[153] Buchez et Roux, XXVII. 357. Official reports of the commune, June 1.
[154] Meillan, 53, 58, 307. Buchez et Roux, XXVIII. 14 (Précis, by Gordas).
[155] Buchez et Roux, XXVII 359. Official reports of the commune, June 1. “One member of the Council stated that on going to the Beaurepaire section he was not well received; that the president of this section spoke uncivilly to him and took him for an imaginary municipalist; that he was threatened with the lock-up, and that his liberty was solely due to the brave citizens of the Sans-culottes section and the gunners of the Beaurepaire section who went with him.” — Preparations for the investment began on the 1st of June. (“Archives Nationales,” F7, 2497, official reports of the Droits de l’Homme section, June 1.) Orders of Henriot to the commandant of the section to send “400 homme et la compagnie de canonier avec le 2 pièces de canon au Carouzel le long des Thuilerie plasse de la Révolution.”
[156] “Lanjuinais states 100,000 men, Meillan 50,000; the deputies of the Somme say 60,000, but without any evidence. Judging by various indications I should put the number much lower, on account of the disarmament and absentees: say 30,000 men, the same as May 31.
[157] Mortimer-Ternaux, VII. 566. Letter of the deputy Loiseau: “I passed through the whole of one battalion; the men all said that they did not know why the movement was made, that only their officers knew.” (June 1.)
[158] Buchez et Roux, XXVII. 400. Session of the Convention, June 2. – – XXVIII. 43 (report by Saladin).
[159] Mortimer-Ternaux, VII. 392. Official report of the Jacobin Club, June 2 “The deputies were so surrounded as not to be able to go out even for special purposes.” — Ibid., 568 Letter of the deputy Loiseau.
[160] Buchez et Roux, XXVIII. 44. Report by Saladin. — Meillan, 237. — Mortimer-Ternaux VII. 547. Declaration of the deputies of the Somme.
[161] Meillan, 52. — Pétion, “Mémoires,” 109 (Edition Dauban). — Lanjuinais (“Fragment”) — “Nearly all those called Girondists thought it best to stay away.” — Letter of Vergniaud June 3 (in the Republican Français, June 5, 1793). “I left the Assembly yesterday between 1 and 2 o’clock.”
[162] Lanjuinais, “Fragment,” 299.
[163] Buchez et Roux, XXVII. 400.
[164] Robinet, “Le Procès de Danton,” 169. Words of Danton (according to the notes of a juryman, Topino-Lebrun).
[165] Buchez et Roux, XXVII. 44. Report by Saladin. – Meillan, 59. – Lanjuinais, 308, 310.
[166] Buchez et Roux, XXVII. 401
[167] Mortimer-Ternaux, VII. 569. Letter of the deputy Loiseau. – Meillan, 62.
[168] Buchez et Roux, XXVI. 341. Speech by Chasles in the Convention, May 2: “The farmers . . . are nearly all aristocrats.”
[169] Or workhouses, see Taine: “Notes on England” page 214: “It is an English principle that the indigent, by giving up their freedom, have a right to be supported. Society pays the cost, but shuts them up and sets them to work. As this condition is repugnant to them, they avoid the workhouse as much as possible.” Similar institutions existed in France before the revolution. (SR).
[170] Sieyès (quoted by Barante, “Histoire de la Convention,” III. 169) thus describes it: “The fake people, the deadliest enemy which the French people ever had, blocked incessantly the approaches to the Convention . . . At the entrance or exit of the Convention the astonished spectator thought that a new invasion of barbarian hordes had suddenly occurred, a new irruption of voracious, sanguinary harpies, flocking there to seize hold of the revolution as if it were the natural prey of their species.”
[171] Gouverneur Morris, II. 241. Letter of Oct. 23, 1792. “The populace – something, thank God, that is unknown in America”” — He often insists on this essential characteristic of the French Revolution. – On this ever-present class, see the accurate and complete work well supported by facts, of Dr. Lombrose, “L’Uomo delinquente.”
[172] Mortimer-Ternaux, VII. Letter of the deputy Laplaigne, July 6.
[173] Meillan, 51. – Buchez et Roux, XXVII. 356. Official report of the commune, session of June 1. In the afternoon Marat comes to the commune, harrangues the council, and gives the insurrection the last impetus. It is plain that he was chief actor on both these days (June 1 and 2).
[174] Pétion, 116.
[175] Schmidt, I. 370. – Mortimer-Ternaux, VII. 391. Letter of Marchand, member of the Central Committee. “I saw Chaumette do everything he could to hinder this glorious revolution, . . . exclaim, shed tears, and tear his hair.” – Buchez et Roux, XXVIII. 46. According to Saladin, Chaumette went so far as to demand Hébert’s arrest.
[176] Mortimer-Ternaux, VII. 300. – Cf. “Le vieux Cordelier,” by C. Desmoulins, No. 5.
[177] Mallet du Pan, II. 52. (March 8, 1794). – The titular general of the revolutionary army was Ronsin. “Previous to the Revolution he was a seedy author earning his living and reputation by working for the boulevard stalls. . . One day a person informed him that his staff ‘was behaving very badly, acting tyrannically in the most outrageous manner at the theaters and everywhere else, striking women and tearing their bonnets to pieces. Your men commit rape, pillage, and massacre.” To which he replied; ‘Well, what shall I do? I know that they are a lot of ruffians as well as you do; but those are the follows I need for my revolutionary army. Find me honest people, if you can, that will do that business.'” (Prudhomme, “Crimes de la Révolution,” V. 130.)
[178] Buchez et Roux, XXIX. 152.
[179] Beaulieu, “Essais sur la Révolution,” V. 200.
[180] Schmidt, II. 85. Report of Dutard, June 24 (on the review of the previous evening) 2A sort of low-class artisan who seemed to me to have been a soldier. . . Apparently he had associated only with disorderly men; I am sure that he would be found fond of gaming, wine, women, and everything that denotes a bad character.”
[181] Charlotte de Corday d’Armont, 1768 to 1793. Young French girl who knifed Marat in his bath. Adherent of the Revolution, she considered Marat as being responsible for the elimination of the Girondists and the establishment of the terror. She was guillotined. (SR.)
[182] Lauvergne, “Histoire de la Révolution dans le département du Var,” 176. At Toulon “the spirit of counter-revolution was nothing else than the sentiment of self-preservation.” It was the same thing at Lyons. (Nolhac, “Souvenir de trois année de la Révolution à Lyon,” p. 14.)
[183] Gouverneur Morris, II. 395. Letter of Jan. 21, 1794. “Admitting what has been asserted by persons in a situation to know the truth and deeply interested to prove the contrary, it is an undoubted truth that ninety-nine-hundredths are opposed to all ideas of a dismemberment, and will fight to prevent it.
[184] Mallet du Pan, II. 44.
[185] Carnot, Lazare, Nicolas, 1753-1823, military engineer and mathematician, member of the committee of public safety, organized the armies of the republic and their offensive tactics. (SR).
[186] Among other documents, the following letter will show the quality of these recruits, especially of the recruits of 1791, who were much the best men. (Letter from the municipal officers of Dorat, December 28, 1792, “Archives Nationales,” F7, 3275.) “The commune of Dorat is made up of three classes of citizens: The richest class, composed of persons confirmed in the prejudices of the ancient régime, has been disarmed. The second, composed of well-to-do people, fills the administrative positions. It is against them that the fury of the turbulent is aimed; but those of this class who could make resistance have gone to fight the enemy abroad. The third class, and the most numerous, is made up in part of the seditious and in part of laborers, who, not daring to mix in the revolt, content themselves with coveting the tax on grain.” – Toulongeon, “Histoire de France depuis la Révolution,” IV. 94. “Do not degrade a nation by ascribing base motives to it and a servile fear. Every one, on the contrary, felt himself infused by an exalted instinct for the public welfare.” – Gouvion Saint-Cyr, “Mémoires,” I. 56: A young man would have blushed to remain at home when the independence of the nation was threatened. Each one quitted his studies or his profession.
[187] Gouvion-Saint-Cyr, 26. “The manifesto of Brunswick assigns to France more than a hundred battalions, which, within three weeks, were raised, armed, and put in the field.”
[188] In respect of these sentiments, cf. Gouvion Saint-Cyr, “Mémoires, and Fervel, “Campagnes de la Révolution Française dans les Pyrénées orientales.”
[189] Stendhal, Memoires sur Napoléon.
[190] Gouvion-Saint-Cyr, “Memoires,” p.43. “Patriotism made up for everything; it alone gave us victory; it supplied our most pressing needs.”