History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 Part 11

Both during the discussion of the const.i.tution and its presentation to the primary a.s.semblies, 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 munic.i.p.alities came to accept the const.i.tution. Admitted to the bar of the a.s.sembly, after making known the a.s.sent of the people, they required _the arrest of all suspected persons, and a levy en ma.s.se of the people_. "Well,"

exclaimed Danton, "let us respond to their wishes. The deputies of the primary a.s.semblies 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 a.s.semblies 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-b.a.l.l.s that we must declare the const.i.tution 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, Barrere, 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 a.s.sembly, 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 s.e.x, 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 Barrere 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 pa.s.sed. All foreigners were arrested, on the ground of their hostile machinations, and the partisans of const.i.tutional 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 cla.s.ses, furnished prisoners after the 31st of May, as the n.o.bility 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 cla.s.s, those who had taken up the defence of the Girondists, displayed little ardour or activity. When the const.i.tution 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 Ma.r.s.eilles, 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 Ma.r.s.eilles.

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 Freron into Ma.r.s.eilles. 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 a.s.sistance 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 Vendeans 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 Vendean insurrection. The royalists repa.s.sed 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 Vendee. 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, Lech.e.l.le, and by introducing war on a large scale into La Vendee.

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 Chatillon, two at Cholet. Lescure, Bonchamps, and d'Elbee were mortally wounded, and the insurgents, completely beaten in Upper Vendee, and fearing that they should be exterminated if they took refuge in Lower Vendee, 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 Vendee. 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 Vendee 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 a.s.semblies, 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 Conde, blockaded Maubeuge and Le Quesnoy, the enemy advanced on Ca.s.sel, 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 a.s.sembly 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 const.i.tutionalists, and the ministers Girondists. Rochambeau, Lafayette, and Luckner, did not at all agree with Dumouriez, Servan, Claviere, 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 const.i.tutionalist 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 surpa.s.s 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 Barrere, "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, Fouche, 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 Freron, a nearly similar fate. At Caen, Ma.r.s.eilles, 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 const.i.tutionalists; 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, Gensonne, Fonfrede, Ducos, Valaze, Lasource, Sillery, Gardien, Carra, Duperret, Duprat, Fauchet, Beauvais, Duchatel, Mainvielle, Lacaze, Boileau, Lehardy, Antiboul, and Vigee. 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 ill.u.s.trious prisoners displayed uniform and serene courage. Vergniaud raised his eloquent voice for a moment, but in vain. Valaze 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 _Ma.r.s.eillaise_, and applying it to their own case:

"Allons, enfants de la patrie, Le jour de gloire est arrive: Contre nous de la tyrannie Le couteau sanglant est leve," 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. Petion 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 Riviere, Lesage, La Reveillere-Lepeaux, 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 prompt.i.tude of action was deeply felt. The a.s.sembly 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. Barrere 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 Herault de Sech.e.l.les and Robert Lindet, gained over Barrere, and usurped the lead by a.s.suming the direction of the public mind and of police. His a.s.sociates 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 Cote- d'Or, Prieur de la Marne, and several others, the various branches of internal administration; and Barrere was the daily orator, the panegyrist ever prepared, of the dictatorial committee. Below these, a.s.sisting 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 circ.u.mstances of the republic, the const.i.tution 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 a.s.sailed 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 mult.i.tude, 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 mult.i.tude adhered to a system which inflamed its pa.s.sions, exaggerated its importance, a.s.signed 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 subst.i.tuted 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:-- _Vendemiaire, Brumaire, Frimaire_, for the autumn; _Nivose, Pluviose, Ventose_, for the winter; _Germinal, Floreal, Prairial_, for the spring; _Messidor, Thermidor, Fructidor_, for the summer. Each month had three decades, each decade ten days, and each day was named from its order in the decade:--_Primidi, Duodi, Tridi, Quartidi, Quintidi, s.e.xtidi, 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 const.i.tution 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 munic.i.p.al 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 const.i.tutionist clergy; philosophical deism by the worship of the Supreme Being, inst.i.tuted 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 Regime_ to the unlimited democracy of the munic.i.p.al faction. The latter had lost, in Marat, its princ.i.p.al 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 cla.s.ses; Chaumette, and his subst.i.tute Hebert, 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 const.i.tuted 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 troisieme requisition_.

Hebert's faction, which, in a work ent.i.tled _Pere d.u.c.h.esne_, 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 subst.i.tuted for the catholic religion_. The churches were shut up or converted into temples of reason, and fetes 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 a.s.sembly, (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 cla.s.sed 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 pa.s.sions, 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 Hebert 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 Vendean 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 regime 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, compa.s.sion, 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 Ca.s.sius the last of the Romans; a counter-revolutionary crime in a descendant of Ca.s.sius 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 Sila.n.u.s to be extravagant; a counter- revolutionary crime in Pomponius, because a friend of Seja.n.u.s 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 G.o.ds for their relatives whom he had put to death. At least, an a.s.sumed 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 a.s.sumed ill.u.s.trious names, and called themselves Cotta, Scipio, Regulus, Saevius, Severus. To distinguish himself by a brilliant debut, 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 a.s.sembly. 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 a.s.sembly, 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. Barrere 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 Hebert 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 Barrere 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 Hebert, 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 Hebertists 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 a.s.sembly, through the medium of Barrere, 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 const.i.tutes it, you will overwhelm the people in its ruins. What const.i.tutes 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 pa.s.s?' (Danton.) You will perish, those of you who seek fortune, who a.s.sume 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 subst.i.tute Hebert, 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 t.i.tle 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 a.s.sembly 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 a.s.sembly, 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 a.s.sembly, 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.