THE ENGLISH JACOBINS

The news of the massacres of September filled the sane portion of the English people with indignation, and alienated even those who, misled by the propaganda of the Whigs and the revolutionary societies in England, still retained a lingering sympathy with the supposed “ struggle for liberty ” taking place across the Channel. “ The late horrors in France,” Mr. Burges writes to Lord Auckland on the list of September, “ have at least been attended with one good consequence, for they have turned the tide of general opinion here very suddenly. French principles, and even Frenchmen, are daily becoming more unpopular, and I think it not impossible that in a short time the impudence of some of these levellers will work so much on the tempers of our people as to make England neither a pleasant nor a secure residence for them.”

A messenger from Paris reported to Lord Auckland on the 10th of September that the details passed all conception. “ It is impossible for me to express the horror that I still feel ; I could not have believed till now that human nature was capable of such abominations.” Lord Auckland himself is “ so affected ” that he “ can hardly write of it ”—all Gibbon’s history, though the bloodiest book he ever read, “ does not contain a story of such unprovoked and wanton cruelty.”

Lord Stanhope, however, had nothing but pitying contempt for squeamishness that could recoil at such scenes as these. “ The French Revolution,” he wrote on September 18, “ has frightened some weak minds, Mr. Paine’s works others. And the late events in France have intimidated many. However despicable such feelings may be, abstractly considered, when they are pretty general, they must be treated with some respect.” [151]

Amongst weak minds we must certainly include those of almost the entire population, for these “ despicable feelings ” were more than “ pretty general ”; they were shared by all classes of the community. The sympathies of the nation were with the victims, not with the authors of the Revolution, and the unhappy émigrés, flying from the horrors of Paris to the shores of England, met with an enthusiastic welcome. One must have lived through three years of revolution, says one of these émigrés, amidst Girondins, Jacobins, and others, to understand what the first glimpse of the English conveyed, the ecstasy of arriving in this “ isle of serenity ” from the regions of terror : “ it was the gentle http://yamaguchy.netfirms.com/webster/frenchrev/fr_rev_06.html (46 of 61)5.4.2006 10:40:30

 

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awakening of the soul that, long tormented by the vision of monsters and furies, comes out of this frightful dream.” [152] Once again humanity and compassion became a reality. Every boatload of priests was awaited by a sympathetic crowd ; even the sailors, seeing in these men the martyrs of religion, fell on their knees before them on the beach to ask their blessing. [153] “ I was a witness,” says Peltier, “ of the zeal and eagerness with which all classes of society welcomed these unhappy pastors. From the throne to the simplest cabin, everywhere was their asylum, everywhere was consolation.” In London a subscription raised by Burke, Wilmot, Stanley, and others met with an immense response ; the poor like the rich brought their contributions, and those who could not give money gave the work of their hands ; potato-sellers insisted on providing the priests with their wares for no remuneration, seamstresses offered their services for nothing, artisans worked overtime to earn money for them ; a day labourer, touched to tears by their appearance, cried out, “ I am very poor but I can work for two ; give me one of these priests and I will feed him ! ”[154] It was, then, only amongst an

infinitesimal minority, composed of such men as Lord Stanhope and the middle-class malcontents who formed the revolutionary societies of London and of the manufacturing towns of the north, that the Revolution found sympathizers. By these associations the massacres of September were greeted with frenzied approbation. On the 27th of September a long address of congratulation was forwarded to the Jacobin Club of Paris by the members of the Constitutional Society and the Reformation Society of Manchester, the Revolution Society of Norwich, the “ Constitutional Whigs,” the “ Independents and Friends of the People.” A few passages of this precious effusion must be quoted : [155]

“ Frenchmen, our numbers may seem small compared to the rest of the nation, but know that they are steadily increasing … we can tell you with certainty, free men and friends, that education is making rapid progress amongst us … that men ask to-day, ‘ What is liberty ? What are our rights ? ’ Frenchmen, you are free already, but Britons are preparing to become so ! Divested at last of these cruel prejudices industriously inculcated in our hearts by vile courtiers, instead of our natural enemies, we see in the French our fellow-citizens of the world, the children of that universal Father who created us to love and help each other, not to hate and murder one another at the command of feeble or ambitious kings or corrupt ministers. In seeking our real enemies we find them in the partisans of that aristocracy which rends our bosoms, aristocracy hitherto the poison of all countries on earth ; you acted wisely in banishing it from France… . Dear friends, you are fighting for the happiness of all humanity. Can there be any loss to you, however bitter, compared to the glorious and unprecedented privilege of being able to say, ‘ The universe is free ; tyrants and tyrannies are no more, peace reigns on earth, and http://yamaguchy.netfirms.com/webster/frenchrev/fr_rev_06.html (47 of 61)5.4.2006 10:40:30

 

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it is to the French we owe it.’ ”

To these advocates of universal brotherhood it was a matter of poignant regret and bitter shame that the British Government refused to throw in its lot with the organizers of the late massacres in the prisons by taking up arms in defence of the French Revolution. To their profuse apologies on this subject the French Jacobins, under Herault de Séchelles, replied : “ Believe, generous Englishmen, that in preserving this demeanour (of neutrality) you are none the less joining with us in the work of universal liberty. Leave us to make a few more steps along the course where you were our precursors, and let us rejoice beforehand in a common hope for the epoch, not far distant, when the interests of Europe and of the human race will invite both nations to hold out the hand of friendship to each other.”[156] The hope was echoed by the Society for Constitutional Reform of

London, which now wrote expressing the belief that, after the example given by the French, “ revolutions would become easy,” and that “ before long the French would be writing to congratulate the National Convention of England.” [157]

The Jacobins of Paris were ready to promise more than this ; they intended, they declared, “ to seal an eternal alliance ” with their English brothers, who had only to let them know that their liberty was being attacked for the “ victorious phalanxes ” of their French allies to “ cross the Straits of Dover and fly to their defence.” [158]

Thus was the suggestion calmly entertained by our exponents of universal brotherhood in 1792, that the revolutionary horde of cut-throats and assassins, who had just carried out the massacres of September, should land on our shores and produce the same horrors in England as had taken place in France.

The antipatriotism of a section of socalled “ democracy ” in England has never been better exemplified. To men of this mentality it matters not whether it is with democracy or autocracy abroad that they strike a league of friendship ; the enemies of their country can always make sure of their support. Until the Germans of to-day England never had bitterer enemies than the Jacobins of France. Hatred of England, of the English character, of English ideas of liberty, was one of the first tenets of their political creed.

In this they differed fundamentally from the earlier revolutionaries, the men who had framed the Constitution of 1791, and also from the Girondins, who no doubt entertained a sincere admiration for England ; the Jacobins, into whose hands the power was now passing, were, with the exception of Danton, the sworn foes not only of the English Government but of English “ democracy ”; they repeatedly declared that they despised Mr. Fox as much as they hated Mr. Pitt.[159]

The leading spirit of the anti-English campaign was undoubtedly Robespierre ; always the opponent of Internationalism—hence his ground of accusation later on against the http://yamaguchy.netfirms.com/webster/frenchrev/fr_rev_06.html (48 of 61)5.4.2006 10:40:30

 

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Prussian Clootz—he never concealed his distrust of foreign sympathizers with the French Revolution ; four months earlier, supported by Collot d’Herbois, he had deprecated the correspondence of the Jacobins with their brothers in Manchester,[160] and

again in September it was he who opposed the election of Dr. Priestly to the Convention.

[161]

For the present, however, the French Jacobins were quite ready to make use of their English allies ; hypocritical professions of friendship cost nothing, and met with very substantial rewards. Already in April, as we have seen, a subscription had been raised in aid of the French Revolution, and it seems probable that further sums were forthcoming during the course of the summer. In August Dr. Moore heard with incredulity of “ the great number of English guineas now in circulation in Paris,” which, as usual, were attributed to “ the Court of Great Britain,” whose object was to excite sedition in France.

[162] If these mysterious guineas were not, as Dr. Moore believed, mythical, they were

obviously those of Orléans or of the English Jacobins. At any rate, it is to the latter source that the “ English gold ” which arrived in Paris three weeks later can, with certainty, be traced, for the address of congratulation on the massacres of September, forwarded by Lord Sempill and three other members in the name of the London Constitutional Society, was accompanied by a present of 1000 pairs of shoes for the army and £1000 in money. [163] Besides this an immense quantity of arms was provided by the English Jacobins from the manufactories of Birmingham and Sheffield, for which a further public subscription was raised by means of an appeal in the newspapers to “ all those who favoured the cause of liberty in France against the infamous conspiracy of crowned brigands.” [164]

It is, moreover, in the late summer of 1792 that, for the first time, we find Englishmen personally cooperating in the revolutionary movement in Paris. Amongst these was Thomas Paine, who left the shores of England amidst the jeers and hisses of the crowd : “ I believe had we remained much longer,” a fellow-traveller remarks, “ they would have pelted him with stones from the beach.” [165] In spite of the fact that his face reminded Madame Roland of “ a blackberry powdered with flour ”—for Paine was constantly inebriated—the exponent of “ The Rights of Man ” was received with enthusiasm by the Girondins, and through their influence succeeded in becoming a member of the Convention.

Besides Paine a band of English Jacobins arrived in Paris at the same time. “ Dr.

Priestley,” Mr. Burges writes to Lord Auckland on September 4, “ is also there, and is looked upon as the great adviser of the present ministers, being consulted by them on all occasions. There are also eight or ten other English and Scotch who work with the Jacobins, and in great measure conduct their present manoeuvres. I understand these http://yamaguchy.netfirms.com/webster/frenchrev/fr_rev_06.html (49 of 61)5.4.2006 10:40:30

 

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gentlemen at present are employed in writing a justification of democracy and an invective against monarchy in the abstract, which is to be printed at Paris, and distributed through England and Ireland. The names of some of them are Watts and Wilson of Manchester, Oswald a Scotsman, Stone an Englishman, and Mackintosh who wrote against Burke.”[166]

All these men, then, were in Paris during the massacres of September, and not one uttered a word of protest. Oswald, indeed, in his tirades to the Jacobins, with whom he sought to ingratiate himself by insulting his king and country, showed himself more violent than them all, vied with Marat in his invectives against “ royal tigers,” and rivalled Hébert in his foul accusations against the imprisoned Queen of France. [167]

This being so, are we to regard it as impossible that Englishmen were present at the massacres in the prisons ? One would willingly remove this stain from our national character, but if we are to know the exact truth about the intrigues of the French Revolution, one cannot pass over the accusation in silence. The evidence on which it rests is, firstly, that of Jourdan, president of the Section des Quatre Nations, who was sent to the Abbaye during the massacre and stated that he saw two Englishmen plying the assassins with drink ;[168] and secondly, Prudhomme, who says that Englishmen were

seen at La Force amongst the commanders of the butchery, and that “ these Englishmen were the guests of the Duc d’Orléans ; they dined with him immediately after the death of the Princesse de Lamballe.” [169]

These, then, were the Englishmen dining at the Palais Royal when the princess’s head was carried under the windows. The only one of the number whose name is known was a certain Mr. Lindsay, who described the scene with horror to Mr. Burges after his return to England two days later, and whom it is impossible to suspect of collusion with such atrocities. But the contemporary Playfair distinctly states that the guests of the Duc d’Orléans at this particular dinner were “ English democrats.” [170] This supplies the key to the whole mystery. Since we know that the English democrats then in Paris were ardently in sympathy with all the excesses of the Revolution, that their colleagues in England wrote letters of congratulation, and that Lord Stanhope, one of their most influential members, applauded the massacres, why should they not have personally encouraged the assassins ? From applauding at a distance to assisting on the spot is surely but a step.

Moreover, their presence at the Duc d’Orléans’ dinner coincides exactly with Montjoie’s assertion that certain English revolutionaries, notably Lord Stanhope, were in league with the Orléanistes. We know that precisely at this moment Lord Stanhope was in correspondence with Richard Sayre, or Sayer, the English agent in Paris, who had been http://yamaguchy.netfirms.com/webster/frenchrev/fr_rev_06.html (50 of 61)5.4.2006 10:40:30

 

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deputed by the revolutionary societies of England to supply arms to the Jacobins of France ;[171] and the exceedingly compromising letters addressed by Sayre to Lord

Stanhope—ingenuously published by the latter’s admiring biographers [172]—show clearly that the English revolutionaries in Paris, of whom Lord Stanhope was the leading spirit, were engaged in some guilty intrigue with the enemies of their country.

The massacres of September cannot, therefore, be regarded as solely the work of the French ; they were devised and organized by the Spaniard, Marat, in cooperation with Frenchmen, executed by Frenchmen, Italians, and Germans, applauded by the Prussian Clootz, applauded and actively assisted by Englishmen. Again, as on the 10th of August, it is therefore to the doctrines that inspired them, not to the temperament of the nation amongst which they occurred, that the horrors which took place must be attributed.