horror of bloodshed, its hatred of crime and anarchy, its love of order, justice, and liberty; a party unfitly placed between the middle class, whose revolution it had combated, and the multitude, whose government it rejected. Condemned to inaction, it could only render illustrious certain defeat, by a courageous struggle and a glorious death. At this period, its fate might readily be foreseen; it had been driven from post to post; from the Jacobins by the invasion of the Mountain; from the commune by the outbreak of Pétion; from the ministry by the retirement of Roland and his colleagues; from the army by the defection of Dumouriez. The convention alone remained to it, there it threw up its intrenchments, there it fought, and there it fell. Its enemies employed against it, in turn, insurrection and conspiracy. The conspiracies led to the creation of the Commission of Twelve, which seemed to give a momentary advantage to the Gironde, but which only excited its adversaries the more violently against it. These aroused the people, and took from the Girondists, first, their authority, by destroying the Twelve; then, their political existence, by proscribing their leaders.
The consequences of this disastrous event did not answer the expectations of any one. The Dantonists thought that the dissensions of parties were at an end: civil war broke out. The moderate members of the committee of public safety thought that the convention would resume all its power: it was utterly subdued. The commune thought that the 31st of May would secure to it domination; domination fell to Robespierre, and to a few men devoted to his fortune, or to the principle of extreme democracy. Lastly, there was another party to be added to the parties defeated, and thenceforth hostile; and as after the 10th of August the republic had been opposed to the constitutionalists, after the 31st of May the Reign of Terror was opposed to the moderate party of the republic.
CHAPTER VIII
FROM THE 2ND OF JUNE, 1793, TO APRIL, 1794
It was to be presumed that the Girondists would not bow to their defeat, and that the 31st of May would be the signal for the insurrection of the departments against the Mountain and the commune of Paris. This was the last trial left them to make, and they attempted it. But, in this decisive measure, there was seen the same want of union which had caused their defeat in the assembly. It is doubtful whether the Girondists would have triumphed, had they been united, and especially whether their triumph would have saved the revolution. How could they have done with just laws what the Mountain effected by violent measures? How could they have conquered foreign foes without fanaticism, restrained parties without the aid of terror, fed the multitude without a _maximum_, and supplied the armies without requisition. If the 31st of May had had a different result, what happened at a much later period would probably have taken place immediately, namely, a gradual abatement of the revolutionary movement, increased attacks on the part of Europe, a general resumption of hostilities by all parties, the days of Prairial, without power to drive back the multitude; the days of Vendémiaire, without power to repel the royalists; the invasion of the allies, and, according to the policy of the times, the partition of France. The republic was not sufficiently powerful to meet so many attacks as it did after the reaction of Thermidor.
However this may be, the Girondists who ought to have remained quiet or fought all together, did not do so, and, after the 2nd of June, all the moderate men of the party remained under the decree of arrest: the others escaped. Vergniaud, Gensonné, Ducos, Fonfrède, etc., were among the first; Pétion, Barbaroux, Guadet, Louvet, Buzot, and Lanjuinais, among the latter. They repaired to Evreux, in the department de l’Eure, where Buzot had much influence, and thence to Caen, in Calvados. These made this town the centre of the insurrection. Brittany soon joined them. The insurgents, under the name of the _assembly of the departments assembled at Caen_, formed an army, appointed general Wimpfen commander, arrested Romme and Prieur de la Marne, who were members of the Mountain and commissaries of the convention, and prepared to march on Paris. From there, a young, beautiful, and courageous woman, Charlotte Corday, went to punish Marat, the principal author of the 31st of May, and the 2nd of June. She hoped to save the republic by sacrificing herself to its cause. But tyranny did not rest with one man; it belonged to a party, and to the violent situation of the republic. Charlotte Corday, after executing her generous but vain design, died with unchanging calmness, modest courage, and the satisfaction of having done well. [Footnote: The following are a few of the replies of this heroic girl before the revolutionary tribunal:–“What were your intentions in killing Marat?”–“To put an end to the troubles of France.”–“Is it long since you conceived this project?”–“Since the proscription of the deputies of the people on the 31st of May.”–“You learned then by the papers that Marat was a friend of anarchy?”–“Yes, I knew he was perverting France. I have killed,” she added, raising her voice, “a man to save a thousand; a villain, to save the innocent; a wild beast, to give tranquility to my country. I was a republican before the revolution, and I have never been without energy.”] But Marat, after his assassination, became a greater object of enthusiasm with the people than he had been while living. He was invoked on all the public squares; his bust was placed in all the popular societies, and the convention was obliged to grant him the honours of the Panthéon.
At the same time Lyons arose, Marseilles and Bordeaux took arms, and more than sixty departments joined the insurrection. This attack soon led to a general rising among all parties, and the royalists for the most part took advantage of the movement which the Girondists had commenced. They sought, especially, to direct the insurrection of Lyons, in order to make it the centre of the movement in the south. This city was strongly attached to the ancient order of things. Its manufactures of silver and gold and silken embroidery, and its trade in articles of luxury, made it dependent on the upper classes. It therefore declared at an early period against a social change, which destroyed its former connexions, and ruined its manufactures, by destroying the nobility and clergy. Lyons, accordingly, in 1790, even under the constituent assembly, when the emigrant princes were in that neighbourhood, at the court of Turin, had made attempts at a rising. These attempts, directed by priests and nobles, had been repressed, but the spirit remained the same. There, as elsewhere, after the 10th of August, men had wished to bring about the revolution of the multitude, and to establish its government. Châlier, the fanatical imitator of Marat, was at the head of the Jacobins, the sans-culottes, and the municipality of Lyons. His audacity increased after the massacres of September and the 21st of January. Yet nothing had as yet been decided between the lower republican class, and the middle royalist class, the one having its seat of power in the municipality, and the other in the sections. But the disputes became greater towards the end of May; they fought, and the sections carried the day. The municipality was besieged, and taken by assault. Châlier, who had fled, was apprehended and executed. The sections, not as yet daring to throw off the yoke of the convention, endeavoured to excuse themselves on the score of the necessity of arming themselves, because the Jacobins and the members of the corporation had forced them to do so. The convention, which could only save itself by means of daring, losing everything if it yielded, would listen to nothing. Meanwhile the insurrection of Calvados became known, and the people of Lyons, thus encouraged, no longer feared to raise the standard of revolt. They put their town in a state of defence; they raised fortifications, formed an army of twenty thousand men, received emigrants among them, entrusted the command of their forces to the royalist Précy and the marquis de Virieux, and concerted their operations with the king of Sardinia.
The revolt of Lyons was so much the more to be feared by the convention, as its central position gave it the support of the south, which was in arms, while there was also a rising in the west. At Marseilles, the news of the 31st of May had aroused the partisans of the Girondists: Rebecqui repaired thither in haste. The sections were assembled; the members of the revolutionary tribunal were outlawed; the two representatives, Baux and Antiboul, were arrested, and an army of ten thousand men raised to advance on Paris. These measures were the work of the royalists, who, there as elsewhere, only waiting for an opportunity to revive their party, had at first assumed a republican appearance, but now acted in their own name. They had secured the sections; and the movement was no longer effected in favour of the Girondists, but for the counter-revolutionists. Once in a state of revolt, the party whose opinions are the most violent, and whose aim is the clearest, supplants its allies. Rebecqui, perceiving this new turn of the insurrection, threw himself in despair into the port of Marseilles. The insurgents took the road to Lyons; their example was rapidly imitated at Toulon, Nîmes, Montauban, and the principal towns in the south. In Calvados, the insurrection had had the same royalist character, since the marquis de Puisaye, at the head of some troops, had introduced himself into the ranks of the Girondists. The towns of Bordeaux, Nantes, Brest, and L’Orient, were favourable to the persons proscribed on the 2nd of June, and a few openly joined them; but they were of no great service, because they were restrained by the Jacobin party, or by the necessity of fighting the royalists of the west.
The latter, during this almost general rising of the departments, continued to extend their enterprises. After their first victories, the Vendéans seized on Bressuire, Argenton, and Thouars. Entirely masters of their own country, they proposed getting possession of the frontiers, and opening a way into revolutionary France, as well as communications with England. On the 6th of June, the Vendéan army, composed of forty thousand men, under Cathelineau, Lescure, Stofflet, and La Rochejaquelin, marched on Saumur, which it took by storm. It then prepared to attack and capture Nantes, to secure the possession of its own country, and become master of the course of the Loire. Cathelineau, at the head of the Vendéan troops, left a garrison in Saumur, took Angers, crossed the Loire, pretended to advance upon Tours and Le Mans, and then rapidly threw himself upon Nantes, which he attacked on the right bank, while Charette was to attack it on the left.
Everything seemed combined for the overthrow of the convention. Its armies were beaten on the north and on the Pyrenees, while it was threatened by the people of Lyons in the centre, those of Marseilles in the south, the Girondists in one part of the west, the Vendéans in the other, and while twenty thousand Piedmontese were invading France. The military reaction which, after the brilliant campaigns of Argonne and Belgium, had taken place, chiefly owing to the disagreement between Dumouriez and the Jacobins, between the army and the government, had manifested itself in a most disastrous manner since the defection of the commander-in-chief. There was no longer unity of operation, enthusiasm in the troops, or agreement between the convention, occupied with its quarrels, and the discouraged generals. The remains of Dumouriez’s army had assembled at the camp at Famars, under the command of Dampierre; but they had been obliged to retire, after a defeat, under the cannon of Bouchain. Dampierre was killed. The frontier from Dunkirk to Givet was threatened by superior forces. Custine was promptly called from the Moselle to the army of the north, but his presence did not restore affairs. Valenciennes, the key to France, was taken; Condé shared the same fate; the army, driven from position to position, retired beyond the Scarpe, before Arras, the last post between the Scarpe and Paris. Mayence, on the other side, sorely pressed by the enemy and by famine, gave up all hope of being assisted by the army of the Moselle, reduced to inaction; and despairing of being able to hold out long, capitulated. Lastly, the English Government, seeing that Paris and the departments were distressed by famine, after the 31st of May and the 2nd of June, pronounced all the ports of France in a state of blockade, and that all neutral ships attempting to bring a supply of provisions would be confiscated. This measure, new to the annals of history, and destined to starve an entire people, three months afterwards originated the law of the _maximum_. The situation of the republic could not be worse.
The convention was, as it were, taken by surprise. It was disorganized, because emerging from a struggle, and because the conquerors had not had time to establish themselves. After the 2nd of June, before the danger became so pressing both on the frontiers and in the departments, the Mountain had sent commissioners in every direction, and immediately turned its attention to the constitution, which had so long been expected, and from which it entertained great hopes. The Girondists had wished to decree it before the 21st of January, in order to save Louis XVI., by substituting legal order for the revolutionary state of things; they returned to the subject previous to the 31st of May, in order to prevent their own ruin. But the Mountain, on two occasions, had diverted the assembly from this discussion by two coups d’état, the trial of Louis XVI., and the elimination of the Gironde. Masters of the field, they now endeavoured to secure the republicans by decreeing the constitution. Hérault de Séchelles was the legislator of the Mountain, as Condorcet had been of the Gironde. In a few days, this new constitution was adopted in the convention, and submitted to the approval of the primary assemblies. It is easy to conceive its nature, with the ideas that then prevailed respecting democratic government. The constituent assembly was considered as aristocratical: the law it had established was regarded as a violation of the rights of the people, because it imposed conditions for the exercise of political rights; because it did not recognise the most absolute equality; because it had deputies and magistrates appointed by electors, and these electors by the people; because, in some cases, it put limits to the national sovereignty, by excluding a portion of active citizens from high public functions, and the proletarians from the functions of acting citizens; finally, because, instead of fixing on population as the only basis of political rights, it combined it, in all its operations, with property. The constitutional law of 1793 established the pure régime of the multitude: it not only recognised the people as the source of all power, but also delegated the exercise of it to the people; an unlimited sovereignty; extreme mobility in the magistracy; direct elections, in which every one could vote; primary assemblies, that could meet without convocation, at given times, to elect representatives and control their acts; a national assembly, to be renewed annually, and which, properly speaking, was only a committee of the primary assemblies; such was this constitution. As it made the multitude govern, and as it entirely disorganized authority, it was impracticable at all times; but especially in a moment of general war. The Mountain, instead of extreme democracy, needed a stern dictatorship. The constitution was suspended as soon as made, and the revolutionary government strengthened and maintained until peace was achieved.
Both during the discussion of the constitution and its presentation to the primary assemblies, the Mountain learned the danger which threatened them. These daring men, having three or four parties to put down in the interior, several kinds of civil war to terminate, the disasters of the armies to repair, and all Europe to repel, were not alarmed at their position. The representatives of the forty-four thousand municipalities came to accept the constitution. Admitted to the bar of the assembly, after making known the assent of the people, they required _the arrest of all suspected persons, and a levy en masse of the people_. “Well,” exclaimed Danton, “let us respond to their wishes. The deputies of the primary assemblies have just taken the initiative among us, in the way of inspiring terror! I demand that the convention, which ought now to be penetrated with a sense of its dignity, for it has just been invested with the entire national power, I demand that it do now, by a decree, invest the primary assemblies with the right of supplying the state with arms, provisions, and ammunition; of making an appeal to the people, of exciting the energy of citizens, and of raising four hundred thousand men. It is with cannon-balls that we must declare the constitution to our foes! Now is the time to take the last great oath, that we will destroy tyranny, or perish!” This oath was immediately taken by all the deputies and citizens present. A few days after, Barrère, in the name of the committee of public safety, which was composed of revolutionary members, and which became the centre of operations and the government of the assembly, proposed measures still more general: “Liberty,” said he, “has become the creditor of every citizen; some owe her their industry; others their fortune; these their counsel; those their arms; all owe her their blood. Accordingly, all the French, of every age and of either sex, are summoned by their country to defend liberty; all faculties, physical or moral; all means, political or commercial; all metal, all the elements are her tributaries. Let each maintain his post in the national and military movement about to take place. The young men will fight; the married men will forge arms, transport the baggage and artillery, and prepare provisions; the women will make tents and clothes for the soldiers, and exercise their hospitable care in the asylums of the wounded; children will make lint from old linen; and the aged, resuming the mission they discharged among the ancients, shall cause themselves to be carried to the public places, where they shall excite the courage of the young warriors, and propagate the doctrine of hatred to kings, and the unity of the republic. National buildings shall be converted into barracks, public squares into workshops; the ground of the cellars will serve for the preparation of saltpetre; all saddle horses shall be placed in requisition for the cavalry; all draught horses for the artillery; fowling-pieces, pistols, swords and pikes, belonging to individuals, shall be employed in the service of the interior. The republic being but a large city, in a state of necessity, France must be converted into a vast camp.”
The measures proposed by Barrère were at once decreed. All Frenchmen, from eighteen to five-and-twenty, took arms, the armies were recruited by levies of men, and supported by levies of provisions. The republic had very soon fourteen armies, and twelve hundred thousand soldiers. France, while it became a camp and a workshop for the republicans, became at the same time a prison for those who did not accept the republic. While marching against avowed enemies, it was thought necessary to make sure of secret foes, and the famous law, _des suspects_, was passed. All foreigners were arrested, on the ground of their hostile machinations, and the partisans of constitutional monarchy and a limited republic were imprisoned, to be kept close, until the peace was effected. At the time, this was so far only a reasonable measure of precaution. The bourgeoisie, the mercantile people, and the middle classes, furnished prisoners after the 31st of May, as the nobility and clergy had done after the 10th of August. A revolutionary army of six thousand soldiers and a thousand artillerymen was formed for the interior. Every indigent citizen was allowed forty sous a day, to enable him to be present at the sectionary meetings. Certificates of citizenship were delivered, in order to make sure of the opinions of all who co-operated in the revolutionary movement. The functionaries were placed under the surveillance of the clubs, a revolutionary committee was formed in each section, and thus they prepared to face the enemy on all sides, both abroad and at home.
The insurgents in Calvados were easily suppressed; at the very first skirmish at Vernon, the insurgent troops fled. Wimpfen endeavoured to rally them in vain. The moderate class, those who had taken up the defence of the Girondists, displayed little ardour or activity. When the constitution was accepted by the other departments, it saw the opportunity for admitting that it had been in error, when it thought it was taking arms against a mere factious minority. This retractation was made at Caen, which had been the headquarters of the revolt. The Mountain commissioners did not sully this first victory with executions. General Carteaux, on the other hand, marched at the head of some troops against the sectionary army of the south; he defeated its force, pursued it to Marseilles, entered the town after it, and Provence would have been brought into subjection like Calvados, if the royalists, who had taken refuge at Toulon, after their defeat, had not called in the English to their aid, and placed in their hands this key to France. Admiral Hood entered the town in the name of Louis XVII., whom he proclaimed king, disarmed the fleet, sent for eight thousand Spaniards by sea, occupied the surrounding forts, and forced Carteaux, who was advancing against Toulon, to fall back on Marseilles.
Notwithstanding this check, the conventionalists succeeded in isolating the insurrection, and this was a great point. The Mountain commissioners had made their entry into the rebel capitals; Robert Lindet into Caen; Tallien into Bordeaux; Barras and Fréron into Marseilles. Only two towns remained to be taken–Toulon and Lyons.
A simultaneous attack from the south, west, and centre was no longer apprehended, and in the interior the enemy was only on the defensive. Lyons was besieged by Kellermann, general of the army of the Alps; three corps pressed the town on all sides. The veteran soldiers of the Alps, the revolutionary battalions and the newly-levied troops, reinforced the besiegers every day. The people of Lyons defended themselves with all the courage of despair. At first, they relied on the assistance of the insurgents of the south; but these having been repulsed by Carteaux, the Lyonnais placed their last hope in the army of Piedmont, which attempted a diversion in their favour, but was beaten by Kellermann. Pressed still more energetically, they saw their first positions carried. Famine began to be felt, and courage forsook them. The royalist leaders, convinced of the inutility of longer resistance, left the town, and the republican army entered the walls, where they awaited the orders of the convention. A few months after, Toulon itself, defended by veteran troops and formidable fortifications, fell into the power of the republicans. The battalions of the army of Italy, reinforced by those which the taking of Lyons left disposable, pressed the place closely. After repeated attacks and prodigies of skill and valour, they made themselves masters of it, and the capture of Toulon finished what that of Lyons had begun.
Everywhere the convention was victorious. The Vendéans had failed in their attempt upon Nantes, after having lost many men, and their general-in- chief, Cathelineau. This attack put an end to the aggressive and previously promising movement of the Vendéan insurrection. The royalists repassed the Loire, abandoned Saumur, and resumed their former cantonments. They were, however, still formidable; and the republicans, who pursued them, were again beaten in La Vendée. General Biron, who had succeeded general Berruyer, unsuccessfully continued the war with small bodies of troops; his moderation and defective system of attack caused him to be replaced by Canclaux and Rossignol, who were not more fortunate than he. There were two leaders, two armies, and two centres of operation–the one at Nantes, and the other at Saumur, placed under contrary influences. General Canclaux could not agree with general Rossignol, nor the moderate Mountain commissioner Philippeaux with Bourbotte, the commissioner of the committee of public safety; and this attempt at invasion failed like the preceding attempts, for want of concert in plan and action. The committee of public safety soon remedied this, by appointing one sole general-in- chief, Lechelle, and by introducing war on a large scale into La Vendée. This new method, aided by the garrison of Mayence, consisting of seventeen thousand veterans, who, relieved from operations against the allied nations after the capitulation, were employed in the interior, entirely changed the face of the war. The royalists underwent four consecutive defeats, two at Châtillon, two at Cholet. Lescure, Bonchamps, and d’Elbée were mortally wounded, and the insurgents, completely beaten in Upper Vendée, and fearing that they should be exterminated if they took refuge in Lower Vendée, determined to leave their country to the number of eighty thousand persons. This emigration through Brittany, which they hoped to arouse to insurrection, became fatal to them. Repulsed before Granville, utterly routed at Mans, they were destroyed at Savenay, and barely a few thousand men, the wreck of this vast emigration, returned to Vendée. These disasters, irreparable for the royalist cause, the taking of the island of Noirmoutiers from Charette, the dispersion of the troops of that leader, the death of La Rochejaquelin, rendered the republicans masters of the country. The committee of public safety, thinking, not without reason, that its enemies were beaten but not subjugated, adopted a terrible system of extermination to prevent them from rising again. General Thurreau surrounded Vendée with sixteen entrenched camps; twelve moveable columns, called the _infernal columns_, overran the country in every direction, sword and fire in hand, scoured the woods, dispersed the assemblies, and diffused terror throughout this unhappy country.
The foreign armies had also been driven back from the frontiers they had invaded. After having taken Valenciennes and Condé, blockaded Maubeuge and Le Quesnoy, the enemy advanced on Cassel, Hondschoote, and Furnes, under the command of the duke of York. The committee of public safety, dissatisfied with Custine, who was further regarded with suspicion as a Girondist, superseded him by general Houchard. The enemy, hitherto successful, was defeated at Hondschoote, and compelled to retreat. The military reaction began with the daring measures of the committee of public safety. Houchard himself was dismissed. Jourdan took the command of the army of the north, gained the important victory of Watignies over the prince of Coburg, raised the siege of Maubeuge, and resumed the offensive on that frontier. Similar successes took place on all the others. The immortal campaign of 1793-1794 opened. What Jourdan had done with the army of the north, Hoche and Pichegru did with the army of the Moselle, and Kellermann with that of the Alps. The enemy was repulsed, and kept in check on all sides. Then took place, after the 31st of May, that which had followed the 10th of August. The want of union between the generals and the leaders of the assembly was removed; the revolutionary movement, which had slackened, increased; and victories recommenced. Armies have had their crises, as well as parties, and these crises have brought about successes or defeat, always by the same law.
In 1792, at the beginning of the war, the generals were constitutionalists, and the ministers Girondists. Rochambeau, Lafayette, and Luckner, did not at all agree with Dumouriez, Servan, Clavière, and Roland. There was, besides, little enthusiasm in the army; it was beaten. After the 10th of August, the Girondist generals, Dumouriez, Custine, Kellermann, and Dillon, replaced the constitutionalist generals. There was unity of views, confidence, and co-operation, between the army and the government. The catastrophe of the 10th of August augmented this energy, by increasing the necessity for victory; and the results were the plan of the campaign of Argonne, the victories of Valmy and Jemappes, and the invasion of Belgium. The struggle between the Mountain and the Gironde, between Dumouriez and the Jacobins, again created discord between the army and government, and destroyed the confidence of the troops, who experienced immediate and numerous reverses. There was defection on the part of Dumouriez, as there had been withdrawal on the part of Lafayette. After the 31st of May, which overthrew the Gironde party, after the committee of public safety had become established, and had replaced the Girondist generals, Dumouriez, Custine, Houchard, and Dillon, by the Mountain generals, Jourdan, Hoche, Pichegru, and Moreau; after it had restored the revolutionary movement by the daring measures we have described, the campaign of Argonne and of Belgium was renewed in that of 1794, and the genius of Carnot equalled that of Dumouriez, if it did not surpass it.
During this war, the committee of public safety permitted a frightful number of executions. Armies confine themselves to slaughter in battle; it is not so with parties, who, under violent circumstances, fearing to see the combat renewed after the victory, secure themselves from new attacks by inexorable rigour. The usage of all governments being to make their own preservation a matter of right, they regard those who attack them as enemies so long as they fight, as conspirators when they are defeated; and thus destroy them alike by means of war and of law.
All these views at once guided the policy of the committee of public safety, a policy of vengeance, of terror, and of self-preservation. This was the maxim upon which it proceeded in reference to insurgent towns: “The name of Lyons,” said Barrère, “must no longer exist. You will call it _Ville Affranchie_, and upon the ruins of that famous city there shall be raised a monument to attest the crime and the punishment of the enemies of liberty. Its history shall be told in these words: ‘_Lyons warred against liberty; Lyons exists no more_.'” To realise this terrible anathema, the committee sent to this unfortunate city Collot-d’Herbois, Fouché, and Couthon, who slaughtered the inhabitants with grape shot and demolished its buildings. The insurgents of Toulon underwent at the hands of the representatives, Barras and Fréron, a nearly similar fate. At Caen, Marseilles, and Bordeaux, the executions were less general and less violent, because they were proportioned to the gravity of the insurrection, which had not been undertaken in concert with foreign foes.
In the interior, the dictatorial government struck at all the parties with which it was at war, in the persons of their greatest members. The condemnation of queen Marie-Antoinette was directed against Europe; that of the twenty-two against the Girondists; of the wise Bailly against the old constitutionalists; lastly, that of the duke of Orleans against certain members of the Mountain who were supposed to have plotted his elevation. The unfortunate widow of Louis XVI. was first sentenced to death by this sanguinary revolutionary tribunal. The proscribed of the 2nd of June soon followed her. She perished on the 16th of October, and the Girondist deputies on the 31st. They were twenty-one in number: Brissot, Vergniaud, Gensonné, Fonfrède, Ducos, Valazé, Lasource, Silléry, Gardien, Carra, Duperret, Duprat, Fauchet, Beauvais, Duchâtel, Mainvielle, Lacaze, Boileau, Lehardy, Antiboul, and Vigée. Seventy-three of their colleagues, who had protested against their arrest, were also imprisoned, but the committee did not venture to inflict death upon them.
During the debates, these illustrious prisoners displayed uniform and serene courage. Vergniaud raised his eloquent voice for a moment, but in vain. Valazé stabbed himself with a poignard on hearing the sentence, and Lasource said to the judges: “I die at a time when the people have lost their senses; you will die when they recover them.” They went to execution displaying all the stoicism of the times, singing the _Marseillaise_, and applying it to their own case:
“Allons, enfants de la patrie,
Le jour de gloire est arrivé:
Contre nous de la tyrannie
Le couteau sanglant est levé,” etc.
Nearly all the other leaders of this party had a violent end. Salles, Guadet, and Barbaroux, were discovered in the grottos of Saint-Emilion, near Bordeaux, and died on the scaffold. Pétion and Buzot, after wandering about some time, committed suicide; they were found, dead in a field, half devoured by wolves. Rabaud-Saint-Etienne was betrayed by an old friend; Madame Roland was also condemned to death, and displayed the courage of a Roman matron. Her husband, on hearing of her death, left his place of concealment, and killed himself on the high road. Condorcet, outlawed soon after the 2nd of June, was taken while endeavouring to escape, and saved himself from the executioner’s knife only by poison. Louvet, Kervelegan, Lanjuinais, Henri La Rivière, Lesage, La Réveillère-Lépeaux, were the only leading Girondists who, in secure retreat, awaited the end of the furious storm.
The revolutionary government was formed; it was proclaimed by the convention on the 10th of October. Before the 31st of May, power had been nowhere, neither in the ministry, nor in the commune, nor in the convention. It was natural that power should become concentrated in this extreme situation of affairs, and at a moment when the need for unity and promptitude of action was deeply felt. The assembly being the most central and extensive power, the dictatorship would as naturally become placed in its bosom, be exercised there by the dominant faction, and in that faction by a few men. The committee of public safety of the convention created on the 6th of April, in order, as the name indicates, to provide for the defence of the revolution by extraordinary measures, was in itself a complete framework of government. Formed during the divisions of the Mountain and the Gironde, it was composed of neutral members of the convention till the 31st of May; and at its first renewal, of members of the extreme Mountain. Barrère remained in it; but Robespierre acceded, and his party dominated in it by Saint-Just, Couthon, Collot-d’Herbois, and Billaud-Varennes. He set aside some Dantonists who still remained in it, such as Hérault de Séchelles and Robert Lindet, gained over Barrère, and usurped the lead by assuming the direction of the public mind and of police. His associates divided the various departments among themselves. Saint-Just undertook the surveillance and denouncing of parties; Couthon, the violent propositions which required to be softened in form; Billaud- Varennes and Collot-d’Herbois directed the missions into the departments; Carnot took the war department; Cambon, the exchequer; Prieur de la Côte- d’Or, Prieur de la Marne, and several others, the various branches of internal administration; and Barrère was the daily orator, the panegyrist ever prepared, of the dictatorial committee. Below these, assisting in the detail of the revolutionary administration, and of minor measures, was placed the committee of general safety, composed in the same spirit as the great committee, having, like it, twelve members, who were re-eligible every three months, and always renewed in their office.
The whole revolutionary power was lodged in the hands of these men. Saint- Just, in proposing the establishment of the decemviral power until the restoration of peace, did not conceal the motives nor the object of this dictatorship. “You must no longer show any lenity to the enemies of the new order of things,” said he. “Liberty must triumph at any cost. In the present circumstances of the republic, the constitution cannot be established; it would guarantee impunity to attacks on our liberty, because it would be deficient in the violence necessary to restrain them. The present government is not sufficiently free to act. You are not near enough to strike in every direction at the authors of these attacks; the sword of the law must extend everywhere; your arm must be felt everywhere.” Thus was created that terrible power, which first destroyed the enemies of the Mountain, then the Mountain and the Commune, and, lastly, itself. The committee did everything in the name of the convention, which it used as an instrument. It nominated and dismissed generals, ministers, representatives, commissioners, judges, and juries. It assailed factions; it took the initiative in all measures. Through its commissioners, armies and generals were dependent upon it, and it ruled the departments with sovereign sway. By means of the law touching suspected persons, it disposed of men’s liberties; by the revolutionary tribunal, of men’s lives; by levies and the _maximum_, of property; by decrees of accusation in the terrified convention, of its own members. Lastly, its dictatorship was supported by the multitude, who debated in the clubs, ruled in the revolutionary committees: whose services it paid by a daily stipend, and whom it fed with the _maximum_. The multitude adhered to a system which inflamed its passions, exaggerated its importance, assigned it the first place, and appeared to do everything for it.
The innovators, separated by war and by their laws from all states and from all forms of government, determined to widen the separation. By an unprecedented revolution they established an entirely new era; they changed the divisions of the year, the names of the months and days; they substituted a republican for the Christian calendar, the decade for the week, and fixed the day of rest not on the sabbath, but on the tenth day. The new era dated from the 22nd of September, 1792, the epoch of the foundation of the republic. There were twelve equal months of thirty days, which began on the 22nd of September, in the following order:– _Vendémiaire, Brumaire, Frimaire_, for the autumn; _Nivôse, Pluviôse, Ventôse_, for the winter; _Germinal, Floréal, Prairial_, for the spring; _Messidor, Thermidor, Fructidor_, for the summer. Each month had three décades, each décade ten days, and each day was named from its order in the décade:–_Primidi, Duodi, Tridi, Quartidi, Quintidi, Sextidi, Septidi, Octidi, Nonidi, Decadi_. The surplus five days were placed at the end of the year; they received the name of _Sans-culottides_, and were consecrated, the first, to the festival of genius; the second, to that of labour; the third, to that of actions; the fourth, to that of rewards; the fifth, to that of opinion. The constitution of 1793 led to the establishment of the republican calendar, and the republican calendar to the abolition of Christian worship. We shall soon see the commune and the committee of public safety each proposing a religion of its own; the commune, the worship of reason; the committee of public safety, the worship of the Supreme Being. But we must first mention a new struggle between the authors of the catastrophe of the 31st of May themselves.
The Commune and the Mountain had effected this revolution against the Gironde, and the committee alone had benefited by it. During the five months from June to November, the committee, having taken all the measures of defence, had naturally become the first power in the republic. The actual struggle being, as it were, over, the commune sought to sway the committee, and the Mountain to throw off its yoke. The most intense manifestation of the revolution was found in the municipal faction. With an aim opposed to that of the committee of public safety, it desired instead of the conventional dictatorship, the most extreme local democracy; and instead of religion, the consecration of materialism. Political anarchy and religious atheism were the symbols of this party, and the means by which it aimed at establishing its own rule. A revolution is the effect of the different systems which have agitated the age which has originated it. Thus, during the continuance of the crisis in France, ultra-montane catholicism was represented by the nonjuring clergy; Jansenism by the constitutionist clergy; philosophical deism by the worship of the Supreme Being, instituted by the committee of public safety; and the materialism of Holbach’s school by the worship of Reason and of Nature, decreed by the commune. It was the same with political opinions, from the royalty of the _Ancien Régime_ to the unlimited democracy of the municipal faction. The latter had lost, in Marat, its principal support, its true leader, while the committee of public safety still retained Robespierre. It had at its head men who enjoyed great popularity with the lower classes; Chaumette, and his substitute Hébert, were its political leaders; Ronsin, commandant of the revolutionary army, its general; the atheist, Anacharsis Clootz, its apostle. In the sections it relied on the revolutionary committees, in which there were many obscure foreigners, supposed, and not without probability, to be agents of England, sent to destroy the republic by driving it into anarchy and excess. The club of the Cordeliers was composed entirely of its partisans. The _Vieux Cordeliers_ of Danton, who had contributed so powerfully to the 10th of August, and who constituted the commune of that period, had entered the government and the convention, and had been replaced in the club by members whom they contemptuously designated the _patriotes de la troisième réquisition_.
Hébert’s faction, which, in a work entitled _Père Duchêsne_, popularised obscene language and low and cruel sentiments, and which added derision of the victims to the executions of party, in a short time made terrible progress. It compelled the bishop of Paris and his vicars to abjure Christianity at the bar of the convention, and forced the convention to decree, that _the worship of Reason should be substituted for the catholic religion_. The churches were shut up or converted into temples of reason, and fêtes were established in every town, which became scandalous scenes of atheism. The committee of public safety grew alarmed at the power of this ultra-revolutionary faction, and hastened to stop and to destroy it. Robespierre soon attacked it in the assembly, (15th Frimaire, year II., 5th Dec., 1793). “Citizens, representatives of the people,” said he, “the kings in alliance against the republic are making war against us with armies and intrigues; we will oppose their armies by braver ones; their intrigues, by vigilance and the terror of national justice. Ever intent on renewing their secret plots, in proportion as they are destroyed by the hand of patriotism, ever skilful in directing the arms of liberty against liberty itself, the emissaries of the enemies of France are now labouring to overthrow the republic by republicanism, and to rekindle civil war by philosophy.” He classed the ultra-revolutionists of the commune with the external enemies of the republic. “It is your part,” said he to the convention, “to prevent the follies and extravagancies which coincide with the projects of foreign conspiracy. I require you to prohibit particular authorities (the commune) from serving our enemies by rash measures, and that no armed force be allowed to interfere in questions of religious opinions.” And the convention, which had applauded the abjurations at the demand of the commune, decreed, on Robespierre’s motion, that _all violence and all measures opposed to the liberty of religion are prohibited_.
The committee of public safety was too strong not to triumph over the commune; but, at the same time, it had to resist the moderate party of the Mountain, which demanded the cessation of the revolutionary government and the dictatorship of the committees. The revolutionary government had only been created to restrain, the dictatorship to conquer; and as Danton and his party no longer considered restraint and victory essential, they sought to establish legal order, and the independence of the convention; they wished to throw down the faction of the commune, to stop the operation of the revolutionary tribunal, to empty the prisons now filled with suspected persons, to reduce or destroy the powers of the committees. This project in favour of clemency, humanity, and legal government, was conceived by Danton, Philippeaux, Camille Desmoulins, Fabre-d’Eglantine, Lacroix, general Westermann, and all the friends of Danton. Before all things they wanted _that the republic should secure the field of battle_; but after conquest, they wished to conciliate.
This party, become moderate, had renounced power; it had withdrawn from the government, or suffered itself to be excluded by Robespierre’s party. Moreover, since the 31st of May, zealous patriots had considered Danton’s conduct equivocal. He had acted mildly on that day, and had subsequently disapproved the condemnation of the twenty-two. They began to reproach him with his disorderly life, his venal passions, his change of party, and untimely moderation. To avoid the storm, he had retired to his native place, Arcis-sur-Aube, and there he seemed to have forgotten all in retirement. During his absence, the Hébert faction made immense progress; and the friends of Danton hastily summoned him to their aid. He returned at the beginning of Frimaire (December). Philippeaux immediately denounced the manner in which the Vendéan war had been carried on; general Westermann, who had greatly distinguised himself in that war, and who had just been dismissed by the committee of public safety, supported Philippeaux, and Camille Desmoulins published the first numbers of his _Vieux Cordelier_. This brilliant and fiery young man had followed all the movements of the revolution, from the 14th of July to the 31st of May, approving all its exaggerations and all its measures. His heart, however, was gentle and tender, though his opinions were violent, and his humour often bitter. He had praised the revolutionary régime because he believed it indispensable for the establishment of the republic; he had co-operated in the ruin of the Gironde, because he feared the dissensions of the republic. For the republic he had sacrificed even his scruples and the desires of his heart, even justice and humanity; he had given all to his party, thinking that he gave it to the republic; but now he was able neither to praise nor to keep silent; his energetic activity, which he had employed for the republic, he now directed against those who were ruining it by bloodshed. In his _Vieux Cordelier_ he spoke of liberty with the depth of Machiavelli, and of men with the wit of Voltaire. But he soon raised the fanatics and dictators against him, by calling the government to sentiments of moderation, compassion, and justice.
He drew a striking picture of present tyranny, under the name of a past tyranny. He selected his examples from Tacitus. “At this period,” said he, “words became state crimes: there wanted but one step more to render mere glances, sadness, pity, sighs–even silence itself criminal. It soon became high-treason, or an anti-revolutionary crime, for Cremutius Cordus to call Brutus and Cassius the last of the Romans; a counter-revolutionary crime in a descendant of Cassius to possess a portrait of his ancestor; a counter-revolutionary crime in Mamercus Scaurus to write a tragedy in which there were lines capable of a double meaning; a counter- revolutionary crime in Torquatus Silanus to be extravagant; a counter- revolutionary crime in Pomponius, because a friend of Sejanus had sought an asylum in one of his country houses; a counter-revolutionary crime to bewail the misfortunes of the time, for this was accusing the government; a counter-revolutionary crime for the consul Fusius Geminus to bewail the sad death of his son.
“If a man would escape death himself, it became necessary to rejoice at the death of his friend or relative. Under Nero, many went to return thanks to the gods for their relatives whom he had put to death. At least, an assumed air of contentment was necessary; for even fear was sufficient to render one guilty. Everything gave the tyrant umbrage. If a citizen was popular, he was considered a rival to the prince, and capable of exciting a civil war, and he was suspected. Did he, on the contrary, shun popularity, and keep by his fireside; his retired mode of life drew attention, and he was suspected. Was a man rich; it was feared the people might be corrupted by his bounty, and he was suspected. Was he poor; it became necessary to watch him closely, as none are so enterprising as those who have nothing, and he was suspected. If his disposition chanced to be sombre and melancholy, and his dress neglected, his distress was supposed to be occasioned by the state of public affairs, and he was suspected. If a citizen indulged in good living to the injury of his digestion, he was said to do so because the prince lived ill, and he was suspected. If virtuous and austere in his manners, he was thought to censure the court, and he was suspected. Was he philosopher, orator, or poet; it was unbecoming to have more celebrity than the government, and he was suspected. Lastly, if any one had obtained a reputation in war, his talent only served to make him dangerous; it became necessary to get rid of the general, or to remove him speedily from the army; he was suspected.
“The natural death of a celebrated man, or of even a public official, was so rare, that historians handed it down to posterity as an event worthy to be remembered in remote ages. The death of so many innocent and worthy citizens seemed less a calamity than the insolence and disgraceful opulence of their murderers and denouncers. Every day the sacred and inviolable informer made his triumphant entry into the palace of the dead, and received some rich heritage. All these denouncers assumed illustrious names, and called themselves Cotta, Scipio, Regulus, Saevius, Severus. To distinguish himself by a brilliant début, the marquis Serenus brought an accusation of anti-revolutionary practices against his aged father, already in exile, after which he proudly called himself Brutus. Such were the accusers, such the judges; the tribunals, the protectors of life and property, became slaughter-houses, in which theft and murder bore the names of punishment and confiscation.”
Camille Desmoulins did not confine himself to attacking the revolutionary and dictatorial regime; he required its abolition. He demanded the establishment of a committee of mercy, as the only way of terminating the revolution and pacifying parties. His journal produced a great effect upon public opinion; it inspired some hope and courage: Have you read the _Vieux Cordelier_? was asked on all sides. At the same time Fabre- d’Eglantine, Lacroix, and Bourdon de l’Oise, excited the convention to throw off the yoke of the committee; they sought to unite the Mountain and the Right, in order to restore the freedom and power of the assembly. As the committees were all powerful, they tried to ruin them by degrees, the best course to follow. It was important to change public opinion, and to encourage the assembly, in order to support themselves by a moral force against revolutionary force, by the power of the convention against the power of the committees. The Dantonist in the Mountain endeavoured to detach Robespierre from the other Decemvirs; Billaud-Varennes, Collot- d’Herbois and Saint-Just, alone appeared to them invincibly attached to the Reign of Terror. Barrère adhered to it through weakness–Couthon from his devotion to Robespierre. They hoped to gain over the latter to the cause of moderation, through his friendship for Danton, his ideas of order, his austere habits, his profession of public virtue, and his pride. He had defended seventy-three imprisoned Girondist deputies against the committees and the Jacobins; he had dared to attack Clootz and Hébert as ultra-revolutionists; and he had induced the convention to decree the existence of the Supreme Being. Robespierre was the most popularly renowned man of that time; he was, in a measure, the moderator of the republic and the dictator of opinion: by gaining him, they hoped to overcome both the committees and the commune, without compromising the cause of the revolution.
Danton saw him on his return from Arcis-sur-Aube, and they seemed to understand one another; attacked at the Jacobins, he was defended by him. Robespierre himself read and corrected the _Vieux Cordelier_, and approved of it. At the same time he professed some principles of moderation; but then all those who exercised the revolutionary government, or who thought it indispensable, became aroused. Billaud-Varennes and Saint-Just openly maintained the policy of the committees. Desmoulins had said of the latter: “He so esteems himself, that he carries his head on his shoulders with as much respect as if it were the holy sacrament.” “And I,” replied Saint-Just, “will make him carry his like another Saint Denis.” Collot- d’Herbois, who was on a mission, arrived while matters were in this state. He protected the faction of the anarchists, who had been intimidated for a moment, and who derived fresh audacity from his presence. The Jacobins expelled Camille Desmoulins from their society, and Barrère attacked him at the convention in the name of the government. Robespierre himself was not spared; he was accused of _moderatism_, and murmurs began to circulate against him.
However, his credit being immense, as they could not attack or conquer without him, he was sought on both sides. Taking advantage of this superior position, he adopted neither party, and sought to put down the leaders of each, one after the other.
Under these circumstances, he wished to sacrifice the commune and the anarchists; the committees wished to sacrifice the Mountain and the Moderates. They came to an understanding: Robespierre gave up Danton, Desmoulins, and their friends to the members of the committee; and the members of the committee gave up Hébert, Clootz, Chaumette, Ronsin, and their accomplices. By favouring the Moderates at first, he prepared the ruin of the anarchists, and he attained two objects favourable to his domination or to his pride–he overturned a formidable faction, and he got rid of a revolutionary reputation, the rival of his own.
Motives of public safety, it must be admitted, mingled with these combinations of party. At this period of general fury against the republic, and of victories not yet definitive on its part, the committees did not think the moment for peace with Europe and the internal dissentients had arrived; and they considered it impossible to carry on the war without a dictatorship. They, moreover, regarded the Hébertists as an obscene faction, which corrupted the people, and served the foreign foe by anarchy; and the Dantonists as a party whose political moderation and private immorality compromised and dishonoured the republic. The government accordingly proposed to the assembly, through the medium of Barrère, the continuation of the war, with additional activity in its pursuit; while Robespierre, a few days afterwards, demanded the continuance of the revolutionary government. In the Jacobins he had already expressed himself opposed to the _Vieux Cordelier_, which he had hitherto supported. He rejected legal government in the following terms:–
“Without,” said he, “all the tyrants surround us; within, all the friends of tyranny conspire against us; they will continue to conspire till crime is left without hope. We must destroy the infernal and external enemies of the republic or perish with it. Now, in such a situation, the first maxim of your policy should be, to lead the people by reason, and the enemies of the people by terror. If, during peace, virtue be the mainspring of a popular government, its mainspring in the times of revolution is both virtue and terror; virtue, without which terror becomes fatal, terror, without which virtue is powerless. Subdue, then, the enemies of liberty by terror; and, as the founders of the republic, you will act rightly. The government of the revolution is the despotism of liberty against tyranny.”
In this speech he denounced the _moderates_ and the _ultra- revolutionists_, as both of them desiring the downfall of the republic. “They advance,” said he, “under different banners and by different roads, but they advance towards the same goal; that goal is the disorganization of the popular government, the ruin of the convention, and the triumph of tyranny. One of these two factions reduces us to weakness, the other drives us to excesses.” He prepared the public mind for their proscription; and his speech, adopted without discussion, was sent to all the popular societies, to all the authorities, and to all the armies.
After this beginning of hostilities, Danton, who had not given up his connexion with Robespierre, asked for an interview with him. It took place at the residence of Robespierre himself. They were cold and bitter; Danton complained violently, and Robespierre was reserved. “I know,” said Danton, “all the hatred the committee bear me; but I do not fear it.” “You are wrong,” replied Robespierre; “it entertains no ill designs against you; but you would do well to have an explanation.” “An explanation?” rejoined Danton, “an explanation? That requires good faith!” Seeing that Robespierre looked grave at these words, he added: “No doubt it is necessary to put down the royalists, but we ought only to strike blows which will benefit the republic; we must not confound the innocent with the guilty.” “And who says,” exclaimed Robespierre, sharply, “that an innocent person has been put to death?” Danton turned to one of his friends who had accompanied him, and said, with a bitter smile: “What do you say to this? Not one innocent person has perished!” They then separated, and all friendship ceased between them.
A few days afterwards, Saint-Just ascended the tribune, and threatened more openly than had yet been done all dissentients, moderates, or anarchists. “Citizens,” said he, “you wished for a republic; if you do not at the same time desire all that constitutes it, you will overwhelm the people in its ruins. What constitutes a republic is the destruction of all that is opposed to it. We are guilty towards the republic because we pity the prisoners; we are guilty towards the republic because we do not desire virtue; we are guilty to the republic because we do not desire terror. What is it you want, those of you who do not wish for virtue, that you may be happy? (The Anarchists.) What is it you want, those of you who do not wish to employ terror against the wicked? (The Moderates.) What is it you want, those of you who haunt public places to be seen, and to have it said of you: ‘Do you see such a one pass?’ (Danton.) You will perish, those of you who seek fortune, who assume haggard looks, and affect the patriot that the foreigner may buy you up, or the government give you a place; you of the indulgent faction, who seek to save the guilty; you of the foreign faction, who direct severity against the defenders of the people. Measures are already taken to secure the guilty; they are hemmed in on all sides. Let us return thanks to the genius of the French people, that liberty has triumphed over one of the most dangerous attacks ever meditated against it. The development of this vast plot, the panic it will create, and the measures about to be proposed to you, will free the republic and the world of all the conspirators.”
Saint-Just caused the government to be invested with the most extensive powers against the conspirators of the commune. He had it decreed that justice and probity were the order of the day. The anarchists were unable to adopt any measure of defence; they veiled for a moment the Rights of Man at the club of the Cordeliers, and they made an attempt at insurrection, but without vigour or union. The people did not stir, and the committee caused its commandant, Henriot, to seize the substitute Hébert, Ronsin, the revolutionary general, Anacharsis Clootz, Monmoro the orator of the human race, Vincent, etc. They were brought before the revolutionary tribunal, as _the agents of foreign powers, and, as having conspired to place a tyrant over the state_. That tyrant was to have been Pache, under the title of _Grand Juge_. The anarchist leaders lost their audacity as soon as they were arrested; they defended themselves, and, for the most part, died, without any display of courage. The committee of public safety disbanded the revolutionary army, diminished the power of the sectionary committees, and obliged the commune to appear at the bar of the convention, and give thanks for the arrest and punishment of the conspirators, its accomplices.
It was now time for Danton to defend himself; the proscription, after striking the commune, threatened him. He was advised to be on his guard, and to take immediate steps; but not having been able to overturn the dictatorial power, by arousing public opinion and the assembly by the means of the public journals, and his friends of the Mountain, on what could he depend for support? The convention, indeed, was inclined to favour him and his cause; but it was wholly subject to the revolutionary power of the committee. Danton having to support him, neither the government, nor the assembly, nor the commune, nor the clubs, awaited proscription, without making any effort to avoid it.
His friends implored him to defend himself. “I would rather,” said he, “be guillotined, than be a guillotiner; besides, my life is not worth the trouble; and I am sick of the world.” “The members of the committee seek thy death.” “Well,” he exclaimed, impatiently, “should Billaud, should Robespierre kill me, they will be execrated as tyrants; Robespierre’s house will be razed to the ground; salt will be strewn upon it; a gallows will be erected on it, devoted to the vengeance of crime! But my friends will say of me, that I was a good father, a good friend, a good citizen; they will not forget me.” “Thou mayst avert…” “I would rather be guillotined than be a guillotiner.” “Well, then, thou shouldst depart.” “Depart!” he repeated, curling his lip disdainfully, “depart! Can we carry our country away on the sole of our shoe?”
Danton’s only resource now was to make trial of his so well known and potent eloquence, to denounce Robespierre and the committee, and to arouse the convention against their tyranny. He was earnestly entreated to do this; but he knew too well how difficult a thing it is to overthrow an established domination, he knew too well the complete subjection and terror of the assembly, to rely on the efficacy of such means. He accordingly waited, thinking, he who had dared so much, that his enemies would shrink from proscribing him.
On the 10th of Germinal, he was informed that his arrest was being discussed in the committee of public safety, and he was again entreated to save himself by flight. After a moment’s reflection, he exclaimed, “They dare not.” During the night his house was surrounded, and he was taken to the Luxembourg with Camille Desmoulins, Philippeaux, Lacroix, and Westermann. On his arrival, he accosted with cordiality the prisoners who crowded round him. “Gentlemen,” said he, “I had hoped in a short time to liberate you, but here I am come to join you, and I know not how the matter may end.” In about an hour he was placed in solitary confinement in the cell in which Hébert had been imprisoned, and which Robespierre was so soon to occupy. There, giving way to reflection and regret, he exclaimed: “It was at this time I instituted the revolutionary tribunal. I implore forgiveness from God and man for having done so; but I designed it not for the scourge of humanity.”
His arrest gave rise to general excitement, to a sombre anxiety. The following day, at the opening of the sittings in the assembly, men spoke in whispers; they inquired with alarm, what was the pretext for this new proceeding against the representatives of the people. “Citizens,” at length exclaimed Legendre, “four members of this assembly have been arrested during the night. Danton is one, I know not the others. Citizens, I declare that I believe Danton to be as pure as myself, yet he is in a dungeon. They feared, no doubt, that his replies would overturn the accusations brought against him: I move, therefore, that before you listen to any report, you send for the prisoners, and hear them.” This motion was favourably received, and inspired the assembly with momentary courage: a few members desired it might be put to the vote, but this state of things did not last long. Robespierre ascended the tribune. “By the excitement, such as for a long time has been unknown in this the assembly,” said he, “by the sensation the words of the speaker you have just heard have produced, it is easy to see that a question of great interest is before us; a question whether two or three individuals shall be preferred to the country. We shall see to-day whether the convention can crush to atoms a mock idol, long since decayed, or whether its fall shall overwhelm both the convention and the French people.” And a few words from him sufficed to restore silence and subordination to the assembly, to restrain the friends of Danton, and to make Legendre himself retract. Soon after, Saint-Just entered the house, followed by other members of the committees. He read a long report against the members under arrest, in which he impugned their opinions, their political conduct, their private life, their projects; making them appear, by improbable and subtle combinations, accomplices in every conspiracy, and the servants of every party. The assembly, after listening without a murmur, with a bewildered sanction unanimously decreed, and with applause even, the impeachment of Danton and his friends. Every one sought to gain time with tyranny, and gave up others’ heads to save his own.
The accused were brought before the revolutionary tribunal; their attitude was haughty, and full of courage. They displayed an audacity of speech, and a contempt of their judges, wholly unusual: Danton replied to the president Dumas, who asked him the customary questions as to his name, his age, his residence: “I am Danton, tolerably well known in the revolution; I am thirty-five years old. My residence will soon be nothing. My name will live in the Panthéon of history.” His disdainful or indignant replies, the cold and measured answers of Lacroix, the austere dignity of Philippeaux, the vigour of Desmoulins, were beginning to move the people. But the accused were silenced, under the pretext that they were wanting in respect to justice, and were immediately condemned without a hearing. “We are immolated,” cried Danton, “to the ambition of a few miserable brigands, but they will not long enjoy the fruit of their criminal victory. I draw Robespierre after me–Robespierre will follow me.” They were taken to the Conciergerie, and thence to the scaffold.
They went to death with the intrepidity usual at that epoch. There were many troops under arms, and their escort was numerous. The crowd, generally loud in its applause, was silent. Camille Desmoulins, when in the fatal cart, was still full of astonishment at his condemnation, which he could not comprehend. “This, then,” said he, “is the reward reserved for the first apostle of liberty.” Danton stood erect, and looked proudly and calmly around. At the foot of the scaffold he betrayed a momentary emotion. “Oh, my best beloved–my wife!” he cried, “I shall not see thee again.” Then suddenly interrupting himself: “No weakness, Danton!” Thus perished the last defenders of humanity and moderation; the last who sought to promote peace among the conquerors of the revolution and pity for the conquered. For a long time after them no voice was raised against the dictatorship of terror; and from one end of France to the other it struck silent and redoubled blows. The Girondists had sought to prevent this violent reign,–the Dantonists to stop it; all perished, and the conquerors had the more victims to strike the more foes arose around them. In so sanguinary a career, there is no stopping until the tyrant is himself slain. The Decemvirs, after the definitive fall of the Girondists, had made _terror_ the order of the day; after the fall of the Hébertists, _justice_ and _probity_, because these were _impure men of faction_; after the fall of the Dantonists, _terror_ and _all virtues_, because these Dantonists were, according to their phraseology, _indulgents and immorals_.
CHAPTER IX
FROM THE DEATH OF DANTON, APRIL, 1794, TO THE 9TH THERMIDOR, (27TH JULY, 1794)
During the four months following the fall of the Danton party, the committees exercised their authority without opposition or restraint. Death became the only means of governing, and the republic was given up to daily and systematic executions. It was then were invented the alleged conspiracies of the inmates of the prisons, crowded under the law _des suspects_, or emptied by that of the 22nd Prairial, which might be called the law _des condamnés;_ then the emissaries of the committee of public safety entirely replaced in the departments those of the Mountain; and Carrier, the protégé of Billaud, was seen in the west; Maigret, the protégé of Couthon, in the south; and Joseph Lebon, the protégé of Robespierre, in the north. The extermination _en masse_ of the enemies of the democratic dictatorship, which had already been effected at Lyons and Toulon by grape-shot, became still more horrible, by the noyades of Nantes, and the scaffolds of Arras, Paris, and Orange.
May this example teach men a truth, which for their good ought to be generally known, that in a revolution all depends on a first refusal and a first struggle. To effect a pacific innovation, it must not be contested; otherwise war is declared and the revolution spreads, because the whole nation is aroused to its defence. When society is thus shaken to its foundations, it is the most daring who triumph, and instead of wise and temperate reformers, we find only extreme and inflexible innovators. Engendered by contest, they maintain themselves by it; with one hand they fight to maintain their sway, with the other they establish their system with a view to its consolidation; they massacre in the name of their doctrines: virtue, humanity, the welfare of the people, all that is holiest on earth, they use to sanction their executions, and to protect their dictatorship. Until they become exhausted and fall, all perish indiscriminately, both the enemies and the partisans of reform. The tempest dashes a whole nation against the rock of revolution. Inquire what became of the men of 1789 in 1794, and it will be found that they were all alike swept away in this vast shipwreck. As soon as one party appeared on the field of battle, it summoned all the others thither, and all like it were in turn conquered and exterminated; constitutionalists, Girondists, the Mountain, and the Decemvirs themselves. At each defeat, the effusion of blood became greater, and the system of tyranny more violent. The Decemvirs were the most cruel, because they were the last.
The committee of public safety, being at once the object of the attacks of Europe, and of the hatred of so many conquered parties, thought that any abatement of violence would occasion its destruction; it wished at the same time to subdue its foes, and to get rid of them. “The dead alone do not return,” said Barrère. “The more freely the social body perspires, the more healthy it becomes,” added Collot-d’Herbois. But the Decemvirs, not suspecting their power to be ephemeral, aimed at founding a democracy, and sought in institutions a security for its permanence in the time when they should cease to employ executions. They possessed in the highest degree the fanaticism of certain social theories, as the millenarians of the English revolution, with whom they may be compared, had the fanaticism of certain religious ideas. The one originated with the people, as the other looked to God; these desired the most absolute political equality, as those sought evangelical equality; these aspired to the reign of virtue, as those to the reign of the saints. Human nature flies to extremes in all things, and produces, in a religious epoch, democratic Christians–in a philosophical epoch, political democrats.
Robespierre and Saint-Just had produced the plan of that democracy, whose principles they professed in all their speeches; they wished to change the manners, mind, and customs of France, and to make it a republic after the manner of the ancients; they sought to establish the dominion of the people; to have magistrates free from pride; citizens free from vice; fraternity of intercourse, simplicity of manners, austerity of character, and the worship of virtue. The symbolical words of the sect may be found in the speeches of all the reporters of the committee, and especially in those of Robespierre and Saint-Just. _Liberty and equality_ for the government of the republic; _indivisibility_ for its form; _public safety_ for its defence and preservation; _virtue_ for its principle; _the Supreme Being_ for its religion; as for the citizens, _fraternity_ for their daily intercourse; _probity_ for their conduct; _good sense_ for their mental qualities; _modesty_ for their public actions, which were to have for object the welfare of the state, and not their own: such was the symbol of this democracy. Fanaticism could not go further. The authors of this system did not inquire into its practicability; they thought it just and natural; and having power, they tried to establish it by violence. Not one of these words but served to condemn a party or individuals. The royalists and aristocrats were hunted down in the name of _liberty and equality_; the Girondists in the name of _indivisibility_; Philippeaux, Camille Desmoulins, and the moderate party, in the name of _public safety_; Chaumette, Anacharsis Clootz, Gobet, Hébert, all the anarchical and atheistical party, in the name of _virtue and the Supreme Being_; Chabot, Bazire, Fabre-d’Eglantine, in the name of _probity_; Danton in the name of _virtue and modesty_. In the eyes of fanatics, these _moral crimes_ necessitated their destruction, as much as the conspiracies which they were accused of.
Robespierre was the patron of this sect, which had in the committee a more zealous, disinterested, and fanatic partisan than himself, in the person of Saint-Just, who was called the Apocalyptic. His features were bold but regular, and marked by an expression determined, but melancholy. His eye was steady and piercing; his hair black, straight, and long. His manners cold, though his character was ardent; simple in his habits, austere and sententious, he advanced without hesitation towards the completion of his system. Though scarcely twenty-five years old, he was the boldest of the Decemvirs, because his convictions were the deepest. Passionately devoted to the republic, he was indefatigable in the committees, intrepid on his missions to the armies, where he set an example of courage, sharing the marches and dangers of the soldiers. His predilection for the multitude did not make him pay court to their propensities; and far from adopting their dress and language with Hébert, he wished to confer on them ease, gravity, and dignity. But his policy made him more terrible than his popular sentiments. He had much daring, coolness, readiness, and decision. Rarely susceptible to pity, he reduced to form his measures for the public safety, and put them into execution immediately. If he considered victory, proscription, the dictatorship necessary, he at once demanded them. Unlike Robespierre, he was completely a man of action. The latter, comprehending all the use he might make of him, early gained him over in the convention. Saint-Just, on his part, was drawn towards Robespierre by his reputation for incorruptibility, his austere life, and the conformity of their ideas.
The terrible effects of their association may be conceived when we consider their popularity, the envious and tyrannical passions of the one, and the inflexible character and systematic views of the other. Couthon had joined them; he was personally devoted to Robespierre. Although he had a mild look and a partially paralysed frame, he was a man of merciless fanaticism. They formed, in the committee, a triumvirate which soon sought to engross all power. This ambition alienated the other members of the committee, and caused their own destruction. In the meantime, the triumvirate imperiously governed the convention and the committee itself. When it was necessary to intimidate the assembly, Saint-Just was intrusted with the task; when they wished to take it by surprise, Couthon was employed. If the assembly murmured or hesitated, Robespierre rose, and restored silence and terror by a single word.
During the first two months after the fall of the commune and the Danton party, the Decemvirs, who were not yet divided, laboured to secure their domination: their commissioners kept the departments in restraint, and the armies of the republic were victorious on all the frontiers. The committee took advantage of this moment of security and union to lay the foundation of new manners and new institutions. It must never be forgotten, that in a revolution men are moved by two tendencies, attachment to their ideas, and a thirst for command. The members of the committee, at the beginning, agreed in their democratic sentiments; at the end, they contended for power.
Billaud-Varennes presented the theory of popular government and the means of rendering the army always subordinate to the nation. Robespierre delivered a discourse on the moral sentiments and solemnities suited to a republic: he dedicated festivals _to the Supreme Being, to Truth, Justice, Modesty, Friendship, Frugality, Fidelity, Immortality, Misfortune, etc._, in a word, to all the moral and republican virtues. In this way he prepared the establishment of the new worship _of the Supreme Being_. Barrère made a report on the extirpation of mendicity, and the assistance the republic owed to indigent citizens. All these reports passed into decrees, agreeably to the wishes of the democrats. Barrère, whose habitual speeches in the convention were calculated to disguise his servitude from himself, was one of the most supple instruments of the committee; he belonged to the régime of terror, neither from cruelty nor from fanaticism. His manners were gentle, his private life blameless, and he possessed great moderation of mind. But he was timid; and after having been a constitutional royalist before the 10th of August, a moderate republican prior to the 31st of May, he became the panegyrist and the co- operator of the decemviral tyranny. This shows that, in a revolution, no one should become an actor without decision of character. Intellect alone is not inflexible enough; it is too accommodating; it finds reasons for everything, even for what terrifies and disgusts it; it never knows when to stop, at a time when one ought always to be prepared to die, and to end one’s part or end one’s opinions.
Robespierre, who was considered the founder of this moral democracy, now attained the highest degree of elevation and of power. He became the object of the general flattery of his party; he was _the great man_ of the republic. Men spoke of nothing but _of his virtue, of his genius, and of his eloquence_. Two circumstances contributed to augment his importance still further. On the 3rd Prairial, an obscure but intrepid man, named l’Admiral, was determined to deliver France from Robespierre and Collot- d’Herbois. He waited in vain for Robespierre all day, and at night he resolved to kill Collot. He fired twice at him with pistols, but missed him. The following day, a young girl, name Cécile Renaud, called at Robespierre’s house, and earnestly begged to speak with him. As he was out, and as she still insisted upon being admitted, she was detained. She carried a small parcel, and two knives were found on her person. “What motive brought you to Robespierre’s?” inquired her examiners. “I wanted to speak to him.” “On what business?” “That depended on how I might find him.” “Do you know citizen Robespierre?” “No, I sought to know him; I went to his house to see what a tyrant was like.” “What did you propose doing with your two knives?” “Nothing, having no intention to injure any one.” “And your parcel?” “Contains a change of linen for my use in the place I shall be sent to.” “Where is that?” “To prison; and from thence to the guillotine.” The unfortunate girl was ultimately taken there, and her family shared her fate.
Robespierre received marks of the most intoxicating adulation. At the Jacobins and in the convention his preservation was attributed to the _good genius of the republic_, and to _the Supreme Being_, whose existence he had decreed on the 18th Floréal. The celebration of the new religion had been fixed for the 20th Prairial throughout France. On the 16th, Robespierre was unanimously appointed president of the convention, in order that he might officiate as the pontiff at the festival. At that ceremony he appeared at the head of the assembly, his face beaming with joy and confidence, an unusual expression with him. He advanced alone, fifteen feet in advance of his colleagues, attired in a magnificent dress, holding flowers and ears of corn in his hand, the object of general attention. Expectation was universally raised on this occasion: the enemies of Robespierre foreboded attempts at usurpation, the persecuted looked forward to a milder régime. He disappointed every one. He harangued the people in his capacity of high priest, and concluded his speech, in which all expected to find a hope of happier prospects, with these discouraging words:–“_People, let us to-day give ourselves up to the transports of pure delight! To-morrow we will renew our struggle against vices and against tyrants._”
Two days after, on the 22nd Prairial, Couthon presented a new law to the convention. The revolutionary tribunal had dutifully struck all those who had been pointed out to it: royalists, constitutionalists, Girondists, anarchists, and Mountain, had been all alike despatched to execution. But it did not proceed expeditiously enough to satisfy the systematic exterminators, who wished promptly, and at any cost, to get rid of all their prisoners. It still observed some forms; these were suppressed. “All tardiness,” said Couthon, “is a crime, all indulgent formality a public danger; there should be no longer delay in punishing the enemies of the state than suffices to recognise them.” Hitherto the prisoners had counsel; they had them no longer:–_The law furnishes patriot jurymen for the defence of calumniated patriots; it grants none to conspirators_. They tried them, at first, individually; now they tried them _en masse_. There had been some precision in the crimes, even when revolutionary; now _all the enemies of the people_ were declared guilty, and all were pronounced enemies of the people _who sought to destroy liberty by force or stratagem_. The jury before had the law to guide their determinations, they _now only had their conscience_. A single tribunal, Fouquier-Tinville and a few jurymen, were not sufficient for the increase of victims the new law threatened to bring before it; the tribunal was divided into four sections, the number of judges and juries was increased, and the public accuser had four substitutes appointed to assist him. Lastly, the deputies of the people could not before be brought to trial without a decree of the convention; but the law was now so drawn up that they could be tried on an order from the committees. The law respecting suspected persons gave rise to that of Prairial.
As soon as Couthon had made his report, a murmur of astonishment and alarm pervaded the assembly. “If this law passes,” cried Ruamps, “all we have to do is to blow our brains out. I demand an adjourment.” This motion was supported; but Robespierre ascended the tribunal. “For a long time,” said he, “the national assembly has been accustomed to discuss and decree at the same time, because it has long been delivered from the thraldom of faction. I move that without considering the question of adjournment, the convention debate, till eight in the evening if necessary, on the proposed law.” The discussion was immediately begun, and in thirty minutes after the second reading, the decree was carried. But the following day, a few members, more afraid of the law than of the committee, returned to the debate of the day before. The Mountain, friends of Danton, fearing, for their own sakes, the new provisions, which left the representatives at the mercy of the Decemvirs, proposed to the convention to provide for the safety of its members. Bourdon de l’Oise was the first to speak on this subject; he was supported. Merlin, by a skilful amendment, restored the old safeguard of the conventionalists, and the assembly adopted Merlin’s measure. Gradually, objections were made to the decree; the courage of the Mountain increased, and the discussion became very animated. Couthon attacked the Mountain. “Let them know,” replied Bourdon de l’Oise–“let the members of the committee know that if they are patriots, we are patriots too. Let them know that I shall not reply with bitterness to their reproaches. I esteem Couthon, I esteem the committee; but I also esteem the unshaken Mountain which has saved our liberty.” Robespierre, surprised at this unexpected resistance, hurried to the tribune. “The convention,” said he, “the Mountain, and the committee are the same thing! Every representative of the people who sincerely loves liberty, every representative of the people who is ready to die for his country, belongs to the Mountain! We should insult our country, assassinate the people, did we allow a few intriguing persons, more contemptible than others, because they are more hypocritical, to draw off a portion of the Mountain, and make themselves the leaders of a party.” “If was never my intention,” said Bourdon, “to make myself leader of a party.” “It would be the height of opprobrium,” continued Robespierre, “if a few of our colleagues, led away by calumny respecting our intentions and the object of our labours….” “I insist on your proving what you assert,” rejoined Bourdon. “I have been very plainly called a scoundrel.” “I did not name Bourdon. Woe to the man who names himself! Yes, the Mountain is pure, it is sublime; intriguers do not belong to the Mountain!” “Name them!” “I will name them when it is necessary.” The threats and the imperious tone of Robespierre, the support of the other Decemvirs, and the feeling of fear which went round caused profound silence. The amendment of Merlin was revoked as insulting to the committee of public safety, and the whole law was adopted. From that time executions took place in batches; and fifty persons were sent to death daily. This _Terror_ within terror lasted about two months.
But the end of this system drew near. The sittings of Prairial were the term of union for the member of the committees. From that time, silent dissensions existed among them. They had advanced together, so long as they had to contend together; but this ceased to be the case when they found themselves alone in the arena, with habits of contest and the desire for dominion. Moreover, their opinions were no longer entirely the same: the democratic party were divided by the fall of the old commune; Billaud- Varennes, Collot-d’Herbois, and the principal members of the committee of general safety, Vadier, Amar, Vouland, clung to this overthrown faction, and preferred _the worship of Reason_ to that of _the Supreme Being_. They were also jealous of the fame, and anxious at the power of Robespierre, who, in his turn, was irritated at their secret disapprobation and the obstacles they opposed to his will. At this period, the latter conceived the design of putting down the most enterprising members of the Mountain, Tallien, Bourdon, Legendre, Fréron, Rovère, etc., and his rivals of the committee.
Robespierre had a prodigious force at his disposal, the common people, who considered the revolution as depending on him, supported him as the representative of its doctrines and interests; the armed force of Paris, commanded by Henriot, was at his command. He had entire sway over the Jacobins, whom he admitted and ejected at pleasure; all important posts were occupied by his creatures; he had formed the revolutionary tribunal and the new committee himself, substituting Payan, the national agent, for Chaumette, the attorney-general; and Fleuriot for Pache, in the office of mayor. But what was his design in granting the most influential places to new men, and in separating himself from the committees? Did he aspire to the dictatorship? Did he only seek to establish his democracy _of virtue_ by the ruin of the remaining _immoral_ members of the Mountain, and the _factious_ of the committee? Each party had lost its leaders: the Gironde had lost the _twenty-two_; the commune, Hébert, Chaumette, and Ronsin; the Mountain, Danton, Chabot, Lacroix, and Camille Desmoulins. But while thus proscribing the leaders, Robespierre had carefully protected the sects. He had defended the _seventy-three prisoners_ against the denunciations of the Jacobins and the hatred of the committees; he had placed himself at the head of the new commune; he had no longer reason to fear opposition to his projects, whatever they might be, except from a few of the Mountain and the members of the conventional government. It was against this double obstacle that he directed his efforts during the last moments of his career. It is probable that he did not separate the republic from his protectorate, and that he thought to establish both on the overthrow of the other parties.
The committees opposed Robespierre in their own way. They secretly strove to bring about his fall by accusing him of tyranny; they caused the establishment of his religion to be considered as the presage of his usurpation; they recalled the haughty attitude he assumed on the 20th Priarial, and the distance at which he kept even the national convention. Among themselves, they called him _Pisistratus_, and this name already passed from mouth to mouth. A circumstance, insignificant enough at any other time, gave them an opportunity of attacking him indirectly. An old woman, called _Catherine Théot_, played the prophetess in an obscure habitation, surrounded by a few mystic sectaries: they styled her _the Mother of God_, and she announced the immediate coming of a _Messiah_. Among her followers there was on old associate of Robespierre in the constituent assembly, the Chartreux Dom Gerle, who had a civic certificate from Robespierre himself. When the committees discovered _the mysteries of the Mother of God_, and her predictions, they believed or pretended to believe, that Robespierre made use of her instrumentality to gain over the fanatics, or to announce his elevation. They altered her name of _Théot_ into that of _Théos_, signifying God; and they craftily insinuated that Robespierre was the Messiah she announced. The aged Vadier, in the name of the committee of general safety, was deputed to bring forward a motion against this new sect. He was vain and subtle; he denounced those who were initiated into these mysteries, turned the worship into derision, implicated Robespierre in it without naming him, and had the fanatics sent to prison. Robespierre wished to save them. The conduct of the committee of general safety greatly irritated him, and in the Jacobin club he spoke of the speech of Vadier with contempt and anger. He experienced fresh opposition from the committee of public safety, which refused to proceed against the persons he pointed out to them. From that time he ceased to join his colleagues in the government, and was rarely present at the sittings of the convention. But he attended the Jacobins regularly; and from the tribune of that club he hoped to overthrow his enemies as he had hitherto done.
Naturally sad, suspicious and timid, he became more melancholy and mistrustful than ever. He never went out without being accompanied by several Jacobins armed with sticks, who were called his body-guard. He soon commenced his denunciations in the popular assembly. “_All corrupt men_,” said he, “_must be expelled the convention._” This was designating the friends of Danton. Robespierre had them watched with the most minute anxiety. Every day spies followed all their motions, observing their actions, haunts, and conversation. Robespierre not only attacked the Dantonists at the Jacobins, he even arose against the committee itself, and for that purpose he chose a day when Barrère presided in the popular assembly. At the close of the sitting, the latter returned home discouraged; “I am disgusted with men,” said he to Villate. “What could be his motive for attacking you?” inquired the other. “Robespierre is insatiable,” rejoined Barrère; “because we will not do all he wishes, he must break with us. If he talked to us about Thuriot, Guffroi, Rovère Lecointre, Panis, Cambon, Monestier, and the rest of the Dantonists, we might agree with him; let him even require Tallien, Bourdon de l’Oise, Legendre, Fréron, well; but Duval, Audoin, Leonard Bourdon, Vadier, Vouland–it is impossible to consent.” To give up members of the committee of general safety, was to expose themselves; accordingly, while fearing, they firmly awaited the attack. Robespierre was very formidable, with respect to his power, his hatred, and his designs; it was for him to begin the combat.
But how could he set about it? For the first time he was the author of a conspiracy; hitherto he had taken advantage of all popular movements. Danton, the Cordeliers, and the faubourgs had made the insurrection of the 10th of August against the throne; Marat, the Mountain, and the commune had made that of the 31st of May against the Gironde; Billaud, Saint-Just, and the committees had effected the ruin of the commune, and weakened the Mountain. Robespierre remained alone. Unable to procure assistance from the government, since he had declared against the committees, he had recourse to the populace and the Jacobins. The principal conspirators were Saint-Just, and Couthon in the committee; Fleuriot the mayor, and Payan the national agent in the commune; Dumas the president, and Coffinhal the vice-president, in the revolutionary tribunal; Henriot, the commander of the armed force, and the popular society. On the 15th Messidor, three weeks after the law of Prairial, and twenty-four days before the 9th Thermidor, the resolution was already taken; at that time, and under that date, Henriot wrote to the mayor: “You shall be satisfied with me, comrade, and with the way in which I shall proceed; trust me, men who love their country, easily agree in directing all their steps to the benefit of public affairs. I would have wished, and I do wish, that the _secret of the operation_ rested with us two; the wicked should know nothing of it. Health and brotherhood.”
Saint-Just was on a mission to the army of the north; Robespierre hastily recalled him. While waiting his return, he prepared the public mind at the Jacobins. In the sitting of the 3rd Thermidor, he complained of the conduct of the committees, and of the _persecution of the patriots_, whom he swore to defend. “There must no longer be traces of crime or faction,” said he, “in any place whatever. A few scoundrels disgrace the convention; but it will not allow itself to be swayed by them.” He then urged his colleagues, the Jacobins, to prevent _their reflections_ to the national assembly. This was the transaction of the 31st of May. On the 4th, he received a deputation from the department of l’Aisne, who came to complain to him of the operations of the government, to which, for a month past, he had been a stranger. “The convention,” said Robespierre, in his reply to the deputation, “in the situation in which it now stands, gangrened by corruption, and being wholly unable to recover itself, cannot save the republic-both must perish. The proscription of patriots is the order of the day. As for me I have one foot in the tomb; in a few days the other will follow it. The rest is in the hands of Providence.” He was then slightly indisposed, and he purposely exaggerated his discouragement, his fears, and the dangers of the republic, in order to inflame the patriots, and again bind the fate of the revolution with his own.
In the meantime. Saint-Just arrived from the army. He ascertained the state of affairs from Robespierre. He presented himself to the committees, the members of which received him coldly; every time he entered, they ceased to deliberate. Saint-Just, who, from their silence, a few chance words, and the expression of perplexity or hostility on their countenances, saw there was no time to be lost, pressed Robespierre to act. His Maxim was to strike at once, and resolutely. “Dare,” said he, “that is the secret of revolutions.” But he wished to prevail on Robespierre to take a measure, which was impossible, by urging him to strike his foes, without apprising them. The force at his disposal was a force of revolutionary opinion, and not an organized force. It was necessary for him to seek the assistance of the convention or of the commune, the legal authority of government, or the extraordinary authority of insurrection. Such was the custom, and such must be all coups-d’état. They could not even have recourse to insurrection, until after they had received the refusal of the assembly, otherwise a pretext was wanting for the rising. Robespierre was therefore obliged to commence the attack in the convention itself. He hoped to obtain everything from it by his ascendancy, or if, contrary to its custom, it resisted, he reckoned on the people, urged by the commune, rising on the 9th Thermidor against the proscribed of the Mountain, and the committee of public safety, as it had risen on the 31st of May against the proscribed of the Gironde and the Commission of Twelve. It is almost always by the past that man regulates his conduct and his hopes.
On the 8th Thermidor, he entered the convention at an early hour. He ascended the tribunal and denounced the committee in a most skilful speech. “I am come,” said he, “to defend before you your authority insulted, and liberty violated. I will also defend myself; you will not be surprised at this; you do not resemble the tyrants you contend with. The cries of outraged innocence do not importune your ears, and you know that this cause is not foreign to your interests.” After this opening, he complained of those who had calumniated him; he attacked those who sought the ruin of the republic, either by excesses or moderation; those who persecuted pacific citizens, meaning the committees, and those who persecuted true patriots, meaning the Mountain. He associated himself with the intentions, past conduct, and spirit of the convention; he added that its enemies were his: “What have I done to merit persecution, if it entered not into the general system of their conspiracy against the convention? Have you not observed that, to isolate you from the nation, they have given out that you are dictators, reigning by means of terror, and disavowed by the silent wishes of all Frenchmen? For myself, what faction do I belong to? To yourselves. What is that faction that, from the beginning of the revolution, has overthrown all factions, and got rid of acknowledged traitors. It is you, it is the people, it is principles. That is the faction to which I am devoted, and against which all crimes are leagued. For at least six weeks, my inability to do good and to check evil has obliged me absolutely to renounce my functions as a member of the committee of public safety. Has patriotism been better protected? Have factions been more timid? Or the country more happy? At all times my influence has been confined to pleading the cause of my country before the national representation, and at the tribunal of public opinion.” After having attempted to confound his cause with that of the convention, he tried to excite it against the committees by dwelling on the idea of its independence. “Representatives of the people,” said he, “it is time to resume the pride and elevation of character which befits you. You are not made to be ruled, but to rule the depositaries of your confidence.”
While he thus endeavoured to tempt the assembly by the return of its power and the end of its slavery, he addressed the moderate party, by reminding them that they were indebted to him for the lives of the Seventy-Three, and by holding forth hopes of returning order, justice, and clemency. He spoke of changing the devouring and trickster system of finance, of softening the revolutionary government, of guiding its influence, and punishing its prevaricating agents. Lastly, he invoked the people, talked of their necessities, and of their power. And when he had recalled all that could act upon the interests, hopes, or fears of the convention, he added: “We say, then, that there exists a conspiracy against public liberty; that it owes its strength to a criminal coalition which intrigues in the very heart of the convention; that this coalition has accomplices in the committee of general safety; that the enemies of the republic have opposed this committee to the committee of public safety, and have thus constituted two governments; that members of the committee of public safety are concerned in this plot; that the coalition thus formed seeks the ruin both of patriots and of the country; What remedy is there for this evil? Punish the traitors; compose anew the committee of general safety; purify this committee, and make it subordinate to the committee of public safety; purify the latter committee itself; constitute the unity of the government under the supreme authority of the convention; crush every faction under the weight of national authority, and establish on their ruins the power of justice and liberty.”
Not a murmur, not a mark of applause welcomed this declaration of war. The silence with which Robespierre was heard continued long after he had ceased speaking. Anxious looks were exchanged in all parts of the doubting assembly. At length Lecointre of Versailles arose and proposed that the speech should be printed. This motion was the signal for agitation, discussion, and resistance. Bourdon de l’Oise opposed the motion for printing the speech, as a dangerous measure. He was applauded. But Barrère, in his ambiguous manner, having maintained that all speeches ought to be published, and Couthon having moved that it should be sent to all the communes of the republic, the convention, intimidated by this apparent concord of the two opposite factions, decreed both the printing and circulation of the speech.
The members of the two committees thus attacked, who had hitherto remained silent, seeing the Mountain thwarted, and the majority undecided, thought it time to speak. Vadier first opposed Robespierre’s speech and Robespierre himself. Cambon went further. “It is time,” he cried, “to speak the whole truth: one man paralyzed the resolution of the national assembly; that man is Robespierre.” “The mask must be torn off,” added Billaud-Varennes, “whatever face it may cover; I would rather my corpse should serve an ambitious man for his throne, than by my silence to become the accomplice of his crimes.” Panis, Bentabole, Charlier, Thirion, Amar, attacked him in turn. Fréron proposed to the convention to throw off the fatal yoke of the committees. “The time is come,” said he, “to revive liberty of opinion; I move that the assembly revoke the decree which gives the committee power to arrest the representatives of the people. Who can speak freely while he fears an arrest?” Some applause was heard; but the moment for the entire deliverance of the convention was not yet arrived. It was necessary to contend with Robespierre from behind the committees, in order subsequently to attack the committees more easily. Fréron’s motion was accordingly rejected. “The man who is prevented by fear from delivering his opinion,” said Billaud-Varennes, looking at him, “is not worthy the title of a representative of the people.” Attention was again drawn to Robespierre. The decree ordering his speech to be printed was recalled, and the convention submitted the speech to the examination of the committees. Robespierre who had been surprised at this fiery resistance, then said: “What! I had the courage to place before the assembly truths which I think necessary to the safety of the country, and you send my discourse for the examination of the members whom I accuse.” He retired, a little discouraged, but hoping to bring back the assembly to his views, or rather, bring it into subjection with the aid of the conspirators of the Jacobins and the commune.
In the evening he repaired to the popular society. He was received with enthusiasm. He read the speech which the assembly had just condemned, and the Jacobins loaded him with applause. He then recounted to them the attacks which had been directed against him, and to increase their excitement he added: “If necessary, I am ready to drink the cup of Socrates.” “Robespierre,” cried a deputy, “I will drink it with you.” “The enemies of Robespierre,” cried numbers on all sides, “are the enemies of the country; let them be named, and they shall cease to live.” During the whole night Robespierre prepared his partisans for the following day. It was agreed that they should assemble at the commune and the Jacobins, in order to be ready for every event, while he, accompanied by his friends, repaired to the assembly.
The committees had also spent the night in deliberation. Saint-Just had appeared among them. His colleagues tried to disunite him from the triumvirate; they deputed him to draw up a report on the events of the preceding day, and submit it to them. But, instead of that, he drew up an act of accusation, which he would not communicate to them, and said, as he withdrew: “You have withered my heart; I am going to open it to the convention.” The committees placed all their hope in the courage of the assembly and the union of parties. The Mountain had omitted nothing to bring about this salutary agreement. They had addressed themselves to the most influential members of the Right and of the Marais. They had entreated Boissy d’Anglas and Durand de Maillane, who were at their head, to join them against Robespierre. They hesitated at first: they were so alarmed at his power, so full of resentment against the Mountain, that they dismissed the Dantonists twice without listening to them. At last the Dantonists returned to the charge a third time, and then the Right and the Plain engaged to support them. There was thus a conspiracy on both sides. All the parties of the assembly were united against Robespierre, all the accomplices of the triumvirs were prepared to act against the convention. In this state of affairs the sitting of the ninth Thermidor began.
The members of the assembly repaired there earlier than usual. About half- past eleven they gathered in the passages, encouraging each other. The Bourdon de l’Oise, one of the Mountain, approached Durand de Maillane, a moderate, pressed his hand, and said–“The people of the Right are excellent men.” Rovère and Tallien came up and mingled their congratulations with those of Bourdon. At twelve they saw, from the door of the hall, Saint-Just ascend the tribune. “_Now is the time_,” said Tallien, and they entered the hall. Robespierre occupied a seat in front of the tribune, doubtless in order to intimidate his adversaries with his looks. Saint-Just began: “I belong,” he said, “to no faction; I will oppose them all. The course of things has perhaps made this tribune the Tarpeian rock for him who shall tell you that the members of the government have quitted the path of prudence.” Tallien then interrupted Saint-Just, and exclaimed violently: “No good citizen can restrain his tears at the wretched state of public affairs. We see nothing but divisions. Yesterday a member of the government separated himself from it to accuse it. To-day another does the same. Men still seek to attack each other, to increase the woes of the country, to precipitate it into the abyss. Let the veil be wholly torn asunder.” “It must! it must!” resounded on every side.
Billaud-Varennes spoke from his seat–“Yesterday,” said he, “the society of Jacobins was filled with hired men, for no one had a card; yesterday the design of assassinating the members of the national assembly was developed in that society; yesterday I saw men uttering the most atrocious insults against those who have never deviated from the revolution. I see on the Mountain one of those men who threatened the republic; there he is.” “Arrest him! arrest him!” was the general cry. The serjeant seized him, and took him to the committee of general safety. “The time is come for speaking the truth,” said Billaud. “The assembly would form a wrong judgment of events and of the position in which it is placed, did it conceal from itself that it is placed between two massacres. It will perish, if feeble.” “No! no! It will not perish!” exclaimed all the members, rising from their seats. They swore to save the republic. The spectators in the gallery applauded, and cried–“Vive la Convention Rationale!” The impetuous Lebas attempted to speak in defence of the triumvirs; he was not allowed to do so, and Billaud continued. He warned the convention of its dangers, attacked Robespierre, pointed out his accomplices, denounced his conduct and his plans of dictatorship. All eyes were directed towards him. He faced them firmly for some time; but at length, unable to contain himself, he rushed to the tribune. The cry of “Down with the tyrant,” instantly became general, and drowned his voice.
“Just now,” said Tallien, “I required that the veil should be torn asunder. It gives me pleasure to see that it is wholly sundered. The conspirators are unmasked; they will soon be destroyed, and liberty will triumph. I was present yesterday at the sitting of the Jacobins; I trembled for my country. I saw the army of this new Cromwell forming, and I armed myself with a poignard to stab him to the heart, if the national convention wanted courage to decree his impeachment.” He drew out his poignard, brandished it before the indignant assembly, and moved before anything else, the arrest of Henriot, the permanent sitting of the assembly; and both motions were carried, in the midst of cries of–“Vive la république!” Billaud also moved the arrest of three of Robespierre’s most daring accomplices, Dumas, Boulanger, and Dufrèse. Barrère caused the convention to be placed under the guard of the armed sections, and drew up a proclamation to be addressed to the people. Every one proposed a measure of precaution. Vadier diverted the assembly for a moment, from the danger which threatened it, to the affair of Catherine Théos. “Let us not be diverted from the true object of debate,” said Tallien. “I will undertake to bring you back to it,” said Robespierre. “Let us turn our attention to the tyrant,” rejoined Tallien, attacking him more warmly than before.
Robespierre, after attempting to speak several times, ascending and descending the stairs of the tribune, while his voice was drowned by cries of “Down with the tyrant!” and the bell which the president Thuriot continued ringing, now made a last effort to be heard. “President of assassins,” he cried, “for the last time, will you let me speak?” But Thuriot continued to ring his bell. Robespierre, after glancing at the spectators in the public gallery, who remained motionless, turned towards the Right. “Pure and virtuous men,” said he, “I have recourse to you; give me the hearing which these assassins refuse.” No answer was returned; profound silence prevailed. Then, wholly dejected, he returned to his place, and sank on his seat exhausted by fatigue and rage. He foamed at the mouth, and his utterance was choked. “Wretch!” said one of the Mountain, “the blood of Danton chokes thee.” His arrest was demanded and supported on all sides. Young Robespierre now arose: “I am as guilty as my brother,” said he. “I share his virtues, and I will share his fate.” “I will not be involved in the opprobrium of this decree,” added Lebas; “I demand my arrest too.” The assembly unanimously decreed the arrest of the two Robespierres, Couthon, Lebas, and Saint-Just. The latter, after standing for some time at the tribune with unchanged countenance, descended with composure to his place. He had faced this protracted storm without any show of agitation. The triumvirs were delivered to the gendarmerie, who removed them amidst general applause. Robespierre exclaimed, as he went out–“The republic is lost, the brigands triumph.” It was now half-past five, and the sitting was suspended till seven.
During this stormy contest the accomplices of the triumvirs had assembled at the Commune and the Jacobins. Fleuriot the mayor, Payan the national agent, and Henriot the commandant, had been at the Hôtel de Ville since noon. They had assembled the municipal officers by the sound of the drum, hoping that Robespierre would be triumphant in the assembly, and that they should not require the general council to decree the insurrection, or the sections to sustain it. A few hours after, a serjeant of the convention arrived to summon the mayor to the bar of the assembly to give a report of the state of Paris. “Go, and tell your scoundrels,” said Henriot, “that we are discussing how to purge them. Do not forget to tell Robespierre to be firm, and to fear nothing.” About half-past four they learned of the arrest of the triumvirs, and the decree against their accomplices. The tocsin was immediately sounded, the barriers closed, the general council assembled, and the sectionaries called together. The cannoneers were ordered to bring their pieces to the commune, and the revolutionary committees to take the oath of insurrection. A message was sent to the Jacobins, who sat permanently. The municipal deputies were received with the greatest enthusiasm. “The society watches over the country,” they were told. “It has sworn to die rather than live under crime.” At the same time they concerted together, and established rapid communications between these two centres of the insurrection. Henriot, on his side, to arouse the people, ran through the streets, pistol in hand, at the head of his staff, crying “to arms!” haranguing the multitude, and instigating all he met to repair to the commune to _save the country_. While on this errand, two members of the convention perceived him in the Rue Saint Honoré. They summoned, in the name of the law, a few gendarmes to execute the order for his arrest; they obeyed, and Henriot was pinioned and conveyed to the committee of general safety.
Nothing, however, was decided as yet on either side. Each party made use of its means of power; the convention of its decrees, the commune of the insurrection; each party knew what would be the consequences of defeat, and this rendered them both so active, so full of foresight and decision. Success was long uncertain. From noon till five the convention had the upper hand; it caused the arrest of the triumvirs, Payan the national agent, and Henriot the commandant. It was already assembled, and the commune had not yet collected its forces; but from six to eight the insurgents regained their position, and the cause of the convention was nearly lost. During this interval, the national representatives had separated, and the commune had redoubled its efforts and audacity.
Robespierre had been transferred to the Luxembourg, his brother to Saint- Lazare, Saint-Just to the Écossais, Couthon to La Bourbe, Lebas to the Conciergerie. The commune, after having ordered the gaolers not to receive them, sent municipal officers with detachments to bring them away. Robespierre was liberated first, and conducted in triumph to the Hôtel de Ville. On arriving, he was received with the greatest enthusiasm; “Long live Robespierre! Down with the traitors!” resounded on all sides. A little before, Coffinhal had departed, at the head of two hundred cannoneers, to release Henriot, who was detained at the committee of general safety. It was now seven o’clock, and the convention had resumed its sitting. Its guard, at the most, was a hundred men. Coffinhal arrived, made his way through the outer courts, entered the committee chamber, and delivered Henriot. The latter repaired to the Place du Carrousel, harangued the cannoneers, and ordered them to point their pieces on the convention.
The assembly was just then discussing the danger to which it was exposed. It had just heard of the alarming success of the conspirators, of the insurrectional orders of the commune, the rescue of the triumvirs, their presence at the Hôtel de Ville, the rage of the Jacobins, the successive convocation of the revolutionary council and of the sections. It was dreading a violent invasion every moment, when the terrified members of the committees rushed in, fleeing from Coffinhal. They learned that the committees were surrounded, and Henriot released. This news caused great agitation. The next moment Amar entered precipitately, and announced that the cannoneers, acted upon by Henriot, had turned their pieces upon the convention. “Citizens,” said the president, putting on his hat, in token of distress, “the hour is come to die at our posts!” “Yes, yes! we will die there!” exclaimed all the members. The people in the galleries rushed out, crying, “To arms! Let us drive back the scoundrels!” And the assembly courageously outlawed Henriot.
Fortunately for the assembly, Henriot could not prevail upon the cannoneers to fire. His influence was limited to inducing them to accompany him, and he turned his steps to the Hôtel de Ville. The refusal of the cannoneers decided the fate of the day. From that moment the commune, which had been on the point of triumphing, saw its affairs decline. Having failed in a surprise by main force, it was reduced to the slow measures of the insurrection; the point of attack was changed, and soon it was no longer the commune which besieged the Tuileries, but the convention which marched upon the Hôtel de Ville. The assembly instantly outlawed the conspiring deputies and the insurgent commune. It sent commissioners to the sections, to secure their aid, named the representative Barras commandant of the armed force, joining with him Fréron, Rovère, Bourdon de l’Oise, Féraud, Leonard Bourdon, Legendre, all men of decision: and made the committees the centre of operation.
The sections, on the invitation of the commune, had assembled about nine o’clock; the greater part of the citizens, in repairing thither, were anxious, uncertain, and but vaguely informed of the quarrels between the commune and the convention. The emissaries of the insurgents urged them to join them and to march their battalions to the Hôtel de Ville. The sections confined themselves to sending a deputation, but as soon as the commissioners of the convention arrived among them, had communicated to them the decrees and invitations of the assembly, and informed them that there was a leader and a rallying point, they hesitated no longer. Their battalions presented themselves in succession to the assembly; they swore to defend it, and they passed in files through the hall, amid shouts of enthusiasm and sincere applause. “The moments are precious,” said Fréron; “we must act; Barras is gone to take the orders of the committees; we will march against the rebels; we will summon them in the name of the convention to deliver up the traitors, and if they refuse, we will reduce the building in which they are to ashes.” “Go,” said the president, “and let not day appear before the heads of the conspirators have fallen.” A few battalions and some pieces of artillery were placed round the assembly, to guard it from attack, and the sections then marched in two columns against the commune. It was now nearly midnight.
The conspirators were still assembled. Robespierre, after having been received with cries of enthusiasm, promises of devotedness and victory, had been admitted into the general council between Payan and Fleuriot. The Place de Grève was filled with men, and glittered with bayonets, pikes, and cannon. They only waited the arrival of the sections to proceed to action. The presence of their deputies, and the sending of municipal commissioners in their midst, had inspired reliance on their aid. Henriot answered for everything. The conspirators looked for certain victory; they appointed an executive commission, prepared addresses to the armies, and drew up various lists. Half-past midnight, however, arrived, and no section had yet appeared, no order had yet been given, the triumvirs were still sitting, and the crowd on the Place de Grève became discouraged by this tardiness and indecision. A report spread in whispers that the sections had declared in favour of the convention, that the commune was outlawed, and that the troops of the convention were advancing. The eagerness of the armed multitude had already abated, when a few emissaries of the assembly glided among them, and raised the cry, “Vive la convention!” Several voices repeated it. They then read the proclamation of outlawry against the commune; and after hearing it, the whole crowd dispersed. The Place de Grève was deserted in a moment. Henriot came down a few minutes after, sabre in hand, to excite their courage; but finding no one: “What!” cried he; “is it possible? Those rascals of cannoneers, who saved my life five hours ago, now forsake me.” He went up again. At that moment, the columns of the convention arrived, surrounded the Hôtel de Ville, silently took possession of all its outlets, and then shouted, “Vive la convention nationale!”
The conspirators, finding they were lost, sought to escape the violence of their enemies. A gendarme named Méda, who first entered the room where the conspirators were assembled, fired a pistol at Robespierre and shattered his jaw; Lebas wounded himself fatally; Robespierre the younger jumped from a window on the third story, and survived his fall; Couthon hid himself under a table; Saint-Just awaited his fate; Coffinhal, after reproaching Henriot with cowardice, threw him from a window into a drain and fled. Meantime, the conventionalists penetrated into the Hôtel de Ville, traversed the desolate halls, seized the conspirators, and carried them in triumph to the assembly. Bourdon entered the hall crying “Victory! victory! the traitors are no more!” “The wretched Robespierre is there,” said the president; “they are bringing him on a litter. Doubtless you would not have him brought in.” “No! no!” they cried; “carry him to the Place de la Révolution!” He was deposited for some time at the committee of general safety before he was transferred to the Conciergerie; and here, stretched on a table, his face disfigured and bloody, exposed to the looks, the invectives, the curses of all, he beheld the various parties exulting in his fall, and charging upon him all the crimes that had been committed. He displayed much insensibility during his last moments. He was taken to the Conciergerie, and afterwards appeared before the revolutionary tribunal, which, after identifying him and his accomplices, sent them to the scaffold. On the 10th Thermidor, about five in the evening, he ascended the death cart, placed between Henriot and Couthon, mutilated like himself. His head was enveloped in linen saturated with blood; his face was livid, his eyes almost visionless. An immense crowd thronged around the cart, manifesting the most boisterous and exulting joy. They congratulated and embraced each other, loading him with imprecations, and pressed near to view him more closely. The gendarmes pointed him out with their sabres. As to him, he seemed to regard the crowd with contemptuous pity; Saint-Just looked calmly at them; the rest, in number twenty-two, were dejected. Robespierre ascended the scaffold last; when his head fell, shouts of applause arose in the air, and lasted for some minutes.
With him ended the reign of terror, although he was not the most zealous advocate of that system in his party. If he sought for supremacy, after obtaining it, he would have employed moderation; and the reign of terror, which ceased at his fall, would also have ceased with his triumph. I regard his ruin to have been inevitable; he had no organized force; his partisans, though numerous, were not enrolled; his instrument was the force of opinion and of terror; accordingly, not being able to surprise his foes by a strong hand, after the fashion of Cromwell, he sought to intimidate them. Terror not succeeding, he tried insurrection. But as the convention with the support of the committees had become courageous, so the sections, relying on the courage of the convention, would naturally declare against the insurgents. By attacking the government, he aroused the assembly; by arousing the assembly, he aroused the people, and this coalition necessarily ruined him. The convention on the 9th of Thermidor was no longer, as on the 31st of May, divided, undecided, opposed to a compact, numerous, and daring faction. All parties were united by defeat, misfortune, and the proscription ever threatening them, and would naturally cooperate in the event of a struggle. It did not, therefore, depend on Robespierre himself to escape defeat; and it was not in his power to secede from the committees. In the position to which he had attained, one is consumed by one’s passions, deceived by hopes and by fortune, hitherto good; and when once the scaffolds have been erected, justice and clemency are as impossible as peace, tranquillity, and the dispensing of power when war is declared. One must then fall by the means by which one has arisen; the man of faction must perish by the scaffold, as conquerors by war.
CHAPTER X
FROM THE 9TH THERMIDOR TO THE 1ST PRAIRIAL, YEAR III. (20TH MAY, 1795). EPOCH OF THE RISE AND FALL OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY
The 9th of Thermidor was the first day of the revolution in which those fell who attacked. This indication alone manifested that the ascendant revolutionary movement had reached its term. From that day the contrary movement necessarily began. The general rising of all parties against one man was calculated to put an end to the compression under which they laboured. In Robespierre the committees subdued each other, and the decemviral government lost the prestige of terror which had constituted its strength. The committees liberated the convention, which gradually liberated the entire republic. Yet they thought they had been working for themselves, and for the prolongation of the revolutionary government, while the greater part of those who had supported them had for their object the overthrow of the dictatorship, the independence of the assembly, and the establishment of legal order. From the day after the 9th of Thermidor there were, therefore, two opposite parties among the conquerors, that of the committees, and that of the Mountain, which was called the Thermidorian party.
The former was deprived of half its forces; besides the loss of its chief, it no longer had the commune, whose insurgent members, to the number of seventy-two, had been sent to the scaffold, and, which, after its double defeat under Hébert and under Robespierre, was not again re-organized, and remained without direct influence. But this party retained the direction of affairs through the committees. All its members were attached to the revolutionary system; some, such as Billaud-Varennes, Collot-d’Herbois, Barrère, Vadier, Amar, saw it was their only safety; others, such as Carnot, Cambon, the two Prieurs, de la Marne, and de la Côte-d’Or, etc., feared the counter-revolution, and the punishment of their colleagues. In the convention it reckoned all the commissioners hitherto sent on missions, several of the Mountain who had signalized themselves on the 9th Thermidor, and the remnant of Robespierre’s party. Without, the Jacobins were attached to it; and it still had the support of the faubourgs and of the lower class.
The Thermidorian party was composed of the greater number of the conventionalists. All the centre of the assembly, and what remained of the Right, joined the Mountain, who had abated their former exaggeration of views. The coalition of the Moderates, Boissy d’Anglas, Sieyès, Cambacérès, Chénier, Thibeaudeau, with the Dantonists, Tallien, Fréron, Legendre, Barras, Bourdon de l’Oise, Rovère, Bentabole, Dumont, and the two Merlins, entirely changed the character of the assembly. After the 9th of Thermidor, the first step of this party was to secure its empire in the convention. Soon it found its way into the government, and succeeded in excluding the previous occupants. Sustained by public opinion, by the assembly, by the committees, it advanced openly towards its object; it proceeded against the principal decemvirs, and some of their agents. As these had many partisans in Paris, it sought the aid of the young men against the Jacobins, of the sections against the faubourgs. At the same time, to strengthen it, it recalled to the assembly all the deputies whom the committee of public safety had proscribed; first, the seventy-three who had protested against the 31st of May, and then the surviving victims of that day themselves. The Jacobins exhibited excitement: it closed their club; the faubourgs raised an insurrection: it disarmed them. After overthrowing the revolutionary government, it directed its attention to the establishment of another, and to the introduction, under the constitution of the year III., of a feasible, liberal, regular, and stable order of things, in place of the extraordinary and provisional state in which the convention had been from its commencement until then. But all this was accomplished gradually.
The two parties were not long before they began to differ, after their common victory. The revolutionary tribunal was an especial object of general horror. On the 11th Thermidor it was suspended; but Billaud- Varennes, in the same sitting, had the decree of suspension rescinded. He maintained that the accomplices of Robespierre alone were guilty, that the majority of the judges and jurors being men of integrity, it was desirable to retain them in their offices. Barrère presented a decree to that effect: he urged that the triumvirs had done nothing for the revolutionary government; that they had often even opposed its measures; that their only care had been to place their creatures in it, and to give it a direction favourable to their own projects; he insisted, in order to strengthen that government, upon retaining the law _des suspects_ and the tribunal, with its existing members, including Fouquier-Tinville. At this name a general