History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 Part 13

Robespierre had been transferred to the Luxembourg, his brother to Saint- Lazare, Saint-Just to the ecossais, Couthon to La Bourbe, Lebas to the Conciergerie. The commune, after having ordered the gaolers not to receive them, sent munic.i.p.al officers with detachments to bring them away.

Robespierre was liberated first, and conducted in triumph to the Hotel de Ville. On arriving, he was received with the greatest enthusiasm; "Long live Robespierre! Down with the traitors!" resounded on all sides. A little before, Coffinhal had departed, at the head of two hundred cannoneers, to release Henriot, who was detained at the committee of general safety. It was now seven o'clock, and the convention had resumed its sitting. Its guard, at the most, was a hundred men. Coffinhal arrived, made his way through the outer courts, entered the committee chamber, and delivered Henriot. The latter repaired to the Place du Carrousel, harangued the cannoneers, and ordered them to point their pieces on the convention.

The a.s.sembly was just then discussing the danger to which it was exposed.

It had just heard of the alarming success of the conspirators, of the insurrectional orders of the commune, the rescue of the triumvirs, their presence at the Hotel de Ville, the rage of the Jacobins, the successive convocation of the revolutionary council and of the sections. It was dreading a violent invasion every moment, when the terrified members of the committees rushed in, fleeing from Coffinhal. They learned that the committees were surrounded, and Henriot released. This news caused great agitation. The next moment Amar entered precipitately, and announced that the cannoneers, acted upon by Henriot, had turned their pieces upon the convention. "Citizens," said the president, putting on his hat, in token of distress, "the hour is come to die at our posts!" "Yes, yes! we will die there!" exclaimed all the members. The people in the galleries rushed out, crying, "To arms! Let us drive back the scoundrels!" And the a.s.sembly courageously outlawed Henriot.

Fortunately for the a.s.sembly, Henriot could not prevail upon the cannoneers to fire. His influence was limited to inducing them to accompany him, and he turned his steps to the Hotel de Ville. The refusal of the cannoneers decided the fate of the day. From that moment the commune, which had been on the point of triumphing, saw its affairs decline. Having failed in a surprise by main force, it was reduced to the slow measures of the insurrection; the point of attack was changed, and soon it was no longer the commune which besieged the Tuileries, but the convention which marched upon the Hotel de Ville. The a.s.sembly instantly outlawed the conspiring deputies and the insurgent commune. It sent commissioners to the sections, to secure their aid, named the representative Barras commandant of the armed force, joining with him Freron, Rovere, Bourdon de l'Oise, Feraud, Leonard Bourdon, Legendre, all men of decision: and made the committees the centre of operation.

The sections, on the invitation of the commune, had a.s.sembled about nine o'clock; the greater part of the citizens, in repairing thither, were anxious, uncertain, and but vaguely informed of the quarrels between the commune and the convention. The emissaries of the insurgents urged them to join them and to march their battalions to the Hotel de Ville. The sections confined themselves to sending a deputation, but as soon as the commissioners of the convention arrived among them, had communicated to them the decrees and invitations of the a.s.sembly, and informed them that there was a leader and a rallying point, they hesitated no longer. Their battalions presented themselves in succession to the a.s.sembly; they swore to defend it, and they pa.s.sed in files through the hall, amid shouts of enthusiasm and sincere applause. "The moments are precious," said Freron; "we must act; Barras is gone to take the orders of the committees; we will march against the rebels; we will summon them in the name of the convention to deliver up the traitors, and if they refuse, we will reduce the building in which they are to ashes." "Go," said the president, "and let not day appear before the heads of the conspirators have fallen." A few battalions and some pieces of artillery were placed round the a.s.sembly, to guard it from attack, and the sections then marched in two columns against the commune. It was now nearly midnight.

The conspirators were still a.s.sembled. Robespierre, after having been received with cries of enthusiasm, promises of devotedness and victory, had been admitted into the general council between Payan and Fleuriot. The Place de Greve was filled with men, and glittered with bayonets, pikes, and cannon. They only waited the arrival of the sections to proceed to action. The presence of their deputies, and the sending of munic.i.p.al commissioners in their midst, had inspired reliance on their aid. Henriot answered for everything. The conspirators looked for certain victory; they appointed an executive commission, prepared addresses to the armies, and drew up various lists. Half-past midnight, however, arrived, and no section had yet appeared, no order had yet been given, the triumvirs were still sitting, and the crowd on the Place de Greve became discouraged by this tardiness and indecision. A report spread in whispers that the sections had declared in favour of the convention, that the commune was outlawed, and that the troops of the convention were advancing. The eagerness of the armed mult.i.tude had already abated, when a few emissaries of the a.s.sembly glided among them, and raised the cry, "Vive la convention!" Several voices repeated it. They then read the proclamation of outlawry against the commune; and after hearing it, the whole crowd dispersed. The Place de Greve was deserted in a moment. Henriot came down a few minutes after, sabre in hand, to excite their courage; but finding no one: "What!" cried he; "is it possible? Those rascals of cannoneers, who saved my life five hours ago, now forsake me." He went up again. At that moment, the columns of the convention arrived, surrounded the Hotel de Ville, silently took possession of all its outlets, and then shouted, "Vive la convention nationale!"

The conspirators, finding they were lost, sought to escape the violence of their enemies. A gendarme named Meda, who first entered the room where the conspirators were a.s.sembled, fired a pistol at Robespierre and shattered his jaw; Lebas wounded himself fatally; Robespierre the younger jumped from a window on the third story, and survived his fall; Couthon hid himself under a table; Saint-Just awaited his fate; Coffinhal, after reproaching Henriot with cowardice, threw him from a window into a drain and fled. Meantime, the conventionalists penetrated into the Hotel de Ville, traversed the desolate halls, seized the conspirators, and carried them in triumph to the a.s.sembly. Bourdon entered the hall crying "Victory!

victory! the traitors are no more!" "The wretched Robespierre is there,"

said the president; "they are bringing him on a litter. Doubtless you would not have him brought in." "No! no!" they cried; "carry him to the Place de la Revolution!" He was deposited for some time at the committee of general safety before he was transferred to the Conciergerie; and here, stretched on a table, his face disfigured and b.l.o.o.d.y, exposed to the looks, the invectives, the curses of all, he beheld the various parties exulting in his fall, and charging upon him all the crimes that had been committed. He displayed much insensibility during his last moments. He was taken to the Conciergerie, and afterwards appeared before the revolutionary tribunal, which, after identifying him and his accomplices, sent them to the scaffold. On the 10th Thermidor, about five in the evening, he ascended the death cart, placed between Henriot and Couthon, mutilated like himself. His head was enveloped in linen saturated with blood; his face was livid, his eyes almost visionless. An immense crowd thronged around the cart, manifesting the most boisterous and exulting joy. They congratulated and embraced each other, loading him with imprecations, and pressed near to view him more closely. The gendarmes pointed him out with their sabres. As to him, he seemed to regard the crowd with contemptuous pity; Saint-Just looked calmly at them; the rest, in number twenty-two, were dejected. Robespierre ascended the scaffold last; when his head fell, shouts of applause arose in the air, and lasted for some minutes.

With him ended the reign of terror, although he was not the most zealous advocate of that system in his party. If he sought for supremacy, after obtaining it, he would have employed moderation; and the reign of terror, which ceased at his fall, would also have ceased with his triumph. I regard his ruin to have been inevitable; he had no organized force; his partisans, though numerous, were not enrolled; his instrument was the force of opinion and of terror; accordingly, not being able to surprise his foes by a strong hand, after the fas.h.i.+on of Cromwell, he sought to intimidate them. Terror not succeeding, he tried insurrection. But as the convention with the support of the committees had become courageous, so the sections, relying on the courage of the convention, would naturally declare against the insurgents. By attacking the government, he aroused the a.s.sembly; by arousing the a.s.sembly, he aroused the people, and this coalition necessarily ruined him. The convention on the 9th of Thermidor was no longer, as on the 31st of May, divided, undecided, opposed to a compact, numerous, and daring faction. All parties were united by defeat, misfortune, and the proscription ever threatening them, and would naturally cooperate in the event of a struggle. It did not, therefore, depend on Robespierre himself to escape defeat; and it was not in his power to secede from the committees. In the position to which he had attained, one is consumed by one's pa.s.sions, deceived by hopes and by fortune, hitherto good; and when once the scaffolds have been erected, justice and clemency are as impossible as peace, tranquillity, and the dispensing of power when war is declared. One must then fall by the means by which one has arisen; the man of faction must perish by the scaffold, as conquerors by war.

CHAPTER X

FROM THE 9TH THERMIDOR TO THE 1ST PRAIRIAL, YEAR III. (20TH MAY, 1795).

EPOCH OF THE RISE AND FALL OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY

The 9th of Thermidor was the first day of the revolution in which those fell who attacked. This indication alone manifested that the ascendant revolutionary movement had reached its term. From that day the contrary movement necessarily began. The general rising of all parties against one man was calculated to put an end to the compression under which they laboured. In Robespierre the committees subdued each other, and the decemviral government lost the prestige of terror which had const.i.tuted its strength. The committees liberated the convention, which gradually liberated the entire republic. Yet they thought they had been working for themselves, and for the prolongation of the revolutionary government, while the greater part of those who had supported them had for their object the overthrow of the dictators.h.i.+p, the independence of the a.s.sembly, and the establishment of legal order. From the day after the 9th of Thermidor there were, therefore, two opposite parties among the conquerors, that of the committees, and that of the Mountain, which was called the Thermidorian party.

The former was deprived of half its forces; besides the loss of its chief, it no longer had the commune, whose insurgent members, to the number of seventy-two, had been sent to the scaffold, and, which, after its double defeat under Hebert and under Robespierre, was not again re-organized, and remained without direct influence. But this party retained the direction of affairs through the committees. All its members were attached to the revolutionary system; some, such as Billaud-Varennes, Collot-d'Herbois, Barrere, Vadier, Amar, saw it was their only safety; others, such as Carnot, Cambon, the two Prieurs, de la Marne, and de la Cote-d'Or, etc., feared the counter-revolution, and the punishment of their colleagues. In the convention it reckoned all the commissioners. .h.i.therto sent on missions, several of the Mountain who had signalized themselves on the 9th Thermidor, and the remnant of Robespierre's party. Without, the Jacobins were attached to it; and it still had the support of the faubourgs and of the lower cla.s.s.

The Thermidorian party was composed of the greater number of the conventionalists. All the centre of the a.s.sembly, and what remained of the Right, joined the Mountain, who had abated their former exaggeration of views. The coalition of the Moderates, Boissy d'Anglas, Sieyes, Cambaceres, Chenier, Thibeaudeau, with the Dantonists, Tallien, Freron, Legendre, Barras, Bourdon de l'Oise, Rovere, Bentabole, Dumont, and the two Merlins, entirely changed the character of the a.s.sembly. After the 9th of Thermidor, the first step of this party was to secure its empire in the convention. Soon it found its way into the government, and succeeded in excluding the previous occupants. Sustained by public opinion, by the a.s.sembly, by the committees, it advanced openly towards its object; it proceeded against the princ.i.p.al decemvirs, and some of their agents. As these had many partisans in Paris, it sought the aid of the young men against the Jacobins, of the sections against the faubourgs. At the same time, to strengthen it, it recalled to the a.s.sembly all the deputies whom the committee of public safety had proscribed; first, the seventy-three who had protested against the 31st of May, and then the surviving victims of that day themselves. The Jacobins exhibited excitement: it closed their club; the faubourgs raised an insurrection: it disarmed them. After overthrowing the revolutionary government, it directed its attention to the establishment of another, and to the introduction, under the const.i.tution of the year III., of a feasible, liberal, regular, and stable order of things, in place of the extraordinary and provisional state in which the convention had been from its commencement until then. But all this was accomplished gradually.

The two parties were not long before they began to differ, after their common victory. The revolutionary tribunal was an especial object of general horror. On the 11th Thermidor it was suspended; but Billaud- Varennes, in the same sitting, had the decree of suspension rescinded. He maintained that the accomplices of Robespierre alone were guilty, that the majority of the judges and jurors being men of integrity, it was desirable to retain them in their offices. Barrere presented a decree to that effect: he urged that the triumvirs had done nothing for the revolutionary government; that they had often even opposed its measures; that their only care had been to place their creatures in it, and to give it a direction favourable to their own projects; he insisted, in order to strengthen that government, upon retaining the law _des suspects_ and the tribunal, with its existing members, including Fouquier-Tinville. At this name a general murmur rose in the a.s.sembly. Freron, rendering himself the organ of the general indignation, exclaimed: "I demand that at last the earth be delivered from that monster, and that Fouquier be sent to h.e.l.l, there to wallow in the blood he has shed." His proposition was applauded, and Fouquier's accusation decreed. Barrere, however, did not regard himself as defeated; he still retained toward the convention the imperious language which the old committee had made use of with success; this was at once habit and calculation on his part; for he well knew that nothing is so easily continued as that which has been successful.

But the political tergiversations of Barrere, a man of n.o.ble birth, and who was a royalist Feuillant before the 10th of August, did not countenance his a.s.suming this imperious and inflexible tone. "Who is this president of the Feuillants," said Merlin de Thionville, "who a.s.sumes to dictate to us the law?" The hall resounded with applause. Barrere became confused, left the tribune, and this first check of the committees indicated their decline in the convention. The revolutionary tribunal continued to exist, but with other members and another organization. The law of the 22nd Prairial was abolished, and there were now as much deliberation and moderation, as many protecting forms in trials, as before there had been precipitation and inhumanity. This tribunal was no longer made use of against persons formerly suspected, who were still detained in prison, though under milder treatment, and who, by degrees, were restored to liberty on the plan proposed by Camille Desmoulins for his Committee of Clemency.

On the 13th of Thermidor the government itself became the subject of discussion. The committee of public safety was deficient in many members; Herault de Sech.e.l.les had never been replaced; Jean-Bon-Saint-Andre and Prieur de la Marne were on missions; Robespierre, Couthon, and Saint-Just had perished on the scaffold. In the places of these were appointed Tallien, Breard, Echa.s.seriaux, Treilhard, Thuriot, and Laloi, whose accession lessened still more the influence of the old members. At the same time, were reorganized the two committees, so as to render them more dependent on the a.s.sembly, and less so on one another. The committee of public safety was charged with military and diplomatic operations; that of general safety with internal administration. As it was desired, by limiting the revolutionary power, to calm the fever which had excited the mult.i.tude; and gradually to disperse them, the daily meetings of the sections were reduced to one in every ten days; and the pay of forty sous a day, lately given to every indigent citizen who attended them, was discontinued.

These measures being carried into effect, on the 11th of Fructidor, one month after the death of Robespierre, Lecointre of Versailles denounced Billaud, Collot, Barrere, of the committee of public safety; and Vadier, Amar, and Vouland, of the committee of general safety. The evening before, Tallien had vehemently a.s.sailed the reign of terror, and Lecointre was.

encouraged to his attack by the sensation which Tallien's speech had produced. He brought twenty-three charges against the accused; he imputed to them all the measures of cruelty or tyranny which they threw on the triumvirs, and called them the successors of Robespierre. This denunciation agitated the a.s.sembly, and more especially those who supported the committees, or who wished that divisions might cease in the republic. "If the crimes Lecointre reproaches us with were proved," said Billaud-Varennes--"if they were as real as they are absurd and chimerical, there is, doubtless, not one of us but would deserve to lose his head on the scaffold. But I defy Lecointre to prove, by doc.u.ments or any evidence worthy of belief, any of the facts he has charged us with." He repelled the charges brought against him by Lecointre; he reproached his enemies with being corrupt and intriguing men, who wished to sacrifice him to the memory of Danton, _an odious conspirator, the hope of all parricidal factions_. "What seek these men," he continued--"what seek these men who call us the successors of Robespierre? Citizens, know you what they seek?

To destroy liberty on the tomb of the tyrant." Lecointre's denunciation was premature; almost all the convention p.r.o.nounced it calumnious. The accused and their friends gave way to outbursts of unrestrained and still powerful indignation, for they were now attacked for the first time; the accuser, scarcely supported by any one, was silenced. Billaud-Varennes and his friends triumphed for the time.

A few days after, the period for renewing a third of the committee arrived. The following members were fixed on by lot to retire: Barrere, Carnot, Robert Lindet, in the committee of public safety; Vadier, Vouland, Moise Baile in the committee of general safety. They were replaced by Thermidorians; and Collot-d'Herbois, as well as Billaud-Varennes, finding themselves too weak, resigned. Another circ.u.mstance contributed still more to the fall of their party, by exciting public opinion against it; this was the publicity given to the crimes of Joseph Lebon and Carrier, two of the proconsuls of the committee. They had been sent, the one to Arras and to Cambrai, the frontier exposed to invasion; the other to Nantes, the limit of the Vendean war. They had signalized their mission by, beyond all others, displaying a cruelty and a caprice of tyranny, which are, however, generally found in those who are invested with supreme human power. Lebon, young and of a weak const.i.tution, was naturally mild. On a first mission, he had been humane; but he was censured for this by the committee, and sent to Arras, with orders to show himself _somewhat more revolutionary_.

Not to fall short of the inexorable policy of the committee, he gave way to unheard of excesses; he mingled debauchery with extermination; he had the guillotine always in his presence, and called it holy. He a.s.sociated with the executioner, and admitted him to his table. Carrier, having more victims to strike, surpa.s.sed even Lebon; he was bilious, fanatical, and naturally blood-thirsty. He had only awaited the opportunity to execute enormities that the imagination even of Marat would not have dared to conceive. Sent to the borders of an insurgent country, he condemned to death the whole hostile population--priests, women, children, old men, and girls. As the scaffold did not suffice for his cruelty, he subst.i.tuted a company of a.s.sa.s.sins, called Marat's company, for the revolutionary tribune, and, for the guillotine, boats, with false bottoms, by means of which he drowned his victims in the Loire. Cries of vengeance and justice were raised against these enormities. After the 9th of Thermidor, Lebon was attacked first, because he was more especially the agent of Robespierre. Carrier, who was that of the committee of public safety, and of whose conduct Robespierre had disapproved, was prosecuted subsequently.

There were in the prisons of Paris ninety-four people of Nantes, sincerely attached to the revolution, and who had defended their town with courage during the attack made on it by the Vendeans. Carrier had sent them to Paris as federalists. It had not been deemed safe to bring them before the revolutionary tribunal until the ninth of Thermidor; they were then taken there for the purpose of unmasking, by their trial, the crimes of Carrier.

They were tried purposely with prolonged solemnity; their trial lasted nearly a month; there was time given for public opinion to declare itself; and on their acquittal, there was a general demand for justice on the revolutionary committee of Nantes, and on the proconsul Carrier. Legendre renewed Lecointre's impeachment of Billaud, Barrere, Collot, and Vadier, who were generously defended by Carnot, Prieur, and Cambon, their former colleagues, who demanded to share their fate. Lecointre's motion was not attended with any result; and, for the present, they only brought to trial the members of the revolutionary committee of Nantes; but we may observe the progress of the Thermidorian party. This time the members of the committee were obliged to have recourse to defence, and the convention simply pa.s.sed to the order of the day, on the question of the denunciation made by Legendre, without voting it calumnious, as they had done that of Lecointre.

The revolutionary democrats were, however, still very powerful in Paris: if they had lost the commune, the tribunal, the convention, and the committee, they yet retained the Jacobins and the faubourgs. It was in these popular societies that their party concentrated, especially for the purpose of defending themselves. Carrier attended them a.s.siduously, and invoked their a.s.sistance; Billaud-Varennes, and Collot-d'Herbois also resorted to them; but these being somewhat less threatened were circ.u.mspect. They were accordingly censured for their silence. "_The lion sleeps_," replied Billaud-Varennes, "_but his waking will be terrible_."

This club had been expurgated after the 10th Thermidor, and it had congratulated the convention in the name of the regenerated societies, on the fall of Robespierre and of tyranny. About this time, as many of its leaders were proceeded against, and many Jacobins were imprisoned in the departments, it came in the name of the united societies "_to give utterance to the cry of grief that resounded from every part of the republic, and to the voice of oppressed patriots, plunged in the dungeons which the aristocrats had just left_."

The convention, far from yielding to the Jacobins, prohibited, for the purpose of destroying their influence, all collective pet.i.tions, branch- a.s.sociations, correspondence, etc., between the parent society and its off-sets, and in this way disorganized the famous confederation of the clubs. The Jacobins, rejected from the convention, began to agitate Paris, where they were still masters. Then the Thermidorians also began to convoke their people, by appealing to the support of the sections. At the same time Freron called the young men at arms, in his journal _l'Orateur du Peuple_, and placed himself at their head. This new and irregular militia called itself _La jeunesse doree de Freron_. All those who composed it belonged to the rich and the middle cla.s.s; they had adopted a particular costume, called _Costume a la victime_. Instead of the blouse of the Jacobins, they wore a square open coat and very low shoes; the hair, long at the sides, was turned up behind, with tresses called _cadenettes_; they were armed with short sticks, leadened and formed like bludgeons. Some of these young men and some of the sectionaries were royalists; others followed the impulse of the moment, which was anti- revolutionary. The latter acted without object or ambition, declaring in favour of the strongest party, especially when the triumph of that party promised to restore order, the want of which was generally felt. The other contended under the Thermidorians against the old committees, as the Thermidorians had contended under the old committees against Robespierre; it waited for an opportunity of acting on its own account, which occurred after the entire downfall of the revolutionary party. In the violent situation of the two parties, actuated by fear and resentment, they pursued each other ruthlessly and often came to blows in the streets to the cry of "Vive la Montagne!" or "Vive la Convention!" The _jeunesse doree_ were powerful in the Palais Royal, where they were supported by the shopkeepers; but the Jacobins were the strongest in the garden of the Tuileries, which was near their club.

These quarrels became more animated every day; and Paris was transformed into a field of battle, where the fate of the parties was left to the decision of arms. This state of war and disorder would necessarily have an end; and since the parties had not the wisdom to come to an understanding, one or the other must inevitably carry the day. The Thermidorians were the growing party, and victory naturally fell to them. On the day following that on which Billaud had spoken of the _waking of the lion_ in the popular society, there was great agitation throughout Paris. It was wished to take the Jacobin club by a.s.sault. Men shouted in the streets--"The great Jacobin conspiracy! Outlaw the Jacobins!" At this period the revolutionary committee of Nantes were being tried. In their defence they pleaded that they had received from Carrier the sanguinary orders they had executed; which led the convention to enter into an examination of his conduct. Carrier was allowed to defend himself before the decree was pa.s.sed against him. He justified his cruelty by the cruelty of the Vendeans, and the maddening; fury of civil war. "When I acted," he said, "the air still seemed to resound with the civic songs of twenty thousand martyrs, who had shouted 'Vive la republique!' in the midst of tortures.

How could the voice of humanity, which had died in this terrible crisis, be heard? What would my adversaries have done in my place? I saved the republic at Nantes; my life has been devoted to my country, and I am ready to die for it." Out of five hundred voters, four hundred and ninety-eight were for the impeachment; the other two voted for it, but conditionally.

The Jacobins finding their opponents were going from subordinate agents to the representatives themselves, regarded themselves as lost. They endeavoured to rouse the mult.i.tude, less to defend Carrier than for the support of their party, which was threatened more and more. But they were kept in check by the _jeunesse doree_ and the sectionaries, who eventually proceeded to the place of their sittings to dissolve the club. A sharp conflict ensued. The besiegers broke the windows with stones, forced the doors, and dispersed the Jacobins after some resistance on their part. The latter complained to the convention of this violence. Rewbell, deputed to make a report on the subject, was not favourable to them. "Where was tyranny organized?" said he. "At the Jacobin club. Where had it its supports and its satellites? At the Jacobin club. Who covered France with mourning, threw families into despair, filled the republic with bastilles, made the republican system so odious, that a slave laden with fetters would have refused to live under it? The Jacobins. Who regret the terrible reign we have lived under? The Jacobins. If you have not courage to decide in a moment like this, the republic is at an end, because you have Jacobins." The convention suspended them provisionally, in order to expurgate and reorganize them, not daring to destroy them at once. The Jacobins, setting the decree at defiance, a.s.sembled in arms at their usual place of meeting; the Thermidorian troop who had already besieged them there, came again to a.s.sail them. It surrounded the club with cries of "Long live the convention! Down with the Jacobins!" The latter prepared for defence; they left their seats, shouting, "Long live the republic!"

rushed to the doors, and attempted a sortie. At first they made a few prisoners; but soon yielding to superior numbers, they submitted, and traversed the ranks of the victors, who, after disarming them, covered them with hisses, insults, and even blows. These illegal expeditions were accompanied by all the excesses which attend party struggles.

The next day commissioners of the convention came to close the club, and put seals on its registers and papers, and from that moment the society of the Jacobins ceased to exist. This popular body had powerfully served the revolution, when, in order to repel Europe, it was necessary to place the government in the mult.i.tude, and to give the republic all the energy of defence; but now it only obstructed the progress of the new order of things.

The situation of affairs was changed; liberty was to succeed the dictators.h.i.+p, now that the salvation of the revolution had been effected, and that it was necessary to revert to legal order, in order to preserve it. An exorbitant and extraordinary power, like the confederation of the clubs, would necessarily terminate with the defeat of the party which had supported it, and that party itself expire with the circ.u.mstances which had given it rise.

Carrier, brought before the revolutionary tribunal, was tried without interruption, and condemned with the majority of his accomplices. During the trial, the seventy-three deputies, whose protest against the 31st of May had excluded them from the a.s.semblies, were reinstated. Merlin de Douai moved their recall in the name of the committee of public safety; his motion was received with applause, and the seventy-three resumed their seats in the convention. The seventy-three, in their turn, tried to obtain the return of the outlawed deputies; but they met with warm opposition.

The Thermidorians and the members of the new committees feared that such a measure would be calling the revolution itself into question. They were also afraid of introducing a new party into the convention, already divided, and of recalling implacable enemies, who might cause, with regard to themselves, a reaction similar to that which had taken place against the old committees. Accordingly they vehemently opposed the motion, and Merlin de Douai went so far as to say: "Do you want to throw open the doors of the Temple?" The young son of Louis XVI. was confined there, and the Girondists, on account of the results of the 31st of May, were confounded with the Royalists; besides, the 31st of May still figured among the revolutionary dates beside the 10th of August and the 14th of July. The retrograde movement had yet some steps to take before it reached that period. The republican counter-revolution had turned back from the 9th Thermidor, 1794, to the 3rd of October, 1793, the day on which the seventy-three had been arrested, but not to the 2nd of June, 1793, when the twenty-two were arrested. After overthrowing Robespierre, and the committee, it had to attack Marat and the Mountain. In the almost geometrical progression of popular movement, a few months were still necessary to effect this.

They went on to abolish the decemviral system. The decree against the priests and n.o.bles, who had formed two proscribed cla.s.ses under the reign of terror, was revoked; the _maximum_ was abolished, in order to restore confidence by putting an end to commercial tyranny; the general and earnest effort was to subst.i.tute the most elevated liberty for the despotic pressure of the committee of public safety. This period was also marked by the independence of the press, the restoration of religious wors.h.i.+p, and the return of the property confiscated from the federalists during the reign of the committees.

Here was a complete reaction against the revolutionary government; it soon reached Marat and the Mountain. After the 9th of Thermidor, it had been considered necessary to oppose a great revolutionary reputation to that of Robespierre, and Marat had been selected for this purpose. To him were decreed the honours of the Pantheon, which Robespierre, while in power, had deferred granting him. He, in his turn, was now attacked. His bust was in the convention, the theatres, on the public squares, and in the popular a.s.semblies. The _jeunesse doree_ broke that in the Theatre Feydeau. The Mountain complained, but the convention decreed that no citizen could obtain the honours of the Pantheon, nor his bust be placed in the convention, until he had been dead ten years. The bust of Marat disappeared from the hall of the convention, and as the excitement was very great in the faubourgs, the sections, the usual support of the a.s.sembly, defiled through it. There was, also, opposite the Invalides, an elevated mound, a _Mountain_, surmounted by a colossal group, representing Hercules crus.h.i.+ng a hydra. The section of the Halle-au-ble demanded that this should be removed. The left of the a.s.sembly murmured. "The giant,"

said a member, "is an emblem of the people." "All I see in it is a mountain," replied another, "and what is a Mountain but an eternal protest against equality." These words were much applauded, and sufficed to carry the pet.i.tion and overthrow the monument of the victory and domination of a party.

Next were recalled the proscribed conventionalists; already, some time since, their outlawry had been reversed. Isnard and Louvet wrote to the a.s.sembly to be reinstated in their rights; they were met by the objection as to the consequences of the 31st of May, and the insurrections of the departments. "I will not," said Chenier, who spoke in their favour, "I will not so insult the national convention as to bring before them the phantom of federalism, which has been preposterously made the chief charge against your colleagues. They fled, it will be said; they hid themselves.

This, then, is their crime! would that this, for the welfare of the republic, had been the crime of all! Why were there not caverns deep enough to preserve to the country the meditations of Condorcet, the eloquence of Vergniaud? Why did not some hospitable land, on the 10th Thermidor, give back to light that colony of energetic patriots and virtuous republicans? But projects of vengeance are apprehended from these men, soured by misfortune. Taught in the school of suffering, they have learnt only to lament human errors. No, no, Condorcet, Rabaud-Saint- Etienne, Vergniaud, Camille Desmoulins seek not holocausts of blood; their manes are not to be appeased by hecatombs." The Left opposed Chenier's motion. "You are about," cried Bentabole, "to rouse every pa.s.sion; if you attack the insurrection of the 31st of May, you attack the eighty thousand men who concurred in it." "Let us take care," replied Sieyes, "not to confound the work of tyranny with that of principles. When men, supported by a subordinate authority, the rival of ours, succeeded in organizing the greatest of crimes, on the fatal 31st of May, and 2nd of June, it was not a work of patriotism, but an outrage of tyranny; from that time you have seen the convention domineered over, the majority oppressed, the minority dictating laws. The present session is divided into three distinct periods; till the 31st of May, there was oppression of the convention by the people; till the 9th Thermidor, oppression of the people by the convention, itself the object of tyranny; and lastly, since the 9th of Thermidor, justice, as regards the convention, has resumed its rights." He demanded the recall of the proscribed members, as a pledge of union in the a.s.sembly, and of security for the republic. Merlin de Douai immediately proposed their return in the name of the committee of public safety; it was granted, and after eighteen months' proscription, the twenty-two conventionalists resumed their seats; among them were Isnard, Louvet, Lanjuinais, Kervelegan, Henri La Riviere, La Reveillere-Lepaux, and Lesage, all that remained of the brilliant but unfortunate Gironde. They joined the moderate party, which was composed daily more and more of the remains of different parties. For old enemies, forgetting their resentments and their contest for domination, because they had now the same interests and the same object, became allies. It was the commencement of pacification between those who wished for a republic against the royalists, and a practicable const.i.tution, in opposition to the revolutionists. At this period all measures against the federalists were rescinded, and the Girondists a.s.sumed the lead of the republican counter- revolution.

The convention was, however, carried much too far by the partisans of reaction; in its desire to repair all and to punish all, it fell into excesses of justice. After the abolition of the decemviral regime, the past should have been buried in oblivion, and the revolutionary abyss closed after a few expiatory victims had been thrown into it. Security alone brings about pacification; and pacification only admits of liberty.

By again entering upon a course characterized by pa.s.sion, they only effected a transference of tyranny, violence, and calamity. Hitherto the bourgeoisie had been sacrificed to the mult.i.tude, to the consumers now it was just the reverse. Stock-jobbing was subst.i.tuted for the _maximum_, and informers of the middle cla.s.s altogether surpa.s.sed the popular informers.

All who had taken part in the dictatorial government were proceeded against with the fiercest determination. The sections, the seat of the middle cla.s.s, required the disarming and punishment of the members of their revolutionary committees, composed of sans-culottes. There was a general hue and cry against the _terrorists_, who increased in number daily. The departments denounced all the former proconsuls, thus rendering desperate a numerous party, in reality no longer to be feared, since it had lost all power, by thus threatening it with great and perpetual reprisals.

Dread of proscription, and several other reasons, disposed them for revolt. The general want was terrible. Labour and its produce had been diminished ever since the revolutionary period, during which the rich had been imprisoned and the poor had governed; the suppression of the _maximum_ had occasioned a violent crisis, which the traders and farmers turned to account, by disastrous monopoly and jobbing. To increase the difficulty, the a.s.signats were falling into discredit, and their value diminished daily. More than eight milliards worth of them had been issued.

The insecurity of this paper money, by reason of the revolutionary confiscations, which had depreciated the national property, the want of confidence on the part of the merchants, tradesmen, etc., in the stability of the revolutionary government, which they considered merely provisional, all this had combined to reduce the real value of the a.s.signats to one- fifteenth of their nominal value. They were received reluctantly, and specie was h.o.a.rded up with all the greater care, in proportion to the increasing demand for it, and the depreciation of paper money. The people, in want of food, and without the means of buying it, even when they held a.s.signats, were in utter distress. They attributed this to the merchants, the farmers, the landed and other proprietors, to the government, and dwelt with regret upon the fact that before, under the committee of public safety, they had enjoyed both power and food. The convention had indeed appointed a committee of subsistence to supply Paris with provisions, but this committee had great difficulty and expense in procuring from day to day the supply of fifteen hundred sacks of flour necessary to support this immense city; and the people, who waited in crowds for hours together before the bakers' shops, for the pound of bad bread, distributed to each inhabitant, were loud in their complaints, and violent in their murmurs.

They called Boissy d'Anglas, president of the committee of subsistence, _Boissy-Famine_. Such was the state of the fanatical and exasperated mult.i.tude, when its former leaders were brought to trial.

On the 12th Ventose, a short time after the return of the remaining Girondists, the a.s.sembly had decreed the arrest of Billaud-Varennes, Collot-d'Herbois, Barrere and Vadier. Their trial before the convention was appointed to commence on the 3rd Germinal. On the 1st (20th of March, 1795), the Decade day, and that on which the sections a.s.sembled, their partisans organized a riot to prevent their being brought to trial; the outer sections of the faubourgs Saint Antoine and Saint Marceau were devoted to their cause. From these quarters they proceeded, half pet.i.tioners, half insurgents, towards the convention, to demand bread, the const.i.tution of '93, and the liberation of the imprisoned patriots. They met a few young men on their way, whom they threw into the basins of the Tuileries. The news, however, soon spread that the convention was exposed to danger, and that the Jacobins were about to liberate their leaders, and the _jeunesse doree_, followed by about five thousand citizens of the inner sections, came, dispersed the men of the faubourgs, and acted as a guard for the a.s.sembly. The latter, warned by this new danger, revived, on the motion of Sieyes, the old martial law, under the name of _loi de grande police_.

This rising in favour of the accused having failed, they were brought before the convention on the 3rd Germinal. Vadier alone was contumacious.

Their conduct was investigated with the greatest solemnity; they were charged with having tyrannized over the people and oppressed the convention. Though proofs were not wanting to support this charge, the accused defended themselves with much address. They ascribed to Robespierre the oppression of the a.s.sembly, and of themselves; they endeavoured to palliate their own conduct by citing the measures taken by the committee, and adopted by the convention, by urging the excitement of the period, and the necessity of securing the defence and safety of the republic. Their former colleagues appeared as witnesses in their favour, and wished to make common cause with them. The _Cretois_ (the name then given to the remnant of the Mountain) also supported them warmly. Their trial had lasted nine days, and each sitting had been occupied by the prosecution and the defence. The sections of the faubourgs were greatly excited. The mobs which had collected every day since the 1st Germinal, increased twofold on the 12th, and a new rising took place, in order to suspend the trial, which the first rising had failed to prevent. The agitators, more numerous and bold on this occasion, forced their way through the guard of the convention, and entered the hall, having written with chalk on their hats the words, "Bread," "The const.i.tution of '93,"

"Liberty for the patriots." Many of the deputies of the _Crete_ declared in their favour; the other members, astounded at the tumult and disorder of this popular invasion, awaited the arrival of the inner sections for their deliverance. All debating was at an end. The tocsin, which had been removed from the commune after its defeat, and placed on the top of the Tuileries, where the convention sat, sounded the alarm. The committee ordered the drums to beat to arms. In a short time the citizens of the nearest sections a.s.sembled, marched in arms to a.s.sist the convention, and rescued it a second time. It sentenced the accused, whose cause was the pretext for this rising, to transportation, and decreed the arrest of seventeen members of the _Crete_ who had favoured the insurgents, and might therefore be regarded as their accomplices. Among these were Cambon, Ruamps, Leonard Bourdon, Thuriot, Chasle, Amar, and Lecointre, who, since the recall of the Girondists, had returned to the Mountain. On the following day they, and the persons sentenced to transportation, were conveyed to the castle of Ham.

The events of the 12th of Germinal decided nothing. The faubourgs had been repulsed, but not conquered; and both power and confidence must be taken from a party by a decisive defeat, before it is effectually destroyed.

After so many questions decided against the democratists, there still remained one of the utmost importance--the const.i.tution. On this depended the ascendancy of the mult.i.tude or of the bourgeoisie. The supporters of the revolutionary government then fell back on the democratic const.i.tution of '93, which presented to them the means of resuming the authority they had lost. Their opponents, on the other hand, endeavoured to replace it by a const.i.tution which would secure all the advantage to them, by concentrating the government a little more, and giving it to the middle cla.s.s. For a month, both parties were preparing for this last contest. The const.i.tution of 1793, having been sanctioned by the people, enjoyed a great prestige. It was accordingly attacked with infinite precaution. At first its a.s.sailants engaged to carry it into execution without restriction; next they appointed a commission of eleven members to prepare the _lois organiques_, which were to render it practicable; by and by, they ventured to suggest objections to it on the ground that it distributed power too loosely, and only recognised one a.s.sembly dependent on the people, even in its measures of legislation. At last, a deputation of the sectionaries went so far as to call the const.i.tution of '93 a decemviral const.i.tution, dictated by terror. All its partisans, at once indignant and filled with fears, organized an insurrection to maintain it.

This was another 31st of May, as terrible as the first, but which, not having the support of an all-powerful commune, not being directed by a general commandant, and not having a terrified convention and submissive sections to deal with, had not the same result.

The conspirators, warned by the failure of the risings of the 1st and 12th Germinal, omitted nothing to make up for their want of direct object and of organization. On the 1st Prairial (20th of May) in the name of the people, insurgent for the purpose of obtaining bread and their rights, they decreed the abolition of the revolutionary government, the establishment of the democratic const.i.tution of '93, the dismissal and arrest of the members of the existing government, the liberation of the patriots, the convocation of the primary a.s.semblies on the 25th Prairial, the convocation of the legislative a.s.sembly, destined to replace the convention, on the 25th Messidor, and the suspension of all authority not emanating from the people. They determined on forming a new munic.i.p.ality, to serve as a common centre; to seize on the barriers, telegraph, cannon, tocsins, drums, and not to rest till they had secured repose, happiness, liberty, and means of subsistence for all the French nation. They invited the artillery, gendarmes, horse and foot soldiers, to join the banners of the people, and marched on the convention.

Meantime, the latter was deliberating on the means of preventing the insurrection. The daily a.s.semblages occasioned by the distribution of bread and the popular excitement, had concealed from it the preparations for a great rising, and it had taken no steps to prevent it. The committees came in all haste to apprise it of its danger; it immediately declared its sitting permanent, voted Paris responsible for the safety of the representatives of the republic, closed its doors, outlawed all the leaders of the mob, summoned the citizens of the sections to arms, and appointed as their leaders eight commissioners, among whom were Legendre, Henri La Riviere, Kervelegan, etc. These deputies had scarcely gone, when a loud noise was heard without. An outer door had been forced, and numbers of women rushed into the galleries, crying, "Bread and the const.i.tution of '93!" The convention received them firmly. "Your cries," said the president Vernier, "will not alter our position; they will not accelerate by one moment the arrival of supplies. They will only serve to hinder it."

A fearful tumult drowned the voice of the president, and interrupted the proceedings. The galleries were then cleared; but the insurgents of the faubourgs soon reached the inner doors, and finding them closed, forced them with hatchets and hammers, and then rushed in amidst the convention.