prairial, the incentives of the conduct of these pusillanimous oppressors or involuntary liberators were baseness and egoism. Hence, "the contempt and horror universally poured out against them; only Jacobins could be still more odious!"5109 If further support is given to these faithless mandatories, it is because they are soon to be put out. On the premature report that the Convention is going to break up, people accost each other in the street, exclaiming, "We are rid of these brigands, they are going at last... People caper and dance about as if they could not repress their joy; they talk of nothing but the boy, (Louis XVIII. confined in the Temple), and the new elections. Everybody agrees on excluding the present deputies.... There is less discussion on the crimes which each has committed than on the insignificance of the entire assemblage, while the epithets of vicious, used up and corrupt have almost wholly given way to thieves and scoundrels."5110 Even in Paris, during the closing months of their rule, they hardly dare appear in public: "in the dirtiest and most careless costume which the tricolor scarf and gold fringe makes more apparent, they try to escape notice in the crowd5111 and, in spite of their modesty, do not always avoid insult and still less the maledictions of those who pass them."—In the provinces, at home, it would be worse for them; their lives would be in danger; in any event, they would be dragged through the gutter, and this they know. Save about "twenty of them," all who are not to succeed in entering the new Corps Legislatif, will intrigue for offices in Paris and become "state messengers, employees in bureaux, and ushers to ministers;" in default of other places they would accept those of "hall-sweeps." Any refuge for them is good against the reprobation of the public, which is already rising and submerging them under its tide.
Decrees for the re-election of the Two-thirds.—Small number
of Voters.—Maneuvers for preventing electors from voting on
the decrees.—Frauds in the returns of votes.—Maintenance
of the decrees by force.—Recruiting of the Roughs.—The
military employed.—The 13th of Vendémaire.
There is no other refuge for them except in supreme power, and no other means for maintaining this but in the excesses of despotism, dishonesty, mendacity and violence. In the Constitution they manufacture, they desire to remain the sovereigns of France and they decree5112 at once that, willingly or not, France must select two-thirds of its new representatives from amongst them, and, that she may make a good selection, it is prudent to impose the selection upon her. There is a show, indeed, of consulting her in the special decrees which deprive her of two-thirds of her elective rights but, as in 1792 and in 1793, it is so contrived that she consents, or seems to consent, to this arrangement.5113—In the first place, they relied on the majority of electors abstaining from a response. Experience indeed, had shown that, for a long time, the masses were disgusted with the plebiscite farces; moreover, terror has stifled in individuals all sentiment of a common interest;5114 each cares for himself alone. Since Thermidor, electors and mayors in the boroughs and in the rural districts are found with a good deal of difficulty, even electors of the second degree; people saw that it was useless and even dangerous to perform the duties of a citizen; they would have nothing to do with public functions. A foreigner writes,5115 after traversing France from Bourg-en-Bresse to Paris: "Ninety times out of a hundred that I have asked the question,
'Citizen, what was done in the primary meeting of your canton?'
the answer would be:
'Me, citizen, what have I to do with it? I' faith, they had hard work to agree!'
Or,
'What's the use? There were not many there! Honest folks stayed at home.'"
In fact, out of at least six million electors convoked, five millions do not come near the ballot-box, there being no embarrassment in this matter as they do not vote.5116
In the second place, precautions have been taken to prevent those who come to vote on the Constitution from entertaining the idea of voting on the decrees. No article of the Constitution, nor in the decrees, calls upon them to do so; slight inducement is held out to them to come, in a vague style, through an oratorical interrogation, or in a tardy address.5117—In addition to this, on the printed blanks sent to them from Paris, they find but three columns, one for the number of votes accepting the Constitution, another for the number rejecting it, and the third for "written observations" in case there are any. There are no special columns for marking the number of votes accepting or rejecting the decrees. Thereupon, many illiterate or ill-informed electors might think that they were convoked to vote solely on the Constitution and not at all on the decrees, which is just what happened, and especially in the remote departments, and in the rural assemblies. Moreover, many assemblies, nearer Paris and in the towns, comprehend that if the Convention consults them it is only for form's sake; to give a negative answer is useless and perilous; it is better to keep silent; as soon as the decrees are mentioned they very prudently "unanimously" demand the order of the day.5118 Hence out of five primary assemblies on the average which vote for or against the Constitution, there is only one which votes for or against the decrees.5119—Such is the mode of getting at the voice of the nation. Apparently, it is induced to speak; in practice, its silence is ensured.
The last and most ingenious expedient of all: when a primary assembly speaks too loudly it is taken for granted that it kept silent. In Paris, where the electors are more clear sighted and more decided than in the provinces, in eighteen well-known departments, and probably in many others, the electors who voted on the decrees almost all voted against them; in many cases, even their minutes state that the negative vote was "unanimous," but the minutes fail to state the exact number of the noes. On this, in the total of noes hostile to the decrees, these noes are not counted.5120 Through this trickery, the Convention, in Paris alone, reduced the number of negatives by 50,000 and the same in the provinces, after the fashion of a dishonest steward who, obliged to hand in an account, falsifies the figures by substituting subtractions for additions.-Such is the way, in relation to the decrees, in which, out of the 300,000 votes which it accepts, it is able to announce 200,000 yeas and 100,000 noes and thus proclaim that its master, the sovereign people, after giving it a general acquittance, a discharge in full, invests it anew with its confidence and expressly continues its mandate.
It now remains to keep by force this power usurped by fraud.—Immediately after the suppression of the Jacobin riots the Convention, menaced on the right, turns over to the left; it requires allies, persons of executive ability. It takes them wherever it can find them, from the faction which decimated it before Thermidor and which, since Thermidor, it decimates. Consequently, its executive committee suspends all proceedings begun against the principal "Montagnards;" a number of terrorists, former presidents of the sections, "the matadors of the quarter," arrested after Prairial 1, are set free at the end of a month. They have good arms, are accustomed to vigorous striking without giving warning, especially when honest folks are to be knocked down or ripped open. The stronger public opinion is against the government the more does the government rely on men with bludgeons and pikes, on the strikers "turned out of the primary assemblies," on the heroes of September 2 and May 31, dangerous nomads, inmates of Bicêtre, paid assassins out of employment, and roughs of the Quinze-Vingts and faubourg Saint—Antoine.5121 Finally on the 11th of Vendémiaire, it gathers together fifteen or eighteen hundred of them and arms them in battalions.5122 Such brigands are they, that Menon, "major-general of the army of the interior and commandant of the armed force of Paris," comes the next day with several of his staff-officers and tells the Committee of Five that he "will not have such bandits in his army nor under his orders". "I will not march with a lot of rascals and assassins organized in battalions "under the name of "patriots of '89." Indeed, the true patriots of '89 are on the other side, the constitutionalists of 1791, sincere liberals, "forty thousand proprietors and merchants," the elite and mass of the Parisian population,5123 "the majority of men really interested in public matters," and at this moment, the common welfare is all that concerns them. Republic or royalty is merely a secondary thought, an idea in the back-ground; nobody dreams of restoring the ancient régime; but very few are preoccupied with the restoration of a limited monarchy.5124 "On asking those most in earnest what government they would like in place of the Convention, they reply 'We want that no longer, we want nothing belonging to it; we want the Republic and honest people for our rulers.'"5125—That is all; their uprisal is not a political insurrection against the form of the government, but a moral insurrection against the criminals in office. Hence, on seeing the Convention arm their old executioners, "the tigers" of the Reign of Terror, admitted malefactors, against them, they cannot contain themselves.5126 "That day," says a foreigner, who visited many public places in Paris, "I saw everywhere the deepest despair, the greatest expression of rage and fury.... Without that unfortunate order the insurrection would probably not have broken out." If they take up arms it is because they are brought back under the pikes of the Septembriseurs, and under Robespierre's axe.—But they are only national guards; most of them have no guns;5127 they are in want of gunpowder, those who have any having only five or six charges; "the great majority do not think of fighting;" they imagine that "their presence is merely needed to enforce a petition;" they have no artillery, no positive leader; it is simply excitement, precipitation, disorder and mistaken maneuvers.5128 On the contrary, on the side of the Convention, with Henriot's old bullies, there are eight or nine thousand regular troops, and Bonaparte; his cannon, which rake the rue Saint Honoré and the Quai Voltaire, mow down five or six hundred sectionists. The rest disperse, and henceforth the check-mated Parisians are not to take up their guns against the Jacobin faction whatever it does.
The Directory chosen among the regicides.—It selects agents
of its own species.—Leading Jacobins are deprived of their
civic rights.—The Terrorists are set free and restored to
their civic rights.—Example at Blois of these releases and
of the new administrative staff.
Supreme authority is now once more in the hands of the revolutionary band.—In conformity with its decrees of Fructidor, it first obliges electors to take two-thirds of their new representatives from the Convention. And as, notwithstanding its decrees, the electoral assemblies have not re-elected a sufficient number of the Conventionalists, it nominates itself, from a list prepared by its Committee of Public Safety, the one hundred and four which are lacking: In this way, both in the council of the Five Hundred, as well as in the council of the Ancients, it secures a clear majority in both the houses of the Legislative Corps. In the executive branch, in the Directory, it assures itself of unanimity. The Five Hundred, by adroitly preparing the lists, impose their candidates on the Ancients, selecting the five names beforehand: Barras, La Révellière de Lépeaux, Reubell, Letourneur and Siéyès, and then, on Siéyès refusing, Carnot. All of them are regicides and, under this terrible qualification, bound at the risk of their heads, to maintain the regicide faction in power.—Naturally the Directory chooses its agents from among their own people,5129 their ministers and the employees of their departments, ambassadors and consuls, officers of all ranks, collectors of taxes direct and indirect, administrators of the national domains, commissioners of civil and Criminal courts, and the commissioners of the departmental and municipal administrations. Again, having the right to suspend and dismiss all elected administrative bodies, it exercises this right. If the local authorities of any town, canton, or department seem to be anti-Jacobin, it sets them aside and, either on its own authority, or with the assent of the Legislative Corps, replaces them with Jacobins on the spot.5130 In other respects, the Convention has done its best to relieve its clients of their principal adversaries and most popular rivals. The night before its dissolution, it excluded from every "legislative, municipal, administrative and judicial function,"5131 even that of juryman, not only the individuals who, rightly or wrongly, had been put on a list of émigrés and not yet stricken off, but likewise their fathers, sons and grandsons, brothers and brothers-in-law, their connections of the same degree, uncles and nephews. In all, probably two or three hundred thousand Frenchmen, nearly the whole of the élite of the nation. To this it adds the rest of this élite, all the honest and energetic who, in the late primary or electoral assemblies have "provoked or signed" any manifestation against its despotism; if still in office they are to resign within twenty-four hours, or be sent into perpetual exile.—Through this legal incapacity of the anti-Jacobins, the field is free to the Jacobins. In many places, for lack of candidates that please them, most of the electors stay away from the polls; besides this, the terrorists resort to their old system, that is to say to brutal violence.5132 On again obtaining the support of the government they have raised their heads and are now the titular favorites. The Convention has restored to them the civic rights of which they had deprived their adversaries: "every decree of indictment or arrest" rendered against them, "every warrant executed or not, all proceedings and suits" begun, every sentence bearing on their revolutionary acts, is cancelled. The most "atrocious" Montagnards, the most sanguinary and foul proconsuls, Dartigoyte and Piochefer-Bernard, Darthé, Lebon's secretary, Rossignol the great September massacrer, the presidents of former revolutionary committees, "patriotic robbers, seal-breakers" and garroters, brazenly promenade the streets of Paris.5133 Barère himself, who, condemned to transportation, universally execrated as he traverses France, and who, everywhere on his journey, at Orleans, Tours, Poitiers, Niort, comes near being torn to pieces by the people, Barère is not sent off to Guienne; he is allowed to escape, to conceal himself and live tranquilly at Bordeaux. Furthermore, Conventionalists of the worst species, like Monestier and Foussedoire return to their natal department to govern it as government commissioners.
Consider the effect of these releases and of these appointments in a town which, like Blois, has seen the assassins at work, and which, for two months, follows their trial.5134—Seven of them, members of the Revolutionary Committee, commanders of the armed force, members of the district or department, national agents in Indre-et-Loire, charged with conducting or receiving a column of eight hundred laborers, peasant women, priests and "suspects," cause nearly six hundred of them to be shot, sabered, drowned or knocked down on the road, not in self-defense or to prevent escape, for these poor creatures tied two and two marched along like sheep without a murmur, but to set a good revolutionary example, so as to keep the people in proper subjection by terror and enable them to line their pockets.5135 A minute investigation has unfolded before the judges, jury and public of Blois a long series of authentic facts and proofs, with eight days of pleading and the most complete and glaring evidence; the sentence is about to be pronounced. Suddenly, two weeks before Vendémiaire 13, a decree annuls the proceedings, which have already cost over 600,000 livres, and orders a new trial in another form. Next, after Vendémiaire 13, a representative arrives at Blois and his first care is to set the butchers free.—About thirty knaves ruled the town during the reign of Terror, all strangers, save four or five, "all more or less befouled with crime." At first, the principal slaughterers:
* Hézine, Gidouin, and their accomplices of the neighboring districts,
* Simon and Bonneau the ex-mayor of Blois,
* Bézard, a former soldier, convicted of peculation and of robbing cellars which he had put under sequestration,
* Berger, an ex-monk, and then dragoon who, with pistol in hand, forced the superior of his old convent to give up the funds of the community,
* Giot, formerly a chief-butler of Monsieur (the King's brother), next, a judge in the September massacres and then a quartermaster in the Pyrenees army and a pillager in Spain, then secretary to the Melun tribunal of which he stole the cash, along with other nomads and outlaws of the same stamp, most of them sots and roisterers, one an ex-schoolmaster, another an ex-ladies hair-dresser, another an ex-chair-bearer; all of them a vile lot, chosen by the government for its agents, and, under new titles, resuming their old positions. At the head of the armed force is Gen. Bonnard, who is accompanied by a prostitute and who passes his time in orgies, pilfering wherever he can, and so shameless in his thievery as to be condemned, six months later, to three months in irons.5136 On arriving at Blois, he organizes "a paid guard, composed of all the most abject Jacobins."—Elsewhere, as here,5137 it is the full staff of the reign of Terror, the petty potentates dethroned after Thermidor, the political Bohemians restored to their functions.
Resistance of public opinion.—Elections, year IV. at Paris
and in the provinces.—The Directory threatened by ultra
Jacobins.—Forced amelioration of the Jacobin
administration.
So, that after Vendémiaire 13, it looks as if the Jacobin band had made the conquest of France a second time. This, however not yet so, for, if it has recovered its authority, it has not yet recovered the dictatorship.—In vain do Barras and Tallien, Dubois-Crancé, Merlin de Douai and Marie Chénier, Delmas, Louvet, Siéyès and their corrupt gang, the habitués of power, the despotic, unscrupulous theorists, try to postpone indefinitely the opening of the legislative bodies, to annul the elections, to purge the Convention, to restore for their own advantage that total concentration of powers which, under the title of revolutionary government, has converted France into a pachalic5138 in the hands of the old Committee of Public Safety.5139 But the Convention has become frightened for its own safety; at the last moment the plot is exposed, and the blow frustrated.5140 The Constitution, decreed, is put in operation, and a system of the law has replaced the system of arbitrariness. The Jacobin invasion, through that alone, is checked and then arrested. The nation is in a condition to defend itself and does defend itself. It gradually regains lost ground, even at the center.—At Paris, the electoral body,5141 which is obliged to take two-thirds of its deputies from the Convention, takes none of the regicide deputation representing Paris. All who are chosen, Lanjuinais, Larivière, Fermon, Saladin, Boissy d'Anglas, wished to save the King, and nearly all were proscribed after the 31st May. The departments show the same spirit. The members of the Convention for whom the provinces show a decided preference are the most prominent of the anti-Jacobins: Thibaudeau is re-elected by 32 electoral colleges, Pelet de la Lozére by 71, Boissy d'Anglas by 72, Lanjuinais by 73. As to the 250 of the new third, these are liberals of 1789 or moderates of 1791,5142 most of them honorable men and many of them well-informed and of real merit, jurisconsults, officers, administrators, members of the Constitutional Assembly or Feuillants in the Legislative Assembly, Mathieu Dumas, Vaublanc, Dupont de Nemours, Siméon, Barbé-Marbois and Tronçon-Ducoudray. The capital, especially, chose Dambray, former general-advocate to the Paris parliament, and Pastoret, former minister of Louis XVI.. Versailles sends the two celebrated lawyers who defended the King before the Convention, Tronchet and De Séze.—Now, previous to the 13th Vendémiaire, two hundred members of the Convention had already heartily sided with the Parisian electors5143 against the terrorists. This creates a strong opposition minority inside the Legislative Corps which function protected by the Constitution. Hidden behind it and behind them, the élite and the plurality of Frenchmen wait for better days. The Directory is obliged to act cautiously with this large group, so well supported by public opinion, and, accordingly, not to govern à la Turk. So they respect, if not the spirit, at least the letter of the law, and not to exercise a too barefaced influence on local elections. Hence most of the local elections remain free, so that the nation,
* in spite of the decree excluding every relation of an émigré and every notorious opponent of the government from present and future offices,
* in spite of fear, lassitude and disgust,
* in spite of the small number of votes, the rarity of candidates and the frequent refusal of the elected to serve,5144
substantially exercises its privilege of electing its administrators and judges according to its preferences. Consequently, the very large majority of new administrators in the departments, cantons and municipalities, and the very large majority of new civil and criminal judges and justices of the peace are, like the new third of the Convention, highly esteemed or estimable men. They are untainted with excesses, still preserving their hopes of 1789, but preserved from the outset against, or soon cured of, the revolutionary fever. Every decree of spoliation or persecution loses some of its force in their hands. Supported by the steady and manifest will of their present constituents, we see them resisting the commissioners of the Directory, at least protesting against their exactions and brutality, gaining time in favor of the proscribed, dulling the point of, or turning aside, the Jacobin sword.
Again, on the other hand, the government which holds this sword dare not, like the Committee of Public Safety, thrust it in up to the hilt. If wielded as before it might slip from its grasp. The furious in its own camp are ready to wrest it away and turn the blade against it. It must defend itself against the reviving clubs, against Babeuf and his accomplices, against the desperadoes who, through a nocturnal attempt, try to stir up the Grenelle camp: in Paris, there are four or five thousand now ready to undertake a "civic St. Bartholomew," with the old Conventionists who could not get themselves elected, at their head,—Drouet, Amar, Vadier, Ricord, Laignelot, Chaudieu, Huguet, Cusset, Javogues. Alongside of them, the friends of Chalier, Robespierre's and Marat's followers, and the disciples of Saint-Just, Bertrand de Lyon, Buonarotti, Antonelle, Rossignol and Babeuf. Behind them, the bandits of the street, those "who gutted houses during the Revolution," peculators or Septembriseurs out of employment, in short, the relics of the terrorist gang or of the revolutionary army. Their plan, true to their precedents, character and principles, consists not only in despatching "the rascals who keep coaches, the moneyed men and monopolisers," all the deputies and functionaries who do not resign at the first summons, but also, and especially, in killing "the General of the Interior, his staff, the seven ministers and the five 'cocked-hats' (panachés) of the Luxembourg," that is to say, the five Directors themselves. Such allies are troublesome. Undoubtedly, the government, which considers them as its forlorn hope, and that it may have need of them in a crisis, spares them as much as possible.5145 It allows Drouet to escape, and lets the trial of the Babouvists drag along, only two of them being guillotined, Babeuf and Darthé; most of the others are acquitted or escape. Nevertheless, for its own salvation, it is led to separate from the fiercest Jacobins and draw near to peaceable citizens.—Through this internal discord of the ruling faction, honest people hold on the offices they occupy on the elections of the year IV.. No decree comes to deprive them of their legal arms, while, in the Legislative Corps, as in the administrations and the tribunals, they count on carrying new positions in the elections of the year V.
V. Actual aim of Jacobin Activities: Power and Wealth.
Elections of year V.—Character and sentiments of the
elected.—The new majority in the Corps Legislatif.—Its
principles and program.—Danger and anxiety of the Jacobin
minority.—Indecision, division, scruples and weakness of
the moderate party.—Decision, want of scruples, force and
modes of procedure of the Jacobin faction.—The 18th of
Fructidor.
"It was a long time," writes a small trader of Evreux, "since so many people were seen at the elections.5146.... The eight electors for the town obtained at the first ballot the absolute majority of suffrages.... Everybody went to the polls so as to prevent the nomination of any elector among the terrorists, who had declared that their reign was going to return."—In the environs of Blois, a rural proprietor, the most circumspect and most peaceable of men, notes in his journal5147 that "now is the time to take a personal interest.. .. Every sound-thinking man has promised not to refuse any office tendered to him so as to keep out the Jacobins..... It is reasonably hoped that the largest number of the electors will not be terrorists and that the majority of the Legislative Corps being all right, the minority of the furious, who have only one more year of office, will give way (in 1798) to men of probity not steeped in crime.. .. In the country, the Jacobins have tried in vain: people of means who employed a portion of the voters, obtained their suffrages, every proprietor wishing to have order.... The Moderates have agreed to vote for no matter what candidate, provided he is not a Jacobin.... Out of two hundred and thirty electors for the department, one hundred and fifty are honest and upright people..... They adhered to the last Constitution as to their sole palladium, only a very few of them dreaming of re-establishing the ancient régime." Their object is plain enough; they are for the Constitution against the Revolution, for limited power against discretionary power, for property against robbery, for upright men against thieves.—"Would you prevent, say the administrative authorities of Aube,5148 a return to the disastrous laws of the maximum, of monopolies, to the resurrection of paper-money?... Would you, as the price of a blameless life, be once more humiliated, robbed, imprisoned, tortured by the vilest, most repulsive and most shameless of tyrants? You have only one recourse: do not fail to go to your primary assemblies and remain there." The electors, warned by their late personal and bloody souvenirs, rush to the polls in crowds and vote according to their consciences, although the government through the oaths it imposes, its official candidatures, its special commissioners, its intimidation and its money, bears down with all its weight on the resolutions they have taken. Although the Jacobins at Nevers, Mâcon and elsewhere, have forcibly expelled officers legally elected from their bureaux, and stained the hall with their blood,5149 "out of 84 departments 66 elected a plurality of electors from among the anti-republicans, eight being neither good nor bad, while only ten remained loyal to the Jacobins."5150—Appointed by such electors, we can divine what the new Third will be. "Of the 250 Conventionalists excluded by the draw scarcely five or six have been re-elected; there are but eight departments in which the Jacobins have had any success. "-Immediately after the arrival of the new representatives, the roll of the Legislative Corps having been checked off, it is found that "the Government has 70 out of 250 votes among the Ancients, and 200 out of 500 among the Council of the Young," and soon less than 200 in this Council,5151 130 at the most, who will certainly be excluded at the coming renewal of the chambers in elections which are becoming more and more anti-Jacobin. One year more, as the rulers themselves admit, and not one Conventionalist, not one pure Jacobin, will sit in the Legislative Corps. Consequently, according to the revolutionaries, the counter-revolution will have taken place in the year VI.
This means that the Revolution is to end in the year VI., and that the pacific reign of law will be substituted for the brutal reign of force. In fact, the great majority of the representatives and almost the entire French nation have no other end in view: they wish to rid themselves of the social and civil régime to which they have been subject since the 10th of August, 1792, and which, relaxed after Thermidor 9, but renewed by the 13th of Vendémiaire, has lasted up to the present time, through the enforcement of its most odious laws and the maintenance of its most disreputable agents. This is all.—Not twenty avowed or decided royalists could be found in the two Councils.5152 There are scarcely more than five or six—Imbert-Colomès, Pichegru, Willot, Delarne—who may be in correspondence with Louis XVIII. and disposed to raise the royal flag. For the other five hundred, the restoration of the legitimate King, or the establishment of any royalty whatever, is only in the background; they regard it only at a distance, as a possible accompaniment and remote consequence of their present undertaking. In any event, they would accept only "the mitigated monarchy,"5153 that which the Liberals of 1788 hoped for, that which Mounier demanded after the days of October 5 and 6, that advocated by Barnave after the return from Varennes, that which Malouet, Gouverneur Morris, Mallet-Dupan and all good observers and wise councillors of France, always recommended. None of them propose to proclaim divine right and return to aristocratic feudalism; each proposes to abrogate revolutionary right and destroy Jacobin feudalism. The principle condemned by them is that which sustains the theory of anarchy and despotism,
* the application of the Contrat Social,5154
* a dictatorship established by coups détat, carried on arbitrarily and supported by terror,
* the systematic and dogmatic persistence of assaults on persons, property and consciences,
* the usurpation of a vicious, fanatical minority which has devastated France for five years and, under the pretext of everywhere setting up the rights of man, purposely maintaining a war to propagate its system abroad.
That which they are really averse to is the Directory and its clique, Barras with his court of gorged contractors and kept women, Reubell with his family of extortioners, stamp of a parvenu and ways of a tavern keeper, La Révellière-Lepaux with his hunchback vanity, philosophic pretensions, sectarian intolerance and silly airs of a pedantic dupe. What they demand in the tribune,5155 is the purification of the administration, the suppression of jobbery, an end to persecution and, according as they are more or less excited or circumspect, they demand legal sentences or simply the removal of Jacobins in office, the immediate and entire suppression or partial and careful reform of the laws against priests and worship, against émigrés and the nobles.5156—Nobody has any idea of innovation with respect to the distribution of public powers, or to the way of appointing central or local authorities. "I swear on my honor," writes Mathieu Dumas, "that it has always been my intention to maintain the Republican Constitution, persuaded as I am that, with a temperate and equitable administration, it might give repose to France, make liberty known and cherished, and repair in time the evils of the Revolution. I swear that no proposals, direct or indirect, have ever been made to me to serve, either by my actions, speech or silence, or cause to prevail in any near or remote manner, any other interest than that of the Republic and the Constitution."—"Among the deputies," says Camille Jordan, "several might prefer royalty; but they did not conspire, regarding the Constitution as a deposit entrusted to their honor.. They kept their most cherished plans subordinate to the national will; they comprehended that royalty could not be re-established without blows and through the development of this bill."—"Between ourselves," says again Barbé-Marbois, "there were disagreements as to the way of getting along with the Directory, but none at all as to the maintenance of the Constitution."5157 Almost up to the last moment they confined themselves strictly to their legal rights, and when, towards the end, they were disposed to set these aside, it was simply to defend themselves against the uplifted saber above their heads.5158 It is incontestable that their leaders are "the most estimable and the ablest men in the Republic,"5159 the only representatives of free suffrage, mature opinions and long experience, the only ones at least in whose hands the Republic, restored to order and justice, would have any chance of becoming viable, in fact, the only liberals. And this is the reason why the merely nominal Republicans were bound to crush them.
In effect, under a government which disavows attacks on persons and on public or private property, not only is the Jacobin theory impossible, but Jacobin wrongs are condemned. Now, the Jacobins, even if they have abjured their principles, remember their acts. They become alarmed on the arrival of the first Third, in October, 1795: "The Conventionalists," writes one of the new deputies,5160 "look upon us as men who will one day give them up to justice." After the entry of the second Third, in May, 1797, their fright increased; the regicides, especially, feel that "their safety depends only on an exclusive and absolute dominion."5161 One day, Treilhard, one of their notables, alone with Mathieu Dumas, says to this old Feuillant and friend of Lafayette, of well known loyalty and moderation: "You are very honest and very able men, and I believe that you really desire to maintain the government as it is, because neither for you nor for us is there any sure way of substituting another for it. But we Conventionalists cannot allow you to go on; whether you mean it or not, you are gradually leading us to our certain ruin; there is nothing in common between us."—"What guarantee do you then require?"—"Only one. After that, we'll do all you want—we'll let you relax the springs—give us this guarantee and we'll follow you blindly!—"Well, what do you mean by that?"—
"Enter the tribune and declare that if you had been a member of the Convention, you would have voted the death of Louis XVI. as we did!"- "You demand an impossibility. You would not do this in our place. You sacrifice France to vain terrors."—
"No, the risk is not equal; our heads are at stake!"
Their heads, perhaps,—but certainly their power, places, fortunes, comforts and pleasures, all that in their eyes makes it worth while to live.—Every morning, seventy Paris newspapers and as many local gazettes in the large towns of the provinces expose, with supporting documents, details and figures, not merely their former crimes, but, again, their actual corruption, their sudden opulence founded on prevarication and rapine, their bribes and peculations—
* one, rewarded with a sumptuously furnished mansion by a company of grateful contractors;
* another, son of a bailiwick attorney and a would-be Carthusian, now possessor of ecclesiastical property, restored by him at a great outlay for hunting-grounds; another also monopolizes the finest land in Seine-et-Oise;
* another, the improvised owner of four chateaux;
* another, who has feathered his nest with fifteen or eighteen millions,5162
With their loose or arbitrary ways of doing things, their habits as hoarders or spendthrifts, their display and effrontery, their dissipations, their courtiers and their prostitutes. How can they renounce all this?—And all the more because this is all they have. These jaded consciences are wholly indifferent to abstract principles, to popular sovereignty, to the common weal, to public security; the thin and brittle coating of sonorous phrases under which they formerly tried to hide the selfishness and perversity of their lusts, scales off and falls to the ground. They themselves confess that it is not the Republic for which they are concerned, but for themselves above everything else, and for themselves alone. So much the worse for the Republic if its interest is opposed to their interest; as Siéyès will soon express it, the object is not to save the Revolution but the revolutionaries.—Thus disabused, unscrupulous, knowing that they are staking their all, and resolute, like their colleagues of August 10, September 2 and May31 and like the Committee of Public Safety, they are determined to win, no matter at what cost or by what means.
For this time again, the Moderates do not want to comprehend that the war has been declared, and that it is war to the knife. They do not agree amongst themselves; they want to gain time, they hesitate and take refuge in constitutional forms—they do not act. The strong measures which the eighty decided and clear-sighted deputies propose, are weakened or suspended by the precautions of the three hundred others, short-sighted, unreliable or timid.5163 They dare not even avail themselves of their legal arms:
* annul the military division of the interior,
* suppress Augereau's commission,
* and break the sword presented at their throats by the three conspiring Directors.
In the Directory, they have only passive or neutral allies, Barthélémy, who had rather be assassinated than murder, Carnot, the servant of his legal pass-word, fearing to risk his Republic, and, moreover, calling to mind that he had voted for the King's death. Among the "Five Hundred" and the "Ancients," Thibaudeau and Tronçon-Ducoudray, the two leaders "du ventre," arrest the arms of Pichegru and other energetic men, prevent them from striking, allow them only to ward off the blow, and always too late. Three days after the 10th of Fructidor, when, as everybody knew and saw, the final blow was to be struck, the eighty deputies, who change their quarters so as not to be seized in their beds, cannot yet make up their minds to take the offensive. On that day, an eye-witness5164 came to Mathieu Dumas and told him that, the evening before, in Barras' house, they discussed the slaughter or transportation to Cayenne of about forty members of the two Councils, and that the second measure was adopted. On which a commandant of the National Guard, having led Dumas at night into the Tuileries garden, showed him his men concealed behind the trees, armed and ready to march at the first signal. He is to possess himself at once of the Luxembourg (palace)5165 which is badly guarded, and put an end to Barras and Reubell on the spot: in war one kills so as not to be killed, and, when the enemy takes aim, you have the right to fire without waiting. "Only," says the commandant, "promise me that you will state in the tribune that you ordered this attack, and give me your word of honor."5166 Mathieu Dumas refuses, simply because he is a man of honor. "You were a fool," Napoleon afterwards said to him in this connection, "you know nothing about revolutions."—In effect, honor, loyalty, horror of blood, respect for the law, such are the weak points of the party.
The opposite sentiments form the strong points of the other party. On the side of the triumvirs nobody knows twinges of conscience, neither Barras, a condottiere open to the highest bidder, and who understands the value of blows, nor Reubell, a sort of bull, who, becoming excited, sees red, nor Merlin de Douai, the terrible legist, lay inquisitor and executioner in private.5167 As usual with the Jacobins, these men have unsheathed the sword and brandished it. In contempt of the constitution, they provoked discussions in the army and let the Legislative Corps see that, if it did not yield, it would be put out at the point of the bayonet. They let loose against it, "as in the good old times,"5168 their executive riff-raff, and line the avenues and tribunes with "their bandits of both sexes." They collect together their gangs of roughs, five or six thousand terrorists from Paris and the departments, and two thousand officers awaiting orders or on half-pay. In default of Hoche, whose unconstitutional approach was reported and then prevented, they have Augereau, arrived expressly from Italy, and who states publicly, "I am sent for to kill the royalists." It is impossible to find a more narrow-minded and greater military bully; Reubell, himself, on seeing him, could not help but exclaim: What a sturdy brigand!"—On the 18th of Fructidor this official swordsman, with eight or ten thousand troops, surrounds and invades the Tuileries. The representatives are arrested in their committee-rooms or domiciles, or pursued, tracked and hunted down, while the rest of their opponents, notables, officers, heads of bureaux, journalists, former ministers and directors, Barthélémy and Carnot, are treated in the same way. Barbé-Marbois, on demanding by virtue of what law they were arrested,5169 is told, "by the law of the saber," while Sotin, Minister of the Police, adds with a smile, "You may be sure that after what I have taken on myself, it matters little whether one is more or less compromised."—Thus purged, the two Councils complete themselves their purgation; they cancel, in forty-nine departments, the election of their colleagues; through this decree and transportation, through forced and voluntary resignations, two hundred and fourteen representatives are withdrawn from the Legislative Corps, while one hundred and eighty others, through fear or disgust, cease to attend its meetings.5170 Nothing remains of the two Councils, except, as in the English Parliament under Cromwell, a "rump," which rump does business under drawn swords. In the Council of the Ancients, which, on the 18th of Fructidor, discussed at midnight5171 the decree of transportation, "groups of grenadiers, with a haggard look, in brusque language, with threatening gestures" and fixed bayonets, surround the amphitheatre, and, mingled with the soldiers and civil cut-throats, shout out their orders. Such are the supporters of the slanderous tale cooked up by the Directory. The voters need such arguments to make themselves believe in the grand conspiracy which it denounces, to associate Barthélemy, Carnot, Siméon, Barbé-Marbois, Boissy d'Anglas, Mathieu Dumas, Pastoret, Tronson du Coudray as accomplices with a knot of subordinate intriguers, contemptible "monkeys" (marmosets), dolts or spies, whose papers have been in the hands of the police for six months, and whom it forces to speak under lock and key.5172 All are enveloped in the same net, all are confounded together under the same title, all are condemned en masse without evidence or formality. "Proofs!" exclaims an orator, "none are necessary against the royalist faction. I have my own convictions."5173—"Formalities!" exclaims another, "the enemies of the country cannot invoke formalities which they would have despised had they triumphed."—"The people are there," says a third, pointing to a dozen ill-looking men who are present; "the whole people ought to prevail against a few individuals!"—"Hurry up!" shouts a soldier, who wants the discussion ended, "patriots, march, double-quick!"—The debate, nevertheless, drags along, and the Government, growing impatient, is obliged to intervene with a message: "The people," says the message, "want to know what has become of the Republic, what you have done with it..... The conspirators have agents, even among yourselves." The message is understood, and the representatives now understand that if they do not transport, they themselves will be deported. Therefore, "about fourteen or fifteen stand up for the decree, while seven are against it; the rest remain motionless:" it is thus that the decree to save the Constitution is freely and legally passed. Four years before this a similar decree had passed to expel the Girondists, in just the same manner, with the exception that, at that time, the Mountain made use of the populace, while now the army is employed; but save the difference in the figurants, the performance is simply a repetition of the same drama that was played on the 2nd of June, and is now again played on the 18th of Fructidor.5174
Dictatorship of the Directory.—Its new prerogatives.—Purge
of the Legislative Corps.—Purification of the
administrative and judicial authorities.—Military
commissions in the provinces.—Suppression of newspapers.
—The right of voting reserved to Jacobins alone.—Despotism
of the Directory.—Revival of Terror.—Transportation
substituted for the guillotine.—Treatment of the deported
on the way, in Guyana, and on the islands of Rhé and
Oléron.—Restoration of Jacobin feudalism.
This is the way in which the government of 1793 is brought back to life:
The concentration of all public powers in the hands of an oligarchy, a dictatorship exercised by about a hundred men grouped around five or six leaders.
More independent, more despotic and less provisional than any Committee of Public Safety, the Directory has arrogated to itself the legal right of placing a commune in a state of siege, of introducing troops within the constitutional circle5175 in such a way that it may, at its discretion, violate Paris and the Legislative Corps. In this body, mutilated by it and watched by its hireling assassins,5176 sit the passive mutes who feel themselves "morally proscribed and half-deported,"5177 who abandon debate, and vote with its stipendiaries and valets.5178 As a matter of fact, the two councils have, as formerly the Convention, become chambers "of registry" of legislative mechanism charged with the duty of countersigning its orders.—Its sway over the subordinate authorities is still more absolute. In forty-nine departments, specially designated by decree, all the administrators of departments, cantons and municipalities, all mayors, civil and criminal judges, all justices of the peace, all elected by popular suffrage, are dismissed en masse,5179 while the cleaning out in the rest of France is almost as sweeping. We can judge by one example: in the department of Doubs, which is not put down among those to be purged, five hundred and thirty administrators or municipal magistrates are dismissed in 1797, and, in addition, forty-nine others in 1798. The Directory puts its creatures in their places: suddenly, the departmental, cantonal, municipal and judicial system, which was American, becomes Napoleonic so that the local officials, instead of being delegates of the people, are government delegates.—Note, especially, the most threatening of all usurpations, the way in which this government takes justice into its hands and attributes to itself the right of life and death over persons: not only does it break up common criminal courts and reorganize them as it pleases, not only does it renew and select among the purest Jacobins judges of the court of appeals, but again, in each military division, it institutes a special and expeditious court without appeal, composed of docile officers, sub-officers and soldiers, which is to condemn and execute within twenty-four hours, under pretext of emigration or priesthood, every man who is obnoxious to the ruling factions.—As to the twenty-five millions of subjects it has just acquired, there is no refuge: it is forbidden even to complain. Forty-two opposition or "suspect" journals are silenced at one stroke, their stock plundered, or their presses broken up; three months after this, sixteen more take their turn, and, in a year, eleven others; the proprietors, editors, publishers and contributors, among whom are La Harpe, Fontanes, Fièvé, Michaud and Lacretelle, a large body of honorable or prominent writers, the four or five hundred men who compose the staff of the profession, all condemned without trial to banishment,5180 or to imprisonment, are arrested, take flight, conceal themselves, or keep silent. The only voice now heard in France is the mega-phone of the government.
Naturally, the faculty of voting is as restricted as the faculty of writing, so that the victors of Fructidor, together with the right to speak, now also monopolize the right of electing.—Right away the government renewed the decree which the expiring Convention had rendered against allies or relations of émigrés. moreover, it excluded all relatives or supporters of the members of the primary assemblies, and forbade the primary assemblies to choose any of these for electors. Henceforth, all upright or even peaceful citizens consider themselves as warned and stay at home. Voting is the act of a ruler, and therefore a privilege of the new sovereigns, which is the view of it entertained by both sovereigns and subjects:5181 "a republican minority operating legally must prevail against a majority influenced by royalism."5182 They are to see the government on election days, launching forth "in each department its commission agents, and controlling votes by threats and all sorts of promises and seductions,5183 arresting the electors and presidents of the primary assemblies," even pouncing on refractory Jacobins, invalidating the returns of a majority when not satisfactory to them, and rendering the choice of a minority valid, if it suited them, in short, constituting itself the chief elector of all local and central authorities.—Finally, all institutions, laws, public and private rights, are down, and the nation, body and soul, again becomes, as under Robespierre, the property of its rulers with this sole difference, that the kings of Terror, postponing their constitution, openly proclaim their omnipotence, whilst the others hypocritically rule under a constitution which they have themselves destroyed, and reign by virtue of a title which interdicts royalty to them.
They, too, maintain themselves by Terror; only, like so many Tartuffes, they are not disposed to act openly as executioners. The Directory, heir to the Convention, affects to repudiate its inheritance: "Woe," says Boulay de la Meurthe, "to whoever would re-establish scaffolds." There is to be no guillotine; its purveyors have been too strongly denounced; they stand too near the red stream and view with too great nervous horror those who fed it. It is better to employ death at a distance, lingering and spontaneous, with no effusion of human blood, "dry," less repulsive than the other sort, but more painful and not less certain; this shall be imprisonment on the marshes of Rochefort, and, better still, transportation to the feverish coasts of Guyanna: there is no distinction between the mode used by the Convention and that of the Directory, except the distinction between to kill and to cause death.5184 Moreover, every brutality that can be employed to repress the indignation of the proscribed by fear is exhausted on the way.—The first convoy which bears away, with thirteen others, Barthélémy, who negotiated the treaty of Basle, Pichegru, the conqueror of Holland, Lafond-Ladébat, president of the council of the Five Hundred, Barbé-Marbois, president of the council of the Ancients, was at first provided with carriages.5185 An order of the Directory substitutes for these the prison van, an iron car with one door bolted and padlocked, and, overhead, openings through which the rain poured in streams, and with common boards for seats. This lumbering machine without springs rolls along at a fast trot along the ruts in the road, each jolt sending the condemned inmates against the hard oak sides and roof; one of these, on reaching Blois, "shows his black-and-blue elbows." The man selected to command this escort is the vilest and most brutal reprobate in the army, Dutertre, a coppersmith foreman before the Revolution, next an officer and sentenced to be put in irons for stealing in the La Vendée war, and such a natural robber that he again robs his men of their pay on the road; he is evidently qualified for his work. On stopping at Blois, "he passes the night in an orgy with his brothers and friends," fellow-thieves and murderers as above described. He curses Madame Barbé-Marbois who comes to take leave of her husband, dismissing on the spot the commandant of the gendarmerie who supports her in a swoon, and, noticing the respect and attentions which all the inhabitants, even the functionaries, show to the prisoners, he cries out, "Well, what airs and graces for people that will perhaps be dead in three or four days!" On the vessel which transports them, and still in sight of Rochelle, a boat is observed rowing vigorously to overtake them and they hear a shout of "I am Lafond-Ladébat's son! Allow me to embrace my father!" A speaking-trumpet from the vessel replies: "Keep away or you'll be fired on!"—Their cabins, on the voyage, are noxious; they are not allowed to be on deck more than four at a time, one hour in the morning and an hour in the evening. The sailors and soldiers are forbidden to speak to them; their food consists of a sailor's ration, and this is spoilt; toward the end of the voyage they are starved. In Guyanna they are allowed one candle to a mess, and no table-linen; they lack water, or it is not drinkable; out of sixteen taken to Sinnamary only two survive.
Those who are deported the following year, priests, monks, deputies, journalists and artisans accused of emigration, fare worse. On all the roads leading to Rochefort, sorrowful crowds are seen on carts or tramping along in files, on foot, the same as former chains of convicts. "An old man of eighty-two, Monsieur Dulaurent of Quimper, thus traverses four departments," in irons which strangle him. Following upon this, the poor creatures, between the decks of the "Décade" and the "Bayonnaise," crammed in, suffocated through lack of air and by the torrid heat, badly treated and robbed, die of hunger or asphyxia, while Guyanna completes the work of the voyage: out of 193 conveyed on board the 'Décade," only 39 remain at the end of twenty-two months, and of the 120 brought by the 'Bayonnaise," only one is left.—Meanwhile, in France, in the casemates of the islands of Rhé and Oléron, over twelve hundred priests become stifled or rot away, while, on all sides, the military commissioners in the departments shoot down vigorously. At Paris, and in its environs, at Marseilles, Lyons, Bordeaux, Rennes, and in most of the large towns, sudden arrests and clandestine abductions go on multiplying.5186 "Nobody, on retiring to rest, is sure of awaking in freedom the next morning.... From Bayonne to Brussels, there is but one sentiment, that of unbounded consternation. No one dares either to speak to, encounter, look at or help one another. Everybody keeps aloof, trembles and hides away."—So that through this third offensive reaction, the Jacobin Conquest is completed, and the conquering band, the new feudalism, becomes a fixed installation. "All who pass here," writes a Tours habitant, "state that there is no difference in the country between these times and Robespierre's5187..... It is certain that the soil is not tenable, and that the people are continually threatened with exactions as in a conquered country.... Proprietors are crushed down with impositions to such an extent that they cannot meet their daily expenses, nor pay the cost of cultivation. In some of my old parishes the imposition takes about thirteen out of twenty sous of an income... The interest on money amounts to four per cent. a month... Tours, a prey to the terrorists who devour the department and hold all the offices, is in the most deplorable state; every family at all well-off, every merchant, every trader, is leaving it."—The veteran pillagers and murderers, the squireens, (hobereaux) of the reign of Terror, again appear and resume their fiefs. At Toulouse, it is Barrau, a shoemaker, famous up to 1792 for his fury under Robespierre, and Desbarreaux, another madman of 1793, formerly an actor playing the parts of valet, compelled in 1795 to demand pardon of the audience on his knees on the stage, and, not obtaining it, driven out of the house, and now filling the office of cashier in the theatre and posing as department administrator. At Blois, we find the ignoble or atrocious characters with whom we are familiar, the assassins and robbers Hézine, Giot, Venaille, Bézard, Berger, and Gidouin.5188 Immediately after Fructidor, they stirred up their usual supporters against the first convoy of the deported, "the idlers, the rabble of the harbor, and the dregs of the people," who overwhelmed them with insults. On this new demonstration of patriotism the government restores to them their administrative or judicial "satrapies, and, odious as they are, they are endured and obeyed, with the mute and mournful obedience of despair." The soul sinks5189 on daily perusing the executions of conscripts and émigrés, and on seeing those condemned to transportation constantly passing by.... All who displease the government are set down on these lists of the dead, so-called émigrés, this or that curé who is notoriously known not to have left the department." It is impossible for honest people to vote at the primary assemblies; consequently, "the elections are frightful. The "brothers" and their friends loudly proclaim that neither nobles, priests, proprietors, merchants, nor justice are wanted; everything is to be given up to pillage." Let France perish rather than accept their domination. "The wretches have announced that they will not give up their places without overthrowing all, destroying palaces and setting Paris on fire."
Application and aggravation of the laws of the reign of
Terror.—Measures taken to impose civic religion.—Arrest,
transportation, and execution of Priests.—Ostracism
proposed against the entire anti-Jacobin class.—The nobles
or the ennobled, not émigrés, are declared foreigners.
—Decrees against émigrés of every class.—Other steps taken
against remaining proprietors.—Bankruptcy, forced loan,
hostages.
It is natural that with pure Jacobins one notes the re-appearance of the pure Jacobinism, the egalitarian and anti-Christian socialism, the programme of the funereal year; in short, the rigid, plain, exterminating ideas which the sect gathers together, like daggers encrusted with gore, from the cast-off robes of Robespierre, Billaud-Varennes and Collot d'Herbois.5190
In the forefront appears the fixed and favorite idea of the old-fashioned philosophism. By that I mean the consistent and decreed plan to found a lay religion, and impose the observances and dogmas of its theories on twenty-six millions of Frenchmen, and, consequently extirping Christianity, its worship and its clergy. The inquisitors who hold office multiply, with extraordinary persistence and minuteness, proscriptions and vigorous measures for the forcible conversion of the nation. The aim is to substitute the improvised rites of a logical abstraction mechanically elaborated in the closet for the tender emotions nourished by the customs of eighteen centuries.—Never did the dull imagination of a third-rate scholar and classic poetaster, never did the grotesque solemnity of a pedant fond of his phrases, never did the irritating hardness of the narrow and stubborn devotee display with greater sentimental bombast and more administrative officiousness than in the decrees of the Legislative Corps,5191 in the acts passed by the Directory and in the instructions issued by the ministers Sotin, Letourneur, Lambrechts, Duval and François de Neufchateau. War on Sunday, on the old calendar and on fasting, obligatory rest on the décadi under penalty of fine and imprisonment,5192 obligatory fêtes on the anniversaries of January 21 and Fructidor 18, participation of all functionaries with their cult, obligatory attendance of public and private instructors with their pupils of both sexes at civic ceremonies, an obligatory liturgy with catechisms and programmes sent from Paris, rules for scenic display and for singings, readings, postures, acclamations and imprecations. One might shrug his shoulders at these prescriptions of cuistres and these parades of puppets, if, behind the apostles who compose moral allegories, we did not detect the persecutor who imprisons, tortures and murders.—By the decree of Fructidor 19, not only were all the laws of the reign of Terror against unsworn priests, their harborers and their followers, enforced again, but the Directory arrogated to itself the right of banishing, "through individual acts passed for cause," every ecclesiastic "who disturbed the public peace," that is to say who exercised his ministry and preached his faith;5193 and, moreover, the right of shooting down, within twenty-four hours, every priest who, banished by the laws of 1792 and 1793, has remained in or returned to France. Almost all the ecclesiastics, even those who are sworn, are comprised within the first category; the administration enumerates 366 in the department of Doubs alone,5194 and 556 in that of Hérault. Thousands of ecclesiastics are comprised in the second category; the administration enumerates over 800 who, returned from the frontier of Spain alone, still wander about the southern departments. On the strength of this the moralists in office proclaim a hunt for the black game in certain places, an universal destruction without exception or reprieve. For instance, in Belgium, recently incorporated with France, the whole of the regular and secular clergy is proscribed en masse and tracked for transportation; 560 ecclesiastics in "Ourthe and the forests", 539 in Escaut, 883 in Jemmapes, 884 in Sambre-et-Meuse, 925 in la Lys, 957 in Deux-Nèthes, 1,043 in Meuse-Inférieure, 1,469 in Dyle, in all 7,260, without counting the missing names.5195 A number of them escape abroad or hide away; but the rest are caught, and quite enough of them to load and fill the carts constantly.—"Not a day passes," says an inhabitant of Blois,5196 "when from seven to twenty and more are lodged at the Carmelites." The next day they set out for the casemates of Rhé and Oléron, or for the Sinnamary marshes, where it is known what becomes of them: after a few months, three-fourths of them lie in the cemetery.—In the interior, from time to time, some are shot as an example—seven at Besançon, one at Lyons, three in the Bouches-du-Rhône, while the opponents of fanaticism, the official philanthropists, the enlightened deists of Fructidor, use all these disguised or declared murders as a basis on which to rear the cult of Reason.
It remains now to consolidate the worship of Reason with the reign of Equality, which is the second article in the Jacobin credo. The object now is to mow down all the heads which rise above the common level, and, this time, to mow them down, not one by one, but in large groups. Saint-Just himself had only covertly proposed so extensive and so sweeping an operation. Siéyès, Merlin de Douai, Reubell, Chazal, Chénier, and Boulay de la Meurthe, more openly and decidedly insist on a radical amputation. According to them,5197 it is necessary "to regulate this ostracism," by banishing "all those whose prejudices, pretensions, even existence, in a word, are incompatible with republican government." That is to say, not alone priests, but likewise nobles and the ennobled, all parliamentarians, those who are well-off and distinguished among the bourgeoisie and former notables, about two hundred thousand property-holders, men and women; in short, all who still remained among those oppressed and ruined by the Revolution.5198—The proposal was turned down by the ex-noble Barras and by the public out-cry "of merchants and workmen themselves," and banishment is replaced by civic degradation. Henceforth,5199 every noble or ennobled person, even if he has not left the territory, even if he has constantly and punctually obeyed revolutionary laws, even if he be not related to, or allied with, any émigré, finds himself deprived of his quality as a Frenchman. The fact alone of his being ennobled or noble before 1789, obliged him to be naturalized according to legal forms and conditions.—As to the 150,000 gentlemen, artisans and farmers who have emigrated or who have been accused of emigration, if they have returned to, or remain in France, they are to leave Paris and all communes above 20,000 souls within twenty-four hours, and France in fifteen days. If not, they are to be arrested, brought before the military commissions and shot on the spot;51100 in fact, in many places, at Paris, Besançon and Lyons, they are shot.—Now, a large number of pretended emigrants, who had never left France,51101 nor even their province, nor even their commune, and whose names have been put on the lists simply to strip them of their property, find that they are no longer protected either by the constancy or the notoriety of their residence. The new law is no sooner read than they begin to imagine the firing squad; the natal soil is too warm for them and they speedily emigrate.51102 On the other hand, once the name is down on the list, rightly or wrongly, it is never removed. The government purposely refuses to strike it off, while two decrees are applied which render its removal impossible;51103 each name maintained on the list of spoliation and death relieves the Revolution of a probable adversary, and places one more domain at its disposal.
The Directory renews and aggravates the measures of the Convention against the remainder of the property-holders: there is no longer a disguised but a declared bankruptcy. 386,000 fund-holders and pensioners are deprived of two-thirds of their revenue and of their capital.51104 A forced loan of 100 millions is levied progressively, and wholly on "the well-off class." Finally, there is the law of hostages, this being atrocious, conceived in the spirit of September, 1792, suggested by the famous motions of Collot d'Herbois against those in confinement, and of Billaud-Varennes against the youth, Louis XVII., but extended, elaborated and drawn up with cool legal acumen, and enforced and applied with the foresight of an administrator.—Remark that, without counting the Belgian departments, where an extensive insurrection is under way and spreading, more than one-half of the territory falls under the operation of this law. for, out of the eighty-six departments of France,51105 properly so called, forty-five are at this moment, according to the terms of the decree,51106 "declared to be in a state of civil uprising." Actually, in these departments, according to official reports, armed mobs of conscripts are resisting the authorities charged with recruiting them, bands of two hundred, three hundred and eight hundred men overrun the country, troops of brigands force open the prisons, assassinate the gendarmes and set their inmates free; the tax-collectors are robbed, killed or maimed, municipal officers slain, proprietors ransomed, estates devastated, and diligences stopped on the highways." Now, in all these cases, in all the departments, cantons or communes, three classes of persons, at first the relations and allies of the émigrés, next the former nobles and ennobled, and finally the "fathers, mothers, grandfathers and grandmothers of persons who, without being ex-nobles or relations of émigrés," nevertheless form a part of the bands or mobs, are declared "personally and civilly responsible" for the violent acts committed. Even when these acts are only "imminent," the administration of the department must, in its report, give a list of all the men and women who are responsible; these are to be taken as "hostages," and kept in confinement at their own expense in the local jail. If they escape, they must be put on the same footing as émigrés, that is to say punished with death. If any damage is sustained, they are to pay costs; if any murder is committed or abduction effected, four amongst them must be deported. Observe, moreover, that the local authorities are obliged, under severe penalties, to execute the law at once. Note that, at this date, they are ultra Jacobin, since to inscribe on the list of hostages, not a noble or a bourgeois, but an honest peasant or respectable artisan, it suffices for these local sovereigns to designate his son or grandson, who might either be absent, fugitive or dead, as being "notoriously "insurgent or refractory. The fortunes, liberties and lives of every individual in easy circumstances are thus legally surrendered to the despotism, cupidity and hostility of the levelers in office.—Contemporaries estimate that 200,000 persons were affected by this law.51107 The Directory, during the three months of existence yet remaining to it, enforces it in seventeen departments; thousands of women and old men are arrested, put in confinement, and ruined, while several are sent off to Cayenne—and this is called respect for the rights of man.
Propaganda and foreign conquests.—Proximity and advantages
of Peace.—Motives of the Fructidorians for breaking off
peace negotiations with England, and for abandoning the
invasion of foreign countries.—How they found new
republics.—How governed.—Estimate of foreign rapine.
—Number of French lives sacrificed in the war.
After the system which the Fructidoreans establish in France, we may consider the system they impose abroad—always the same contrast, between the name and the thing, the same phrases covering the same misdeeds, and, under proclamations of liberty the institution of brigandage.—Undoubtedly, in any invaded province which thus passes from an old to a new despotism, fine words cleverly spoken produce at first the intended effect. But, in a few weeks or months, the ransomed, enlisted and forcibly "Frenchified" inhabitants, discover that the revolutionary right is much more oppressive, more harassing and more rapacious than divine right.
It is the right of the strongest. The reigning Jacobins know no other, abroad as well as at home, and, in the use they make of it, they are not restrained like ordinary statesmen, by a thorough comprehension of the interests of the State, by experience and tradition, by far-reaching plans, by an estimate of present and future strength. Being a sect, they subordinate France to their dogmas, and, with the narrow views, pride and arrogance of the sectary, they profess the same intolerance, the same need of domination and his instincts for propagandas and invasion.—This belligerent and tyrannical spirit they had already displayed under the Legislative Assembly, and they are intoxicated with it under the Convention. After Thermidor,51108 and after Vendémiaire, they remained the same; they became rigid against "the faction of old boundaries," and against any moderate policy; at first, against the pacific minority, then against the pacific majority, against the entreaties of all France, against their own military director, "the organizer of victory " Carnot, who, as a good Frenchman, is not desirous of gratuitously increasing the embarrassments of France nor of taking more than France could usefully and surely keep.—If, before Fructidor, his three Jacobin colleagues, Reubell, Barras and La Révellière, broke with him, it was owing not merely to inside matters, but also to outside matters, as he opposed their boundless violent purposes. They were furious on learning the preliminary treaty of Leoben, so advantageous to France; they insulted Carnot, who had effected it;51109 when Barthélémy, the ablest and most deserving diplomat in France, became their colleague, his recommendations, so sensible and so well warranted, obtained from them no other welcome than derision.51110 They already desire, and obstinately, to get possession of Switzerland, lay hands on Hamburg, "humiliate England," and "persevere in the unlucky system of the Committee of Public Safety," that is to say, in the policy of war, conquest and propaganda. Now that the 18th Fructidor is accomplished, Barthélémy deported, and Carnot in flight, this policy is going to be applied everywhere.
Never had peace been so near at hand;51111 they almost had)it in their grasp; conference at Lille it was only necessary to take complete hold of it. England, the last and most tenacious of her enemies, was disarming; not only did she accept the aggrandizement of France, the acquisition of Belgium and the left bank of the Rhine, the avowed as well as the disguised annexations, the great Republic as patron and the smaller ones as clients, Holland, Genoa, and the Cis-Alpine country, but, again, she restored all her own conquests, all the French colonies, all the Dutch colonies, except the Cape of Good Hope,51112 and all the Spanish colonies except Trinidad. All that amour-propre could demand was obtained, and they obtained more than could be prudently expected; there was not a competent and patriotic statesman in France who would not have signed the treaty with the greatest satisfaction.—But the motives which, before Fructidor, animated Carnot and Barthélémy, the motives which, after Fructidor, animated Colchen and Maret, do not animate the Fructidoreans. France is of but little consequence to them; they are concerned only for their faction, for power, and for their own persons. La Révellière, president of the Directory, through vainglory, "wanted to have his name go with the general peace;" but he is controlled by Barras, who needs war in order to fish in troubled waters,51113 and especially by Reubell, a true Jacobin in temperament and intellect, "ignorant and vain, with the most vulgar prejudices of an uneducated and illiterate man," one of those coarse, violent, narrow sectarians anchored on a fixed idea and whose "principles consist in revolutionizing everything with cannon-balls without examining wherefore."51114 There is no need of knowing the wherefore; the animal instinct of self-preservation suffices to impel the Jacobins onward, and, for a long time, their clear-sighted men, among them Siéyès, their thinker and oracle, have told them that "if they make peace they are lost."51115—To exercise their violence within they require peril without; lacking the pretext of public safety they cannot prolong their usurpation, their dictatorship, their despotism, their inquisition, their proscriptions, their exactions. Suppose that peace is effected, will it be possible for the government, hated and despised as it is, to maintain and elect its minions against public clamor at the coming elections? Will so many retired generals consent to live on half-pay, indolent and obedient? Will Hoche, so ardent and so absolute, will Bonaparte, who already meditates his coup-d'état,51116 be willing to stand sentry for four petty lawyers or litterateurs without any titles and for Barras, a street-general, who never saw a regular battle? Moreover on this skeleton of France, desiccated by five years of spoliation, how can the armed swarm be fed even provisionally, the swarm, which, for two years past, subsists only through devouring neighboring nations? Afterwards, how disband four hundred thousand hungry officers and soldiers? And how, with an empty Treasury, supply the millions which, by a solemn decree, under the title of a national recompense, have once more just been promised to them.51117 Nothing but a prolonged war, or designedly begun again, a war indefinitely and systematically extended, a war supported by conquest and pillage can give armies food, keep generals busy, the nation resigned, the maintenance of power of the ruling faction, and secure to the Directors their places, their profits, their dinners and their mistresses. And this is why they, at first, break with England through repeated exactions, and then with Austria and the Emperor, through premeditated attacks, and again with Switzerland, Piedmont, Tuscany, Naples, Malta, Russia and even the Porte.51118 At length, the veils fall and the character of the sect stands out nakedly. Defense of the country, deliverance of the people, all its grand phrases disappear in the realm of empty words. It reveals itself just as it is, an association of pirates on a cruise, who after ravaging their own coast, go further off and capture bodies and goods, men and things. Having eaten France, the Parisian band undertakes to eat all Europe, "leaf by leaf, like the head of an artichoke."51119
Why recount the tragic comedy they play at home and which they repeat abroad? The piece abroad is the same as that played in Paris for the past eight years,51120 an absurd, hasty translation in Flemish, Dutch, German, and Italian, a local adaptation, just as it happens, with variations, elisions and abbreviations, but always with the same ending, a shower of blows with gun and sword on all property-owners, communities, and individuals, compelling the surrender of their purses and valuables of every description, and which they gave up, even to remaining without a sou or even a shirt. As a rule, the nearest general, or resident titulary in every small state which has to be turned to account, stirs up malcontents against the established authorities, never lacking under the ancient régime, especially all social outcasts, adventurers, coffee-house ranters and young hot-heads, in short the Jacobins of the country; these, to the French representative, are henceforth the people of the country, if only a knot of the vilest sort. The legal authorities are forbidden to repress them, or punish them; they are inviolable. Employing threats or main force, he interferes in their support, or to sanction their assaults; he breaks up, or obliges them to break up, the vital organ of society; here, royalty or aristocracy, there, the senate and the magistracy, everywhere the old hierarchy, all cantonal, provincial and municipal statutes and secular federation or constitutions. He then inaugurates on this cleared ground the government of Reason, that is to say, some artificial imitation of the French constitution; he himself, to this end, appoints the new magistrates. If he allows them to be elected, it is by his clients and under his bayonets; this constitutes a subject republic under the name of an ally, and which commissioners dispatched from Paris manage to the beat of the drum. The revolutionary régime with anti-Christian despoiling and leveling laws, is despotically applied. The 18th of Fructidor is carried out over and over again; the constitution is revised according to the last Parisian pattern, while the Legislative Corps and Directory are repeatedly purged in military fashion.51121 Only valets are tolerated at the head of it: its army is added to the French army; twenty thousand Swiss are drafted in Switzerland and made to fight against the Swiss and the friends of Switzerland. Belgium, incorporated with France, is subjected to the conscription. National and religious sentiment suppressed, exploited, offended, to the extend of stirring up insurrections,51122 religious and national. Five or six rural and lasting Vendées take place in Belgium, Switzerland, Piedmont, Venetia, Lombardy, the Roman States and Naples, while fire, pillaging and shooting are employed to repress them. Any description of this would be feeble; statements in figures are necessary and I can give but two.
One of them is the list of robberies committed abroad,51123 and this comprises only the rapine executed according to order; it omits private plunderings without any orders by officers, generals, soldiers and commissaries; these are enormous, but cannot be estimated. The only approximate total which can be arrived at, is the authentic list of robberies which the Jacobin corsair, authorized by letters of marque, had already committed in December, 1798, outside of France, on public or on private parties; exactions in coin imposed in Belgium, Holland, Germany and Italy, amounting to 655 millions; seizure and removal of gold and silver objects, plate, jewels, works of art and other precious objects, 305 millions; requisitions of provisions, 361 millions; confiscations of the property, real estate and movables, of deposed sovereigns, that of the regular and secular clergy, that of corporations and associations even laic, of absent or fugitive proprietors, 700 millions; in all, in three years 2 billion livres.—If we closely examine this monstrous sum, we find, as in the coffers of an Algerian pirate, a booty which up to this time, belligerent Christians, commanders of regular armies, would have shrunk from taking, and on which the Jacobin chiefs incontinently and preferably lay hands:
* the plate and furniture of churches in the Netherlands, in Liège, and in the Electoral sections of the Lower Rhine, 25 millions;
* the plate and furniture of churches in Lombardy, in the three Legations, in the State of Venice, in Modena, and the States of the Church, 65 millions;
* diamonds, plate, gold crosses and other depots of the Monts.de-piété at Milan, Bologna, Ravenna, Modena, Venice and Rome, 56 millions;
* furniture and works of art at Milan and in other towns, 5 millions;
* furniture and works of art in the Venetian towns and palaces of Brenta, 6, 500,000;
* the spoils of Rome sacked, as formerly by the mercenaries of the Duc de Bourbon, collections of antiques, pictures, bronzes, statues, the treasures of the Vatican and of palaces, jewels, even the pastoral ring of the Pope, which the Directorial commissary himself wrests from the Pope's finger, 43 millions,
and all this without counting analogous articles, and especially direct assessments levied on this or that individual as rich or a proprietor,51124 veritable ransoms, similar to those demanded by the bandits of Calabria and Greece, extorted from any traveler they surprise on the highway.—
Naturally operations of this kind cannot be carried on without instruments of constraint; the Parisian manipulators must have military automatons, "saber hilts" in sufficient numbers. Now, through constant slashing, a good many hilts break, and the broken ones must be replaced; in October, 1798, 200,000 new ones are required, while the young men drafted for the purpose fail to answer the summons and fly, and even resist with arms, especially in Belgium,51125 by maintaining a revolt for many months, with this motto: "Better die here than elsewhere."51126 To compel their return, they are hunted down and brought to the depot with their hands tied. If they hide away, soldiers are stationed in their parents' houses. If the conscript or drafted man has sought refuge in a foreign country, even in an allied country as in Spain, he is officially inscribed on the list of émigrés, and therefore, in case of return, shot within twenty-four hours; meanwhile, his property is sequestrated and likewise that of "his father, mother and grandparents."51127—"Formerly," says a contemporary, "reason and philosophy thundered against the rigors of punishment inflicted on deserters; but, since French reason has perfected Liberty it is no longer the small class of regular soldiers whose evasion is punished with death, but an entire generation. An extreme penalty no longer suffices for these legislative philanthropists: they add confiscation, they despoil parents for the misdemeanors of their children, and render even women responsible for a military and personal offence."
Such is the admirable calculation of the Directory—that, if it loses a soldier it gains a patrimony, and if the patrimony fails, it recovers the soldier: in any event, it fills its coffers and its ranks, while the faction, well supplied with men, may continue turning all Europe to account, wasting, in the operation, as many French lives as it pleases; requiring more than one hundred thousand men per annum, which, including those which the Convention has squandered, makes nearly nine hundred thousand in eight years.51128 At this moment the five Directors and their minions are completing the mowing down of the virile, adult strength of the nation,51129 and we have seen through what motives and for what object. I do not believe that any civilized nation was ever sacrificed in the same way, for such a purpose and by such rulers: the crippled remnant of a faction and sect, some hundreds of preachers no longer believing in their creed, usurpers as despised as they are detested, second-rate parvenus raised their heads not through their capacity or merit, but through the blind upheavals of a revolution, swimming on the surface for lack of weight, and, like foul scum, borne along to the crest of the wave-such are the wretches who strangle France under the pretence of setting her free, who bleed her under the pretence of making her strong, who conquer populations under the pretence of emancipating them, who despoil people under the pretence of regenerating them, and who, from Brest to Lucerne, from Amsterdam to Naples, slay and rob wholesale, systematically, to strengthen the incoherent dictatorship of their brutality, folly and corruption.
National antipathy to the established order of things.
—Paralysis of the State.—Internal discords of the Jacobin
party.—Coup d'État of Floréal 22, year VI.—Coup d'État of
Prairial 30, year VII.—Impossibility of establishing a
viable government.—Plans of Barras and Siéyès.
Once again has triumphant Jacobinism shown its anti-social nature, its capacity for destruction, its impotence to re-construct.—The nation, vanquished and discouraged, no longer resists, but, if it submits it is as to a pestilence, while its transportations, its administrative purifications, its decrees placing towns in a state of siege, its daily violence, only exasperate the mute antipathy.
"Everything has been done," says an honest Jacobin,51130 "to alienate the immense majority of citizens from the Revolution and the Republic, even those who had contributed to the downfall of the monarchy... Instead of seeing the friends of the Revolution increase as we have advanced on the revolutionary path.... we see our ranks thinning out and the early defenders of liberty deserting our cause."
It is impossible for the Jacobins to rally France and reconcile her to their ways and dogmas, and on this point their own agents leave no illusion.
"Here," writes the Troyes agent,51131 "public spirit not only needs to be revived, but it needs to be re-created. Scarcely one-fifth of the citizens side with the government, and this fifth is hated and despised by the majority.... Who attend upon and celebrate the national fêtes? Public functionaries whom the law summons to them, and many of these fêtes often dispense with them. It is the same public spirit which does not allow honest folks to take part in them and in the addresses made at them, and which keeps those women away who ought to be their principal ornament.... The same public spirit looks only with indifference and contempt on the republican, heroic actions given on the stage, and welcomes with transport all that bears any allusion to royalty and the ancient régime. The parvenus themselves of the Revolution, the generals, the deputies, dislike Jacobin institutions;51132 they place children in the chapel schools and send them to the confessional, while the deputies who, in '92 and '93, showed the most animosity to priests, do not consider their daughter well brought up unless she has made her first communion. "—
The little are still more hostile than the great.
"A fact unfortunately too true," writes the commissary of a rural canton,51133 "is that the people en masse seem not to want any of our institutions.... It is considered well-bred, even among country folks, to show disdain for everything characteristic of republican usages... Our rich farmers, who have profited most by the Revolution, are the bitterest enemies of its forms: any citizen who depended on them for the slightest favor and thought it well to address them as citizen, would be turned out of their houses."
To call someone Citizen is an insult, and patriot a still greater one; for this term signifies Jacobin, partisan, murderer, robber51134 and, as they were then styled, "man-eaters." What is worse is that a falsification of the word has brought discredit on the thing.—Nobody, say the reports, troubles himself about the general interest;51135 nobody will serve as national guard or mayor.
"Public spirit has fallen into such a lethargic slumber as to make one fear its complete collapse. Our successes or our failures excite neither uneasiness nor pleasure.51136 It seems, on reading the accounts of battles, as if it were the history of another people. The changes that take place within our borders no longer excite any emotion; one asks out of curiosity, one is answered without any interest, one learns with indifference."
"The pleasures of Paris51137 are not disturbed a moment by any the Crises which succeed each other, nor by those which are feared. Never were the theatres and public entertainments more frequented. At the 'Tivoli,' it is said that it is going to be worse than ever; the country (patrie) is called la patraque, and dancing goes on."
This is understandable enough; how can one interest one's self in the public weal when there is none, when the common patrimony of all has become the private property of a gang, when this gang is devouring or wasting all in the interior and outside the frontier, where it is playing heads or tails? The Jacobins, through their final victory, have dried patriotism up, that is to say, the deep inward spring which supplies the substance, the vitality and the force of the State.—In vain do they multiply rigorous decrees and imperious prescriptions; each energetic blow is absorbed by the general and mute resistance of intentional passivity and of insurmountable disgust. They do not obtain from their subjects any of that unconscious obedience, that degree of passive co-operation, without which the law remains a dead letter.51138 Their Republic, so young,
"is attacked by that nameless malady which commonly attacks only old governments, a species of senile consumption to which one can give no other definition than that of the difficulty of living; nobody strives to overthrow it, although it seems to have lost the power of standing erect."51139
Not only does their domination paralyze instead of animating the State, but, with their own hands, they undermine the order they themselves have established. Whether legal or extra-legal, it makes no difference: under their rule, no constitution, made and remade, no government, not even that of their leaders, can survive. Once masters of France, they quarrel over it amongst themselves, each claiming for himself the whole of the prey. Those who are in office want to stay there; those who are out want to get in. Thus is formed two factions, while each repeats against the other the coup d'état which both have together carried out against the nation.—According to the ruling clique, its adversaries are simply "anarchists," former Septembriseurs, Robespierre's confederates, the accomplices of Babeuf, eternal conspirators. Now, as in the year VI., the five regents still keep the saber-hilt firm in their grasp, and can therefore make the Legislative Corps to vote as they please. On the 22nd of Floréal, the government cancels, in whole or in part, in forty-five departments, the new elections, not alone those of representatives, but again those of judges, public prosecutors, and the grand-jurymen. Then it dismisses the terrorist administrations in the departments and towns.51140—According to their adversaries (la coterie gouvernée), the Directory and its agents are false patriots, usurpers, oppressors, despisers of the law, squanderers and inept politicians. As all this is true, and as the Directory, in the year VIII., used up through its twenty-one months of omnipotence, out of credit on account of its reverses, despised by its generals, hated by the beaten and unpaid army, dares no longer and can no longer raise the sword, the ultra Jacobins resume the offensive, have themselves elected through their kith and kin, re-conquer the majority in the Legislative Corps, and, in their turn, purge the Directory on the 30 of Prairial. Treilhard, Merlin de Douai, and La Revellière-Lepaux are driven out; narrow fanatics replace them, Gohier, Moulins and Roger Ducos. Ghosts from the period of the Terror install themselves in the ministries, Robert Lindet in the Treasury, Fouché in the Police. Everywhere, in the departments, they put in or restore "the exclusives," that is to say, the resolute scoundrels who have proved their capacity.51141 The Jacobins re-open their Club under its old name in the hall of the Manége. Two directors and one hundred and fifty members of the Legislative Corps fraternize with "all that the dregs of the people provide that is vilest and most disgusting." Eulogies are here pronounced on Robespierre and on Babeuf himself; they demand the levy en masse and the disarming of "suspects." Jourdan exclaims in a toast, "Here's to the resurrection of pikes! May they in the people's hands crush out all its enemies!" In the council of the Five Hundred, the same Jourdan proposes in the tribune to declare the "country in danger," while the gang of shouting politicians, the bull-dogs of the streets and tribunes, gather around the hesitating representatives and howl and threaten as in 1793.
Is it, then, the régime of 1793 which is about to be set up in France?—Not even that one. Immediately after the victory, the victors 30 of Prairial separated and formed two camps of enemies, watching each other with arms in hand, entrenched and making sorties on each other:
On one side are the simple bandits and the lowest of the populace, the followers of Marat, incorrigible monomaniacs, headstrong, conceited spirits proud of their crimes and disposed to repeat them rather than admit their guilt, the dogmatic simpletons who go ahead with their eyes shut and who have forgotten everything and learnt nothing. On the other side, men still possessing common sense, and who have profited somewhat by experience, who know what a government of clubs and pikes leads to, who fear for themselves and are unwilling to begin again, step by step, the mad course on which at each stage, they have come near perishing.
On one side two members of the Directory, the minority of the Ancients, the majority of the Five Hundred, and the vilest of the Parisian rabble. On the other, the majority of the Ancients, the minority of the Five Hundred and three members of the Directory, the latter supported by their executive staff.51142—
Which of the two troops will crush the other? Nobody knows; for most of them are ready to pass from one to the other camp according as the chances for success appear more or less great. And, from day to day, any defection amongst the Five Hundred, amongst the Ancients or in the Directory, foreseen or not, may change a minority into a majority. Where will the majority be to-morrow? From which side is the next coup d'état to come—Who will make it? Will it be the ultra Jacobins, and, through another 9th of Thermidor, will they declare the mitigated Jacobins "outlaws?" Will it be the mitigated Jacobins, and, through another 18th of Fructidor, will they put the ultras under lock and key? If one or the other of these blows is struck, will it succeed? And if it succeeds will a stable government be at last established? Siéyès well knows that it will not; he is farseeing in his acts, although chimerical in his theories. In power himself, titular Director, counselor and guardian of the intelligent republic against the stupid republic, he well knows that all of them, so long as they are republicans of both bands, take a road without an issue.51143 Barras is of the same opinion, and taking time by the forelock, turns around and promises Louis XVIII. his co-operation in restoring the legitimate monarchy in exchange he receives letters patent granting him full pardon, exemption from all future prosecution and a promise of twelve millions.—Siéyès, more sagacious, seeks force where it exists, in the army; he prepares Joubert, sounds Moreati, thinks of Jourdan, of Bernadotte and of Macdonald, before surrendering himself to Bonaparte; "he requires a sword." Boulay de la Meurthe, comparing in a pamphlet the English revolution with the French revolution, announces and brings on the establishment of a military protectorate.—"The Constitution of the year III. will not work," said Baudin, one of the Five Hundred, to Cornet, one of the Ancients, "only I do not see where to find the executive arm." The Jacobin republic still lives, and its servants, its doctors, already speak aloud of its interment the same as strangers and heirs in the room of a dying man who has become unconscious, like Tiberius when sinking in his palace at Misene.51144—If the expiring man does not go fast enough some one will help him. The old monster, borne down with crimes and rotten with vices, rattles in his throat on his purple cushions; his eyes are closed, his pulse is feeble, and he gasps for breath. Here and there, around is bed, stand groups of those who minister to his debauches at Capri and his murders at Rome, his minions and executioners who publicly take part in the new reign; the old one is finished; one need no longer be circumspect and mute before corpse. Suddenly the dying man opens his eyes, speaks and asks for food. The military tribune, " the executive arm," boldly clears the apartment; he throws a pile of bedclothes over the old man's head and quickens the last sigh. Such is the final blow; an hour later and breathing stops.
Anti-social character of the sect and the faction.—Contrast
between civil and military France.—Elements of
reorganization in institutions, habits, and in military
sentiments.—Character of the régime instituted on the 18th
of Brumaire, year VIII.
If the Jacobin Republic dies, it is not merely on account of decay, nor because of its murders, but, and above all, because it is not born viable: at the outset it harbored within itself a principle of dissolution an innate mortal poison, not alone for others but for itself.—That which maintains a political society is the mutual respect of its members, especially the respect of the governed for its rulers and of the rulers for the governed, and, therefore, habits of mutual trust and confidence. On the part of the governed, a well-grounded certainty that the rulers will not attack private rights, and, on the part of the rulers, a well-founded certainty that the governed will not attack public powers; both inwardly recognizing that these rights, more or less broad or restricted, are inviolable; that these powers, more or less ample or limited, are legitimate. Finally, each being convinced that, in case of conflict, the trial will be conducted according to forms which law or custom provide; that pending the discussion, the strongest will not abuse his strength, and that, when the discussion is over, the successful party will not wholly sacrifice the loser. Only on this condition can there be harmony between governors and the governed, participation of all in the common work, internal tranquility, and, accordingly, stability, security, well-being and force. Without this deep and persistent disposition of minds and hearts, the bond of union among men is absent. It constitutes the brightest of social sentiments; it may be said that this is the soul of which the State is the body.—Now, in the Jacobin State, this soul has perished; it has not died out through unforeseen accidents, but through a forced result of the system, through a practical effect of the speculative theory, which, converting each man into an absolute sovereign, sets every man warring against other men, and which, under the pretence of regenerating the human species, lets loose, authorizes and consecrates the worst instincts of human nature, all the lusts of license, tyranny and domination.—In the name of a non-existent ideal people whom it declares sovereign, the Jacobins have violently usurped all public powers, brutally abolished all private rights, regarding the actual living people as a beast of burden, and yet worse, as a robot, subjecting their human machine to the cruelest restraints in order to mechanically maintain it in the unnatural, rigid posture, which, according to principles, they inflict upon it. Thenceforth, all ties are sundered between them and the nation; to prey upon, bleed and starve this nation, to re-conquer it after it bad escaped them, to repeatedly enchain and gag it—all this they could well do; but to reconcile it to their government, never!—Between them, and for the same reason, through another consequence of the same theory, and another effect of the same lusts, no bond between them would hold. Each faction inside of the party, having forged its ideal people according to its own logical process and necessities, exercised the orthodox privilege of claiming the monopoly of sovereignty.51145 To secure the benefits of omnipotence, it has combated its rivals with falsified, annulled or constrained elections, with plots and mendacity, with ambushes and sudden assaults, with the pikes of the rabble and with the bayonets of soldiers. It has then massacred, guillotined, shot, and deported the vanquished as tyrants, traitors or rebels, and survivors do not forget this. They have learnt what their so called eternal constitutions amount to; they know how to estimate their proclamations and oaths, their respect for law, justice, their humanity; they understand them and know that they are all so many fraternal Cains,51146 all more or less debased, dangerous, soiled and depraved by their work; the distrust is irremediable. They can still turn out manifests, decrees and cabals, and get up revolutions, but they can no longer agree amongst themselves and heartily defer to the justified ascendancy and recognized authority of any one or among their own body.—After ten years of mutual assault there is not one among the three thousand legislators who have sat in the sovereign assemblies that can count on the deference and loyalty of a hundred Frenchmen. The social body is disintegrated; amongst the millions of disconnected atoms not a nucleus of spontaneous cohesion and stable co-ordination remains. It is impossible for civil France to reconstruct itself; as impossible as it would be to build a Notre Dame of Paris, or a St. Peter's of Rome out of the slime of the streets or the dust of the highways.
With military France it is otherwise. Here, men have made trial of each other, and are devoted to each other, subordinates to their leaders, and all to one great work. The sentiments are strong and healthy which bind human wills in a cluster of mutual sympathy, trust, esteem and admiration, and all these super abound, while the free companionship which still subsists between inferior and superior,51147 that gay unrestrained familiarity so dear to the French, draws the knot still closer. In this world unsullied by political defilements and ennobled by habits of abnegation,51148 there is all that constitutes an organized and visible society, a hierarchy, not external and veneered, but moral and deep-seated, with uncontested titles, recognized superiorities, an accepted subordination, rights and duties stamped on all consciences, in brief, what has always been wanting in revolutionary institutions, the discipline of sentiments and emotions. Give to these men a countersign and they do not discuss; provided it is legal, or seems so, they act accordingly, not merely against strangers, but against Frenchmen: thus, already on the 13th Vendémiaire they mowed down the Parisians, and on the 18th of Fructidor they purged the Legislative Corps. Let a famous general appear, and provided he respects formalities, they will follow him and once more repeat the operation.—One does appear, one who for three years has thought of nothing else, but who on this occasion will repeat the operation only for his own advantage. He is the most illustrious of all, and precisely the conductor or promoter of the two previous ones, the very same who personally brought about the 13th of Vendémiaire, and likewise, at the hands of his lieutenant, Augereau, the 18th of Fructidor.—Let him be authorized by the semblance of a decree, let him be appointed major-general of the armed force by a minority of one of the Councils, and the army will march behind him.—Let him issue the usual proclamations, let him summon "his comrades" to save the Republic and clear the hall of the Five Hundred; his grenadiers will enter with fixed bayonets and even laugh at the sight of the deputies, dressed as for the opera, scrambling off precipitately out of the windows.51149—Let him manage the transitions, let him avoid the ill-sounding name of dictator, let him assume a modest and yet classic revolutionary Roman title, let him along with two others be simple consuls; the soldiers, who have neither time nor leisure to be publicists and who are only skin-deep republicans, will ask nothing more. They regard their system as a very good one for the French people, the despotic system without which there can be no army, that which places the absolute command in the hands of one individual.—Let him put down other Jacobins, let him revoke their late decrees on hostages and the forced loan, let him restore safety and security to persons, property and consciences; let him bring back order, economy and efficiency to the administrations; let him provide for public services, hospitals, roads and schools, the whole of civil France will welcome its liberator, protector and restorer.51150—In his own words, the system he brings is that of "the alliance of Philosophy with the Sword," philosophy meaning, as it was then understood, the application of abstract principles to politics, the logical construction of a State according to general and simple notices with a social plan, uniform and rectilinear. Now as we have seen,51151 two of these plans square with this theory, one anarchical and the other despotic; naturally, the master adopts the latter, and, like a practical man, he builds according to that theory a substantial edifice, with sand and lime, habitable and well suited to its purposes. All the masses of the great work-civil code, university, Concordat, prefectoral and centralized administration-all the details of its arrangement and distribution of places, tend to one general effect, which is the omnipotence of the State, the omnipresence of the government, the abolition of local and private initiative, the suppression of voluntary free association, the gradual dispersion of small spontaneous groupings, the preventive ban of prolonged hereditary works, the extinction of sentiments by which the individual lives beyond himself in the past or in the future. Never were finer barracks constructed, more symmetrical and more decorative in aspect, more satisfactory to superficial views, more acceptable to vulgar good sense, more suited to narrow egoism, better kept and cleaner, better adapted to the discipline of the average and low elements of human nature, and better adapted to dispersing or perverting the superior elements of human nature. In this philosophical barracks we have lived for eighty years.
THE END.
(written in 1889).
5101 (return)
[ Gaudin, Duc de Gaëte,
"Memoires," I., 28. Gaudin, commissioner of the Treasury, meets the
president of the revolutionary committee of his quarter, an excellent
Jacobin, who says to him: "Eh, well, what's all this? Robespierre
proscribed! Is it possible? What is wanted—everything was going on
so well!" (It is true that fifty or sixty heads fell daily.) "I replied,
'Just so, there are some folks that are never satisfied.'"]
5102 (return)
[ Mallet-Dupan,
"Mémoires," II., 16. (Letter of January 8, 1795.)—Ibid.,
"Correspondance avec la cour de Vienne," I., 23, 25, 32, 34, (January 8,
1795, on the four parties com posing the Convention).]
5103 (return)
[ Marshal Marmont:
"Memoires," I., 120. (Report of General Dugommier on the capture of
Toulon.) "That memorable day avenged the general will of a partial and
gangrened will, the delirium of which caused the greatest misfortunes."]
5104 (return)
[ Memorial of the
ninety-four survivors Thermidor 30, year II., acquitted Fructidor 28.]
5105 (return)
[ Carrier indicted
Brumaire 21, year III. Decree of arrest passed by 498 out of 500 votes,
Frimaire 3; execution Frimaire 26. Fouquier-Tinville indicted Frimaire 28;
execution Floréal 28, there being 419 witnesses heard. Joseph Lebon
indicted Messidor I, year III. Trial adjourned to the Somme court,
Messidor 29; execution Vendémiaire 24, year IV.]
5106 (return)
[ Cf. chapters 4, 5 and
6 of the present volume. Numbers of printed documents of this epoch show
what these local sovereigns were. The principal ones in the department of
Ain were "Anselm, who had placed Marat's head in his shop. Duclos, a
joiner, living before the 31st of May on his earnings; he became after
that a gentleman living on his rents, owning national domains, sheep,
horses and pocket books filled with assignats. Laimant, a tailor, in debt,
furnishing his apartment suddenly with all the luxuriousness of the
ancient regime, such as beds at one hundred pistoles etc. Alban, mayor,
placing seals everywhere, was a blacksmith and father of a family which he
supported by his labor; all at once he stops working, and passes from a
state of dependence to one of splendor; he has diamonds and earrings,
always wearing new clothes, fine linen shirts, muslin cravates, silk
stockings, etc.; on removing the seals in the houses of those imprisoned
and guillotined, little or nothing was found in them. Alban was denounced
and incarcerated for having obliged a woman of Macon to give him four
hundred francs on promising to interest himself in her husband. Such are
the Ain patriots. Rollet, another, had so frightened the rural districts
that the people ran away on his approach; on one occasion he had two of
them harnessed to his carriage and drove them along for some time in this
manner... Another, Charcot (of Virieu), before the Revolution, was a
highway assassin, and was banished for three years for an act of this
description." (Bibliotheque Nationale. Lb. 41, No. 1318. "The truth in
reply to calumnious charges against the department of Ain." Letter of
Roux, Vendémiaire, year III.)]
5107 (return)
[ Decree of Germinal
12, year III: for the transportation of Collot, Barère, Billaud-Varennes
and Vadier. Eight Montagnards are put under arrest.—Decree of
Germinal 14: the same against nine other Montagnards.?Decree of Germinal
29: the same against Maribon-Montant.—Decree of Prairial 6:
twenty-nine Montagnards are indicted.—Decree of Prairial 8: putting
six Montagnards under arrest.—Decree of Prairial 9: the same against
nine members of former committees.—Decrees of Prairial 10 to
Thermidor 22, year III: condemning 6 Montagnards to death, one to
transportation and twenty put under arrest.]
5108 (return)
[ Barbé-Marbois,"
Mémoires," preface, p. VIII. "Except about fifty men who are honest and
intelligent, history presents no sovereign assembly containing so much
vice, abjectness and ignorance."??Buchez et Roux, XXXVII., 7. (Speech by
Legendre, Thermidor 17, year III.) "It is stated in print that, at most,
there are but twenty pure men in this Assembly."—Ibid., 27. Order of
the Lepelletier section, Vendemiaire 10, year IV. "It is certain that we
owe the dearth and all its accompanying evils to the incapacity and
brigandage of the present government."]
5109 (return)
[ Mallet-Dupan,
"Correspondance," etc., I., 211. (May 27, 1795.)]
5110 (return)
[ "Un Sejour en
France," 267. 271, (Amiens, March 13, April 12, 1795.)]
5111 (return)
[ Meissner, "Voyage à
Paris," 123, 351. (The author arrives in Paris, September 22, 1795.)]
5112 (return)
[ Decrees of Fructidor
5 and 13, year III.]
5113 (return)
[ Mallet-Dupan
("Correspondance avec la cour de Vienne," I., 292, August 30, 1795).—Moniteur,
XXV., 518, 551. (Session of Fructidor 3.) The first idea of the commission
of Eleven was to have the Convention itself choose the two-thirds. "Its
opponents took advantage of the public outcry and broke off this plan....
of the Girondist cabal." Louvet, Fructidor 3, mounted three times into the
tribune to support this project, still more scandalous than the other.
"Eh, what electoral assembly could be better than yours! You all know each
other well." Louvet adds this significant expression: "The armies also
will vote the new constitution. I have no fears of its fate."]
5114 (return)
[ Moniteur, XXII, 22.
(Report of Lindet, 4th sans-culottide, year II.) "Each man confines
himself to his family and calculates his resources."]
5115 (return)
[ Meissner, 58.]
5116 (return)
[ Decree of Fructidor
s. "All Frenchmen who voted at the last primary assemblies will be
admitted to vote on the acceptance of the Constitution."—Archives
Nationales, A. II. B. 638. (General recapitulation of the vote on the
Constitution of the year III and on the decrees of Fructidor 5 and 13
printed by order of the Convention Vendémiaire, year IV.) Number of voters
on the constitutional bill, 1,107,368.]
5117 (return)
[ Moniteur, XXV., 637.
(Address to Frenchmen by Lareveillère-Lepeaux, in the name of the
Commission of Eleven, affixed to the decree of Fructidor 13.) "Let all
opposition to the legitimacy of this measure cease! The only legitimate
measure is that which saves the country! Besides, if the majority of the
primary assemblies of France approve of it, who dares say that the people
would have renounced its sovereignty in thus expressing its will!"—Cf.
Sauzay, VII., 653 to 667, on the details and circumstances of the
elections in one of the departments.]
5118 (return)
[ Archives Nationales1
A. II. B., 688. (Procés-verbaux of the primary meetings of
Seine-Inférieure, Dieppe, "Liberté" section, session of Fructidor 20.) The
constitution is unanimously accepted by forty-four voters, on a call of
names. Then, "before proceeding to the nomination of electors the law was
read, concerning the mode of electing the two-thirds of the National
Convention. The President having asked if any one wished to speak on this
law the order of the day was immediately called for on all sides." The
electors are appointed forthwith and the assembly adjourns.-The clerk, who
has to draw up the minutes, writes on the margin "forty-four voters
unanimously accept the Constitution as well as the decrees of Fructidor 5
and 13," which is false. It is clear that the scribe had been instructed
to enlarge the number of votes accepting the decrees, which suggests
doubts on the truth of the total furnished by the convention.]
5119 (return)
[ Ibid., A. II. B., 638
(General recapitulation). I have taken the number of primary assemblies in
the twenty-two first departments on the alphabetical list, that is to say,
one quarter of the territory, which warrants a conclusion,
proportionately, on the whole country. In these twenty-two departments,
1,570 assemblies vote on the constitution and only three hundred and
twenty-eight on the decrees. The figures are herewith given: in the
Côtes-du-Nord, eighty-four primary assemblies; only one votes in favor of
the decrees. Bouches du Rhone, ninety primary assemblies; four vote on the
decrees, two for and two against. Aude, eighty-three primary assemblies;
four vote on the decrees, three for and one against. Arriége, fifty-nine
primary assemblies; two vote on the decrees. Basses-Alpes, forty-eight
primary assemblies: two vote on the decrees. Maritime Alps, twenty-three
primary assemblies; not one votes on the decrees.]
5120 (return)
[ Ibid.,
(Procés-verbaux of the primary assemblies of the department of the Seine,
Popincourt section, Vendémiaire) 91. This section, on learning that its
vote against the decrees" was put down as a cipher in the general count of
votes," protested and declared that "when the vote was taken at the
meeting of Fructidor 22, it was composed of 845 citizens representing
2,594 votes." Nevertheless, in the general recapitulation of Vendémiaire
its vote counts for nothing.—The same remark for the "Fidélité"
section. Its minutes state that the décrees are rejected "unanimously,"
and that it is composed of 1,300 citizens; its vote, likewise, goes for
nothing. The totals given by the recapitulation are as follows: Voters on
the Constitution, 1,107,368. For, 1,057,390. Against, 49,978.—Voters
on the Decrees, 314,382. For, 205,498. Against, 108,794.—Mallet-Dupan
(I., 313) estimates the number of electors, at Paris, who rejected the
decrees, at eighty thousand. Fiévée, "Correspondance avec Bonaparte,"
introduction, p. 126.—(A few days before Vendémiaire 13, Fiévée, in
the name of the Theatre-Français section, came, with two other
commissioners, to verify the returns announced by the Convention.) "We
divided the returns into three parts; each commissioner undertook to check
off one of these parts, pen in hand, and the conscientious result of our
labor was to show that, although the Convention had voting done in a mass
by all the regiments then in France, individually, the majority,
incontestably was against its project. Thus, while trying to have the
election law passed under the Constitution, both measures were rejected."]
5121 (return)
[ Schmidt, "Tableaux de
Paris pendant la Revolution." (Reports of Messidor 1 and 24, year III.)
"Good citizens are alarmed at the numerous pardons granted to the members
of the revolutionary committees." "The release of numerous terrorists is
generally turned to account."—Mallet-Dupan, "Correspondance," etc.,
I., 259, 261, 321. "The vilest terrorists have been set free; a part of
them confined in the chateau of Ham have been allowed to escape; they are
summoned from all parts of the kingdom; they even send for them abroad, in
Germany, in Belgium, in Savoy, in Geneva. On reaching Paris they are given
leaders and organized. September 11 and 12 they began to meet publicly in
groups and to use threats. I have proof of emissaries being engaged in
recruiting them in the places I have mentioned and in paying their
expenses to the capital." (Letter of September 26, 1795.)]
5122 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXXVII., 36, 49. (Reports of Merlin de Douai and Barras on the 13th of
Vendémiaire.)—Thibaudeau, "Histoire de la Convention et du
Directoire," I., 209.—Fabre de l'Aude, "Histoire secrete du
Directoire," I., p.10. "The Convention opened the prison doors to fifteen
or eighteen hundred Jacobin lunatics, zealots of the former members of the
Committee of Public Safety."—Mallet Dupan, (ibid., I., 332, 337,
361,) estimates the numbers of terrorists enrolled at three thousand.]
5123 (return)
[ Barbé-Marbois,
"Mémoires,"9.—Meissner, p.246.]
5124 (return)
[ Mallet-Dupan, ibid.,
I., 282. (Letter of August 16, 1795.) "At Paris, the patriots of 1789 have
got the upper hand. The regicides have the greatest horror of this class
because they regard it as a hundred times more dangerous than pronounced
aristocrats." Ibid., 316.—Meissner, p. 229. "The sectionists want
neither a republic nor monarchy but simply intelligent and honest men for
the places in the new Convention."]
5125 (return)
[ Lavalette,
"Mémoires," I., 162, 170.]
5126 (return)
[ Meissner, p. 236.—Any
number of details show the features and characters of the male and female
Jacobins here referred to. For example, Carnot, ("Mémoires," I., 581,)
says in his narrative of the foregoing riot, (Prairial 1st.): "A creature
with a horrible face put himself astride my bench and kept constantly
repeating: 'To-day is the day we'll make you passer le gout de pain? and
furies posted in the tribunes, made signs of the guillotine.'"]
5127 (return)
[ Meissner, p.
238.-Fiévée, p.127, and following pages.]
5128 (return)
[ Mallet-Dupan, I.,
333, and following pages. (Letter of October 24, 1795.) "Barras does not
repeat the mistake made by the Court on the 10th of April, and shut
himself up in the chateau and the Tuileries; he posts troops and artillery
in all the avenues.... Fréron and two other representatives, supplied with
coin and assignats collected in the faubourg Saint-Antoine, four or five
hundred bandits which joined the terrorists; these formed the pretended
battalions of the loyal section which had been pompously announced to the
Convention. No section, excepting the" Quinze-vingts," sent its battalion,
this section having separated at the outset from the other forty-seven
sections.... The gardens and court of the Tuileries resembled a feasting
camp, where the Committees caused distributions of wine and all sorts of
provisions; many of their defenders were intoxicated; the troops of the
line were kept loyal with money and drink."—After Vendemiaire 13,
the Convention brings further reinforcements of regular troops into Paris
to keep the city under, amounting to eight or nine thousand men.]
5129 (return)
[ Constitution of year
III., Articles VI. and VII.]
5130 (return)
[ Albert Babeau,
"Histoire de Troyes," II., 367 and following pages. Sauzay, "Hist. de la
Persecution Révolutionnaire dans le Doubs," VIII., ch. 52 and 54—Law
of Pluviôse 4, year IV., authorizing the executive Directory to appoint
the members who, up to Thermidor I, year IV., shall compose the municipal
bodies of Bordeaux, Lyons, Marseilles and Paris.]
5131 (return)
[ Decree of Brumaire 3,
year IV.]
5132 (return)
[ Archives Nationales,
AF., II., 65. (Letter of Gen. Kermorvan, to the Com. of Public Safety,
Valenciennes, Fructidor 22, year III.) At Valenciennes, during the
elections, "the leaders of the sections used their fists in driving out of
the primary assemblies all the worthy men possessing the necessary
qualities for election.... I knew that the "seal-breakers,"
(brise-scellés), were the promoters of these turbulent parties, the
patriotic robbers, the men who have wasted public and private fortunes
belonging to the commune, and who are reveling in the houses and on the
estates of the émigrés which they have had awarded to them at a hundred
times below their value.. .. All of them are appointed electors.... They
have paid. ... and still pay agitators to intimidate honest folks by
terror, in order to keep what they have seized, awaiting an opportunity to
get more.... When the elections were over they sent daring men,
undoubtedly paid, to insult people as they passed, calling them royalist
chouans." (He mentions the dispatch of supporting affidavits.)—Mercier,
"Le Nouveau Paris," II., 315. "Peaceable people in Paris refuse to go to
the polls," so as to "avoid being struck and knocked down."—Sauzay,
VIII., 9. At Besançon, Nov. 6, 1795, out of 5,309 registered voters, only
1,324 vote and the elected are terrorists.—Archives Nationales, F.7,
7090. (Documents on the Jacobin insurrection of Nivôse 4 and 5, year IV.,
at Arles): "The exclusives, or amnestied, regarded the Constitution only
as a means of arriving at a new state of anarchy by getting possession of
all the offices.... Shouts and cries of Vive Marat! and Robespierre to the
Pantheon! were often repeated.—The principal band was composed of
genuine Terrorists, of the men who under Robespierre's reign bore the
guillotine about in triumph, imitating its cruel performances on every
corner with a manikin expressly made for the occasion."—"Domiciliary
visits, rummaging everywhere, stealing jewelry, money, clothes, etc."]
5133 (return)
[ Mallet-Dupan, II.,
363.—Schmidt (Police report of Brumaire 26 and 27).]
5134 (return)
[ Dufort de Cheverney,
(manuscript memoirs communicated by Robert de Crêvecoeur).—Report of
the public prosecutor, dated Thermidor 13, year III., according to
documents handed in on Messidor 16, by the foreman of the jury of
indictment and by the juges de paix of Chinon, Saumur, Tours, Amboise,
Blois, Beaugency, etc., relating to the charges made by the administrators
of the department of Loire-et-Cher, dated Frimaire 30, year II.,
concerning the fusillades at Blois, Frimaire 19, year II.]
5135 (return)
[ The line of this
march from Saumur to Montsoreau could be traced by the blood along the
road; the leaders shot those who faltered with fatigue.—On reaching
Blois, Frimaire 18, Hézine says, before the town-hall, "To-morrow morning
they shall be straightened out and we'll show the Blésois how the thing is
managed." The following day, Hézine and Gidouin, taking a walk with
Lepetit, commander of the escort, in the court of the inn, say to him:
"You'll shoot some of them for us. You must give the people an example by
shooting some of those rascally priests." Lepetit orders out four peasants
and placing them himself on the river bank, gives the command to fire and
to throw them in. Hézine and Gidoum shout Vive la Nation! Gidouin then
says to Lepetit: "You don't mean to stop with those four peasants? won't
you give us a few curés?" Five priests are shot.—At Beaugency, there
is a fresh fusillade. The leaders take the best part of the spoil. Among
other objects, Lepetit has a coffer sent into his chamber and takes the
effects it contains and sells a bed and mattress beside.]
5136 (return)
[ Ibid., (March, 1796).
"Meanwhile, the young men who were recruited, hid themselves: Bonnard made
them pay, and still made them set out. Baillon, quartermaster in the war,
told me that he had paid Bonnard 900,000 livres in assignats in twelve
days, and 1,400,000 in twenty days; there were 35,000 in the memoir for
pens, penknives, ink, and paper."]
5137 (return)
[ Mallet-Dupan,
"Correspondance, etc.," I., 383. (Letter of Dec.13, 1795.) "The Directory
keeps on filling the offices with Terrorists. The government agents in the
departments arbitrarily set aside the constituted authorities and replace
them with Jacobins."]
5138 (return)
[ Province in ancient
Turkey governed by a Pasha. (SR.)]
5139 (return)
[ Thibaudeau, "Histoire
de la Convention," I., 243. "Tallien, Barras, Chenier and Louvet talked of
nothing but of annulling the elections.... Nothing was heard at the bar
and in the tribunals but the most revolutionary propositions. The
'Mountain' showed incredible audacity. The public tribunes were filled
with confederates who applauded furiously... Tallien and Barras ruled and
shared the dictatorship between them. Since 13th of Vendémiaire, the
Convention no longer deliberated except when in the middle of a camp; the
exterior, the tribunes, even the hall itself are invested by soldiers and
terrorists."—Mallet Dupan, "Correspondance, etc.," I., 248. (Letter
of Oct. 31, 1795.)]
5140 (return)
[ Thibaudeau, Ibid.,
I., 246, et seq.—Moniteur. (Session of Brumaire 1.) Speech by
Thibaudeau.]
5141 (return)
[ Mallet-Dupan, ibid.,
I., 328. (Letter Oct. 4, 1795.) "Nearly all the electors nominated at
Paris are former administrators, distinguished and sensible writers,
persons recommendable through their position, fortune and intelligence.
They are the royalists of 1789, that is to say about in the sense of the
constitution of 1791, essentially changed fundamentally. M. d'Ormesson,
former comptroller-general of the Treasury, the Marquis of Gontant, M. de
Vandeuil, former maitre de requêtes, M. Garnier, former conseiller au
Châtelet of Paris and others of the same order, all electors. It is
another world; in one month we have gone back five years."—Ibid.,
343, 350, 359, 373.]
5142 (return)
[ Barbé-Marbois,
"Journal d'un Déporté," preface, p. XIV. "Outside of five or six men who
might be regarded as 'suspects' of royalism the most animated were only
really irritated against the despotic conduct and depredations of the
directors and not against the republican system."]
5143 (return)
[ Mallet-Dupan, ibid:,
I., 369. (Letter of Nov.22, 1795.) "Never would the resistance of the
sections have shown itself so unanimously and so perseveringly without the
promptings of the two hundred monarchist members of the convention and the
aid they promised. They had engaged to enter the tribune and support the
cause of Paris, to carry the majority and, in case they did not succeed in
revoking the decree respecting the two-thirds, to withdraw from the
Convention and come and take their seats with the sections; the
pusillanimity of these two hundred members caused the failure of these
promises... . I guarantee the authenticity of this statement."]
5144 (return)
[ Souvenirs et Journal
d'un Bourgeois d'Evreux," pp.103, 106. "The Constitution has been adopted
by a very small number of citizens, for, in the section of the Nord only
one hundred and fifty voters at most are found amongst twelve hundred or
fifteen hundred estimated. (September 6, 1795.)—On Tuesday, November
10, "the section assemblies of Evreux completed their nominations of juge
de paix and of its assessors and five municipal officers. It took time,
because there were a great many who declined."]
5145 (return)
[ Thibaudeau, "Mémoires
sur le Convention et le Directoire," II., 58.—Mallet-Dupan,
("Correspondance, etc.," II., 281.) Dufort de Cheverney, ("Mémoires" in
manuscript). He is at Vendôme and attends the trial out of curiosity.
"Germain, cheerful and witty, makes fun of the jurymen: they are really
stupid, said he, not to see conspiracy when there was as complete a one as
ever existed.... Besides, I conspired and always shall."]
5146 (return)
[ "Souvenir et Journal
d'un Bourgeois d'Evreux," p. 118 (March 24, 1797).]
5147 (return)
[ Dufort de Cheverney,
"Mémoires," (March, 1797).]
5148 (return)
[ Albert Babeau, II.,
408, et seq. (Address of the administrators of Aube for the elections of
year V.)—Ibid., 414. (Speech by Herlinson, Librarian of the Ecole
Centrale at Troyes, Thermidor 10, year V. in the large hall of the
Hôtel-de-Ville, before the commissioners of the Directory, and received
with unbounded applause.) "The patriots consisted of fools, madmen and
knaves, the first in their illusions, the second in their dreams and the
third in their acts.... Everywhere you would see two or three
executioners, a dozen satellites, of whom one-half trembled for their
lives, and about a hundred witnesses, most of them in spite of themselves,
against thousands of victims.... Vengeance is not necessary; never was
special vengeance of any benefit to the public. Let them rest in their
slough, let them live as objects of contempt and horror."-Cf. Sauzay,
VIII., p.659 et seq.]
5149 (return)
[ Thibaudeau, II., 152,
153.—Mallet-Dupan, II., 262.]
5150 (return)
[ Mallet-Dupan, II.,
265, 268, 278.]
5151 (return)
[ Thibaudeau, II., 244,
248.]
5152 (return)
[ Carnot, "Mémoires,"
II., 108. "Not fifteen leaders. "—Lacretelle, "Dix Années
d'Épreuves," p.308. "Twenty or thirty men devoted to monarchical opinions,
but who did not dare state them openly."]
5153 (return)
[ Mallet-Dupan, II.,
267, 278, 331.]
5154 (return)
[ Mallet-Dupan, II.,
265. "Not only have they discarded (at Paris) the Republicans, but even
those among the old Constituents, known or denounced for having taken too
important a part in the first revolution.... Men have been chosen who
aspired to a modified and not perverted monarchy. The suffrages have
equally distanced themselves from the sectarian royalists of the ancient
régime as well as the violent anti-revolutionaries."]
5155 (return)
[ Mallet-Dupan, 11.,
298. "The deputies never attack a revolutionary law, but they are
mistrusted of some design of destroying the results of the Revolution, and
every time they speak of regulating the Republic they are accused of
ill-will to the Republic."]
5156 (return)
[ Thibaudeau, II., 171.—Carnot,
II., 106.—The programme of Barthélémy is contained in this simple
phrase: "I would render the Republic administrative." On the foreign
policy, his ideas, so temperate, pacific and really French, are received
with derision by the other Directors. (Andre Lebon, "Angleterre et
l'Emigration Française," p. 335.)]
5157 (return)
[ Mathieu Dumas,
"Souvenirs," III., 153.—Camille Jordan. (Letter to his constituents
on the Revolution, Fructidor 18, p.26.) "The Constitution, the
Constitution alone, is the rallying word at Clichy." —Barbé-Marbois,
"Souvenirs d'un Déporté," I., page 12 and preface. "The largest number
wanted to disregard the future and forget the past."]
5158 (return)
[ Mallet-Dupan, II.,
336. "Eighty of the deputies who were menaced have slept elsewhere since
the 30th of August, keeping together in one domicile for fear of being
carried off at night."—Mathieu Dumas, III., 10. "I could no longer
occupy my house in Paris, rue Fosses-du-Temple, without risking an attack
from the sbirri (Italian police officers) of the Directory, who pro
claimed in the clubs that the people must be avenged in (our) houses. "—Mallet-Dupan,
II. 343. "This pretended conspiracy imputed to the councils by the
triumvirs, is a romance similar to those of Robespierre."—Ibid.,
346. "There has been no conspiracy, properly so-called, of the Legislative
Corps against the Directory."—Only, "every constitution in France
kills the Revolution if the Revolutionary leaders has not destroyed in
time. And this, because four-fifths of France being detached from the
Revolution, the elections will put into the legislative and administrative
offices men who were opposed to the Revolution."]
5159 (return)
[ Lord Malmesbury,
"Diaries," II., 544. (September 9, 1797.) The words of Mr. Colchen.) "He
went on to say that all the persons arrested are the most estimable and
most able men in the Republic. It is for this reason and not from any
principles of royalism (for such principles do not belong to them) that
they are sentenced to transportation. They would have supported the
constitution, but in doing that they would have circumscribed the
authority of the executive power and have taken from the Directory the
means of acquiring and exercising undue authority."]
5160 (return)
[ Barbé-Marbois,
"Journal d'un Déporté," preface, p. XVI.]
5161 (return)
[ Mathieu Dumas, III.,
84, 86.]
5162 (return)
[ De Goncourt, "La
Société Française pendant le Directoire," 298, 386. Cf. the Thé, the
Grondeur, the Censeur des journaux, Paris, and innumerable pamphlets.—In
the provinces, the Anti-Terrorist, at Toulouse the Neuf Thermidor, at
Besançon, the Annales Troyennes at Troyes, etc.]
5163 (return)
[ Mallet-Dupan, II.,
309, 316, 323, 324, 329, 333, 339, 347. "To defend themselves
constitutionally, whilst the Directory attacks revolutionarily, is to
condemn themselves to inevitable perdition."—"Had it a hundred times
more ability the Legislative Corps without boldness is a lightning flash
without thunder."—"With greater resources than Louis XVI. had in
1792, the Legislative Corps acts like this prince and will share his fate,
unless it returns war for war, unless it declares that the first generals
who dare send out the deliberations of their armies are traitors to the
State."—"It is owing to the temporizing of the legislative councils,
to the fatal postponement of the attack on the Luxembourg in the middle of
August, on which Pichegru, Villot, General Miranda and all the clairvoyant
deputies insisted on,.... it is owing to foolishly insisting on confining
themselves to constitutional defenses,... it is owing to the necessity
which the eighty firm and energetic deputies found of conciliating three
hundred others who could not agree on the end as well as the means, which
brought about the catastrophe of the Councils."]
5164 (return)
[ Carnot, "Mémoires,"
II., 161. "The evil having reached its last stage, it was necessary to
have a 10th of June instead of a 31st of May."—Mallet-Dupan, II.,
333, 334. The plan for canceling the military division of the Interior
under Augereau's command was to be carried out between the 15th and 20th
of August. If the triumvirate should resist, Pichegru and Villot were to
march on the Luxembourg. Carnot refused to accept the project "unless he
might name the three new Directors."—De la Rue, "Histoire du 18
Fructidor." Carnot said to the Moderates who asked him to act with them:
"Even if I had a pardon in my pocket, amply confirmed by the royal mouth,
I should have no confidence."]
5165 (return)
[ Occupied by the
members of the Directory.]
5166 (return)
[ Mathieu Dumas,
"Mémoires," III., 113.]
5167 (return)
[ Mallet-Dupan, II.,
327. "Barras is the only one who plays squarely and who, taking the risk,
wants Jacobinism to triumph par fas et nefas."—Ibid., 339. "The
triumvirs hesitated up to Friday; Barras, the most furious of the three,
and master of Augereau, decided his two colleagues."—Ibid, 351.
"Barras and Reubell, by dint of exciting the imagination of that poor
little philosophizer La Révellière, succeeded in converting him."—Thibaudeau,
II., 272. "It was Barras who bore off the honors of dictatorship that
night... . La Révellière shut himself up in his house as in an
impenetrable sanctuary. Reubell, at this moment, his head somewhat
affected, was watched in his apartment."]
5168 (return)
[ Mallet-Dupan, II.,
304, 305, 331.—Carnot, II., 117.]
5169 (return)
[ Barbé-Marbois,
"Journal d'un Deporté," pp.34 and 35.]
5170 (return)
[ Mallet-Dupan, II.,
343.]
5171 (return)
[ Barbé-Marbois, ibid.,
p.46.]
5172 (return)
[ Mallet-Dupan, II.,
228, 342. "The use the triumvirs intended to make of D'Entraigues'
portfolio was known two months ago."—cf. Thibaudeau, II., 279, on
the vagueness, scanty proof and gross falsity of the charges made by the
Directory.]
5173 (return)
[ Barbé-Marbois, ibid.,
p.46.]
5174 (return)
[ Lord Malmesbury.
"Diary," III., 559 (Sep. 17th, 1797). At Lille, after the news of the coup
d'état, "it was a curious circumstance to see the horror that prevailed
everywhere lest the system of Terror should be revived. People looked as
if some exterminating spirit were approaching. The actors in the theatre
partook of the sensation. The Director called Paris, said to Ross, on his
paying him: 'Nous allons actuellement être vandalisés.' "]
5175 (return)
[ Decrees of Fructidor
18 and 19, year V., Article 39.]
5176 (return)
[ Thibaudeau, II., 277.
"I went to the meeting of Fructidor 20, the avenues of the Odéon were
besieged with those subaltern agents of revolution who always show
themselves after commotion, like vultures after battles. They insulted and
threatened the vanquished and lauded the victors."]
5177 (return)
[ Ibid., II. 309.]
5178 (return)
[ Ibid., II., 277. "As
soon as I entered the hall several deputies came with tears in their eyes
to clasp me in their arms. The Assembly all had a lugubrious air, the same
as the dimly lighted theatre in which they met; terror was depicted on all
countenances; only a few members spoke and took part in the debates. The
majority was impassible, seeming to be there only to assist at a funeral
spectacle, its own."]
5179 (return)
[ Decree of Fructidor
1, articles 4 and 5, 16 and 17, 28, 29 and 30, 35, and decree of Fructidor
22.-Sauzay, IX., 103. Three hundred communes of the department are thus
purged after Fructidor.-Ibid., 537, the same weeding-out of jurymen.]
5180 (return)
[ Lacretelle, "Dix ans
d'Epreuves," p. 310.]
5181 (return)
[ "Journal d'un
Bourgeois d'Evreux," 143. (March 20, 1799.) "The next day the primary
assemblies began; very few attended them; nobody seemed disposed to go out
of his way to elect men whom they did not like."—Dufort de
Cheverney, "Mémoires," March, 1799. "Persons who are not dupes think it of
very little consequence whether they vote or not. The elections are
already made or indicated by the Directory. The mass of the people show
utter indifference." (March 24.) "In this town of twenty thousand souls
(Blois) the primary assemblies are composed of the dregs of the people
only a very few honest people attend them; 'suspects,' the relations of
émigrés and priests, all expelled, leave the field free to intriguers. Not
one proprietor is summoned. The terrorists rule in three out of the four
sections.. . The Babouvists always employ the same tactics; they recruit
voters in the streets who sell their sovereignty five or six times over
for a bottle of wine." (April 12, according to an intelligent man coming
from Paris.) "Generally, in Paris, nobody attends the primary assemblies,
the largest not returning two hundred voters."—Sauzay, IX., ch. 83.
(Notes on the election at Besançon 1798, by an eye-witness.) "Jacobins
were elected by most frightful brigandage, supported by the garrison to
which wine had been distributed, their election being made at the point of
the bayonet and under blows with sticks and swords. A good many Catholics
were wounded."]
5182 (return)
[ Albert Babeau, II.,
444. (Declaration of the patriotic and secessionist minority of the canton
of Riquy at the elections of the year VI.)]
5183 (return)
[ Mercure Britannique,
No. for August 25, 1799. (Report read, July 15 and August 5, before the
Five Hundred on the conduct of the Directors Reubell, La
Révellière-Lepaux, Merlin de Douai and Treilhard, and summary of the nine
articles of indictment.)—Ibid., 3rd article. "They have violated our
constitution by usurping legislative powers through acts which prescribe
that a certain law shall be executed, in all that is not modified to the
present act, and by passing acts which modify or render the present laws
illusory."]
5184 (return)
[ Fiévée,
"Correspondance avec Buonaparte," I., 147.]
5185 (return)
[ Barbé-Marbois, I.,
64, 91, 96, 133; II., 18, 25, 83.—Dufort de Cheverney, "Mémoires."
(September 14, 1797.)—Sauzay, IX., chapters 81 and 84.]
5186 (return)
[ Sauzay, vols. IX. and
X.—Mallet-Dupan, II., 375, 379, 382.—Schmidt, "Tableau de
Paris Pendant la Revolution," III., 290. (Report by the administrators of
the Seine department.)]
5187 (return)
[ Dufort de Cheverney,
"Mémoires," August, 1798, October, 1797 and 1799, passim.]
5188 (return)
[ Archives Nationales,
F.7, 3219. (Letter of M. Alquier to the First Consul, Pluviôse 18, year
III.) "I wanted to see the central administration; I found the ideas and
language of 1793."]
5189 (return)
[ Dufort de Cheverney,
"Mémoires," (February 26, March 31 and September 6, 1797). "That poor
theoristic imbecile, La Révellière-Lepaux, who, joining Barras and Reubell
against Barthélémy and Carnot, made the 18th of Fructidor, and shut
himself in his room so as not to witness it, himself avows the quality of
his staff." ("Memoires," II., 164.) "The 18th of Fructidor necessitated
numerous changes on the part of the Directory. Instead of putting
republicans, but above all, honest, wise and enlightened men in the place
of the functionaries and employees dismissed or revoked, the selections
dictated by the new Councils fell for the most part on anarchists and men
of blood and robbery."]
5190 (return)
[ Lacretelle, "Dix ans
d'épreuves," p.317. A few days after Fructidor, Robert, an old Jacobin,
exclaimed with great joy on the road to Brie-Comté, "All the royalists are
going to be driven out or guillotined!" The series F.7 in the Archives
Nationales, contains hundreds of files filled with reports "on the state
of the public mind," in each department, town or canton between the years
III. and VIII. I have given several months to their examination and, for
lack of space, cannot copy any extracts. The real history of the last five
years of the Revolution may be found in these files. Mallet-Dupan gives a
correct impression of it in his "Correspondance avec la cour de Vienne,"
also in the "Mercure Britannique."]
5191 (return)
[ Sauzay, X., chaps. 8o
and 90.—Ludovic Sciout, IV., ch. 17. (See especially in Sauzay, X.,
pp.170 and 281, the instructions given by Duval, December 16, 1796, and
the circulars of François de Neufchateau from November 20, 1798, down to
June 18, 1798, each of these pieces being a masterpiece in its way.]
5192 (return)
[ "Journal d'un
Bourgeois d'Evreux," p.134. "June 7, 1798." "The day following the décade,
the gardeners, who as usual came to show themselves off on the main
street, were fined six livres for having treated with contempt and broken
the décade." January 21, 1799. "Those who were caught working on the
décade, were fined three livres for the first offence if they were caught
more than once the fine was doubled and it was even followed by
imprisonment"]
5193 (return)
[ Ludovic Sciout, IV.,
160. Examples of "individual motives" alleged to justify the sentence of
transportation. One has refused to baptize an infant whose parents were
only married civilly. Another has "declared to his audience that the
catholic marriage was the best." Another "has fanaticized." Another "has
preached pernicious doctrines contrary to the constitution." Another "may,
by his presence, incite disturbances," etc. Among the condemned we find
septuagenarians, known priests and even married priests.—Ibid., 634,
637.]
5194 (return)
[ Sauzay, IX., 715..
(List of names.)]
5195 (return)
[ Ludovic Sciout, IV.,
656.]
5196 (return)
[ Dufort de Cheverney,
"Mémoires," September 7, 1798.—Ibid., February 26, 1799. "In Belgium
priests are lodged in the Carmelites (convent)." September 9, 1799. "Two
more carts are sent full of priests for the islands of Rhé and Oléron."]
5197 (return)
[ Thibaudeau, II.. 318,
321.—Mallet-Dupan, II., 357, 368. The plan went farther: "All
children of emigrants," or of those falsely accused of being such, "left
in France, shall be taken from their relatives and confided to republican
tutors, and the republic shall administer their property."]
5198 (return)
[ In reading about this
Lenin and Stalin must have been inspired to create their Goulags to which
not only Russian and Estonian "petit Bourgeois," but also other
undesirable national groups were sent. (SR.)]
5199 (return)
[ Decree of Frimaire 9,
year VI. (Exceptions in favor of the actual members of the Directory,
ministers, military men on duty, and the members of the diverse National
Assemblies, except those who in the constituent Assembly protested against
the abolition of nobility.) One of the speakers, a future count of the
Empire, proposed that every noble claiming his inscription on the civic
registers should sign the following declaration: "As man and as
republican, I equally detest the insolent superstition which pretends to
distinctions of birth, and the cowardly and shameful superstition which
believes in and maintains it."]
51100 (return)
[ Decree of Fructidor
19, year II.]
51101 (return)
[ Lally-Tollendal,
"Défense des Emigrés," (Paris. 1797, 2nd part, 49, 62, 74. Report of
Portalis to the Council of Five Hundred, Feb. 18, 1796. "Regard that
innumerable class of unfortunates who have never left the republican
soil."—Speech by Dubreuil, Aug.26, 1796. "The supplementary list in
the department of Avignon bears 1004 or 1005 names. And yet I can attest
to you that there are not six names on this enormous list justly put down
as veritable emigrants."]
51102 (return)
[ Ludovic Sciout,
IV., 619. (Report of the Yonne administration, Frimaire, year VI.) "The
gendarmerie went to the houses, in Sens as well as Auxerre, of several of
the citizens inscribed on the lists of émigrés who were known never to
have left their commune since the Revolution began. As they have not been
found it is probable that they have withdrawn into Switzerland, or that
they are soliciting you to have their names stricken off."]
51103 (return)
[ Decrees of
Vendémiaire 20 and Frimaire 9, year VI.—Decree of Messidor 10.]
51104 (return)
[ Dufort de
Cheverney, "Mémoires." (Before the Revolution he enjoyed an income of
fifty thousand livres, of which only five thousand remain.) "Madame Amelot
likewise reduced, rents her mansion for a living. Through the same
delicacy as our own she did not avail herself of the facility offered to
her of indemnifying her creditors with assignats." "Another lady, likewise
ruined, seeks a place in some country house in order that herself and son
may live."—"Statistique de la Moselle," by Colchen, préfet, year VI.
"A great many people with incomes have perished through want and through
payment of interest in paper-money and the reduction of Treasury bonds."—Dufort
de Cheverney, Ibid., March, 1799. "The former noblesse and even citizens
who are at all well-off need not depend on any amelioration.... They must
expect a complete rescission of bodies and goods.... Pecuniary resources
are diminishing more and more.... Impositions are starving the country."—Mallet-Dupan,
"Mercure Britannique," January 25, 1799. "Thousands of invalids with
wooden legs garrison the houses of the tax-payers who do not pay according
to the humor of the collectors. The proportion of impositions as now laid
in relation to those of the ancient regime in the towns generally is as 88
to 32."]
51105 (return)
[ De Tocqueville,
"oeuvres complètes," V., 65. (Extracts from secret reports on the state of
the Republic, September 26, 1799.)]
51106 (return)
[ Decree of Messidor
24, year VI.]
51107 (return)
[ De Barante,
"Histoire du Directoire," III., 456.]
51108 (return)
[ A. Sorel, "Revue
Historique," No.1, for March and May, 1882. "Les Frontières
Constitutionelles en 1795." The treaties concluded in 1795 with Tuscany,
Prussia and Spain show that peace was easy and that the recognition of the
Republic was effected even before the Republican government was
organized..... that France, whether monarchical or republican, had a
certain limit which French power was not to overstep, because this was not
in proportion to the real strength of France, nor with the distribution of
force among the other European governments. On this capital point the
convention erred; it erred knowingly, through a long-meditated
calculation, which calculation, however, was false. and France paid dearly
for its consequences."—Mallet-Dupan, II., 288, Aug. 23, 1795. "The
monarchists and many of the deputies in the Convention sacrificed all the
conquests to hasten on and obtain peace. But the fanatical Girondists and
Siéyès' committee persisted in the tension system. They were governed by
three motives: 1, the design of extending their doctrine along with their
territory; 2, the desire of successively federalizing the States of Europe
with the French Republic; and 3, that of prolonging a partial war which
also prolongs extraordinary powers and revolutionary resources."—Carnot,
"Mémoires," I., 476. (Report to the Committee of Public Safety, Messidor
28, year II.) "It seems much wiser to restrict our plans of aggrandizement
to what is purely necessary in order to obtain the maximum security of our
country."—Ibid., II., 132, 134 and 136. (Letters to Bonaparte, Oct.
28, 1796, and Jan. 1, 1797.) "It would be imprudent to fan the
revolutionary flame in Italy too strongly.... They desired to have you
work out the Revolution in Piedmont, Milan, Rome and Naples; I thought it
better to treat with these countries, draw subsidies from them, and make
use of their own organization to keep them under control."]
51109 (return)
[ Carnot, ibid., II.
147. "Barras, addressing me like a madman, said, 'Yes, it is to you we owe
that infamous treaty of Leoben!'"]
51110 (return)
[ Andre Lebon,
"L'Angleterre et l'Emigration Française," p.235. (Letter of Wickam, June
27, 1797, words of Barthélemy to M. d'Aubigny.)]
51111 (return)
[ Lord Malmesbury,
"Diary," III., 541. (September 9, 1797.) "The violent revolution which has
taken place at Paris has upset all our hopes and defeated all our
reasoning. I consider it the most unlucky event that could have happened."
Ibid., (Letter from Canning, September 29, 1797.) "We were in a hair's
breadth of it (peace). Nothing but that cursed revolution at Paris and the
sanguinary, insolent, implacable and ignorant arrogance of the triumvirate
could have prevented us. Had the moderate party triumphed all would have
been well, not for us only but for France, for Europe and for all the
world."]
51112 (return)
[ Carnot, II., 152.
"Do you suppose, replied Reubell, that I want the Cape and Trinquemale
restored for Holland? The first point is to take them, and to do that
Holland must furnish the money and the vessels. After that I will make
them see that these colonies belong to us."]
51113 (return)
[ Lord Malmesbury,
"Diary," III., 526. (Letter from Paris, Fructidor 17, year V.)—ibid.,
483. (Conversation of Mr. Ellis with Mr. Pain.)]
51114 (return)
[ Ibid. III., 519,
544. (The words of Maret and Colchen.)—" Reubell," says Carnot,
"seems to be perfectly convinced that probity and civism are two
absolutely incompatible things."]
51115 (return)
[ Mallet-Dupan, II.,
49. Words of Siéyès, March 27, 1797. Ibid, I., 258, 407; II., 4, 49, 350,
361, 386. This is so true that this prevision actuates the concessions of
the English ambassador. (Lord Malmesbury, "Diary," III., 519. Letter to
Canning. August 29, 1797.) "I am the more anxious for peace because, in
addition to all the commonplace reasons, I am convinced that peace will
paralyze this country most completely, that all the violent means they
have employed for war will return upon them like an humour driven in and
overset entirely their weak and baseless constitution. This consequence of
peace is so much more to be pressed, as the very best conditions we could
offer in the treaty."]
51116 (return)
[ Mathieu Dumas,
III., 256.—Miot de Melito, I., 163, 191. (Conversations with
Bonaparte June and September, 1797.)]
51117 (return)
[ Mallet-Dupan,
"Mercure Britannique," No. for November 10, 1798. How support gigantic and
exacting crimes on its own soil? How can it flatter itself that it will
extract from an impoverished people, without manufactures, trade or
credit, nearly a billion of direct and indirect subsidies? How renew that
immense fund of confiscations on which the French republic has lived for
the past eight years? By conquering every year a new nation and
devastating its treasuries, its character, its monts-de-piété, its owners
of property. The Republic, for ten years past, would have laid down its
arms had it been reduced to its own capital.]
51118 (return)
[ Mallet-Dupan,
"Mercure Britannique," Nos. for November 25, and December 25, 1798, and
passim.]
51119 (return)
[ Ibid., No. for
January 25, 1799. "The French Republic is eating Europe leaf by leaf like
the head of an artichoke. It revolutionizes nations that it may despoil
them, and it despoils them that it may subsist."]
51120 (return)
[ Letter of
Mallet-Dupan to a deputy on a declaration of war against Venice and on the
Revolution effected at Genoa. (The "Quotidienne," Nos. 410, 413, 414,
421.)—Ibid., "Essai Historique sur la destruction de le Signe et de
le Liberté Historique." (Nos. I, 2, and 3 of the "Mercure Britannique.")—Carnot,
II., 153. (Words of Carnot in relation to the Swiss proceedings of the
Directory.) "It is the fable of the Wolf and the Lamb."]
51121 (return)
[ Overhauling of the
Constitution or the purging of the authorities in Holland by Delacroix,
January 22, 1798, in Cisalpine by Berthier, February, 1798, by Trouve,
August, 1798, by Brune, September, 1798, in Switzerland by Rapinat, June,
1798, etc.]
51122 (return)
[ Mallet-Dupan,
("Mercure Britannique." numbers for November 26. December 25, 1798, March
10 and July 10, 1799). Details and documents relating to popular
insurrections in Belgium, Switzerland, Suabia, Modena, the Roman States.
Piedmont and Upper Italy.—Letter of an officer in the French army
dated at Turin and printed at Paris. "Wherever the civil commissioners
pass the people rise in insurrection, and, although I have come near being
a victim of these insurrections four times, I cannot blame the poor
creatures; even the straw of their beds is taken. Most of Piedmont, as I
wrote, has risen against the French robbers, as they call us. Will you be
surprised when I tell you that, since the pretended revolution of this
country, three or four months ago, we have devoured ten millions of coin,
fifteen millions of paper money, with the diamonds, furniture, etc., of
the Crown? The people judge us according to our actions and regard us with
horror and execrations."]
51123 (return)
[ Mallet-Dupan,
Ibid., number for January, 1799. (List according to articles, with
details, figures and dates.)—Ibid., No. for May 25, 1799: details of
the sack of Rome according to the "Journal" of M. Duppa, an eye witness.—Ibid.,
Nos. for February 10 and 25, 1799: details of spoliation in Switzerland,
Lombardy, Lucca and Piedmont.—The following figures show the
robberies committed by individuals: In Switzerland, "the Directorial
commissary, Rapinat, the major-general, Schawembourg and the ordinance
commissary, Rouhière, each carried away a million tournois." "Rouhière,
besides this, levied 20 per cent. on each contract he issued, which was
worth to him 350,000 livres. His first secretary Toussaint, stole in Berne
alone, 150,000 livres. The secretary of Rapinat, Amberg, retired with
300,000 livres." General Lorge carried off 150,000 livres in specie,
besides a lot of gold medals taken from the Hôtel-de-Ville at Berne; his
two brigadier-generals, Rampon and Pijon, each appropriated 216,000
livres. "Gen. Duheur, encamped in Brisgav, sent daily to the three
villages at once the bills of fare for his meals and ordered requisitions
for them; he demanded of one, articles in kind and, simultaneously, specie
of another. He was content with 100 florins a day, which he took in
provisions and then in money."—"Massena, on entering Milan at eleven
o'clock in the evening, had carried off in four hours, without giving any
inventory or receipt, all the cash-boxes of the convents, hospitals and
monts-de-piété, which were enormously rich, taking also, among others, the
casket of diamonds belonging to Prince Belgiojoso. That night was worth to
Massena 1,200,000 livres." (Mallet-Dupan, "Mercure Britannique," February
10, 1799, and "Journal," MS., March, 1797.) On the sentiments of the
Italians, cf. the letter of Lieutenant Dupin, Prairial 27, year VIII.; (G.
Sand, "Histoire de ma vie," II. 251) one account of the battle of Marengo,
lost up to two o'clock in the afternoon; "I already saw that the Po, and
the Tessin were to be crossed, a country to traverse of which every
inhabitant is our enemy."]
51124 (return)
[ Mallet-Dupan,
ibid., number for January 10 1791. "December 31, 1796. Marquis Litta had
already paid assessments amounting to 500,000 livres milanais, Marquis T.,
420,000, Count Grepi 900,000, and other proprietors in proportion." Ransom
of the "Decurioni of Milan, and other hostages sent into France, 1,500,000
livres."—This is in conformity with the Jacobin theory. In the old
instructions of Carnot, we read the following sentence: "Assessments must
be laid exclusively on the rich; the people must see that we are only
liberators.... Enter as benefactors of the people, and at the same time as
the scourge of the great, the rich and enemies of the French name."
(Carnot, I., 433.)]
51125 (return)
[ Ludovic Sciout,
IV., 776. (Reports of the year VII., Archives Nationales, F.7, 7701 and
7718.) "Out of 1,400 men composing the first auxiliary battalion of
conscripts, 1087 cowardly deserted their flag (Haute-Loire), and out of
900 recently recruited at Puy, to form the nucleus of the second
battalion, 800 again have imitated their example."—Dufort de
Cheverney, "Mémoires," September, 1799. "We learned that out of 400
conscripts confined in the (Blois) chateau, who were to set out that
night, 100 had disappeared."—October 12, 1799: "The conscripts are
in the château to the number of 5 or 600. They say that they will not
desert until out of the department and on the road, so as not to
compromise their families."—October 14, "200 have deserted, leaving
about 300."—Archives Nationales, F.7, 3267. (Reports every ten days
on refractory conscripts or deserters arrested by the military police,
year VIII. Department of Seine-et-Oise.) In this department alone, there
are 66 arrests in Vendémiaire, 136 in Brumaire, 56 in Frimaire and 86 in
Pluviôse.]
51126 (return)
[ Mallet-Dupan, No.
for January 25, 1799. (Letter from Belgium.) "To-day we see a revolt like
that which the United Provinces made against the Duke of Alba. Never have
the Belgians since Philip II. displayed similar motives for resistance and
vengeance."]
51127 (return)
[ Decrees of
Fructidor 19, year VI. and Vendémiaire 27, year VII.—Mallet-Dupan,
No. for November 25, 1798.)]
51128 (return)
[ M. Léonce de
Lavergne ("Economie rurale de la France since 1789," p.38) estimates at a
million the number of men sacrificed in the wars between 1792 and 1800.—"Trustworthy
officials, who, a year a go, have had the official documents in their
possession, have certified to me that the war statistics for the levying
of troops between 1794 and the middle of 1795 had raised 900,000 men of
whom 650,000 had been lost in battle, in the hospitals or by desertion."
Mallet-Dupan. (No. for December 10, 1798.—Ibid. (No. for March 20,
1799.) "Dumas affirmed that, in the Legislative Corps, the National Guard
had renewed the battalions of the defenders of the country three times....
The fact of the shameful administration of the hospitals is proved through
the admissions of generals, commissaries and deputies that the soldiers
were dying for want of food and medicine. If we add to this the
extravagance with which the leaders of the armies let the me be killed, we
can readily comprehend this triple renewal in the space of seven years.—As
an illustration there was the village of four hundred and fifty
inhabitants in 1789 furnished (1792 and 1793) fifty soldiers. (" Histoire
du Village de Croissy, Seine-et-Oise pendant la Revolution," by
Campenon.).—La Vendée was a bottomless pit, like Spain and Russia
afterwards. "A good republican, who entrusted with the supply the Vendée
army with provisions for fifteen months, assured me that out of two
hundred thousand men whom he had seen precipitated into this gulf there
were not ten thousand that came of it." (Meissner, "Voyage à Paris,"
p.338, latter end of 1795)—The following figures ("Statistiques des
Préfets" years IX., until XI.) are exact. Eight departments, (Doubs, Ain,
Eure, Meurthe, Aisne, Aude, Drôme, Moselle) furnish the total number of
their volunteers, recruits and conscripts, amounting to 193,343. These
three departments (Arthur Young, "Voyage en France," II., 31) had, in
1790, a population of 2,446,000 souls: the proportion indicates that out
of 26 million Frenchmen a little more than 2 millions were called up for
military service.—On the other hand, five departments (Doubs, Eure,
Meurthe, Aisne, Moselle) gave, not only the number of their soldiers,
131,322, but likewise that of their dead, 56,976, or out of 1000 men
furnished 435 died. This proportion shows 870,000 dead out of two million
soldiers.]
51129 (return)
[ The statistics of
the prefects and reports of council-generals of the year IX. all agree in
the statements of the notable diminution of the masculine adult
population.—Lord Malmesbury had already made the same observation in
1796. ("Diary," October 21 and 23, 1796, from Calais to Paris.) "Children
and women were working in the fields. Men evidently reduced in number....
Carts often drawn by women and most of them by old people or boys. It is
plain that the male population has diminished; for the women we saw on the
road surpassed the number of men in the proportion of four to one."—Wherever
the number of the population is filled up it is through the infantile and
feminine increase. Nearly all the prefects and council-generals state that
precocious marriages have multiplied to excess through conscription.—Dufort
de Cheverney, "Mémoires," September 1st, 1800. "The conscription having
spared the married, all the young men married at the age of sixteen. The
number of children in the commune is double and triple what it was
formerly."]
51130 (return)
[ Sauzay, X., 471.
(Speech by Representative Biot, Aug.29, 1799.)]
51131 (return)
[ Albert Babeau, II.,
466. (Letter of Milany, July 1, 1798, and report by Pout, Messidor, year
VI.)]
51132 (return)
[ Schmidt, III., 374.
(Reports on the situation of the department of the Seine, Ventose, year
VII.)—Dufort de Cheverney, "Mémoires," October 22, 1799. "The column
of militia sets out to-day; there are no more than thirty persons in it,
and these again are all paid or not paid clerks, attachés of the Republic,
all these belonging to the department, to the director of domains, in
fine, all the bureaus."]
51133 (return)
[ Schmidt, III., 374.
(Reports on the situation of the department of the Seine, Ventose, year
VII.)—Dufort de Cheverney, "Mémoires," October 22, 1799. "The column
of militia sets out to-day; there are no more than thirty persons in it,
and these again are all paid or not paid clerks, attachés of the Republic,
all these belonging to the department, to the director of domains, in
fine, all the bureaus."]
51134 (return)
[ M. de Lafayette,
"Mémoires," II., 162. (Letter of July 22, 1799.) "The other day, at the
mass in St. Roch, a man by the side of our dear Grammont, said fervently:
'My God, have mercy on us, exterminate the nation!' This, indeed, simply
meant: 'My God, deliver us from the Convention system!'"]
51135 (return)
[ Schmidt,298, 352,
377, 451, etc. (Ventose, Frimaire and Fructidor, year VII.)]
51136 (return)
[ Ibid., III.
(Reports of Prairial, year III., department of the Seine.)]
51137 (return)
[ M. de Lafayette,
"Memoires," II., 164. (Letter of July 14, 1799.)—De Tocqueville,
"(oeuvres complètes," V., 270. (Testinony of a contemporary.)—Sauzay,
X., 470, 471. (Speeches by Briot and de Echassériaux): "I cannot
understand the frightful state of torpor into which minds have fallen;
people have come to believing nothing, to feeling nothing, to doing
nothing.... The great nation which had overcome all and created everything
around her, seems to exist only in the armies and in a few generous
souls."]
51138 (return)
[ Lord Malmesbury's
"Diary," (November 5, 1796). "At Randonneau's, who published all the acts
and laws.... Very talkative, but clever.... Ten thousand laws published
since 1789, but only seventy enforced."—Ludovic Sciout, IV., 770.
(Reports of year VII.) In Puy de Dome: "Out of two hundred and eighty-six
communes there are two hundred in which the agents have committed every
species of forgery on the registers of the Etat-Civil and in the copying
of its acts, to clear individuals of military service. Here, young men of
twenty and twenty-five are married to women of seventy-two and eighty
years of age, and even to those who have long been dead; then, an extract
from the death register clears a man who is alive and well."—"Forged
contracts are presented to avoid military service, young soldiers are
married to women of eighty; one woman, thanks to a series of forgeries, is
found married to eight or ten conscripts." (Letter of an officer of the
Gendarmerie to Roanne, Ventose 9, year VIII.)]
51139 (return)
[ Words of De
Tocqueville.—"Le Duc de Broglie," by M. Guizot, p. 16. (Words of the
Duc de Broglie.) "Those who were not living at this time could form no
idea of the profound discouragement into which France had fallen in the
interval between Fructidor 18 and Brumaire 18."]
51140 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXXVIII., 480. (Message of the Directory, Floréal 13, year IV., and report
of Bailleul, Floreal 18.) "When an election of deputies presented a bad
result to us we thought it our duty to propose setting it aside.... It
will be said that your project is a veritable proscription."—"Not
more so than the 19 of Fructidor."—Cf. for dismissals in the
provinces, Sauzay, V., ch. 86.—Albert Babeau, II., 486. During the
four years the Directory lasted the municipal council of Troyes was
renewed seven times, in whole or in part.]
51141 (return)
[ Buchez et Roux,
XXXIX., 61. (Session of Prairial 30, year VII.)-Sauzay, X., ch. 87.—Léouzon-Leduc,
"Correspondence Diplomatique avec la cour de Suede," P. 203.—(Letters
of July 1, 7 11, 19 August 4; September 23, 1799.) "The purification of
functionaries, so much talked about now, has absolutely no other end in
view but the removal of the partisans of one faction in order to
substitute those of another faction without any regard to moral
character.... It is this choice of persons without probity, justice or any
principles of honesty whatever for the most important offices which makes
one tremble, and especially, at this moment, all who are really attached
to their country."—"The opening of the clubs must, in every
relation, be deemed a disastrous circumstance.... All classes of society
are panic-stricken at the faintest probability of the re-establishment of
a republican government copied after that of 1793".... "The party of
political incendiaries in France is the only one which carries out such
designs energetically and directly."]
51142 (return)
[ Leouzon-Leduc,
ibid, 328, 329. (Dispatches of September 19 and 23.)—Mallet-Dupan,
"Mercure Britannique." (No. for October 25, 1799. Letter from Paris.
September 15. Exposition of the situation and tableau of the parties.) "I
will add that the war waged with success by the Directory against the
Jacobins, (for, although the Directory is itself a Jacobin production, it
wants no more of its masters), that this war, I say, has rallied people
somewhat to the government without having converted anyone to the
Revolution or really frightened the Jacobins who will pay them back if
they have time to do it."]
51143 (return)
[ Gohier, "Mémoires,"
conversation with Sieyès on his entry into the Directory. "Here we are,"
says Sieyès to him, "members of a government which, as we cannot conceal
from ourselves, is threatened with a coming fall. But when the ice melts
skilful pilots can escape in the breaking up. A falling government does
not always imperil those at the head of it."]
51144 (return)
[ Tacitus, "Annales,"
book VI., P 50. "Macro, intrepidus, opprimi senem injectu multoe vestis
discedique a limine."]
51145 (return)
[ Mallet-Dupan,"
Mercure Britannique." (Nos. for December 25, 1798 and December 1799.)
"From the very beginning of the Revolution, there never was, in the uproar
of patriotic protestations, amidst so many popular effusions of devotion
to the popular cause to Liberty in the different parties, but one
fundamental conception, that of grasping power after having instituted it,
of using every means of strengthening themselves, and of excluding the
largest number from it, in order to center themselves in a privileged
committee. As soon as they had hurried through the articles of their
constitution and seized the reins of government, the dominant party
conjured the nation to trust to it, notwithstanding that the farce of
their reasoning would not bring about obedience,... Power and money and
money and power, all projects for guaranteeing their own heads and
disposing of those of their competitors, end in that. From the agitators
of 1789 to the tyrants of 1798, from Mirabeau to Barras, each labors only
to forcibly open the gates of riches and authority and to close them
behind them."]
51146 (return)
[ Mallet-Dupan,
ibid., No. for April 10, 1799. On the Jacobins. "The sources of their
enmities, the prime motive of their fury, their coup-d'état lay in their
constant mistrust of each other.... Systematic, immoral factionists, cruel
through necessity and treacherous through prudence, will always attribute
perverse intentions. Carnot admits that there were not ten men in the
Convention that were conscious of probity."]
51147 (return)
[ See in this respect
"Histoire de ma Vie," by George Sand, volumes 2, 3 and 4, the
correspondence of her father enlisted as a volunteer in 1798 and a
lieutenant at Marengo.—Cf. Marshal Marmont, "Memoires," I., 186,
282, 296, 304. "Our ambition, at this moment, was wholly secondary; we
were occupied solely with our duties or pleasures. The most cordial and
frankest union prevailed amongst us all."]
51148 (return)
[ "Journal de Marche
du sergent Fracasse."—"Les Cahiers du capitaine Coignet."—Correspondence
of Maurice Dupin in "Histoire de ma Vie," by George Sand.]
51149 (return)
[ "Les Cahiers du
Capitaine Coignet," p.76. "And then we saw the big gentlemen getting out
of the windows. Mantles, caps and feathers lay on the floor and the
grenadiers ripped off the lace."—Ibid., 78, Narration by the
grenadier Chome: "The pigeons all flew out of the window and we had the
hall to ourselves."]
51150 (return)
[ Dufort de
Cheverney, "Mémoires," September 1, 1800. "Bonaparte, being fortunately
placed at the head of the government, advanced the Revolution more than
fifty years; the cup of crimes was full and overflowing. He cut off the
seven hundred and fifty heads of the hydra, concentrated power in his own
hands, and prevented the primary assemblies from sending us another third
of fresh scoundrels in the place of those about to take themselves off....
Since I stopped writing things are so changed as to make revolutionary
events appear as if they had transpired more than twenty years ago.... The
people are no longer tormented on account of the decade, which is no
longer observed except by the authorities.... One can travel about the
country without a passport.... Subordination is established among the
troops; all the conscripts are coming back.. .. The government knows no
party; a royalist is placed along with a determined republican, each
being, so to say, neutralized by the other. The First Consul, more a King
than Louis XIV., has called the ablest men to his councils without caring
what they were."—Anne Plumptre, "A Narrative of Three Years'
Residence in France from 1802 to 1805," I., 326, 329. "The class
denominated the people is most certainly, taking it in the aggregate,
favorably disposed to Bonaparte. Any tale of distress from the Revolution
was among this class always ended with this, 'but now, we are quiet,
thanks to God and to Bonaparte.'"—Mallet-Dupan, with his accustomed
perspicacity, ("Mercure Britainnique," Nos. for November 25 and December
10, 1799), at once comprehended the character and harmony of this last
revolution. "The possible domination of the Jacobins chilled all ages and
most conditions.... Is that nothing, to be preserved, even for one year,
against the ravages of a faction, under whose empire nobody can sleep
tranquilly, and find that faction driven from all places of authority just
at a time when everybody feared its second outburst, with its torches, its
assassins, its assessors, and its agrarian laws, over the whole French
territory?.... That Revolution, of an entirely new species, appeared to us
as fundamental as that of 1789."]
51151 (return)
[ The Ancient Régime,
p. 144.]
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Origins of Contemporary France,
Volume 4 (of 6), by Hippolyte A. Taine
*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FRENCH REVOLUTION V3 ***
***** This file should be named 2580-h.htm or 2580-h.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www.gutenberg.org/2/5/8/2580/
Produced by Svend Rom
Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.
Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules,
set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project
Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you
do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is
subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
redistribution.
*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
http://gutenberg.org/license).
Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic works
1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works. See paragraph 1.E below.
1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the
collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an
individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in
a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check
the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning
the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
States.
1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
copied or distributed:
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
1.E.9.
1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked
to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg-tm License.
1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or
distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
that
- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is
owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments
must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License. You must require such a user to return or
destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
Project Gutenberg-tm works.
- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
of receipt of the work.
- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the
Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
1.F.
1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
your equipment.
1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.
1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with
the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy
is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
opportunities to fix the problem.
1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any
provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists
because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
people in all walks of life.
Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation
The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at
809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact
information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
page at http://pglaf.org
For additional contact information:
Dr. Gregory B. Newby
Chief Executive and Director
gbnewby@pglaf.org
Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation
Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
status with the IRS.
The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To
SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
particular state visit http://pglaf.org
While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.
International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works.
Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily
keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
http://www.gutenberg.org
This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.