History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 Part 9

But what was much more important than personal attacks, were the discussions respecting the means of government, and the management of authorities and parties. The Girondists struck, not only against individuals but against the commune. Not one of their measures succeeded; they were badly proposed or badly sustained. They should have supported the government, replaced the munic.i.p.ality, maintained their post among the Jacobins and swayed them, gained over the mult.i.tude, or prevented its acting; and they did nothing of all this. One among them, Buzot, proposed giving the convention a guard of three thousand men, taken from the departments. This measure, which would at least have made the a.s.sembly independent, was not supported with sufficient vigour to be adopted. Thus the Girondists attacked the Mountain without weakening them, the commune without subduing it, the Faubourgs without suppressing them. They irritated Paris by invoking the aid of the departments, without procuring it; thus acting in opposition to the most common rules of prudence, for it is always safer to do a thing than to threaten to do it.

Their adversaries skilfully turned this circ.u.mstance to advantage. They secretly circulated a report which could not but compromise the Girondists; it was, that they wished to remove the republic to the south, and give up the rest of the empire. Then commenced that reproach of federalism, which afterwards became so fatal. The Girondists disdained it because they did not see the consequences; but it necessarily gained credit in proportion as they became weak and their enemies became daring.

What had given rise to the report was the project of defending themselves behind the Loire, and removing the government to the south, if the north should be invaded and Paris taken, and the predilection they manifested for the provinces, and their indignation against the agitators of the capital. Nothing is more easy than to change the appearance of a measure by changing the period in which the measure was adopted, and discover in the disapprobation expressed at the irregular acts of a city, an intention to form the other cities of the state into a league against it.

Accordingly, the Girondists were pointed out to the mult.i.tude as federalists. While they denounced the commune, and accused Robespierre and Marat, the Mountain decreed _the unity and indivisibility of the republic_. This was a way of attacking them and bringing them into suspicion, although they themselves adhered so eagerly to these propositions that they seemed to regret not having made them.

But a circ.u.mstance, apparently unconnected with the disputes of these two parties, served still better the cause of the Mountain. Already emboldened by the unsuccessful attempts which had been directed against them, they only waited for an opportunity to become a.s.sailants in their turn. The convention was fatigued by these long discussions. Those members who were not interested in them, and even those of the two parties who were not in the first rank, felt the need of concord, and wished to see men occupy themselves with the republic. There was an apparent truce, and the attention of the a.s.sembly was directed for a moment to the new const.i.tution, which the Mountain caused it to abandon, in order to decide on the fate of the fallen prince. The leaders of the extreme Left were driven to this course by several motives: they did not want the Girondists, and the moderate members of the Plain, who directed the committee of the const.i.tution, the former by Petion, Condorcet, Brissot, Vergniaud, Gensonne, the others by Barrere, Sieyes, and Thomas Paine, to organize the republic. They would have established the system of the bourgeoisie, rendering it a little more democratic than that of 1791, while they themselves aspired at const.i.tuting the people. But they could only accomplish their end by power, and they could only obtain power by protracting the revolutionary state in France. Besides the necessity of preventing the establishment of legal order by a terrible coup d'etat, such as the condemnation of Louis XVI., which would arouse all pa.s.sions, rally round them the violent parties, by proving them to be the inflexible guardians of the republic, they hoped to expose the sentiments of the Girondists, who did not conceal their desire to save Louis XVI., and thus ruin them in the estimation of the mult.i.tude. There were, without a doubt, in this conjuncture, a great number of the Mountain, who, on this occasion, acted with the greatest sincerity and only as republicans, in whose eyes Louis XVI. appeared guilty with respect to the revolution; and a dethroned king was dangerous to a young democracy. But this party would have been more clement, had it not had to ruin the Gironde at the same time with Louis XVI.

For some time past, the public mind had been prepared for his trial. The Jacobin club resounded with invectives against him; the most injurious reports were circulated against his character; his condemnation was required for the firm establishment of liberty. The popular societies in the departments addressed pet.i.tions to the convention with the same object. The sections presented themselves at the bar of the a.s.sembly, and they carried through it, on litters, the men wounded on the 10th of August, who came to cry for vengeance on Louis Capet. They now only designated Louis XVI. by this name of the ancient chief of his race, thinking to subst.i.tute his t.i.tle of king by his family name.

Party motives and popular animosities combined against this unfortunate prince. Those who, two months before, would have repelled the idea of exposing him to any other punishment than that of dethronement, were stupefied; so quickly does man lose in moments of crisis the right to defend his opinions! The discovery of the iron chest especially increased the fanaticism of the mult.i.tude, and the weakness of the king's defenders.

After the 10th of August, there were found in the offices of the civil list doc.u.ments which proved the secret correspondence of Louis XVI. with the discontented princes, with the emigration, and with Europe. In a report, drawn up at the command of the legislative a.s.sembly, he was accused of intending to betray the state and overthrow the revolution. He was accused of having written, on the 16th April, 1791, to the bishop of Clermont, that if he regained his power he would restore the former government and the clergy to the state in which they previously were; of having afterwards proposed war, merely to hasten the approach of his deliverers; of having been in correspondence with men who wrote to him-- "War will compel all the powers to combine against the seditious and abandoned men who tyrannize over France, in order that their punishment may speedily serve as an example to all who shall be induced to trouble the peace of empires. You may rely on a hundred and fifty thousand men, Prussians, Austrians, and Imperialists, and on an army of twenty thousand emigrants;" of having been on terms with his brothers, whom his public measures had discountenanced: and, lastly, of having constantly opposed the revolution.

Fresh doc.u.ments were soon brought forward in support of this accusation.

In the Tuileries, behind a panel in the wainscot, there was a hole wrought in the wall, and closed by an iron door. This secret closet was pointed out by the minister, Roland, and there were discovered proofs of all the conspiracies and intrigues of the court against the revolution; projects with the popular leaders to strengthen the const.i.tutional power of the king, to restore the ancient regime and the aristocrats; the manoeuvres of Talon, the arrangements with Mirabeau, the proposition accepted by Bouille, under the const.i.tuent a.s.sembly, and some new plots under the legislative a.s.sembly. This discovery increased the exasperation against Louis XVI. Mirabeau's bust was broken by the Jacobins, and the convention covered the one which stood in the hall where it held its sittings.

For some time there had been a question in the a.s.sembly as to the trial of this prince, who, having been dethroned, could no longer be proceeded against. There was no tribunal empowered to p.r.o.nounce his sentence, no punishment which could be inflicted on him: accordingly, they plunged into false interpretations of the inviolability granted to Louis XVI., in order to condemn him legally. The greatest error of parties, next to being unjust, is the desire not to appear so. The committee of legislation, commissioned to draw up a report on the question as to whether Louis XVI.

could be tried, and whether he could be tried by the convention, decided in the affirmative. The deputy Mailhe opposed, in its name, the dogma of inviolability; but as this dogma had influenced the preceding epoch of the revolution, he contended that Louis XVI. was inviolable as king, but not as an individual. He maintained that the nation, unable to give up its guarantee respecting acts of power, had supplied the inviolability of the monarch by the responsibility of his ministers; and that, when Louis XVI.

had acted as a simple individual, his responsibility devolving on no one, he ceased to be inviolable. Thus Mailhe limited the const.i.tutional safeguard given to Louis XVI. to the acts of the king. He concluded that Louis XVI. could be tried, the dethronement not being a punishment, but a change of government; that he might be brought to trial, by virtue of the penal code relative to traitors and conspirators; that he could be tried by the convention, without observing the process of other tribunals, because, the convention representing the people--the people including all interests, and all interests const.i.tuting justice--it was impossible that the national tribunal could violate justice, and that, consequently, it was useless to subject it to forms. Such was the chain of sophistry, by means of which the committee transformed the convention into a tribunal.

Robespierre's party showed itself much more consistent, dwelling only on state reasons, and rejecting forms as deceptive.

The discussion commenced on the 13th of November, six days after the report of the committee. The partisans of inviolability, while they considered Louis XVI. guilty, maintained that he could not be tried. The princ.i.p.al of these was Morrison. He said, that inviolability was general; that the const.i.tution had antic.i.p.ated more than secret hostility on the part of Louis XVI., an open attack, and even in that case had only p.r.o.nounced his deposition; that in this respect the nation had pledged its sovereignty; that the mission of the convention was to change the government, not to judge Louis XVI.; that, restrained by the rules of justice, it was so also by the usages of war, which only permitted an enemy to be destroyed during the combat--after a victory, the law vindicates him; that, moreover, the republic had no interest in condemning Louis; that it ought to confine itself with respect to him, to measures of general safety, detain him prisoner, or banish him from France. This was the opinion of the Right of the convention. The Plain shared the opinion of the committee; but the Mountain repelled, at the same time, the inviolability and the trial of Louis XVI.

"Citizens," said Saint-Just, "I engage to prove that the opinion of Morrison, who maintains the king's inviolability, and that of the committee which requires his trial as a citizen, are equally false; I contend that we should judge the king as an enemy; that we have less to do with trying than with opposing him: that having no place in the contract which unites Frenchmen, the forms of the proceeding are not in civil law, but in the law of the right of nations; thus, all delay or reserve in this case are sheer acts of imprudence, and next to the imprudence which postpones the moment that should give us laws, the most fatal will be that which makes us temporize with the king." Reducing everything to considerations of enmity and policy, Saint-Just added, "The very men who are about to try Louis have a republic to establish: those who attach any importance to the just chastis.e.m.e.nt of a king, will never found a republic. Citizens, if the Roman people, after six hundred years of virtue and of hatred towards kings; if Great Britain after the death of Cromwell, saw kings restored in spite of its energy, what ought not good citizens, friends of liberty, to fear among us, when they see the axe tremble in your hands, and a people, from the first day of their freedom, respect the memory of their chains?"

This violent party, who wished to subst.i.tute a coup d'etat for a sentence, to follow no law, no form, but to strike Louis XVI. like a conquered prisoner, by making hostilities even survive victory, had but a very feeble majority in the convention; but without, it was strongly supported by the Jacobins and the commune. Notwithstanding the terror which it already inspired, its murderous suggestions were repelled by the convention; and the partisans of inviolability, in their turn, courageously a.s.serted reasons of public interest at the same time as rules of justice and humanity. They maintained that the same men could not be judges and legislators, the jury and the accusers. They desired also to impart to the rising republic the l.u.s.tre of great virtues, those of generosity and forgiveness; they wished to follow the example of the people of Rome, who acquired their freedom and retained it five hundred years, because they proved themselves magnanimous; because they banished the Tarquins instead of putting them to death. In a political view, they showed the consequences of the king's condemnation, as it would affect the anarchical party of the kingdom, rendering it still more insolent; and with regard to Europe, whose still neutral powers it would induce to join the coalition against the republic.

But Robespierre, who during this long debate displayed a daring and perseverance that presaged his power, appeared at the tribune to support Saint-Just, to reproach the convention with involving in doubt what the insurrection had decided, and with restoring, by sympathy and the publicity of a defence, the fallen royalist party. "The a.s.sembly," said Robespierre, "has involuntarily been led far away from the real question.

Here we have nothing to do with trial: Louis is not an accused man; you are not judges, you are, and can only be, statesmen. You have no sentence to p.r.o.nounce for or against a man, but you are called on to adopt a measure of public safety; to perform an act of national precaution. A dethroned king is only fit for two purposes, to disturb the tranquillity of the state, and shake its freedom, or to strengthen one or the other of them.

"Louis was king; the republic is founded; the famous question you are discussing is decided in these few words. Louis cannot be tried; he is already tried, he is condemned, or the republic is not absolved." He required that the convention should declare Louis XVI. a traitor towards the French, criminal towards humanity, and sentence him at once to death, by virtue of the insurrection.

The Mountain by these extreme propositions, by the popularity they attained without, rendered condemnation in a measure inevitable. By gaining an extraordinary advance on the other parties, it obliged them to follow it, though at a distance. The majority of the convention, composed in a large part of Girondists, who dared not p.r.o.nounce Louis XVI.

inviolable, and of the Plain, decided, on Petion's proposition, against the opinion of the fanatical Mountain and against that of the partisans of inviolability, that Louis XVI. should be tried by the convention. Robert Lindet then made, in the name of the commission of the twenty-one, his report respecting Louis XVI. The arraignment, setting forth the offences imputed to him, was drawn up, and the convention summoned the prisoner to its bar.

Louis had been confined in the Temple for four months. He was not at liberty, as the a.s.sembly at first wished him to be in a.s.signing him the Luxembourg for a residence. The suspicious commune guarded him closely; but, submissive to his destiny, prepared for everything, he manifested neither impatience, regret, nor indignation. He had only one servant about his person, Clery, who at the same time waited on his family. During the first months of his imprisonment, he was not separated from his family; and he still found solace in meeting them. He comforted and supported his two companions in misfortune, his wife and sister; he acted as preceptor to the young dauphin, and gave him the lessons of an unfortunate man, of a captive king. He read a great deal, and often turned to the History of England, by Hume; there he read of many dethroned kings, and one of them condemned by the people. Man always seeks destinies similar to his own.

But the consolation he found in the sight of his family did not last long; as soon as his trial was decided, he was separated from them. The commune wished to prevent the prisoners from concerting their justification; the surveillance it exercised over Louis XVI. became daily more minute and severe.

In this state of things, Santerre received the order to conduct Louis XVI.

to the bar of the convention. He repaired to the Temple, accompanied by the mayor, who communicated his mission to the king, and inquired if he was willing to descend. Louis hesitated a moment, then said: "This is another violence. I must yield!" and he decided on appearing before the convention; not objecting to it, as Charles I. had done with regard to his judges. "Representatives," said Barrere, when his approach was announced, "you are about to exercise the right of national justice. Let your att.i.tude be suited to your new functions;" and turning to the gallery, he added, "Citizens, remember the terrible silence which accompanied Louis on his return from Varennes; a silence which was the precursor of the trial of kings by nations." Louis XVI. appeared firm as he entered the hall, and he took a steady glance round the a.s.sembly. He was placed at the bar, and the president said to him in a voice of emotion: "Louis, the French nation accuses you. You are about to hear the charges of the indictment. Louis, be seated." A seat had been prepared for him; he sat in it. During a long examination, he displayed much calmness and presence of mind, he replied to each question appropriately, often in an affecting and triumphant manner. He repelled the reproaches addressed to him respecting his conduct before the 14th of July, reminding them that his authority was not then limited; before the journey to Varennes, by the decree of the const.i.tuent a.s.sembly, which had been satisfied with his replies; and after the 10th of August, by throwing all public acts on ministerial responsibility, and by denying all the secret measures which were personally attributed to him.

This denial did not, however, in the eyes of the convention, overthrow facts, proved for the most part by doc.u.ments written or signed by the hand of Louis XVI. himself; he made use of the natural right of every accused person. Thus he did not admit the existence of the iron chest, and the papers that were brought forward. Louis XVI. invoked a law of safety, which the convention did not admit, and the convention sought to protect itself from anti-revolutionary attempts, which Louis XVI. would not admit.

When Louis had returned to the Temple, the convention considered the request he had made for a defender. A few of the Mountain opposed the request in vain. The convention determined to allow him the services of a counsel. It was then that the venerable Malesherbes offered himself to the convention to defend Louis XVI. "Twice," he wrote, "have I been summoned to the council of him who was my master, at a time when that function was the object of ambition to every man; I owe him the same service now, when many consider it dangerous." His request was granted, Louis XVI. in his abandonment, was touched by this proof of devotion. When Malesherbes entered his room, he went towards him, pressed him in his arms, and said with tears:--"Your sacrifice is the more generous, since you endanger your own life without saving mine." Malesherbes and Tronchet toiled uninterruptedly at his defence, and a.s.sociated M. Deseze with them; they sought to reanimate the courage of the king, but they found the king little inclined to hope. "I am sure they will take my life; but no matter, let us attend to my trial as if I were about to gain it. In truth, I shall gain it, for I shall leave no stain on my memory."

At length the day for the defence arrived; it was delivered by M. Deseze; Louis was present. The profoundest silence pervaded the a.s.sembly and the galleries. M. Deseze availed himself of every consideration of justice and innocence in favour of the royal prisoner. He appealed to the inviolability which had been granted him; he a.s.serted that as king he could not be tried; that as accusers, the representatives of the people could not be his judges. In this he advanced nothing which had not already been maintained by one party of the a.s.sembly. But he chiefly strove to justify the conduct of Louis XVI. by ascribing to him intentions always pure and irreproachable. He concluded with these last and solemn words:-- "Listen, in antic.i.p.ation, to what History will say to Fame; Louis ascending the throne at twenty, presented an example of morals, justice, and economy; he had no weakness, no corrupting pa.s.sion: he was the constant friend of the people. Did the people desire the abolition of an oppressive tax? Louis abolished it: did the people desire the suppression of slavery? Louis suppressed it: did the people solicit reforms? he made them: did the people wish to change its laws? he consented to change them: did the people desire that millions of Frenchmen should be restored to their rights? he restored them: did the people wish for liberty? he gave it them. Men cannot deny to Louis the glory of having antic.i.p.ated the people by his sacrifices; and it is he whom it is proposed to slay.

Citizens, I will not continue, I leave it to History; remember, she will judge your sentence, and her judgment will be that of ages." But pa.s.sion proved deaf and incapable of foresight.

The Girondists wished to save Louis XVI., but they feared the imputation of royalism, which was already cast upon them by the Mountain. During the whole transaction, their conduct was rather equivocal; they dared not p.r.o.nounce themselves in favour of or against the accused; and their moderation ruined them without serving him. At that moment his cause, not only that of his throne, but of his life, was their own. They were about to determine, by an act of justice or by a coup d'etat, whether they should return to the legal regime, or prolong the revolutionary regime.

The triumph of the Girondists or of the Mountain was involved in one or the other of these solutions. The latter became exceedingly active. They pretended that, while following forms, men were forgetful of republican energy, and that the defence of Louis XVI. was a lecture on monarchy addressed to the nation. The Jacobins powerfully seconded them, and deputations came to the bar demanding the death of the king.

Yet the Girondists, who had not dared to maintain the question of inviolability, proposed a skilful way of saving Louis XVI. from death, by appealing from the sentence of the convention to the people. The extreme Right still protested against the erection of the a.s.sembly into a tribunal; but the competence of the a.s.sembly having been previously decided, all their efforts were turned in another direction. Salles proposed that the king should be p.r.o.nounced guilty, but that the application of the punishment should be left to the primary a.s.sembly.

Buzot, fearing that the convention would incur the reproach of weakness, thought that it ought to p.r.o.nounce the sentence, and submit the judgment it p.r.o.nounced to the decision of the people. This advice was vigorously opposed by the Mountain, and even by a great number of the more moderate members of the convention, who saw, in the convocation of the primary a.s.semblies, the germ of civil war.

The a.s.sembly had unanimously decided that Louis was guilty, when the appeal to the people was put to the question. Two hundred and eighty-four voices voted for, four hundred and twenty-four against it; ten declined voting. Then came the terrible question as to the nature of the punishment. Paris was in a state of the greatest excitement: deputies were threatened at the very door of the a.s.sembly; fresh excesses on the part of the populace were dreaded; the Jacobin clubs resounded with extravagant invectives against Louis XVI., and the Right. The Mountain, till then the weakest party in the convention, sought to obtain the majority by terror, determined, if it did not succeed, none the less to sacrifice Louis XVI.

Finally, after four hours of nominal appeal, the president, Vergniaud, said: "Citizens, I am about to proclaim the result of the scrutiny. When justice has spoken, humanity should have its turn." There were seven hundred and twenty-one voters. The actual majority was three hundred and sixty-one. The death of the king was decided by a majority of twenty-six votes. Opinions were very various: Girondists voted for his death, with a reservation, it is true; most of the members of the Right voted for imprisonment or exile; a few of the Mountain voted with the Girondists. As soon as the result was known, the president said, in a tone of grief: "In the name of the convention, I declare the punishment, to which it condemns Louis Capet, to be death." Those who had undertaken the defence appeared at the bar; they were deeply affected. They endeavoured to bring back the a.s.sembly to sentiments of compa.s.sion, in consideration of the small majority in favour of the sentence. But this subject had already been discussed and decided. "Laws are only made by a simple majority," said one of the Mountain. "Yes," replied a voice, "but laws may be revoked; you cannot restore the life of a man." Malesherbes wished to speak, but could not. Sobs prevented his utterance; he could only articulate a few indistinct words of entreaty. His grief moved the a.s.sembly. The request for a reprieve was received by the Girondists as a last resource; but this also failed them, and the fatal sentence was p.r.o.nounced.

Louis expected it. When Malesherbes came in tears to announce the sentence, he found him sitting in the dark, his elbows resting on a table, his face hid in his hands, and in profound meditation. At the noise of his entrance, Louis rose and said: "For two hours I have been trying to discover if, during my reign, I have deserved the slightest reproach from my subjects. Well, M. de Malesherbes, I swear to you, in the truth of my heart, as a man about to appear before G.o.d, that I have constantly sought the happiness of my people, and never indulged a wish opposed to it."

Malesherbes urged that a reprieve would not be rejected, but this Louis did not expect. As he saw Malesherbes go out, Louis begged him not to forsake him in his last moments; Malesherbes promised to return; but he came several times, and was never able to gain access to him. Louis asked for him frequently, and appeared distressed at not seeing him. He received without emotion the formal announcement of his sentence from the minister of justice. He asked three days to prepare to appear before G.o.d; and also to be allowed the services of a priest, and permission to communicate freely with his wife and children. Only the last two requests were granted.

The interview was a distressing scene to this desolate family; but the moment of separation was far more so. Louis, on parting with his family, promised to see them again the next day; but, on reaching his room, he felt that the trial would be too much, and, pacing up and down violently, he exclaimed, "I will not go!" This was his last struggle; the rest of his time was spent in preparing for death. The night before the execution he slept calmly. Clery awoke him, as he had been ordered, at five, and received his last instructions. He then communicated, commissioned Clery with his dying words, and all he was allowed to bequeath, a ring, a seal, and some hair. The drums were already beating, and the dull sound of travelling cannon, and of confused voices, might be heard. At length Santerre arrived. "You are come for me," said Louis; "I ask one moment."

He deposited his will in the hands of the munic.i.p.al officer, asked for his hat, and said, in a firm tone: "Let us go."

The carriage was an hour on its way from the Temple to the Place de la Revolution. A double row of soldiers lined the road; more than forty thousand men were under arms. Paris presented a gloomy aspect. The citizens present at the execution manifested neither applause nor regret; all were silent. On reaching the place of execution, Louis alighted from the carriage. He ascended the scaffold with a firm step, knelt to receive the benediction of the priest, who is recorded to have said, "Son of Saint Louis, ascend to heaven!" With some repugnance he submitted to the binding of his hands, and walked hastily to the left of the scaffold; "I die innocent," said he; "I forgive my enemies; and you, unfortunate people..."

Here, at a signal, the drums and trumpets drowned his voice, and the three executioners seized him. At ten minutes after ten he had ceased to live.

Thus perished, at the age of thirty-nine, after a reign of sixteen years and a half, spent in endeavouring to do good, the best but weakest of monarchs. His ancestors bequeathed to him a revolution. He was better calculated than any of them to prevent and terminate it; for he was capable of becoming a reformer-king before it broke out, or of becoming a const.i.tutional king afterwards. He is, perhaps, the only prince who, having no other pa.s.sion, had not that of power, and who united the two qualities which make good kings, fear of G.o.d and love of the people. He perished, the victim of pa.s.sions which he did not share; of those of the persons about him, to which he was a stranger, and to those of the mult.i.tude, which he had not excited. Few memories of kings are so commendable. History will say of him, that, with a little more strength of mind, he would have been an exemplary king.

CHAPTER VII

FROM THE 21ST OF JANUARY, 1793, TO THE 2ND OF JUNE

The death of Louis XVI. rendered the different parties irreconcilable, and increased the external enemies of the revolution. The republicans had to contend with all Europe, with several cla.s.ses of malcontents, and with themselves. But the Mountain, who then directed the popular movement, imagined that they were too far involved not to push matters to extremity.

To terrify the enemies of the revolution, to excite the fanaticism of the people by harangues, by the presence of danger, and by insurrections; to refer everything to it, both the government and the safety of the republic; to infuse into it the most ardent enthusiasm, in the name of liberty, equality, and fraternity; to keep it in this violent state of crisis for the purpose of making use of its pa.s.sions and its power; such was the plan of Danton and the Mountain, who had chosen him for their leader. It was he who augmented the popular effervescence by the growing dangers of the republic, and who, under the name of revolutionary government, established the despotism of the mult.i.tude, instead of legal liberty. Robespierre and Marat went even much further than he. They sought to erect into a permanent government what Danton considered as merely transitory. The latter was only a political chief, while the others were true sectarians; the first, more ambitious, the second, more fanatical.

The Mountain had, by the catastrophe of the 21st of January, gained a great victory over the Girondists, whose politics were much more moral than theirs, and who hoped to save the revolution, without staining it with blood. But their humanity, their spirit of justice, proved of no service, and even turned against them. They were accused of being the enemies of the people, because they opposed their excesses; of being the accomplices of the tyrant, because they had sought to save Louis XVI.; and of betraying the republic, because they recommended moderation. It was with these reproaches that the Mountain persecuted them with constant animosity in the bosom of the convention, from the 21st of January till the 31st of May and the 2nd of June. The Girondists were for a long time supported by the Centre, which sided with the Right against murder and anarchy, and with the Left for measures of public safety. This ma.s.s, which, properly speaking, formed the spirit of the convention, displayed some courage, and balanced the power of the Mountain and the Commune as long as it possessed those intrepid and eloquent Girondists, who carried with them to prison and to the scaffold all the generous resolutions of the a.s.sembly.

For a moment, union existed among the various parties of the a.s.sembly.

Lepelletier Saint Fargeau was stabbed by a retired member of the household guard, named Paris, for having voted the death of Louis XVI. The members of the convention, united by common danger, swore on his tomb to forget their enmities; but they soon revived them. Some of the murderers of September, whose punishment was desired by the more honourable republicans, were proceeded against at Meaux. The Mountain, apprehensive that their past conduct would be inquired into, and that their adversaries would take advantage of a condemnation to attack them more openly themselves, put a stop to these proceedings. This impunity further emboldened the leaders of the mult.i.tude; and Marat, who at that period had an incredible influence over the mult.i.tude, excited them to pillage the dealers, whom he accused of monopolizing provisions. He wrote and spoke violently, in his pamphlets and at the Jacobins, against the aristocracy of the burghers, merchants, and _statesmen_ (as he designated the Girondists), that is to say, against those who, in the a.s.sembly or the nation at large, still opposed the reign of the Sans-culottes and the Mountain. There was something frightful in the fanaticism and invincible obstinacy of these sectaries. The name given by them to the Girondists from the beginning of the convention, was that of Intrigants, on account of the ministerial and rather stealthy means with which they opposed in the departments the insolent and public conduct of the Jacobins.

Accordingly, they denounced them regularly in the club. "At Rome, an orator cried daily: 'Carthage must be destroyed!' well, let a Jacobin mount this tribune every day, and say these single words, 'The intrigants must be destroyed!' Who could withstand us? We oppose crime, and the ephemeral power of riches; but we have truth, justice, poverty, and virtue in our cause. With such arms, the Jacobins will soon have to say: 'We had only to pa.s.s on, they were already extinct.'" Marat, who was much more daring than Robespierre, whose hatred and projects still concealed themselves under certain forms, was the patron of all denouncers and lovers of anarchy. Several of the Mountain reproached him with compromising their cause by his extreme counsels, and by unseasonable excesses; but the entire Jacobin people supported him even against Robespierre, who rarely obtained the advantage in his disputes with him.

The pillage recommended in February, in _L'Ami du Peuple_, with respect to some dealers, "by way of example," took place, and Marat was denounced to the convention, who decreed his accusation after a stormy sitting. But this decree had no result, because the ordinary tribunals had no authority. This double effort of force on one side, and weakness on the other, took place in the month of February. More decisive events soon brought the Girondists to ruin.

Hitherto, the military position of France had been satisfactory. Dumouriez had just crowned the brilliant campaign of Argonne by the conquest of Belgium. After the retreat of the Prussians, he had repaired to Paris to concert measures for the invasion of the Austrian Netherlands. Returning to the army on the 20th of October, 1792, he began the attack on the 28th.

The plan attempted so inappropriately, with so little strength and success, at the commencement of the war, was resumed and executed with superior means. Dumouriez, at the head of the army of Belgium, forty thousand strong, advanced from Valenciennes upon Mons, supported on the right by the army of the Ardennes, amounting to about sixteen thousand men, under general Valence, who marched from Givet upon Namur; and on his left, by the army of the north, eighteen thousand strong, under general Labourdonnaie, who advanced from Lille upon Tournai. The Austrian army, posted before Mons, awaited battle in its intrenchments. Dumouriez completely defeated it; and the victory of Jemappes opened Belgium to the French, and again gave our arms the ascendancy in Europe. A victor on the 6th of November, Dumouriez entered Mons on the 7th, Brussels on the 14th, and Liege on the 28th. Valence took Namur, Labourdonnaie Antwerp; and by the middle of December, the invasion of the Netherlands was completely achieved. The French army, masters of the Meuse and the Scheldt, went into their winter quarters, after driving beyond the Roer the Austrians, whom they might have pushed beyond the Lower Rhine.

From this moment hostilities began between Dumouriez and the Jacobins. A decree of the convention, dated the 15th of September, abrogated the Belgian customs, and democratically organized that country. The Jacobins sent agents to Belgium to propagate revolutionary principles, and establish clubs on the model of the parent society; but the Flemings, who had received us with enthusiasm, became cool at the heavy demands made upon them, and at the general pillage and insupportable anarchy which the Jacobins brought with them. All the party that had opposed the Austrian army, and hoped to be free under the protection of France, found our rule too severe, and regretted having sought our aid, or supported us.

Dumouriez, who had projects of independence for the Flemings, and of ambition for himself, came to Paris to complain of this impolitic conduct with regard to the conquered countries. He changed his. .h.i.therto equivocal course; he had employed every means to keep on terms with the two factions; he had ranged himself under the banner of neither, hoping to make use of the Right through his friend Gensonne, and the Mountain through Danton and Lacroix, whilst he awed both by his victories. But in this second journey he tried to stop the Jacobins and save Louis XVI.; not having been able to attain his end, he returned to the army to begin the second campaign, very dissatisfied, and determined to make his new victories the means of suspending the revolution and changing its government.

This time all the frontiers of France were to be attacked by the European powers. The military successes of the revolution, and the catastrophe of the 21st of January, had made most of the undecided or neutral governments join the coalition.

The court of St. James', on learning the death of Louis XVI., dismissed the amba.s.sador Chauvelin, whom it had refused to acknowledge since the 10th of August and the dethronement of the king. The convention, finding England already leagued with the coalition, and consequently all its promises of neutrality vain and elusive, on the 1st of February, 1793, declared war against the king of Great Britain and the stadtholder of Holland, who had been entirely guided by the English cabinet since 1788.

England had hitherto preserved the appearances of neutrality, but it took advantage of this opportunity to appear on the scene of hostilities. For some time disposed for a rupture, Pitt employed all his resources, and in the s.p.a.ce of six months concluded seven treaties of alliance, and six treaties of subsidies. [Footnote: These treaties were as follows: the 4th March, articles between Great Britain and Hanover; 25th March, treaty of alliance at London between Russia and Great Britain; 10th April, treaty of subsidies with the landgrave of Hesse Ca.s.sel; 25th April, treaty of subsidies with Sardinia; 25th May, treaty of alliance at Madrid with Spain; 12th July, treaty of alliance with Naples, the kingdom of the Two Sicilies; 14th July, treaty of alliance at the camp before Mayence with Prussia; 30th August, treaty of alliance at London with the emperor; 21st September, treaty of subsidies with the margrave of Baden; 26th September, treaty of alliance at London with Portugal. By these treaties England gave considerable subsidies, more especially to Austria and Prussia.] England thus became the soul of the coalition against France; her fleets were ready to sail; the minister had obtained 3,200,000l. extraordinary, and Pitt designed to profit by our revolution by securing the preponderance of Great Britain, as Richelieu and Mazarin had taken advantage of the crisis in England in 1640, to establish the French domination in Europe. The court of St. James' was only influenced by motives of English interests; it desired at any cost to effect the consolidation of the aristocratical power at home, and the exclusive empire in the two Indies, and on the seas.

The court of St. James' then made the second levy of the coalition. Spain had just undergone a ministerial change; the famous G.o.doy, duke of Alcudia, afterwards Prince of the Peace, had been placed at the head of the government by means of an intrigue of England and the emigrants. This power came to a rupture with the republic, after having interceded in vain for Louis XVI., and made its neutrality the price of the life of the king.

The German empire entirely adopted the war; Bavaria, Suabia, and the elector palatine joined the hostile circles of the empire. Naples followed the example of the Holy See; and the only neutral powers were Venice, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, and Turkey. Russia was still engaged with the second part.i.tion of Poland.