lassitude, and others because the display they make adds to their
authority. "Dragged along in Carriages with six horses, surrounded by
guards, seated at sumptuous tables set for thirty persons, eating to
the sound of music along with a Cortege of actors, courtesans and
praetorians,"[32135] they impress the imagination with an idea of their
omnipotence, and people bow all the lower because they make a grand
show.--At Troyes, on the arrival of young Rousselin, cannon are
discharged as if for the entry of a prince. The entire population of
Nevers is called upon to honor the birth of Fouché's child; the civil
and military authorities pay their respects to him, and the National
Guards are under arms.[32136] At Lyons, "The imposing display of Collot
d'Herbois resembles that of the Grand Turk. It requires three successive
applications to obtain an audience; nobody approaches nearer than a
distance of fifteen feet; two sentinels with muskets stand on each
side of him, with their eyes fixed on the petitioners."[32137]--Less
menacing, but not less imposing, is the pomp which surrounds the
representatives at Bordeaux; to approach them, requires "a pass from the
captain of the guards,"[32138] through several squads of sentinels.
One of them, Ysabeau, who, after having guillotined to a considerable
extent, has become almost tractable, allows adulation, and, like a Duc
de Richelieu coming down from Versailles, tries to play the popular
potentate, with all the luxuries which the situation affords. At the
theaters, in his presence, they give a ballet in which shepherds form
with garlands of flowers the words "Ysabeau, Liberty, Equality." He
allows his portrait to pass from hand to hand, and condescendingly
smiles on the artist who inscribes these words at the bottom of
an engraving of the day: "An event which took place under Ysabeau,
representative of the people." "When he passes in the street people take
off their hats to him, cheer him, and shout 'Hurrah for Ysabeau! Hurrah
for the savior of Bordeaux, our friend and father!' The children of
aristocrats come and apostrophize him in this way, even at the doors
of his carriage; for he has a Carriage, and several of them, with
a coachman, horses, and the equipage of a former noble, gendarmes
preceding him everywhere, even on excursions into the country," where
his new courtiers call him "great man," and welcome him with "Asiatic
magnificence." There is good cheer at his table, "superb white bread,"
called "representatives' bread," whilst the country folk of the
neighborhood live on roots, and the inhabitants of Bordeaux can scarcely
obtain more than four ounces of musty bread per day.--There is the same
feasting with the representatives at Lyons, in the midst of similar
distress. In the reports made by Collot we find a list of bottles of
brandy at four francs each, along with partridges, capons, turkeys,
chickens, pike, and crawfish, note also the white bread, the other kind,
called "equality bread," assigned to simple mortals, offends this august
palate. Add to this the requisitions made by Albitte and Fouché, seven
hundred bottles of fine wine, in one lot, another of fifty pounds
of coffee, one hundred and sixty ells of muslin, three dozen silk
handkerchiefs for cravats, three dozen pairs of gloves, and four
dozen pairs of stockings: they provide themselves with a good
stock.[32139]--Among so many itinerant tyrants, the most audaciously
sensual is, I believe, Tallien, the Septembriseur at Paris and
guillotineur at Bordeaux, but still more rake and robber, caring mostly
for his palate and stomach. Son of the cook of a grand seignior, he is
doubtless swayed by family traditions: for his government is simply a
larder where, like the head-butler in "Gil Blas," he can eat and turn
the rest into money. At this moment, his principal favorite is Teresa
Cabarrus, a woman of society, or one of the demi-monde, whom he took
out of prison; he rides about the streets with her in an open carriage,
"with a courier behind and a courier in front," sometimes wearing the
red cap and holding a pike in her hand,[32140] thus exhibiting his
goddess to the people. And this is the sentiment which does him the most
credit; for, when the crisis comes, the imminent peril of his mistress
arouses his courage against Robespierre, and this pretty
woman, who is good-natured, begs him, not for murders, but for
pardons.[32141]--Others, as gallant as he is, but with less taste,
obtain recruits for their pleasures in a rude way, either as fast-livers
on the wing, or because fear subjects the honor of women to their
caprices, or because the public funds defray the expenses of their
guard-room habits. At Blois, for this kind of expenditure, Guimberteau
discharges his obligations by drafts on the proceeds of the
revolutionary tax.[32142] Carrier, at Nantes, appropriates to himself
the house and garden of a private person for "his seraglio"; the reader
may judge whether, on desiring to be a third party in the household, the
husband would make objections. At other times, in the hotel Henry IV.,
"with his friends and prostitutes brought under requisition, he has an
orgy;" he allows himself the same indulgence on the galiot during the
drownings; there at the end of a drunken frolic, he is regaled with
merry songs, for example, "la gamelle":[32143] he needs his amusements.
Some, who are shrewd, think of the more substantial and look out for
the future. Foremost among these is Tallien, the king of robbers, but
prodigal, whose pockets, full of holes, are only filled to be at once
emptied; Javogues, who makes the most of Montbrison; Rovère, who, for
eighty thousand francs in assignats, has an estate adjudged to him worth
five hundred thousand francs in coin; Fouché, who, in Nièvre, begins to
amass the twelve or fourteen millions which he secures later on;[32144]
and so many others, who were either ruined or impoverished previous to
the outbreak of the Revolution, and who are rich when it ends: Barras
with his domain of Gros Bois; André Dumont, with the Hotel de Plouy, its
magnificent furniture, and an estate worth four hundred thousand livres;
Merlin de Thionville, with his country-houses, equipages, and domain
of Mont-Valérien, and other domains; Salicetti, Reubell, Rousselin,
Chateauneuf-Randon, and the rest of the gluttonous and corrupted members
of the Directory. Without mentioning the taxes and confiscations of
which they render no account, they have, for their hoard, the ransoms
offered underhandedly by "suspects" and their families; what is more
convenient?[32145] And all the more, because the Committee of General
Security, even when informed, let things take their course: to prosecute
"Montagnards," would be "making the Revolution take a step backward."
One is bound to humor useful servants who have such hard work, like
that of the September killings, to do. Irregularities, as with these
September people, must be overlooked; it is necessary to allow them a
few perquisites and give them gratuities.[32146]
All this would not suffice to keep them at work if they had not been
held by an even greater attraction.--To the common run of civilized
men, the office of Septembriseur is at first disagreeable; but, after a
little practice, especially with a tyrannical nature, which, under cover
of the theory, or under the pretext of public safety, can satiate its
despotic instincts, all repugnance subsides. There is keen delight in
the exercise of absolute power; one is glad, every hour, to assert one's
omnipotence and prove it by some act, the most conclusive of all acts
being some act of destruction. The more complete, radical and prompt
the destruction is, the more conscious one is of one's strength. However
great the obstacle, one is not disposed to recede or stand still;
one breaks away all the barriers which men call good sense, humanity,
justice, and the satisfaction of breaking them down is great. To crush
and to subdue becomes voluptuous pleasure, to which pride gives keener
relish, affording a grateful incense of the holocaust which the despot
consumes on his own altar; at this daily sacrifice, he is both idol and
priest, offering up victims to himself that he may be conscious of his
divinity.--Such is Saint-Just, all the more a despot because his title
of representative on mission is supported by his rank on the Committee
of Public Safety: to find natures strained to the same pitch as his, we
must leave the modern world and go back to a Caligula, or to a caliph
Hakem in Egypt in the tenth century.[32147] He also, like these two
monsters, but with different formulae, regards himself as a God, or
God's vicegerent on earth, invested with absolute power through Truth
incarnated in him, the representative of a mysterious, limitless and
supreme power, known as the People; to worthily represent this power,
it is essential to have a soul of steel.[32148] Such is the soul of
Saint-Just, and only that. All other sentiments merely serve to harden
it; all the metallic agencies that compose it--sensuality, vanity,
every vice, every species of ambition, all the frantic outbursts and
melancholy vaporings of his youth--are violently commingled and fused
together in the revolutionary mold, so that his soul may take the form
and rigidity of trenchant steel. Suppose this an animated blade, feeling
and willing in conformity with its temper and structure; it would
delight in being brandished, and would need to strike; such is the need
of Saint-Just. Taciturn, impassible, keeping people at a distance,
as imperious as if the entire will of the people and the majesty of
transcendent reason resided in his person, he seems to have reduced his
passions to the desire of dashing everything to atoms, and to creating
dismay. It may be said of him that, like the conquering Tartars, he
measures his self-attributed grandeur by what he fells; no other has so
extensively swept away fortunes, liberties and lives; no other has so
terrifically heightened the effect of his deeds by laconic speech and
the suddenness of the stroke. He orders the arrest and close confinement
of all former nobles, men and women, in the four departments, in
twenty-four hours; he orders the bourgeoisie of Strasbourg to pay over
nine millions in twenty-four hours; ten thousand persons in Strasbourg
must give up their shoes in twenty-four hours; random and immediate
discharges of musketry on the officers of the Rhine army--such are the
measures.[32149] So much the worse for the innocent; there is no time
to discern who they are; "a blind man hunting for a pin in a dust-heap
takes the whole heap."[32150]--And, whatever the order, even when it
cannot be executed, so much the worse for him to whom it is given, for
the captain who, directed by the representative to establish this or
that battery in a certain time, works all night with all his forces,
"with as many men as the place will hold."[32151] The battery not
being ready at the hour named, Saint-Just sends the captain to the
guillotine.--The sovereign having once given an order it cannot be
countermanded; to take back his words would be weakening himself;[32152]
in the service of omnipotence, pride is insatiable, and, to mollify it,
no barbaric act is too great.--The same appetite is visible in Collot
d'Herbois, who, no longer on the stage, plays before the town the
melo-dramatic tyrant with all becoming ostentation. One morning, at
Lyons, he directs the revolutionary Tribunal to arrest, examine and
sentence a youthful "suspect" before the day is over. "Towards six
o'clock,[32153] Collot being at table enjoying an orgy with prostitutes,
buffoons and executioners, eating and drinking to choice music, one of
the judges of the Tribunal enters; after the usual formalities, he is
led up to the Representative, and informs him that the young man had
been arrested and examined, and the strictest inquiries made concerning
him; he is found irreproachable and the Court decided to set him free.
Collot, without looking at the judge, raises his voice and says to him:
"I ordered you to punish that young man and I want him out of the way
before night. If the innocent are spared, too many of the guilty will
escape. Go."
The music and gaiety begin again, and in an hour the young man is
shot."--And so in most of the other pachalics; if any head mentally
condemned by the pacha escapes or does not fall soon enough, the latter
is indignant at the delays and forms of justice, also against the judges
and juries, often selected by himself. Javogues writes an insulting
letter to the commission of Feurs which has dared acquit two former
nobles. Laignelot, Lecarpentier, Michaud, Monestier, Lebon, dismiss,
recompose, or replace the commissions of Fontenoy, Saint-Malo, and
Perpignan, and the tribunals of Pau, Nîmes, and Arras, whose judgments
did not please them.[32154] Lebon, Bernard de Saintes, Dartigoyte and
Fouché re-arrest prisoners on the same charge, solemnly acquitted by
their own tribunals. Bô, Prieur de la Marne, and Lebon, send judges and
juries to prison that do not always vote death.[32155] Barras and Fréron
dispatch, from brigade to brigade, to the revolutionary Tribunal in
Paris, the public prosecutor and president of the revolutionary Tribunal
of Marseilles, for being indulgent to anti-revolutionaries, because, out
of five hundred and twenty-eight prisoners, they guillotined only
one hundred and sixty-two.[32156]--To contradict the infallible
Representative! That of itself is an offense. He owes it to himself to
punish those who are not docile, to re-arrest absolved delinquents, and
to support cruelty with cruelty.
When for a long time someone has been imbibing a strong and nauseating
drink, not only does the palate get accustomed, but it often acquires a
taste for it; it soon wants to have it stronger; finally, it swallows
it pure, completely raw, with no admixture or condiment to disguise its
repulsiveness--Such, to certain imaginations, is the spectacle of human
gore; after getting accustomed to it they take delight in seeing it.
Lequinio, Laignelot and Lebon invite the executioner to dine with
them;[32157] Monestier, "with his cut-throats, is going himself in
search of prisoners in the dungeons, so that he may accompany them to
the Tribunal and overwhelm them with charges, if they are disposed to
defend themselves; after their condemnation, he attends in uniform"
at their execution.[32158] Fouché, lorgnette in hand, looks out of his
window upon a butchery of two hundred and ten Lyonnese. Collot, Laporte
and Fouché feast together in a large company on the days when executions
by shooting takes place, and, at each discharge, stand up and cheer
lustily, waving their hats.[32159] At Toulon, Fréron, in person,
orders and sees executed, the first grand massacre on the Champ de
Mars.[32160]--On the Place d'Arras, M. de Vielfort, already tied and
stretched out on the plank, awaits the fall of the knife. Lebon appears
on the balcony of the theatre, makes a sign to the executioner to
stop, opens the newspaper, and, in a loud voice, reads off the recent
successes of the French armies; then, turning to the condemned man,
exclaims: "Go, wretch, and take the news of our victories to your
brethren."[32161] At Feurs, where the shootings take place at the house
of M. du Rosier, in the great avenue of the park, his daughter, quite a
young woman, advances in tears to Javogues, and asks for the release of
her husband. "Oh, yes, my dear," replies Javogues, "you shall have
him home to-morrow." In effect, the next day, her husband is shot, and
buried in the avenue.[32162]--It is evident that they get to liking
the business. Like their September predecessors, they find amusement in
murdering: people around them allude gaily to "the red theater" and "the
national razor." An aristocrat is said to be "putting his head at the
national window," and "he has put his head through the cathole."[32163]
They themselves have the style and humor of their trade. "To-morrow,
at seven o'clock," writes Hugues, "let the sacred guillotine be
erected!"--"The demoiselle guillotine," writes Lecarlier, "keeps
steadily agoing."[32164]--"The relatives and friends of emigrés and of
refractory priests," writes Lebon, "monopolize the guillotine.. .[32165]
Day before yesterday, the sister of the former Comte de Bethune sneezed
in the sack." Carrier loudly proclaims "the pleasure he has derived"
from seeing priests executed: "I never laughed in my life as I did at
the faces they made in dying."[32166] This is the extreme perversity
of human nature, that of a Domitian who watches the features of the
condemned, to see the effect of suffering, or, better still, that of the
savage who holds his sides with laughter at the aspect of a man being
impaled. And this delight of contemplating death throes, Carrier finds
it in the sufferings of children. Notwithstanding the remonstrances
of the revolutionary Tribunal and the entreaties of President
Phélippes-Tronjolly,[32167] he signs on the 29th of Frimaire, year II.,
a positive order to guillotine without trial twenty-seven persons, of
whom seven are women, and, among these, four sisters, Mesdemoiselles de
la Metayrie, one of these twenty-eight years old, another twenty-seven,
the third twenty-six, and the fourth seventeen. Two days before,
notwithstanding the remonstrances of the same tribunal and the
entreaties of the same president, he signed a positive order to
guillotine twenty-six artisans and farm-hands, among them two boys of
fourteen, and two of thirteen years of age. He was driven "in a cab to
the place of execution and he followed it up in detail. He could hear
one of the children of thirteen, already bound to the board, but too
small and having only the top of the head under the knife, ask the
executioner, "Will it hurt me much?" What the triangular blade fell
upon may be imagined! Carrier saw this with his own eyes, and whilst the
executioner, horrified at himself, died a few days after in consequence
of what he had done, Carrier put another in his place, began again and
continued operations.
*****
[Footnote 3201: Thibaudeau: "Mémoires," I., 47, 70.--Durand-Maillane,
"Mémoires," 183.--Vatel, "Charlotte Corday et les Girondins," II.,
269. Out of the seventy-six presidents of the convention eighteen
were guillotined, eight deported, twenty-two declared outlaws, six
incarcerated, three who committed suicide, and four who became insane,
in all sixty-one. All who served twice perished by a violent death.]
[Footnote 3202: Moniteur, XVIII., 38. (Speech by Amar, reporter, Oct.
3. '793.) "The apparently negative behavior of the minority in the
convention, since the 2nd of June, is a new plot hatched by Barbaroux."]
[Footnote 3203: Mortimer-Ternaux, VIII., 44. Election of Collot
d'Herbois as president by one hundred and fifty-one out of two hundred
and forty-one votes, June 13, 1793.-Moniteur, XVII., 366. Election of
Hérault-Sechelles as president by one hundred and sixty-five out of two
hundred and thirty-six votes, Aug. 3, 1793.]
[Footnote 3204: "The Revolution," vol. III., ch. I.--Mortimer-Ternaux,
VII., 435. (The three substitutes obtain, the first, nine votes, the
second, six votes, and the third, five votes.)]
[Footnote 3205: Marcelin Boudet, "Les conventionnels d' Auvergne," 206.]
[Footnote 3206: Le Marais or the Swamp (moderate party in the French
Revolution). SR.]
[Footnote 3207: Dussault: "Fragment pour servir a' l'histoire de la
convention."]
[Footnote 3208: Sainte-Beuve "causeries du Lundi," V., 216. (According
to the unpublished papers of Siéyès.)]
[Footnote 3209: Words of Michelet.]
[Footnote 3210: Moniteur, XX., 95, 135. (Sessions of Germinal II. in the
Convention and at the Jacobin club.)]
[Footnote 3211: Buchez et Roux, XXXII., 17. (Sessions of Ventôse 26,
year II. Speech of Robespierre.) "In what country has a powerful senate
ever sought in its own bosom for the betrayers of the common cause and
handed them over to the sword of the law? Who has ever furnished the
world with this spectacle? You, my fellow citizens."]
[Footnote 3212: Miot de Melito, "Mémoires," I. 44. Danton, at table in
the ministry of Foreign Affairs, remarked: "The Révolution, like Saturn,
eats its own children." As to Camille Desmoulins, "His melancholy
already indicated a presentiment of his fate; the few words he allowed
to escape him always turned on questions and observations concerning the
nature of punishment, inflicted on those condemned by the revolutionary
Tribunal and the best way of preparing oneself for that event and
enduring it."]
[Footnote 3213: Buchez et Roux, XXXIII., 363.357. (Police reports on the
deputies, Messidor 4, and following days.)--Vilate: "coups secrètes
de la Revolution du 9 et 10 Thermidor," a list designated by
Barère.--Denunciation by Lecointre. (2nd ed. p.13.)]
[Footnote 3214: Thibaudeau, I., 47. "Just as in ordinary times one tries
to elevate oneself, so does one strive in these times of calamity
to lower oneself and be forgotten, or atone for one's inferiority by
seeking to degrade oneself."]
[Footnote 3215: Madame Roland: "Mémoires," I., 23.]
[Footnote 3216: Archives Nationales, F.7, 31167. This set of papers
contains five hundred and thirty-seven police reports, especially those
of Nivôse, year II. The following is a sample Report of Nivôse 25, year
II. "Being on a deputation to the convention, some colleagues took me to
dine in the old Breteuil gardens, in a large room with a nice floor....
The bill-of-fare was called for, and I found that after having eaten a
ritz soup, some meat, a bottle of wine and two potatoes, I had spent, as
they told me, eight francs twelve sous, because I am not rich. 'Foutre!'
I say to them how much do the rich pay here?... It is well to state that
I saw some deputies come into this large hall, also former marquises,
counts and knights of the poniard of the ancient regime... but I confess
that I cannot remember the true names of these former nobles.... for
the devil himself could not recognize those bastards, disguised like
sans-culottes."]
[Footnote 3217: Buchez et Roux, XXVIII., 237, 308. (July 5 and 14,
1793.)--Moniteur, XIX., 716. (Ventôse 26, year II.) Danton secures the
passage of a decree "that nothing but prose shall be heard at the bar."
Nevertheless, after his execution, this sort of parade begins again.
On the 12th of Messidor, "a citizen admitted to the bar reads a poem
composed by him in honor of the success of our arms on the Sambre."
(Moniteur, XVI., 101.)]
[Footnote 3218: Moniteur, XVIII. 369, 397, 399, 420, 455, 469, 471, 479,
488, 492, 500, etc.--Mercier, "Le Nouveau Paris," II., 96.--Dauban,
"La Demagogie en 1793," 500, 505. (Articles by Prudhomme and Diurnal by
Beaulieu.)]
[Footnote 3219: Moniteur, XVIII., 420, 399.--"Ah, le bel oiseau," was
a song chosen for its symbolic and double meaning, one pastoral and the
other licentious.]
[Footnote 3220: De Goncourt, "La Societé française pendant la
Révolution," 418. (Article from" Pêre Duchesne ".)--Dauban, ibid., 506.
(Article by Prud'homme.) "Liberty on a seat of verdure, receives the
homage of republicans, male and female,... and then.... she turns and
bestows a benevolent regard on her friends."]
[Footnote 3221: Moniteur, XVIII., 399. Session of Brumaire 20, on motion
of Thuriot: "I move that the convention attends the temple of Reason to
sing the hymn to Liberty."--"The motion of Thuriot is decreed."]
[Footnote 3222: Mercier, ibid., 99. (Similar scenes in the churches of
St. Eustache and St. Gervais.)]
[Footnote 3223: Durand-Maillane, '"Mémoires," 182.--Gregoire,
"Mémoires," II., 34. On the 7th of November, 1793, in the great scene of
the abjurations, Grégoire alone resisted, declaring: "I remain a bishop;
I invoke freedom of worship." "Outcries burst forth to stifle my
voice the pitch of which I raised proportionately.... A demoniac scene
occurred, worthy of Milton.... I declare that in making this speech
I thought I was pronouncing sentence of death on myself." For several
days, emissaries were sent to him, either deputies or bandits, to
try and make him retract. On the 11th of November a placard posted
throughout Paris declared him responsible for the continuance of
fanaticism. "For about two years, I was almost the only one in Paris who
wore the ecclesiastical costume."]
[Footnote 3224: Moniteur, XVIII., 480. (Session of Brumaire 30.) N...."I
must make known the ceremony which took place here to-day. I move
that the speeches and details of this day be inserted in full in the
bulletin, and sent to all the departments." (Another deputy): "And
do not neglect to state that the Right was never so well furnished."
(Laughter and applause.)]
[Footnote 3225: Buchez et Roux, XXXII., 103. (Germinal 11.)--Moniteur,
XX., 124. (Germinal 15.) Decree for cutting short the defense of Danton
and his accused associates.]
[Footnote 3226: Moniteur, XX., 226. (Germinal 26. Report by Saint-Just
and decree on the police.)--Ibid., XIX., 54. (Report by Robespierre, and
decree on the principles of revolutionary government, Nivôse 5.)--Ibid.,
XX., 567, 589. Prairial 6, (Decree forbidding the imprisonment of any
Englishman or Hanoverian), and XXI., 13. (Messidor 16.)]
[Footnote 3227: Moniteur, XX., 544. After the effort of L'Admiral
against Collot d'Herbois, the latter appears in the tribune. "The
loudest applause greets him from all sides of the house."--Ibid., XXI.,
173. (Messidor 21.) On the report of Barère who praises the conduct of
Joseph Lebon, criticizing nothing but "somewhat harsh formalities," a
decree is passed to the order of the day, which is "adopted unanimously
with great applause."]
[Footnote 3228: Moniteur, XX., 698, 715, 716, 719. (Prairial 22 and
24.) After the speeches of Robespierre and Couthon "Loud and renewed
applause; the plaudits begin over again and are prolonged." Couthon,
having declared that the Committee of Public Safety was ready to resign,
"on all sides there were cries of No, No."--Ibid., XXI., 268. (Thermidor
2.) Eulogy of the revolutionary government by Barère and decree of the
police "unanimously adopted amidst the loudest applause."]
[Footnote 3229: Moniteur, XXI., 329.]
[Footnote 3230: Lafayette, "Mémoires," IV., 330. "At last came the 9th
of Thermidor. It was not due to people of common sense. Their terror was
so great that an estimable deputy, to whom one of his colleagues put
the question, no witness being present, 'how long must we endure this
tyranny?' was upset by it to such a degree as to denounce him."]
[Footnote 3231: Sainte-Beuve, "Causeries du Lundi," V., 209. (Siéyès'
unpublished papers.)--Moniteur, XVIII., 631, containing an example
of both the terror and style of the most eminent men, among others of
Fourcroy the celebrated chemist, then deputy, and later, Counselor of
State and Minister of Public Instruction. He is accused in the Jacobin
Club, Brumaire 18, year II., of not addressing the Convention often
enough, to which he replies: "After twenty years' devotion to the
practice of medicine I have succeeded in supporting my sans-culotte
father and my sans-culottes sisters.... As to the charge made by a
member that I have given most of my time to science. ... I have attended
the Lycée des Arts but three times, and then only for the purpose of
sans-culotteising it."]
[Footnote 3232: Michelet, (1798-1874), "Histoire de la Révolution," V.,
preface XXX (3rd ed.). "When I was young and looking for a job, I was
referred to an esteemed Review, to a well-known philanthropist, devoted
to education, to the people, and to the welfare of humanity. I found a
very small man of a melancholic, mild and tame aspect. We were in front
of the fire, on which he fixed his eyes without looking at me. He talked
a long time, in a didactic, monotonous tone of voice. I felt ill at ease
and sick at heart, and got away as soon as I could. It was this little
man, I afterwards learned, who hunted down the Girondists, and had them
guillotined, and which he accomplished at the age of twenty."--This
man's name was Julien de la Drôme. I (Taine) saw him once when quite
young. He is well known; first, through his correspondence, and next, by
his mother's diary. ("Journal d'une bourgeoise pendant la Revolution,"
ed. Locroy.)--We have a sketch of David ("La Demagogie à Paris en 1793,"
by Dauban, a fac-simile at the beginning of the volume), representing
Queen Marie Antoinette led to execution. Madame Julien was at a window
along with David looking at the funeral convoy, whilst he made the
drawing.--Madame Julien writes in her "Journal," September 3, 1792:
"To attain this end we must will the means. No barbarous humanity! The
people are aroused, the people are avenging the crimes of the past three
years."--Her son, a sort of raw, sentimental Puritan, fond of bloodshed,
was one of Robespierre's most active agents. He remembered what he had
done, as is evident by Michelet's narrative, and cast his eyes down,
well knowing that his present philanthropy could not annihilate past
acts.]
[Footnote 3233: Archives Nationales, AF. II., 46. Register of the Acts
of the Committee of Public Safety, vol. II., orders of August 3, 1793.]
[Footnote 3234: On the concentration and accumulation of business, cf.
Archives Nationales, ibid., acts of Aug. 4, 5, 6, 1793; and AF. II., 23,
acts of Brumaire I and 15, year II.--On the distribution and dispatch of
business in the Committee and the hours devoted to it, see Acts of
April 6, June 13, 17, 18, Aug. 3, 1793, and Germinal 27, year II.--After
August 3, two sessions were held daily, from 8 o'clock in the morning to
1 o'clock in the afternoon, and from 7 to 10 o'clock in the evening;
at 10 o'clock, the Executive Council met with the Committee of Public
Safety, and papers were signed about 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning.--The
files of AF. II., 23 to 42, contain an account of the doings of the
Committee, the minutes of its meetings and of its correspondence. A
perusal of these furnishes full details concerning the initiative and
responsibility of the Committee. For example, (Nivôse 4, year II.,
letters to Freron and Barras, at Marseilles,) "The Committee commend
the vigorous measures you have sanctioned in your orders at
Marseilles.--Marseilles, through you, affords a great example.
Accustomed, as you are, to wielding thunderbolts, you are best
calculated for still governing it... How glorious, citizen colleagues,
to be able like you, after long continued labors and immortal fame, how
gratifying, under such auspices, to return to the bosom of the National
Convention!"--(AF. II., 36, Pluviôse 7, year II., letter to the
representatives on mission at Bordeaux, approving of the orders issued
by them against merchants.) "concealed behind the obscurity of
its complots, mercantilism cannot support the ardent, invigorating
atmosphere of Liberty; Sybaritic indolence quails before Spartan virtue.
"--(AF. II., 37, Pluviôse 20, letter to Prieur de la Marne, sent
to Nantes to replace Carrier.) "Carrier, perhaps, has been badly
surrounded;.... his ways are harsh, the means he employs are not well
calculated to win respect for the national authority;... he is used up
in that city. He is to leave and go elsewhere."--(AF. II., 36, Nivôse
21, letter to Fouché, Laporte, and Albitte, at Commune-affranchie,
signed by Billaud-Varennes and composed by him.) "The convention, Nivôse
I, has approved of the orders and other measures taken by you. We can
add nothing to its approval. The Committee of Public Safety subjects all
operations to the same principles, that is to say, it conforms to yours
and acts with you."]
[Footnote 3235: Sainte-Beuve, "Nouveaux Lundis," VIII., 105.
(Unpublished report by Vice-admiral Villaret-Joyeuse, May 28, 1794.)]
[Footnote 3236: Carnot, "Mémoires," I., 107.]
[Footnote 3237: Ibid., I., 450, 523, 527, "we often ate only a morsel of
dry bread on the Committee's table."]
[Footnote 3238: Moniteur, XXI., 362. (Speech by Cambon, Session of
Thermidor 11, year II.)]
[Footnote 3239: Beugnot, "Mémoires," II., 15. (Stated by Jean Bon
himself in a conversation at Mayence in 1813.)]
[Footnote 3240: Gaudia, duc de Gaéte, "Mémoires," I., 16, 28. "I owed my
life to Cambon personally, while, through his firmness, he preserved
the whole Treasury department, continually attacked by the all-powerful
Jacobin club."--On the 8th of Thermidor, Robespierre was "very severe on
the administration of the Treasury, which he accused of an aristocratic
and anti-revolutionary spirit.... Under this pretext, it was known
that the orator meant to propose an act of accusation against the
representative charged with its surveillance, as well as against the six
commissioners, and bring them before the Revolutionary Tribunal, whose
verdict could not be doubtful."--Buchez et Roux, XXXIII., 431, 436, 441.
Speech by Robespierre, Thermidor 8, year II... ". Machiavellian
designs against the small fund-holders of the State.. .. A contemptible
financial system, wasteful, irritating, devouring, absolutely
independent of your supreme oversight.... Anti-revolution exists in the
financial department.... Who are its head administrators? Brissotins,
Feuillants, aristocrats and well-known knaves--the Cambons, the
Mallarmés, the Ramels!"]
[Footnote 3241: Carnot, "Mémoires," I., 425.]
[Footnote 3242: Moniteur, XXIV., 47, 50. (Session of Germinal 2, year
II.) Speeches by Lindet and Carnot with confirmatory details.--Lindet
says that he had signed twenty thousand papers.--Ibid., XXXIII., 591.
(Session of Ventôse 12, year III. Speech by Barère.) "The labor of the
Committee was divided amongst the different members composing it, but
all, without distinction, signed each other's work. I, myself, knowing
nothing of military affairs, have perhaps, in this matter, given four
thousand signatures."--Ibid., XXIV., 74. (Session of Germinal 6, year
III.) Speech of Lavesseur, witness of an animated scene between Carnot
and Robespierre concerning two of Carnot's clerks, arrested by order
of Robespierre.--Carnot adds "I had myself signed this order of arrest
without knowing it."--Ibid., XXII., 116. (Session of Vendémiaire 8, year
II., speech by Carnot in narrating the arrest of General Huchet for
his cruelties in Vendée.) On appearing before the committee of Public
Safety, Robespierre defended him and he was sent back to the army
and promoted to a higher rank; I was obliged to sign in spite of my
opposition."]
[Footnote 3243: Carnot, "Mémoires," I., 572. (Speech by Carnot, Germinal
2, year III.)]
[Footnote 3244: Sénart, "Mémoires," 145, 153. (Details on the members of
the two Committees.)]
[Footnote 3245: Reports by Billaud on the organization of the
revolutionary government, November 18, 1793 and on the theory of
democratic government, April 20, 1794.--Reports by Robespierre on the
political situation of the Republic, November 17, 1793; and on the
principles of revolutionary government, December 5, 1793.--Information
on the genius of revolutionary laws, signed principally by Robespierre
and Billaud, November 29, 1793.--Reports by Robespierre on the
principles of political morality which ought to govern the Convention,
February 5, 1794; and on the relationship between religious and moral
ideas and republican principles, May 7, 1794.]
[Footnote 3246: Billaud no longer goes on mission after he becomes one
of the Committee of Public Safety. Robespierre never went. Barère, who
is of daily service, is likewise retained at Paris.--All the others
serve on the missions and several repeatedly, and for a long time.]
[Footnote 3247: Moniteur, XXIV., 60. The words of Carnot, session of
Germinal 2, year III.--Ibid., XXII., 138, words of Collot, session
of Vendémiaire 12, year III. "Billaud and myself have sent into the
departments three hundred thousand written documents, and have made at
least ten thousand minutes (of meetings) with our own hand."]
[Footnote 3248: Dussault "Fragment pour servir à l'histoire de la
Convention."]
[Footnote 3249: Thibaudeau, I., 49.]
[Footnote 3250: Arnault, "Souvenirs d'un Sexagenaire," II., 78.]
[Footnote 3251: "Mémoires d'un Bourgeois de Paris," by Veron, II., 14.
(July 7, 1815.)]
[Footnote 3252: Cf. Thibaudeau, "Mémoires," I., 46. "It seemed, then,
that to escape imprisonment, or the scaffold, there was no other way
than to put others in your place."]
[Footnote 3253: Carnot, "Mémoires." I., 508.]
[Footnote 3254: Carnot, I., 527. (Words of Prieur de la Côte d'Or.)]
[Footnote 3255: Carnot, ibid., 527. (The words of Prieur.)]
[Footnote 3256: "La Nouvelle Minerve," I., 355, (Notes by
Billaud-Varennes, indited at St. Domingo and copied by Dr. Chervin.) "We
came to a decision only after being wearied out by the nightly meetings
of our Committee."]
[Footnote 3257: Decree of September 17, 1793, on "Suspects." Ordinance
of the Paris Commune, October 10, 1793, extending it so as to include
"those who, having done nothing against the Revolution, do nothing for
it."--Cf. "Papers seized in Robespierre's apartments," II., 370, letter
of Payan. "Every man who has not been for the Revolution has been
against it, for he has done nothing for the country.... In popular
commissions, individual humanity, the moderation which assumes the veil
of justice, is criminal."]
[Footnote 3258: Mortimer-Ternaux, VIII., 394, and following pages; 414
and following pages, (on the successive members of the two Committees).]
[Footnote 3259: Wallon, "Histoire du Tribunal Révolutionaire," III.,
129-131. Hérault de Sechelles, allied with Danton, and accused of
being indulgent, had just given guarantees, however, and applied the
revolutionary regime in Alsace with a severity worthy of Billaud.
(Archives des Affaires étrangères, vol. V., 141.) "Instructions for
civil commissioners by Hérault, representative of the people," (Colmar,
Frimaire 2, year II.,) with suggestions as to the categories of persons
that are to be "sought for, arrested and immediately put in jail,"
probably embracing nineteen-twentieths of the inhabitants.]
[Footnote 3260: Dauban, "Paris" en 1794, 285, and following pages.
(Police Reports, Germinal, year II.) Arrest of Hébert and associates
"Nothing was talked about the whole morning but the atrocious crimes of
the conspirators. They were regarded as a thousand times more criminal
than Capet and his wife. They ought to be punished a thousand times
over.... The popular hatred of Hébert is at its height... . The people
cannot forgive Hébert for having deceived them.... Popular rejoicings
were universal on seeing the conspirators led to the scaffold."]
[Footnote 3261: Moniteur, XXIV., 53. (Session of Germinal 2, year III.)
Words of Prieur de la Côte-d'Or: "The first quarrel that occurred in
the Committee was between Saint-Just and Carnot; the latter says to
the former, 'I see that you and Robespierre are after a
dictatorship.'"--Ibid., 74. Levasseur makes a similar statement.-Ibid.,
570. (Session of Germinal 2, year III., words of Carnot): "I had a right
to call Robespierre a tyrant every time I spoke to him. I did the same
with Saint-Just and Couthon."]
[Footnote 3262: Carnot, I., 525. (Testimony of Prieur.) Ibid., 522.
Saint-Just says to Carnot: "You are in league with the enemies of the
patriots. It is well for you to know that a few lines from me could send
you to the guillotine in two days."]
[Footnote 3263: Buchez et Roux, XXX., 185. (Reply of Billaud,
Collot, Vadier and Barère to the renewed charges against them by
Lecointre.)--Moniteur, XXIV., 84. (Session of Germinal 7, year III.)
Words of Barère: "On the 4th of Thermidor, in the Committee, Robespierre
speaks like a man who had orders to give and victims to point
out."--"And you, Barère," he replies, "remember the report you made on
the 2nd of Thermidor,"]
[Footnote 3264: Heraclitus ( c. 540-480 BC) pre-Socratic philosopher,
who believed in a cosmic justice where sinners would be punished and
haunted by the Erinyes, (the furies) the handmaids of justice. (SR).]
[Footnote 3265: Saint-Just, report on the Girondists, July 8, 1793; on
the necessity of imprisoning persons inimical to the Revolution, Feb.26,
1794; on the Hébertists, March 13; on the arrest of Herault-Séchelles
and Simond, March 17; on the arrest of Danton and associates March 31;
on a general policy, April 15.--Cf., likewise, his report on declaring
the government revolutionary until peace is declared, Oct. 10, 1793, and
his report of the 9th of Thermidor, year II.]
[Footnote 3266: Buchez et Roux, XXXI., 346. (Report of March 13,
1794.)--XXXII., 314. (Report of April 15.)]
[Footnote 3267: See "The Revolution," II., 313.]
[Footnote 3268: A single phrase often suffices to give the measure of
a man's intellect and character. The following by Saint-Just has this
merit. (Apropos of Louis XVI. who, refraining from defending himself,
left the Tuileries and took refuge in the Assembly on the 10th of
August.) "He came amongst you; he forced his way here.... He resorted to
the bosom of the legislature; his soldiers burst into the asylum.. .. He
made his way, so to say, by sword thrusts into the bowels of his country
that he might find a place of concealment."]
[Footnote 3269: Particularly in the long report on Danton containing a
historic survey of the factions, (Buchez et Roux, XXXII., 76,) and
the report on the general police, (Ibid., 304,) with another historic
document of the same order. "Brissot and Ronsin (were) recognized
royalists.. .. Since Necker a system of famine has been devised....
Necker had a hand in the Orleans faction.... Double representation (of
the Third Estate) was proposed for it." Among other charges made against
Danton; after the fusillade on the Champ de Mars in July, 1791 "You
went to pass happy days at Arcis-sur-Aube, if it is possible for a
conspirator against his country to be happy.... When you knew that the
tyrant's fall was prepared and inevitable you returned to Paris on the
9th of August. You wanted to go to bed on that evil night.... Hatred,
you said, is insupportable to me and (yet) you said to us 'I do not like
Marat,' etc." There is an apostrophe of nine consecutive pages against
Danton, who is absent.]
[Footnote 3270: Buchez et Roux, Ibid., 312. "Liberty emanated from the
bosom of tempests; its origin dates with that of the world issuing
out of chaos along with man, who is born dissolved in tears."
(Applause.)--Ibid., 308. Cf. his portrait, got up for effect, of the
"revolutionary who is a treasure of good sense and probity."]
[Footnote 3271: Ibid., 312. "Liberty is not the chicanery of a palace;
it is rigidity towards evil."]
[Footnote 3272: Barère, "Mémoires," I. 347. "Saint-Just... discussed
like a vizier."]
[Footnote 3273: Buchez et Roux, XXXII., 314. "Are the lessons furnished
by history, the examples afforded by all great men, lost to the
universe? These all counsel us to lead obscure lives; the lowly cot and
virtue form the grandeurs of this world. Let us seek our habitations on
the banks of streams, rock the cradles of our children and educate them
in Disinterestedness and Intrepidity."--As to his political or economic
capacity and general ideas, read his speeches and his "Institutions,"
(Buchez et Roux, XXVIII., 133; XXX., 305, XXXV., 369,) a mass of
chemical and abstract rant.]
[Footnote 3274: Carnot, I., 527. (Narrated by Prieur.) "Often when
hurriedly eating a bit of dry bread at the Committee table, Barère with
a jest, brought a smile on our lips."]
[Footnote 3275: Veron, II., 14.-Arnault, II., 74.--Cf., passim,
"Mémoires de Barère," and the essay on Barère by Macaulay.]
[Footnote 3276: Vilate, Barère Edition, 184, 186, 244. "Fickle, frank,
affectionate, fond of society, especially that of women, in quest of
luxuries and knowing how to spend money."--Carnot, II. 511. In Prieur's
eyes, Barère was simply "a good fellow."]
[Footnote 3277: Moniteur, XXI., 173. (Justification of Joseph Lebon
and "his somewhat harsh ways.") "The Revolution is to be spoken of
with respect, and revolutionary measures with due regard. Liberty is
a virgin, to raise whose veil is a crime."--And again: "The tree of
Liberty grows when watered with the blood of tyrants."]
[Footnote 3278: Moniteur, XX., 580, 582, 583, 587.--"Campagnes de la
Révolution Française dans les Pyrénées-Orientales," by Fervel, II., 36
and following pages.--General Dugommier, after the capture of Toulouse,
spared the English general O'Hara, taken prisoner in spite of the orders
of the Convention. and received the following letter from the committee
of Public Safety. "The Committee accepts your victory and your wound as
compensations." On the 24th of December, Dugommier, that he may not be
present at the Toulon massacres, asks to return to the convention and
is ordered off to the army of the eastern Pyrenees.--In 1797, there were
thirty thousand French prisoners in England.]
[Footnote 3279: Moniteur, XVIII., 291. (Speech by Barère, session of
Brumaire 8, year II.) At this rate, there are one hundred and forty
deputies on mission to the armies and in the departments.--Before the
institution of the Committee of Public Safety, (April 7, 1793) there
were one hundred and sixty representatives in the departments, sent
there to hasten the levy of two hundred thousand men. (Moniteur, XVII.,
99, speech by Cambon, July 11, 1793.) The Committee gradually recalled
most of these representatives and, on the 16th July, only sixty-three
were on mission.--(Ibid., XVII., 152, speech by Gossuin, July 16.)--On
the 9th of Nivôse, the committee designated fifty-eight representatives
to establish the revolutionary government in certain places and fixing
the limits of their jurisdictions. (Archives Nationales, AF., II.,
22.) Subsequently, several were recalled, and replaced by others.--The
letters and orders of the representatives on mission are filed in the
National Archives according to departments, in two series, one of which
comprises missions previous to Thermidor 9, and the other missions after
that date.]
[Footnote 3280: Thibaudeau, "Histoire du Terrorisme dans le department
de la Vienne," p.4. "Paris, Brumaire 15, the sans-culotte Piorry,
representative of the people to the sans-culottes composing the popular
club of Poitiers."]
[Footnote 3281: Archives Nationales, AF., II., 116. (Letter of
Laplanche, Orleans, September 10, 1793.--"Also procès-verbaux of the
Orleans sections, September 7.) "I organized them, after selecting them
from the popular club, into a revolutionary committee. They worked under
my own eye, their bureau being in an adjoining chamber... I
required sure, local information, which I could not have had without
collaborators of the country.... The result is that I have arrested this
night more than sixty aristocrats, strangers or 'suspects."--"De
Martel, Études sur Fouche," 84. Letter of Chaumette, who posted Fouché
concerning the Nevers Jacobins. "Surrounded by royalists, federalists
and fanatics, representative Fouché had only 3 or 4 persecuted patriots
to advise him."]
[Footnote 3282: Archives Nationales, AF., II., 88. Speech by Rousselin,
Frimaire 9--Ibid., F.7, 4421. Speech and orders issued by Rousselin,
Brumaire 25.--Cf.. Albert Babeau, "Histoire de Troyes pendant la
Revolution," vol. II. Missions of Gamier de Rousselin and Bô.]
[Footnote 3283: Archives Nationales, AF., II., 145. (Order of Maignet,
Avignon, Floreal 13, year II., and proclamation of Floréal 14.)--Ibid.,
AF., II., 111, Grenoble. Prairial 8, year II. Similar orders issued
by Albitte and Laporte, for renewing all the authorities of
Grenoble.--Ibid, AF., II., 135. Similar order of Ricord at Grasse,
Pluviôse 28, and throughout the Var.--Ibid., AF., II., 36. Brumaire,
year II., circular of the Committee of Public Safety to the
representatives on mission in the departments: "Before quitting
your post, you are to effect the most complete purification of the
constituted authorities and public functionaries."]
[Footnote 3284: Decrees of Frimaire 6 and 14, year II.]
[Footnote 3285: Archives Nationales, AF., II., 22. Acts of the committee
of Public Safety, Nivôse 9, year II.]
[Footnote 3286: Ibid., AF., II., 37. Letter to the Committee on the War,
signed by Barère and Billaud-Varennes, Pluviôse 23,, year II.]
[Footnote 3287: Ibid., AF., II., 36. Letter of the Committee of Public
Safety to Le Carpentier, on mission in l'Orne, Brumaire 19, year II.
"The administrative bodies of Alençon, the district excepted, are wholly
gangrened; all are Feuillants, or infected with a no less pernicious
spirit.... For the choice of subjects, and the incarceration of
individuals, you can refer to the sans-culottes: the most nervous are
Symaroli and Préval.--At Montagne, the administration must be
wholly removed, as well as the collector of the district, and the
post-master;... purify the popular club, expel nobles and limbs of the
law, those that have been turned out of office, priests, muscadins,
etc.... Dissolve two companies, one the grenadiers and the other the
infantry who are very muscadin and too fond of processions.... Re-form
the staff and officers of the National Guard. To secure more prompt
and surer execution of these measures of security you may refer to the
present municipality, the Committee of Surveillance and the Cannoneers.]
[Footnote 3288: Ibid., AF.,II., 37. To Ricord, on mission at Marseilles,
Pluviôse 7, year II, a strong and rude admonition: he is going soft, he
has gone to live with Saint-Même, a suspect; he is too biased in favor
of the Marseilles people who, during the siege "made sacrifices to
procure subsistences;" he blamed their arrest, etc.--Floréal 13, year
II., to Bouret on mission in the Manche and at Calvados. "The Committee
are under the impression that you are constantly deceived by an
insidious secretary who, by the bad information he has given you, has
often led you to give favorable terms to the aristocracy, etc."--Ventôse
6, year II., to Guimberteau, on mission near the army on the coasts
of Cherbourg: "The committee is astonished to find that the military
commission established by you, undoubtedly for striking off the heads of
conspirators, was the first to let them off. Are you not acquainted with
the men who compose it? For what have you chosen them? If you do not
know them, how does it happen that you have summoned them for such
duties?"--Ibid., and Ventôse 23, order to Guimberteau to investigate the
conduct of his secretary]
[Footnote 3289: See especially in the "Archives des Affaires
étrangères," vols. 324 to 334, the correspondence of secret agents sent
into the interior.]
[Footnote 3290: Archives Nationales, AF.,II., 37, to Fromcastel on
mission in Indre-et-Loire, Floréal 13, year II. "The Committee sends
you a letter from the people's club of Chinon, demanding the purging and
organization of all the constituted authorities of this district. The
committee requests you to proceed at once to carry out this important
measure."]
[Footnote 3291: Words of Robespierre, session of the convention
September 24, 1793.--On another representative, Merlin de Thionville,
who likewise stood fire, Robespierre wrote as follows: "Merlin de
Thionville, famous for surrendering Mayence, and more than suspected of
having received his reward."]
[Footnote 3292: Guillon, II., 207.--"Fouché," by M. de Martel, 292.]
[Footnote 3293: Hamel, III., 395, and following pages.--Buchez et Roux,
XXX., 435. (Session of the Jacobin club, Nivôse 12, year II. Speech of
Collot d'Herbois.) "To-day I no longer recognize public opinion; had I
reached Paris three days later, I should probably have been indicted."]
[Footnote 3294: Marcelin Boudet, "Les conventionnels d'Auvergne," 438.
(Unpublished memoir of Maignet.)]
[Footnote 3295: Buchez et Roux, XXXIV., 165, 191. (Evidence of witnesses
on the trial of Carrier.)--Paris, II., 113, "Histoire de Joseph Lebon."
"The prisons," says Le Bon, "overflowed at Saint-Pol. I was there and
released two hundred persons. Well, in spite of my orders, several were
put back by the committee of Surveillance, authorised by Lebas, a friend
of Darthé. What could I do against Darthé supported by Saint-Just and
Lebas? He would have denounced me."--Ibid., 128, apropos of a certain
Lefèvre, "veteran of the Revolution," arrested and brought before the
revolutionary tribunal by order of Lebon. "It was necessary to take the
choice of condemning him, or of being denounced and persecuted myself,
without saving him."--Beaulieu, "Essai," V., 233. "I am afraid and I
cause fear was the principle of all the revolutionary atrocities."]
[Footnote 3296: Ludovic Sciout, "Histoire de la Constitution civile
du Clergé," IV., 136. (Orders of Pinét and Cavaignac, Pluviôse 22, and
Ventôse 2.)--Moniteur, XXIV., 469. (Session of Prairial 30, year III.,
denunciation of representative Laplanche at the bar of the house, by
Boismartin.) On the 24th of Brumaire, year II., Laplanche and General
Seepher installed themselves at St. Lô in the house of an old man of
seventy, a M. Lemonnier then under arrest. "Scarcely had they entered
the house when they demanded provisions of every kind, linen, clothes,
furniture, jewelry, plate, vehicles and title-deeds--all disappeared."
Whilst the inhabitants of St. Lô were living on a few ounces of brown
bread, "the best bread, the choicest wines, pillaged in the house of
Lemonnier, were lavishly given in pans and kettles to General Seepher's
horses, also to those of representative Laplanche." Lemonnier, set at
liberty, could not return to his emptied dwelling then transformed into
a storehouse. He lived at the inn, stripped of all his possessions,
valued at sixty thousand livres, having saved from his effects only one
silver table-service, which he had taken with him into prison.]
[Footnote 3297: Marcelin Boudet, 446. (Notes of M. Ignace de Barante.)
Also 440. (Unpublished memoir of Maignet).]
[Footnote 3298: Archives Nationales, AF., II., 59. Extract from the
minutes of the meetings of the People's club of Metz, and depositions
made before the committee of Surveillance of the club, Floreal 12, year
II., on the conduct of representative Duquesnoy, arrived at Metz the
evening before at six o'clock.--There are thirty-two depositions, and
among others those of M. Altmayer, Joly and Clédat. One of the witnesses
states: "As to these matters, I regarded this citizen (Duquesnoy) as
tipsy or drunk, or as a man beside himself."--This is customary with
Duquesnoy.--Cf. Paris, "His. de Joseph Lebon," I., 273, 370.-"Archives
des Affaires étrangères," vol. 329. Letter of Gadolle, September
11, 1793. "I saw Duquesnoy, the deputy, dead drunk at Bergues, on
Whit-Monday, at 11 o'clock in the evening."--"Un Séjour en France, 1792
to 1796, p. 136. "His naturally savage temper is excited to madness by
the abuse of strong drink. General de .....assures us that he saw him
seize the mayor of Avesnes, a respectable old man, by the hair on his
presenting him with a petition relating to the town, and throw him down
with the air of a cannibal." "He and his brother were dealers in hops at
retail, at Saint Pol. He made this brother a general."]
[Footnote 3299: Alexandrine des Echerolles, "Une famile noble sous la
Terreur," 209. At Lyons, Marin, the commissioner, "a tall, powerful,
robust man with stentorian lungs," opens his court with a volley of
"republican oaths... ".. The crowd of supplicants melts away. One lady
alone dared present her petition. "Who are you?" She gives her name.
"What! You have the audacity to mention a traitor's name in this place?"
Get away and, giving her a push, he put her outside the door with a
kick.]
[Footnote 32100: Ibid. A mass of evidence proves, on the contrary, that
people of every class gave their assistance, owing to which the fire was
almost immediately extinguished.]
[Footnote 32101: Ibid. The popular club unanimously attests these facts,
and despatches six delegates to enter a protest at the convention. Up
to the 9th of Thermidor, no relief is granted, while the tax imposed
by Duquesnoy is collected. On the 5th Fructidor, year II., the order of
Duquesnoy is cancelled by the committee of Public Safety, but the money
is not paid back.]
[Footnote 32102: Paris, I., 370. (Words of Duquesnoy to Lebon.)]
[Footnote 32103: Carnot, "Mémoires," I., 414. (Letter of Duquesnoy to
the central bureau of representatives at Arras.) The import of these
untranslatable profanities being sufficiently clear I let them stand as
in the original.-Tr.]
[Footnote 32104: "Un Sejour en France," 158, 171.--Manuscript journal of
Mallet du Pan (January, 1795).--Cf. his letters to the convention, the
jokes of jailors and sbirri, for instance.--(Moniteur, XVIII., 214,
Brumaire I, year II.)--Lacretelle, "Dix Années d'Epreuves," 178. "He
ordered that everybody should dance in his fief of Picardy. They danced
even in prison. Whoever did not dance was "suspect." He insisted on a
rigid observance of the fêtes in honor of Reason, and that everybody
should visit the temple of the Goddess each decadi, which was the
cathedral (at Noyon). Ladies, bourgeoises, seamstresses, and cooks, were
required to form what was called the chain of Equality. We dragoons were
forced to be performers in this strange ballet."]
[Footnote 32105: De Martel, "Fouché," 418. (Orders of Albitte and
Collot, Nivôse 13, year II.)]
[Footnote 32106: Camille Boursier, "Essai sur la Terreur en Anjou,"
225. Letter of Vacheron, Frimaire 15, year II.) "Republiquain, it is
absolutely necessary, immediately, that you have sent or brought into
the house of the representatives, a lot of red wine, of which the
consumption is greater than ever. People have a right to drink to the
Republic when they have helped to preserve the commune you and yours
live in. I hold you responsible for my demand." Signed, "le republiquain,
Vacheron."]
[Footnote 32107: Ibid., 210. Deposition of Madame Edin, apropos of
Quesnoy, a prostitute, aged twenty-six, Brumaire 12, year III.; and of
Rose, another prostitute. Similar depositions by Benaben and Scotty.]
[Footnote 32108: Dauban, "La Demagogie en 1793," p.369. (Extracts from
the unpublished memoirs of Mercier de Rocher.)--Ibid., 370. "Bourdon de
l'Oise had lived with Tuncq at Chantonney, where they kept busy
emptying bottles of fine wine. Bourdon is an excellent patriot, a man
of sensibility, but, in his fits of intoxication, he gives himself up to
impracticable views. "Let those rascally administrators," he says,
"be arrested!" Then, going to the window,--he heard a runaway horse
galloping in the street--"That's another anti-revolutionary! Let 'em
all be arrested!"--Cf. "Souvenirs," by General Pélleport, p.21. At
Perpignan, he attended the fête of Reason. "The General in command of
the post made an impudent speech, even to the most repulsive cynicisim.
Some prostitutes, well known to this wretch, filled one of the tribunes;
they waved their handkerchiefs and shouted "Vive la Raison!" After
listening to similar harangues by representatives Soubrang and Michaud,
Pélleport, although half cured (of his wound) returns to camp: "I could
not breathe freely in town, and did not think that I was safe until
facing the enemy along with my comrades."]
[Footnote 32109: Archives des Affaires étrangères, vol.332;
correspondence of secret agents, October, 1793. "Citizen Cusset,
representative of the people, shows no dignity in his mission; he drinks
like a Lapithe, and when intoxicated commits the arbitrary acts of
a vizier." For the style and orthography of Cusset, see one of his
letters. (Dauban, "Paris en 1794," p 14.)--Berryat St. Prix, "La Justice
Révolutionnaire," (2nd ed.) 339.]
[Footnote 32110: Ibid., 371. (According to "Piecès et Documents"
published by M. Fajon.)--Moniteur, XXIV., 453. (Session of Floréal 24,
year III.) Address of the commune of Saint-Jean du Gard.--XXI., 528.
(Session of Fructidor 2, year III.) Address of the Popular club of
Nîmes.]
[Footnote 32111: Moniteur, XXIV., 602. (Session of Prairial 13, year
III.) Report of Durand Meillan: "This denunciation is only too well
supported by documents. It is for the convention to say whether it will
hear them read. I have to state beforehand that it can hear nothing more
repulsive nor better authenticated."--De Martel, "Fouché, 246. (Report
of the constituted authorities of la Nièvre on the missions of Collot
d'Herbois, Laplanche, Fouché and Pointe, Prairial 19, year III.)
Laplanche, a former Benedictine, is the most foul-mouthed." In his
speech to the people of Moulins-Engelbert, St. Pierre-le-Montier, and
Nevers, Laplanche asked girls to surrender themselves and let modesty
go. "Beget children," he exclaims, "the Republic needs them. continence
is the virtue of fools." Bibliotheque Nationale, Lb. 41, No. 1802.
(Denunciation, by the six sections of the Dijon commune to the
convention, of Leonard Bourdon and Piochefer Bernard de Saintes, during
their mission in Côte-d'Or.) Details on the orgies of Bernard with the
municipality, and on the drunkenness and debaucheries of Bourdon with
the riff-raff~ of the country; authentic documents proving the robberies
and assassinations committed by Bernard. He pillaged the house of
M. Micault, and, in four hours, had this person arrested, tried and
guillotined; he attended the execution himself, and that evening, in
the dead man's house, danced and sang before his daughter with his
acolytes.]
[Footnote 32112: "Souvenirs," by General Pélleport, p.8. He, with his
battalion, is inspected in the Place du Capitale, at Toulouse, by
the representative on mission. "It seems as if I can still see that
charlatan: He shook his ugly plumed head and dragged along his saber
like a merry soldier, wishing to appear brave. It made me feel sad."]
[Footnote 32113: Fervel, "Campagnes des Français dans les Pyrenees
Orientals," I., 169. (October, 1793.)--Ibid., 201, 206.--Cf. 188. Plan
of Fabre for seizing Roses and Figuières, with eight thousand men,
without provisions or transports. "Fortune is on the side of fools,"
he said. Naturally the scheme fails. Collioure is lost, and disasters
accumulate. As an offset to this the worthy general Dagobert is removed.
Commandant Delatre and chief-of-staff Ramel are guillotined. In the face
of the impracticable orders of the representatives the commandant
of artillery commits suicide. On the devotion of the officers and
enthusiasm of the troops, Ibid., 105, 106, 130, 131, 162.]
[Footnote 32114: Sybel (Dosquet's translation, French:), II.,
435; III., 132, 140. (For details and authorities, cf. the Memoirs of
Marshal Soult.)]
[Footnote 32115: Gouvion St. Cyr, "Mémoires sur les campagnes de 1792 à
la paix de Campio-Formio," I., pp.91 to 139.--Ibid., 229. "The effect
of this was to lead men who had any means to keep aloof from any sort
of promotion."--Cf., ibid., II., 131 (November, 1794,) the same order of
things still kept up. By order of the representatives the army encamps
during the winter in sheds on the left bank of the Rhine, near Mayence,
a useless proceeding and mere literary parade. "They would listen to no
reason; a fine army and well-mounted artillery were to perish with cold
and hunger, for no object whatever, in quarters that might have been
avoided." The details are heart-rending. Never was military heroism so
sacrificed to the folly of civilian commanders.]
[Footnote 32116: See Paris, "Histoire de Joseph Lebon," I., ch. I, for
biographical details and traits of character.]
[Footnote 32117: Ibid., I., 13.--His mother became crazy and was put in
an asylum. Her derangement, he says, was due to "her indignation at
his oath of allegiance (to the Republic) and at his appointment to the
curacy of Nouvelle-Vitasse."]
[Footnote 32118: Ibid., I., 123. Speech by Lebon in the church of
Beaurains.]
[Footnote 32119: Ibid., II., 71, 72.--Cf. 85. "Citizen Chamonart,
wine-dealer, standing at the entrance of his cellar, sees the
representative pass, looks at him and does not salute him. Lebon
steps up to him, arrests him, treats him as an agent of Pitt and
Cobourg."...."They search him, take his pocket-book and lead him off to
the Anglaises (a prison)."]
[Footnote 32120: Ibid., II., 84.]
[Footnote 32121: Moniteur, XXV., 201. (Session of Messidor 22, year
III.) "When in the tribune (of the Convention) prison conspiracies were
announced. ... my dreams were wholly of prison conspiracies."]
[Footnote 32122: Ibid., 211. (Explanations given by Lebon to the
Convention.)--Paris, II., 350, 351. (Verdict of the jury.)]
[Footnote 32123: Paris, II., 85.]
[Footnote 32124: Buchez et Roux, XXXIV., 181. (Depositions of Monneron,
a merchant.)]
[Footnote 32125: Ibid., 184. (Deposition of Chaux.)--Cf. 200.
(Depositions of Monneron and Villemain, merchants.)]
[Footnote 32126: Ibid., 204. (Deposition of Lamarie, administrator of
the department.)]
[Footnote 32127: Ibid., 173. (Deposition of Erard, a copyist.)--168.
(Deposition of Thomas, health officer.) "To all his questions, Carrier
replied in the grossest language."]
[Footnote 32128: Ibid., 203. (Deposition of Bonami, merchant.)]
[Footnote 32129: Ibid., 156. (Deposition of Vaujois, public prosecutor
to the military commission.)]
[Footnote 32130: Ibid., 169. (Deposition of Thomas.)--Berryat
Saint-Prix, pp. 34, 35..--Buchez et Roux, 118. "He received the members
of the popular club with blows, also the municipal officers with saber
thrusts, who came to demand supplies"...."He draws his saber (against
the boatman) and strikes at him, which he avoids only by running away."]
[Footnote 32131: Buchez et Roux, XXXIV., 196. (Deposition of Julien.)
"Carrier said to me in a passion: 'It is you, is it, you damned beggar,
who presumes to denounce me to the Committee of Public Safety.... As it
is sometimes necessary for the public interests to get rid of certain
folks quickly, I won't take the trouble to send you to the guillotine,
I'll be your executioner myself!"]
[Footnote 32132: Ibid., 175. (Deposition of Tronjolly.) 295.
(Depositions of Jean Lavigne, a shopkeeper; of Arnandan, civil
commissioner; also of Corneret, merchant.) 179. (Deposition of
Villemain).--Berryat Saint-Prix, 34. "Carrier, says the gendarme
Desquer, who carried his letters, was a roaring lion rather than an
officer of the people." "He looked at once like a charlatan and a
tiger," says another witness.]
[Footnote 32133: Ibid., XXXIV., 204. (Deposition of Lamarie.)]
[Footnote 32134: Ibid., 183. (Deposition of Caux.)]
[Footnote 32135: Mallet-Dupan, "Mémoires," II., 6. (Memorial of Feb. I,
1794.) On André Dumont, "Un Séjour en France," 158, 171.--On Merlin de
Thionville, Michelet, VI., 97.]
[Footnote 32136: De Martel, "Fouché" 100.]
[Footnote 32137: Mallet-Dupan, II., 46.]
[Footnote 32138: Buchez et Roux, XXXII., 413, 423. (Letter of Julien to
Robespierre.)]
[Footnote 32139: Archives Nationales, AF., II., III. An order issued
by Bourbotte, Tours, Messidor 5, year II., "requiring the district
administration to furnish him personally, as well as for the citizens
attached to his commission, forty bottles of red wine and thirty of
white wine, to be taken from the cellars of emigrés, or from those of
persons condemned to death; and, besides this, fifty bottles of common
wine other than white or red."--On the 2nd of Messidor, ale is drunk and
there is a fresh order for fifty bottles of red wine, fifty of
common wine, and two bottles of brandy.--De Martel, "Fouché," 419,
420.--Moniteur, XXIV., 604. (Session of Prairial 13, par III.) "Dugué
reads the list of charges brought against Mallarmé. He is accused....
of having put in requisition whatever pleased him for his table and for
other wants, without paying for anything, not even for the post-horses
and postillions that carried him."--Ibid. 602. Report of Perès du Gers.
"He accuses Dartigoyte... of having taken part with his secretaries in
the auction of the furniture of Daspe, who had been condemned; of having
kept the most valuable pieces for himself, and afterwards fixing
their price; of having warned those who had charge of the sale that
confinement awaited whoever should bid on the articles he destined for
himself."--Laplanche, ex-Benedictine, said in his mission in Loiret,
that "those who did not like the Revolution must pay those who make
it."]
[Footnote 32140: Buchez et Roux, XXXII., 426. (Extract from the Memoirs
of Sénart.)--Hamel, III., 565. (Description of Teresa's domicile by the
Marquis de Paroy, a petitioner and eye-witness.)]
[Footnote 32141: The reader might read about Tallien in the book written
by Thérèse Chatrles-Vallin: "Tallien," "Le mal-aimé de la Révolution",
Ed. Jean Picollec, Paris 1997. (SR).]
[Footnote 32142: Buchez et Roux, XXXIII., 12. (Extract from the Memoirs
of Sénart.) "The certified copies of these drafts are on file with the
committee of General Security."]
[Footnote 32143: Report of Courtois, 360. (Letters of Julien to
Robespierre, Pluviôse 15 and 16, year II.)--Buchez et Roux, XXXIV.,
199, 200, 202, 203, 211. (Depositions of Villemain, Monneron, Legros,
Robin.)--Berryat Saint-Prix, 35. (Depositions of Fourrier, and of Louise
Courant, sempstress.)]
[Footnote 32144: See, on Tallien," Mémoires de Sénart."--On Javogues,
Moniteur, XXIV., 461, Floreal 24, III. Petition against Javogues, with
several pages of signatures, especially those of the inhabitants of
Montbrison: "In the report made by him to the Convention he puts down
coin and assignats at seven hundred and seventy-four thousand six
hundred and ninety-six francs, while the spoils of one person provided
him with five hundred thousand francs in cash."--On Fouché, De Martel,
252.--On Dumont, Mallet-Dupan, "Manuscript notes." (January, 1795.) On
Rovère, Michelet, VI., 256.--Carnot, II., 87. (According to the Memoirs
of the German Olsner, who was in Paris under the Directory:) "The tone
of Barras' Salon was that of a respectable gambling house; the house
of Reubell resembled the waiting-room of an inn at which the mail-coach
stops."]
[Footnote 32145: Buchez et Roux, XXXII., 391, and XXXIII., 9. (Extracts
from the Memoirs of Sénart.)]
[Footnote 32146: Carnot, "Mémoires," I. 416. Carnot, having shown to the
Committee of Public Safety, proofs of the depredations committed on the
army of the North, Saint-Just got angry and exclaimed: "It is only an
enemy of the Republic that would accuse his colleagues of depredations,
as if patriots hadn't a right to everything!"]
[Footnote 32147: As to Caligula see Suetonius and Philo.--With respect
to Hakem, see "L'Exposé de la Religion des Druses," by M. de Sacy.]
[Footnote 32148: Saint-Just, speaking in the Convention, says: "What
constitutes a republic is the utter destruction of whatever is opposed
to it."]
[Footnote 32149: Orders issued by Saint-Just and Lebas for the
departments of Pas-de-Calais, Nord, la Somme et l'Aisne.--Cf. "Histoire
de l'Alsace," by Stroebel, and "Recueil de pieces authentiques pour
servir à l'histoire de la Révolution à Strasbourg," 3 vols.-Archives
Nationales AF., II., 135, orders issued Brumaire 10, year II., and list
of the one hundred and ninety-three persons taxed.]
[Footnote 32150: Buchez et Roux, XXXI., 32. (Saint-Just's reply to Mayor
Monet.)--De Sybel, II., 447, 448. At the first interview Saint-Just
said to Schneider: "Why use so much ceremony? You know the crimes of the
aristocrats? In the twenty-four hours taken for one investigation you
might have twenty-four condemned."]
[Footnote 32151: "Journal de marche du sergent Fricasse," p.34.
(Narrative by Marshal Soult.)]
[Footnote 32152: Cf. in the Bible, the story of Ahasuerus who, out of
respect for his own majesty, can-not retract the order he has issued
against the Jews, but he turns the difficulty by allowing them to defend
themselves.]
[Footnote 32153: Mallet-Dupan, II., 47.]
[Footnote 32154: Berryat Saint-Prix, "La Justice Revolutionnaire,"
XVII.-Marcelin Boudet, "Les Conventionnels d'Auvergne," 269.--Moniteur,
Brumaire 27, year III., report by Calès.]
[Footnote 32155: Paris, "Histoire de Joseph Lebon," I., 371; II., 341,
344.-De Martel, "Fouché," 153.--Berryat Saint-Prix, 347, 348.]
[Footnote 32156: Berryat Saint-Prix, 390.--Ibid., 404. (On Soubrié,
executioner at Marseilles, letter of Lazare Giraud, public prosecutor):
"I put him in the dungeon for having shed tears on the scaffold, in
executing the anti-revolutionists we sent to be executed."]
[Footnote 32157: Moniteur, XVIII., 413. (Session of the Convention,
letter of Lequinio and Laignelot, Rochefort, Brumaire 17, year II.) "We
have appointed the patriot Anse guilloteneur and we have invited him, in
dining with us, to come and assume his prescribed powers, and water them
with a libation in honor of the Republic."--Paris, II., 72.]
[Footnote 32158: Marcelin Boudet, 270. (Testimony of Bardanèche de
Bayonne.)]
[Footnote 32159: Guil1on, "Histoire de la ville de Lyons pendant la
Revolution," II., 427, 431, 433.]
[Footnote 32160: "Mémoire du Citoyen Fréron," (in the Barrière
collection,) p.357. (Testimony of a survivor.)]
[Footnote 32161: Paris, II., 32]
[Footnote 32162: Delandine, "Tableaux des prisons de Lyons," p.14.]
[Footnote 32163: Camille Boursier, "Essai sur la Terreur en Anjou,"
164. (Letter of Boniface, ex-Benedictine, president of the Revolutionary
committee, to Representative Richard, Brumaire 3, year II.) "We send you
the said Henri Verdier, called de la Saurinière.... It will not be
long before you will see that we make the guillotine a present....
The Committee begs you to send him sacram sanctam guillotinam, and the
republican minister of his worship... Not an hour of the day passes
that new members do not come to us whom we desire to initiate in its
mysteries, (sic)."]
[Footnote 32164: Thibaudeau, "Histoire du Terrorisme dans le départment
de la Vienne," 34, 48.--Berryat Saint-Prix, 239.]
[Footnote 32165: Archives Nationales F.7, 4435. (Letter of Lebon,
Floréal 23, year II.)--Paris, I. 241.]
[Footnote 32166: Buchez et Roux, XXXIV., 184, 200. (Depositions of
Chaux, Monneron and Villemain.)]
[Footnote 32167: Register of the Revolutionary Tribunal of Nantes,
copied by M. Chevrier. (M. Chevrier has kindly sent me his manuscript
copy.)--Berryat Saint-Prix, 94.--Archives Nationales, F7. 4591. (Extract
from the acts of the Legislative Committee, session of Floréal 3, year
III. Restitution of the confiscated property of Alexander Long to his
son.) Dartigoyte, at Auch, did what Carrier did at Nantes. "It follows
from the above abstract duly signed that on the 27th Germinal, year II.,
between eight and nine o'clock in the evening, Alexandre Long, Sr.,
was put to death on the public square of the commune of Auch by the
executioner of criminal sentences, without any judgment having been
rendered against the said Long."--In many places an execution becomes
a spectacle for the Jacobins of the town and a party of pleasure. For
instance, at Arras, on the square devoted to executions, a gallery was
erected for spectators with a room for the sale of refreshments, and,
during the execution of M. de Montgon, the "Ça ira" is played on
the bass drum. (Paris, II., 158, and I., 159.) A certain facetious
representative has rehearsals of the performance in his own house.
"Lejeune, to feed his bloodthirsty imagination, had a small guillotine
put up, on which he cut off the heads of all the poultry consumed at his
table.... Often, in the middle of the repast, he had it brought in and
set to work for the amusement of his guests." (Moniteur, XXIV., 607,
session of June 1, 1795, letter from the district of Besançon, and
with the letter, the confirmatory document.) "This guillotine, says the
reporter, is deposited with the Committee of Legislation."]