Exactly as Lanjuinais had prophesied, the fall of the Gironde proved the signal for civil war. All over France a great wave of indignation arose, and within a few months the whole country was in a blaze from one end to the other.
In La Vendée, Royalist and Catholic to the core, the fire had broken out two months earlier ; the civil constitution of the clergy and continued persecution of all who remained attached to religion, the massacres of September, and finally the execution of the King, had each in turn roused the people’s fury, and now 100,000 peasants, armed with forks and sticks, were marching in defence of the church and monarchy, led by the priests and few remaining nobles they had forcibly placed at their head. [110]
Lyon likewise rose in revolt just before the final overthrow of the Gironde. The splendid city reduced to misery by the Revolution, its commerce ruined, its inhabitants starving for want of work, had nevertheless submitted to the Republic, but when an emissary of the Mountain, Chalier, a disciple of Marat, was sent to Lyon to propagate anarchy and http://yamaguchy.netfirms.com/webster/frenchrev/fr_rev_07.html (41 of 61)5.4.2006 10:40:42
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set up a revolutionary tribunal, the sections of the town all combined against the Convention, and on the 29th of May a bloody battle took place in the streets between the National Guards of Lyon and the gunners enlisted in the service of the Mountain, which ended in the arrest of Chalier. Then came the new of the rising in Paris on June 2, and the victory of the Mountain. Thereupon Lyon boldly declared that it no longer recognized the Convention, and called its citizens to arms.
Meanwhile Bordeaux had risen in defence of its liberties, for with glaring injustice, when its deputies the Girondins were expelled from the Convention, the department had been invited to name no others in their places. Bordeaux was, therefore, now unrepresented in the Convention, and had every right to protest—indeed it had protested for some months before the 31st of May—against the treatment of its representatives by their adversaries of the Mountain. [111] Now on the 6th of June the Council-General of the city forwarded a threatening address to the Convention, and summoned Lyon and Dijon to combine in the fight for liberty.
Throughout the south-east of France the fire of revolt was spreading likewise : Toulon opposed a vigorous resistance to the dictates of the Mountain ; Marseilles, once dominated by the most violent revolutionaries, had also turned against it, and, summoning Lyon, Normandy, and La Vendée to its aid, announced its intention of marching on Paris. Calvados, Caen, and Evreux, in Normandy, were organizing revolt ; Dauphiné and Franche-Comté were in arms—altogether no less than sixty departments had risen against the tyranny of the Convention. [112] Such was the attitude of the twenty-five millions of France who, according to Carlyle, looked to the Mountain for salvation—as a matter of fact at least three-quarters of the population were violently opposed to it, and the remaining quarter was mainly terrorized into submission.
At the same time the people were by no means whole-heartedly on the side of the Girondins. Buzot, Pétion, Isnard, Barbaroux, and others of the faction, who escaped from Paris after their expulsion from the Convention and attempted to rally the provinces around them, failed entirely in their rôle of popular leaders. To the ruminating minds of the peasants, the aims of one Republican faction were indistinguishable from another ; they were ready to oppose the bloodshed and anarchy advocated by the Mountain, but the ideal Republic offered them by the Girondins in no way roused their enthusiasm. The truth is that France remained at heart monarchic, partly by conviction and partly by habit. For in every country the characteristic of the true people is hatred of innovation, and against this prejudice the Republicans of both factions contended in vain. The correspondence of revolutionary emissaries to the provinces frequently breathes a spirit of despair : “ The labourer is estimable, but he is a very bad patriot in general ;” [113] and from Marseilles, “ In spite of our efforts to republicanize the http://yamaguchy.netfirms.com/webster/frenchrev/fr_rev_07.html (42 of 61)5.4.2006 10:40:42
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people … our trouble and fatigue are almost fruitless… . The mind of the public is still detestable amongst the proprietors, artisans, and day-labourers ;” [114] in Alsace “
Republican sentiments are still in the cradle, fanaticism is extreme and unbelievable ; the spirit of the inhabitants is in no way revolutionary… .” [115] No one, however, has
described the utter failure of the Girondins to convert the people to Republicanism better than Buzot himself : “ One must not dissemble ; the majority of the French people sighed after the monarchy and the Constitution of 1791… . Can one believe that the events of June 2 (1793), the misery, persecution, and assassinations that followed, made the majority of France change its opinion ? No, but in the towns they pretend to be ‘sans-culotte,’ because those who are not are guillotined ; in the country places they obey the most unjust summons to serve (in the army), because those who do not go are guillotined. The guillotine, that is the great reason for everything… . This people is Republican by blows of the guillotine. But look closely at things, penetrate into the homes of families, sound all hearts, and if they dare open themselves to you, you will read there hatred against the government that fear imposes on them, you will see that all their desires, all their hopes, tend towards the Constitution of 1791.” [116] And again : “
The honest inhabitants of the countryside confound the crimes committed in the Revolution of 1793 with the Revolution itself ; they abhor the Republic, and those who tyrannize over them in its name ; they regret and sigh for the return … of a gentler and more peaceable régime… . In the towns, where fear has withered all hearts, where commerce and industry are for ever annihilated, where it is a crime to live in any degree of comfort or to show any decency in one’s tastes or manners … every citizen … in all classes … bitterly regretted the past.” Indeed, Buzot himself is at last forced to arrive at this conclusion : “ Amidst the abyss of evils into which this superb empire is precipitated by licence and misery one is almost reduced to desiring the return of ancient despotism, since it is uncertain whether the French could now bear the moderate regime of the Constitution of 1791.” [117]
It was thus in La Vendée alone that real enthusiasm prevailed ; there the people, inspired by passionate devotion to cherished traditions, were at one with their seigneurs, whilst in the other provinces dominated by the Girondins the people took up arms in a cause that was not their own. Ostensibly they were fighting for the Republic, in reality they craved for the old familiar things the Republic had taken from them. What cared the peasants of France for the promise of a government modelled on Athens or Sparta that was to replace the antiquated monarchy, for the enlightened philosophy that was to compensate them for the destruction of their ancient faith ?
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the people ; everywhere it was the Royalists who secured the largest following. Even in Republican centres Royalist generals led out the troops—at Lyon, Virieu and Précy ; at Bordeaux, De Puisaye ; even Wimpfen, beloved of the Normans, though avowedly a Republican, was believed by Louvet to be a Royalist at heart. The Girondins at Caen in Normandy—Louvet, Guadet, Buzot, and others—watched these symptoms with alarm and, rather than combine with their rivals to overthrow the Mountain, diverted their energies to opposing the progress of Royalism. Thus amongst the leaders of the people there was no co-ordination, and amongst the various elements that made up the population no unity of purpose that alone could have ensured success. Owing to these dissensions the movement was from the first doomed to failure, and the triumph of the Mountain seemed assured.
It was then that a girl who lived at Caen, Marie Charlotte Corday, resolved to take the law into her own hands and save the country by striking down the author of all the ills that were desolating France. For to Charlotte, as to many inhabitants of provincial towns, it was Marat who appeared as the incarnation of the Terror that now held France in its grip ; Marat once removed, she imagined that the other leaders of the Mountain might return to sentiments of humanity. If Charlotte had been a Girondin, as certain writers have supposed, she would probably have thought otherwise, for to the Girondins Marat seemed merely a “ loathsome reptile,” far less to be feared than Robespierre, whom they regarded as their chief antagonist of the Mountain. It is therefore improbable that when Charlotte went to request Barbaroux for introductions to some of his friends in Paris, she confided to him the object of her journey—“ if,” as Louvet said, “ she had consulted us, would it have been against Marat that we should have directed her stroke ?
” Undoubtedly no—Robespierre would have been the victim, Barbaroux, moreover, could have told her that in slaying Marat she was sacrificing herself needlessly, for Marat was already dying of a lingering disease, and had, indeed, only a short time to live.
This Charlotte did not know when she set forth for Paris on that morning of July 9, and all the way she pictured to herself the execution of the great deed as she had planned it.
The letter to Duperret, the friend of Barbaroux, was to procure her admittance to the Convention, and there in the midst of the Assembly, on the summit of the Mountain, she meant to deal the mortal blow that was to rid the world of Marat.
It was not until she reached Paris that she heard that the “ Friend of the People ” was too ill to attend the Convention. For some weeks already he had retired from public life, and the fearful irritation of his skin obliged him to sit perpetually in a bath with wet compresses around his head. The precise nature of his malady is not stated by his biographers, but according to the delegates from the Jacobin Club who were sent to visit him it was simply an acute attack of “ patriotism.” The madness of Maratisme is http://yamaguchy.netfirms.com/webster/frenchrev/fr_rev_07.html (44 of 61)5.4.2006 10:40:42
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nowhere better exemplified than in the following report published by the Society : “ We have just been to see our brother Marat… . We found him in his bath, a table, inkstand, and newspapers around him, occupying himself unremittingly with public affairs. It is not a disease … it is a great deal of compressed patriotism squeezed into a very small body ; the violent efforts of patriotism exuding from every part are killing him.” [118]
This was the vision that confronted Charlotte Corday when, on the evening of July 13, she succeeded, in spite of the opposition of Marat’s mistress, Simonne Evrard, in obtaining admission to the fateful bathroom. If she had expected to see a monster she must have found her wildest imaginings surpassed now that she was brought face to face with the reality. Out of the opening of the slipper bath appeared the withered neck, the misshapen shoulders, the puny arms of the People’s Friend, and above them that monstrous head swathed in its compresses of vinegar and cold water—truly an awful and a hideous sight. A fainter heart than Charlotte’s must have quailed, a nerve of less tried steel than hers must have failed at this tremendous moment—have kept her rooted to the threshold, or driven her shuddering backwards through the door and down the narrow staircase, out—out—into the pure air of Heaven. But Charlotte, wholly concentrated on her purpose, had risen above such human weaknesses, and she went straight forward, calm as the summer evening outside the window, and sat down beside Marat.
Charlotte Corday did not kill Marat as Marat killed his victims, without a trial. She gave him now, at the last moment, a chance to prove that it was not he who had raised scaffolds all over France, that it was not by his orders that innocent victims were led daily to their death. So when he asked for news of Caen, she spoke of the Girondin deputies who had taken refuge there, mentioning them by name. And at that Marat croaked out with a frightful laugh :
“ I will have them all guillotined within a week ! ”
Then rumour had not lied—Marat was indeed the sanguinary monster he had been represented in the provinces ! Out of his own mouth he was convicted. Charlotte hesitated no longer, and grasping her knife she plunged it straight into his heart. The deed was done ; henceforth, as she said, she was to know peace.
The serenity she displayed at her trial amazed the world no less than the courage that had led her to carry out her enterprise. “ Who had inspired you with so much hatred against Marat ? ” the President asked her. “ I did not need the hatred of others, I had enough of my own.” “ In killing him what did you hope ? ” “ To restore peace to my country.” “ Do you think you have killed all the Marats ? ” “ That one dead, the others will perhaps be afraid.”
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Never for a moment does it seem to have occurred to Charlotte that her action could be regarded as murder. When Fouquier Tinville observed suspiciously, “ You must be well practised in this kind of crime,” she cried out in horror, “ The monster ! He takes me for an assassin ! ”
The truth is that Charlotte did not feel she had killed a human being, but rather that she had exorcised an evil spirit who had cast a spell over the capital. “ It is only in Paris,” she said to her judges, “ that people’s eyes are bewitched on account of Marat ; in the other departments he is regarded as a monster.”
And, indeed, the more we study Marat the more we feel a sensation of unreality creeping over us. Can such a being really have existed outside the pages of a medieval legend ?
Robespierre, Danton, Billaud, even Carrier we can believe in as physiological possibilities, but Marat is a phenomenon to be explained by no natural laws : the shuddering repulsion he inspired in all normal beholders, the unholy fascination he exercised over those who fell beneath his power, the fearful rapidity with which immediately after death that hideous body crumbled to corruption, yet around which knelt crowds of worshippers, blaspheming Christ and crying out, “ Oh, sacred heart of Marat ! ”—all these things belong surely to the region of the supernatural, and can only be accounted for by a belief in demoniacal possession. Exclude this hypothesis and Marat remains an insoluble mystery—unique in the annals of mankind.
At any rate, whether we believe in the powers of darkness or not, the phase on which the revolutionary movement now entered could not have been surpassed in devilry if evil spirits hitherto caged in the body of Marat had been loosed over France. Until now the atrocities committed have been traceable to perfectly tangible causes—to Orléaniste intrigue ; to the personal ambitions of the leaders ; to excitement, delusion, or drink on the part of the populace ; but from the autumn of 1793 all political aims seem to be swallowed up in a wild rage for destruction ; the scenes of horror taking place everywhere appear to serve no definite purpose, but, like the convulsions of a madman, to spring from a mind in delirium.
Yet if we examine the movement closely we shall find that there was nevertheless a method in the madness ; that through this frightful period of the Terror there ran a system founded on the same political doctrines that had produced the massacres of September. This is what Collot d’Herbois meant when he said : “ The 2nd of September is the Credo of our liberty ”; in other words, the massacres in the prisons formed simply the prelude to a general scheme of destruction. At this earlier date, as we have seen, the idea of the leaders was to amputate the gangrened limb formed by the aristocracy and clergy ; now that these two categories had been practically destroyed, the same operation must be carried out on those other portions of the body to which the http://yamaguchy.netfirms.com/webster/frenchrev/fr_rev_07.html (46 of 61)5.4.2006 10:40:42
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gangrene had spread.
First on the list came, then, the prosperous bourgeoisie, the peculiar object of Marat’s hatred—a hatred he had communicated to Robespierre and Hébert, who, after the death of Marat, were left to carry on the campaign against this obnoxious class. Thus we find Robespierre writing : “ Internal dangers come from the bourgeois ; in order to conquer the bourgeois we must rouse the people, we must procure arms for them and make them angry.” [119] Hébert went further : “ The virtue of the holy guillotine,” he wrote, “ will gradually deliver the Republic from the rich, the bourgeois, the spies, the fat farmers, and the worthy tradesmen as from the priests and aristocrats. They are all devourers of men.”
This campaign against commerce was again the direct outcome of Illuminism, for it was Weishaupt who had first denounced the “ mercantile tribe ” as capable of exercising “ the most formidable of despotisms.” [120] Accordingly war was now waged with
particular ferocity on the manufacturing towns. In August the revolutionary troops surrounded Lyon, where the authorities, exasperated by the sanguinary propaganda of Chalier, had ended by condemning this disciple of Marat to death. The siege lasted until the 9th of October 1793, when, reduced by famine, Lyon was obliged to surrender, and it was then decided that the magnificent city, once the pride of France, must be demolished. “ The name of Lyon,” cried Barère at the Convention, “ must no longer exist, you will call it Ville-Affranchie.” On the ruins he proposed to erect a monument bearing the words, “ Lyon made war on liberty ; Lyon is no more.” Thereupon the Convention passed the decree : “ The town of Lyon shall be destroyed ; every part of it inhabited by the rich shall be demolished, only the dwellings of the poor shall remain.” Emissaries were then sent to carry out the task ; the paralytic Couthon, borne on a litter about the city, struck with a silver hammer the buildings destined to destruction, saying as he did so, “ In the name of the law I demolish you,” and instantly masons set to work upon the task. Meanwhile orators incited the working-classes to violence : “ What are you doing, pusillanimous workmen, in these industrial occupations by which opulence degrades you ? Come out of this servitude and confront the rich man who oppresses you … overthrow his fortune, overthrow these edifices, the wreckage belongs to you. It is thus that you will rise to that sublime equality, the basis of true liberty, the vigorous principle of a warrior people to whom commerce and arts should be unnecessary.” [121]
It will be seen, therefore, that there was no question of readjusting relations between employers and employed ; the whole industrial system was simply to be destroyed whilst the workers were left to starve upon the ruins.
Yet even when commerce had gone the way of aristocracy, “ and pride of wealth no http://yamaguchy.netfirms.com/webster/frenchrev/fr_rev_07.html (47 of 61)5.4.2006 10:40:42
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longer violated the principles of ‘ sublime equality,’ ” yet another centre of gangrene still remained—the educated classes. It was here that Robespierre displayed particular energy. Men of talent had always been abhorrent to him—hence his inveterate animosity towards the Girondins. Unable himself to rise out of the crowd of little lawyers amongst whom he had made his debut in Paris, he could not forgive success achieved by eloquence or literary ability. [122] To the Incorruptible wealth offered little or no temptation ; but superiority of talent roused in him an envy that bordered on insanity, and it was mainly owing to his influence that a campaign against intellect, art, and education was now inaugurated. “ All highly educated men were persecuted,” said Fourcroy later to the Convention ; “ it was enough to have some knowledge, to be a man of letters, in order to be arrested as an aristocrat… . Robespierre … with atrocious skill, rent, calumniated … all those who had given themselves up to great studies, all those who possessed wide knowledge … he felt that no educated man would ever bend the knee to him.” [123]
This war on education was even carried out against the treasures of science, art, and literature. Manuel proposed to demolish the Porte Saint-Denis ; Chaumette wanted to kill all the rare animals in the Museum of Natural History ; Hanriot proposed to burn the Bibliothèque Nationale, and his suggestion was repeated at Marseilles ; the other decemvirs, taking up the cry, added, “ Yes, we will burn all the libraries, for only the history of the Revolution and the laws will be needed.” And although the great National Library of Paris survived, thousands of books and valuable pictures all over France were destroyed or sold for next to nothing.[124]
Not only education but politeness in all forms was to be destroyed. By a decree of the Commune on the 21st of August 1792 the titles of “ Monsieur ” and “ Madame ” had been formally abolished, and the words “ Citoyen ” or “ Citoyenne ” substituted, and in order to satisfy the exponents of equality it had now become necessary to assume a rough and boorish manner, to present an uncultivated appearance. A refined countenance, hands that bore no marks of manual labour, well-brushed hair, clean and decent garments, were regarded with suspicion—to make sure of keeping one’s head on one’s shoulders it was advisable that it should be unkempt. Thus, says Beaulieu, “ those who had been born with a gentle exterior … were obliged to distort their faces, to quicken their movements, so as to look as if they formed a part of those ferocious bands that had been loosed against them. Our dandies had allowed their moustaches to grow long : they had ruffled their hair, soiled their hands, and put on repulsive clothes. Our philosophers, our men of letters, wore large bristling caps from which hung long fox-tails that floated on their shoulders ; some dragged great wheeled sabres along the pavement ; they were taken for Tartars. Paris was no longer recognizable ; one would http://yamaguchy.netfirms.com/webster/frenchrev/fr_rev_07.html (48 of 61)5.4.2006 10:40:42
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have said that all the bandits of Europe had replaced its brilliant population.” [125]
In a word, it was now not merely war on nobility, on wealth, on industry, on art, and on intellect ; it was war on civilization. France was to return to a state of savagery. Insane as the project may seem, we must recognize it nevertheless to be the logical outcome of the desire for absolute equality. But unfortunately, when the equalizing process reached this stage, an unexpected difficulty occurred. The aristocracy of birth had long since been humbled to the dust ; the aristocracy of wealth was reduced to beggary ; the aristocracy of intellect concealed itself beneath a rude exterior ; yet, after all, aristocracy still survived triumphantly, for lo ! it had taken refuge amongst the people. “ Nowhere,” says Taine, “ are there so many suspects as amongst the people ; the shop, the farm, and the workshops contain more aristocrats than the presbytery or the château. In fact, according to the Jacobins, the cultivators are nearly all aristocrats ; all the tradesmen are essentially counter-revolutionary … the butchers and bakers … are of an insufferable aristocracy.” [126] “ The women of the market,” writes a government spy, “ except a few
who are bribed, or whose husbands are Jacobins, curse, swear, rave, and fume ; but they dare not speak too loud, because they are all afraid of the revolutionary committee and the guillotine.” “ This morning,” said a shopkeeper, “ I had four or five of them here.
They do not wish to be called ‘ citizenesses ’ any longer. They say they spit on the Republic.” [127] In the provinces matters were still worse ; not only had reverence for
religion and the King survived, but everywhere respect for superiority and successful enterprise prevailed—the good bourgeois whose business had prospered, the worthy mayor renowned for his benevolence, the working-man who had “ got on in the world,” all these in the eyes of country-folk seemed more deserving of esteem than the drunkard or the wastrel. How was perfect equality to be achieved if the people themselves persisted in raising one man above another ?
It is easy to imagine the despair that seized on the surgeons who had embarked on the great scheme of eliminating gangrene when they discovered its existence in this most vital point of the body. Yet, nothing daunted, they grasped their instruments and set to work once more ; if “ the people ” themselves were gangrened, then the people too must come under the knife—the blade of the guillotine must fall alike on the neck of noble, priest, or peasant.
So on the 5th of September the word went forth from the Commune of Paris : “ Let us make Terror the order of the day ! ” [128] In order to carry out this system it was necessary to reconstruct the government. Already the first Constitution framed on the cahiers had been swept away and replaced by the anarchic code known as the “ Constitution de l’An II.” without further reference to the desires of the people. But now http://yamaguchy.netfirms.com/webster/frenchrev/fr_rev_07.html (49 of 61)5.4.2006 10:40:42
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the Anarchists had recourse to a still more arbitrary measure, and on the 10th of October the Convention, entirely dominated by the Mountain, acceded to the proposal of St. Just that a “ provisional revolutionary government ” should be proclaimed, in which every department of the State was to be placed under the control of the Comité de Salut Public. The members of this committee—which included Robespierre, Couthon, St.
Just, Barère, Billaud-Varenne, Collot d’Herbois, Jean Bon St. André, Carnot, Prieur de la Marne, and Lindet—were thus to be made the absolute rulers of France ; to their authority the “ executive power, the ministers, the generals, and the constituted bodies ” were to be subjugated ;[129] and since it was by the Incorruptible that they themselves
were controlled, the reign of Robespierre may be said to have begun from this moment.
The Terror in the provinces was thus entirely the work of the Comité de Salut Public.
Emissaries were now sent out by the committee to the towns and provinces that had risen against the Mountain, with instructions to show no mercy to the “ counter-revolutionaries.” The better to ensure a rigorous application of the new régime these men were usually chosen to act in couples, “ one to check the other ”—in reality to goad each other on to violence. Thus when at Bordeaux, Tallien, under the influence of the beautiful Térésia Cabarrus, showed signs of relenting, Ysabeau performed the office of denunciator ;[130] at Lyon, Collot d’Herbois urged on Fouché ; at Toulon, Fréron incited
Barras, and so each emissary, terrorized by his colleague, attempted to outdo him in ferocity.
The atrocities that took place all over France from October 1793 onwards require volumes to be realized in their full horror, and can only be briefly summarized here.
At Bordeaux, then, owing to the intervention of Térésia, only 301 people fell victims to the guillotine, which took “ patriotic journeys ” to that city ; starvation and terror were, therefore, the means by which it was finally reduced to submission. But at Lyon the population was literally mowed down in hundreds ; carts filled with women, old and young, plied daily to the scaffold. But the guillotine proved too slow a method of extermination, and the method of “fusillades” was then adopted ; young citizens tied together in couples were driven to the “ Brotteaux ” and blown into fragments by rifle and cannon fire. The Rhône, that received at least 2000 corpses, ran so red with blood that Ronsin, the general of the revolutionary armies, informed the Cordeliers in Paris of its utility in conveying a message of warning to the counter-revolutionaries all over the South.[131]
The South, however, needed no warning. Toulon, crushed and starved by the régime of Fréron and Barras, had opened its gates in desperation to the English on the 29th of August—“ treachery ” never to be forgiven it. Yet there were certainly extenuating http://yamaguchy.netfirms.com/webster/frenchrev/fr_rev_07.html (50 of 61)5.4.2006 10:40:42
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circumstances. “ It was necessary,” wrote Isnard, who was then at Toulon, “ to yield either to the Mountain or to Admiral Hood. The former brought us scaffolds, the latter promised to shatter them ; the former gave us famine, the latter offered us provisions ; Fréron brought us the Constitution of 1793, written by the executioner at the dictation of Robespierre, Hood promised to put us under the laws promulgated by the Constituent Assembly. A few intriguers profited by these circumstances to tempt the multitude led astray by hunger and despair ; it had the weakness to prefer bread to death, the Constitution of 1791 to the anarchic code of 1793.”
Toulon paid heavily for its frailty when, on the 17th of December, the town was recaptured by the army of the Republic. Fréron, mounted on a horse, “ surrounded by cannons, troops, and a hundred maniacs, adorers of the god Marat,” ordered citizens selected at random to be lined up against the walls and shot. “ Fréron gives the signal, the charge rings out from every side, the murder is accomplished. The ground is drenched in blood, the air resounds with cries of despair, the dying roll back upon the corpses. Suddenly, by order of the tyrant, a voice cries, ‘ Let those who are not dead arise.’ The wounded raise themselves in the hope that help will be brought to them, a fresh discharge is made, and steel gathers those that fire has spared.” [132]
After this Fréron complacently announced that 800 Toulonnais had perished in the fusillade, whilst at the same time 200 heads fell by the guillotine. These methods, repeated until the spring of 1794, resulted, according to Prudhomme, in the death of no less than 14,325 men, women, and children ; and whether this figure is excessive or not the fact remains that by the 9th of Thermidor the population of Toulon was reduced from 29,000 to 7000 inhabitants.[133]
All over Provence men were hunted down like wild beasts ; the prophecy of the Scriptures seemed now to be fulfilled—“ for those that were in the cities fled into the mountains, crying to the rocks to cover them, and hiding in dens and caves of the earth.” At Marseilles the death-roll was comparatively light ; only about 240 victims had mounted the scaffold by January of 1794, and the Comité de Salut Public in Paris found it necessary to issue a reprimand to the Public Accuser of that city : “ In Paris … the art of guillotining has attained perfection. Sanson and his pupils guillotine with so much rapidity … they expedited twelve in thirteen minutes. Send, then, the executioner of Marseilles to Paris in order to take a course of guillotining with his colleague Sanson, or we shall never get through. You must know that we shall never let you want for game for the guillotine ; and a great number must be despatched.” [134]
In the small town of Orange, however, 318 victims were disposed of in a very short space of time, whilst in the north at Arras and Cambrai, under the reign of the apostate http://yamaguchy.netfirms.com/webster/frenchrev/fr_rev_07.html (51 of 61)5.4.2006 10:40:42
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priest, Joseph Lebon, between 1500 and 2000 perished. In the province of Anjou alone the number of people killed without a trial has been estimated at 10,000. [135]
La Vendée as the stronghold of Royalism, when finally vanquished in October, could not of course hope for mercy, and the plan of the Convention, “ to transform this country into a desert,” [136] was adopted. “ We are able to say to-day,” wrote the Republican
envoys, “ that La Vendée no longer exists. A profound silence reigns at present in the land occupied by the rebels. One could travel far in these parts without encountering a man or a cottage, for we have left nothing behind us but ashes and piles of corpses.” [137]
But of all the towns of France it was at Nantes in Brittany that the worst atrocities were committed, in spite of the fact that here the bourgeoisie had welcomed the Revolution with the greatest enthusiasm, “ and, indeed, had actually taken up arms against La Vendée.” [138] Unhappily, in the organizer of the campaign against Nantes the Comité de Salut Public had found a man after its own heart. Like “ his divinity Marat,” Jean Baptiste Carrier embodied in his person the whole principle of the Terror ; like Marat, physically abnormal with his lean misshapen figure, his long cadaverous face and bloodshot eyes, Carrier exhibited perpetually the same convulsive fury that had characterized the People’s Friend—indeed it is probable that he too was the victim of homicidal mania. Carrier thought, spoke, dreamt incessantly of killing ; “ I have seen him,” a contemporary declared, “ cutting candles in two with his sabre as if they were the heads of aristocrats.” Even his colleagues trembled to approach him for fear of his “ sudden angers, his bellowings like those of a famished wild beast.”
In order to carry out the vengeance of this maniac upon the unfortunate city, three companies of bandits, selected for their ferocity, had been recruited. The first of these, which Carrier had named after his idol, “ the company of Marat,” consisted of sixty members who had sworn on enrolment to carry out the doctrines of the People’s Friend ; the second, known as the “ American Hussars,” was composed of negroes and mulattos ; the third, which was called the “ Germanic Legion,” had been formed with German mercenaries and deserters. Thus, as Taine observes, “ it was necessary, in order to find men for the work, to descend not only to the lowest ruffians of France, but to brutes of foreign race and speech… .” [139]
The services of the two last companies were utilized principally for brutality towards women and children ; an eyewitness related that on one occasion he saw the corpses of no less than seventy-five girls aged from 16 to 18 who had been shot down by the German legion. Carrier entertained a peculiar hatred for children—“ they are whelps,” he said, “ they must be destroyed,” and he gave orders that they should be butchered without mercy. The details of these massacres far surpass in horror anything that took http://yamaguchy.netfirms.com/webster/frenchrev/fr_rev_07.html (52 of 61)5.4.2006 10:40:42
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place in Paris during the height of the Terror ; there young children at least were spared, but at Nantes they perished miserably in hundreds. The annals of savagery can show nothing more revolting—poor little peasant boys and girls thrust beneath the blade of the guillotine, mutilated because they were too small to fit the fatal plank ; 500 driven all at once into a field outside the city and shot down, clubbed and sabred by the assassins round whose knees they clung, weeping and crying out for mercy. [140]
Finally the executioner grew weary of the slaughter and declared he could go on no longer ; even the fusillades proved too slow a method of extermination, and it was then that Carrier embarked on the scheme which for all time has rendered his name infamous—the noyades, or wholesale drownings in the Loire.
The first experiment was made on about ninety old priests, who were placed on board a galliot in charge of several Marats—as the members of the Marat company were knownand when in mid-stream those men, obedient to orders, burst open the ports and sank the barge to the bottom of the river. This delighted Carrier—“ I have never laughed so much,” he declared, “ as when I saw the faces those —— made as they died.” [141] The incident, when reported to the Convention, met with no remonstrance ; Hérault
de Séchelles, in fact, wrote to Carrier congratulating him on “ his energy and talent in the art of revolution,” [142] whilst Robespierre, we know, heartily approved.[143] Carrier,
thus encouraged, set to work on a larger scale. The cargo-load of gangrene in the form of clergy had proved but the prelude ; now “ the people ” were to provide the victims.
So through those bitter December nights crowds of poor women, armed with the little bundles of possessions that peasants in flight are wont to carry with them, some clasping babies to their breasts, some leading little children by the hand, were driven out into the cold and darkness, they knew not whither ; only when they found themselves on the bank of the river where the great barges waited the hideous truth dawned on them. Then all at once they burst into tears and lamentations, crying out, “ They are going to drown us, and they will not bring us to trial ! ” Many holding their babies closer refused to give them up to strangers, and bore them with them in their arms down beneath the dark waters of the Loire. These perhaps were wisest, for many of those poor children, whom stronger-minded mothers had placed in sympathetic arms held out to them, were seized by Carrier’s agents and herded into the ghastly Entrepôt, or prison of the city, to die of cold and pestilence.
The noyades, which Carrier playfully described as “ bathing-parties,” offered a fresh field to his inventive genius, and by way of variety he now devised the plan of stripping men and women to the skin, tying them together in couples and throwing them thus bound into the Loire. Carrier called this “ Republican marriages.” [144]
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Such was the Reign of Terror at Nantes, during which the number of victims that perished by drowning was estimated by one member of Carrier’s committee at 6000, by another at 9000, whilst Prudhomme estimates the number of people killed by drownings, fusillades, the guillotine and pestilence, at the appalling figure of 32,000.
What must have been the death-roll for all France during the Terror ? Prudhomme places it at no less than 1,025,711 (including losses through civil war), Taine at nearly half a million in the eleven provinces of the West alone. But on this point it is impossible to speak with any certainty. We only know that the massacres were wholesale and, what is more important, indiscriminate. For not only were the victims of the fusillades and noyades almost exclusively taken from amongst the people—“ creatures of no account,” said Goullin, one of Carrier’s aides—but no attempt was made to discover their political opinions. Some were Royalists, others Republicans ; the greater number probably held no views on politics at all, but lived like simple country folk, without a thought beyond their daily needs. The necessity for destroying gangrene cannot, therefore, have applied to them, and we must seek a further development in the scheme of the revolutionary leaders to explain this amazing paradox— the massacring of the people in the name of democracy.
1. Danton to the Comité de Defense Générale (see Robinet, Procés des Dantonistes).
2. “ It was only in Paris that the question of the Republic was considered… . In 1792 there are no principles (of Republicanism). They can only abolish the monarchy by advocating the deposition (of the King). They dare not proclaim the Republic ” (Madelin, p. 266).
3. Moniteur, xiv. 8.
4. A working-man, a tiler of Saint-Leu, named Gillequint, himself a convinced Republican, thus admirably summed up the matter in an address to his fellow-citizens some months later : “ The Sovereign ( i.e. the people) must be free in his opinion. Are we free to manifest ours ? At the opening of the sittings of the Convention … a member proposed the abolition of the monarchy. Without examination, without discussion, the monarchy was abolished by a decree… . This decree was not sanctioned by the people, and since it is recognized that no decree can be made law without the sanction of the people, it should only have been carried out provisionally.” For this expression of opinion Gillequint was guillotined on the 5th of Messidor, An 11. (Wallon, Tribunal révolutionnaire, iv, 386-388).
5. Montjoie, Conjuration de d’Orléans, iii. 216 ; Pagès, ii. 10-14 ; Deux Amis, viii. 326 ; Prudhomme, Crimes de la Révolution, v. 24-27. These passages, written at about the same date, 1796 and 1797 ; should be carefully compared, and will be found to be almost identical it is evident that each expressed the current opinion of the day.
6. Prudhomme, Révolutions de Paris, xiii. 522. It was at this moment that the Duc d’Orléans was said to have declared to the Commune that he was not the son of the last Duc d’Orléans but of the duchess’s coachman.
Montjoie, Conjuration de d’Orléans, iii. 251 ; Peltier, La Révolution du 10 Août, ii. 9 ; Playfair’s History of http://yamaguchy.netfirms.com/webster/frenchrev/fr_rev_07.html (54 of 61)5.4.2006 10:40:42
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Jacobinism, p. 604 ; posthumous works of Lord Orford, Historic Doubts, ii. 250 ; Les Fils de Philippe Égalité, by G. Lenôtre, p. 2.
7. “ From the day the Revolution began,” says Kropotkin, “ Marat took to bread and water, not figuratively speaking, but in reality.” No authority is given for this astonishing assertion. The researches of M. Lenôtre reveal, however, that at his flat in the Rue des Cordeliers, Marat was waited on by four women—his mistress, his sister, the portress, and the cook. Why a cook for bread and water ? Moreover, on the evening of his death, when during the visit of Charlotte Corday, his mistress, Simonne Evrard, entered the bathroom, she removed from the window-sill two dishes containing sweetbreads and brains for the evening meal—by no means a meagre menu for the Friend of the People at a moment when hungry crowds were drawn up outside his door waiting for crusts of bread ( Paris révolutionnaire, by G. Lenôtre, p. 219). This confirms the story current amongst the people later that, although Marat’s frugality had been vaunted, his table “ was every day splendidly served and never consisted of less than eight dishes, end that she who called herself his wife was seen to buy objects of great luxury, either for his table or for other purposes… . (Schmidt, Tableaux de Paris, ii. 167).
8. L’Ami du Peuple, No. 681.
9. Ibid. No. 539.
10. That Robespierre did not believe in government by the people has been admirably explained by M. Louis Blanc—who does not believe in it himself (see his Histoire de la Révolution, viii. 269).
11. Thus : “ In the matter of genius and civism the people are infallible, whilst every one else is subject to great errors ” (Article de Robespierre, Buchez et Roux, xiv. 268). “ The motives of the people are always pure ; they cannot do otherwise than love the public good ” etc. ( Robespierre à ses Commettants, ii. 285).
12. Prudhomme, Crimes de la Révolution. v. 124.
13. Prudhomme, Crimes de la Révolution, iv. 162.
14. “ Danton during his brief apparition at the ‘ Comité de Salut Public ’ instituted that odious power of gold, that frightful system of corruption that bought speech or silence… . ‘ Get money given you,’ said Danton to Garat, ‘
and do not spare it ; the Republic will always have enough.’ … To corrupt and to be corrupted was for him the whole science of our morals, all the probity of the century… .” ( ibid. v. 78-80).
15. “ Applauders and murmurers are to be had at all prices ; and as females are more noisy and to be had cheaper than males, you will observe there are generally more women than men in the tribunes ” (Dr. Moore’s Journal, i.
211 ; see also Pagès, ii. 29).
16. M. de Bernard à sa Femme, date of December 27, 1792, in Lettres d’Aristocrates, by Pierre de Vaissière, p. 582.
17. Moore’s Journal, ii. 249.
18. Prudhomme, Révolutions de Paris, xiv. 52.
19. Journal d’un Bourgeois, by Edmond Biré, i. 383.
20. Lafayette seduced by Marie Antoinette !—Marie Antoinette who had cried out, “ Better perish than be saved by Lafayette ! ” There is no limit to the absurdities circulated by the Jacobins.
21. Aulard’s Séances des Jacobins, iv. 619.
22. Statement of a government reporter in June 1793 : “ There are not 3000 decided revolutionaries in Paris ” ( Paris pendant la Révolution, by Adolphe Schmidt, p. 21).
23. “ Those who wished his death were in constant dread of a return of humanity and affection in the hearts of the people towards him, and therefore were at great pains to fill the tribunes with persons hired to make an outcry against him : and they were so apprehensive on this subject as to suspect those very agents of relenting ” (Moore’s Journal, ii. 528).
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24. Buchez et Roux, xxi. 202.
25. “ Premier Rapport de Valazé,” November 6, Moniteur, xiv. 401.
26. Essais de Beaulieu, iv. 228.
27. Ibid.
28. Moore’s Journal, ii. 614.
29. Mémoires de Lafayette, iii. 381.
30. Beaulieu, iv. 267 ; Moore’s Journal, ii. 468 ; see also the selections from these papers published by Buchez et Roux, xvii. 259.
31. Montjoie, Conjuration de d’Orléans, iii. 224 ; Moore’s Journal, ii. 512.
32. Éloge historique et funèbre de Louis XVI., by Montjoie, p. 247.
33. Beaulieu, iv. 274 ; Lettres d’Aristocrates, by Pierre de Vaissière, p. 584.
34. Moore’s Journal, ii. 529.
35. Letter from M. Bernard to his wife in Lettres d’Aristocrates, by Pierre de Vaissière, p. 578.
36. Moore’s Journal, ii. 526 ; Lettres d’Aristocrates, pp. 571, 581.
37. Lettres d’Aristocrates, by Pierre de Vaissière, p. 581.
38. Ibid. p. 577.
39. Ibid. p. 580.
40. Prudhomme, Révolutions de Paris, xiv. 3, 4.
41. Prudhomme, Crimes de la Révolution, v. 120.
42. Buchez et Roux, xxii. 63 ; Moniteur, xiv. 849.
43. Journal d’un Bourgeois, by Edmond Biré, i. 409.
44. Ibid. p. 407.
45. Buchez et Roux, xxiii. 154.
46. Madelin, p. 284.
47. Lacretelle, Histoire de la Convention ; see also Mémoires de Carnot, i. 293 : “ Louis XVI. would have been saved if the Convention had not debated beneath daggers.”
48. Buchez et Roux, xxiii. 180 ; Montjoie, Conjuration de d’Orléans, iii. 237 ; Moore, ii. 577, 580 ; Deux Amis, xii. 16.
49. The figures published by the official Procès-Verbal (see Buchez et Roux, xxiii. 206, and Mortimer Ternaux, v.
462, not the Moniteur which is incorrect) are as follows :
Total number of deputies, 749. Absent, 28 ; refused to vote, 5. Total number of voters, therefore, = 721.
For imprisonment or banishment, 286. For irons 2. For death, with sentence postponed, 46. For death, but also, on the proposal of Mailhe, for discussion on postponement, 26, (360). For immediate death, without discussion on postponement, 361.
The conclusion of the President that the majority was of 387 to 334 was arrived at by adding the 26 votes for death with discussion on postponement to those for immediate death. This is obviously incorrect, and M. Mortimer Ternaux and Mr. Croker ( Essays on the French Revolution, p. 362) are, therefore, right in stating that there was a http://yamaguchy.netfirms.com/webster/frenchrev/fr_rev_07.html (56 of 61)5.4.2006 10:40:42
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majority of one. Both Ferrières and Dr. Moore, however, say that there were 319 votes for imprisonment or banishment. Fockedey, a member of the Convention, says 334. (See Documents pour servir à l’Histoire de la Révolution Française, published by Charles d’Héricault, ii. 143.) These figures would reduce the votes for death still further, and result in a majority against death. Indeed the secretary Manuel afterwards declared this was the case ( Mémoires Secrets de D’Allonville, iii. 139).
50. Montjoie, Conjuration de d’Orléans, iii. 232 ; Pagès, ii. 69.
51. Mercier, Le Nouveau Paris, i. 175 ; Dauban, La Demagogie en 1793, p. 27.
52. Journal d’un Bourgeois, by Edmond Biré, ii. 5.
53. Certain contemporaries declared that it was not Santerre who finally ordered the roll of drums (see Montjoie, Conjuration de d’Orléans, iii. 240), but the Comte d’Aya, a natural son of Louis XV. Beaulieu, however ( Essais, iv. 353), and most reliable authorities state that it was Santerre ; moreover, Santerre admitted it himself. See “ Relation du Municipal Goret,” in La Captivité et la Mort de Marie Antoinette, by G. Lenôtre, p. 146.
54. Beaulieu, iv. 349.
55. “ Souvenirs du Conventionnel Fockedey,” published in Documents pour servir à l’Histoire de la Révolution Française, by Charles d’Héricault, vol. ii. p. 142. On this point see also the contemporary evidence quoted by Edmond Biré, Journal d’un Bourgeois, i. 451.
56. Diurnal de Beaulieu ; Prudhomme, Révolutions de Paris, xiv. 205.
57. Gorsas in the Courier des Departements for January 28, 1793. See Journal d’un Bourgeois, by Edmond Biré, i.
453.
58. Moniteur for February 6, 1793.
59. The Example of France, Appendix, p. 10.
60. Essays on the French Revolution, p. 254. Note here the value of Lord Acton’s judgement as a historian, for, after admitting that Danton was actuated solely by mercenary motives in the matter of the King’s death, he afterwards observes : “ There was not in France a more thorough patriot than Danton,” ibid. p. 282.
61. Trial of Malesherbes, in Bulletin de Tribunal révolutionnaire.
62. The Life of Charles, third Earl of Stanhope, by Ghita Stanhope and G.P. Gooch, p. 119.
63. Moniteur, xiv. 517.
64. Moniteur, xiv. 762.
65. Immediately on Dumouriez’s arrival in the towns of Belgium Jacobin Clubs were inaugurated under his auspices (Mortimer Ternaux, Histoire de la Terreur, v. 14, 61). It seems that large sums of money were also lavished on the inhabitants, for later on, when Danton was asked to account for the sum of 100,000 écus he had spent on his mission to Belgium—and which the Girondins suspected him of appropriating—Danton replied that the money had been spent in “ executing the decree of December 15 ”—that is to say, in bribing the Belgians to vote for union with the French Republic (Séance of April 1, 1793 ; Mortimer Ternaux, op. cit. v. 20).
66. Ibid. p. 61. See also letter of Lord Auckland written from the Hague to Lord Loughborough on January 6, 1793 : “ The spirit of Jacobinism makes no progress. In Italy and Germany it is the abhorrence even of the lowest ranks. In Brabant and Flanders the French are now infinitely more hated than the Austrians ” ( Correspondence of Lord Auckland, ii. 485).
67. Mortimer Ternaux, v. 19.
68. Moniteur, xiv. 762.
69. Albert Sorel, L’Europe et la Révolution Française, ii. 86-89.
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70. Speech of Lord Lauderdale ( Parl. Hist. xxx. 326). These words of Lord Lauderdale were a deliberate misrepresentation of the truth, for Lord Lauderdale was himself in Paris with Dr. Moore during the September massacres, and Dr. Moore’s evidence on the atrocities of which they were witnesses has been already quoted in this book. See also speech of Lord Lansdowne ( Parl. Hist. xxx. 329), and Lord Stanhope’s “ Protest against a War with France ” ( ibid. p. 336).
71. “ Rapport fait par Brissot sur les Dispositions du Gonvernement britannique,” Bouchez et Roux, xxiii. 81. See also speech of Kersaint on January 1, 1793, referring to the intrigues of Fox in “ trying to profit by circumstances in order to seize the government,” etc. (Buchez et Roux, xxiii. 366).
72. “ What has occasioned this last war ? There are three causes for it : 1st, The absurd and impolitic decree of the 19th of November, which very justly excited uneasiness in foreign cabinets… 2nd, The massacres of September… . 3rd, The death of Louis… . It is madness or imbecility itself to reckon upon a peace, or upon allies, while we are without a constitution. There is no making an alliance, there is no treating with anarchy ” ( J.P.
Brissot à ses Commettants).
73. Speeches of Pitt and Lord Grenville ( Parl. Hist. xxx. 351, 399).
74. Moore, ii. 297.
75. Moniteur, xiv. 80 ; Buchez et Roux, xxii. 461-464, xxiv. 296, xxv. 323, xxvii. 144, 145 ; Beaulieu, v. 126 ; Mémoires de Mme. Roland, ii. 304 ; Dauban, La Demagogie en 1793, p. 66.
76. Buchez et Roux, xxii. 391.
77. Note Carlyle’s inconsequence here, for whilst pouring sarcasms on “ the respectably-washed middle-classes,” represented by the Girondins, it is for Madame Roland, the soul of the Gironde and the embodiment of pretentious middle-classness, that he reserves his deepest admiration, whilst for Marat, the soul of the Mountain, and the apostle of unwashed Fraternity, he has nothing but loathing and contempt. This instance goes to show that Carlyle wrote mainly for effect regardless of truth or logic.
78. See Roland’s sensible report (published by Buchez et Roux, xxi. 199), in which he points out that the price of bread being lower in Paris than in the surrounding provinces, buyers are attracted to the capital ; he proposes, therefore, to raise the price of bread in Paris, and to assist the poor out of the public funds to meet the increased expense. Compare this with Robespierre’s speech to the Convention of December 2, 1792 (Buchez et Roux, xxii.
178), in which he can find nothing more practical to say than that “ everything which is indispensable for preserving life is common property,” an axiom interpreted by the people, under the guidance of Marat, into laying violent hands on all foodstuffs that came their way. Undoubtedly there were still monopolizers as there had always been, and the succeeding revolutionary governments dealt with them less effectually than the Old Régime, but the methods of the Anarchists increased their number. “ The dearness of bread,” wrote Brissot in 1793, “ is produced by the scarcity of the markets and the want of the circulation of grain… . What stops this circulation ? The eternal declamations of the anarchists against men of property, or against merchants, whom they mark out by the name of monopolizers ; the eternal petitions of ignorant men who call for a rate upon grain. The labouring man fears he will be plundered or have his throat cut, and he leaves his ricks untouched ” ( J.P. Brissot à ses Commettants).
79. See the Mémoires de Brissot, note on p. 63, which mentions two letters from American corn-merchants written to Robespierre in October and November 1793 offering supplies of grain. To these Robespierre did not reply.
Courtois in his Rapport says the offer was refused ( Papiers trouvés chez Robespierre, etc. i. 21).
80. Fortescue Historical MSS. ii. 457. The Socialist, Gracchus Babeuf, employed in the Supply Department of the Commune, formally accused Robespierre and the Comité de Salut Public of having organized a Pacte de Famine in order to starve Paris. For this Babeuf and all the employés in the Supply Department were thrown into prison at the Abbaye.
81. Beaulieu, v. 117 ; Mercier, Le Nouveau Paris, ii. 92.
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82. Prudhomme, Crimes, v. 37.
83. This Tribunal was at first known officially as the “ Tribunal Extraordinaire,” and not till later as the “ Tribunal Révolutionnaire,” but Beaulieu says it was habitually referred to in private conversation under the latter name, particularly by Robespierre and his friends, soon after its inauguration on March 10, 1793 ( Essais de Beaulieu, v.
103).
84. Mercier, Le Nouveau Paris, i. 25.
85. “ It is universally known,” writes Dr. Moore, “ that the Girondists exculpate the citizens of Paris from the horrid crimes of September ; whereas Robespierre, St. André, Tallien, Chabot, Bazire, and all that party, assert that the massacres were committed by the people. But as, at the same time, St. André always calls them ‘ le bon peuple,’
Marat says ‘ he carries them in his heart,’ and Robespierre declares ‘ he would willingly sacrifice his life for them,’
the populace consider this faction as their friends, and look on Roland and the Girondists as their calumniators ” (Moore’s Journal, ii. 427).
86. Lenôtre, Le Tribunal révolutionnaire, pp. 84, 85.
87. Wallon, Le Tribunal révolutionnaire, i. 93, 110, 133, 140.
88. Prudhomme, Crimes de la Révolution, vi. 272.
89. Michelet, quoting Le Publiciste de la République Française, says that the women of the market were amongst the crowd, but this seems improbable in view of their attitude at the King’s trial three months earlier, and on May 2
the Government agent, Dutard, reports to Garat that their attitude towards the Revolution is still the same : “ It seems that these women, if they were not afraid of the guillotine for themselves, would cry in unison, ‘ Vive le Roi ! ’ ” (Schmidt, ii. 173).
90. Mortimer Ternaux, vii. 215.
91. Ibid. p. 237.
92. I give the names of these committees in the original French, since there is no exact equivalent in English. The Comité de Salut Public is frequently referred to by English writers as the Committee of Public Safety, but this is misleading, for “ safety ” is the English for sûreté, not for salut. The nearest equivalent for salut would be “ salvation,” but this would not be an exact rendering of the French word.
93. Schmidt, ii. 218.
94. Ibid. i. 250.
95. Beaulieu, v. 120 ; Letters of Helen Maria Williams (1795), p. 42.
96. Mortimer Ternaux, vii. 321.
97. Ibid. p. 329 ; Mercier, Le Nouveau Paris, i. 164.
98. Dauban, La Demagogie en 1793, p. 209 ; Mortimer Ternaux, vii. 351.
99. Mortimer Ternaux, vii. 352, 365 ; Beaulieu, v. 132.
100. Dauban, La Demagogie en 1793, p. 218.
101. Ibid. pp. 214, 218 ; Mortimer Ternaux, vii. 391 ; Letters of Helen Maria Williams (1795), p. 41.
102. Mortimer Ternaux, vii. 379.
103. Letters of Helen Maria Williams, p. 41.
104. Ibid. ; Mortimer Ternaux, vii. 384.
105. The role of Danton on this occasion is difficult to explain. He had certainly cooperated in the movement to http://yamaguchy.netfirms.com/webster/frenchrev/fr_rev_07.html (59 of 61)5.4.2006 10:40:42
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overthrow the Girondins, yet now he seemed inclined to oppose it. Meillan accounts for his attitude by saying he had begun to fear the Municipality.
106. Rapport de Dutard à Garat, Schmidt, ii. 11.
107. Beaulieu, v. 145.
108. Dauban, La Demagogie en 1793, p. 222.
109. Dauban, La Demagogie en 1793, p. 223.
110. It is customary for revolutionary historians to make out that the priests and nobles incited the Vendéens to revolt ; this is absolutely untrue ; the movement was entirely a peasant rising—the nobles in certain cases showed reluctance to act as leaders. See Beaulieu, vi. 52.
111. Buchez et Roux, xxiii. 279.
112. La Demagogie en 1793, by C.A. Dauban, p. 239.
113. Legros, La Révolution telle qu’elle est, i. 366 (letter from Prieur de la Marne to the Comité de Salut Public).
114. Archives des Affaires Étrangères, quoted by Taine, La Révolution, viii. 53.
115. Ibid. p. 54.
116. Aux Amis de la Vérité, by F.N.L. Buzot, pp. 32-34.
117. Mémoires de Buzot, p. 19.
118. Journal des Débats, July 16, 1793.
119. Papiers trouvés chez Robespierre, ii. 15.
120. Histoire de la Révolution, by Louis Blanc, ii. 91.
121. Beaulieu, v. 405.
122. “ Writers must be proscribed as the most dangerous enemies of the people ” (Note in Robespierre’s handwriting, published in Papiers trouvés chez Robespierre, ii. 13). See also Pages, ii. 19, and Letters of Helen Maria Williams (1794), p. 115.
123. Moniteur for the 14th Fructidor, An ii.; also Rapport de Grégoire on same date : “ Dumas said all clever men should be guillotined… The system of persecution against men of talents was organized… They cried out in the sections, ‘ Beware of that man, for he has written a book ! ’ ”
124. Taine, viii. 206 ; Mercier, Le Nouveau Paris, ii. 141 ; Mémoire sur le Vandalisme, by Grégoire.
125. Beaulieu, v. 281.
126. Taine, viii. 180.
127. Rapport de Dutard à Garat (Minister of the Interior), June 24, 1793, Schmidt, ii. 87.
128. Buchez et Roux, xxix. 43.
129. Ibid. p. 172.
130. Mémoires de Madame de la Tour du Pin, ii. 345.
131. Prudhomme, Crimes, vi. 49, 50. Cadillot, a correspondent of Robespierre, placed the number of executions at Lyon at 6000 (Taine, viii. 126).
132. Description given by Isnard, who was amongst the wounded. Beaulieu, v. 449 ; Prudhomme, Crimes de la Révolution, vi. 157.
133. Madelin, p. 335.
134. Prudhomme, Crimes, vi. 128.
135. Taine, viii. 131.
136. Letter of the emissary Francastel to General Grignon (Taine, viii. 131).
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137. Mortimer Ternaux, viii. 196.
138. J.B. Carrier, by Alfred Lallie, p. 57.
139. Taine, viii. 110 ; Beaulieu, vi. 92, 93 ; Les Noyades de Nantes, by G. Lenôtre.
140. Prudhomme, Crimes de la Révolution, vi. 314.
141. Ibid. p. 323 ; Procés de Carrier, Buchez et Roux, xxxiv. 184.
142. Beaulieu, vi. 98.
143. See Lallié, op. cit. p. 230 ; also statement of Laignelot to the Convention that he informed Robespierre of the horrors taking place at Nantes, to which Robespierre replied : “ Carrier is a patriot ; this was necessary at Nantes ” ( Moniteur du 3 Frimaire, An iii. vol. xxii. 380).
144. Prudhomme, Crimes de la Révolution, vi. 335 ; Beaulieu, vi. 100 ; Buchez et Roux, xxxiv. 149. And Kropotkin, that arch-calumniator of the people, dares to attribute the noyades of Nantes to the Breton Peasants !
See The Great French Revolution, p. 458.
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