The French Revolution, Volume 2 The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3
by
Hippolyte A. Taine

Part 4 out of 10



Mainvielle." Jourdan supplies the executioners; the apothecary Mende,
brother-in-law of Duprat, plies them with liquor, while a clerk of
Tournal, the newsman, bids them "kill all, so that there shall be no
witnesses left." Whereupon, at the reiterated orders of Mainvielle,
Tournal, Duprat, and Jourdan, with a complications of hilarious
lewdness,[48] the massacre develops itself on the 16th of October and
following days, during sixty-six hours, the victims being a couple of
priests, three children, an old man of eighty, thirteen women, two of
whom are pregnant, in all, sixty-one persons, with their throats slit
or knocked out and then cast one on top of each other into the
Glacière hole, a mother on the body of her infant, a son on the body
of his father, all finished off with rocks, the hole being filled up
with stones and covered over with quicklime on account of the
smell.[49] In the meantime about a hundred more, killed in the
streets, are pitched into the Sorgues canal; five hundred families
make their escape. The ousted bandits return in a body, while the
assassins who are at the head of them, enthroned by murder, organize
for the benefit of their new band a legal system of brigandage,
against which nobody defends himself.[50]

These are the friends of the Jacobins of Arles and Marseilles, the
respectable men whom M. d'Antonelle has come to address in the
cathedral at Avignon.[51] These are the pure patriots, who, with
their hands in the till and their feet in gore, caught in the act by a
French army, the mask torn off through a scrupulous investigation,
universally condemned by the emancipated electors, also by the
deliberate verdict of the new mediating commissioners,[52] are
included in the amnesty proclaimed by the Legislative Assembly a month
before their last crime. - But the sovereigns of the Bouches-du-Rhône
do not regard the release of their friends and allies as a pardon:
something more than pardon and forgetfulness must be awarded to the
murderers of the Glacière. On the 29th of April, 1792, Rebecqui and
Bertin, the vanquishers of Arles, enter Avignon[53] along with a
cortége, at the head of which are from thirty to forty of the
principal murderers whom the Legislative Assembly itself had ordered
to be recommitted to prison, Duprat, Mainvielle, Toumal, Mende, then
Jourdan in the uniform of a commanding general crowned with laurel and
seated on a white horse, and, lastly, the dames Duprat, Mainvielle and
Tournal, in dashing style, standing on a sort of triumphal chariot;
during the procession the cry is heard, "The Glacière will be full
this time! " -- On their approach the public functionaries fly; twelve
hundred persons abandon the town. Forthwith each terrorist, under the
protection of the Marseilles bayonets, resumes his office, like a man
at the head of his household. Raphel, the former judge, along with his
clerk, both with warrants of arrest against them, publicly officiate,
while the relatives of the poor victims slain on the 16th of October,
and the witnesses that appeared on the trial, are threatened in the
streets; one of them is killed, and Jourdan, king of the department
for an entire year, begins over again on a grand scale, at the head of
the National Guard, and afterwards of the police body, the same
performance which, on a small scale, he pursued under the ancient
régime, when, with a dozen "armed and mounted" brigands, he traversed
the highways, forced open lonely houses at night, and, in one château
alone, stole 24,000 francs.



V.

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

The Jacobin conquest takes place like this: already in during April,
1792, through acts of violence almost equal to those we have just
described, it spreads over more than twenty departments and, to a
smaller degree, over the other sixty.[54] The composition of the
parties is the same everywhere. On one side are the irresponsible of
all conditions,

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

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

"weakened by being used to security and wealth, surprised at any
unforeseen disturbance and trying to find their way, isolated from
each other by diversity of interests, opposing only tact and caution
to persevering audacity in defiance of legitimate means, unable either
to make up their mind or to remain inactive, perplexed over sacrifices
just at the time when the enemy is going to render it impossible to
make any in the future, in a word, bringing weakness and egoism to
bear against the liberated passions, great poverty and hardened
immorality."[55]

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

"Your system," says one of the department Directories to them,[56]
"is to act imperturbably on all occasions, even after a constitution
is established, and the limitations to power are fixed, as if the
empire would always be in a state of insurrection, as if you were
granted a dictatorship essential for the city's salvation, as if you
were given such full power in the name of public safety."

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

"Among officials and agents, good or bad, constituted or not
constituted, that alone governs which is inviolable. Now the club, for
a long time, has been too much accustomed to domineering, to annoying,
to persecuting, to wreaking vengeance, for any local administration to
regard it in any other light than as inviolable."[57]

They accordingly govern and their indirect influence is promptly
transformed into direct authority. -- Voting alone, or almost alone,
in the primary meetings, which are deserted or under constraint, the
Jacobins easily choose the municipal body and the officers of the
National Guard.[58] After this, through the mayor, who is their tool
or their accomplice, they have the legal right to launch or arrest the
entire armed force and they avail themselves of it. -- Two obstacles
still stand in their way. One the one hand, however conciliatory or
timid the Directory of the district or department may be, elected as
it is by electors of the second degree, it usually contains a fair
proportion of well-informed men, comfortably off, interested in
keeping order, and less inclined than the municipality to put up with
gross violations of the law. Consequently the Jacobins denounce it to
the National Assembly as an unpatriotic and anti-revolutionary center
of "bourgeois aristocracy." Sometimes, as at Brest,[59] they
shamefully disobey orders which are perfectly legal and proper, often
repeated and strictly formal; afterward, still more shamefully, they
demand of the Minister if, "placed in the cruel alternative of giving
offense to the hierarchy of powers, or of leaving the commonwealth in
danger, they ought to hesitate." Sometimes, as at Arras, they impose
themselves illegally on the Directory in session and browbeat it so
insolently as to make it a point of honor with the latter to solicit
its own suspension.[60] Sometimes, as a Figeac, they summon an
administrator to their bar, keep him standing three-quarters of an
hour, seize his papers and oblige him, for fear of something worse, to
leave the town.[61] Sometimes, as at Auch, they invade the
Directory's chambers, seize the administrators by the throat, pound
them with their fists and clubs, drag the president by the hair, and,
after a good deal of trouble, grant him his life.[62] -- On the other
hand, the gendarmerie and the troops brought for the suppression of
riots, are always in the way of those who stir up the rioters.
Consequently, they expel, corrupt and, especially purify the
gendarmerie together with the troops. At Cahors they drive out a
sergeant of the gendarmerie, "alleging that he keeps company with none
but aristocrats."[63] At Toulouse, without mentioning the lieutenant-
colonel, whose life they threaten by anonymous letters and oblige to
leave the town, they transfer the whole corps to another district
under the pretense that "its principles are adverse to the
Constitution."[64] At Auch, and at Rennes, through the insubordination
which they provoke among the men, they exhort resignations from their
officers. At Perpignan, by means of a riot which they foment, they
seize, beat and drag to prison, the commandant and staff whom they
accuse "of wanting to bombard the town with five pounds of
powder."[65]- Meanwhile, through the jacquerie, which they let loose
from the Dordogne to Aveyron, from Cantal to the Pyrenees and the Var,
under the pretence of punishing the relatives of émigrés and the
abettors of unsworn priests, they create an army of their own made up
of robbers and the destitute who, in anticipation of the exploits of
the coming revolutionary army, freely kill, burn, pillage, hold to
ransom and prey at large on the defenseless flock of proprietors of
every class and degree.[66]

In this operation each club has its neighbors for allies, offering to
them or receiving from them offers of men and money. That of Caen
tenders its assistance to the Bayeux association for expelling unsworn
priests, and to help the patriots of the place "to rid themselves of
the tyranny of their administrators."[67] That of Besançon declares
the three administrative bodies of Strasbourg "unworthy of the
confidence with which they have been honored," and openly enters into
a league with all the clubs of the Upper and Lower Rhine, to set free
a Jacobin arrested as a fomenter of insurrections.[68] Those of the
Puy-de-Dôme and neighboring departments depute to and establish at
Clermont a central club of direction and propaganda.[69] Those of the
Bouches-du-Rhône treat with the commissioners of the departments of
Drôme, Gard, and Hérault, to watch the Spanish frontier, and send
delegates of their own to see the state of the fortifications of
Figuières.[70] -- There is no recourse to the criminal tribunals. In
forty departments, these are not yet installed, in the forty-three
others, they are cowed, silent, or lack money and men to enforce their
decisions.[71]

Such is the foundation of the Jacobin State, a confederation of twelve
hundred oligarchies, which maneuver their proletariat clients in
obedience to the word of command dispatched from Paris. It is a
complete, organized, active State, with its central government, its
active force, its official journal, its regular correspondence, its
declared policy, its established authority, and its representative and
local agents; the latter are actual administrators alongside of
administrations which are abolished, or athwart administrations which
are brought under subjection. -- In vain do the latest ministers,
good clerks and honest men, try to fulfill their duties; their
injunctions and remonstrances are only so much waste paper.[72] They
resign in despair, declaring that,

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

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

NOTES:



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[13] Letter of the commissioners, June 29.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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






CHAPTER V. PARIS.

I.

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

PREVIOUS to this the tree was so shaken as to be already tottering at
its base. -- Reduced as the King's prerogative is, the Jacobins still
continue to contest it, depriving him of even its shadow. At the
opening session they refuse to him the titles of Sire and Majesty; to
them he is not, in the sense of the constitution, a hereditary
representative of the French people, but "a high functionary," that is
to say, a mere employee, fortunate enough to sit in an equally good
chair alongside of the president of the Assembly, whom they style
"president of the nation."[1] The Assembly, in their eyes, is sole
sovereign, "while the other powers," says Condorcet, "can act
legitimately only when specially authorized by a positive law;[2] the
Assembly may do anything that is not formally prohibited to it by the
law," 'in other words, interpret the constitution, then change it,
take it to pieces, and do away with it. Consequently, in defiance of
the constitution, it takes upon itself the initiation of war, and, on
rare occasions, on the King using his veto, it sets this aside, or
allows it to be set aside.[3] In vain he rejects, as he has a legal
right to do, the decrees which sanction the persecution of unsworn
ecclesiastics, which confiscate the property of the émigrés, and which
establish a camp around Paris. At the suggestion of the Jacobin
deputies,[4] the unsworn ecclesiastics are interned, expelled, or
imprisoned by the municipalities and Directories; the estates and
mansions of the émigrés and of their relatives are abandoned without
resistance to the jacqueries; the camp around Paris is replaced by
the summoning of the Federates to Paris. In short, the monarch's
sanction is eluded or dispensed with. -- As to his ministers, "they
are merely clerks of the Legislative Body decked with a royal
leash."[5] In full session they are maltreated, reviled, grossly
insulted, not merely as lackeys of bad character, but as known
criminals. They are interrogated at the bar of the house, forbidden to
leave Paris before their accounts are examined; their papers are
overhauled; their most guarded expressions and most meritorious acts
are held to be criminal; denunciations against them are provoked;
their subordinates are incited to rebel against them;[6] committees to
watch them and calumniate them are appointed; the perspective of a
scaffold is placed before them in every relation, acts or threats of
accusation being passed against them, as well as against their agents,
on the shallowest pretexts, accompanied with such miserable
quibbling,[7] and such an evident falsification of facts and texts
that the Assembly, forced by the evidence, twice reverses its hasty
decision, and declares those innocent whom it had condemned the
evening before.[8] Nothing is of any avail, neither their strict
fulfillment of the law, their submission to the committees of the
Assembly, nor their humble attitude before the Assembly itself; "they
are careful now to treat it politely and avoid the galleys."[9] -- But
this does not suffice. They must become Jacobins; otherwise the high
court of Orleans will be for them as for M. Delessart, the ante-room
to the prison and the guillotine. "Terror and dismay," says
Vergniaud, pointing with his finger to the Tuileries, "have often
issued in the name of despotism in ancient times from that famous
palace; let them to-day go back to it in the name of law."[10]

Even with a Jacobin Minister, terror and dismay are permanent.
Roland, Clavières, and Servan not only do not shield the King, but
they give him up, and, under their patronage and with their
connivance, he is more victimized, more harassed, and more vilified
than ever before. Their partisans in the Assembly take turns in
slandering him, while Isnard proposes against him a most insolent
address.[11] Shouts of death are uttered in front of his palace. An
abbé or soldier is unmercifully beaten and dragged into the Tuileries
basin. One of the gunners of the Guard reviles the queen like a fish
woman, and exclaims to her, "How glad I should be to clap your head on
the end of my bayonet!"[12] They supposed that the King is brought to
heel under this double pressure of the Legislative Body and the
street; they rely on his accustomed docility, or at least, on his
proven lethargy; they think that they have converted him into what
Condorcet once demanded, a signature machine.[13] Consequently,
without notifying him, just as if the throne were vacant, Servan, on
his own authority, proposes to the Assembly the camp outside
Paris.[14] Roland, for his part, reads to him at a full meeting of
the council an arrogant, pedagogical remonstrance, scrutinizing his
sentiments, informing him of his duties, calling upon him to accept
the new "religion," to sanction the decree against unsworn
ecclesiastics, that is to say, to condemn to beggary, imprisonment,
and transportation[15] 70,000 priests and nuns guilty of orthodoxy,
and authorize the camp around Paris, which means, to put his throne,
his person, and his family at the mercy of 20,000 madmen, chosen by
the clubs and other assemblages expressly to do him harm;[16] in
short, to discard at once his conscience and his common sense. --
Strange enough, the royal will this time remains staunch; not only
does the King refuse, but he dismisses his ministers. So much the
worse for him, for sign he must, cost what it will; if he insists on
remaining athwart their path, they will march over him. -- Not because
he is dangerous, and thinks of abandoning his legal immobility. Up to
the 10th of August, through a dread of action, and not to kindle a
civil war, he rejects all plans leading to an open rupture. Up to the
very last day he resigns himself even when his personal safety and
that of his family is at stake, to constitutional law and public
common sense. Before dismissing Roland and Servan, he desires to
furnish some striking proof of his pacific intentions by sanctioning
the dissolution of his guard and disarming himself not only for attack
but for defense; henceforth he sits at home and awaits the
insurrection with which he is daily menaced; he resigns himself to
everything, except drawing his sword; his attitude is that of a
Christian in the amphitheatre.[17] -- The proposition of a camp
outside Paris, however, draws out a protest from 8,000 Paris National
Guards. Lafayette denounces to the Assembly the usurpations of the
Jacobins; the faction sees that its reign is threatened by this
reawakening and union of the friends of order. A blow must be struck.
This has been in preparation for a month past, and to renew the days
of October 5th and 6th, the materials are not lacking.


II.

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



Paris always has its interloping, floating population. A hundred
thousand of the needy, one-third of these from the departments,
"beggars by race," those whom Rétif de la Bretonne had already seen
pass his door, Rue de Bièvre, on the 13th of July, 1789, on their way
to join their fellows on the suburb of St. Antoine,[18] along with
them "those frightful raftsmen," pilots and dock-hands, born and
brought up in the forests of the Nièvre and the Yonne, veritable
savages accustomed to wielding the pick and the ax, behaving like
cannibals when the opportunity offers,[19] and who will be found
foremost in the ranks when the September days come. Alongside these
stride their female companions "barge-women who, embittered by toil,
live for the moment only," and who, three months earlier, pillaged the
grocer-shops.[20] All this "is a frightful crowd which, every time it
stirs, seems to declare that the last day of the rich and well-to-do
has come; tomorrow it is our turn, to-morrow we shall sleep on
eiderdown." -- Still more alarming is the attitude of the steady
workmen, especially in the suburbs. And first of all, if bread is not
as expensive as on the 5th of October, the misery is worse. The
production of articles of luxury has been at a standstill for three
years, and the unemployed artisan has consumed his small savings.
Since the ruin of St. Domingo and the pillaging of grocers' shops
colonial products are dear; the carpenter, the mason, the locksmith,
the market-porter, no longer has his early cup of coffee,[21] while
they grumble every morning at the thought of their patriotism being
rewarded by an increase of deprivation.

But more than all this they are now Jacobins, and after nearly three
years of preaching, the dogma of popular sovereignty has taken deep
root in their empty brains. "In these groups," writes a police
commissioner, "the Constitution is held to be useless and the people
alone are the law. The citizens of Paris on the public square think
themselves the people, populus, what we call the universality of
citizens."[22] -- It is of no use to tell them that, alongside of
Paris, there is a France. Danton has shown them that the capital " is
composed of citizens belonging one way or another to the eighty-three
departments; that is has a better chance than any other place to
appreciate ministerial conduct; that it is the first sentinel of the
nation," which makes them confident of being right.[23] -- It is of
no use to tell them that there are better-informed and more competent
authorities than themselves. Robespierre assures them that "in the
matter of genius and public-spiritedness the people are infallible,
whilst every one else is subject to mistakes,"[24] and here they are
sure of their capacity. -- In their own eyes they are the legitimate,
competent authorities for all France, and, during three years, the
sole theme their courtiers of the press, tribune, and club, vie with
each other in repeating to them, is the expression of the Duc de
Villeroy to Louis XIV. when a child: "Look my master, behold this
great kingdom! It is all for you, it belongs to you, you are its
master!" -- Undoubtedly, to swallow and digest such gross irony people
must be half-fools or half-brutes; but it is exactly their capacity
for self-deception which makes them different from the sensible or
passive crowd and casts them into a band whose ascendancy is
irresistible. Convinced that a street mob is entitled to absolute rule
and that the nation expresses its sovereignty through its gatherings,
they alone assemble the street mobs, they alone, by virtue of their
conceit and lack of judgment, believe themselves kings .

Such is the new power which, in the early months of the year 1792,
starts up alongside of the legal powers. It is not foreseen by the
Constitution; nevertheless it exists and declares itself; it is
visible and its recruits can be counted.[25] On the 29th of April,
with the Assembly consenting, and contrary to the law, three
battalions from the suburb of St. Antoine, about 1500 men,[26] march
in three columns into the hall, one of which is composed of fusiliers
and the other two of pikemen, "their pikes being from eight to ten
feet long," of formidable aspect and of all sorts, "pikes with laurel
leaves, pikes with clover leaves, pikes à carlet, pikes with turn-
spits, pikes with hearts, pikes with serpents tongues, pikes with
forks, pikes with daggers, pikes with three prongs, pikes with battle-
axes, pikes with claws, pikes with sickles, lance-pikes covered with
iron prongs." On the other side of the Seine three battalions from
the suburb of St. Marcel are composed and armed in the same fashion.
This constitutes a kernel of 3,000 more in other quarters of Paris.
Add to these in each of the sixty battalions of the National guard the
gunners, almost all of them blacksmiths, locksmiths and horse-shoers,
also the majority of the gendarmes, old soldiers discharged for
insubordination and naturally inclined to rioting, in all an army of
about 9,000 men, not counting the usual accompaniment of vagabonds and
mere bandits; ignorant and eager, but men who do their work, well
armed, formed into companies, ready to march and ready to strike.
Alongside of the talking authorities we have the veritable force that
acts, for it is the only one which does act. As formerly the
praetorian guard of the Caesars in Rome, or the Turkish guards of the
Caliphs of Baghdad, it is henceforth master of the capital, and
through the capital, of the Nation.



III.

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

As the troops are so are their leaders. Bulls must have drovers to
conduct them, one degree superior to the brute but only one degree,
dressed, talking and acting in accordance with his occupation, without
dislikes or scruples, naturally or willfully hardened, fertile in
jockeying and in the expedients of the slaughterhouse, themselves
belonging to the people or pretending to belong to them. Santerre is a
brewer of the Faubourg St. Antoine, commander of the battalion of "
Enfants Trouvés," tall, stout and ostentatious, with stentorian lungs,
shaking the hand of everybody he meets in the street, and when at home
treating everybody to a drink paid for by the Duke of Orleans.
Legendre is a choleric butcher, who even in the Convention maintains
his butchering traits. There are three or four foreign adventurers,
experienced in all kinds of deadly operations, using the saber or the
bayonet without warning people to get out of the way. Rotonde, the
first one, is an Italian, a teacher of English and professional
rioter, who, convicted of murder and robbery, is to end his days in
Piedmont on the gallows. The second, Lazowski, is a Pole, a former
dandy, a conceited fop, who, with Slave facility, becomes the barest
of naked sans-culottes; former enjoying a sinecure, then suddenly
turned out in the street, and shouting in the clubs against his
protectors who he sees put down; he is elected captain of the gunners
of the battalion St. Marcel, and is to be one of the September
slaughterers. His drawing-room temperament, however, is not rigorous
enough for the part he plays in the streets, and at the end of a year
he is to die, consumed by a fever and by brandy. The third is another
chief slaughterer at the September massacres. Fournier, known as the
American, a former planter, who has brought with him from St. Domingo
a contempt for human life; "with his livid and sinister countenance,
his mustache, his triple belt of pistols, his coarse language, his
oaths, he looks like a pirate." By their side we encounter a little
hump-backed lawyer named Cuirette-Verrières, an unceasing speaker,
who, on the 6th of October, 1789, paraded the city on a large white
horse and afterwards pleaded for Marat, which two qualifications with
his Punch figure, fully establish him in the popular imagination; the
rugged guys, moreover, who hold nocturnal meetings at Santerre's
needed a writer and he probably met their requirements. - This secret
society can count on other faithfuls. "Brière, wine-dealer, Nicolas,
a sapper in the 'Enfants Trouvés' battalion, Gonor, claiming to be one
of the victors of the Bastille,"[27] Rossignol, an old soldier and
afterwards a journeyman-jeweler, who, after presiding at the massacres
of La Force, is to become an improvised general and display his
incapacity, debauchery, and thievery throughout La Vendée. "There are
yet more of them," Huguenin undoubtedly, a ruined ex-lawyer,
afterwards carabineer, then a deserter, next a barrier-clerk, now
serving as spokesman for the Faubourg St. Honoré and finally president
of the September commune; there was also, doubtless, St. Huruge alias
Père Adam, the great barker of the Palais-Royal, a marquis fallen
into the gutter, drinking with and dressing like a common porter,
always flourishing an enormous club and followed by the riffraff.[28]
-- These are all the leaders. The Jacobins of the municipality and of
the Assembly confine their support of the enterprise to conniving at
it and to giving it their encouragement.[29] It is better for the
insurrection to seem spontaneous. Through caution or shyness the
Girondins, Pétion, Manual and Danton himself, keep in the background -
- there is not reason for their coming forward. -- The rest,
affiliated with the people and lost in the crowd, are better qualified
to fabricate the story which their flock will like. This tale, adapted
to the crowd's intellectual limits, form and activity, is both simple
and somber, such as children like, or rather a melodrama taken from an
alien stage in which the good appear on one side, and the wicked on
the other with an ogre or tyrant in the center, some infamous traitor
who is sure to be unmasked at the end of the piece and punished
according to his deserts, the whole grandiloquent terms and, as a
finale, winding up with a grand chorus. In the raw brain of an over-
excited workman politics find their way only in the shape of rough-
hewn, highly-colored imagery, such as is furnished by the
Marseillaise, the Carmagnole, and the Ça ira. The requisite motto is
adapted to his use; through this misshapen magnifying glass the most
gracious figure appears under a diabolical aspect. Louis XVI. is
represented here "as a monster using his power and treasure to oppose
the regeneration of the French. A new Charles IX., he desires to bring
on France death and desolation. Be gone, cruel man, your crimes must
end! Damiens was less guilty than thou art! He was punished with the
most horrible torture for having tried to rid France of a monster,
while you, attempting twenty-five million times more, are allowed full
immunity![30] Let us trample under our feet this simulacra of royalty
! Tremble tyrants, Scœvolas are still amongst you!"

All this is pronounced, declaimed or rather shouted, publicly, in full
daylight, under the King's windows, by stump-speakers mounted on
chairs, while similar provocations daily flow from the committee
installed in Santerre's establishment, now in the shape of displays
posted in the faubourgs, now in that of petitions circulated in the
clubs and sections, now through motions which are gotten up "among the
groups in the Tuileries, in the Palais-Royal, in the Place de Grève
and especially on the Place de la Bastille." After the 2nd of June the
leaders founded a new club in the church of the "Enfants Trouvés"
that they might have their special laboratory and thus do their work
on the spot.[31] Like Plato's demagogues, they understand their
business. They have discovered the cries which make the popular animal
take note, what offense offends him, what charm attracts him, and on
what road he should be made to follow. Once drawn in and under way, he
will march blindly on, borne along by his own involuntary inspiration
and crushing with his mass all that he encounters on his path.


IV.

The 20th of June. -- The programme. -- The muster. -- The
procession before the Assembly. -- Irruption into the Château. -- The
King in the presence of the people.

The bait has been carefully chosen and is well presented. It takes the
form of a celebration of the anniversary of the oath of the Tennis-
court. A tree of Liberty will be planted on the terrace of the
Feuillants and "petitions relating to circumstances" will be presented
in the Assembly and then to the King. As a precaution, and to impose
on the ill-disposed, the petitioners provide themselves with arms and
line the approaches.[32] -- A popular procession is an attractive
thing, and there are so many workers who do not know what to do with
their empty day! And, again, it is so pleasant to appear in a
patriotic opera while many, and especially women and children, want
very much to see Monsieur and Madame Veto. The people from the
surrounding suburbs are invited,[33] the homeless prowlers and beggars
will certainly join the party, while the numerous body of Parisian
loafers, the loungers that join every spectacle can be relied on, and
the curious who, even in our time, gather by hundreds along the quays,
following a dog that has chanced to tumble into the river. All this
forms a body which, without thinking, will follow its head.

At five o'clock in the morning on the 20th of June groups are already
formed in the faubourgs St. Antoine and St. Marcel, consisting of
National Guards, pikemen, gunners with their cannon, persons armed
with sabers or clubs, and women and children. -- A notice, indeed,
just posted on the walls, prohibits any assemblage, and the municipal
officers appear in their scarves and command or entreat the crowd not
to break the law.[34] But, in a working-class brain, ideas are as
tenacious as they are short-lived. People count on a civic procession
and get up early in the morning to attend to it; the cannon have been
hitched up, the maypole tree is put on wheels and all is ready for the
ceremony, everybody takes a holiday and none are disposed to return
home. Besides, they have only good intentions. They know the law as
well as the city officials; they are "armed solely to have it observed
and respected." Finally, other armed petitioners have already filed
along before the National Assembly, and, as one is as good as another,
"the law being equal for all," others must be admitted as well. In
any event they, too, will ask permission of the National Assembly and
they go expressly. This is the last and the best argument of all, and
to prove to the city officials that they have no desire to engage in a
riot, they request them to join the procession and march along with
them.

Meanwhile, time passes. In a crowd irritated by delay, the most
impatient, the rudest, those most inclined to commit violence, always
lead the rest. -- At the head-quarters of the Val-de-Grâce[35] the
pikemen seize the cannon and drag them along; the National Guards let
things take their course; Saint-Prix and Leclerc, the officers in
command, threatened with death, have nothing to do but to yield with a
protest. -- There is the same state of things in the Montreuil
section; the resistance of four out of six of the battalion officers
merely served to give full power to the instigator of the
insurrection, and henceforth Santerre becomes the sole leader of the
assembled crowd. About half-past eleven he leaves his brewery, and,
followed by cannon, the flag, and the truck which bears the poplar
tree, he places himself at the head of the procession "consisting of
about fifteen hundred persons including the bystanders."[36] Like a
snowball, however, the troop grows as it marches along until, on
reaching the National Assembly, Santerre has behind him from seven to
eight thousand persons.[37] Guadet and Vergniaud move that the
petitioners be introduced; their spokesman, Huguenin, in a bombastic
and threatening address, denounces the ministry, the King, the accused
at Orleans, the deputies of the "Right," demands "blood," and informs
the Assembly that the people "resolute" is ready to take the law in
their own hands.[38] Then, with drums beating and bands playing, the
crowd defiles for more than an hour through the chamber under the eyes
of Santerre and Saint-Huruge: here and there a few files of the
National Guard pass mingled with the throng and lost in "the moving
forest of pikes"; all the rest is pure rabble, "hideous faces,"[39]
says a deputy, on which poverty and loose living have left their
marks, ragamuffins, men "without coats," in their shirt-sleeves, armed
in all sorts of ways, with chisels and shoe-knives fastened on sticks,
one with a saw on a pole ten feet long, women and children, some of
them brandishing a saber.[40] In the middle of this procession, an
old pair of breeches [culottes] borne on a pike with this motto:
Vivent les Sans-Culottes! and, on a pitch-fork, the heart of a calf
with this inscription: Cœur d'aristocrate, both significant emblems of
the grim humor the imaginations of rag-dealers or butchers might come
up with for a political carnival. -- This, indeed, it is, they have
been drinking and many are drunk.[41] A parade is not enough, they
want also to amuse themselves: traversing the hall they sing ça ira
and dance in the intervals. They at the same time show their civism by
shouting Vive les patriotes! A bas le Veto! They fraternise, as they
pass along, with the good deputies of the "Left"; they jeer those of
the "Right" and shake their fists at them; one of these, known by his
tall stature, is told that his business will be settled for him the
first opportunity.[42] Thus do they flaunt their collaborators to the
Assembly, everyone prepared and willing to act, even against the
Assembly itself. -- And yet, with the exception of an iron-railing
pushed in by the crowd and an irruption on to the terrace of the
"Feuillants," no act of violence was committed. The Paris population,
except when in a rage, is rather voluble and curious than ferocious;
besides, thus far, no one had offered any resistance. The crowd is
now sated with shouting and parading; many of them yawn with boredom
and weariness;[43] at four o'clock they have stood on their legs for
ten or twelve hours. The human stream issuing from the Assembly and
emptying itself into the Carrousel remains stagnant there and seems
ready to return to its usual channels. -- This is not what the leaders
had intended. Santerre, on arriving with Saint-Huruge, cries out to
his men, "Why didn't you enter the château? You must go in -- that is
what we came here for."[44] A lieutenant of the Val-de-Grâce gunners
shouts: "We have forced open the Carrousel, we must force open the
château too! This is the first time the Val-de-Grâce gunners march --
they are not j.... f.... Come, follow me, my men, on to the
enemy![45] - "Meanwhile, outside the gate, some of the municipal
officers selected by Pétion amongst the most revolutionary members of
the council, overcome resistance by their speeches and commands.
'After all," says one of them, named Mouchet, "the right of petition
is sacred." -- " Open the gate!" shout Sergent and Boucher-René,
"nobody has a right to shut it. Every citizen has a right to go
through it!"[46] A gunner raises the latch, the gate opens and the
court fills in the winkling of an eye;[47] the crowd rushes under the
archway and up the grand stairway with such impetuosity that a cannon
borne along by hand reaches the third room on the first story before
it stops. The doors crack under the blows of axes and, in the large
hall of the Oeil de Bœuf, the multitude find themselves face to face
with the King.

In such circumstances the representatives of public authority, the
directories, the municipalities, the military chiefs, and, on the 6th
of October, the King himself, have all thus far yielded; they have
either yielded or perished. Santerre, certain of the issue, preferred
to take no part in this affair; he prudently holds back, he shies
away, and lets the crowd push him into the council chamber, where the
Queen, the young Dauphin, and the ladies have taken refuge.[48]
There, with his tall, corpulent figure, he formed a sort of shield to
forestall useless and compromising injuries. In the mean time, in the
Oeil de Bœuf, he lets things take their course; everything will be
done in his absence that ought to be done, and in this he seems to
have calculated justly. -- On one side, in a window recess, sits the
King on a bench, almost alone, while in front of him, as a guard, are
four or five of the National Guards; on the other side, in the
apartments, is an immense crowd, hourly increasing according as the
rumor of the irruption spreads in the vicinity, fifteen or twenty
thousand persons, a prodigious accumulation, a pell-mell traversed by
eddies, a howling sea of bodies crushing each other, and of which the
simple flux and reflux would flatten against the walls obstacles ten
times as strong, an uproar sufficient to shatter the window panes,
"frightful yells," curses and imprecations, "Down with M. Veto!" "Let
Veto go to the devil!" "Take back the patriot ministers!" "He shall
sign; we won't go away till he does!"[49] -- Foremost among them all,
Legendre, more resolute than Santerre, declares himself the spokesman
and trustee of the powers of the sovereign people: "Sir," says he to
the King, who, he sees, makes a gesture of surprise, "yes, Sir, listen
to us; you are made to listen to what we say! You are a traitor! You
have always deceived us; you deceive us now! But look out, the measure
is full; the people are tired of being played upon ! " -- " Sire,
Sire," exclaims another fanatic, "I ask you in the name of the hundred
thousand beings around us to recall the patriot ministers. . . I
demand the sanction of the decree against the priests and the twenty
thousand men. Either the sanction or you shall die!" -- But little is
wanting for the threat to be carried out. The first comers are on
hand, "presenting pikes," among them "a brigand," with a rusty sword
blade on the end of a pole, "very sharp," and who points this at the
King. Afterwards the attempt at assassination is many times renewed,
obstinately, by three or four madmen determined to kill, and who make
signs of so doing, one, a shabby, ragged fellow, who keeps up his
excitement with "the foulest propositions," the second one, "a so-
called conqueror of the Bastille," formerly porte-tête for Foulon and
Berthier, and since driven out of the battalion, the third, a market-
porter, who, "for more than an hour," armed with a saber, makes a
terrible effort to make his way to the king.[50] -- Nothing is done.
The king remains impassible under every threat. He takes the hand of
a grenadier who wishes to encourage him, and, placing it on his
breast, bids him, "See if that is the beating of a heart agitated by
fear."[51] To Legendre and the zealots who call upon him to sanction,
he replies without the least excitement:

"I have never departed from the Constitution. . . . I will do what
the Constitution requires me to do. . . . It is you who break the
law."

-- And, for nearly three hours, remaining standing, blockaded on his
bench,[52] he persists in this without showing a sign of weakness or
of anger. This cool deportment at last produces an effect, the
impression it makes on the spectators not being at all that which they
anticipated. It is very clear that the personage before them is not
the monster which has been depicted to them, a somber, imperious
tyrant, the savage, cunning Charles IX. they had hissed on the stage.
They see a man somewhat stout, with placid, benevolent features, whom
they would take, without his blue sash, for an ordinary, peaceable
bourgeois.[53] His ministers, near by, three or four men in black
coats, gentlemen and respectable employees, are just what they seem to
be. In another window recess stands his sister, Madame Elizabeth,
with her sweet and innocent face. This pretended tyrant is a man like
other men; he speaks gently, he says that the law is on his side, and
nobody says the contrary; perhaps he is less wrong than he is thought
to be. If he would only become a patriot! -- A woman in the room
brandishes a sword with a cockade on its point; the King makes a sign
and the sword is handed to him, which he raises and, hurrahing with
the crowd, cries out: Vive la Nation! That is already one good sign. A
red cap is shaken in the air at the end of a pole. Some one offers it
to him and he puts it on his head; applause bursts forth, and shouts
of Vive la Nation! Vive la Liberte! and even vive le Roi!

From this time forth the greatest danger is over. But it is not that
the besiegers abandon the siege. "He did damned well," they exclaim,
"to put the cap on, and if he hadn't we would have seen what would
come of it. And damn it, if he does not sanction the decree against
the priests, and do it right off; we will come back every day. In
this way we shall tire him out and make him afraid of us. -- But the
day wears on. The heat is over-powering, the fatigue extreme, the King
less deserted and better protected. Five or six of the deputies,
three of the municipal officers, a few officers of the National Guard,
have succeeded in making their way to him. Pétion himself, mounted on
a sofa, harangues the people with his accustomed flattery.[54] At the
same time Santerre, aware of the opportunity being lost, assumes the
attitude of a liberator, and shouts in his rough voice: "I answer for
the royal family. Let me see to it." A line of National Guards forms
in front of the King, when, slowly and with difficulty, urged by the
mayor, the crowd melts away, and, by eight o'clock in the evening, it
is gone.
_______________________________________________________________________
Notes:

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

[2] Moniteur, XIII. 97 (session of July 6, 1792)

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

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

[5] Mercure-de-France, Feb.25.

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

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

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

[9] Mercure de France, March 10, 1792.

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

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

[12] Dumouriez, "Mémoires," book III. ch. VI.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[22] Mortimer-Ternaux, 1.346 (letter of June 21, 1792).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[39] Hua, "Mémoires," 134.

[40] Moniteur, XII. 718.

[41] "Chronique des cinquante jours," by Rœderer, syndic-attorney of
the department.

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

[43] "Chronique des cinquante jours," by Rœderer. - Deposition of
Lareynie.

[44] Deposition of Lareynie.

[45] Report of Saint-Prix.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[54] Mortimer-Ternaux, I. 213. "Citizens, you have just legally made
known your will to the hereditary representative of the nation; you
have done this with the dignity, with the majesty of a free people!
There is no doubt that your demands will be reiterated by the eighty-
three departments, while the king cannot refrain from acquiescing in
the manifest will of the people. . . Retire now, . . . and if you
remain any longer, do not give occasion to anything which may
incriminate your worthy intentions."





CHAPTER VI. The Birth of the Terrible Paris Commune.



I.

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

As the blow has missed the target, it must be repeated. This is the
more urgent, inasmuch as the faction has thrown off the mask and
"honest people"[1] on all sides become indignant at seeing the
Constitution subject to the arbitrariness of the lowest class. Nearly
all the higher administrative bodies, seventy-five of the department
directories,[2] give in their adhesion to Lafayette's letter, or
respond by supporting the proclamation, so noble and so moderate, in
which the King, recounting the violence done to him, maintains his
legal rights with mournful, inflexible gentleness. Many of the towns,
large and small, thank him for his firmness, the addresses being
signed by "the notables of the place,"[3] chevaliers of St. Louis,
former officials, judges and district-administrators, physicians,
notaries, lawyers, recorders, post-masters, manufacturers, merchants,
people who are settled down, in short the most prominent and the most
respected men. At Paris, a similar petition, drawn up by two former
Constituents, contains 247 pages of signatures attested by 99
notaries.[4] Even in the council-general of the commune a majority is
in favor of publicly censuring the mayor Pétion, the syndic-attorney
Manuel, and the police administrators Panis, Sergent, Viguer, and
Perron.[5] On the evening of June 20th, the department council orders
an investigation; it follows this up; it urges it on; it proves by
authentic documents the willful inaction, the hypocritical connivance,
the double-dealing of the syndic-attorney and the mayor;[6] it
suspends both from their functions, and cites them before the courts
as well as Santerre and his accomplices. Lafayette, finally, adding
to the weight of his opinion the influence of his presence, appears at
the bar of the National Assembly and demands "effectual" measures
against the usurpations of the Jacobin sect, insisting that the
instigators of the riot of the 20th of June be punished "as guilty of
lése-nation." As a last and still more significant symptom, his
proceedings are approved of in the Assembly by a majority of more than
one hundred votes.[7]

All this must and will be crushed out. For on the side of the
Constitutionalists, whatever they may be, whether King, deputies,
ministers, generals, administrators, notables or national-guards, the
will to act evaporates in words; and the reason is, they are civilized
beings, long accustomed to the ways of a regular community, interested
from father to son in keeping the law, disconcerted at the thought of
consequences, upset by multifaceted ideas, unable to comprehend that,
in the state of nature to which France has reverted, but one idea is
of any account, that of the man who, in accepting a declared war,
meets the offensive with the offensive, loads his gun, descends into
the street and contends with the savage destroyers of human society. -
- Nobody comes to the support of Lafayette, who alone has the courage
to take the lead; about one hundred men muster at the rendezvous named
by him in the Champs-Élysées. They agree to march to the Jacobin club
the following day and close it, provided the number is increased to
three hundred; but the next day only thirty turn up. Lafayette can do
no more than leave Paris and write a letter containing another
protest. -- Protestations, appeals to the Constitution, to the law, to
public interest, to common sense, well-reasoned arguments; this side
will never resort to anything else than speeches and paperwork; and,
in the coming conflict words will be of no use. -- Imagine a quarrel
between two men, one ably presenting his case and the other indulging
in little more than invective; the latter, having encountered an
enormous mastiff on his road, has caressed him, enticed him, and led
him along with him as an auxiliary. To the mastiff, clever
argumentation is only so much unmeaning sound; with his eager eyes
fixed on his temporary master he awaits only his signal to spring on
the adversaries he points out. On the 20th of June he has almost
strangled one of them, and covered him with his slaver. On the
21st,[8] he is ready to spring again. He continues to growl for fifty
days, at first sullenly and then with terrific energy. On the 25th of
June, July 14 and 27, August 3 and 5, he again makes a spring and is
kept back only with great difficulty.[9] Already on one occasion,
July 29th, his fangs are wet with human gore.[10] -- At each turn of
the parliamentary debate the defenseless Constitutionalists beholds
those open jaws before him; it is not surprising that he throws to
this dog, or allows to be thrown to him, all the decrees demanded by
the Girondists as a bone for him to gnaw on. -- Sure of their strength
the Girondists renew the attack, and the plan of their campaign seems
to be skillfully prepared. They are quite willing to retain the King
on his throne, but on the condition that he shall be a mere puppet;
that he shall recall the patriot ministers, allow them to appoint the
Dauphin's tutor, and that Lafayette shall be removed;[11] otherwise
the Assembly will pass the act of de-thronement and seize the
executive power. Such is the defile with two issues in which they have
placed the Assembly and the King. If the King balks at leaving by
the first door, the Assembly, equally nonplused, will leave through
the second; in either case, as the all-powerful ministers of the
submissive King or as executive delegates of the submissive Assembly,
the Girondists will become the masters of France.



II.

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

With this in mind they begin by attacking the King, and try to make
him yield through fear. -- They remove the suspension pronounced
against Pétion and Manuel, and restore them both to their places in
the Hôtel-de-ville. They will from now on rule Paris without
restriction or supervision; for the Directory of the department has
resigned, and no superior authority exists to prevent them from
calling upon or giving orders as they please to the armed forces; they
are exempt from all subordination, as well as from all control.
Behold the King of France in good hands, in those of the men who, on
the 20th of June, refused to nuzzle the popular brute, declaring that
it had done well, that it had right on its side, and that it may begin
again. According to them, the palace of the monarch belongs to the
public; people may enter it as they would a coffee-house; in any
event, as the municipality is occupied with other matters, it cannot
be expected to keep people out. "Is there nothing else to guard in
Paris but the Tuileries and the King?"[12] -- Another maneuver
consists in rendering the King's instruments powerless. Honorable and
inoffensive as the new ministers may be, they never appear in the
Assembly without being hooted at in the tribunes. Isnard, pointing
with his finger to the principal one, exclaims: "That is a
traitor!"[13] Every popular outburst is imputed to them as a crime,
while Guadet declares that, "as royal counselors, they are answerable
for any disturbances" that the double veto might produce.[14] Not
only does the faction declare them guilty of the violence provoked by
itself, but, again, it demands their lives for the murders which it
commits. "France must know," says Vergniaud, "that hereafter ministers
are to answer with their heads for any disorders of which religion is
the pretext." -- "The blood just spilt at Bordeaux," says Ducos, "may
be laid at the door of the executive power. "[15] La Source proposes
to "punish with death," not alone the minister who is not prompt in
ordering the execution of a decree, but, again, the clerks who do not
fulfill the minister's instructions. Always death on every occasion,
and for every one who is not of the sect. Under this constant terror,
the ministers resign in a body, and the King is required at once to
appoint others; meanwhile, to increase the danger of their position,
the Assembly decrees that hereafter they shall "be answerable for each
other." It is evident that they are aiming at the King over his
minister's shoulders, while the Girondists leave nothing unturned to
render government to him impossible. The King, again, signs this new
decree; he declines to protest; to the persecution he is forced to
undergo he opposes nothing but silence, sometimes a simple, frank,
good-hearted expression,[16] some kindly, touching complaining, which
seems like a suppressed moan.[17] But dogmatic obstinacy and
impatient ambition are willfully deaf to the most sorrowful strains!
His sincerity passes for a new false-hood. Vergniaud, Brissot, Torné,
Condorcet, in the tribune, charge him with treachery, demand from the
Assembly the right of suspending him,[18] and give the signal to their
Jacobin auxiliaries. -- At the invitation of the parent club, the
provincial branches bestir themselves, while all other instruments of
agitation belonging to the revolutionary machine are likewise put in
motion, -- gatherings on the public squares, homicidal announcements
on the walls, incendiary resolutions in the clubs, shouting in the
tribunes, insulting addresses and seditious deputations at the bar of
the National Assembly.[19] After the working of this system for a
month, the Girondists regard the King as subdued, and, on the 26th of
July, Guadet, and then Brissot, in the tribune, make their last
advances to him, and issue the final summons.[20] A profound
delusion! He refuses, the same as on the 20th of June: "Girondist
ministers, Never!"

Since he bars one of the two doors, they will pass out at the other,
and, if the Girondists cannot rule through him, they will rule without
him. Pétion, in the name of the Commune, appears personally and
proposes a new plan, demanding the dethronement. "This important
measure once passed,"[21] he says, "the confidence of the nation in
the actual dynasty being very doubtful, we demand that a body of
ministers, jointly responsible, appointed by the National Assembly,
but, as the constitutional law provides, outside of itself, elected by
the open vote of freemen, be provisionally entrusted with the
executive power." Through this open vote the suffrage will be easily
controlled. This is but one more decree extorted, like so many others,
the majority for a long time having been subject to the same pressure
as the King. "If you refuse to respond to our wishes," as a placard of
the 23rd of June had already informed them, "our hands are lifted, and
we shall strike all traitors wherever they can be found, even amongst
yourselves."[22] -- "Court favorites," says a petition of August 6,
"have seats in your midst. Let their inviolability perish if the
national will must always tamely submit to that lethal power!" -- In
the Assembly the yells from the galleries are frightful; the voices of
those who speak against dethronement are overpowered; so great are the
hooting, the speakers are driven out of the tribune.[23] Sometimes the
"Right" abandons the discussion and leaves the chamber. The insolence
of the galleries goes so far that frequently almost the entire
Assembly murmurs while they applaud; the majority, in short, loudly
expresses anger at its bondage.[24] -- Let it be careful! In the
tribunes and at the approaches to the edifice, stand the Federates,
men who have a tight grip. They will force it to vote the decisive
measure, the accusation of Lafayette, the decree under which the armed
champion of the King and the Constitution must fall. The Girondists,
to make sure of it, exact a call of the house; in this way the names
are announced and printed, thus designating to the populace the
opponents of the measure, so that none of them are sure of getting to
their homes safe and sound. -- Lafayette, however, a liberal, a
democrat, and a royalist, as devoted to the Revolution as to the Law,
is just the man, who, through his limited mental grasp, his
disconnected political conceptions, and the nobleness of his
contradictory sentiments, best represents the present opinion of the
Assembly, as well as that of France.[25] Moreover, his popularity,
his courage, and his army are the last refuge. The majority feels
that in giving him up they themselves are given up, and, by a vote of
400 to 224, it acquits him. -- On this side, again, the strategy of
the Girondists is found erroneous. Power slips away from them the
second time. Neither the King nor the Assembly have consented to
restore it to them, while they can no longer leave it suspended in the
air, or defer it until a better opportunity, and keep their Jacobin
acolytes waiting. The feeble leash restraining the revolutionary dog
breaks in their hands; the dog is free and in the street



III.

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

Never was better work done for another. Every measure relied on by
them for getting power back, serves only to place it in the hands of
the mob. -- On the one hand, through a series of legislative acts and
municipal ordinances, they have set aside or disbanded the army, alone
capable of repressing or intimidating it. On the 29th of May they
dismissed the king's guard. On the 15th of July they ordered away from
Paris all regular troops. On the 16th of July,[26] they select " for
the formation of a body of infantry-gendarmerie, the former French-
guardsmen who served in the Revolution about the epoch of the 1st day
of June, 1789, the officers, under-officers, gunners, and soldiers who
gathered around the flag of liberty after the 12th of July of that
year," that is to say, a body of recognized insurgents and deserters.
On the 6th of July, in all towns of 50,000 souls and over, they strike
down the National Guard by discharging its staff, "an aristocratic
corporation," says a petition,[27] "a sort of modern feudality
composed of traitors, who seem to have formed a plan for directing
public opinion as they please." Early in August,[28] they strike into
the heart of the National Guard by suppressing special companies,
grenadiers, and chasseurs, recruited amongst well-to-do-people, the
genuine elite, stripped of its uniform, reduced to equality, lost in


 


Back to Full Books