The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume
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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
Posting Date: June 18, 2008 [EBook #2580]
Release Date: April, 2001
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FRENCH REVOLUTION V3 ***
Produced by Svend Rom
THE ORIGINS OF CONTEMPORARY FRANCE, VOLUME 4
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, VOLUME 3.
by Hippolyte A. Taine
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).
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION VOLUME III.
PREFACE.
BOOK FIRST. The Establishment of the Revolutionary Government.
CHAPTER I.
BOOK SECOND. The Jacobin Program.
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
BOOK THIRD. The Governors.
CHAPTER I. Psychology of the Jacobin Leaders.
CHAPTER II. The Rulers of the Country.
CHAPTER III. The Rulers. (continued).
BOOK FOURTH. The Governed.
CHAPTER I. The Oppressed.
CHAPTER II. Food and Provisions.
BOOK FIFTH. The End of the Revolutionary Government.
CHAPTER I.
PREFACE.
"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.
*****
BOOK FIRST. THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE REVOLUTIONARY GOVERNMENT.
CHAPTER I. JACOBIN GOVERNMENT
I. The despotic creed and instincts of the Jacobin.
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.
II. Jacobin Dissimulation.
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.
III. Primary Assemblies
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]
IV. The Delegates reach Paris
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.
V. Fête of August 10th
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 Bastille[1140] 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.
VI. The Mountain.
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 me[1143]...
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 act[1145]...
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.
VII. Extent and Manifesto of the departmental insurrection
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 assembly[1160]: 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 defenders[1162]. 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.
VIII. The Reasons for the Terror.
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 Lozére[1169] 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 Frenchmen[1178] troops
and munitions needed against foreigners, and all this at the moment
the foreigner was taking Valenciennes[1179] 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.
IX. Destruction of Rebel Cities
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!'"
X. Destruction of the Girondin party
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-three[11106] 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.
XI. Institutions of the Revolutionary Government
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 means[11111] 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 indifferent[11112]".--"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
jurymen[11122] 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.
*****
[Footnote 1101: Titus Flavious Clemens, (Greek writer born in Athens
around 150 and dead in Cappadoce in 250) He lived in Alexandria. (SR).]
[Footnote 1102: The words of Marat.]
[Footnote 1103: After the Constitution is completed, said Legendre, in
the Jacobin club, we will make the federalists dance.]
[Footnote 1104: 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!"]
[Footnote 1105: 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.)]
[Footnote 1106: 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."]
[Footnote 1107: Report by Hérault-Séchelles. (Buchez et Roux, XXVIII.
178.)]
[Footnote 1108: Buchez et Roux, XXXI, 400. (Articles of the Declaration
of Rights, 1, 7, 9, 11, 27, 31, 35)]
[Footnote 1109: 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."]
[Footnote 1110: 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).]
[Footnote 1111: 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."]
[Footnote 1112: 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.]
[Footnote 1113: Moniteur, XVII., 20. Report of Barère: "The
Constitutional act is going to draw the line between republicans and
royalists."]
[Footnote 1114: 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."]
[Footnote 1115: 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."]
[Footnote 1116: "Journal des Débats de la Société des Jacobins," No. For
July 27, 1793 (correspondence, No. 122).]
[Footnote 1117: Moniteur, XVII., 156, 163.]
[Footnote 1118: Sauzay, IV., 158: "The motives for judgments were thus
stated by judges themselves."]
[Footnote 1119: 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.]
[Footnote 1120: 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."]
[Footnote 1121: 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."]
[Footnote 1122: Sauzay, IV., 158.]
[Footnote 1123: 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.).]
[Footnote 1124: 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."]
[Footnote 1125: Moniteur, XVII., 330. Ordinance of the Commune, August
6.]
[Footnote 1126: 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."]
[Footnote 1127: Buchez et Roux, XXVIII., 408.]
[Footnote 1128: Moniteur., XVII., 330. (Act passed by the Commune,
August 6.)]
[Footnote 1129: 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."]
[Footnote 1130: 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."]
[Footnote 1131: Ibid. 124. (Session of Aug. 5.)]
[Footnote 1132: 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).]
[Footnote 1133: Buchez et Roux, 411 (Article in the Journal de la
Montagne.)]
[Footnote 1134: Moniteur, XVII., 348.]
[Footnote 1135: "Le Féderation" was in 1790 "the Association of the
National Guards." (SR).]
[Footnote 1136: Buchez et Roux, XVIII., 415 and following pages.]
[Footnote 1137: Ibid., 352.--Cf. Beaulieu, "Diurnal," Aug. 9.]
[Footnote 1138: 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).]
[Footnote 1139: It cost one million two hundred thousand francs, besides
the traveling expenses of eight thousand delegates.]
[Footnote 1140: 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.)]
[Footnote 1141: Moniteur, XVII., 366. (Session of Aug. 11. Speech by
Lacroix and decree in conformity therewith.)]
[Footnote 1142: 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....."]
[Footnote 1143: 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.]
[Footnote 1144: Moniteur, XVII., 382. (Session of Aug. 12. Speech by
Lacroix).]
[Footnote 1145: 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."]
[Footnote 1146: Decrees of August 14 and 16.]
[Footnote 1147: Moniteur, XVII., 375.]
[Footnote 1148: 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."]
[Footnote 1149: 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."]
[Footnote 1150: 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.]
[Footnote 1151: 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."]
[Footnote 1152: 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.]
[Footnote 1153: 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").]
[Footnote 1154: 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."]
[Footnote 1155: Cf. "The Revolution," Vol. II. Ch. XI.]
[Footnote 1156: 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."]
[Footnote 1157: 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).]
[Footnote 1158: 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.]
[Footnote 1159: 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.]
[Footnote 1160: 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."]
[Footnote 1161: Buchez et Roux, XXVIII., 153. (Deliberations of the
constituted authorities of Marseilles, June 7.)]
[Footnote 1162: 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."]
[Footnote 1163: 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."]
[Footnote 1164: 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).]
[Footnote 1165: Guillon de Montléon, I., 309 (July 24).]
[Footnote 1166: 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.)]
[Footnote 1167: 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."]
[Footnote 1168: Meillan, 143.--Mortimer-Ternaux, VIII., 203. (Session of
August 10).--Mallet-du-Pan, "Mémoires," II., 9.]
[Footnote 1169: Ernest Daudet, "His. des Conspirations royalistes dans
le midi." (Books II. And III.)]
[Footnote 1170: Guillon de Montléon, I., 313. (Address of a Lyonais to
the patriot soldiers under Kellerman.)]
[Footnote 1171: 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.]
[Footnote 1172: 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."]
[Footnote 1173: 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."]
[Footnote 1174: Guillon de Montléon, I., 309, 311, 315,
335.--Mortimer-Ternaux, VIII., 197.]
[Footnote 1175: Mortimer-Ternaux, VIII., 141.]
[Footnote 1176: Mallet du Pan, I., 379 and following pages; I., 408;
II., 10.]
[Footnote 1177: 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.)]
[Footnote 1178: Seventy thousand men were required to reduce Lyons,
(Guillon de Montléon, II., 226) and sixty thousand men to reduce
Toulon.]
[Footnote 1179: 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."]
[Footnote 1180: 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."]
[Footnote 1181: 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."]
[Footnote 1182: 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."]
[Footnote 1183: 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).]
[Footnote 1184: Guillon de Montléon, I., 394. (Letter of Dubois-Crancé
to the Lyonnese, August 19th.)]
[Footnote 1185: 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.)]
[Footnote 1186: 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."]
[Footnote 1187: 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."]
[Footnote 1188: 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).]
[Footnote 1189: 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."]
[Footnote 1190: Buchez et Roux, XXVIII., 493. (Speech by Danton, August
31, and decree in conformity therewith by the Convention).]
[Footnote 1191: 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.)]
[Footnote 1192: "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.)]
[Footnote 1193: Mallet-Dupan, II., 17.--Guillon de Montléon, II., 259.]
[Footnote 1194: 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).]
[Footnote 1195: Ibid. III., 153-156. Letter of Laporte to Couthon, April
13, 1794.]
[Footnote 1196: 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.)]
[Footnote 1197: Ibid. II. 135-137. (Resolutions of the Revolutionary
Commission, Germinal 17.) and Letters of Cadillot to Robespierre,
Floréal, year II). III., 63.]
[Footnote 1198: 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."]
[Footnote 1199: Buchez et Roux, XXIX., 192. (Decree of October 12).]
[Footnote 11100: Ibid., XXX., 457. (Decree of November 23).]
[Footnote 11101: "Mémoires de Fréron." (Letter of Fréron, Nivose
6).--Guillon de Montléon, II., 391.]
[Footnote 11102: 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.]
[Footnote 11103: 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.]
[Footnote 11104: Buchez et Roux, XXIX., 175.--Dauban: "La Démagogie à
Paris en 1793," 436 (Narrative by Dulaure, an eye-witness).]
[Footnote 11105: There were really only twenty-two brought before the
revolutionary tribunal.]
[Footnote 11106: Dauban, XXVI., p. 440. (Narrative of Blanqui, one of
the seventy-three.)]
[Footnote 11107: 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."]
[Footnote 11108: 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.]
[Footnote 11109: Louvet, "Mémoires," 321. (List of the Girondists who
perished or who were proscribed. Twenty-four fugitives survived.)]
[Footnote 11110: 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."]
[Footnote 11111: 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.]
[Footnote 11112: 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.'"]
[Footnote 11113: 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.)]
[Footnote 11114: 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."]
[Footnote 11115: 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."]
[Footnote 11116: Moniteur, XVIII., 106. (Report by Saint-Just, Oct.
10th).]
[Footnote 11117: Ibid., 473. (Report of Billaud-Varennes, Nov. 13th).]
[Footnote 11118: 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."]
[Footnote 11119: 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.]
[Footnote 11120: Moniteur, XVIII., 592. (Session of December 4, speech
by Robespierre).]
[Footnote 11121: Miot de Melito, "Mémoires," I., 47.]
[Footnote 11122: Buchez et Roux, XXVIII., 153. Mortimer-Ternaux,
VIII., 443. (Decree of September 28th).--Wallon, "Histoire du Tribunal
Révolutionaire de Paris," IV., 112.]
[Footnote 11123: 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.]
[Footnote 11124: 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."]
[Footnote 11125: Decree of Frimaire 14, year II., Dec. 4, 1793.]
[Footnote 11126: 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.]
[Footnote 11127: Moniteur, XVIII., 275. (Session of Oct. 26. 1793,
speech by Barère.) "This is the most revolutionary step you can take."
(Applause.)]
[Footnote 11128: 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.]
[Footnote 11129: 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.]
BOOK SECOND. THE JACOBIN PROGRAM.
CHAPTER I. THE JACOBIN PARTY
I. The Doctrine.
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.
II. A Communist State.
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-fifths[2107] 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 patriots[2118]: 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.
III. The object of the State is the regeneration of man.
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 chastisements[2125], for, he declares himself a rebel and
a perjurer, inimical to humanity, and a traitor to the social compact.
IV. Two distortions of the natural man.
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 décadi[2133] 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.
V. Equality and Inequality.
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 bourgeois[2146] 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.
VI. Conditions requisite for making a citizen.
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 law[2170] 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.
VII. Socialist projects.
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.
VIII. Indoctrination of mind and intellect.
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 oblige[21101] 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 mess[21112]. 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 holidays[21113] 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.
***** ]
[Footnote 2101: This and the following text are taken from the
"Contrat-Social" by Rousseau. Cf. "The ancient Régime," book III., ch..
IV.]
[Footnote 2102: 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."]
[Footnote 2103: Report by Roland, January 6, 1793, and by Cambon,
February 1, 1793.]
[Footnote 2104: Buchez et Roux, XXXI., 311. Report by Saint-Just,
Ventôse 8, year II., and decree in conformity therewith.]
[Footnote 2105: 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.]
[Footnote 2106: 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."]
[Footnote 2107: Cf. "The Ancient Régime," p. 14.]
[Footnote 2108: 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."]
[Footnote 2109: 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).]
[Footnote 2110: Rousset, "Les Volontaires," p. 234 and 254.]
[Footnote 2111: 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.]
[Footnote 2112: 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.)]
[Footnote 2113: 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.)]
[Footnote 2114: 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.]
[Footnote 2115: 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.]
[Footnote 2116: Decree of Brumaire 11, year II., article 7.]
[Footnote 2117: 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."]
[Footnote 2118: 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).]
[Footnote 2119: 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."]
[Footnote 2120: Buchez et Roux, XXXII., 338. Report of the Convention
on the theory of democratic government, by Billaud-Varennes (April 20,
1794).]
[Footnote 2121: 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.]
[Footnote 2122: 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."]
[Footnote 2123: Ibid., XXXV., 276. (Institutions, by Saint-Just.--Ibid.,
287.)--Moniteur, XVIII., 343. Meeting of the Jacobin Club, Brumaire 13,
year II., speech by Baudot.]
[Footnote 2124: 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."]
[Footnote 2125: 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."]
[Footnote 2126: 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."]
[Footnote 2127: 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."]
[Footnote 2128: 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.)]
[Footnote 2129: 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."]
[Footnote 2130: 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."]
[Footnote 2131: 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.]
[Footnote 2132: 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.)]
[Footnote 2133: 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.]
[Footnote 2134: "Recuil de pieces authentiques servant à l'histoire de
la revolution à Strasbourg," II., 299. (A district order.)]
[Footnote 2135: Later, when Lenin and Stalin resurrected Jacobinism,
they placed the headquarters of any subversive movement outside the
country where it operated. (SR.)]
[Footnote 2136: 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.).]
[Footnote 2137: Ludovic Sciout, IV., 426. (Instructions sent by the
Directory to the National Commissions, Frimaire, year II.)--Ibid., ch.
X. to XVIII.]
[Footnote 2138: 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."]
[Footnote 2139: 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!"]
[Footnote 2140: Epigraph of Marat's journal: Ute readapt miseries, abet
Fortuna superb is.]
[Footnote 2141: 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.]
[Footnote 2142: 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."]
[Footnote 2143: Ibid., XXXI., 309. (Report of Saint-Just, Ventôse 8,
year II.)]
[Footnote 2144: 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."]
[Footnote 2145: 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."]
[Footnote 2146: 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."]
[Footnote 2147: 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."]
[Footnote 2148: 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.]
[Footnote 2149: Buchez et Roux, XXXI., 441. (Report by Cambon on the
institution of the grand livre of public debt, August 15, 1793.)]
[Footnote 2150: 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."]
[Footnote 2151: 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."]
[Footnote 2152: 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).]
[Footnote 2153: 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."]
[Footnote 2154: 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."]
[Footnote 2155: 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."]
[Footnote 2156: Decree of March 7-11, 1793.]
[Footnote 2157: 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.]
[Footnote 2158: 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.]
[Footnote 2159: 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."]
[Footnote 2160: 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.)]
[Footnote 2161: 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."]
[Footnote 2162: 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."]
[Footnote 2163: Ib. XXXV, 296 ("Institutions" by Saint-Just.)]
[Footnote 2164: Moniteur, XX, 444 ( Report by Barère, Floreal 22, year
II). "Mendicity is incompatible with popular government."]
[Footnote 2165: Ib., XIX., 568. (Report by Saint-Just, Ventôse 8, year
II.)]
[Footnote 2166: Ib., XX, 448 (Rapport by Barère, Floreal 22).]
[Footnote 2167: 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."]
[Footnote 2168: 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."]
[Footnote 2169: Moniteur, XX., 449. (Report by Barère, Floréal 22, year
II.)]
[Footnote 2170: Decree of April 2-5, 1793.]
[Footnote 2171: 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."]
[Footnote 2172: 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."]
[Footnote 2173: Moniteur, XX., 449. (Report of Barère, Floréal 22, year
II.)]
[Footnote 2174: 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!"]
[Footnote 2175: Buchez et Roux, XXXI., 402. (Constitution of 1793.)]
[Footnote 2176: Ibid. XXXV., 310. ("Institutions", by Saint-Just.)]
[Footnote 2177: 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."]
[Footnote 2178: 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!'"]
[Footnote 2179: 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."]
[Footnote 2180: Decrees of July 26, 1793, Sept. 11 and 29; Brumaire 11,
and Ventôse 6, year II.]
[Footnote 2181: 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).]
[Footnote 2182: 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.)]
[Footnote 2183: These proposals should come to haunt western
civilization for a long time. (SR.)]
[Footnote 2184: Buchez et Roux, XXXV., 272. ("Institutions," by
Saint-Just.)]
[Footnote 2185: 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."]
[Footnote 2186: Buchez et Roux, XXXI, 273, (Report by Robespierre,
Pluviôse17, year II. (7 Feb. 1794).]
[Footnote 2187: 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."]
[Footnote 2188: 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."]
[Footnote 2189: "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."]
[Footnote 2190: 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.)]
[Footnote 2191: 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."]
[Footnote 2192: 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.']
[Footnote 2193: Buchez et Roux, XXXII., 364 (Report by Robespierre,
Floréal 8, year II.)]
[Footnote 2194: 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.)]
[Footnote 2195: 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."]
[Footnote 2196: 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."]
[Footnote 2197: 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."]
[Footnote 2198: 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.]
[Footnote 2199: An expression by Rabaut Saint-Etienne.]
[Footnote 21100: 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."]
[Footnote 21101: Decree of Vendémaire 30 and Brumaire 7, year II.--Cf.
Sauzay, VI., 252, on the application of this decree in the provinces.]
[Footnote 21102: 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.]
[Footnote 21103: Moniteur, XVIII., 653. (Meeting of Frimaire 22, speech
by Bouquir, reporter.)]
[Footnote 21104: 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.' "]
[Footnote 21105: The words of Bouquier, reporter. (Meeting of Frimaire
22, year II.)]
[Footnote 21106: 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.)]
[Footnote 21107: Ibid., XXX., 229. ("Institutions," by Saint-Just.)]
[Footnote 21108: 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."]
[Footnote 21109: Decree of Prairial 13, year II.]
[Footnote 21110: Langlois, "Souvenirs de l'Ecole de Mars."]
[Footnote 21111: Buchez et Roux, XXXII., 355. (Report by Robespierre,
Floréal 18, year II.)]
[Footnote 21112: 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."]
[Footnote 21113: 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."]
[Footnote 21114: 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.]
[Footnote 21115: An identical change took, strangely enough and as
caused by some hidden force, place in Denmark in the seventies. (SR.)]
[Footnote 21116: This is now the case in the entire Western 'democratic'
sphere, in newspapers, schools, and on television. (SR.)]
[Footnote 21117: 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.]
CHAPTER II. REACTIONARY CONCEPT OF THE STATE.
I. Reactionary concept of the State.
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.
II. Changed minds.
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.
III. Origin and nature of the modern State.
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.
IV. The state is tempted to encroach.
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.
V. Direct common interest.
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.
VI. Indirect common interest.
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.
VII. Fabrication of social instruments.
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.
VIII. Comparison between despotisms.
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.
*****
[Footnote 2201: 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".]
[Footnote 2202: 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.]
[Footnote 2203: Fustel de Coulanges, "La Cité Antique", ch. XVII.]
[Footnote 2204: 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.]
[Footnote 2205: 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."]
[Footnote 2206: 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.]
[Footnote 2207: 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.)]
[Footnote 2208: 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."]
[Footnote 2209: "Mémoires de Chateaubriand," vol. I. ("Les Soirées au
Chateau de Cambourg".)]
[Footnote 2210: 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.)]
[Footnote 2211: 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.]
[Footnote 2212: 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.]
[Footnote 2213: 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.]
[Footnote 2214: Taine is probably speaking of the colonial wars in China
and the conquest of Madagascar. (SR).]
[Footnote 2215: 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.)]
[Footnote 2216: 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).]
[Footnote 2217: 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.]
[Footnote 2218: Carlyle: "Cromwell's Speeches and Letters," III., 418.
(Cromwell's address to the Parliament, September 17, 1656.)]
[Footnote 2219: Seeley, "Life and Times of Stein," II., 143.--Macaulay,
"Biographical essays," Frederick the Great. 33, 35, 87, 92.]
[Footnote 2220: Eugene Schuyler, "Peter the Great," vol. 2.]
[Footnote 2221: 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."]
[Footnote 2222: 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."]
BOOK THIRD. THE MEN IN POWER.
CHAPTER I. PSYCHOLOGY OF THE JACOBIN LEADERS.
I. Marat.
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,"[3104]and, 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 wants[3109]... 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
immortal[3110]:
"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 tribunes[3116] 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.
II. Danton.
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-power[3146]--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 city[3163] 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.
III. Robespierre.
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
personifications[3196] 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,"[3197]s coupled together and beauties of style which a pupil in
rhetoric aims at on the college bench;[3198]times 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 women[31112].... 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 felt[31136]
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 rhetoric[31142] 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 victims[31144] 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
Grandison[31153]; 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.
*****
[Footnote 3101: 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."]
[Footnote 3102: 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."]
[Footnote 3103: 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.]
[Footnote 3104: "Journal de la République Française" No.98, description
of "l'Ami du peuple" by himself.]
[Footnote 3105: 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."]
[Footnote 3106: 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."]
[Footnote 3107: "Mémoires Académiques sur la Lumière," pref., VII.--He
especially opposes "the differential refrangibility of heterogeneous
rays" which is "the basis of Newton's theory."]
[Footnote 3108: Chevremont, I., 74. (See the testimony of Arago, Feb.24,
1844).]
[Footnote 3109: Ibid., I., 104. (Sketch of a declaration of the rights
of man and of the citizen).]
[Footnote 3110: 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.]
[Footnote 3111: "Recherches physiques sur l'electricité," 1782, pp.13,
17.]
[Footnote 3112: Chevremont, I., 59.]
[Footnote 3113: "De l'Homme," preface VII. and book IV.]
[Footnote 3114: "Journal de la République Française," No 98.]
[Footnote 3115: "Journal de la République Française," by Marat, No. I.]
[Footnote 3116: "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."]
[Footnote 3117: "Journal de la République Française," July 6 1793.]
[Footnote 3118: 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).]
[Footnote 3119: 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).]
[Footnote 3120: 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).]
[Footnote 3121: Chevremont, I., 40. (Marat's letters, 1793).]
[Footnote 3122: Journal de la Republique Française, No.98.]
[Footnote 3123: The words of Marat and Panes. (Chevremont, I., 197, 203;
also "The Revolution" II., 290, 2nd note).]
[Footnote 3124: 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!'"]
[Footnote 3125: Chevremont, I., 361. (From a pamphlet against Necker, by
Marat, July, 1790).]
[Footnote 3126: "L'Ami du Peuple," No.552. (August 30, 1791).]
[Footnote 3127: 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.]
[Footnote 3128: 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.]
[Footnote 3129: 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."]
[Footnote 3130: 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."]
[Footnote 3131: Chevremont, I., 106. (Draft of a declaration of the
rights of man and of the citizen, 1789).--Ibid., I., 196.]
[Footnote 3132: "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."]
[Footnote 3133: "L'Ami du peuple," Nos. 108-111. (May 20-23, 1790).]
[Footnote 3134: Ibid., No. 258. (Oct. 22, 1790).]
[Footnote 3135: Ibid., No. 286 (Nov. 20, 1790).]
[Footnote 3136: Ibid., No. 198 (August 22, 1790).]
[Footnote 3137: Ibid., Nos. 523 and 524 (July 19 and 20, 1791).]
[Footnote 3138: Ibid., No.626 (Dec. 15, 1791).]
[Footnote 3139: 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.]
[Footnote 3140: 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."]
[Footnote 3141: 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).]
[Footnote 3142: 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."]
[Footnote 3143: Danton never wrote or printed a speech. "I am no
writer," he says. (Garat, Memoires, 31.)]
[Footnote 3144: 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."]
[Footnote 3145: Garat, ibid., 311, 312.]
[Footnote 3146: 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.]
[Footnote 3147: 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."]
[Footnote 3148: Ibid., I., 558, 562, 585. (The intermediaries were
Westermann and Dumouriez.)]
[Footnote 3149: 2 Ibid., II., 28, 290, 291, 293.]
[Footnote 3150: Buchez et Roux, XXV., 445. (Session of April 13, 1793.)]
[Footnote 3151: 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.)]
[Footnote 3152: 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."]
[Footnote 3153: Cf. the "Ancient Regime," p. 501.]
[Footnote 3154: "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.]
[Footnote 3155: 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.)]
[Footnote 3156: Madame Roland, "Memoires." (Statement of Madame Danton
to Madame Roland.)]
[Footnote 3157: Expressions used by Garat and
Roederer.--Larévilliere-Lepaux calls him "the Cyclop."]
[Footnote 3158: Fauchet describes him as "the Pluto of Eloquence."]
[Footnote 3159: Riouffe, "Mémoires sur les prisons." "In prison every
utterance was mingled with oaths and gross expressions."]
[Footnote 3160: 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.]
[Footnote 3161: 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."]
[Footnote 3162: 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.'"]
[Footnote 3163: 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.]
[Footnote 3164: Buchez et Roux, IV., 295, 298, 401; V., 140.]
[Footnote 3165: Ibid., VIII., 28 (October, 1790).]
[Footnote 3166: 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.]
[Footnote 3167: "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."]
[Footnote 3168: 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."]
[Footnote 3169: Decrees of April 6 and 7, 1793.]
[Footnote 3170: Decree of September 5, 1793.]
[Footnote 3171: Decree of March 10, 1793.]
[Footnote 3172: August 1 and 12, 1793.]
[Footnote 3173: 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."]
[Footnote 3174: 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."]
[Footnote 3175: 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.]
[Footnote 3176: Garat, 305, 310, 313. "His friends almost worshipped
him."]
[Footnote 3177: Ibid., 317.--Thibeaudeau, "Mémoires," I., 59.]
[Footnote 3178: 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.]
[Footnote 3179: Riouffe, 67.]
[Footnote 3180: 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."]
[Footnote 3181: 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."]
[Footnote 3182: "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."]
[Footnote 3183: 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."]
[Footnote 3184: Buchez et Roux, XXXIII., 437, 438, 440, 442. (Speech by
Robespierre, Thermidor 8, year II.)]
[Footnote 3185: 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.]
[Footnote 3186: 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."]
[Footnote 3187: 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.]
[Footnote 3188: "The Ancient Regime," p.262.]
[Footnote 3189: 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."]
[Footnote 3190: 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."]
[Footnote 3191: 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).]
[Footnote 3192: Buchez et Roux, XXXIII., 406. (Speech delivered
Thermidor 8th.) The printed copy of the manuscript with corrections and
erasures.]
[Footnote 3193: Ibid., 420, 422, 427.]
[Footnote 3194: 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!"]
[Footnote 3195: Speech, May 7, 1794. (On moral and religious ideas in
relation to republican principles.)]
[Footnote 3196: Personifications. From Greek to make persons. (SR).]
[Footnote 3197: 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.]
[Footnote 3198: 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?"]
[Footnote 3199: Ibid., XXXII., 360, 361. (Portraits of the
encyclopaedists and Hébertists.)]
[Footnote 31100: Ibid., XXXIII., 408. "Here, I have to open my
heart."--XXXII., 475-478, the concluding part.]
[Footnote 31101: 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.]
[Footnote 31102: 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."]
[Footnote 31103: 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."]
[Footnote 31104: 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."]
[Footnote 31105: L. Villiers, 2.]
[Footnote 31106: 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!"]
[Footnote 31107: 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."]
[Footnote 31108: 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.]
[Footnote 31109: 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).]
[Footnote 31110: Hamel, I., 517, 532, 559; II., 5.]
[Footnote 31111: Laréveillère-Lepeaux," Mémoires."--Barbaroux,
"Mémoires," 358. (Both, after a visit to him.)]
[Footnote 31112: 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."]
[Footnote 31113: 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."]
[Footnote 31114: Fievée, "Correspondance," (introduction).]
[Footnote 31115: 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.]
[Footnote 31116: Ibid., No. 18. Letter of V--, former inspector of
"droits reservés," Feb. 5, 1792.]
[Footnote 31117: Ibid., No.8. Letter of P. Brincourt, Sedan, Aug.29,
1793.]
[Footnote 31118: Ibid., No. I. Letter of Besson, with an address of the
popular club of Menosque, Prairial 23, year II]
[Footnote 31119: Ibid., No.14. Letter of D--, member of the Cordeliers
Club, and former mercer, Jan.31, 1792]
[Footnote 31120: Ibid., No.12. Letter by C--, Chateau Thierry, Prairial
30, year II.]
[Footnote 31121: Hamel, III., 682. (Copied from Billaud-Varennes'
manuscripts, in the Archives Nationales).]
[Footnote 31122: Moniteur, XXII., '75. (Session of Vendémiaire i8, year
III. Speech by Laignelot.) "Robespierre had all the popular clubs under
his thumb."]
[Footnote 31123: 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."]
[Footnote 31124: Speech of May 16, 1794, and of Thermidor 8, year II.]
[Footnote 31125: 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.]
[Footnote 31126: 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.)]
[Footnote 31127: Hamel, II., 513. (Speech in the Convention, Prairial 7,
year II.)]
[Footnote 31128: Buchez et Roux, XXXIII., 422, 445, 447, 457. (Speech in
the Convention, Thermidor 8, year II.)]
[Footnote 31129: 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.)]
[Footnote 31130: Garat, "Mémoires," 87, 88.]
[Footnote 31131: 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."]
[Footnote 31132: Garat, 94. (After the King's death and a little before
the 10th of March, 1793.)]
[Footnote 31133: 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."]
[Footnote 31134: Buchez et Roux, XXXIII., 417. (Speech of Thermidor 8,
year II.)]
[Footnote 31135: Ibid., XXXII., 361, (Speech May 7, '794,) and 359.
"Immorality is the basis of despotism, as virtue is the essence of the
Republic."]
[Footnote 31136: Ibid., 371.]
[Footnote 31137: 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."]
[Footnote 31138: 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."]
[Footnote 31139: 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."]
[Footnote 31140: 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."]
[Footnote 31141: On the Girondists, Cf. "The Revolution," II., 216.]
[Footnote 31142: 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.]
[Footnote 31143: 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?"]
[Footnote 31144: 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."]
[Footnote 31145: De Martel, "Types revolutionnaires," 44. The
instructions sent to the Revolutionary Tribunal at Orange are in
Robespierre's handwriting.--(Archives Nationales, F7 4439.)]
[Footnote 31146: Merlin de Thionville.]
[Footnote 31147: 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.]
[Footnote 31148: 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.)]
[Footnote 31149: 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."]
[Footnote 31150: Ibid., XXXIV.,--Cf. the description of him by Fievée,
who saw him in the tribune at the Jacobin Club.]
[Footnote 31151: Merlin de Thionville "A vague, painful anxiety, due to
his temperament, was the sole source of his activity."]
[Footnote 31152: 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.]
[Footnote 31153: Someone is "grandisonian" when he is like the novelist
Richardson's hero, Sir Walter Grandison, beneficient, polite and
chivalrous. (SR).]
[Footnote 31154: Buchez et Roux XX., 198. (Speech of Robespierre in the
Convention, November 5, 1792.)]
[Footnote 31155: 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."]
[Footnote 31156: Garat, 86.-Cf. Hamel, I., 264. (Speech, June 9, 1791.)]
[Footnote 31157: "The Revolution," II., 338, 339. (Speech. Aug. 3,
1792.)]
[Footnote 31158: Buchez et Roux, XXXIII., 420. (Speech, Thermidor 8.)]
[Footnote 31159: Ibid., XXXII., 71. (Speech against Danton.) "What have
you done that you have not done freely?"]
[Footnote 31160: Ibid., XXXIII., 199 and 221. (Speech on the law of
Prairial 22.)]
[Footnote 31161: 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."]
[Footnote 31162: 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).]
[Footnote 31163: 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."]
[Footnote 31164: Buchez et Roux, XXXIII., 176. (Narrative by Valate.)]
[Footnote 31165: Hamel, III., 541.]
[Footnote 31166: Buchez et Roux, XXVIII., 178, 180.]
[Footnote 31167: 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.]
[Footnote 31168: 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."]
[Footnote 31169: 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."]
[Footnote 31170: 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.]
[Footnote 31171: 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.")]
[Footnote 31172: Buchez et Roux, XXXIII., 434.]
CHAPTER II. THE RULERS OF THE COUNTRY.
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.
I. The Convention.
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.
II. Its participation in crime.
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 this[3231]...
"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]
III. The Committee of Public Safety.
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.
IV. The Statesmen.
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 uncertain[3254] 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 Erinyes[3264] 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."
V. Official Jacobin organs.
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.
VI. Commissars of the Revolution.
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 order[3283]
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.
VII. Brutal Instincts.
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 Metz[3298] 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... là[32102]," "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."
IX. Vice.
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.
*****
[Footnote 3201: 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.]
[Footnote 3202: 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."]
[Footnote 3203: 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.]
[Footnote 3204: "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.)]
[Footnote 3205: Marcelin Boudet, "Les conventionnels d' Auvergne," 206.]
[Footnote 3206: Le Marais or the Swamp (moderate party in the French
Revolution). SR.]
[Footnote 3207: Dussault: "Fragment pour servir a' l'histoire de la
convention."]
[Footnote 3208: Sainte-Beuve "causeries du Lundi," V., 216. (According
to the unpublished papers of Siéyès.)]
[Footnote 3209: Words of Michelet.]
[Footnote 3210: Moniteur, XX., 95, 135. (Sessions of Germinal II. in the
Convention and at the Jacobin club.)]
[Footnote 3211: 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."]
[Footnote 3212: 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."]
[Footnote 3213: 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.)]
[Footnote 3214: 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."]
[Footnote 3215: Madame Roland: "Mémoires," I., 23.]
[Footnote 3216: 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."]
[Footnote 3217: 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.)]
[Footnote 3218: 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.)]
[Footnote 3219: Moniteur, XVIII., 420, 399.--"Ah, le bel oiseau," was
a song chosen for its symbolic and double meaning, one pastoral and the
other licentious.]
[Footnote 3220: 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."]
[Footnote 3221: 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."]
[Footnote 3222: Mercier, ibid., 99. (Similar scenes in the churches of
St. Eustache and St. Gervais.)]
[Footnote 3223: 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."]
[Footnote 3224: 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.)]
[Footnote 3225: Buchez et Roux, XXXII., 103. (Germinal 11.)--Moniteur,
XX., 124. (Germinal 15.) Decree for cutting short the defense of Danton
and his accused associates.]
[Footnote 3226: 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.)]
[Footnote 3227: 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."]
[Footnote 3228: 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."]
[Footnote 3229: Moniteur, XXI., 329.]
[Footnote 3230: 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."]
[Footnote 3231: 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."]
[Footnote 3232: 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.]
[Footnote 3233: Archives Nationales, AF. II., 46. Register of the Acts
of the Committee of Public Safety, vol. II., orders of August 3, 1793.]
[Footnote 3234: 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."]
[Footnote 3235: Sainte-Beuve, "Nouveaux Lundis," VIII., 105.
(Unpublished report by Vice-admiral Villaret-Joyeuse, May 28, 1794.)]
[Footnote 3236: Carnot, "Mémoires," I., 107.]
[Footnote 3237: Ibid., I., 450, 523, 527, "we often ate only a morsel of
dry bread on the Committee's table."]
[Footnote 3238: Moniteur, XXI., 362. (Speech by Cambon, Session of
Thermidor 11, year II.)]
[Footnote 3239: Beugnot, "Mémoires," II., 15. (Stated by Jean Bon
himself in a conversation at Mayence in 1813.)]
[Footnote 3240: 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!"]
[Footnote 3241: Carnot, "Mémoires," I., 425.]
[Footnote 3242: 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."]
[Footnote 3243: Carnot, "Mémoires," I., 572. (Speech by Carnot, Germinal
2, year III.)]
[Footnote 3244: Sénart, "Mémoires," 145, 153. (Details on the members of
the two Committees.)]
[Footnote 3245: 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.]
[Footnote 3246: 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.]
[Footnote 3247: 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."]
[Footnote 3248: Dussault "Fragment pour servir à l'histoire de la
Convention."]
[Footnote 3249: Thibaudeau, I., 49.]
[Footnote 3250: Arnault, "Souvenirs d'un Sexagenaire," II., 78.]
[Footnote 3251: "Mémoires d'un Bourgeois de Paris," by Veron, II., 14.
(July 7, 1815.)]
[Footnote 3252: 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."]
[Footnote 3253: Carnot, "Mémoires." I., 508.]
[Footnote 3254: Carnot, I., 527. (Words of Prieur de la Côte d'Or.)]
[Footnote 3255: Carnot, ibid., 527. (The words of Prieur.)]
[Footnote 3256: "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."]
[Footnote 3257: 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."]
[Footnote 3258: Mortimer-Ternaux, VIII., 394, and following pages; 414
and following pages, (on the successive members of the two Committees).]
[Footnote 3259: 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.]
[Footnote 3260: 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."]
[Footnote 3261: 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."]
[Footnote 3262: 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."]
[Footnote 3263: 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,"]
[Footnote 3264: 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).]
[Footnote 3265: 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.]
[Footnote 3266: Buchez et Roux, XXXI., 346. (Report of March 13,
1794.)--XXXII., 314. (Report of April 15.)]
[Footnote 3267: See "The Revolution," II., 313.]
[Footnote 3268: 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."]
[Footnote 3269: 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.]
[Footnote 3270: 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."]
[Footnote 3271: Ibid., 312. "Liberty is not the chicanery of a palace;
it is rigidity towards evil."]
[Footnote 3272: Barère, "Mémoires," I. 347. "Saint-Just... discussed
like a vizier."]
[Footnote 3273: 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.]
[Footnote 3274: 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."]
[Footnote 3275: Veron, II., 14.-Arnault, II., 74.--Cf., passim,
"Mémoires de Barère," and the essay on Barère by Macaulay.]
[Footnote 3276: 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."]
[Footnote 3277: 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."]
[Footnote 3278: 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.]
[Footnote 3279: 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.]
[Footnote 3280: 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."]
[Footnote 3281: 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."]
[Footnote 3282: 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.]
[Footnote 3283: 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."]
[Footnote 3284: Decrees of Frimaire 6 and 14, year II.]
[Footnote 3285: Archives Nationales, AF., II., 22. Acts of the committee
of Public Safety, Nivôse 9, year II.]
[Footnote 3286: Ibid., AF., II., 37. Letter to the Committee on the War,
signed by Barère and Billaud-Varennes, Pluviôse 23,, year II.]
[Footnote 3287: 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.]
[Footnote 3288: 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]
[Footnote 3289: See especially in the "Archives des Affaires
étrangères," vols. 324 to 334, the correspondence of secret agents sent
into the interior.]
[Footnote 3290: 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."]
[Footnote 3291: 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."]
[Footnote 3292: Guillon, II., 207.--"Fouché," by M. de Martel, 292.]
[Footnote 3293: 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."]
[Footnote 3294: Marcelin Boudet, "Les conventionnels d'Auvergne," 438.
(Unpublished memoir of Maignet.)]
[Footnote 3295: 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."]
[Footnote 3296: 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.]
[Footnote 3297: Marcelin Boudet, 446. (Notes of M. Ignace de Barante.)
Also 440. (Unpublished memoir of Maignet).]
[Footnote 3298: 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."]
[Footnote 3299: 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.]
[Footnote 32100: 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.]
[Footnote 32101: 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.]
[Footnote 32102: Paris, I., 370. (Words of Duquesnoy to Lebon.)]
[Footnote 32103: 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.]
[Footnote 32104: "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."]
[Footnote 32105: De Martel, "Fouché," 418. (Orders of Albitte and
Collot, Nivôse 13, year II.)]
[Footnote 32106: 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."]
[Footnote 32107: 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.]
[Footnote 32108: 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."]
[Footnote 32109: 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.]
[Footnote 32110: 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.]
[Footnote 32111: 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.]
[Footnote 32112: "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."]
[Footnote 32113: 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.]
[Footnote 32114: Sybel (Dosquet's translation, French:), II.,
435; III., 132, 140. (For details and authorities, cf. the Memoirs of
Marshal Soult.)]
[Footnote 32115: 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.]
[Footnote 32116: See Paris, "Histoire de Joseph Lebon," I., ch. I, for
biographical details and traits of character.]
[Footnote 32117: 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."]
[Footnote 32118: Ibid., I., 123. Speech by Lebon in the church of
Beaurains.]
[Footnote 32119: 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)."]
[Footnote 32120: Ibid., II., 84.]
[Footnote 32121: 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."]
[Footnote 32122: Ibid., 211. (Explanations given by Lebon to the
Convention.)--Paris, II., 350, 351. (Verdict of the jury.)]
[Footnote 32123: Paris, II., 85.]
[Footnote 32124: Buchez et Roux, XXXIV., 181. (Depositions of Monneron,
a merchant.)]
[Footnote 32125: Ibid., 184. (Deposition of Chaux.)--Cf. 200.
(Depositions of Monneron and Villemain, merchants.)]
[Footnote 32126: Ibid., 204. (Deposition of Lamarie, administrator of
the department.)]
[Footnote 32127: Ibid., 173. (Deposition of Erard, a copyist.)--168.
(Deposition of Thomas, health officer.) "To all his questions, Carrier
replied in the grossest language."]
[Footnote 32128: Ibid., 203. (Deposition of Bonami, merchant.)]
[Footnote 32129: Ibid., 156. (Deposition of Vaujois, public prosecutor
to the military commission.)]
[Footnote 32130: 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."]
[Footnote 32131: 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!"]
[Footnote 32132: 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.]
[Footnote 32133: Ibid., XXXIV., 204. (Deposition of Lamarie.)]
[Footnote 32134: Ibid., 183. (Deposition of Caux.)]
[Footnote 32135: 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.]
[Footnote 32136: De Martel, "Fouché" 100.]
[Footnote 32137: Mallet-Dupan, II., 46.]
[Footnote 32138: Buchez et Roux, XXXII., 413, 423. (Letter of Julien to
Robespierre.)]
[Footnote 32139: 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."]
[Footnote 32140: 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.)]
[Footnote 32141: 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).]
[Footnote 32142: 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."]
[Footnote 32143: 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.)]
[Footnote 32144: 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."]
[Footnote 32145: Buchez et Roux, XXXII., 391, and XXXIII., 9. (Extracts
from the Memoirs of Sénart.)]
[Footnote 32146: 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!"]
[Footnote 32147: As to Caligula see Suetonius and Philo.--With respect
to Hakem, see "L'Exposé de la Religion des Druses," by M. de Sacy.]
[Footnote 32148: Saint-Just, speaking in the Convention, says: "What
constitutes a republic is the utter destruction of whatever is opposed
to it."]
[Footnote 32149: 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.]
[Footnote 32150: 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."]
[Footnote 32151: "Journal de marche du sergent Fricasse," p.34.
(Narrative by Marshal Soult.)]
[Footnote 32152: 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.]
[Footnote 32153: Mallet-Dupan, II., 47.]
[Footnote 32154: Berryat Saint-Prix, "La Justice Revolutionnaire,"
XVII.-Marcelin Boudet, "Les Conventionnels d'Auvergne," 269.--Moniteur,
Brumaire 27, year III., report by Calès.]
[Footnote 32155: Paris, "Histoire de Joseph Lebon," I., 371; II., 341,
344.-De Martel, "Fouché," 153.--Berryat Saint-Prix, 347, 348.]
[Footnote 32156: 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."]
[Footnote 32157: 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.]
[Footnote 32158: Marcelin Boudet, 270. (Testimony of Bardanèche de
Bayonne.)]
[Footnote 32159: Guil1on, "Histoire de la ville de Lyons pendant la
Revolution," II., 427, 431, 433.]
[Footnote 32160: "Mémoire du Citoyen Fréron," (in the Barrière
collection,) p.357. (Testimony of a survivor.)]
[Footnote 32161: Paris, II., 32]
[Footnote 32162: Delandine, "Tableaux des prisons de Lyons," p.14.]
[Footnote 32163: 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)."]
[Footnote 32164: Thibaudeau, "Histoire du Terrorisme dans le départment
de la Vienne," 34, 48.--Berryat Saint-Prix, 239.]
[Footnote 32165: Archives Nationales F.7, 4435. (Letter of Lebon,
Floréal 23, year II.)--Paris, I. 241.]
[Footnote 32166: Buchez et Roux, XXXIV., 184, 200. (Depositions of
Chaux, Monneron and Villemain.)]
[Footnote 32167: 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."]
CHAPTER III. THE RULERS. (continued).
I. The Central Government Administration.
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 quarter[3318] 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.
II. Subaltern Jacobins.
Quality of subaltern leaders.--How they rule in the section
assemblies.--How they seize and hold office.
Such are the subordinate sovereigns[3319] 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.
III. A Revolutionary Committee.
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 speakers[3349] 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 biribi[3352] 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]
IV. Provincial Administration.
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 scattered[3360] 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.
V. Jacobins sent to the Provinces.
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.
VI. Quality of staff thus formed.
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 is[3397] "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
they[33102] made the most of their offices.--At Troyes, "all provisions
and foodstuffs are drawn upon to supply the table of the twenty-four"
sans-culottes[33103] 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 taxation[33113]
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 rascals[33114] 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-preservation[33119] 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., are[33137] "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.
VII. The Armed Forces.
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 others[33150] 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.
*****
[Footnote 3301: "The Revolution," II., pp. 298-304, and p. 351.]
[Footnote 3302: "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."]
[Footnote 3303: 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.]
[Footnote 3304: 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!"]
[Footnote 3305: 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."]
[Footnote 3306: 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."]
[Footnote 3307: 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.]
[Footnote 3308: 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?"]
[Footnote 3309: Ibid., XVII., 410. (Speech by Maribon-Montaut, Jacobin
club, Brumaire 21, year II.)]
[Footnote 3310: Dauban, "Paris in 1794," 142. (Police report of Ventôse
13, year II.)]
[Footnote 3311: Morellet, "Mémoires," II. 449.]
[Footnote 3312: 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.)]
[Footnote 3313: 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."]
[Footnote 3314: 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."]
[Footnote 3315: 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."]
[Footnote 3316: Ibid., 307. (Report of Germinal 7.)]
[Footnote 3317: Wallon, "Histoire du Tribunal Revolutionaire," IV.,
129.]
[Footnote 3318: 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.]
[Footnote 3319: 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]
[Footnote 3320: Archives Nationales, F.7, 31167. (Report, Nivôse 1, year
II., by Leharival.)]
[Footnote 3321: Dauban, "Paris en 1794," 307. (Report of March 29,
1794.) It here relates to the "Piques" Section, Place Vendome.]
[Footnote 3322: Dauban, ib., 308. (Note found among Danton's papers and
probably written by the physician, Quevremont de Lamotte.)]
[Footnote 3323: 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."]
[Footnote 3324: Dauban, ibid., 307. (Report of March 29, 1794.)]
[Footnote 3325: 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."]
[Footnote 3326: 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."]
[Footnote 3327: Dauban, ibid., 345. (Order of the day by Henriot,
Floreal 9.)]
[Footnote 3328: Mallet-Dupan, II., 56. (March, 1794.)]
[Footnote 3329: 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."]
[Footnote 3330: 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."]
[Footnote 3331: 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."]
[Footnote 3332: 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.]
[Footnote 3333: 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.]
[Footnote 3334: Dauban, ibid., 307. (Report of Germinal 9.)]
[Footnote 3335: Moniteur, XXII. 353. (Session of Brumaire 20, year III.
Reclamation made by M. Bélanger at the bar of the Convention.)]
[Footnote 3336: 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."]
[Footnote 3337: 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.]
[Footnote 3338: 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."]
[Footnote 3339: Dauban, ibid., 36 and 48. (Case of the Notary,
Brichard.)]
[Footnote 3340: 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.)]
[Footnote 3341: 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."]
[Footnote 3342: Buchez et Roux, XXXV., 407. (Lists in Robespierre's
handwriting.)]
[Footnote 3343: 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."]
[Footnote 3344: "The Revolution," II., 338, 348, 354.]
[Footnote 3345: 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.]
[Footnote 3346: 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."]
[Footnote 3347: 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.]
[Footnote 3348: Morellet, "Mémoires," I., 436-472.]
[Footnote 3349: 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.)]
[Footnote 3350: 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."]
[Footnote 3351: "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.]
[Footnote 3352: A game of chance.]
[Footnote 3353: "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."]
[Footnote 3354: 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."]
[Footnote 3355: Barère, "Mémoires," II., 324.]
[Footnote 3356: 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."]
[Footnote 3357: "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?'"]
[Footnote 3358: 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."]
[Footnote 3359: 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.]
[Footnote 3360: "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."]
[Footnote 3361: 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.)]
[Footnote 3362: 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.)]
[Footnote 3363: 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.]
[Footnote 3364: "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.)]
[Footnote 3365: "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."]
[Footnote 3366: Marcelin Boudet, "Les conventionnels d'Auvergne," 161.
(Justification of Etienne Bonarmé, the last months of 1794.)]
[Footnote 3367: 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."]
[Footnote 3368: 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."]
[Footnote 3369: 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.]
[Footnote 3370: 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.]
[Footnote 3371: 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.)]
[Footnote 3372: 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."]
[Footnote 3373: 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.)]
[Footnote 3374: 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."]
[Footnote 3375: Archives Nationales, AF., II, 58. (Letter of Javogues to
Collot d'Herbois, Brumaire 28, year II.)]
[Footnote 3376: "Recueil des Pièces Authentiques," etc., I., 195. (Acts
passed Jan.21, 1793.)]
[Footnote 3377: 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."]
[Footnote 3378: Archives des Affaires étrangères, vol.1411. (Letter of
Haupt, Brumaire 26, year II.)--Vol. 333. (Letter of Blessman and Haüser,
Pluviôse 4, year II.)]
[Footnote 3379: 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."]
[Footnote 3380: 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."]
[Footnote 3381: 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."]
[Footnote 3382: Ibid. (Letter of Haupt, Belfort, September 1, 1793.)]
[Footnote 3383: Report by Courtois on the papers found in Robespierre's
domicile, p. 274. (Letter of Darthé, Ventôse 29, year II.)]
[Footnote 3384: "Tableau des Prisons de Toulouse," by citizen Pescayre
(published in year III.), p.101.]
[Footnote 3385: 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."]
[Footnote 3386: 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."]
[Footnote 3387: 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.)]
[Footnote 3388: Ibid. AF., II., 111. (Order of Albitte and La Porte,
Prairial 18, year II.)]
[Footnote 3389: 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."]
[Footnote 3390: "Tableau des Prisons de Toulouse," by citizen Pescare,
162, 166, 435.]
[Footnote 3391: 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.]
[Footnote 3392: 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.)]
[Footnote 3393: Albert Babeau, II., 296.]
[Footnote 3394: 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."]
[Footnote 3395: 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.]
[Footnote 3396: Albert Babeau, II., 154.]
[Footnote 3397: 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."]
[Footnote 3398: 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.]
[Footnote 3399: 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.]
[Footnote 33100: 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."]
[Footnote 33101: "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."]
[Footnote 33102: 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."]
[Footnote 33103: Moniteur, XXI., 261. (Speech by an inhabitant of Troyes
in the Jacobin Club, Paris, Messidor 26, year II.)]
[Footnote 33104: Albert Babeau, II., 164. (Depositions of the
tavern-keeper and of the commissioner, Garnier.)]
[Footnote 33105: "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.)]
[Footnote 33106: "Recueil de Pièces Authentiques sur la Révolution de
Strasbourg," I., 187, and letter of Burger, Thermidor 25, year II.]
[Footnote 33107: 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.]
[Footnote 33108: "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.)]
[Footnote 33109: 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.]
[Footnote 33110: 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.)]
[Footnote 33111: 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."]
[Footnote 33112: 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.]
[Footnote 33113: 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."]
[Footnote 33114: 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."]
[Footnote 33115: 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.]
[Footnote 33116: Archives Nationales, AF., II., 30 (No.105). Examination
of Jean Davilliers, and other ransomed parties.]
[Footnote 33117: Berryat Saint-Prix, 313. (Trial of Lacombe and his
accomplices after Thermidor.)]
[Footnote 33118: 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."]
[Footnote 33119: 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."]
[Footnote 33120: "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."]
[Footnote 33121: 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."]
[Footnote 33122: 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."]
[Footnote 33123: 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."]
[Footnote 33124: The words of Camille Desmoulins in "La France Libre,"
(August, 1782).]
[Footnote 33125: 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."]
[Footnote 33126: Marcelin Boudet, 175. (Address of Monestier to the
popular clubs of Puy-de-Dome, February 23, 1793.)]
[Footnote 33127: Alexandrine des Echerolles, "Une famille noble sous la
Terreur."]
[Footnote 33128: Archives Nationales, AF., II., 65. (Letter of
General Kermorvan to the president of the committee of Public Safety,
Valenciennes, Fructidor 12, year III.)]
[Footnote 33129: 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.]
[Footnote 33130: 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."]
[Footnote 33131: 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."]
[Footnote 33132: 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."]
[Footnote 33133: Moniteur, XXII., 82. (Report by Grégoire, Fructidor 14,
year II.) Ibid., 775. (Report by Grégoire, Frimaire 24, year III.)]
[Footnote 33134: "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.)]
[Footnote 33135: 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.)]
[Footnote 33136: "Tableau des Prisons de Toulouse," 184. (Visit of
Ventôse 27, year II.)]
[Footnote 33137: Archives Nationales, F.7, 7164. (Department of Var
"Ideé générale et appréciation avec détails sur chaque canton," year
V.)]
[Footnote 33138: 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.]
[Footnote 33139: 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."]
[Footnote 33140: 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."]
[Footnote 33141: 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."]
[Footnote 33142: 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.]
[Footnote 33143: Beaulieu, III., 754.--Cf. "The Revolution," vol. II.,
ch. I., P 9.]
[Footnote 33144: "Recueil de pièces authentiques sur la Révolution
à Strasbourg," I., 21.--Archives Nationales D., I., P 6. (Orders by
Rousselin, Frimaire II, year II.)]
[Footnote 33145: "Un Sejour en France de 1792 à 1795," p.409.]
[Footnote 33146: 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.]
[Footnote 33147: 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.]
[Footnote 33148: 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."]
[Footnote 33149: Buchez et Roux, XXIX., 45.--Moniteur, XX., 67. (Report
of Barère, Germinal 7.)--Sauzay, IV., 303. (Orders of Representative
Bassal at Bésançon.)]
[Footnote 33150: 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.]
[Footnote 33151: Riouffe, "Memoires d'un deténue." P.31.]
[Footnote 33152: 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."]
[Footnote 33153: Archives des Affaires étrangères, vol.331. (Letter of
Haupt, Belfort, Frimaire 13, year II.)]
[Footnote 33154: Ibid. (Letter by Desgranges, Bordeaux, Frimaire 10.)]
[Footnote 33155: Ibid., vol.332. (Letter of Thiberge, Marseilles,
Frimaire 14.) "I surrounded the town with my small army."]
[Footnote 33156: 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.)]
[Footnote 33157: 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."]
[Footnote 33158: Mercier, "Paris Pendant la Révolution," I., 357.]
[Footnote 33159: 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.)]
[Footnote 33160: 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.)]
[Footnote 33161: 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.)]
[Footnote 33162: Wallon, V., 368. (Deposition of de Laillet.)]
[Footnote 33163: Ibid., V., 37'. (Deposition of Tabouret.)]
[Footnote 33164: Ibid., V., 373. (Deposition of Mariotte.)]
[Footnote 33165: Monieur, XXII., 321. (Deposition of Philippe
Troncjolly.)--Berryat Saint-Prix, "La Justice Révolutionnaire," 39.]
[Footnote 33166: 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."]
[Footnote 33167: 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."]
[Footnote 33168: 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.]
[Footnote 33169: 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.)]
[Footnote 33170: 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."]
BOOK FOURTH. THE GOVERNED.
CHAPTER I. THE OPPRESSED.
I. Revolutionary Destruction.
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 150 000[4103] 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 Pandour[4106]
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 priests[4120] 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.[4121]The 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
pretext[4128] 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.
II. The Value of Notables in Society.
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, Cambon[4158] 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.
III. The three classes of Notables.
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 mind[4166] through which the Prussian "junkers" were
able to constitute the Prussian army, organize the German army and make
Germany the first power of Europe.
IV. The Clergy.
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.
V. The Bourgeoisie.
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.
VI. The Demi-notables.
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.
VII. Principle of socialist Equality.
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 citizen[4188] 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-Antoine[4190] 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, 7,545[41101] 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.
VIII. Rigor against the Upper Classes.
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]
IX. The Jacobin Citizen Robot.
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
recast[41147] 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-socialism[41149] 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."
X. The Governors and the Governed.
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 Sévres[41151] 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 guillotine[41155] 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.
*****
[Footnote 4101: Cf. "The Revolution," book I., ch. 3, and book III.,
chs. 9 and 10.]
[Footnote 4102: 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."]
[Footnote 4103: 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.]
[Footnote 4104: 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.)]
[Footnote 4105: 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.]
[Footnote 4106: Pandour, an 18th century Croatian foot-soldier in the
Austrian service: a robber. (SR)]
[Footnote 4107: 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."]
[Footnote 4108: 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.)]
[Footnote 4109: 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.)]
[Footnote 4110: Report by Saladin, March 4, 1795.]
[Footnote 4111: Wallon, "La Terreur," II., 202.]
[Footnote 4112: 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.)]
[Footnote 4113: 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.]
[Footnote 4114: 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."]
[Footnote 4115: 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.)]
[Footnote 4116: "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.]
[Footnote 4117: 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."]
[Footnote 4118: "Recueil de Pièces, etc.," i., p.3. (Letter of Frédéric
Burger, Prairial 2, year II.)]
[Footnote 4119: 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."]
[Footnote 4120: Narrative of the sufferings of unsworn priests, deported
in 1794, in the roadstead of Aix, passim.]
[Footnote 4121: "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.]
[Footnote 4122: Berryat Saint-Prix, p. IX., passim.]
[Footnote 4123: Campardon, II., 224.]
[Footnote 4124: Berryat Saint-Prix, 445.--Paris, "Histoire de Joseph
Lebon," II., 352.--Alfred Lallier, p. 90.--Buchez et Roux, XXXII., 394.]
[Footnote 4125: Berryat Saint-Prix, pp.23, 24.]
[Footnote 4126: 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."]
[Footnote 4127: 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."]
[Footnote 4128: 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."]
[Footnote 4129: Wallon, "Histoire du Tribunal Révolutionnaire de Paris,"
V., 145.]
[Footnote 4130: Ibid., v., 109. (Deposition of Madame de Maillé.)--V.,
189. (Deposition of Lhullier.)--Cf. Campardon, in the same affairs.]
[Footnote 4131: Campardon, II., 189, 190, 193, 197. (Depositions of
Beaulieu, Duclos, Tirard, Ducray, etc.)]
[Footnote 4132: 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."]
[Footnote 4133: 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."]
[Footnote 4134: "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."]
[Footnote 4135: Lallier, p.90. (The eleven distinct drownings
ascertained by M. Lallier extend up to Pluviôse 12, year II.)]
[Footnote 4136: 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."]
[Footnote 4137: Camille Boursier, p.159.]
[Footnote 4138: 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."]
[Footnote 4139: 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."]
[Footnote 4140: Campardon, II., 247, 249, 251, 261, 321. (Examination of
Fouquier-Tinville, Cambon's words.)]
[Footnote 4141: 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."]
[Footnote 4142: "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.]
[Footnote 4143: "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.]
[Footnote 4144: Moniteur, XXV., 188. (Speech by Blutels, July 9, 1795.)]
[Footnote 4145: "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.)]
[Footnote 4146: "Les Origines du Système Financier Actuel," by Eugene
Sturm, p.53, 79.]
[Footnote 4147: 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.'"]
[Footnote 4148: 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.]
[Footnote 4149: "The Ancient Regime," book II., ch 2, P IV.]
[Footnote 4150: Ibid., book IV., chs. I., II., III.]
[Footnote 4151: Lacretelle, "Histoire de France au 18eme Siecle," V.,
2.--" The Ancient Regime," pp. 163, 300.]
[Footnote 4152: Morellet, "Mémoires," I., 166. (Letter by Roederer to
Beccaria's daughter, May 20, 1797).]
[Footnote 4153: 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)]
[Footnote 4154: 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."]
[Footnote 4155: 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."]
[Footnote 4156: 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."]
[Footnote 4157: "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.]
[Footnote 4158: See "The Revolution II" Ed. Lafont page 617. US edition
P. 69. (SR.)]
[Footnote 4159: "Mémoires de Gaudin," duc de Gaëte.]
[Footnote 4160: 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."]
[Footnote 4161: 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."]
[Footnote 4162: Marshal Marmont, "Mémoires." At nine years of age he
rode on horseback and hunted daily with his father.]
[Footnote 4163: 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.]
[Footnote 4164: 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.)]
[Footnote 4165: "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.]
[Footnote 4166: The noble families under the ancient regime may be
characterized as so many families of soldiers' children.]
[Footnote 4167: "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.]
[Footnote 4168: 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.]
[Footnote 4169: "The Revolution," I., 233.--Cf. Emile Ollivier, "L'Eglise
et l'Etat au Concile du Vatican," I., 134, II., 511.]
[Footnote 4170: 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).]
[Footnote 4171: Cf. the files of the clergy in the States-General, and
the reports of ecclesiastics in the provincial assemblies.]
[Footnote 4172: "The Revolution," p.72. (Ed. Lafont I, p 223 etc.)]
[Footnote 4173: 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."]
[Footnote 4174: De Tocqueville, "L'Ancien Regime," 134, 137.]
[Footnote 4175: Terms signifying certain minor courts of law.]
[Footnote 4176: 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."]
[Footnote 4177: 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.]
[Footnote 4178: 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."]
[Footnote 4179: 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."]
[Footnote 4180: 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."]
[Footnote 4181: 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.)]
[Footnote 4182: 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.]
[Footnote 4183: F. Leplay, "Les Ouvriers Européens," V., 456, 2nd ed.,
(on workmen's guilds), Charpentier, Paris.]
[Footnote 4184: 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.)]
[Footnote 4185: 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.)]
[Footnote 4186: 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.]
[Footnote 4187: Moniteur, XIX., 669.]
[Footnote 4188: Dauban, "Paris en 1794," p.245. (Report by Bacon,
Ventôse 25, year II.)]
[Footnote 4189: Ibid. (Report by Perrière, Ventôse 26.)]
[Footnote 4190: Ironical, slang for a hog. TR.]
[Footnote 4191: Ibid., 245. (Report by Bacon, speech of an orator to the
general assembly of the section "Contrat-Social," Ventôse 25.)]
[Footnote 4192: "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."]
[Footnote 4193: 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."]
[Footnote 4194: 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.)]
[Footnote 4195: 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.]
[Footnote 4196: Buchez et Roux, XXVI., 341. (Speech by Chasles in the
Convention, May 2, 1793.)]
[Footnote 4197: 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."]
[Footnote 4198: "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."]
[Footnote 4199: See above ch. V., P 4.--Archives Nationales, F.7, 4435,
No. 10. (Letter of Collot d'Herbois to Couthon, Frimaire 11, year II.)]
[Footnote 41100: 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."]
[Footnote 41101: Berryat Saint-Prix, "La Justice Révolutionnaire," 1st
ed., p.229.]
[Footnote 41102: "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.)]
[Footnote 41103: "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.]
[Footnote 41104: Moniteur, session of June 29, 1797. (Report of
Luminais.) Danican, "Les Brigands Démasqués," p. 194.]
[Footnote 41105: Meillan, "Mémoires," p. 166.]
[Footnote 41106: 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."]
[Footnote 41107: "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."]
[Footnote 41108: 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."]
[Footnote 41109: 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.]
[Footnote 41110: 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."]
[Footnote 41111: 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."]
[Footnote 41112: Sauzay, passim, especially vols. 3, 4, 5, and 6.]
[Footnote 41113: 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.]
[Footnote 41114: 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.]
[Footnote 41115: Archives Nationales, AF., II., 92. Orders of
Representative Taillefer, Villefranche, Aveyron, Brumaire 3, year II.,
and of his delegate, Deitheil, Brumaire 11, year II.]
[Footnote 41116: 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.]
[Footnote 41117: 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.]
[Footnote 41118: 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."]
[Footnote 41119: 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.]
[Footnote 41120: 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."]
[Footnote 41121: 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."]
[Footnote 41122: Buchez et Roux, XXVI., '77. (Speech by Cambon, April
27, 1793.)]
[Footnote 41123: "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.)]
[Footnote 41124: Guillon, II., 355. (Instructions furnished by Collot
d'Herbois and Fouché, Brumaire 26, year II.)]
[Footnote 41125: De Martel, 171, 181. (Orders of Fouché, Nevers, August
25 and October 8, 1793.)]
[Footnote 41126: 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."]
[Footnote 41127: 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."]
[Footnote 41128: "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.'"]
[Footnote 41129: "Recueil de Pièces, etc.," I., 16.]
[Footnote 41130: Ibid., I., 159. (Orders of Brumaire 15, year II.)]
[Footnote 41131: 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."]
[Footnote 41132: Berryat Saint-Prix, pp.36, 38. carrier declares suspect
"merchants and the rich."]
[Footnote 41133: Moniteur, XVIII., 641. (Letter of the representatives
imprisoned at Bordeaux, Frimaire 10, year II.)]
[Footnote 41134: Archives des Affaires étrangères, vol.329. (Letter of
Brutus, October 3, 1793.)]
[Footnote 41135: Ibid., vol.329. (Letter of Charles Duvivier, Lille,
Vendémiaire 15, year II.)]
[Footnote 41136: Speech by Barère, Ventôse 17, year II.]
[Footnote 41137: 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.")]
[Footnote 41138: "Revue Historique," November, 1878. (Letter of M. Falk,
Paris, Oct.19, 1795.)]
[Footnote 41139: "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.]
[Footnote 41140: "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."]
[Footnote 41141: 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."]
[Footnote 41142: Perhaps there is a connection with Mao Zedong and the
Chinese Cultural Revolution. (SR.)]
[Footnote 41143: Moniteur, XVIII., 51. (Letter by Carrier, Brumaire 17,
year II.)--Berryat Saint-Prix, pp.36 and 38.]
[Footnote 41144: 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."]
[Footnote 41145: Mallet-Dupan, "Correspondance Politique." Introduction,
p. VIII. (Hamburg, 1796.)]
[Footnote 41146: 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."]
[Footnote 41147: "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."]
[Footnote 41148: Taillandier, Mémoires écrits par Daunau, à Port-Libre,
in Aug. 1794, p.51, 52.]
[Footnote 41149: 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."]
[Footnote 41150: Guillon de Montléon, II., 174.]
[Footnote 41151: "Memoires sur les Prisons," I., 211, II.,
187.--Beaulieu, "Essais," V., 320. "The prisons became the rendezvous of
good society."]
[Footnote 41152: "The Revolution," vol.3, ch. 6, ante.]
[Footnote 41153: 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."]
[Footnote 41154: 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.]
[Footnote 41155: 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.]
[Footnote 41156: 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).]
[Footnote 41157: Wallon, III., 402.]
[Footnote 41158: 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."]
CHAPTER II. FOOD AND PROVISIONS.
I. Economical Complexity of Food Chain.
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.
II. Conditions in 1793. A Lesson in Market Economics.
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?
III. Privation.
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.
IV. Hunger.
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 Taillefer[4248] 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 fine[4264] 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 food[4270] 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 bread[4274] 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 meantime[4275] 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]
V. Revolutionary Remedies.
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, orders[4296] 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]
VI. Relaxation.
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 brigands[42111] 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 sixty[42115] 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 Versailles[42117] 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, "that[42121] 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 sees[42131] "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.
VII. Misery at Paris.
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-factories[42135] 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 cold[42137] 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 wants[42140]: 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 alarm[42145].... 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.
*****
[Footnote 4201: 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.]
[Footnote 4202: "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.)]
[Footnote 4203: Cf. "The Revolution," vol. I., 254-261, 311-352; vol.
II., 234-272.]
[Footnote 4204: Cf. "The Revolution," II., 273-276.]
[Footnote 4205: 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."]
[Footnote 4206: Buchez et Roux, XXVI., 95. (Declaration of Rights
presented in the Jacobin Club, April 21, 1793.)]
[Footnote 4207: 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.]
[Footnote 4208: 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.]
[Footnote 4209: 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.]
[Footnote 4210: 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.]
[Footnote 4211: Ibid. I., 139-144.]
[Footnote 4212: 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.]
[Footnote 4213: Schmidt, ibid., I., 104, 138, 144.]
[Footnote 4214: 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.")]
[Footnote 4215: Arthur Young, "Voyage en France," II., 360. (Fr.
translation.) "I regard Bordeaux as richer and more commercial than any
city in England except London."]
[Footnote 4216: 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.]
[Footnote 4217: 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."]
[Footnote 4218: 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."]
[Footnote 4219: 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."]
[Footnote 4220: 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."]
[Footnote 4221: 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."]
[Footnote 4222: 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."]
[Footnote 4223: 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."]
[Footnote 4224: 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.]
[Footnote 4225: 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."]
[Footnote 4226: 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.)]
[Footnote 4227: 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.]
[Footnote 4228: We might today call this sentiment a desire to acquire
and retain. (Sentiment of acquisiton). (SR.)]
[Footnote 4229: Taine's remark in a footnote. (SR.)]
[Footnote 4230: 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."]
[Footnote 4231: 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.]
[Footnote 4232: 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.]
[Footnote 4233: 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.]
[Footnote 4234: 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.]
[Footnote 4235: 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."]
[Footnote 4236: 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."]
[Footnote 4237: 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."]
[Footnote 4238: 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."]
[Footnote 4239: 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.]
[Footnote 4240: 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."]
[Footnote 4241: 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.)]
[Footnote 4242: 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."]
[Footnote 4243: 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.)]
[Footnote 4244: 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."]
[Footnote 4245: 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.]
[Footnote 4246: De Martel, ibid., 462. (Proclamation by Javogues,
Pluviose 13, year II.)]
[Footnote 4247: Archives des Affaires étrangères, vol. 330. (Letter of
Brutus, political agent, Nivôse 6.)]
[Footnote 4248: Archives Nationales, AF., II., 116. (Orders of Taillefer
and Marat-Valette, and Deliberations of the Directory of Lot, Brumaire
20, year II.)]
[Footnote 4249: Archives des Affaires étrangères, vol. 331. (Letter of
the agent Bertrand, Frimaire 3.)]
[Footnote 4250: Ibid., vol. 1332. (Letter of the agent Chépy, Brumaire
2.)]
[Footnote 4251: 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."]
[Footnote 4252: Ibid., vol.333. (Letter of Garrigues, Pluviôse 16.)]
[Footnote 4253: "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.]
[Footnote 4254: 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.)]
[Footnote 4255: Moniteur, xix., 671. (Speech by Tallien, March 12,
1794.) Buchez et Roux, XXXII., 423. (Letter of Jullien, June 15, 1794.)]
[Footnote 4256: Archives Nationales, AF., II., 111. (Letters of Michaud,
Chateauroux, Pluviôse 18 and 19, year II.)]
[Footnote 4257: 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.]
[Footnote 4258: Volney, "Voyage en Orient," II., 344. "When
Constantinople lacks food twenty provinces are starved for its supply."]
[Footnote 4259: 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.]
[Footnote 4260: 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."]
[Footnote 4261: 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.)]
[Footnote 4262: Dauban, "Paris en 1794,". (Report of Ventôse 2.)]
[Footnote 4263: Mercier, "Paris Pendant la Revolution," I., 355.]
[Footnote 4264: 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."]
[Footnote 4265: 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."]
[Footnote 4266: 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."]
[Footnote 4267: 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."]
[Footnote 4268: 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."]
[Footnote 4269: Archives des Affaires étrangères, vol.1410. (Reports of
August 6 and 7, 1793.)]
[Footnote 4270: Dauban, 144. (Reports of Ventôse 19.)]
[Footnote 4271: 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.]
[Footnote 4272: 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.)]
[Footnote 4273: 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.'"]
[Footnote 4274: 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."]
[Footnote 4275: 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."]
[Footnote 4276: 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.]
[Footnote 4277: 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.)]
[Footnote 4278: 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.]
[Footnote 4279: Dauban, 231. (Report of Perriére, Ventôse 24.) "Butter
of which they make a god."]
[Footnote 4280: Ibid., 68. (Report of Ventôse 2.)]
[Footnote 4281: Archives Nationales, F.7, 31167. (Report of Nivôse
28.)--Dauban, 144. (Report of Nivôse 14.)]
[Footnote 4282: Dauban, 81. (Report of Latour-Lamontagne, Ventôse 4.)]
[Footnote 4283: "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.]
[Footnote 4284: 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.]
[Footnote 4285: "Un Séjour en France," (April 22, 1794).]
[Footnote 4286: 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."]
[Footnote 4287: 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.]
[Footnote 4288: Ibid., AF., II., 116 and 106, orders of Paganel,
Castres, Pluviôse 6 and 7. Orders of Dartigoyte, Floréal 23, 25, and
29.]
[Footnote 4289: Ibid., AF., II., 147. (Orders of Maignet, Avignon,
Prairial 2.)]
[Footnote 4290: Moniteur, XXIII., 397 (Speech by Dubois-Crancé, May
5, 1795.) "The Committee on Commerce (and Supplies) had thirty-five
thousand employees in its service."]
[Footnote 4291: 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."]
[Footnote 4292: 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?"]
[Footnote 4293: 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."]
[Footnote 4294: 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.")]
[Footnote 4295: Moniteur, XXI., 171. (Letter from Avignon, Messidor 9,
and letter of the Jacobins of Arles.]
[Footnote 4296: Moniteur, XXI., 184. (Decree of Messidor 21.)]
[Footnote 4297: 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.]
[Footnote 4298: Stalin was to test the system and prove Taine right.
(SR.)]
[Footnote 4299: 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."]
[Footnote 42100: 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."]
[Footnote 42101: 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.]
[Footnote 42102: "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.]
[Footnote 42103: 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.]
[Footnote 42104: 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."]
[Footnote 42105: Ibid., AF., II., 73. (Letter from the Directory of the
district of Dieppe, Prairial 22.)]
[Footnote 42106: Ibid. (Letter of the administrators of the district of
Louviers, Prairial 26.)]
[Footnote 42107: 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."]
[Footnote 42108: 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."]
[Footnote 42109: 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.]
[Footnote 42110: Ibid., AF., II., 74. (Letter of the Montreuil-sur-Mer
municipality, Prairial 29.)]
[Footnote 42111: Ibid. (Letter of the Vervins administrators, Prairial
11 Letter of the commune of La Chapelle-sur-Somme, Prairial 24.)]
[Footnote 42112: 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."]
[Footnote 42113: 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.)]
[Footnote 42114: Ibid., AF., II., 74. (Letter of the district
administrators of Bapaume, Prairial 24.--Letter of the municipality of
Boulogne-sur-Mer, Prairial 24.)]
[Footnote 42115: 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.]
[Footnote 42116: 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."]
[Footnote 42117: 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."]
[Footnote 42118: Archives Nationales, AF., II., 70. (Deliberations of
the council-general of Franciade, Thermidor 9, year III.)]
[Footnote 42119: 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.]
[Footnote 42120: 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.]
[Footnote 42121: 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."]
[Footnote 42122: 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.)]
[Footnote 42123: "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.)]
[Footnote 42124: "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.)]
[Footnote 42125: 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.)]
[Footnote 42126: "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.]
[Footnote 42127: 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."]
[Footnote 42128: 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.]
[Footnote 42129: Ibid. (Letter of Representative Porcher, Caen, Prairial
24, Messidor 3 and 26. Letter of the municipality of Caen, Messidor 3.)]
[Footnote 42130: 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."]
[Footnote 42131: 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.]
[Footnote 42132: Schmidt, "Tableaux de Paris," vols. II. and
III.,passim.]
[Footnote 42133: Archives Nationales, AF.,II., 68. (Orders of Ventôse
20, year III.; Germinal 19 and 20; Messidor 8, etc.)]
[Footnote 42134: ibid. Orders of Nivôse 5 and 22.]
[Footnote 42135: 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.)]
[Footnote 42136: 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.]
[Footnote 42137: 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.)]
[Footnote 42138: 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."]
[Footnote 42139: 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.]
[Footnote 42140: 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.'"]
[Footnote 42141: 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."]
[Footnote 42142: Cf. Schmidt, "Tableaux de Paris," vols. II. and III.
(Reports of the Police, at the dates designated.)]
[Footnote 42143: Dauban, "Paris en 1794," pp.562, 568, 572.]
[Footnote 42144: Mallet-Dupan, "Correspondance avec la cour de Vienne,"
I., 254. (July 18, 1795.)]
[Footnote 42145: Schmidt, ibid. (Report of Fructidor 3, year III.)]
[Footnote 42146: Schmidt, ibid., vols. II. and III. (Reports of the
police at the dates designated.)]
[Footnote 42147: 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."]
[Footnote 42148: Dauban, 586.]
[Footnote 42149: Schmidt, ibid. (Reports of Brumaire 24, and Frimaire
13, year IV.)]
[Footnote 42150: 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."]
[Footnote 42151: 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.")]
[Footnote 42152: Lareveillère-Lepeaux, "Mémoires." I, 248. (He belongs
to the Committee and is an eye-witness.)]
BOOK FIFTH. THE END OF THE REVOLUTIONARY GOVERNMENT.
CHAPTER I. THE CONVENTION.
I. The Convention.
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 phraseology[5103] 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 crowd[5111] 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.
II. Re-election of the Two-thirds.
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 decree[5112] 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.
III. A Directory of Regicides.
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.
IV. Public Opinon.
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 pachalic[5138]
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 electors[5143] 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 journal[5147]
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-witness[5164] 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 midnight[5171] 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]
VI. The Directory.
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 circle[5175] 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's[5187]..... 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 sinks[5189] 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."
VII. Enforcement of Pure Jacobinism.
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.
VIII. Propaganda and Foreign Conquests.
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.
IX. National Disgust.
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, robber[51134]
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 Paris[51137] 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.
X. Contrast between Civil and Military France.
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).
*****
[Footnote 5101: 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.'"]
[Footnote 5102: 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).]
[Footnote 5103: 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."]
[Footnote 5104: Memorial of the ninety-four survivors Thermidor 30, year
II., acquitted Fructidor 28.]
[Footnote 5105: 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.]
[Footnote 5106: 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.)]
[Footnote 5107: 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.]
[Footnote 5108: 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."]
[Footnote 5109: Mallet-Dupan, "Correspondance," etc., I., 211. (May 27,
1795.)]
[Footnote 5110: "Un Sejour en France," 267. 271, (Amiens, March 13,
April 12, 1795.)]
[Footnote 5111: Meissner, "Voyage à Paris," 123, 351. (The author
arrives in Paris, September 22, 1795.)]
[Footnote 5112: Decrees of Fructidor 5 and 13, year III.]
[Footnote 5113: 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."]
[Footnote 5114: Moniteur, XXII, 22. (Report of Lindet, 4th
sans-culottide, year II.) "Each man confines himself to his family and
calculates his resources."]
[Footnote 5115: Meissner, 58.]
[Footnote 5116: 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.]
[Footnote 5117: 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.]
[Footnote 5118: 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.]
[Footnote 5119: 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.]
[Footnote 5120: 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."]
[Footnote 5121: 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.)]
[Footnote 5122: 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.]
[Footnote 5123: Barbé-Marbois, "Mémoires,"9.--Meissner, p.246.]
[Footnote 5124: 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."]
[Footnote 5125: Lavalette, "Mémoires," I., 162, 170.]
[Footnote 5126: 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.'"]
[Footnote 5127: Meissner, p. 238.-Fiévée, p.127, and following pages.]
[Footnote 5128: 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.]
[Footnote 5129: Constitution of year III., Articles VI. and VII.]
[Footnote 5130: 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.]
[Footnote 5131: Decree of Brumaire 3, year IV.]
[Footnote 5132: 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."]
[Footnote 5133: Mallet-Dupan, II., 363.--Schmidt (Police report of
Brumaire 26 and 27).]
[Footnote 5134: 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.]
[Footnote 5135: 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.]
[Footnote 5136: 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."]
[Footnote 5137: 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."]
[Footnote 5138: Province in ancient Turkey governed by a Pasha. (SR.)]
[Footnote 5139: 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.)]
[Footnote 5140: Thibaudeau, Ibid., I., 246, et seq.--Moniteur. (Session
of Brumaire 1.) Speech by Thibaudeau.]
[Footnote 5141: 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.]
[Footnote 5142: 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."]
[Footnote 5143: 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."]
[Footnote 5144: 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."]
[Footnote 5145: 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."]
[Footnote 5146: "Souvenir et Journal d'un Bourgeois d'Evreux," p. 118
(March 24, 1797).]
[Footnote 5147: Dufort de Cheverney, "Mémoires," (March, 1797).]
[Footnote 5148: 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.]
[Footnote 5149: Thibaudeau, II., 152, 153.--Mallet-Dupan, II., 262.]
[Footnote 5150: Mallet-Dupan, II., 265, 268, 278.]
[Footnote 5151: Thibaudeau, II., 244, 248.]
[Footnote 5152: 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."]
[Footnote 5153: Mallet-Dupan, II., 267, 278, 331.]
[Footnote 5154: 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."]
[Footnote 5155: 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."]
[Footnote 5156: 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.)]
[Footnote 5157: 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."]
[Footnote 5158: 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."]
[Footnote 5159: 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."]
[Footnote 5160: Barbé-Marbois, "Journal d'un Déporté," preface, p. XVI.]
[Footnote 5161: Mathieu Dumas, III., 84, 86.]
[Footnote 5162: 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.]
[Footnote 5163: 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."]
[Footnote 5164: 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."]
[Footnote 5165: Occupied by the members of the Directory.]
[Footnote 5166: Mathieu Dumas, "Mémoires," III., 113.]
[Footnote 5167: 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."]
[Footnote 5168: Mallet-Dupan, II., 304, 305, 331.--Carnot, II., 117.]
[Footnote 5169: Barbé-Marbois, "Journal d'un Deporté," pp.34 and 35.]
[Footnote 5170: Mallet-Dupan, II., 343.]
[Footnote 5171: Barbé-Marbois, ibid., p.46.]
[Footnote 5172: 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.]
[Footnote 5173: Barbé-Marbois, ibid., p.46.]
[Footnote 5174: 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.' "]
[Footnote 5175: Decrees of Fructidor 18 and 19, year V., Article 39.]
[Footnote 5176: 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."]
[Footnote 5177: Ibid., II. 309.]
[Footnote 5178: 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."]
[Footnote 5179: 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.]
[Footnote 5180: Lacretelle, "Dix ans d'Epreuves," p. 310.]
[Footnote 5181: "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."]
[Footnote 5182: Albert Babeau, II., 444. (Declaration of the patriotic
and secessionist minority of the canton of Riquy at the elections of the
year VI.)]
[Footnote 5183: 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."]
[Footnote 5184: Fiévée, "Correspondance avec Buonaparte," I., 147.]
[Footnote 5185: Barbé-Marbois, I., 64, 91, 96, 133; II., 18, 25,
83.--Dufort de Cheverney, "Mémoires." (September 14, 1797.)--Sauzay,
IX., chapters 81 and 84.]
[Footnote 5186: 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.)]
[Footnote 5187: Dufort de Cheverney, "Mémoires," August, 1798, October,
1797 and 1799, passim.]
[Footnote 5188: 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."]
[Footnote 5189: 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."]
[Footnote 5190: 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."]
[Footnote 5191: 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.]
[Footnote 5192: "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"]
[Footnote 5193: 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.]
[Footnote 5194: Sauzay, IX., 715.. (List of names.)]
[Footnote 5195: Ludovic Sciout, IV., 656.]
[Footnote 5196: 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."]
[Footnote 5197: 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."]
[Footnote 5198: 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.)]
[Footnote 5199: 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."]
[Footnote 51100: Decree of Fructidor 19, year II.]
[Footnote 51101: 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."]
[Footnote 51102: 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."]
[Footnote 51103: Decrees of Vendémiaire 20 and Frimaire 9, year
VI.--Decree of Messidor 10.]
[Footnote 51104: 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."]
[Footnote 51105: De Tocqueville, "oeuvres complètes," V., 65. (Extracts
from secret reports on the state of the Republic, September 26, 1799.)]
[Footnote 51106: Decree of Messidor 24, year VI.]
[Footnote 51107: De Barante, "Histoire du Directoire," III., 456.]
[Footnote 51108: 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."]
[Footnote 51109: Carnot, ibid., II. 147. "Barras, addressing me like
a madman, said, 'Yes, it is to you we owe that infamous treaty of
Leoben!'"]
[Footnote 51110: Andre Lebon, "L'Angleterre et l'Emigration Française,"
p.235. (Letter of Wickam, June 27, 1797, words of Barthélemy to M.
d'Aubigny.)]
[Footnote 51111: 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."]
[Footnote 51112: 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."]
[Footnote 51113: Lord Malmesbury, "Diary," III., 526. (Letter from
Paris, Fructidor 17, year V.)--ibid., 483. (Conversation of Mr. Ellis
with Mr. Pain.)]
[Footnote 51114: 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."]
[Footnote 51115: 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."]
[Footnote 51116: Mathieu Dumas, III., 256.--Miot de Melito, I., 163,
191. (Conversations with Bonaparte June and September, 1797.)]
[Footnote 51117: 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.]
[Footnote 51118: Mallet-Dupan, "Mercure Britannique," Nos. for November
25, and December 25, 1798, and passim.]
[Footnote 51119: 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."]
[Footnote 51120: 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."]
[Footnote 51121: 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.]
[Footnote 51122: 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."]
[Footnote 51123: 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."]
[Footnote 51124: 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.)]
[Footnote 51125: 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.]
[Footnote 51126: 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."]
[Footnote 51127: Decrees of Fructidor 19, year VI. and Vendémiaire 27,
year VII.--Mallet-Dupan, No. for November 25, 1798.)]
[Footnote 51128: 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.]
[Footnote 51129: 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."]
[Footnote 51130: Sauzay, X., 471. (Speech by Representative Biot,
Aug.29, 1799.)]
[Footnote 51131: Albert Babeau, II., 466. (Letter of Milany, July 1,
1798, and report by Pout, Messidor, year VI.)]
[Footnote 51132: 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."]
[Footnote 51133: 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."]
[Footnote 51134: 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!'"]
[Footnote 51135: Schmidt,298, 352, 377, 451, etc. (Ventose, Frimaire and
Fructidor, year VII.)]
[Footnote 51136: Ibid., III. (Reports of Prairial, year III., department
of the Seine.)]
[Footnote 51137: 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."]
[Footnote 51138: 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.)]
[Footnote 51139: 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."]
[Footnote 51140: 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.]
[Footnote 51141: 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."]
[Footnote 51142: 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."]
[Footnote 51143: 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."]
[Footnote 51144: Tacitus, "Annales," book VI., P 50. "Macro, intrepidus,
opprimi senem injectu multoe vestis discedique a limine."]
[Footnote 51145: 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."]
[Footnote 51146: 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."]
[Footnote 51147: 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."]
[Footnote 51148: "Journal de Marche du sergent Fracasse."--"Les Cahiers
du capitaine Coignet."--Correspondence of Maurice Dupin in "Histoire de
ma Vie," by George Sand.]
[Footnote 51149: "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."]
[Footnote 51150: 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."]
[Footnote 51151: 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
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