The French Revolution A History
by
Thomas Carlyle
Part 15 out of 16
appoint that they shall, as Law directs, not in name only but in deed, be
renewed and changed from period to period; a fourth part of them going out
monthly. The Convention will no more lie under bondage of Committees,
under terror of death; but be a free Convention; free to follow its own
judgment, and the Force of Public Opinion. Not less natural is it to enact
that Prisoners and Persons under Accusation shall have right to demand some
'Writ of Accusation,' and see clearly what they are accused of. Very
natural acts: the harbingers of hundreds not less so.
For now Fouquier's trade, shackled by Writ of Accusation, and legal proof,
is as good as gone; effectual only against Robespierre's Tail. The Prisons
give up their Suspects; emit them faster and faster. The Committees see
themselves besieged with Prisoners' friends; complain that they are
hindered in their work: it is as with men rushing out of a crowded place;
and obstructing one another. Turned are the tables: Prisoners pouring out
in floods; Jailors, Moutons and the Tail of Robespierre going now whither
they were wont to send!--The Hundred and thirty-two Nantese Republicans,
whom we saw marching in irons, have arrived; shrunk to Ninety-four, the
fifth man of them choked by the road. They arrive: and suddenly find
themselves not pleaders for life, but denouncers to death. Their Trial is
for acquittal, and more. As the voice of a trumpet, their testimony sounds
far and wide, mere atrocities of a Reign of Terror. For a space of
nineteen days; with all solemnity and publicity. Representative Carrier,
Company of Marat; Noyadings, Loire Marriages, things done in darkness, come
forth into light: clear is the voice of these poor resuscitated Nantese;
and Journals and Speech and universal Committee of Mercy reverberate it
loud enough, into all ears and hearts. Deputation arrives from Arras;
denouncing the atrocities of Representative Lebon. A tamed Convention
loves its own life: yet what help? Representative Lebon, Representative
Carrier must wend towards the Revolutionary Tribunal; struggle and delay as
we will, the cry of a Nation pursues them louder and louder. Them also
Tinville must abolish;--if indeed Tinville himself be not abolished.
We must note moreover the decrepit condition into which a once omnipotent
Mother Society has fallen. Legendre flung her keys on the Convention
table, that Thermidor night; her President was guillotined with
Robespierre. The once mighty Mother came, some time after, with a subdued
countenance, begging back her keys: the keys were restored her; but the
strength could not be restored her; the strength had departed forever.
Alas, one's day is done. Vain that the Tribune in mid air sounds as of
old: to the general ear it has become a horror, and even a weariness. By
and by, Affiliation is prohibited: the mighty Mother sees herself suddenly
childless; mourns, as so hoarse a Rachel may.
The Revolutionary Committees, without Suspects to prey upon, perish fast;
as it were of famine. In Paris the whole Forty-eight of them are reduced
to Twelve, their Forty sous are abolished: yet a little while, and
Revolutionary Committees are no more. Maximum will be abolished; let
Sansculottism find food where it can. (24th December 1794 (Moniteur, No.
97).) Neither is there now any Municipality; any centre at the Townhall.
Mayor Fleuriot and Company perished; whom we shall not be in haste to
replace. The Townhall remains in a broken submissive state; knows not well
what it is growing to; knows only that it is grown weak, and must obey.
What if we should split Paris into, say, a Dozen separate Municipalities;
incapable of concert! The Sections were thus rendered safe to act with:--
or indeed might not the Sections themselves be abolished? You had then
merely your Twelve manageable pacific Townships, without centre or
subdivision; (October 1795 (Dulaure, viii. 454-6).) and sacred right of
Insurrection fell into abeyance!
So much is getting abolished; fleeting swiftly into the Inane. For the
Press speaks, and the human tongue; Journals, heavy and light, in Philippic
and Burlesque: a renegade Freron, a renegade Prudhomme, loud they as ever,
only the contrary way. And Ci-devants shew themselves, almost parade
themselves; resuscitated as from death-sleep; publish what death-pains they
have had. The very Frogs of the Marsh croak with emphasis. Your
protesting Seventy-three shall, with a struggle, be emitted out of Prison,
back to their seats; your Louvets, Isnards, Lanjuinais, and wrecks of
Girondism, recalled from their haylofts, and caves in Switzerland, will
resume their place in the Convention: (Deux Amis, xiii. 3-39.) natural
foes of Terror!
Thermidorian Talliens, and mere foes of Terror, rule in this Convention,
and out of it. The compressed Mountain shrinks silent more and more.
Moderatism rises louder and louder: not as a tempest, with threatenings;
say rather, as the rushing of a mighty organ-blast, and melodious deafening
Force of Public Opinion, from the Twenty-five million windpipes of a Nation
all in Committee of Mercy: which how shall any detached body of
individuals withstand?
Chapter 3.7.II.
La Cabarus.
How, above all, shall a poor National Convention, withstand it? In this
poor National Convention, broken, bewildered by long terror, perturbations,
and guillotinement, there is no Pilot, there is not now even a Danton, who
could undertake to steer you anywhither, in such press of weather. The
utmost a bewildered Convention can do, is to veer, and trim, and try to
keep itself steady: and rush, undrowned, before the wind. Needless to
struggle; to fling helm a-lee, and make 'bout ship! A bewildered
Convention sails not in the teeth of the wind; but is rapidly blown round
again. So strong is the wind, we say; and so changed; blowing fresher and
fresher, as from the sweet South-West; your devastating North-Easters, and
wild tornado-gusts of Terror, blown utterly out! All Sansculottic things
are passing away; all things are becoming Culottic.
Do but look at the cut of clothes; that light visible Result, significant
of a thousand things which are not so visible. In winter 1793, men went in
red nightcaps; Municipals themselves in sabots: the very Citoyennes had to
petition against such headgear. But now in this winter 1794, where is the
red nightcap? With the thing beyond the Flood. Your monied Citoyen
ponders in what elegantest style he shall dress himself: whether he shall
not even dress himself as the Free Peoples of Antiquity. The more
adventurous Citoyenne has already done it. Behold her, that beautiful
adventurous Citoyenne: in costume of the Ancient Greeks, such Greek as
Painter David could teach; her sweeping tresses snooded by glittering
antique fillet; bright-eyed tunic of the Greek women; her little feet
naked, as in Antique Statues, with mere sandals, and winding-strings of
riband,--defying the frost!
There is such an effervescence of Luxury. For your Emigrant Ci-devants
carried not their mansions and furnitures out of the country with them; but
left them standing here: and in the swift changes of property, what with
money coined on the Place de la Revolution, what with Army-furnishings,
sales of Emigrant Domain and Church Lands and King's Lands, and then with
the Aladdin's-lamp of Agio in a time of Paper-money, such mansions have
found new occupants. Old wine, drawn from Ci-devant bottles, descends new
throats. Paris has swept herself, relighted herself; Salons, Soupers not
Fraternal, beam once more with suitable effulgence, very singular in
colour. The fair Cabarus is come out of Prison; wedded to her red-gloomy
Dis, whom they say she treats too loftily: fair Cabarus gives the most
brilliant soirees. Round her is gathered a new Republican Army, of
Citoyennes in sandals; Ci-devants or other: what remnants soever of the
old grace survive, are rallied there. At her right-hand, in this cause,
labours fair Josephine the Widow Beauharnais, though in straitened
circumstances: intent, both of them, to blandish down the grimness of
Republican austerity, and recivilise mankind.
Recivilise, as of old they were civilised: by witchery of the Orphic
fiddle-bow, and Euterpean rhythm; by the Graces, by the Smiles!
Thermidorian Deputies are there in those soirees; Editor Freron, Orateur du
Peuple; Barras, who has known other dances than the Carmagnole. Grim
Generals of the Republic are there; in enormous horse-collar neckcloth,
good against sabre-cuts; the hair gathered all into one knot, 'flowing down
behind, fixed with a comb.' Among which latter do we not recognise, once
more, the little bronzed-complexioned Artillery-Officer of Toulon, home
from the Italian Wars! Grim enough; of lean, almost cruel aspect: for he
has been in trouble, in ill health; also in ill favour, as a man promoted,
deservingly or not, by the Terrorists and Robespierre Junior. But does not
Barras know him? Will not Barras speak a word for him? Yes,--if at any
time it will serve Barras so to do. Somewhat forlorn of fortune, for the
present, stands that Artillery-Officer; looks, with those deep earnest eyes
of his, into a future as waste as the most. Taciturn; yet with the
strangest utterances in him, if you awaken him, which smite home, like
light or lightning:--on the whole, rather dangerous? A 'dissociable' man?
Dissociable enough; a natural terror and horror to all Phantasms, being
himself of the genus Reality! He stands here, without work or outlook, in
this forsaken manner;--glances nevertheless, it would seem, at the kind
glance of Josephine Beauharnais; and, for the rest, with severe
countenance, with open eyes and closed lips, waits what will betide.
That the Balls, therefore, have a new figure this winter, we can see. Not
Carmagnoles, rude 'whirlblasts of rags,' as Mercier called them 'precursors
of storm and destruction:' no, soft Ionic motions; fit for the light
sandal, and antique Grecian tunic! Efflorescence of Luxury has come out:
for men have wealth; nay new-got wealth; and under the Terror you durst not
dance except in rags. Among the innumerable kinds of Balls, let the hasty
reader mark only this single one: the kind they call Victim Balls, Bals a
Victime. The dancers, in choice costume, have all crape round the left
arm: to be admitted, it needs that you be a Victime; that you have lost a
relative under the Terror. Peace to the Dead; let us dance to their
memory! For in all ways one must dance.
It is very remarkable, according to Mercier, under what varieties of figure
this great business of dancing goes on. 'The women,' says he, 'are Nymphs,
Sultanas; sometimes Minervas, Junos, even Dianas. In light-unerring
gyrations they swim there; with such earnestness of purpose; with perfect
silence, so absorbed are they. What is singular,' continues he, 'the
onlookers are as it were mingled with the dancers; form as it were a
circumambient element round the different contre-dances, yet without
deranging them. It is rare, in fact, that a Sultana in such circumstances
experience the smallest collision. Her pretty foot darts down, an inch
from mine; she is off again; she is as a flash of light: but soon the
measure recalls her to the point she set out from. Like a glittering comet
she travels her eclipse, revolving on herself, as by a double effect of
gravitation and attraction.' (Mercier, Nouveau Paris, iii. 138, 153.)
Looking forward a little way, into Time, the same Mercier discerns
Merveilleuses in 'flesh-coloured drawers' with gold circlets; mere dancing
Houris of an artificial Mahomet's-Paradise: much too Mahometan.
Montgaillard, with his splenetic eye, notes a no less strange thing; that
every fashionable Citoyenne you meet is in an interesting situation. Good
Heavens, every! Mere pillows and stuffing! adds the acrid man;--such, in a
time of depopulation by war and guillotine, being the fashion.
(Montgaillard, iv. 436-42.) No further seek its merits to disclose.
Behold also instead of the old grim Tappe-durs of Robespierre, what new
street-groups are these? Young men habited not in black-shag Carmagnole
spencer, but in superfine habit carre or spencer with rectangular tail
appended to it; 'square-tailed coat,' with elegant antiguillotinish
specialty of collar; 'the hair plaited at the temples,' and knotted back,
long-flowing, in military wise: young men of what they call the Muscadin
or Dandy species! Freron, in his fondness names them Jeunesse doree,
Golden, or Gilt Youth. They have come out, these Gilt Youths, in a kind of
resuscitated state; they wear crape round the left arm, such of them as
were Victims. More they carry clubs loaded with lead; in an angry manner:
any Tappe-dur or remnant of Jacobinism they may fall in with, shall fare
the worse. They have suffered much: their friends guillotined; their
pleasures, frolics, superfine collars ruthlessly repressed: 'ware now the
base Red Nightcaps who did it! Fair Cabarus and the Army of Greek sandals
smile approval. In the Theatre Feydeau, young Valour in square-tailed coat
eyes Beauty in Greek sandals, and kindles by her glances: Down with
Jacobinism! No Jacobin hymn or demonstration, only Thermidorian ones,
shall be permitted here: we beat down Jacobinism with clubs loaded with
lead.
But let any one who has examined the Dandy nature, how petulant it is,
especially in the gregarious state, think what an element, in sacred right
of insurrection, this Gilt Youth was! Broils and battery; war without
truce or measure! Hateful is Sansculottism, as Death and Night. For
indeed is not the Dandy culottic, habilatory, by law of existence; 'a
cloth-animal: one that lives, moves, and has his being in cloth?'--
So goes it, waltzing, bickering; fair Cabarus, by Orphic witchery,
struggling to recivilise mankind. Not unsuccessfully, we hear. What
utmost Republican grimness can resist Greek sandals, in Ionic motion, the
very toes covered with gold rings? (Ibid. Mercier (ubi supra).) By
degrees the indisputablest new-politeness rises; grows, with vigour. And
yet, whether, even to this day, that inexpressible tone of society known
under the old Kings, when Sin had 'lost all its deformity' (with or without
advantage to us), and airy Nothing had obtained such a local habitation and
establishment as she never had,--be recovered? Or even, whether it be not
lost beyond recovery? (De Stael, Considerations iii. c. 10, &c.)--Either
way, the world must contrive to struggle on.
Chapter 3.7.III.
Quiberon.
But indeed do not these long-flowing hair-queues of a Jeunesse Doree in
semi-military costume betoken, unconsciously, another still more important
tendency? The Republic, abhorrent of her Guillotine, loves her Army.
And with cause. For, surely, if good fighting be a kind of honour, as it
is, in its season; and be with the vulgar of men, even the chief kind of
honour, then here is good fighting, in good season, if there ever was.
These Sons of the Republic, they rose, in mad wrath, to deliver her from
Slavery and Cimmeria. And have they not done it? Through Maritime Alps,
through gorges of Pyrenees, through Low Countries, Northward along the
Rhine-valley, far is Cimmeria hurled back from the sacred Motherland.
Fierce as fire, they have carried her Tricolor over the faces of all her
enemies;--over scarped heights, over cannon-batteries; down, as with the
Vengeur, into the dead deep sea. She has 'Eleven hundred thousand fighters
on foot,' this Republic: 'At one particular moment she had,' or supposed
she had, 'seventeen hundred thousand.' (Toulongeon, iii. c. 7; v. c. 10
(p. 194).) Like a ring of lightning, they, volleying and ca-ira-ing,
begirdle her from shore to shore. Cimmerian Coalition of Despots recoils;
smitten with astonishment, and strange pangs.
Such a fire is in these Gaelic Republican men; high-blazing; which no
Coalition can withstand! Not scutcheons, with four degrees of nobility;
but ci-devant Serjeants, who have had to clutch Generalship out of the
cannon's throat, a Pichegru, a Jourdan, a Hoche, lead them on. They have
bread, they have iron; 'with bread and iron you can get to China.'--See
Pichegru's soldiers, this hard winter, in their looped and windowed
destitution, in their 'straw-rope shoes and cloaks of bass-mat,' how they
overrun Holland, like a demon-host, the ice having bridged all waters; and
rush shouting from victory to victory! Ships in the Texel are taken by
huzzars on horseback: fled is York; fled is the Stadtholder, glad to
escape to England, and leave Holland to fraternise. (19th January, 1795
(Montgaillard, iv. 287-311).) Such a Gaelic fire, we say, blazes in this
People, like the conflagration of grass and dry-jungle; which no mortal can
withstand--for the moment.
And even so it will blaze and run, scorching all things; and, from Cadiz to
Archangel, mad Sansculottism, drilled now into Soldiership, led on by some
'armed Soldier of Democracy' (say, that Monosyllabic Artillery-Officer),
will set its foot cruelly on the necks of its enemies; and its shouting and
their shrieking shall fill the world!--Rash Coalised Kings, such a fire
have ye kindled; yourselves fireless, your fighters animated only by drill-
serjeants, messroom moralities, and the drummer's cat! However, it is
begun, and will not end: not for a matter of twenty years. So long, this
Gaelic fire, through its successive changes of colour and character, will
blaze over the face of Europe, and afflict the scorch all men:--till it
provoke all men; till it kindle another kind of fire, the Teutonic kind,
namely; and be swallowed up, so to speak, in a day! For there is a fire
comparable to the burning of dry-jungle and grass; most sudden, high-
blazing: and another fire which we liken to the burning of coal, or even
of anthracite coal; difficult to kindle, but then which nothing will put
out. The ready Gaelic fire, we can remark further, and remark not in
Pichegrus only, but in innumerable Voltaires, Racines, Laplaces, no less;
for a man, whether he fight, or sing, or think, will remain the same unity
of a man,--is admirable for roasting eggs, in every conceivable sense. The
Teutonic anthracite again, as we see in Luthers, Leibnitzes, Shakespeares,
is preferable for smelting metals. How happy is our Europe that has both
kinds!--
But be this as it may, the Republic is clearly triumphing. In the spring
of the year Mentz Town again sees itself besieged; will again change
master: did not Merlin the Thionviller, 'with wild beard and look,' say it
was not for the last time they saw him there? The Elector of Mentz
circulates among his brother Potentates this pertinent query, Were it not
advisable to treat of Peace? Yes! answers many an Elector from the bottom
of his heart. But, on the other hand, Austria hesitates; finally refuses,
being subsidied by Pitt. As to Pitt, whoever hesitate, he, suspending his
Habeas-corpus, suspending his Cash-payments, stands inflexible,--spite of
foreign reverses; spite of domestic obstacles, of Scotch National
Conventions and English Friends of the People, whom he is obliged to
arraign, to hang, or even to see acquitted with jubilee: a lean inflexible
man. The Majesty of Spain, as we predicted, makes Peace; also the Majesty
of Prussia: and there is a Treaty of Bale. (5th April, 1795
(Montgaillard, iv. 319).) Treaty with black Anarchists and Regicides!
Alas, what help? You cannot hang this Anarchy; it is like to hang you:
you must needs treat with it.
Likewise, General Hoche has even succeeded in pacificating La Vendee.
Rogue Rossignol and his 'Infernal Columns' have vanished: by firmness and
justice, by sagacity and industry, General Hoche has done it. Taking
'Movable Columns,' not infernal; girdling-in the Country; pardoning the
submissive, cutting down the resistive, limb after limb of the Revolt is
brought under. La Rochejacquelin, last of our Nobles, fell in battle;
Stofflet himself makes terms; Georges-Cadoudal is back to Brittany, among
his Chouans: the frightful gangrene of La Vendee seems veritably
extirpated. It has cost, as they reckon in round numbers, the lives of a
Hundred Thousand fellow-mortals; with noyadings, conflagratings by infernal
column, which defy arithmetic. This is the La Vendee War. (Histoire de la
Guerre de la Vendee, par M. le Comte de Vauban, Memoires de Madame de la
Rochejacquelin, &c.)
Nay in few months, it does burst up once more, but once only:--blown upon
by Pitt, by our Ci-devant Puisaye of Calvados, and others. In the month of
July 1795, English Ships will ride in Quiberon roads. There will be
debarkation of chivalrous Ci-devants, of volunteer Prisoners-of-war--eager
to desert; of fire-arms, Proclamations, clothes-chests, Royalists and
specie. Whereupon also, on the Republican side, there will be rapid stand-
to-arms; with ambuscade marchings by Quiberon beach, at midnight; storming
of Fort Penthievre; war-thunder mingling with the roar of the nightly main;
and such a morning light as has seldom dawned; debarkation hurled back into
its boats, or into the devouring billows, with wreck and wail;--in one
word, a Ci-devant Puisaye as totally ineffectual here as he was in
Calvados, when he rode from Vernon Castle without boots. (Deux Amis, xiv.
94-106; Puisaye, Memoires, iii-vii.)
Again, therefore, it has cost the lives of many a brave man. Among whom
the whole world laments the brave Son of Sombreuil. Ill-fated family! The
father and younger son went to the guillotine; the heroic daughter
languishes, reduced to want, hides her woes from History: the elder son
perishes here; shot by military tribunal as an Emigrant; Hoche himself
cannot save him. If all wars, civil and other, are misunderstandings, what
a thing must right-understanding be!
Chapter 3.7.IV.
Lion not dead.
The Convention, borne on the tide of Fortune towards foreign Victory, and
driven by the strong wind of Public Opinion towards Clemency and Luxury, is
rushing fast; all skill of pilotage is needed, and more than all, in such a
velocity.
Curious to see, how we veer and whirl, yet must ever whirl round again, and
scud before the wind. If, on the one hand, we re-admit the Protesting
Seventy-Three, we, on the other hand, agree to consummate the Apotheosis of
Marat; lift his body from the Cordeliers Church, and transport it to the
Pantheon of Great Men,--flinging out Mirabeau to make room for him. To no
purpose: so strong blows Public Opinion! A Gilt Youthhood, in plaited
hair-tresses, tears down his Busts from the Theatre Feydeau; tramples them
under foot; scatters them, with vociferation into the Cesspool of
Montmartre. (Moniteur, du 25 Septembre 1794, du 4 Fevrier 1795.) Swept is
his Chapel from the Place du Carrousel; the Cesspool of Montmartre will
receive his very dust. Shorter godhood had no divine man. Some four
months in this Pantheon, Temple of All the Immortals; then to the Cesspool,
grand Cloaca of Paris and the World! 'His Busts at one time amounted to
four thousand.' Between Temple of All the Immortals and Cloaca of the
World, how are poor human creatures whirled!
Furthermore the question arises, When will the Constitution of Ninety-
three, of 1793, come into action? Considerate heads surmise, in all
privacy, that the Constitution of Ninety-three will never come into action.
Let them busy themselves to get ready a better.
Or, again, where now are the Jacobins? Childless, most decrepit, as we
saw, sat the mighty Mother; gnashing not teeth, but empty gums, against a
traitorous Thermidorian Convention and the current of things. Twice were
Billaud, Collot and Company accused in Convention, by a Lecointre, by a
Legendre; and the second time, it was not voted calumnious. Billaud from
the Jacobin tribune says, "The lion is not dead, he is only sleeping."
They ask him in Convention, What he means by the awakening of the lion?
And bickerings, of an extensive sort, arose in the Palais-Egalite between
Tappe-durs and the Gilt Youthhood; cries of "Down with the Jacobins, the
Jacoquins," coquin meaning scoundrel! The Tribune in mid-air gave battle-
sound; answered only by silence and uncertain gasps. Talk was, in
Government Committees, of 'suspending' the Jacobin Sessions. Hark, there!-
-it is in Allhallow-time, or on the Hallow-eve itself, month ci-devant
November, year once named of Grace 1794, sad eve for Jacobinism,--volley of
stones dashing through our windows, with jingle and execration! The female
Jacobins, famed Tricoteuses with knitting-needles, take flight; are met at
the doors by a Gilt Youthhood and 'mob of four thousand persons;' are
hooted, flouted, hustled; fustigated, in a scandalous manner, cotillons
retrousses;--and vanish in mere hysterics. Sally out ye male Jacobins!
The male Jacobins sally out; but only to battle, disaster and confusion.
So that armed Authority has to intervene: and again on the morrow to
intervene; and suspend the Jacobin Sessions forever and a day. (Moniteur,
Seances du 10-12 Novembre 1794: Deux Amis, xiii. 43-49.) Gone are the
Jacobins; into invisibility; in a storm of laughter and howls. Their place
is made a Normal School, the first of the kind seen; it then vanishes into
a 'Market of Thermidor Ninth;' into a Market of Saint-Honore, where is now
peaceable chaffering for poultry and greens. The solemn temples, the great
globe itself; the baseless fabric! Are not we such stuff, we and this
world of ours, as Dreams are made of?
Maximum being abrogated, Trade was to take its own free course. Alas,
Trade, shackled, topsyturvied in the way we saw, and now suddenly let go
again, can for the present take no course at all; but only reel and
stagger. There is, so to speak, no Trade whatever for the time being.
Assignats, long sinking, emitted in such quantities, sink now with an
alacrity beyond parallel. "Combien?" said one, to a Hackney-coachman,
"What fare?" "Six thousand livres," answered he: some three hundred
pounds sterling, in Paper-money. (Mercier, ii. 94. ('1st February, 1796:
at the Bourse of Paris, the gold louis,' of 20 francs in silver, 'costs
5,300 francs in assignats.' Montgaillard, iv. 419).) Pressure of Maximum
withdrawn, the things it compressed likewise withdraw. 'Two ounces of
bread per day' in the modicum allotted: wide-waving, doleful are the
Bakers' Queues; Farmers' houses are become pawnbrokers' shops.
One can imagine, in these circumstances, with what humour Sansculottism
growled in its throat, "La Cabarus;" beheld Ci-devants return dancing, the
Thermidor effulgence of recivilisation, and Balls in flesh-coloured
drawers. Greek tunics and sandals; hosts of Muscadins parading, with their
clubs loaded with lead;--and we here, cast out, abhorred, 'picking offals
from the street;' (Fantin Desodoards, Histoire de la Revolution, vii. c.
4.) agitating in Baker's Queue for our two ounces of bread! Will the
Jacobin lion, which they say is meeting secretly 'at the Acheveche, in
bonnet rouge with loaded pistols,' not awaken? Seemingly not. Our Collot,
our Billaud, Barrere, Vadier, in these last days of March 1795, are found
worthy of Deportation, of Banishment beyond seas; and shall, for the
present, be trundled off to the Castle of Ham. The lion is dead;--or
writhing in death-throes!
Behold, accordingly, on the day they call Twelfth of Germinal (which is
also called First of April, not a lucky day), how lively are these streets
of Paris once more! Floods of hungry women, of squalid hungry men;
ejaculating: "Bread, Bread and the Constitution of Ninety-three!" Paris
has risen, once again, like the Ocean-tide; is flowing towards the
Tuileries, for Bread and a Constitution. Tuileries Sentries do their best;
but it serves not: the Ocean-tide sweeps them away; inundates the
Convention Hall itself; howling, "Bread, and the Constitution!"
Unhappy Senators, unhappy People, there is yet, after all toils and broils,
no Bread, no Constitution. "Du pain, pas tant de longs discours, Bread,
not bursts of Parliamentary eloquence!" so wailed the Menads of Maillard,
five years ago and more; so wail ye to this hour. The Convention, with
unalterable countenance, with what thought one knows not, keeps its seat in
this waste howling chaos; rings its stormbell from the Pavilion of Unity.
Section Lepelletier, old Filles Saint-Thomas, who are of the money-changing
species; these and Gilt Youthhood fly to the rescue; sweep chaos forth
again, with levelled bayonets. Paris is declared 'in a state of siege.'
Pichegru, Conqueror of Holland, who happens to be here, is named
Commandant, till the disturbance end. He, in one day, so to speak, ends
it. He accomplishes the transfer of Billaud, Collot and Company;
dissipating all opposition 'by two cannon-shots,' blank cannon-shots, and
the terror of his name; and thereupon announcing, with a Laconicism which
should be imitated, "Representatives, your decrees are executed,"
(Moniteur, Seance du 13 Germinal (2d April) 1795.) lays down his
Commandantship.
This Revolt of Germinal, therefore, has passed, like a vain cry. The
Prisoners rest safe in Ham, waiting for ships; some nine hundred 'chief
Terrorists of Paris' are disarmed. Sansculottism, swept forth with
bayonets, has vanished, with its misery, to the bottom of Saint-Antoine and
Saint-Marceau.--Time was when Usher Maillard with Menads could alter the
course of Legislation; but that time is not. Legislation seems to have got
bayonets; Section Lepelletier takes its firelock, not for us! We retire to
our dark dens; our cry of hunger is called a Plot of Pitt; the Saloons
glitter, the flesh-coloured Drawers gyrate as before. It was for "The
Cabarus" then, and her Muscadins and Money-changers, that we fought? It
was for Balls in flesh-coloured drawers that we took Feudalism by the
beard, and did, and dared, shedding our blood like water? Expressive
Silence, muse thou their praise!--
Chapter 3.7.V.
Lion sprawling its last.
Representative Carrier went to the Guillotine, in December last; protesting
that he acted by orders. The Revolutionary Tribunal, after all it has
devoured, has now only, as Anarchic things do, to devour itself. In the
early days of May, men see a remarkable thing: Fouquier-Tinville pleading
at the Bar once his own. He and his chief Jurymen, Leroi August-Tenth,
Juryman Vilate, a Batch of Sixteen; pleading hard, protesting that they
acted by orders: but pleading in vain. Thus men break the axe with which
they have done hateful things; the axe itself having grown hateful. For
the rest, Fouquier died hard enough: "Where are thy Batches?" howled the
People.--"Hungry canaille," asked Fouquier, "is thy Bread cheaper, wanting
them?"
Remarkable Fouquier; once but as other Attorneys and Law-beagles, which
hunt ravenous on this Earth, a well-known phasis of human nature; and now
thou art and remainest the most remarkable Attorney that ever lived and
hunted in the Upper Air! For, in this terrestrial Course of Time, there
was to be an Avatar of Attorneyism; the Heavens had said, Let there be an
Incarnation, not divine, of the venatory Attorney-spirit which keeps its
eye on the bond only;--and lo, this was it; and they have attorneyed it in
its turn. Vanish, then, thou rat-eyed Incarnation of Attorneyism; who at
bottom wert but as other Attorneys, and too hungry Sons of Adam! Juryman
Vilate had striven hard for life, and published, from his Prison, an
ingenious Book, not unknown to us; but it would not stead: he also had to
vanish; and this his Book of the Secret Causes of Thermidor, full of lies,
with particles of truth in it undiscoverable otherwise, is all that remains
of him.
Revolutionary Tribunal has done; but vengeance has not done.
Representative Lebon, after long struggling, is handed over to the ordinary
Law Courts, and by them guillotined. Nay, at Lyons and elsewhere,
resuscitated Moderatism, in its vengeance, will not wait the slow process
of Law; but bursts into the Prisons, sets fire to the prisons; burns some
three score imprisoned Jacobins to dire death, or chokes them 'with the
smoke of straw.' There go vengeful truculent 'Companies of Jesus,'
'Companies of the Sun;' slaying Jacobinism wherever they meet with it;
flinging it into the Rhone-stream; which, once more, bears seaward a horrid
cargo. (Moniteur, du 27 Juin, du 31 Aout, 1795; Deux Amis, xiii. 121-9.)
Whereupon, at Toulon, Jacobinism rises in revolt; and is like to hang the
National Representatives.--With such action and reaction, is not a poor
National Convention hard bested? It is like the settlement of winds and
waters, of seas long tornado-beaten; and goes on with jumble and with
jangle. Now flung aloft, now sunk in trough of the sea, your Vessel of the
Republic has need of all pilotage and more.
What Parliament that ever sat under the Moon had such a series of
destinies, as this National Convention of France? It came together to make
the Constitution; and instead of that, it has had to make nothing but
destruction and confusion: to burn up Catholicisms, Aristocratisms, to
worship Reason and dig Saltpetre, to fight Titanically with itself and with
the whole world. A Convention decimated by the Guillotine; above the tenth
man has bowed his neck to the axe. Which has seen Carmagnoles danced
before it, and patriotic strophes sung amid Church-spoils; the wounded of
the Tenth of August defile in handbarrows; and, in the Pandemonial
Midnight, Egalite's dames in tricolor drink lemonade, and spectrum of
Sieyes mount, saying, Death sans phrase. A Convention which has
effervesced, and which has congealed; which has been red with rage, and
also pale with rage: sitting with pistols in its pocket, drawing sword (in
a moment of effervescence): now storming to the four winds, through a
Danton-voice, Awake, O France, and smite the tyrants; now frozen mute under
its Robespierre, and answering his dirge-voice by a dubious gasp.
Assassinated, decimated; stabbed at, shot at, in baths, on streets and
staircases; which has been the nucleus of Chaos. Has it not heard the
chimes at midnight? It has deliberated, beset by a Hundred thousand armed
men with artillery-furnaces and provision-carts. It has been betocsined,
bestormed; over-flooded by black deluges of Sansculottism; and has heard
the shrill cry, Bread and Soap. For, as we say, its the nucleus of Chaos;
it sat as the centre of Sansculottism; and had spread its pavilion on the
waste Deep, where is neither path nor landmark, neither bottom nor shore.
In intrinsic valour, ingenuity, fidelity, and general force and manhood, it
has perhaps not far surpassed the average of Parliaments: but in frankness
of purpose, in singularity of position, it seeks its fellow. One other
Sansculottic submersion, or at most two, and this wearied vessel of a
Convention reaches land.
Revolt of Germinal Twelfth ended as a vain cry; moribund Sansculottism was
swept back into invisibility. There it has lain moaning, these six weeks:
moaning, and also scheming. Jacobins disarmed, flung forth from their
Tribune in mid air, must needs try to help themselves, in secret conclave
under ground. Lo, therefore, on the First day of the Month Prairial, 20th
of May 1795, sound of the generale once more; beating sharp, ran-tan, To
arms, To arms!
Sansculottism has risen, yet again, from its death-lair; waste wild-
flowing, as the unfruitful Sea. Saint-Antoine is a-foot: "Bread and the
Constitution of Ninety-three," so sounds it; so stands it written with
chalk on the hats of men. They have their pikes, their firelocks; Paper of
Grievances; standards; printed Proclamation, drawn up in quite official
manner,--considering this, and also considering that, they, a much-enduring
Sovereign People, are in Insurrection; will have Bread and the Constitution
of Ninety-three. And so the Barriers are seized, and the generale beats,
and tocsins discourse discord. Black deluges overflow the Tuileries; spite
of sentries, the Sanctuary itself is invaded: enter, to our Order of the
Day, a torrent of dishevelled women, wailing, "Bread! Bread!" President
may well cover himself; and have his own tocsin rung in 'the Pavilion of
Unity;' the ship of the State again labours and leaks; overwashed, near to
swamping, with unfruitful brine.
What a day, once more! Women are driven out: men storm irresistibly in;
choke all corridors, thunder at all gates. Deputies, putting forth head,
obtest, conjure; Saint-Antoine rages, "Bread and Constitution." Report has
risen that the 'Convention is assassinating the women:' crushing and
rushing, clangor and furor! The oak doors have become as oak tambourines,
sounding under the axe of Saint-Antoine; plaster-work crackles, woodwork
booms and jingles; door starts up;--bursts-in Saint-Antoine with frenzy and
vociferation, Rag-standards, printed Proclamation, drum-music:
astonishment to eye and ear. Gendarmes, loyal Sectioners charge through
the other door; they are recharged; musketry exploding: Saint-Antoine
cannot be expelled. Obtesting Deputies obtest vainly; Respect the
President; approach not the President! Deputy Feraud, stretching out his
hands, baring his bosom scarred in the Spanish wars, obtests vainly:
threatens and resists vainly. Rebellious Deputy of the Sovereign, if thou
have fought, have not we too? We have no bread, no Constitution! They
wrench poor Feraud; they tumble him, trample him, wrath waxing to see
itself work: they drag him into the corridor, dead or near it; sever his
head, and fix it on a pike. Ah, did an unexampled Convention want this
variety of destiny too, then? Feraud's bloody head goes on a pike. Such a
game has begun; Paris and the Earth may wait how it will end.
And so it billows free though all Corridors; within, and without, far as
the eye reaches, nothing but Bedlam, and the great Deep broken loose!
President Boissy d'Anglas sits like a rock: the rest of the Convention is
floated 'to the upper benches;' Sectioners and Gendarmes still ranking
there to form a kind of wall for them. And Insurrection rages; rolls its
drums; will read its Paper of Grievances, will have this decreed, will have
that. Covered sits President Boissy, unyielding; like a rock in the
beating of seas. They menace him, level muskets at him, he yields not;
they hold up Feraud's bloody head to him, with grave stern air he bows to
it, and yields not.
And the Paper of Grievances cannot get itself read for uproar; and the
drums roll, and the throats bawl; and Insurrection, like sphere-music, is
inaudible for very noise: Decree us this, Decree us that. One man we
discern bawling 'for the space of an hour at all intervals,' "Je demande
l'arrestation des coquins et des laches." Really one of the most
comprehensive Petitions ever put up: which indeed, to this hour, includes
all that you can reasonably ask Constitution of the Year One, Rotten-
Borough, Ballot-Box, or other miraculous Political Ark of the Covenant to
do for you to the end of the world! I also demand arrestment of the Knaves
and Dastards, and nothing more whatever. National Representation, deluged
with black Sansculottism glides out; for help elsewhere, for safety
elsewhere: here is no help.
About four in the afternoon, there remain hardly more than some Sixty
Members: mere friends, or even secret-leaders; a remnant of the Mountain-
crest, held in silence by Thermidorian thraldom. Now is the time for them;
now or never let them descend, and speak! They descend, these Sixty,
invited by Sansculottism: Romme of the New Calendar, Ruhl of the Sacred
Phial, Goujon, Duquesnoy, Soubrany, and the rest. Glad Sansculottism forms
a ring for them; Romme takes the President's chair; they begin resolving
and decreeing. Fast enough now comes Decree after Decree, in alternate
brief strains, or strophe and antistrophe,--what will cheapen bread, what
will awaken the dormant lion. And at every new Decree, Sansculottism
shouts, Decreed, Decreed; and rolls its drums.
Fast enough; the work of months in hours,--when see, a Figure enters, whom
in the lamp-light we recognise to be Legendre; and utters words: fit to be
hissed out! And then see, Section Lepelletier or other Muscadin Section
enters, and Gilt Youth, with levelled bayonets, countenances screwed to the
sticking-place! Tramp, tramp, with bayonets gleaming in the lamp-light:
what can one do, worn down with long riot, grown heartless, dark, hungry,
but roll back, but rush back, and escape who can? The very windows need to
be thrown up, that Sansculottism may escape fast enough. Money-changer
Sections and Gilt Youth sweep them forth, with steel besom, far into the
depths of Saint-Antoine. Triumph once more! The Decrees of that Sixty are
not so much as rescinded; they are declared null and non-extant. Romme,
Ruhl, Goujon and the ringleaders, some thirteen in all, are decreed
Accused. Permanent-session ends at three in the morning. (Deux Amis,
xiii. 129-46.) Sansculottism, once more flung resupine, lies sprawling;
sprawling its last.
Such was the First of Prairial, 20th May, 1795. Second and Third of
Prairial, during which Sansculottism still sprawled, and unexpectedly rang
its tocsin, and assembled in arms, availed Sansculottism nothing. What
though with our Rommes and Ruhls, accused but not yet arrested, we make a
new 'True National Convention' of our own, over in the East; and put the
others Out of Law? What though we rank in arms and march? Armed Force and
Muscadin Sections, some thirty thousand men, environ that old False
Convention: we can but bully one another: bandying nicknames,
"Muscadins," against "Blooddrinkers, Buveurs de Sang." Feraud's Assassin,
taken with the red hand, and sentenced, and now near to Guillotine and
Place de Greve, is retaken; is carried back into Saint-Antoine: to no
purpose. Convention Sectionaries and Gilt Youth come, according to Decree,
to seek him; nay to disarm Saint-Antoine! And they do disarm it: by
rolling of cannon, by springing upon enemy's cannon; by military audacity,
and terror of the Law. Saint-Antoine surrenders its arms; Santerre even
advising it, anxious for life and brewhouse. Feraud's Assassin flings
himself from a high roof: and all is lost. (Toulongeon, v. 297; Moniteur,
Nos. 244, 5, 6.)
Discerning which things, old Ruhl shot a pistol through his old white head;
dashed his life in pieces, as he had done the Sacred Phial of Rheims.
Romme, Goujon and the others stand ranked before a swiftly-appointed, swift
Military Tribunal. Hearing the sentence, Goujon drew a knife, struck it
into his breast, passed it to his neighbour Romme; and fell dead. Romme
did the like; and another all but did it; Roman-death rushing on there, as
in electric-chain, before your Bailiffs could intervene! The Guillotine
had the rest.
They were the Ultimi Romanorum. Billaud, Collot and Company are now
ordered to be tried for life; but are found to be already off, shipped for
Sinamarri, and the hot mud of Surinam. There let Billaud surround himself
with flocks of tame parrots; Collot take the yellow fever, and drinking a
whole bottle of brandy, burn up his entrails. (Dictionnaire des Hommes
Marquans, paras Billaud, Collot.) Sansculottism spraws no more. The
dormant lion has become a dead one; and now, as we see, any hoof may smite
him.
Chapter 3.7.VI.
Grilled Herrings.
So dies Sansculottism, the body of Sansculottism, or is changed. Its
ragged Pythian Carmagnole-dance has transformed itself into a Pyrrhic, into
a dance of Cabarus Balls. Sansculottism is dead; extinguished by new isms
of that kind, which were its own natural progeny; and is buried, we may
say, with such deafening jubilation and disharmony of funeral-knell on
their part, that only after some half century or so does one begin to learn
clearly why it ever was alive.
And yet a meaning lay in it: Sansculottism verily was alive, a New-Birth
of TIME; nay it still lives, and is not dead, but changed. The soul of it
still lives; still works far and wide, through one bodily shape into
another less amorphous, as is the way of cunning Time with his New-Births:-
-till, in some perfected shape, it embrace the whole circuit of the world!
For the wise man may now everywhere discern that he must found on his
manhood, not on the garnitures of his manhood. He who, in these Epochs of
our Europe, founds on garnitures, formulas, culottisms of what sort soever,
is founding on old cloth and sheep-skin, and cannot endure. But as for the
body of Sansculottism, that is dead and buried,--and, one hopes, need not
reappear, in primary amorphous shape, for another thousand years!
It was the frightfullest thing ever borne of Time? One of the
frightfullest. This Convention, now grown Anti-Jacobin, did, with an eye
to justify and fortify itself, publish Lists of what the Reign of Terror
had perpetrated: Lists of Persons Guillotined. The Lists, cries splenetic
Abbe Montgaillard, were not complete. They contain the names of, How many
persons thinks the reader?--Two Thousand all but a few. There were above
Four Thousand, cries Montgaillard: so many were guillotined, fusilladed,
noyaded, done to dire death; of whom Nine Hundred were women.
(Montgaillard, iv. 241.) It is a horrible sum of human lives, M. l'Abbe:--
some ten times as many shot rightly on a field of battle, and one might
have had his Glorious-Victory with Te-Deum. It is not far from the two-
hundredth part of what perished in the entire Seven Years War. By which
Seven Years War, did not the great Fritz wrench Silesia from the great
Theresa; and a Pompadour, stung by epigrams, satisfy herself that she could
not be an Agnes Sorel? The head of man is a strange vacant sounding-shell,
M. l'Abbe; and studies Cocker to small purpose.
But what if History, somewhere on this Planet, were to hear of a Nation,
the third soul of whom had not for thirty weeks each year as many third-
rate potatoes as would sustain him? (Report of the Irish Poor-Law
Commission, 1836.) History, in that case, feels bound to consider that
starvation is starvation; that starvation from age to age presupposes much:
History ventures to assert that the French Sansculotte of Ninety-three,
who, roused from long death-sleep, could rush at once to the frontiers, and
die fighting for an immortal Hope and Faith of Deliverance for him and his,
was but the second-miserablest of men! The Irish Sans-potato, had he not
senses then, nay a soul? In his frozen darkness, it was bitter for him to
die famishing; bitter to see his children famish. It was bitter for him to
be a beggar, a liar and a knave. Nay, if that dreary Greenland-wind of
benighted Want, perennial from sire to son, had frozen him into a kind of
torpor and numb callosity, so that he saw not, felt not, was this, for a
creature with a soul in it, some assuagement; or the cruellest wretchedness
of all?
Such things were, such things are; and they go on in silence peaceably:
and Sansculottisms follow them. History, looking back over this France
through long times, back to Turgot's time for instance, when dumb Drudgery
staggered up to its King's Palace, and in wide expanse of sallow faces,
squalor and winged raggedness, presented hieroglyphically its Petition of
Grievances; and for answer got hanged on a 'new gallows forty feet high,'--
confesses mournfully that there is no period to be met with, in which the
general Twenty-five Millions of France suffered less than in this period
which they name Reign of Terror! But it was not the Dumb Millions that
suffered here; it was the Speaking Thousands, and Hundreds, and Units; who
shrieked and published, and made the world ring with their wail, as they
could and should: that is the grand peculiarity. The frightfullest Births
of Time are never the loud-speaking ones, for these soon die; they are the
silent ones, which can live from century to century! Anarchy, hateful as
Death, is abhorrent to the whole nature of man; and must itself soon die.
Wherefore let all men know what of depth and of height is still revealed in
man; and, with fear and wonder, with just sympathy and just antipathy, with
clear eye and open heart, contemplate it and appropriate it; and draw
innumerable inferences from it. This inference, for example, among the
first: 'That if the gods of this lower world will sit on their glittering
thrones, indolent as Epicurus' gods, with the living Chaos of Ignorance and
Hunger weltering uncared for at their feet, and smooth Parasites preaching,
Peace, peace, when there is no peace,' then the dark Chaos, it would seem,
will rise; has risen, and O Heavens! has it not tanned their skins into
breeches for itself? That there be no second Sansculottism in our Earth
for a thousand years, let us understand well what the first was; and let
Rich and Poor of us go and do otherwise.--But to our tale.
The Muscadin Sections greatly rejoice; Cabarus Balls gyrate: the well-nigh
insoluble problem Republic without Anarchy, have we not solved it?--Law of
Fraternity or Death is gone: chimerical Obtain-who-need has become
practical Hold-who-have. To anarchic Republic of the Poverties there has
succeeded orderly Republic of the Luxuries; which will continue as long as
it can.
On the Pont au Change, on the Place de Greve, in long sheds, Mercier, in
these summer evenings, saw working men at their repast. One's allotment of
daily bread has sunk to an ounce and a half. 'Plates containing each three
grilled herrings, sprinkled with shorn onions, wetted with a little
vinegar; to this add some morsel of boiled prunes, and lentils swimming in
a clear sauce: at these frugal tables, the cook's gridiron hissing near
by, and the pot simmering on a fire between two stones, I have seen them
ranged by the hundred; consuming, without bread, their scant messes, far
too moderate for the keenness of their appetite, and the extent of their
stomach.' (Nouveau Paris, iv. 118.) Seine water, rushing plenteous by,
will supply the deficiency.
O man of Toil, thy struggling and thy daring, these six long years of
insurrection and tribulation, thou hast profited nothing by it, then? Thou
consumest thy herring and water, in the blessed gold-red evening. O why
was the Earth so beautiful, becrimsoned with dawn and twilight, if man's
dealings with man were to make it a vale of scarcity, of tears, not even
soft tears? Destroying of Bastilles, discomfiting of Brunswicks, fronting
of Principalities and Powers, of Earth and Tophet, all that thou hast dared
and endured,--it was for a Republic of the Cabarus Saloons? Patience; thou
must have patience: the end is not yet.
Chapter 3.7.VII.
The Whiff of Grapeshot.
In fact, what can be more natural, one may say inevitable, as a Post-
Sansculottic transitionary state, than even this? Confused wreck of a
Republic of the Poverties, which ended in Reign of Terror, is arranging
itself into such composure as it can. Evangel of Jean-Jacques, and most
other Evangels, becoming incredible, what is there for it but return to the
old Evangel of Mammon? Contrat-Social is true or untrue, Brotherhood is
Brotherhood or Death; but money always will buy money's worth: in the
wreck of human dubitations, this remains indubitable, that Pleasure is
pleasant. Aristocracy of Feudal Parchment has passed away with a mighty
rushing; and now, by a natural course, we arrive at Aristocracy of the
Moneybag. It is the course through which all European Societies are at
this hour travelling. Apparently a still baser sort of Aristocracy? An
infinitely baser; the basest yet known!
In which however there is this advantage, that, like Anarchy itself, it
cannot continue. Hast thou considered how Thought is stronger than
Artillery-parks, and (were it fifty years after death and martyrdom, or
were it two thousand years) writes and unwrites Acts of Parliament, removes
mountains; models the World like soft clay? Also how the beginning of all
Thought, worth the name, is Love; and the wise head never yet was, without
first the generous heart? The Heavens cease not their bounty: they send
us generous hearts into every generation. And now what generous heart can
pretend to itself, or be hoodwinked into believing, that Loyalty to the
Moneybag is a noble Loyalty? Mammon, cries the generous heart out of all
ages and countries, is the basest of known Gods, even of known Devils. In
him what glory is there, that ye should worship him? No glory discernable;
not even terror: at best, detestability, ill-matched with despicability!--
Generous hearts, discerning, on this hand, widespread Wretchedness, dark
without and within, moistening its ounce-and-half of bread with tears; and
on that hand, mere Balls in fleshcoloured drawers, and inane or foul
glitter of such sort,--cannot but ejaculate, cannot but announce: Too
much, O divine Mammon; somewhat too much!--The voice of these, once
announcing itself, carries fiat and pereat in it, for all things here
below.
Meanwhile, we will hate Anarchy as Death, which it is; and the things worse
than Anarchy shall be hated more! Surely Peace alone is fruitful. Anarchy
is destruction: a burning up, say, of Shams and Insupportabilities; but
which leaves Vacancy behind. Know this also, that out of a world of Unwise
nothing but an Unwisdom can be made. Arrange it, Constitution-build it,
sift it through Ballot-Boxes as thou wilt, it is and remains an Unwisdom,--
the new prey of new quacks and unclean things, the latter end of it
slightly better than the beginning. Who can bring a wise thing out of men
unwise? Not one. And so Vacancy and general Abolition having come for
this France, what can Anarchy do more? Let there be Order, were it under
the Soldier's Sword; let there be Peace, that the bounty of the Heavens be
not spilt; that what of Wisdom they do send us bring fruit in its season!--
It remains to be seen how the quellers of Sansculottism were themselves
quelled, and sacred right of Insurrection was blown away by gunpowder:
wherewith this singular eventful History called French Revolution ends.
The Convention, driven such a course by wild wind, wild tide, and steerage
and non-steerage, these three years, has become weary of its own existence,
sees all men weary of it; and wishes heartily to finish. To the last, it
has to strive with contradictions: it is now getting fast ready with a
Constitution, yet knows no peace. Sieyes, we say, is making the
Constitution once more; has as good as made it. Warned by experience, the
great Architect alters much, admits much. Distinction of Active and
Passive Citizen, that is, Money-qualification for Electors: nay Two
Chambers, 'Council of Ancients,' as well as 'Council of Five Hundred;' to
that conclusion have we come! In a like spirit, eschewing that fatal self-
denying ordinance of your Old Constituents, we enact not only that actual
Convention Members are re-eligible, but that Two-thirds of them must be re-
elected. The Active Citizen Electors shall for this time have free choice
of only One-third of their National Assembly. Such enactment, of Two-
thirds to be re-elected, we append to our Constitution; we submit our
Constitution to the Townships of France, and say, Accept both, or reject
both. Unsavoury as this appendix may be, the Townships, by overwhelming
majority, accept and ratify. With Directory of Five; with Two good
Chambers, double-majority of them nominated by ourselves, one hopes this
Constitution may prove final. March it will; for the legs of it, the re-
elected Two-thirds, are already there, able to march. Sieyes looks at his
Paper Fabric with just pride.
But now see how the contumacious Sections, Lepelletier foremost, kick
against the pricks! Is it not manifest infraction of one's Elective
Franchise, Rights of Man, and Sovereignty of the People, this appendix of
re-electing your Two-thirds? Greedy tyrants who would perpetuate
yourselves!--For the truth is, victory over Saint-Antoine, and long right
of Insurrection, has spoiled these men. Nay spoiled all men. Consider too
how each man was free to hope what he liked; and now there is to be no
hope, there is to be fruition, fruition of this.
In men spoiled by long right of Insurrection, what confused ferments will
rise, tongues once begun wagging! Journalists declaim, your Lacretelles,
Laharpes; Orators spout. There is Royalism traceable in it, and
Jacobinism. On the West Frontier, in deep secrecy, Pichegru, durst he
trust his Army, is treating with Conde: in these Sections, there spout
wolves in sheep's clothing, masked Emigrants and Royalists! (Napoleon, Las
Cases (Choix des Rapports, xvii. 398-411).) All men, as we say, had hoped,
each that the Election would do something for his own side: and now there
is no Election, or only the third of one. Black is united with white
against this clause of the Two-thirds; all the Unruly of France, who see
their trade thereby near ending.
Section Lepelletier, after Addresses enough, finds that such clause is a
manifest infraction; that it, Lepelletier, for one, will simply not conform
thereto; and invites all other free Sections to join it, 'in central
Committee,' in resistance to oppression. (Deux Amis, xiii. 375-406.) The
Sections join it, nearly all; strong with their Forty Thousand fighting
men. The Convention therefore may look to itself! Lepelletier, on this
12th day of Vendemiaire, 4th of October 1795, is sitting in open
contravention, in its Convent of Filles Saint-Thomas, Rue Vivienne, with
guns primed. The Convention has some Five Thousand regular troops at hand;
Generals in abundance; and a Fifteen Hundred of miscellaneous persecuted
Ultra-Jacobins, whom in this crisis it has hastily got together and armed,
under the title Patriots of Eighty-nine. Strong in Law, it sends its
General Menou to disarm Lepelletier.
General Menou marches accordingly, with due summons and demonstration; with
no result. General Menou, about eight in the evening, finds that he is
standing ranked in the Rue Vivienne, emitting vain summonses; with primed
guns pointed out of every window at him; and that he cannot disarm
Lepelletier. He has to return, with whole skin, but without success; and
be thrown into arrest as 'a traitor.' Whereupon the whole Forty Thousand
join this Lepelletier which cannot be vanquished: to what hand shall a
quaking Convention now turn? Our poor Convention, after such voyaging,
just entering harbour, so to speak, has struck on the bar;--and labours
there frightfully, with breakers roaring round it, Forty thousand of them,
like to wash it, and its Sieyes Cargo and the whole future of France, into
the deep! Yet one last time, it struggles, ready to perish.
Some call for Barras to be made Commandant; he conquered in Thermidor.
Some, what is more to the purpose, bethink them of the Citizen Buonaparte,
unemployed Artillery Officer, who took Toulon. A man of head, a man of
action: Barras is named Commandant's-Cloak; this young Artillery Officer
is named Commandant. He was in the Gallery at the moment, and heard it; he
withdrew, some half hour, to consider with himself: after a half hour of
grim compressed considering, to be or not to be, he answers Yea.
And now, a man of head being at the centre of it, the whole matter gets
vital. Swift, to Camp of Sablons; to secure the Artillery, there are not
twenty men guarding it! A swift Adjutant, Murat is the name of him,
gallops; gets thither some minutes within time, for Lepelletier was also on
march that way: the Cannon are ours. And now beset this post, and beset
that; rapid and firm: at Wicket of the Louvre, in Cul de Sac Dauphin, in
Rue Saint-Honore, from Pont Neuf all along the north Quays, southward to
Pont ci-devant Royal,--rank round the Sanctuary of the Tuileries, a ring of
steel discipline; let every gunner have his match burning, and all men
stand to their arms!
Thus there is Permanent-session through night; and thus at sunrise of the
morrow, there is seen sacred Insurrection once again: vessel of State
labouring on the bar; and tumultuous sea all round her, beating generale,
arming and sounding,--not ringing tocsin, for we have left no tocsin but
our own in the Pavilion of Unity. It is an imminence of shipwreck, for the
whole world to gaze at. Frightfully she labours, that poor ship, within
cable-length of port; huge peril for her. However, she has a man at the
helm. Insurgent messages, received, and not received; messenger admitted
blindfolded; counsel and counter-counsel: the poor ship labours!--
Vendemiaire 13th, year 4: curious enough, of all days, it is the Fifth day
of October, anniversary of that Menad-march, six years ago; by sacred right
of Insurrection we are got thus far.
Lepelletier has seized the Church of Saint-Roch; has seized the Pont Neuf,
our piquet there retreating without fire. Stray shots fall from
Lepelletier; rattle down on the very Tuileries staircase. On the other
hand, women advance dishevelled, shrieking, Peace; Lepelletier behind them
waving its hat in sign that we shall fraternise. Steady! The Artillery
Officer is steady as bronze; can be quick as lightning. He sends eight
hundred muskets with ball-cartridges to the Convention itself; honourable
Members shall act with these in case of extremity: whereat they look grave
enough. Four of the afternoon is struck. (Moniteur, Seance du 5 Octobre
1795.) Lepelletier, making nothing by messengers, by fraternity or hat-
waving, bursts out, along the Southern Quai Voltaire, along streets, and
passages, treble-quick, in huge veritable onslaught! Whereupon, thou
bronze Artillery Officer--? "Fire!" say the bronze lips. Roar and again
roar, continual, volcano-like, goes his great gun, in the Cul de Sac
Dauphin against the Church of Saint-Roch; go his great guns on the Pont
Royal; go all his great guns;--blow to air some two hundred men, mainly
about the Church of Saint-Roch! Lepelletier cannot stand such horse-play;
no Sectioner can stand it; the Forty-thousand yield on all sides, scour
towards covert. 'Some hundred or so of them gathered both Theatre de la
Republique; but,' says he, 'a few shells dislodged them. It was all
finished at six.'
The Ship is over the bar, then; free she bounds shoreward,--amid shouting
and vivats! Citoyen Buonaparte is 'named General of the Interior, by
acclamation;' quelled Sections have to disarm in such humour as they may;
sacred right of Insurrection is gone for ever! The Sieyes Constitution can
disembark itself, and begin marching. The miraculous Convention Ship has
got to land;--and is there, shall we figuratively say, changed, as Epic
Ships are wont, into a kind of Sea Nymph, never to sail more; to roam the
waste Azure, a Miracle in History!
'It is false,' says Napoleon, 'that we fired first with blank charge; it
had been a waste of life to do that.' Most false: the firing was with
sharp and sharpest shot: to all men it was plain that here was no sport;
the rabbets and plinths of Saint-Roch Church show splintered by it, to this
hour.--Singular: in old Broglie's time, six years ago, this Whiff of
Grapeshot was promised; but it could not be given then, could not have
profited then. Now, however, the time is come for it, and the man; and
behold, you have it; and the thing we specifically call French Revolution
is blown into space by it, and become a thing that was!--
Homer's Epos, it is remarked, is like a Bas-relief sculpture: it does not
conclude, but merely ceases. Such, indeed, is the Epos of Universal
History itself. Directorates, Consulates, Emperorships, Restorations,
Citizen-Kingships succeed this Business in due series, in due genesis one
out of the other. Nevertheless the First-parent of all these may be said
to have gone to air in the way we see. A Baboeuf Insurrection, next year,
will die in the birth; stifled by the Soldiery. A Senate, if tinged with
Royalism, can be purged by the Soldiery; and an Eighteenth of Fructidor
transacted by the mere shew of bayonets. (Moniteur, du 5 Septembre 1797.)
Nay Soldiers' bayonets can be used a posteriori on a Senate, and make it
leap out of window,--still bloodless; and produce an Eighteenth of
Brumaire. (9th November 1799 (Choix des Rapports, xvii. 1-96).) Such
changes must happen: but they are managed by intriguings, caballings, and
then by orderly word of command; almost like mere changes of Ministry. Not
in general by sacred right of Insurrection, but by milder methods growing
ever milder, shall the Events of French history be henceforth brought to
pass.
It is admitted that this Directorate, which owned, at its starting, these
three things, an 'old table, a sheet of paper, and an ink-bottle,' and no
visible money or arrangement whatever, (Bailleul, Examen critique des
Considerations de Madame de Stael, ii. 275.) did wonders: that France,
since the Reign of Terror hushed itself, has been a new France, awakened
like a giant out of torpor; and has gone on, in the Internal Life of it,
with continual progress. As for the External form and forms of Life,--what
can we say except that out of the Eater there comes Strength; out of the
Unwise there comes not Wisdom! Shams are burnt up; nay, what as yet is the
peculiarity of France, the very Cant of them is burnt up. The new
Realities are not yet come: ah no, only Phantasms, Paper models, tentative
Prefigurements of such! In France there are now Four Million Landed
Properties; that black portent of an Agrarian Law is as it were realised!
What is still stranger, we understand all Frenchmen have 'the right of
duel;' the Hackney-coachman with the Peer, if insult be given: such is the
law of Public Opinion. Equality at least in death! The Form of Government
is by Citizen King, frequently shot at, not yet shot.
On the whole, therefore, has it not been fulfilled what was prophesied, ex-
postfacto indeed, by the Archquack Cagliostro, or another? He, as he
looked in rapt vision and amazement into these things, thus spake:
(Diamond Necklace, p. 35.) 'Ha! What is this? Angels, Uriel, Anachiel,
and the other Five; Pentagon of Rejuvenescence; Power that destroyed
Original Sin; Earth, Heaven, and thou Outer Limbo, which men name Hell!
Does the EMPIRE Of IMPOSTURE waver? Burst there, in starry sheen
updarting, Light-rays from out its dark foundations; as it rocks and
heaves, not in travail-throes, but in death-throes? Yea, Light-rays,
piercing, clear, that salute the Heavens,--lo, they kindle it; their starry
clearness becomes as red Hellfire!
'IMPOSTURE is burnt up: one Red-sea of Fire, wild-billowing enwraps the
World; with its fire-tongue, licks at the very Stars. Thrones are hurled
into it, and Dubois mitres, and Prebendal Stalls that drop fatness, and--
ha! what see I?--all the Gigs of Creation; all, all! Wo is me! Never
since Pharaoh's Chariots, in the Red-sea of water, was there wreck of
Wheel-vehicles like this in the Sea of Fire. Desolate, as ashes, as gases,
shall they wander in the wind. Higher, higher yet flames the Fire-Sea;
crackling with new dislocated timber; hissing with leather and prunella.
The metal Images are molten; the marble Images become mortar-lime; the
stone Mountains sulkily explode. RESPECTABILITY, with all her collected
Gigs inflamed for funeral pyre, wailing, leaves the earth: not to return
save under new Avatar. Imposture, how it burns, through generations: how
it is burnt up; for a time. The World is black ashes; which, ah, when will
they grow green? The Images all run into amorphous Corinthian brass; all
Dwellings of men destroyed; the very mountains peeled and riven, the
valleys black and dead: it is an empty World! Wo to them that shall be
born then!--A King, a Queen (ah me!) were hurled in; did rustle once; flew
aloft, crackling, like paper-scroll. Iscariot Egalite was hurled in; thou
grim De Launay, with thy grim Bastille; whole kindreds and peoples; five
millions of mutually destroying Men. For it is the End of the Dominion of
IMPOSTURE (which is Darkness and opaque Firedamp); and the burning up, with
unquenchable fire, of all the Gigs that are in the Earth.' This Prophecy,
we say, has it not been fulfilled, is it not fulfilling?
And so here, O Reader, has the time come for us two to part. Toilsome was
our journeying together; not without offence; but it is done. To me thou
wert as a beloved shade, the disembodied or not yet embodied spirit of a
Brother. To thee I was but as a Voice. Yet was our relation a kind of
sacred one; doubt not that! Whatsoever once sacred things become hollow
jargons, yet while the Voice of Man speaks with Man, hast thou not there
the living fountain out of which all sacrednesses sprang, and will yet
spring? Man, by the nature of him, is definable as 'an incarnated Word.'
Ill stands it with me if I have spoken falsely: thine also it was to hear
truly. Farewell.
THE END.
INDEX.
ABBAYE, massacres, Jourgniac, Sicard, and Maton's account of.
ACCEPTATION, grande, by Louis XVI.
AGOUST, Captain d', seizes two Parlementeers.
AIGUILLON, d', at Quiberon, account of, in favour, at death of Louis XV.
AINTRIGUES, Count d'.
ALTAR of Fatherland in Champ-de-Mars, scene at, christening at.
AMIRAL, assassin, guillotined.
ANGLAS, Boissy d', President, First of Prairial.
ANGOULEME, Duchesse d', parts from her father.
ANGREMONT, Collenot d', guillotined.
ANTOINETTE, Marie, splendour of, applauded, compromised by Diamond
Necklace, griefs of, weeps, unpopular, at Dinner of Guards, courage of,
Fifth October, at Versailles, shows herself to people, and Louis at
Tuileries, and the Lorrainer, and Mirabeau, previous to flight, flight from
Tuileries, captured, and Barnave, Coblentz intrigues, and Lamotte's
Memoires, during Twentieth June, during Tenth August, as captive, and
Princess de Lamballe, in Temple Prison, parting scene with King, to the
Conciergerie, trial of, guillotined.
ARGONNE Forest, occupied by Dumouriez, Brunswick at.
ARISTOCRATS, officers in French army, number in Paris, seized, condition in
1794.
ARLES, state of.
ARMS, smiths making, search for, at Charleville, manufacture, in 1794,
scarcity in 1792, Danton's search for.
ARMY, French, after Bastille, officered by aristocrats, to be disbanded,
demands arrears, general mutiny of, outbreak of, Nanci military executions,
Royalists leave, state of, in want, recruited, Revolutionary, fourteen
armies on foot.
ARRAS, guillotine at.
ARRESTS in August 1792.
ARSENAL, attempted destruction of.
ARTOIS, M. d', ways of, unpopularity of, memorial by, flies, at Coblentz,
refusal to return.
ASSEMBLIES, Primary and Secondary.
ASSEMBLY, National, Third Estate becomes, to be extruded, stands grouped in
the rain, occupies Tennis-Court, scene there, joined by clergy, doings on
King's speech, ratified by King, cannon pointed at, regrets Necker, after
Bastille.
ASSEMBLY, Constituent, National, becomes, pedantic, Irregular Verbs, what
it can do, Night of Pentecost, Left and Right side, raises money, on the
Veto, Fifth October, women, in Paris Riding-Hall, on deficit, assignats, on
clergy, and riot, prepares for Louis's visit, on Federation, Anacharsis
Clootz, eldest of men, on Franklin's death, on state of army, thanks
Bouille, on Nanci affair, on Emigrants, on death of Mirabeau, on escape of
King, after capture of King, completes Constitution, dissolves itself, what
it has done.
ASSEMBLY, Legislative, First French Parliament, book of law, dispute with
King, Baiser de Lamourette, High Court, decrees vetoed, scenes in,
reprimands King's ministers, declares war, declares France in danger,
reinstates Petion, nonplused, Lafayette, King and Swiss, August Tenth,
becoming defunct, September massacres, dissolved.
ASSIGNATS, origin of, false Royalist, forgers of, coach-fare in.
AUBRIOT, Sieur, after King's capture.
AUBRY, Colonel, at Jales.
AUCH, M. Martin d', in Versailles Court.
AUSTRIA quarrels with France.
AUSTRIAN Committee, at Tuileries.
AUSTRIAN Army, invades France, defeated at Jemappes, Dumouriez escapes to,
repulsed, Watigny.
AVIGNON, Union of, described, state of, riot in church at, occupied by
Jourdan, massacre at.
BACHAUMONT, his thirty volumes.
BAILLE, involuntary epigram of.
BAILLY, Astronomer, account of, President of National Assembly, Mayor of
Paris, receives Louis in Paris, and Paris Parlement, on Petition for
Deposition, decline of, in prison, at Queen's trial, guillotined cruelly.
BAKERS', French in tail at.
BARBAROUX and Marat, Marseilles Deputy, and the Rolands, on Map of France,
demand of, to Marseilles, meets Marseillese, in National Convention,
against Robespierre, cannot be heard, the Girondins declining, arrested,
and Charlotte Corday, retreats to Bourdeaux, farewell of, shoots himself.
BARDY, Abbe, massacred.
BARENTIN, Keeper of Seals.
BARNAVE, at Grenoble, member of Assembly, one of a trio, Jacobin, duel with
Cazales, escorts the King from Varennes, conciliates Queen, becomes
Constitutional, retires to Grenoble, treason, in prison, guillotined.
BARRAS, Paul-Francois, in National Convention, commands in Thermidor,
appoints Napoleon in Vendemiaire.
BARRERE, Editor, at King's trial, peace-maker, levy in mass, plot,
banished.
BARTHOLOMEW massacre.
BASTILLE, Linguet's Book on, meaning of, shots fired at, summoned by
insurgents, besieged, capitulates, treatment of captured, Queret-Demery,
demolished, key sent to Washington, Heroes.
BAZIRE, of Mountain, imprisoned.
BEARN, riot at.
BEAUHARNAIS in Champ-de-Mars, Josephine, imprisoned, and Napoleon, at La
Cabarus's.
BEAUMARCHAIS, Caron, his lawsuit, his 'Mariage de Figaro,' commissions arms
from Holland, his distress.
BEAUMONT, Archbishop, notice of.
BEAUREPAIRE, Governor of Verdun, shoots himself.
BENTHAM, Jeremy, naturalised.
BERLINE, towards Varennes.
BERTHIER, Intendant, fled, arrested and massacred.
BERTHIER, Commandant, at Versailles.
BESENVAL, Baron, Commandant of Paris, on French Finance, in riot of Rue St.
Antoine, on corruption of Guards, at Champ-de-Mars, apparition to, decamps,
and Louis XVI.
BETHUNE, riot at.
BEURNONVILLE, with Dumouriez, imprisoned.
BILLAUD-VARENNES, Jacobin, cruel, at massacres, September 1792, in Salut
Committee, and Robespierre's Etre Supreme, accuses Robespierre, accused,
banished.
BLANC, Le, landlord at Varennes, escape of family.
BLOOD, baths of.
BONCHAMPS, in La Vendee War.
BONNEMERE, Aubin, at Siege of Bastille.
BOUILLE, at Metz, account of, character of, troops mutinous, and Salm
regiment, intrepidity of, marches on Nanci, quells Nanci mutineers, at
Mirabeau's funeral, expects fugitive King, would liberate King, emigrates.
BOUILLE, Junior, asleep at Varennes, flies to father.
BOURDEAUX, priests hanged at, for Girondism.
BOYER, duellist.
BREST, sailors revolt, state of, in 1791, Federes in Paris, in 1793.
BRETEUIL, Home-Secretary.
BRETON Club, germ of Jacobins.
BRETONS, deputations of, Girondins.
BREZE, Marquis de, his mode of ushering, and National Assembly,
extraordinary etiquette.
BRIENNE, Lomenie, anti-protestant, in Notables, incapacity of, failure of,
arrests Paris Parlement, secret scheme, scheme discovered, arrests two
Parlementeers, bewildered, desperate shifts by, wishes for Necker,
dismissed, and provided for, his effigy burnt.
BRISSAC, Duke de, commands Constitutional Guard, disbanded.
BRISSOT, edits 'Moniteur,' friend of Blacks, in First Parliament, plans in
1792, active in Assembly, in Jacobins, at Roland's, pelted in Assembly,
arrested, trial of, guillotined.
BRITTANY, disturbances in.
BROGLIE, Marshal, against Plenary Court, in command, in office, dismissed.
BRUNSWICK, Duke, marches on France, advances, Proclamation, at Verdun, at
Argonne, retreats.
BUFFON, Mme. de, and Duke d'Orleans, at d'Orleans execution.
BUTTAFUOCO, Napoleon's letter to.
BUZOT, in National Convention, arrested, retreats to Bourdeaux, end of.
CABANIS, Physician to Mirabeau.
CABARUS, Mlle., and Tallien, imprisoned.
CAEN, Girondins at.
CALENDAR, Romme's new, comparative ground-scheme of.
CALONNE, M. de, Financier, character of, suavity and genius of, his
difficulties, dismissed, marriage and after-course.
CALVADOS, for Girondism.
CAMUS, Archivist, in National Convention, with Dumouriez, imprisoned.
CANNON, Siamese, wooden, fever, Goethe on.
CARMAGNOLE, costume, what, dances in Convention.
CARNOT, Hippolyte, notice of, plan for Toulon, discovery in Robespierre's
pocket.
CARPENTRAS, against Avignon.
CARRA, on plots for King's flight, in National Convention.
CARRIER, a Revolutionist, in National Assembly, Nantes noyades,
guillotined.
CARTAUX, General, fights Girondins, at Toulon.
CASTRIES, Duke de, duel with Lameth.
CATHELINEAU, of La Vendee.
CAVAIGNAC, Convention Representative.
CAZALES, Royalist, in Constituent Assembly.
CAZOTTE, author of 'Diable Amoureux,' seized, saved for a time by his
daughter.
CERCLE, Social, of Fauchet.
CERUTTI, his funeral oration on Mirabeau.
CEVENNES, revolt of.
CHABOT, of Mountain, against Kings, imprisoned.
CHABRAY, Louison, at Versailles, October Fifth.
CHALIER, Jacobin, Lyons, executed, body raised.
CHAMBON, Dr., Mayor of Paris, retires.
CHAMFORT, Cynic, arrested, suicide.
CHAMP-DE-MARS, Federation, preparations for, accelerated by patriots,
anecdotes of, Federation-scene at, funeral-service, Nanci, riot, Patriot
petition, 1791, new Federation, 1792.
CHAMPS Elysees, Menads at, festivities in.
CHANTILLY Palace, a prison.
CHAPT-RASTIGNAC, Abbe de, massacred.
CHARENTON, Marseillese at.
CHARLES I., Trial of, sold in Paris.
CHARLEVILLE Artillery.
CHARTRES, grain-riot at.
CHATEAUBRIANDS in French Revolution.
CHATELET, Achille de, advises Republic.
CHATILLON-SUR-SEVRE, insurrection at.
CHAUMETTE, notice of, signs petition, in governing committee, at King's
trial, demands constitution, arrest and death of.
CHAUVELIN, Marquis de, in London, dismissed.
CHENAYE, Baudin de la, massacred.
CHENIER, Poet, and Mlle. Theroigne.
CHEPY, at La Force in September.
CHOISEUL, Duke, why dismissed.
CHOISEUL, Colonel Duke, assists Louis's flight, too late at Varennes.
CHOISI, General, at Avignon.
CHURCH, spiritual guidance, of Rome, decay of.
CITIZENS, French, demeanour of.
CLAIRFAIT, Commander of Austrians.
CLAVIERE, edits 'Moniteur,' account of, Finance Minister, arrested, suicide
of.
CLERGY, French, in States-General, conciliators of orders, joins Third
Estate, lands, national, power of, &c.
CLERMONT, flight of King through, Prussians near.
CLERY, on Louis's last scene.
CLOOTZ, Anacharsis, Baron de, account of, disparagement of, in National
Convention, universal republic of, on nullity of religion, purged from the
Jacobins, guillotined.
CLOVIS, in the Champ-de-Mars.
CLUB, Electoral, at Paris, becomes Provisional Municipality, permanent.
CLUGNY, M., as Finance Minister.
COBLENTZ, Emigrants at.
COBOURG and Dumouriez.
COCKADES, green, tricolor, black, national, trampled, white.
COFFINHAL, Judge, delivers Henriot.
COIGNY, Duke de, a sinecurist.
COMMISSIONERS, Convention, like Kings.
COMMITTEE of Defence, Central, of Watchfulness, of Public Salvation,
Circular of, of the Constitution, Revolutionary.
COMMUNE, Council-General of the, Sovereign of France, enlisting.
CONDE, Prince de, attends Louis XV., departure of.
CONDE, Town, surrender of.
CONDORCET, Marquis, edits 'Moniteur,' Girondist, prepares Address, on
Robespierre, death of.
CONSTITUTION, French, completed, will not march, burst in pieces, new, of
1793.
CONVENTION, National, in what case to be summoned, demanded by some,
determined on, Deputies elected, constituted, motions in, work to be done,
hated, politeness, effervescence of, on September Massacres, guard for, try
the King, debate on trial, invite to revolt, condemn Louis, armed Girondins
in, power of, removes to Tuileries, besieged, June 2nd, 1793, extinction of
Girondins, Jacobins and, on forfeited property, Carmagnole, Goddess of
Reason, Representatives, at Feast of Etre Supreme, end of Robespierre,
retrospect of, Feraud, Germinal, Prairial, termination, its successor.
CORDAY, Charlotte, account of, in Paris, assissinates Marat, examined,
executed.
CORDELIERS, Club, Hebert in.
COURT, Chevalier de.
COUTHON, of Mountain, in Legislative, in National Convention, at Lyons, in
Salut Committee, his question in Jacobins, decree of, arrest and execution.
COVENANT, Scotch, French.
CRUSSOL, Marquise de, executed.
CUISSA, massacre of, at La Force.
CUSSY, Girondin, retreats to Bourdeaux.
CUSTINE, General, takes Mentz, retreats, censured, guillotined, his son
guillotined.
CUSTOMS and morals.
DAMAS, Colonel Comte de, at Clermont, at Varennes.
DAMPIERRE, General, killed.
DAMPMARTIN, Captain, at riot in Rue St. Antoine, on condition of army, on
state of France, at Avignon, on Marseillese.
DANDOINS, Captain, Flight to Varennes.
DANTON, notice of, President of Cordeliers, and Marat, served with writs,
in Cordeliers Club, elected Councillor, Mirabeau of Sansculottes, in
Jacobins, for Deposition, of Committee, August Tenth, Minister of Justice,
after September massacre, after Jemappes, and Robespierre, in Netherlands,
at King's trial, on war, rebukes Marat, peace-maker, and Dumouriez, in
Salut Committee, breaks with Girondins, his law of Forty sous, and
Revolutionary Government, and Paris Municipality, retires to Arcis, and
Robespierre, arrested, tried, and guillotined.
DAVID, Painter, in National Convention, works by, hemlock with Robespierre.
DEMOCRACY, on Bunker Hill, spread of, in France.
DEPARTMENTS, France divided into.
DESEZE, Pleader for Louis.
DESHUTTES massacred, Fifth October.
DESILLES, Captain, in Nanci.
DESLONS, Captain, at Varennes, would liberate the King.
DESMOULINS, Camille, notice of, in arms at Cafe de Foy, on Insurrection of
Women, in Cordeliers Club, and Brissot, in National Convention, on
Sansculottism, on plots, suspect, for a committee of mercy, ridicules law
of the suspect, his Journal, trial of, guillotined, widow guillotined.
DIDEROT, prisoner in Vincennes.
DINNERS, defined.
DOPPET, General, at Lyons.
DROUET, Jean B., notice of, discovers Royalty in flight, raises Varennes,
blocks the bridge, defends his prize, rewarded, to be in Convention,
captured by Austrians.
DUBARRY, Dame, and Louis XV., flight of, imprisoned.
DUBOIS Crance bombards and captures Lyons.
DUCHATEL votes, wrapped in blankets, at Caen.
DUCOS, Girondin.
DUGOMMIER, General, at Toulon.
DUHAMEL, killed by Marseillese.
DUMONT, on Mirabeau.
DUMOURIEZ, notice by, account of him, in Brittany, at Nantes, in La Vendee,
sent for to Paris, Foreign Minister, dismissed, to Army, disobeys Luckner,
Commander-in-Chief, his army, Council of War, seizes Argonne Forest, Grand
Pre, and mutineers, and Marat in Paris, to Netherlands, at Jemappes, in
Paris, discontented, retreats, beaten, will join the enemy, arrests his
arresters, escapes to Austrians.
DUPONT, Deputy, Atheist.
DUPORT, Adrien, in Paris Parlement, in Constituent Assembly, one of a trio,
law-reformer.
DUPORTAIL, in office.
DUROSOY, Royalist, guillotined.
DUSAULX, M., on taking of Bastille, notice of.
DUTERTRE, in office.
EDGEWORTH, Abbe, attends Louis, at execution of Louis.
EGLANTINE, Fabre d', in National Convention, assists in New Calendar,
imprisoned.
ELIE, Capt., at Siege of Bastille, after victory.
ELIZABETH, Princess, flight to Varennes, August 10th, in Temple Prison,
guillotined.
ENGLAND declares war on France, captures Toulon.
ENRAGED Club, the.
EQUALITY, reign of.
ESCUYER, Patriot l', at Avignon.
ESPREMENIL, Duval d', notice of, patriot, speaker in Paris Parlement, with
crucifix, discovers Brienne's plot, arrest and speech of, turncoat, in
Constituent Assembly, beaten by populace, guillotined, widow guillotined.
ESTAING, Count d', notice of, National Colonel, Royalist, at Queen's Trial.
ESTATE, Fourth, of Editors.
ETOILE, beginning of Federation at.
FAMINE, in France, in 1788-1792, Louis and Assembly try to relieve, in
1792, and remedy, remedy by maximum, &c.
FAUCHET, Abbe, at siege of Bastille, his Te-Deums, his harangue on
Franklin, his Cercle Social, in First Parliament, motion by, doffs his
insignia, King's death, lamentation, will demit, trial of.
FAUSSIGNY, sword in hand.
FAVRAS, Chevalier, execution of.
FEDERATION, spread of, of Champ-de-Mars, deputies to, human species at,
ceremonies of, a new, 1792.
FERAUD, in National Convention, massacred there.
FERSEN, Count, gets Berline built, acts coachman in King's flight.
FEUILLANS, Club, denounce Jacobins, decline, extinguished, Battalion,
Justices and Patriotism.
FINANCES, serious state of, how to be improved.
FLANDERS, how Louis XV. conquers.
FLANDRE, regiment de, at Versailles.
FLESSELLES, Paris Provost, shot.
FLEURIOT, Mayor, guillotined.
FLEURY, Joly de, Controller of Finance.
FONTENAI, Mme.
FORSTER (FOSTER), and French soldier, account of.
FOUCHE, at Lyons.
FOULON, bad repute of, sobriquet, funeral of, alive, judged, massacred.
FOURNIER, and Orleans Prisoners.
FOY, Cafe de, revolutionary.
FRANCE, abject, under Louis XV., Kings of, early history of, decay of
Kingship in, on accession of Louis XVI., and Philosophy, famine in, 1775,
state of, prior Revolution, aids America, in 1788, inflammable, July 1789,
gibbets, general overturn, how to reform, riotousness of, Mirabeau and,
after King's flight, petitions against Royalty, warfare of towns in,
European league against, terror of, in Spring 1792, decree of war, France
in danger, general enlisting, rage of, Autumn 1792, Marat's Circular,
September, Sansculottic, declaration of war, Mountain and Girondins divide,
communes of, coalition against, levy in mass.
FRANKLIN, Ambassador to France, his death lamented, bust in Jacobins.
FRENCH Anglomania, character of the, literature, in 1784, Parlements,
nature of, Mirabeau, type of the, mob, character of.
FRERON, notice of, renegade, Gilt Youth of.
FRETEAU, at Royal Session, arrested, liberated.
FREYS, the Jew brokers, imprisoned.
GALLOIS, to La Vendee.
GAMAIN, Sieur, informer.
GARAT, Minister of Justice.
GENLIS, Mme., account of, and D'Orleans, to Switzerland.
GENSONNE, Girondist, to La Vendee, arrested, trial of.
GEORGES-CADOUDAL, in La Vendee.
GEORGET, at taking of Bastille.
GERARD, Farmer, Rennes deputy.
GERLE, Dom, at Theot's.
GERMINAL Twelfth, First of April 1795.
GIRONDINS, origin of term, in National Convention, against Robespierre, on
King's trial, and Jacobins, formula of, favourers of, schemes of, to be
seized? break with Danton, armed against Mountain, accuse Marat,
departments, commission of twelve, commission broken, arrested, dispersed,
war by, retreat of eleven, trial and death of.
GOBEL, Archbishop to be, renounces religion, arrested, guillotined.
GOETHE, at Argonne, in Prussian retreat, at Mentz.
GOGUELAT, Engineer, assists Louis's flight, intrigues.
GONDRAN, captain of Guard.
GORSAS, Journalist, pleads for Swiss, in National Convention, his house
broken into, guillotined.
GOUJON, Member of Convention, in riot of Prairial, suicide of.
GOUPIL, on extreme left.
GOUVION, Major-General, at Paris, flight to Varennes, death of.
GOVERNMENT, Maurepas's, bad state of French, French revolutionary, Danton
on.
GRAVE, Chev. de, War Minister, loses head.
GREGOIRE, Cure, notice of, in National Convention, detained in Convention,
and destruction of religion.
GUADET, Girondin, cross-questions Ministers, arrested, guillotined.
GUARDS, Swiss, and French, at Reveillon riot, French refuse to fire, come
to Palais-Royal, fire on Royal-Allemand, to Bastille, name changed,
National origin of, number of, Body at Versailles, October Fifth, fight,
fly in Chateau, Body, and French, at Versailles, National, at Nanci,
French, last appearance of, National, how commanded, 1791, Constitutional,
dismissed, Filles-St.-Thomas, routed, Swiss, at Tuileries, ordered to
cease, destroyed, eulogy of, Departmental, for National Convention.
GUILLAUME, Clerk, pursues King.
GUILLOTIN, Doctor, summoned by Paris Parlement, invents the guillotine,
deputed to King.
GUILLOTINE invented, described, in action, to be improved, number of
sufferers by.
HASSENFRATZ, in War-office.
HEBERT, Editor of 'Pere Duchene,' signs petition, arrested, at Queen's
trial, quickens Revolutionary Tribunal, arrested, and guillotined, widow
guillotined.
HENAULT, President, on Surnames.
HENRIOT, General of National Guard, and the Convention, to deliver
Robespierre, seized, rescued, end of.
HERBOIS, Collot d', notice of, in National Convention, at Lyons massacre,
in Salut Committee, attempt to assassinate, bullied at Jacobins, President,
night of Thermidor, accused, banished.
HERITIER, Jerome l', shot at Versailles.
HOCHE, Sergeant Lazare, General against Prussia, pacifies La Vendee,
HONDSCHOOTEN, Battle of.
HOTEL des Invalides, plundered.
HOTEL de Ville, after Bastille taken, harangues at.
HOUCHARD, General, unsuccessful.
HOWE, Lord, defeats French.
HUGUENIN, Patriot, tocsin in heart, 20th June 1792.
HULIN, half-pay, at siege of Bastille.
INISDAL'S, Count d', plot.
INSURRECTION, most sacred of duties, of Women, of August Tenth, difficult,
of Paris, against Girondins, sacred right of, last Sansculottic, of
Baboeuf.
ISNARD, Max, notice of, in First Parliament, on Ministers, to demolish
Paris.
JACOB, Jean Claude, father of men.
JACOBINS, Society, beginning of, Hall, described, and members, Journal &c.,
of, daughters of, at Nanci, suppressed, Club increases, and Mirabeau,
prospers, 'Lords of the Articles,' extinguishes Feuillans, Hall enlarged,
described, and Marseillese, and Lavergne, message to Dumouriez,
missionaries in Army, on King's trial, on accusation of Robespierre,
against Girondins, National Convention and, Popular Tribunals of, purges
members, to become dominant, locked out by Legendre, begs back its keys,
decline of, mobbed, suspended, hunted down.
JALES, Camp of, Royalists at, destroyed.
JAUCOURT, Chevalier, and Liberty.
JAY, Dame le.
JONES, Paul, equipped for America, at Paris, account of, burial of.
JOUNNEAU, Deputy, in danger in September.
JOURDAN, General, repels Austria.
JOURDAN, Coupe-tete, at Versailles, leader of Brigands, supreme in Avignon,
massacre by, flight of, guillotined.
JULIEN, Sieur Jean, guillotined.
KAUNITZ, Prince, denounces Jacobins.
KELLERMANN, at Valmy.
KLOPSTOCK, naturalised.
KNOX, John, and the Virgin.
KORFF, Baroness de, in flight to Varennes.
LAFARGE, President of Jacobins, Madame Lavergne and.
LAFAYETTE, bust of, erected, against Calonne, demands by, in Notables,
Cromwell-Grandison, Bastille time, Vice-President of National Assembly,
General of National Guard, resigns and reaccepts, Scipio-Americanus,
thanked, rewarded, French Guards and, to Versailles, Fifth October, at
Versailles, swears the Guards, Feuillant, on abolition of Titles, at Champ-
de-Mars Federation, at De Castries' riot, character of, in Day of Poniards,
difficult position of, at King's going to St. Cloud, resigns and reaccepts,
at flight from Tuileries, after escape of King, moves for amnesty, resigns,
decline of, doubtful against Jacobins, journey to Paris, to be accused,
flies to Holland.
LAFLOTTE, poison-plot, informer.
LAIS, Sieur, Jacobin, with Louis Philippe.
LALLY, death of.
LAMARCHE, guillotined.
LAMARCK'S, illness of Mirabeau at.
LAMBALLE, Princess de, to England, intrigues for Royalists, at La Force,
massacred.
LAMETH, in Constituent Assembly, one of a trio, brothers, notice of,
Jacobins, Charles, Duke de Castries, brothers become constitutional,
Theodore, in First Parliament.
LAMOIGNON, Keeper of Seals, dismissed, effigy burned, and death of.
LAMOTTE, Countess de, and Diamond Necklace, in the Salpetriere, 'Memoirs'
burned, in London, M. de, in prison.
LAMOURETTE, Abbe, kiss of, guillotined.
LANJUINAIS, Girondin, clothes torn, arrested, recalled.
LAPORTE, Intendant, guillotined.
LARIVIERE, Justice, imprisoned.
LA ROCHEJACQUELIN, in La Vendee, death of.
LASOURCE, accuses Danton, president, and Marat, arrested, condemned.
LATOUR-MAUBOURG, notice of.
LAUNAY, Marquis de, Governor of Bastille, besieged, unassisted, to blow up
Bastille, massacred.
LAVERGNE, surrenders Longwi.
LAVOISIER, Chemist, guillotined.
LAW, Martial, in Paris, Book of the.
LAWYERS, their influence on the Revolution, number of, in Tiers Etat, in
Parliament First.
LAZARE, Maison de St., plundered.
LEBAS at Strasburg, arrested,
LEBON, Priest, in National Convention, at Arras, guillotined.
LECHAPELIER, Deputy, and Insurrection of Women.
LECOINTRE, National Major, will not fight, active, in First Parliament.
LEFEVRE, Abbe, distributes powder.
LEGENDRE, in danger, at Tuileries riot, in National Convention, against
Girondins, for Danton, locks out Jacobins, in First of Prairial.
LENFANT, Abbe, on Protestant claims, massacred.
LEPELLETIER, Section for Convention, revolt of, in Vendemiaire.
LETTRES-DE-CACHET, and Parlement of Paris.
LEVASSEUR, in National Convention, Convention Representative.
LIANCOURT, Duke de, Liberal, not a revolt, but a revolution.
LIES, Philosophism on, to be extinguished, how.
LIGNE, Prince de, death of.
LILLE, Colonel Rouget de, Marseillese Hymn.
LILLE, besieged.
LINGUET, his 'Bastille Unveiled,' returns.
LOISEROLLES, General, guillotined for his son.
LONGWI, surrender of, fugitives at Paris.
LORDS of the Articles, Jacobins as.
LORRAINE Federes and the Queen, state of, in 1790.
LOUIS XIV., l'etat c'est moi, booted in Parlement, pursues Louvois.
LOUIS XV., origin of his surname, last illness of, dismisses Dame Dubarry,
Choiseul, wounded, has small-pox, his mode of conquest, impoverishes
France, his daughters, on death, on ministerial capacity, death and burial
of.
LOUIS XVI., at his accession, good measures of, temper and pursuits of,
difficulties of, commences governing, and Notables, holds Royal Session,
receives States-General Deputies, in States-General procession, speech to
States-General, National Assembly, unwise policy of, dismisses Necker,
apprised of the Revolution, conciliatory, visits Assembly, Bastille, visits
Paris, deserted, will fly, languid, at Dinner of Guards, deposition of,
proposed, October Fifth, women deputies, to fly or not? grants the
acceptance, Paris propositions to, in the Chateau tumult, appears to mob,
will go to Paris, his wisest course, procession to Paris, review of his
position, lodged at Tuileries, Restorer of French Liberty, no hunting,
locksmith, schemes, visits Assembly, Federation, Hereditary Representative,
will fly, and D'Inisdal's plot, Mirabeau, useless, indecision of, ill of
catarrh, prepares for St. Cloud, hindered by populace, effect, should he
escape, prepares for flight, his circular, flies, letter to Assembly,
manner of flight, loiters by the way, detected by Drouet, captured at
Varennes, indecision there, return to Paris, reception there, to be
deposed? reinstated, reception of Legislative, position of, proposes war,
with tears, vetoes, dissolves Roland Ministry, in riot of, June 20, and
Petion, at Federation, with cuirass, declared forfeited, last levee of,
Tenth August, quits Tuileries for Assembly, in Assembly, sent to Temple
prison, in Temple, to be tried, and the Locksmith Gamain, at the bar, his
will, condemned, parting scene, and execution of, his son.
LOUIS-PHILIPPE, King of the French, Jacobin door-keeper, at Valmy, bravery
at Jemappes, and sister, with Dumouriez to Austrians, to Switzerland.
LOUSTALOT, Editor.
LOUVET, his 'Chevalier de Faublas,' his 'Sentinelles,' and Robespierre, in
National Convention, Girondin accuses Robespierre, arrested, retreats to
Bourdeaux, escape of, recalled.
LUCKNER, Supreme General, and Dumouriez, guillotined.
LUNEVILLE, Inspector Malseigne at.
LUX, Adam, guillotined.
LYONS, Federation at, disorders in, Chalier, Jacobin, executed at, capture
of magazine, massacres at.
MAILHE, Deputy, on trial of Louis.
MAILLARD, Usher, at siege of Bastille, Insurrection of Women, drum, Champs
Elysees, entering Versailles, addresses National Assembly there, signs
Decheance petition, in September Massacres.
MAILLE, Camp-Marshal, at Tuileries, massacred at La Force.
MAILLY, Marshal, one of Four Generals.
MALESHERBES, M. de, in King's Council, defends Louis.
MALSEIGNE, Army Inspector, at Nanci, imprisoned, liberated.
MANDAT, Commander of Guards, August, 1792.
MANUEL, Jacobin, slow-sure, in August Tenth, in Governing Committee,
haranguing at La Force, in National Convention, motions in, vote at King's
trial, in prison, guillotined.
MARAT, Jean Paul, horseleech to D'Artois, notice of, against violence, at
siege of Bastille, summoned by Constituent, not to be gagged, astir, how to
regenerate France, police and, on abolition of titles, would gibbet
Mirabeau, bust in Jacobins, concealed in cellars, in seat of honour, signs
circular, elected to Convention, and Dumouriez, oaths by, in Convention, on
sufferings of People, and Girondins, arrested, returns in triumph, fall of
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