executions and lend a hand in the massacres.--One of these, Goullin, a
creole from St. Domingo, sensual and nervous, accustomed to treating a
Negro as an animal and a Frenchman as a white Negro, a Septembriseur
on principle, chief instigator and director of the "drownings," goes in
person to empty the prison of Bouffay, and, verifying that death, the
hospital or releases, had removed the imprisoned for him, adds, of
his own authority, fifteen names, taken haphazard, to reach his
figures.--Joly, a commissioner on the Committee, very expert in the
art of garroting, ties the hands of prisoners together two and two and
conducts them to the river.[33162]--Grand-maison, another member of
the Committee, a former dancing-master, convicted of two murders
and pardoned before the Revolution, strikes down with his saber
the imploring hands stretched out to him over the planks of the
lighter.[33163]--Pinard, another Committee-commissioner, ransoms, steals
off into the country and himself kills, through preference, women and
children.[33164] Naturally, the three bands which operate along with
them, or under their orders, comprise only men of their species. In the
first one, called the Marat company, each of the sixty members swears,
on joining it, to adopt Marat's principles and carry out Marat's
doctrine. Goullin,[33165] one of the founders, demands in relation to
each member, "Isn't there some one still more rascally? For we must have
that sort to bring the aristocrats to reason!"[33166] After Frimaire
5 "the Maratists" boast of their arms being "tired out" with striking
prisoners with the flat of their sabers to make them march to the
Loire,[33167] and we see that, notwithstanding this fatigue, the
business suited them, as their officers tried to influence Carrier to be
detailed on the "drowning" service and because it was lucrative. The men
and women sentenced to death, were first stripped of their clothes down
to the shirt, and even the shift; it would be a pity to let valuable
objects go to the bottom with their owners, and therefore the drowners
divide these amongst themselves; a wardrobe in the house of the adjutant
Richard is found full of jewelry and watches.[33168] This company of
sixty must have made handsome profits out of the four or five thousand
drowned.-The second band, called "the American Hussars," and who
operated in the outskirts, was composed of blacks and mulattos, numerous
enough in this town of privateers. It is their business to shoot women,
whom they first violate; "they are our slaves," they say; "we have won
them by the sweat of our brows." "Those who have the misfortune to be
spared, become in their hands mad in a couple of days; in any event they
are re-arrested shortly afterwards and shot.--The last band, which
is styled "The German Legion," is formed out of German deserters and
mercenaries speaking little or no French. They are employed by the
Military Commission to dispatch the Vendeans picked up along the
highways, and who are usually shot in groups of twenty five. "I came,"
says an eye-witness,[33169] "to a sort of gorge where there was a
semi-circular quarry; there, I noticed the corpses of seventy-five women
naked and lying on their backs." The victims of that day consisted of
girls from sixteen to eighteen years of age. One of them says to her
conductor, "I am sure you are taking us to die," and the German replies
in his broken jargon, probably with a coarse laugh," No, it is for a
change of air. They are placed in a row in front of the bodies of the
previous day and shot. Those who do not fall, see the guns reloaded;
these are again shot and the wounded dispatched with the butt ends of
the muskets. Some of the Germans then rifle the bodies, while others
strip them and "place them on their backs."--To find workmen for this
task, it is necessary to descend, not only to the lowest wretches in
France but, again, to the brutes of a foreign race and tongue, and yet
lower still, to an inferior race degraded by slavery and perverted by
license.
Such, from the top to the bottom of the ladder, at every stage of
authority and obedience, is the ruling staff of the revolutionary
government.[33170] Through its recruits and its work, through its morals
and modes of proceeding, it evokes the almost forgotten image of
its predecessors, for there is an image of it in the period from the
fourteenth to the seventeenth century. At that time also, society
was frequently overcome and ravaged by barbarians; dangerous nomads,
malevolent outcasts, bandits turned into soldiers suddenly pounced down
on an industrious and peaceful population. Such was the case in France
with the "Routiers" and the "Tard-venus," at Rome with the army of the
Constable of Bourbon, in Flanders with the bands of the Duke of Alba
and the Duke of Parma, in Westphalia and in Alsace, with Wallenstein's
veterans, and those of Bernard of Saxe-Weimar. They lived upon a town
or province for six months, fifteen months, two years, until the town
or province was exhausted. They alone were armed, master of the
inhabitants, using and abusing things and persons according to their
caprices. But they were declared bandits, calling themselves scorchers,
(ecorcheurs) riders and adventurers, and not pretending to be
humanitarian philosophers. Moreover, beyond an immediate and personal
enjoyment, they demanded nothing; they employed brutal force only to
satiate their greed, their cruelty, their lust.--The latter add
to private appetites a far greater devastation, the systematic and
gratuitous ravages enforced upon them by the superficial theory with
which they are imbued.
*****
[Footnote 3301: "The Revolution," II., pp. 298-304, and p. 351.]
[Footnote 3302: "The Revolution," II., pp.298-304, and p. 351. Should
the foregoing testimony be deemed insufficient, the following, by
those foreigners who had good opportunities for judging, may be added:
(Gouverneur Morris, letter of December 3, 1794.) "The French are plunged
into an abyss of poverty and slavery, a slavery all the more degrading
because the men who have plunged them into it merit the utmost
contempt."--Meissner, "Voyage à Paris," (at the end of 1795,) p. 160.
"The (revolutionary) army and the revolutionary committees were
really associations organized by crime for committing every species of
injustice, murder, rapine, and brigandage with impunity. The government
had deprived all men of any talent or integrity of their places
and given these to its creatures, that is to say, to the dregs of
humanity."--Baron Brinckmann, Chargé d'Affaires from Sweden. (Letter of
July 11, 1799.) "I do not believe that the different classes of society
in France are more corrupt than elsewhere; but I trust that no people
may ever be ruled by as imbecile and cruel scoundrels as those that have
ruled France since the advent of its new state of freedom... The dregs
of the people, stimulated from above by sudden and violent excitement,
have everywhere brought to the surface the scum of immorality."]
[Footnote 3303: Fleury, "Babeuf," 139, 150.--Granier de Cassagnac,
"Histoire du Directoire," II., 24-170.--(Trial of Babeuf, passim.) The
above quotations are from documents seized in Babeuf's house, also from
affidavits made by witnesses, and especially by captain Grizel.]
[Footnote 3304: Moniteur, session of September 5, 1793. "Since our
virtue, our moderation, our philosophic ideas, are of no use to us, let
us be brigands for the good of the people; let us be brigands!"]
[Footnote 3305: Babeuf, "Le Tribun du Peuple," No.40. Apologia for the
men of September, "who have only been the priests, the sacrificers of a
just immolation for public security. If anything is to be regretted it
is that a larger and more general Second of September did not sweep away
all starvers and all despoilers."]
[Footnote 3306: Granier de Cassagnac, II., 90. (Deposition of Grisel.)
Rossignol said, "That snuff-box is all I have left, here it is so that
I may exist."--"Massard owned a pair of boots which he could not collect
because he had no money with which to pay the shoemaker."]
[Footnote 3307: Archives Nationales, Cf. 31167. (Report of Robin,
Nivôse 9.): "The women always had a deliberative voice in the popular
assemblies of the Pantheon section," and in all the other clubs they
attended the meetings.]
[Footnote 3308: Moniteur, XIX., 103. (Meeting of the Jacobin club,
Dec. 28, 1793.) Dubois-Crancé introduces the following question to each
member who is subjected to the weeding-out vote: "What have you done
that would get you hung in case of a counter revolution?"]
[Footnote 3309: Ibid., XVII., 410. (Speech by Maribon-Montaut, Jacobin
club, Brumaire 21, year II.)]
[Footnote 3310: Dauban, "Paris in 1794," 142. (Police report of Ventôse
13, year II.)]
[Footnote 3311: Morellet, "Mémoires," II. 449.]
[Footnote 3312: Dauban, ib.,, 35. (Note drawn up in January, 1794,
probably by the physician Quêvremont de Lamotte.)--Ibid., 82.--Cf.
Morellet, II., 434-470. (Details on the issue of certificates of civism,
in September, 1793.)]
[Footnote 3313: Archives Nationales, F.7, 31167. (Report by
Latour-Lamontagne, Ventôse 1, year II.): "It is giving these
associations too much influence; it is destroying the jurisdiction of
the general assemblies (of the section.) We find accordingly, that
these are being deserted and that the plotters and intriguers succeed in
making popular clubs the centers of public business in order to control
affairs more easily."]
[Footnote 3314: Dauban, ibid., 203. (Report by Bacon-Tacon, Ventose 19.)
"In the general assembly of the Maison Commune section all citizens of
any rank in the companies have been weeded out. The slightest stain
of incivism, the slightest negligence in the service, caused their
rejection. Out of twenty-five who passed censorship-nineteen at least
were rejected....Most of them due to their trade such as eating-house
keeper, shoe-maker, cook, carpenter, tailor etc."]
[Footnote 3315: Ibid., 141. (Report by Charmont, Ventôse 12.)--Ibid,
140. "There is only one way, it is said at the Café des Grands Hommes,
on the boulevard, to keep from being arrested, and that is to scheme for
admission into the civil and revolutionary committees when there happens
to be a vacancy. Before salaries were attached to these places
nobody wanted them; since that, there are disputes as to who shall be
appointed."]
[Footnote 3316: Ibid., 307. (Report of Germinal 7.)]
[Footnote 3317: Wallon, "Histoire du Tribunal Revolutionaire," IV.,
129.]
[Footnote 3318: Archives Nationales, AF., II., 46. (Act of the Committee
of Public Safety, Prairial 15.): "Citizens Pillon, Gouste and Né,
members of the Revolutionary committee of the Marat section, are
removed. Their duties will be performed by citizens Martin, Majon and
Mirel. Mauvielle, rue de la Liberté, No. 32, is appointed on the said
Revolutionary Committee to complete it, as it was only composed of
eleven members."--And other similar acts.]
[Footnote 3319: Duverger, decree of Frimaire 14, year II. "The
application of revolutionary laws and measures of general security
and public safety is confided to the municipalities and revolutionary
committees." See, in chapter II., the extent of the domain thus defined.
It embraces nearly everything. It suffices to run through the registers
of a few of the revolutionary committees, to verify this enormous power
and see how they interfere in every detail of individual life]
[Footnote 3320: Archives Nationales, F.7, 31167. (Report, Nivôse 1, year
II., by Leharival.)]
[Footnote 3321: Dauban, "Paris en 1794," 307. (Report of March 29,
1794.) It here relates to the "Piques" Section, Place Vendome.]
[Footnote 3322: Dauban, ib., 308. (Note found among Danton's papers and
probably written by the physician, Quevremont de Lamotte.)]
[Footnote 3323: Dauban, ib., 125. (Report of Bérard, Ventôse 10.) In the
words of a woman belonging to the Bonne-Novelle section: "My husband has
been in prison four months. And what for? He was one of the first at the
Bastille; he has always refused places so that the good sans-culottes
might have them, and, if he has made enemies, it was because he was
unwilling to see these filled by ignoramuses or new-comers, who,
vociferating and apparently thirsting for blood, have created a barrier
of partisans around them."]
[Footnote 3324: Dauban, ibid., 307. (Report of March 29, 1794.)]
[Footnote 3325: Ibid., 150. (Report of Ventôse 14.)--Archives
Nationales, F.7, 31167. (Reports of Nivôse 9 and 25.): "A great many
citizens are found in the sections who are called out after the meeting,
to get forty sous. I notice that most of them are masons, and even a few
coach drivers belonging to the nation, who can do without the nation's
indemnity, which merely serves them for drink to make them very
noisy."--"The people complain, because the persons to whom the forty
sous are given, to attend the section assemblies do nothing all day,
being able to work at different trades.... and they relay upon these
forty sous."]
[Footnote 3326: Dauban, ibid., 312. (Note by Quevremont.)--Moniteur,
XVIII., 568, (Meeting of the commune, Frimaire 11, year II.): "The
Beaurepaire section advertises that wishing to put a stop to the
cupidity of the wine-dealers of the arrondissement, it has put seals on
all their cellars."]
[Footnote 3327: Dauban, ibid., 345. (Order of the day by Henriot,
Floreal 9.)]
[Footnote 3328: Mallet-Dupan, II., 56. (March, 1794.)]
[Footnote 3329: Buchez et Roux, XXVII., 10. (Speech by Barbaroux, May
14, 1793.)--Report on the papers found in Robespierre's apartment
by Courtois, 285. (Letter by Collot d'Herbois Frimaire 3, year II.,
demanding that Paris Jacobins be sent to him at Lyons.) "If I could have
asked for our old ones I should have done... but they are necessary at
Paris, almost all of them having been made mayors."]
[Footnote 3330: Meissner, "Voyage à Paris," (at the end of 1795,) 160.
"Persons who can neither read nor write obtain the places of accountants
of more or less importance."? Archives des Affaires étrangères,
vol. 324. (Denunciations of Pio to the club, against his
colleagues.)--Dauban, ibid., 35. (Note by Quevremont, Jan., 1794.):
"The honest man who knows how to work cannot get into the ministerial
bureaux, especially those of the War and Navy departments, as well as
those of the Commune and of the Departments, without having a lump in
his throat.--Offices are mostly filled by creatures of the Commune who
very often have neither talent nor integrity. Again, the denunciations,
always welcomed, however frivolous and baseless they may be, turn
everything upside down."]
[Footnote 3331: Moniteur, XXIV., 397 (Speech of Dubois-Crancé in the
Convention Floréal 16, year III.)--Archives Nationales, F.7, 31167.
(Report by Rolin, Nivôse 7, year II.) "The same complaints are heard
against the civil Commissioners of the section, most of whom are
unintelligent, not even knowing how to read."]
[Footnote 3332: Archives des Affaires étrangères, vol. 1411. (August,
1793.) "Plan adopted" for the organization of the Police, "excepting
executive modifications." In fact, some months later, the number of
claqueurs, male and female, is much greater, and finally reaches a
thousand. (Beaulieu, "Essais," V., l10.)--The same plan comprehends
fifteen agents at two thousand four hundred francs, "selected from the
frequenters of the clubs," to revise the daily morning lists; thirty at
one thousand francs, for watching popular clubs, and ninety to twelve
hundred francs for watching the section assemblies.]
[Footnote 3333: Archives Nationales, F.7, 4436. (Letter of Bouchotte,
Minister of war, Prairial 5, year II.) "The appointment of Ronsin, as
well as of all his staff, again excited public opinion. The Committee,
to assure itself, sent the list to the Jacobin club, where they were
accepted."--Ibid., AF.,II., 58. "Paris, Brumaire II, year II., club of
the Friends of Liberty and Equality, in session at the former Jacobin
club, rue St. Honoré. List of the citizens who are to set out for Lyons
and act as national commissioners. (Here follow their names.) All the
citizens designated have undergone the inspection of the said club, at
its meeting this day." (Here follow the signatures of the President and
three secretaries.)--"Journal des Débats et Correspondence de la Société
des Jacobins, No.543, 5th day of the 3rd month of the year II.--In
relation to the formation of a new Central club, "Terrasson is of
opinion that this club may become liberticide, and demands a committee
to examine into it and secure its extinction. The committee demanded by
Terrasson is appointed."--It is evident that they hold on energetically
to this monopoly.--Cf. Moniteur, XIX., 637. (Ventôse 13.) Motion adopted
in the Jacobin club, obliging the ministers to turn out of office any
individual excluded from the club.]
[Footnote 3334: Dauban, ibid., 307. (Report of Germinal 9.)]
[Footnote 3335: Moniteur, XXII. 353. (Session of Brumaire 20, year III.
Reclamation made by M. Bélanger at the bar of the Convention.)]
[Footnote 3336: Archives Nationales, AF., II., 40. (Acts passed by the
Committee of Public Safety at the dates indicated.) Beaulieu, "Essais,"
v., 200. (Ibid.) The registers of the Committee of Public Safety contain
a number of similar gratuities paid to provincial clubs and patriots,
for instance, AF., II. 58, (Brumaire 8), fifty thousand francs to
Laplanche, and, (Brumaire 9), fifty thousand francs to Couthon, "to
maintain public spirit in Calvados, to revive public spirit in Lyons,
to aid, as required, the less successful patriots who zealously devote
their time to the service of their country."]
[Footnote 3337: Dauban, ibid., 171, (report of Ventôse 17), and 243,
(report of Ventôse 25), on the civil-committees and revolutionary
committees, who order meat served to them before serving it to the sick,
and who likewise serve the good friends of their wives.? Ibid., 146.
(Report of Ventôse 10.)... Archives Nationales F.7, 2475. (Register of
the deliberations of the revolutionary committee of the Piques sections,
Brumaire 27, year II.) "The Committee orders that the two-horse cab
belonging to Lemarche be henceforth at the service of the section and
of the Committee when measures of security are concerned." In this
register, and others of the same series, we clearly see the inside of
a committee and its vast despotism. Style and orthography, with almost
all, are of the same low order.]
[Footnote 3338: Archives des Affaires étrangères, vol. 1411. (Report of
Aug.21 and 22, 1793.) "General Henriot sent me several.... who made use
of the authority of the Committee of Public Safety and General Security,
as well as of that which he delegated to me, to make domiciliary visits
at the houses of individuals who were not assured patriots; but that did
not warrant their receiving money and even abstracting it."]
[Footnote 3339: Dauban, ibid., 36 and 48. (Case of the Notary,
Brichard.)]
[Footnote 3340: Cf. "The Revolution," II., 302, 303.--Mercier, "Paris
pendant la Revolution," I., 151.--Moniteur, XVIII., 660. (Session of
Frimaire 24, speech by Lecomtre in the Convention.)--On robberies and
the bribes paid, see, among other documents, "Mémoires sur les Prisons,"
I., 290. (Eighty thousand francs of bribes given to the head of the
police force by Perisial, keeper of an eating-house, for the privilege
of feeding prisoners in St. Lazare.)]
[Footnote 3341: Buchez et Roux, XXXV., 77. (Trial of Fouquier-Tinville.)
Testimony of Robillard: "Another day, in the general assembly, he struck
a citizen with his saber."]
[Footnote 3342: Buchez et Roux, XXXV., 407. (Lists in Robespierre's
handwriting.)]
[Footnote 3343: Miot de Melito, "Mémoires," I., 46-51.-Buchot is not
the only one of his species in the ministry of Foreign Affairs. In the
archives of this ministry, vol. 324, may be found the sayings and
doings of a certain Pio, an Italian refugee who slipped into the place,
simulating poverty, and displaying patriotism, and who denounces his
chief and colleagues.-The ex-notary Pigeot, condemned to twenty years
in irons and put in the pillory, Frimaire 9, year III., will come to
the surface; he is encountered under the Directory as introducer
of ambassadors.-Concerning one of the envoys of the Directory to
Switzerland, here is a note b~ Mallet-Dupan. ("Anecdotes manuscrites,"
October, 1797.) "The Directonal ambassador, who has come to exact from
the Swiss the expulsion of the body-guard, is named Mingot, of Belfort,
a relation of Reubell's, former body-guard to M. le Comte d'Artois.-He
came to Zurich with a prostitute, a seamstress of Zurich, established in
Berne. He was living with her at the expense of the Zurich government.
Having invited the family of this creature, that is to say a common
horse-driver with his wife and some other persons, to dinner, they drank
and committed such excesses that the driver's wife, who was big with
child, gave birth to it in the midst of the banquet. This creature gave
Mingot a disease which has laid him up at Basle."]
[Footnote 3344: "The Revolution," II., 338, 348, 354.]
[Footnote 3345: Martel, "Types Révolutionnaires," 136-144.--The
Minister of War appoints Henriot brigadier-general, July 3, 1793,
and major-general on the 19th of September, and says in a postscript,
"Please communicate your service record to me," unknown in the ministry
because they were of no account.--On the orgies at Choisy-sur-Seine, V.
(Archives, W2, 500-501), see investigation of Thermidor 18 and 19,
year II., made at Boisy-sur-Seine by Blache, agent of the committee
of General Security. Boulanger, brigadier-general, and Henriot's first
lieutenant, was an ex-companion jeweller.]
[Footnote 3346: Archives des Affaires étrangères, vol. 1411. Orders of
the day by Henriot, September 16, Vendémiaire 29, year II., and Brumaire
19, year II. Many of these orders of the day are published in Dauban,
("Paris en 1794"), p. 33. "Let our enemies pile up their property, build
houses and palaces, let them have them, what do we care, we republicans,
we do not want them! All we need to shelter us is a cabin, and as for
wealth, simply the habits, the virtues and the love of our country.
Headquarters, etc."--P. 43: "Yesterday evening a fire broke out in the
Grand Augustins.... Everybody worked at it and it was put out in a very
short time. Under the ancient regime the fire would have lasted for
days. Under the system of freemen the fire lasted only an hour. What a
difference!.. Headquarters, etc."]
[Footnote 3347: Wallon, "Histoire du Tribunal Révolutionnaire de Paris,"
V.252, 420. (Names and qualifications of the members of the Commune
of Paris, guillotined Thermidor 10 and 11.) The professions and
qualifications of some of its members are given in Lymery's
Biographical Dictionary, in Morellet's Memoirs and in Arnault's
Souvenirs.??Moniteur?? XVI., 719. (Verdicts of the Revolutionary
Tribunal, Fructidor 15, year II.) Forty-three members of the civil
or revolutionary committees, sectional commissioners, officers of
the National Guard and of the cannoneers, signed the list of the
council-general of the commune as present on the 9th of Thermidor and
are put on trial as Robespierre's adherents. But they promptly withdrew
their signatures, all being acquitted except one. They are leaders in
the Jacobin quarter and are of the same sort arid condition as their
brethren of the Hôtel-de-ville. One only, an ex-collector of rentes,
may have had an education; the rest are carpenters, floor-tilers,
shoemakers, tailors, wine-dealers, eating-house keepers, cartmen,
bakers, hair-dressers, and joiners. Among them we find one
ex-stone-cutter, one ex-office runner, one ex-domestic and two sons of
Samson the executioner.]
[Footnote 3348: Morellet, "Mémoires," I., 436-472.]
[Footnote 3349: On the ascendancy of the talkers of this class see
Dauban ("Paris en 1794," pp. 118-143). Details on an all-powerful
clothes-dealer in the Lombards Section. If we may believe the
female citizens of the Assembly "he said everywhere that whoever was
disagreeable to him should be turned out of the popular club." (Ventôse
13, year II.)]
[Footnote 3350: Arnault, "Souvenirs d'un Sexagénaire," III., 111.
Details on another member of the commune, Bergot, ex-employee at the
Halle-aux-Cuirs and police administrator, may be found in "Mémoires des
Prisons," I., 232, 239, 246, 289, 290. Nobody treated the prisoners more
brutally, who protested against the foul food served out to them, than
he. "It is too good for bastards who are going to be guillotined."....
"He got drunk with the turnkeys and with the commissioners themselves.
One day he staggered in walking, and spoke only in hiccoughs: he would
go in that condition. The house-guard refused to recognize him; he was
arrested" and the concierge had to repeat her declarations to make the
officer of the post "give up the hog."]
[Footnote 3351: "Mémoires sur les Prisons," I., 211. (" Tableau
Historique de St. Lazare.") The narrator is put into prison in the rue
de Sèvres in October, 1793.--II., 186. ("An historical account of the
jail in the rue de Sèvres.") The narrator was confined there during the
last months of the Reign of Terror.]
[Footnote 3352: A game of chance.]
[Footnote 3353: "Un Séjour en France de 1792 à 1795," 281. "We had an
appointment in the afternoon with a person employed by the committee on
National Domains; he was to help my friend with her claims. This man
was originally a valet to the Marquise's brother; on the outbreak of the
Revolution he set up a shop, failed and became a rabid Jacobin, and, at
last, member of a revolutionary committee. As such, he found a
way.... to intimidate his creditors and obtain two discharges of his
indebtedness without taking the least trouble to pay his debts.".... "I
know an old lady who was kept in prison three months for having demanded
from one of these patriots three hundred livres which he owed her."
(June 3, 1795.) "I have generally noticed that the republicans are
either of the kind I have just indicated, coffee-house waiters, jockeys,
gamblers, bankrupts, and low scribblers, or manual laborers more earnest
in their principles, more ignorant and more brutal, all spending what
they have earned in vulgar indulgence."]
[Footnote 3354: Schmidt, "Tableaux Historiques de la Revolution
Française," II., 248, 249. (Agent's reports, Frimaire 8, year 111.)
"The prosecution of Carrier is approved by the public, likewise
the condemnation of the former revolutionary committee called the
"BonnetRouge." Ten of its members are condemned to twenty years in
irons. The public is overjoyed."--Ibid., (Frimaire 9), "The people
rushed in crowds to the square of the old commune building to see
the members of the former revolutionary committee of the Bonnet-Rouge
sections, who remained seated on the bench until six o'clock, in the
light of flambeaux. They had to put up with many reproaches and much
humiliation."--"Un Sejour en France," 286, (June 6, 1795). "I have just
been interrupted by a loud noise and cries under my window; I heard the
names Scipio and Solon distinctly pronounced in a jeering and insulting
tone of voice. I sent Angelique to see what was the matter and she
tells me that it is a crowd of children following a shoemaker of the
neighborhood who was member of a revolutionary committee... and had
called himself Scipio Solon. As he had been caught in several efforts at
stealing he could no longer leave his shop without being reviled for his
robberies and hooted at under his Greek and Roman names."]
[Footnote 3355: Barère, "Mémoires," II., 324.]
[Footnote 3356: Montieur, XXII., 742. (Report by Cambon, Frimaire 6,
year II.) Ibid., 22.--Report by Lindet, September 20, 1794): "The land
and navy forces, war and other services, deprive agricultural pursuits
and other professions of more than one million five hundred thousand
citizens. It would cost the Republic less to support six million men
in all the communes."--"Le Departement des Affaires étrangères," by Fr.
Masson, 382. (According to "Paris à la fin du dix-huitieme siecle," by
Pujoulx, year IX.): "At Paris alone there are more than thirty thousand
(government) clerks; six thousand at the most do the necessary writing;
the rest cut away quills, consume ink and blacken paper. In old times,
there were too many clerks in the bureaux relatively to the work; now,
there are three times as many, and there are some who think that there
are not enough."]
[Footnote 3357: "Souvenirs de M. Hua," a parliamentary advocate, p.96.
(A very accurate picture of the small town Coucy-le-Chateau, in Aisne,
from 1792 to 1794.)--"Archives des Affaires étrangères," vol.334.
(Letter of the agents, Thionville, Ventôse 24, year II.) The district of
Thionville is very patriotic, submits to the maximum and requisitions,
but not to the laws prohibiting outside worship and religious
assemblies. "The apostles of Reason preached in vain to the people,
telling them that, up to this time, they had been deceived and that
now was the time to throw off the yoke of prejudice: 'we are willing to
believe that, thus far, we have been deceived, but who will guarantee us
that you will not deceive us in your turn?'"]
[Footnote 3358: Lagros: "La Révolution telle qu'elle est." (Unpublished
correspondence of the committee of Public Safety, I., 366. Letter of
Prieur de la Marne.) "In general, the towns are patriotic; but the rural
districts are a hundred leagues removed from the Revolution.. ..
Great efforts will be necessary to bring them up to the level of the
Revolution."]
[Footnote 3359: According to the statistics of 1866 (published in 1869)
a district of one thousand square kilometres contains on an average,
thirty-three communes above five hundred souls, twenty-three from five
hundred to one thousand, seventeen bourgs and small towns from one
thousand to five thousand, and one average town, or very large one,
about five thousand. Taking into account the changes that have taken
place in seventy years, one may judge from these figures of the
distribution of the population in 1793. This distribution explains why,
instead of forty-five thousand revolutionary committees, there were only
twenty-one thousand five hundred.]
[Footnote 3360: "Souvenirs des M. Hua," 179. "This country
(Coucy-le-Chateau) protected by its bad roads and still more by its
nullity, belonged to that small number in which the revolutionary
turmoil was least felt."]
[Footnote 3361: Among other documents of use in composing this picture
I must cite, as first in importance, the five files containing all the
documents referring to the mission of the representative Albert, in
Aisne and Marne. (Ventôse and Germinal, year III.) Nowhere do we find
more precise details of the sentiments of the peasant, of the common
laborer and of the lower bourgeois from 1792 to 1795. (Archives
Nationales, D. PP 2 to 5.)]
[Footnote 3362: Daubari, "La Demagogie en 1793," XII. (The expression
of an old peasant, near Saint-Émilion, to M. Vatel engaged in collecting
information on the last days of Petion, Guadet and Buzot.)]
[Footnote 3363: Archives Nationales, D. p I., 5. (Petition of Claude
Defert, miller, and national agent of Turgy.) Numbers of mayors,
municipal officers, national agents, administrators and notables of
districts and departments solicit successors, and Albert compels many of
them to remain in office.--(Joint letter of the entire municipality of
Landreville; letter of Charles, stone-cutter, mayor of Trannes; Claude
Defert, miller, national agent of Turgy; of Elegny, meat-dealer; of a
wine-grower; municipal official at Merrex, etc.) The latter writes: "The
Republic is great and generous; it does not desire that its children
should ruin themselves in attending to its affairs; on the contrary,
its object is to give salaried (emolumentaires) places to those who have
nothing to live on."--Another, Mageure, appointed mayor of Bar-sur-Seine
writes, Pluviôse 29, year III.: "I learned yesterday that some persons
of this community would like to procure for me the insidious gift of the
mayoralty," and he begs Albert to turn aside this cup.]
[Footnote 3364: "Souvenirs de M. Hua," 178-205. "M. P..., mayor of
Crépy-au-Mont, knew how to restrain some low fellows who would have
been only too glad to revolutionize his village.... And yet he was a
republican.... One day, speaking of the revolutionary system, he said:
'They always say that it will not hold on; meanwhile, it sticks like
lice.' "--"A general assembly of the inhabitants of Coucy and its
outskirts was held, in which everybody was obliged to undergo an
examination, stating his name, residence, birth-place, present
occupation, and what he had done during the Revolution." Hua avoids
telling that he had been a representative in the Legislative Assembly,
a recognized fact in the neighborhood: "Not a voice was raised to
compromise me."--Ibid., 183. (Reply of the Coucy Revolutionary Committee
to that of Meaux.)]
[Footnote 3365: "Frochot," by Louis Passy, 175. (Letter of Pajot,
member of the Revolutionary committee of Troyes, Vendémiaire, year
III.)--Archives Nationales, F.7, 4421. (Register of the Revolutionary
committee of Troyes.) Brumaire 27, year II. Incarceration of various
suspects, among others of "Lerouge, former lawyer, under suspicion of
having constantly and obstinately refused revolutionary offices." Also,
a person named Corps, for "having refused the presidency of the
district tribunal at the time of its organization, under the pretext
of consulting the Chambre des Comptes; also for being the friend of
suspects, and for having accepted office only after the Revolution had
assumed an imposing character."]
[Footnote 3366: Marcelin Boudet, "Les conventionnels d'Auvergne," 161.
(Justification of Etienne Bonarmé, the last months of 1794.)]
[Footnote 3367: Pans, "Histoire de Joseph Lebon," II., 92. (Declaration
by Guérard, lawyer, appointed judge at Cambrai, by the Cambrai
Revolutionary committee.)--Ibid., 54. (Declaration by Lemerre, appointed
juryman without his knowledge, in the Cambrai court.) "What was my
surprise, I, who never was on a jury in my life! The summons was brought
to me at a quarter to eleven (à onze heur moin un car--specimen of
the orthography) and I had to go at eleven without having time to say
good-by to my family."]
[Footnote 3368: Report by Courtois on the papers found in Robespierre's
domicile, 370. (Letter of Maignet to Payan, administrator of the
department of Drôme, Germinal 20, year II.) "You know the dearth of
subjects here. .. Give me the names of a dozen outspoken republicans...
. If you cannot find them in this department (Vaucluse) hunt for them
either in the Drôme or the Isère, or in any other. I should like those
adapted to a revolutionary tribunal. I should even like, in case of
necessity, to have some that are qualified to act as national agents."]
[Footnote 3369: Archives des Affaires étrangères, vols. 322 to 334,
and 1409 to 1411.--These agents reside in Nîmes, Marseilles, Toulouse,
Tarbes, Bordeaux, Auch, Rochefort, Brest, Bergues, Givet, Metz,
Thionville, Strasbourg, Colmar, Belfort and Grenoble, and often betake
themselves to towns in the vicinity.--The fullest reports are those
of Chepy, at Grenoble, whose correspondence is worthy of publication;
although an ultra Jacobin, he was brought before the revolutionary
Tribunal as a moderate, in Ventôse, year II. Having survived (the
Revolution) he became under the Empire a general commissary of Police at
Brest. Almost all of them are veritable Jacobins, absolutist at bottom,
and they became excellent despotic tools.]
[Footnote 3370: Buchez et Roux, XXX., 425.--Twenty-four commissioners,
drawn by lot from the Jacobins of Paris, are associated with Collot
d'Herbois. One of them, Marino, becomes president of the temporary
Committee of Surveillance, at Lyons. Another, Parrien, is made president
of the Revolutionary Committee.--Archives Nationales, AF., II., 59.
(Deliberations in the Paris Jacobin club, appointing three of their
number to go to Tonnerre and request the Committee of Public Safety "to
give them the necessary power, to use it as circumstances may require,
for the best good of the Republic." Frimaire 6, year II.)--"Order of the
Committee of Public Safety, allowing two thousand francs to the
said parties for their traveling expenses."--Archives des Affaires
Étrangères, vol. 333. The agents sent to Marseilles affix their
signatures, "sans-culottes, of Paris," and one of them, Brutus, becomes
president of the Marseilles revolutionary tribunal.]
[Footnote 3371: Archives Nationales, AF., II., 49. Papers relating to
the revolutionary tax of Belfort, giving all the amounts and names.
(Brumaire 30, year II.) Here is the formula: "citizen X... (male or
female) will pay in one hour the sum of--, under penalty of being
considered suspect and treated as such."--"Recueil des Pièces
Authentiques concernant la Révolution à Strasbourg," I., 128, 187.
(Expressions of the representative Baudot in a letter dated Brumaire 29,
year II.)]
[Footnote 3372: Archives Nationales: the acts and letters of the
representatives on mission are classed by departments.--On the delegates
of the representatives on mission, I will cite but one text. (Archives
des Affaires étrangères, vol. 333, letter of Garrigues, Auch, Pluviôse
24, year II.): "A delegate of Dartigoyte goes to l'Isle and, in the
popular club, wants the curé of the place to get rid of his priestly
attributes. The man answers, so they tell me, that he would cheerfully
abstain from his duties, but that, if, in addition to this, they
used force he would appeal to the convention, which had no idea of
interfering with freedom of opinion. 'Very well,' replied Dartigoyte
emissary, 'I appeal to a gendarme,' and he at once ordered his arrest."]
[Footnote 3373: Lallier, "Une commission D'énquete et de Propagande,"
p.7. (It is composed of twelve members, selected by the club of Nantes,
who overrun the district of Ancenis, six thousand francs of fees being
allowed it.)--Babeau, II., 280. (Dispatch of sixty commissioners, each
at six francs a day by the Troyes administration, to ascertain the state
of the supplies on hand, Prairial, year II.)]
[Footnote 3374: For example, at Bordeaux and at Troyes.--Archives
Nationales F7, 4421. Register of the Revolutionary committee of Troyes,
fol. 164. Two members of the committee travel to the commune of Lusigny,
dismiss the mayor and justice, and appoint in the place of the latter
"the former curé of the country, who, some time ago, abjured sacerdotal
fanaticism."--Archives des Affaires étrangères, vol.332. (Letter of
Desgranges, Bordeaux, Brumaire 15, year II.) The representatives have
just instituted "a revolutionary committee of surveillance composed
of twelve members, selected with the greatest circumspection. All the
committees established in the department are obliged to correspond with
it, and fulfill its requisitions."]
[Footnote 3375: Archives Nationales, AF., II, 58. (Letter of Javogues to
Collot d'Herbois, Brumaire 28, year II.)]
[Footnote 3376: "Recueil des Pièces Authentiques," etc., I., 195. (Acts
passed Jan.21, 1793.)]
[Footnote 3377: Archives des Affaires étrangères, vol. 326. (Letters
from Brutus, September 24; from Topino-Lebrun, jr., September 25 and
October 6, 1793.--Vol. 330. Letters from Brutus, Nivôse 6, year II.) The
character of the agent is often indicated orthographically. For example,
vol.334, letter from Galon-Boyer, Brumaire 18, year II. "The public
spirit is generally bad. Those who claim to be patriots know no
restraint. The rest are lethargic and federalism appears innate."]
[Footnote 3378: Archives des Affaires étrangères, vol.1411. (Letter of
Haupt, Brumaire 26, year II.)--Vol. 333. (Letter of Blessman and Haüser,
Pluviôse 4, year II.)]
[Footnote 3379: Archives des Affaires étrangères, vol. 333. (Letter of
Chartres and of Caillard, Cornmune Aifranchie, Nivôse 21.)--Vol. 331.
(Letters of Desgranges, at Bordeaux, Brumaire 8 and Frimaire 3.) "The
offerings in plate and coin multiply indefinitely; all goes right.
The court-martial has condemned Dudon to death, son of the
ex-procureur-général in the former parliament at Bordeaux, Roullat,
procureur-syndic of the department, Sallenave, merchant. These
executions excite sympathy, but nobody murmurs."]
[Footnote 3380: Ibid., vol. 333. (Letter of Cuny, sr., Nivôse 20.) Vols.
331, 332. (Letters of Chepy, passim, and especially those dated Frimaire
II.)--Vol. 329. (Letter of Chépy, August 24, 1793.) "At Annecy, the
women have cut down the liberty-pole and burnt the archives of the
club and of the commune. At Chambéry, the people wanted to do the same
thing."--Ibid. (September 18, 1793.) "The inhabitants around Mont Blanc
show neither spirit nor courage; the truth is, an anti-revolutionary
spirit animates all minds."--Ibid. (Letter of August 8, 1793.) "Not only
have the citizens of Grenoble, who were drawn by lot, not set out on
the expedition to Lyons, but, even of those who have obeyed the laws,
several have returned with their arms and baggage. No commune between
St. Laurent and Lyons would march. The rural municipalities, badly
tainted with the federal malady, ventured to give the troops very bad
quarters, especially those who had been drafted."]
[Footnote 3381: Ibid. (Letter of Cuny, jr., Brest, Brumaire 6.) "There
are, in general, very few patriots at Brest; the inhabitants are nearly
all moderates."--(Letter of Gadolle, Dunkirk, July 26, 1793.)--(Letter
of Simon, Metz, Nivôse, year II.) "Yesterday, on the news of the capture
of Toulon being announced in the theatre,... I noticed that only about
one-third of the spectators gave way to patriotic enthusiasm; the other
two-thirds remained cold, or put on a long face."]
[Footnote 3382: Ibid. (Letter of Haupt, Belfort, September 1, 1793.)]
[Footnote 3383: Report by Courtois on the papers found in Robespierre's
domicile, p. 274. (Letter of Darthé, Ventôse 29, year II.)]
[Footnote 3384: "Tableau des Prisons de Toulouse," by citizen Pescayre
(published in year III.), p.101.]
[Footnote 3385: Archives Nationales, F.7, 4421. (Register of the
Revolutionary Committee, established at Troyes, Brumaire II, year
II.)--Albert Babeau, vol. II., passim.--Archives des Affaires
étrangères, vol. 332, Chépy (letter, Brumaire 6, Grenoble). "The
sections had appointed seven committees of surveillance. Although
weeded out by the club, they nevertheless alarmed the sans-culottes....
Representative Petit-Jean has issued an order, directing that there
shall be but one committee at Grenoble composed of twenty-one
members. This measure is excellent and ensures the triumph of
sans-culotteism."--Archives Nationales, F.7, 4434. (Letter of Pérrieu to
Brissot, Bordeaux, March 9, 1793.) Before June 2, the national club "of
Bordeaux, composed of Maratists, did not comprise more than eight or ten
individuals at most."--Moniteur, XXII., 133. (Speech by Thibeaudeau on
the popular club of Poitiers, Vendémiaire II, year III.)--Ibid. (Session
of Brumaire 5, year III., letter of Calès, and session of Brumaire
17, year III., report by Calès.) "The popular club of Dijon made all
neighboring administrative bodies, citizens and districts tremble. All
were subject to its laws, and three or four men in it made them. This
club and the municipality were one body." "The Terror party does not
exist here, or, if it does exist, it does not amount to much: out of
twenty thousand inhabitants there are not six who can legitimately be
suspected of belonging to it."]
[Footnote 3386: Baroly, "Les Jacobins Demasqués," (IV. 8vo., of 8pp.,
year II). "The Jacobin club, with its four hundred active members at
Paris, and the four thousand others in the provinces, not less devoted,
represent the living force of the Revolution."]
[Footnote 3387: Archives Nationales, D. P I., 10. (Orders of
representatives Delacroix, Louchet, and Legendre, Nivôse 12, year II.)
"On the petition of the Committee of Surveillance of Evreux, which
sets forth that all its members are without means, and that it will
be impossible for them to continue their duties since they are without
resources for supporting their families," the representatives allow
three of them two hundred and seventy francs each, and a fourth one
hundred and eighty francs, as a gratuity (outside of the three francs a
day.)]
[Footnote 3388: Ibid. AF., II., 111. (Order of Albitte and La Porte,
Prairial 18, year II.)]
[Footnote 3389: Albert Babeau, II., 154-157.--Moniteur, XXII. 425.
(Session of Brumaire 13, year III. Speech by Cambon.) "A government was
organized in which surveillance alone cost 591 millions per annum. Every
man who tilled the ground or worked in a shop, at once abandoned his
pursuit for a place on the Revolutionary Committees... where he got five
francs a day."]
[Footnote 3390: "Tableau des Prisons de Toulouse," by citizen Pescare,
162, 166, 435.]
[Footnote 3391: Berryat Saint-Prix, "La Justice Révolutionaire," (second
edition) p. XIX.--Ibid., XIV. At Rochefort there is on the revolutionary
tribunal a mason, a shoemaker, a caulker, and a cook; at Bordeaux, on
the military commission, an actor, a wine-clerk, a druggist, a baker, a
journeyman-gilder, and later, a cooper and a leather-dresser.]
[Footnote 3392: I heard these expressions during my conversations
with old peasants.--Archives Nationales, AF.,II., 111. (Order of the
Representative Ichon, Messidor 18, year II.) "The popular club of Chinon
will be immediately regenerated. Citizens (I omit their names), the
following showing their occupations: shoemaker, policeman. sabot-maker,
cooper, carter, shoemaker, joiner, butcher carpenter and mason, will
form the committee which is to do the weeding-out and choose successors
among those that offer to become members of the club."? Ibid., D., PI,
10. (Orders of the Representatives Delacroix, Louchet and Legendre,
on mission in the department of Seine-Inférieure for the purpose of
removing, at Conchez, the entire administration, and for forming there a
new revolutionary committee, with full powers, Frimaire 9, year II.)
The members of the committee, the nature of which is indicated, are two
coopers, one gardener, two carpenters, one merchant, a coach-driver
and a tailor. (One finds in the archives, in the correspondence of the
representatives, plenty of orders appointing authorities of the same
sort.)]
[Footnote 3393: Albert Babeau, II., 296.]
[Footnote 3394: The French text reads: "Sa profession est fame de
Paillot-Montabert; son revenu est vivre de ses revenus; ces relation
son d'une fame nous ny portons point d'atantion; ces opignons nous les
présumons semblable à ceux de son mary."]
[Footnote 3395: Archives Nationales, F7, 4421. Order of the Committee of
Surveillance of the third section of Troyes, refusing civic certificates
to seventy-two persons, or sending them before the central committee as
"marchands d'argant, aristocrate, douteux, modére, intrigant, egoiste
fanatique. Fait et areté par nous, membre du Comité."--Ib., Mémoire des
Commissaires de la 5e seiscion dite de la liberté nommé par le citoyen
de Baris (Paris) pour faire les visite de l'argenteri ché les citoyens
de la liste fait par les citoyens Diot et Bailly et Jaquin savoir
depence du 13 et 14 et 15 Frimaire pour leur nouriture du troyes jour
monte à 24 fr.]
[Footnote 3396: Albert Babeau, II., 154.]
[Footnote 3397: Archives Nationales, D., PI, 5. (Mission of
Representative Albert, in Aube and in Marne.)--These notes are made
on the spot, with a thorough knowledge of the situation, by zealous
republicans who are not without common-sense and of average honesty,
(chiefly in Pluviôse and Ventôse, year III).--Letter of Albert to
the directories of the two departments, Prairial 3, year II. "I
am satisfied, during the course of my mission, of the necessity of
reorganizing the municipalities throughout both departments."]
[Footnote 3398: Ibid. Orders of Albert, Ventôse 5, and Pluviôse 29, year
III., reorganizing the courts and administrations in the districts of
Ervy, Arcis and Nogent-sur-Seine, with a tabular statement of the names
of those removed and the reasons for so doing.]
[Footnote 3399: Petition of Jean Nicolas Antoine, former member of the
Directory of the district of Troyes for twenty-eight months. (Ventose
9, year II I.) Shut up in Troyes, he asks permission to go to Paris, "I
have a small lot of goods which it is necessary for me to sell in
Paris. It is my native town and I know more people there than anywhere
else."-Ibid. Information furnished on Antoine by the Conseil-general of
the Commune of Troyes.]
[Footnote 33100: Archives Nationales, AF., II., 59. (Memorials dated
Messidor 28, year II., by an emissary of the Committee of Public Safety,
sent to Troyes, Prairial 29, to report on the situation of things and
on the troubles in Troyes.)--Albert Babeau, II., 203, 205 and 112,
122.--Cf. 179. "Gachez, intoxicated, about eleven o'clock at night, with
several women as drunk as himself, compelled the keeper of the Temple of
Reason to open the doors, threatening him with the guillotine."--Ibid.,
166. He addressed the sans-culottes in the popular club: "Now is the
time to put yourselves in the place of the rich. Strike, and don't put
it off!"--Ibid., 165." 42,633 livres were placed in the hands of Gachez
and the committee, as secret revolutionary service money.... Between
December 4 and 10 Gachez received 20,000 livres, in three orders, for
revolutionary expenses and provisional aid.... The leaders of the party
disposed of these sums without control and, it may be added, without
scruple; Gachez hands over only four thousand livres to the sectional
poor-committee. On Nivôse 12, there remains in the treasury of the poor
fund only 3738 livres, 12 000 having been diverted or squandered."]
[Footnote 33101: "Frochot," by Louis Passy, 172. (Letter of Pajot,
member of the revolutionary committee of Aignay-le-Duc.) "Denunciations
occupied most of the time at our meetings, and it is there that one
could see the hatreds and vengeance of the colleagues who ruled us."]
[Footnote 33102: Archives Nationales, D., P I, No.4. The following is a
sample among others of the impositions of the revolutionary committees.
(Complaint of Mariotte, proprietor, former mayor of Chatillon-sur-Seine,
Floréal 27, year II.) "On Brumaire 23, year II., I was stopped just as
I was taking post at Mussy, travelling on business for the Republic, and
provided with a commission and passport from the Minister of war.... I
was searched in the most shameful manner; citizen Ménétrier, member of
the committee, used towards me the foulest language.... I was confined
in a tavern; instead of two gendarmes which would have been quite
sufficient to guard me, I had the whole brigade, who passed that night
and the next day drinking, until, in wine and brandy the charge against
me in the tavern amounted to sixty francs. And worse still, two members
of the same committee passed a night guarding me and made me pay for
it. Add to this, they said openly before me that I was a good pigeon to
pluck. ... They gave me the escort of a state criminal of the highest
importance, three national gendarmes, mounted, six National Guards, and
even to the Commandant of the National Guard; citizen Mièdan, member of
the revolutionary committee, put himself at the head of the cortege, ten
men to conduct one!.... I was obliged to pay my torturers, fifty francs
to the commandant, and sixty to his men."]
[Footnote 33103: Moniteur, XXI., 261. (Speech by an inhabitant of Troyes
in the Jacobin Club, Paris, Messidor 26, year II.)]
[Footnote 33104: Albert Babeau, II., 164. (Depositions of the
tavern-keeper and of the commissioner, Garnier.)]
[Footnote 33105: "Frochot," by Louis Passy, 170, 172. (Letter by Pajot
and petition of the Aignay municipality, March 10, 1795.)--Bibliotheque
Nationale, L., 41. No.1802. (Denunciation by six sections of the commune
of Dijon to the National Convention.)]
[Footnote 33106: "Recueil de Pièces Authentiques sur la Révolution de
Strasbourg," I., 187, and letter of Burger, Thermidor 25, year II.]
[Footnote 33107: Archives Nationales, D., P I, 6 (file 37)--Letter of
the members of the Strasbourg revolutionary committee, Ventôse 13,
year III., indicating to the mayor and municipal officers of
Chalons-sur-Marne certain Jacobins of the town as suitable members of
the Propaganda at Strasbourg.]
[Footnote 33108: "Recueil de Pièces Authentiques concernant la
Révolution à Strasbourg," I.,71. Deposition of the recorder Weis on the
circuit of the Revolutionary Tribunal, composed of Schneider, Clavel
and Taffin. "The judges never left the table without having become
intoxicated with everything of the finest, and, in this state, they
gathered in the tribunal and condemned the accused to death."--Free
living and "extravagant expenditure" were common even "among the
employees of the government." "I encountered," says Meissner,
"government carters served with chickens, pastry and game, whilst at the
traveler's table there was simply an old leg of mutton and a few poor
side-dishes." ("Voyage en France," toward the end of 1795, p.371.)]
[Footnote 33109: Some of them, nevertheless, are not ugly, but merely
sots. The following is a specimen. A certain Velu, a born vagabond,
formerly in the alms-house and brought up there, then a shoemaker or a
cobbler, afterwards teaching school in the faubourg de Vienne, and at
last a haranguer and proposer of tyrannicide motions, short, stout and
as rubicund as his cap, is made President of the Popular club at Blois,
then delegate for domiciliary visits, and, throughout the reign
of Terror, he is a principal personage in the town, district and
department. (Dufort de Cheverney, "Mémoires," (MS.) March 21, 1793 and
June, 1793.) In June, 1793, this Velu is ordered to visit the chateau de
Cheverney, to verify the surrender of all feudal documents. He arrives
unexpectedly, meets the steward, Bambinet, enters the mayor's house, who
keeps an inn, and drinks copiously, which gives Bambinet time to warn M.
Dufort de Cheverney and have the suspicious registers concealed.--This
done, "Velu is obliged to leave his bottle and march to the chateau.--He
assumed haughtiness and aimed at familiarity; he would put his hand on
his breast and, taking yours, address you: "Good day, brother."--He came
there at nine o'clock in the morning, advanced, took my hand and said:
"Good-day, brother, how are you?" "Very well, citizen, and how are you?"
"You do not tutoyer--you are not up to the Revolution?"We'll see--will
you step in the parlor?" "Yes, brother, I'll follow you."--We enter; he
sees my wife who, I may say, has an imposing air. He boldly embraces
her and, repeating his gesture on the breast, takes her hand and says:
"Good-day, sister." "Come," I interpose, "let us take breakfast, and, if
you please, you shall dine with me." "Yes, but on one condition, that tu
me tutoie." "I will try, but I am not in the habit of it." After warming
up his intellect and heart with a bottle of wine, we get rid of him
by sending him to inspect the archives-room, along with my son and
Bambinet. It is amusing, for he can only read print... Bambinet, and
the procureur, read the titles aloud, and pass over the feudalisms. Velu
does not notice this and always tells them to go on.--After an hour,
tired out, he comes back: "All right," he says, "now let me see your
chateau, which is a fine one." He had heard about a room where there
were fantocini, in the attic. He goes up, opens some play-books, and,
seeing on the lists of characters the name of King and Prince, he, says
to me: "You must scratch those out, and play only republican pieces."
The descent is by a back-stairs. On the way down he encounters a maid
of my wife's, who is very pretty; he stops and, regarding my son, says:
"You must as a good Republican, sleep with that girl and marry her." I
look at him and reply: "Monsieur Velu, listen; we are well behaved here,
and such language cannot be allowed. You must respect the young
people in my house." A little disconcerted, he tames down and is quite
deferential to Madame de Cheverney.--"You have pen and ink on your
table," he says, "bring them here." "What for," I ask, "to take my
inventory?" "No, but I must make a procès-verbal. You help me; it will
be better for you, as you can fix it to suit you" This was not badly
done, to conceal his want of knowledge.--We go in to dinner. My servants
waited on the table; I had not yielded to the system of a general table
for all of us, which would not have pleased my servants any more
than myself. Curiosity led them all to come in and see us dining
together.--"Brother," says Velu to me, "don't these people eat with
you?" (He saw the table set for only four persons.) I reply: "Brother,
that would not be any more agreeable to them than to myself. Ask
them."--He ate little, drank like an ogre, and was talkative about his
amours; getting carried away he got so close to being naughty that he
upset my wife, without actually going to far. Apropos of the Revolution,
and the danger we incurred, he said innocently: "Don't I run as much
risk as anybody? It is my opinion that, in three months, I shall have my
head off! But we must all take our chance!"--Now and then, he indulged
in sans-culottisms. He seized the servant's hand, who changed his plate:
"Brother, I beg you to take my place, and let me wait on you in my
turn "--He drank the cordials, and finally left, pleased with his
reception.--Returning to the inn, he stays until nine o'clock at night
and stuffs himself, but is not intoxicated. One bottle had no effect on
him; he could empty a cask and show no signs of it.]
[Footnote 33110: Moniteur, XXII., 425. (Session of Brumaire 13, year
III.) Cambon, in relation to the revolutionary committees, says: "I
would observe to the Assembly that they were never paid." A member
replies: "They took their pay themselves." ("Yes, yes."--Applause.)]
[Footnote 33111: Moniteu, XXII., 711. (Report by Cambon, Frimaire 6,
year III.)--Cambon stated, indeed, Frimaire 26, year II., (Moniteur,
XVIII., 680), concerning these taxes "Not one word, not one sou has yet
reached the Treasury; they want to override the Convention which made
the Revolution."]
[Footnote 33112: Ibid., 720. "The balances reported, of which the
largest portion is already paid into the vaults of the National
Treasury, amount to twenty millions one hundred and sixty-six thousand
three hundred and thirty livres."--At Paris, Marseilles, and Bordeaux,
in the large towns where tens of millions were raised in three-quarters
of the districts, Cambon, three months after Thermidor, could not yet
obtain, I will not say the returns, but a statement of the sums raised.
The national agents either did not reply to him, or did it vaguely,
or stated that in their districts there was neither civic donation nor
revolutionary tax, and particularly at Marseilles, where a forced
loan had been made of four millions.--Cf. De Martel, "Fouché," P.245.
(Memorial of the central administration of Nièvre, Prairial 19, year
III.) "The account returned by the city of Nevers amounts to eighty
thousand francs, the use of which has never been verified.... This
tax, in part payment of the war subsidy, was simply a trap laid by the
political actors in order to levy a contribution on honest, credulous
citizens."--Ibid., 217. On voluntary gifts and forced taxation cf. at
Nantes, the use made of revolutionary taxes, brought out on the trial of
the revolutionary committee.]
[Footnote 33113: Ludovic Sciout, IV., 19. Report of Representative
Becker. (Journal des Débats et Décrets, p.743, Prairial, year III.)
He returns from a mission to Landau and renders an account of the
executions committed by the Jacobin agents in the Rhenish provinces.
They levied taxes, sword in hand, and threatened the refractory with the
guillotine at Strasbourg. The receipts which passed under the reporter's
eyes "presented the sum of three millions three hundred and forty-five
thousand seven hundred and eighty-five livres, two deniers, whilst our
colleague, Cambon, reports only one hundred and thirty-eight thousand
paid in."]
[Footnote 33114: Moniteur, XXII., 754. (Report of Grégoire, Frimaire
24, year III.) "Rascallery--this word recalls the old revolutionary
committees, most of which formed the scum of society and which showed so
many aptitudes for the double function of robber and persecutor."]
[Footnote 33115: Archives Nationales, AF., II., 107. (Orders of
Representatives Ysabeau and Tallien, Bordeaux, Brumaire 11 and 17, year
II.)--Third order, promulgated by the same parties, Frimaire 2, year
II., replacing this committee by another of twelve members and six
deputies, each at two hundred francs a month. Fourth order, Pluviôse 16,
year II., dismissing the members of the foregoing committee, as exagérés
and disobedient. It is because they regard their local royalty in quite
a serious light.-Ibid., AF., II., 46. ("Extracts from the minutes of
the meetings of the revolutionary committee of Bordeaux," Prairial, year
II.) This extract, consisting of eighteen pages, shows in detail the
inside workings of a revolutionary committee the number of arrested goes
on increasing; on the 27th of Prairial there are 1524. The committee is
essentially a police office; it delivers certificates of civism, issues
warrants of arrest, corresponds with other committees, even very remote,
at Limoges, and Clermont-Ferrand, delegates any of its members to make
investigations or domicialiary searches, to affix seals, and it receives
and transmits denunciations, summons the denounced to appear before it,
reads interrogations, writes to the Committee of Public Safety, etc.
The following are samples of its warrants of arrest: "Muller, a
riding-master, will be confined in the former Petit Seminaire, under
suspicion of aristocracy, according to public opinion."--Another
example, (Archives Nationales, F.7, 2475. Register of the procès-verbaux
of the revolutionary committee of the Piques section, Paris, June
3, 1793.) Warrant of arrest against Boucher, grocer, rue Neuve du
Luxembourg, "suspect" of incivisme and "having cherished wicked and
perfidious intentions against his wife." Boucher, arrested, declares
that, "what he said and did in his own house, concerned nobody but
himself." On which he was led to prison.]
[Footnote 33116: Archives Nationales, AF., II., 30 (No.105). Examination
of Jean Davilliers, and other ransomed parties.]
[Footnote 33117: Berryat Saint-Prix, 313. (Trial of Lacombe and his
accomplices after Thermidor.)]
[Footnote 33118: Archives Nationales, AF., II., 46. (Letter of Julien
to the Committee of Public Safety, Bordeaux, Messidor 12, year
II.)--Moniteur, XXII., 713. (Report by Cambon, Frimaire 6, year III.)
At Verins, citizens were imprisoned and then set at liberty "on
consideration of a fee."--Albert Babeau, II., 164, 165, 206. (Report
by Cambon, Frimaire 6, year II.) "Citoyenne (madame) Deguerrois,
having come to procure the release of her husband, a public functionary
demanded of her ten thousand livres, which he reduced to six thousand
for doing what she desired."--"One document attests that Massey paid two
thousand livres, and widow Delaporte six hundred livres, to get out of
prison."]
[Footnote 33119: Mallet-Dupan, "First letter to a Genoa merchant,"
(March I, 1796), pp.33-35. "One of the wonders of the reign of Terror
is the slight attention given to the trafficking in life and death,
characteristic of terrorism.... We scarcely find a word on the countless
bargains through which 'suspect' citizens bought themselves out of
captivity, and imprisoned citizens bought off the guillotine. ...
Dungeons and executions were as much matters of trade as the purchase of
cattle at a fair." This traffic "was carried on in all the towns,
bourgs and departments surrendered to the Convention and Revolutionary
Committees.".... "It has been established since the 10th of August."
"I will only cite among a multitude of instances the unfortunate Duc
du Châtelet: never did anybody pay more for his execution!"--Wallon,
"Histoire du Tribunal Revolutionnaire de Paris," VI., 88. (Denunciation
of Fouquier-Tinville, signed Saulnie.) According to Saulnie he dined
regularly twice a week at No 6 rue Serpente, with one Demay, calling
himself a lawyer and living with a woman named Martin. In this
death-trap, in the middle of orgies, the freedom or death of those
in prison was bargained for in money with impunity. One head alone,
belonging to the house of Boufflers, escaping the scaffold through the
intrigues of these vampires, was worth to them thirty thousand livres,
of which one thousand were paid down and a bond given for the rest,
payable on being set at liberty.--Morellet, "Memoires," II., 32. The
agent of Mesdames de Bouffiers was Abbé Chevalier, who had formerly
known Fouquier-Tinville in the office of a procureur an Parliament
and who, renewing the acquaintance, came and drank with Fouquier. "He
succeeded in having the papers of the ladies Bouffiers, which were
ready to be sent to the Tribunal, placed at the bottom of the
file."--Mallet-Dupan, " Memoires," II., 495. "Fouquier-Tinville received
a pension of one thousand crowns a month from Mesdames de Bouffiers; the
ransom increased one quarter each month on account of the atrocity of
the circumstances. This method saved these ladies, whilst those who paid
a sum in gross lost their lives... It was Du Vaucel, fermier-general,
who saved the Princess of Tarente....for five hundred louis, after
having saved two other ladies for three hundred louis, given to one of
the Jacobin leaders."]
[Footnote 33120: "Tableau des Prisons de Toulouse," 324. Coudert, of
the Municipal Council, shoemaker, charged with the duty of taking
silver-plate from the accused, did not know how, or was unwilling, to
draw up any other than an irregular and valueless procès-verbal. On
this, an accused party objected and refused to sign. "Take care, you,"
exclaims Coudert in a rage, "with your damned cleverness, you are
playing the stubborn. You are nothing but a bloody fool! You are
getting into a bad box! If you don't sign, I'll have you guillotined."
Frequently, there are no papers at all. (De Martel, "Fouché," p.236.
Memorial by the authorities of Allier, addressed to the Convention,
document 9.) October 30, 1793. Order of the revolutionary committee
enjoining nocturnal visits in all "suspect" houses in Moulins, to remove
all gold, silver and copper. "Eleven parties are made up.. .. each to
visit eight or ten houses. Each band is headed by one of the
committee, with one municipal officer, accompanied by locksmiths and
a revolutionary guard. The dwellings of the accused and other private
individuals are searched. They force secretaries and wardrobes of which
they do not find the keys. They pillage the gold and silver coin. They
carry off plate, jewels, copper utensils and other effects, bed-clothes,
docks, vehicles, etc. No receipt is given. No statement is made of what
is carried off. They rest content by at the end of the month, reporting,
in a sort of procès-verbal drawn up at a meeting of the committee, that,
according to returns of the visits made, very little plate was found,
and only a little money in gold and silver, all without any calculation
or enumeration."--"Souvenirs et Journal d'un Bourgeois d'Evreux," p.93.
(February 25, 1795.) The meetings of the popular club "were
largely devoted to reading the infamous doings and robberies of the
revolutionary committee.... The members who designated 'suspects' often
arrested them themselves, and drew up a procès-verbal in which they
omitted to state the jewels and gold they found."]
[Footnote 33121: Ibid., 461. (Vendemaire 24, year III. Visit of
Representative Malarmé.) The former Duc de Narbonne-Lorra aged
eighty-four, says to Malarmé: "Citizen representative, excuse me if I
keep my cap on; I lost my hair in that prison, without having been able
to get permission to have a wig made; it is worse than being robbed on
the road." "Did they steal anything from you?" "They stole one hundred
and forty five louis d'or and paid me with an acquittance for a tax for
the sans-culottes, which is another robbery done to the citizens of this
commune where I have neither home nor possessions." "Who committed
this robbery?" "It was Citizen Berger, of the municipal council."
"Was nothing else taken from you?" "They took a silver coffee-pot, two
soap-cases and a silver shaving-dish" "Who took those articles?" "It was
Citizen Miot (a notable of the council)." Miot confesses to having kept
these objects and not taken them to the Mint.-Ibid., 178. (Ventôse 20,
year II.) Prisoners all have their shoes taken, even those who had but
one pair, a promise being made that they should have sabots in exchange,
which they never got. Their cloaks also were taken with a promise to pay
for them, which was never done.--"Souvenirs et Journal d'un Bourgeois
d'Evreux," p.92. (February 25, 1795.) "The sessions of the popular
club were largely devoted to reading the infamies and robberies of the
revolutionary committee. Its members, who designated the suspects, often
arrested them themselves; they made levies and reports of these in which
they omitted the gold and jewels found."]
[Footnote 33122: Moniteur, XXII. 133. (Session of Vendémiaire II, year
III.) Report by Thibaudeau. "These seven individuals are reprobates who
were dismissed by the people's representatives for having stolen the
effects of persons arrested. A document is on record in which they make
a declaration that, not remembering the value of the effects embezzled,
they agree to pay damages to the nation of twenty-two francs each."]
[Footnote 33123: Berryat Saint-Prix, 447. Judge Ragot was formerly a
joiner at Lyons, and Viot, the public prosecutor, a former deserter from
the Penthièvre regiment. "Other accused persons were despoiled. Little
was left them other than their clothes, which were in a bad state.
Nappier, the bailiff, was, later, (Messidor, year III.), condemned
to irons for having appropriated a part of the effects, jewels and
assignats belonging to persons under accusation."]
[Footnote 33124: The words of Camille Desmoulins in "La France Libre,"
(August, 1782).]
[Footnote 33125: De Martel, "Fouché," 362.-Ibid.,, 132, 162, 179, 427,
443.--Lecarpentier, in La Manche, constantly stated: "Those who do not
like the Revolution, must pay those who make it."]
[Footnote 33126: Marcelin Boudet, 175. (Address of Monestier to the
popular clubs of Puy-de-Dome, February 23, 1793.)]
[Footnote 33127: Alexandrine des Echerolles, "Une famille noble sous la
Terreur."]
[Footnote 33128: Archives Nationales, AF., II., 65. (Letter of
General Kermorvan to the president of the committee of Public Safety,
Valenciennes, Fructidor 12, year III.)]
[Footnote 33129: Report by Courtois, "Sur les papiers de Robespierre,"
(Pieces justificatives, pp. 312-324), Letters of Reverchon, Germinal 29,
Floréal 7 and 23, and by La Porte, Germinal 24, year II.]
[Footnote 33130: Ibid. Letter by La Porte "I do not know what fatality
induces patriots here not to tolerate their brethren whom they call
strangers ... They have declared to us that they would not suffer any of
them to hold office." The representatives dared arrest but two robbers
and despoilers, who are now free and declaiming against them at Paris.
"Countless grave and even atrocious circumstances are daily presented to
us on which we hesitate to act, lest we should strike patriots, or those
who call themselves such... Horrible depredations are committed."]
[Footnote 33131: Ibid. Letter by Reverchon: "These fanatics all want the
Republic simply for themselves."... "They call themselves patriots
only to cut the throats of their brethren and get rich."--Guillon de
Montléon, "Histoire de la ville de Lyons Pendant la Révolution III.",
166. (Report by Fouché, April, 1794.) "Innocent persons, acquitted
by the terrible tribunal of the Revolutionary committee, were again
consigned to the dungeons of criminals through the despotic orders
of the thirty-two committees, because they were so unfortunate as to
complain that, on returning home, they could not find the strictly
necessary objects they had left there."]
[Footnote 33132: Meissner, "Voyage en France dans les Derniers Mois
de 1795," p.343. "A certain domain was handed over to one of their
creatures by the revolutionary departments for almost nothing, less than
the proceeds of the first cut of wood."--Moniteur, XXIII., 397. (Speech
by Bourdon de l'Oise, May 6, 1795.) "A certain farmer paid for his farm
worth five thousand francs by the sale of one horse."]
[Footnote 33133: Moniteur, XXII., 82. (Report by Grégoire, Fructidor 14,
year II.) Ibid., 775. (Report by Grégoire, Frimaire 24, year III.)]
[Footnote 33134: "Recueil de Pièces Authentiques sur la Révolution à
Strasbourg," II., p. I. (Procès-verbal, drawn up in the presence of the
elder Mouet and signed by him.)]
[Footnote 33135: Moniteur, XXII., 775. (Report of Grégoire, Frimaire
24, year III.)--Ibid., 711. (Report by Cambon, Frimaire 6, year
III.)--Archives Nationales, AF., II., 65. (Letter of General Kermorvan,
Valenciennes, Fructidor 12, year III.)]
[Footnote 33136: "Tableau des Prisons de Toulouse," 184. (Visit of
Ventôse 27, year II.)]
[Footnote 33137: Archives Nationales, F.7, 7164. (Department of Var
"Ideé générale et appréciation avec détails sur chaque canton," year
V.)]
[Footnote 33138: Ibid., F.7, 7171 (No. 7915).--(Department of
Bouches-du-Rhône, "Ideé générale," year V.)--(Letters of Miollis,
commissioner of the Directory in the department, Ventôse 14 and 16, year
V. Letter of Gen. Willot to the Minister, Ventôse 10, and of Gen. Merle
to Gen. Willot, Ventôse 17, year V.) "Several sections of anarchists
travel from one commune to another exciting weak citizens to riots and
getting them to take part in the horrors they are meditating."--Ibid., F
7, 7164. Letter of Gen. Willot to the Minister, Aries, Pluviôse 12, year
V., with supporting documents, and especially a letter of the director
of the jury, on the violence committed by, and the reign of, the
Jacobins in Aries.) Their party "is composed of the vilest artisans
and nearly all the sailors." The municipality recruited amongst former
terrorists, "has enforced for a year back the agrarian law, devastation
of the forests, pillage of the wheat-crops, by bands of armed men under
pretext of the right of gleaning, the robbery of animals at the plough
as well as of the flocks," etc.]
[Footnote 33139: Ibid., F.7, 7171. "These commissioners (of the quarter)
notify the exclusives, and even swindlers, when warrants are out against
them.... The same measures carried out in the primary assemblies on the
1st of Thermidor last, in the selection of municipal officers, have been
successfully revived in the organization of the National Guard--threats,
insults, shouting, assaults, compulsory ejection from meetings then
governed by the amnestied, finally, the appointment of the latter to
the principal offices. In effect, all, beginning with the places of
battalion leaders and reaching to those of corporals, are exclusively
filled by their partisans. The result is that the honest, to whom
serving with men regarded by them with aversion is repugnant, employ
substitutes instead of mounting guard themselves, the security of the
town being in the hands of those who themselves ought to be watched."]
[Footnote 33140: Archives Nationales, F.7, 3273. (Letter of Mérard,
former administrator and judge in 1790 and 1791, in years III., IV.
and V., to the Minister, Apt, Pluviôse 15, year III., with personal
references and documentary evidence.) "I can no longer refrain at the
sight of so many horrors.... The justices of the peace and the director
of the jury excuse themselves on the ground that no denunciations
or witnesses are brought forward. Who would dare appear against men
arrogating to themselves the title of superior patriots, foremost
in every revolutionary crisis, and with friends in every commune and
protectors in all high places? The favor they enjoyed was such that
the commune of Gordes was free of any levy of conscripts and from all
requisitions. People thus disposed, they said, to second civic
and administrative views, could not be humored too much..... This
discouraging state of things simply results from the weakness,
inexperience, ignorance, apathy and immorality of the public
functionaries who, since the 18th of Fructidor, year V., swarm, with a
few exceptions only, among the constituted authorities. Whatever is most
foul and incompetent is in office, every good citizen being frightened
to death."--Ibid. (Letter of Montauban, director of the registry since
1793 to the Minister of the Interior, a compatriot, Avignon, Pluviôse
7, year VII.) "Honest folks are constantly annoyed and put down by the
authors and managers of the 'Glaciere'.... . by the tools of the bloody
tribunal of Orange and the incendiaries of Bedouim." He enjoins secrecy
on this letter, which, "if known to the Glacièrists, or Orangeists,
would cost him his life."]
[Footnote 33141: Ibid., F.7, 7164. (Department of Var, year V., "Ideé
Générale.") "National character is gone; it is even demoralized: an
office-holder who has not made his fortune quickly is regarded as a
fool."]
[Footnote 33142: Moniteur, XXII., 240. (Indictment of the fourteen
members of the Revolutionary committee of Nantes, and the summing-up
of the examination, Vendémiaire 23, year II.) When there is no special
information concerning the other committees the verdict, on the whole,
is nearly always as overwhe1ming.-Ibid. (Session of Vendémiaire 12, year
III. complaint of a deputation from Ferney-Voltaire.) "The Gex district
was, for over a year, a prey to five or six scoundrels who took refuge
there. Under the mask of patriotism they succeeded in getting possession
of all the offices. Vexations of every kind, robberies of private
houses, squandering of public money, were committed by these
monsters." (The Ferney deputies brought with them the testimony of
witnesses.)--Ibid., 290. (Letters of Representative Goupilleau, Beziers,
Vendémiaire 28, year III. on the terrorists of Vaucluse.) "These
carnivorous fellows, regretting the times when they could rob and
massacre with impunity.... Who, six months ago, were starving and who
now live in the most scandalous opulence... Squanderers of the public
funds, robbers of private fortunes... Guilty of rapine, of forced
contributions, of extortions," etc.--Prudhomme, "Les crimes de la
Révolution," VI., 79. (On the Revolutionary committee installed by
Fouché at Nevers.) The local investigation shows that the eleven leaders
were men of vile character, unfrocked and disreputable priests, lawyers
and notaries driven out of their professional bodies, and even from
the popular clubs, on account of their dishonesty, penniless actors,
surgeons without patients, depraved, ruined, incapable men, and two
jail-birds.]
[Footnote 33143: Beaulieu, III., 754.--Cf. "The Revolution," vol. II.,
ch. I., P 9.]
[Footnote 33144: "Recueil de pièces authentiques sur la Révolution
à Strasbourg," I., 21.--Archives Nationales D., I., P 6. (Orders by
Rousselin, Frimaire II, year II.)]
[Footnote 33145: "Un Sejour en France de 1792 à 1795," p.409.]
[Footnote 33146: I have not found a complete list of the towns and
departments which had a revolutionary army. The correspondence of
representatives on mission and published documents verify the presence
of revolutionary armies in the towns mentioned.]
[Footnote 33147: De Martel, "Fouché," 338. (Text of the orders of the
commissioners of Public Safety.) The detachment sent to Lyons comprises
twelve hundred fusiliers, six hundred gunners, one hundred and fifty
horses. Three hundred thousand livres are remitted as traveling expenses
to the commissary, fifty thousand to Collot d'Herbois, and nineteen
thousand two hundred to the Jacobin civilians accompanying them.]
[Footnote 33148: Moniteur. (Session of Brumaire 17 year III.) Letter of
Representative Calès to the Convention. "Under the pretext of guarding
the prisons, the municipality (of Dijon) had a revolutionary army which
I broke up two days ago, as it cost six thousand francs a month, and
would not obey the commander of the armed force, and served as a support
to intriguers. These soldiers, who were all workmen out of employment,
do nothing but post themselves in the tribunes of the clubs, where they,
with the women they bring along with them, applaud the leaders, and so
threaten citizens who are disposed to combat them, and force these to
keep their mouths shut."??De Martel, "Fouché," 425. "Javogues, to elude
a decree of the Convention (Frimaire 14) suppressing the revolutionary
army in the departments, converted the twelve hundred men he had
embodied in it in the Loire into paid soldiers."? Ibid., 132. (Letter
of Goulin, Bourg, Frimaire 23.) "Yesterday, at Bourg-Régeriéré, I found
Javogues with about four hundred men of the revolutionary army whom he
had brought with him on the 20th instant."]
[Footnote 33149: Buchez et Roux, XXIX., 45.--Moniteur, XX., 67. (Report
of Barère, Germinal 7.)--Sauzay, IV., 303. (Orders of Representative
Bassal at Bésançon.)]
[Footnote 33150: We see by Barère's report (Germinal 7, year II.) that
the revolutionary army of Paris, instead of being six thousand men, was
only four thousand, which is creditable to Paris.--Mallet-Dupan, II.,
52. (cf. "The Revolution," II., 353.)--Gouvion St. Cyr, I., 137. "In
these times, the representatives had organized in Haut-Rhin what they
called a revolutionary army, composed of deserters and all the vagabonds
and scamps they could pick up who had belonged to the popular club; they
dragged along after it what they called judges and a guillotine."--"Hua,
Souvenirs d'un Avocat," 196.]
[Footnote 33151: Riouffe, "Memoires d'un deténue." P.31.]
[Footnote 33152: Ibid., "These balls were brought out ostentatiously and
shown to the people beforehand. The tying of our hands and passing three
ropes around our waists did not seem to him sufficient. We kept these
irons on the rest of the route, and they were so heavy that, if the
carriage had tilted to one side, we should inevitably have had our legs
broken. The gate-keepers of the conciergerie of Paris, who had held
their places nine-teen years, were astonished at it."]
[Footnote 33153: Archives des Affaires étrangères, vol.331. (Letter of
Haupt, Belfort, Frimaire 13, year II.)]
[Footnote 33154: Ibid. (Letter by Desgranges, Bordeaux, Frimaire 10.)]
[Footnote 33155: Ibid., vol.332. (Letter of Thiberge, Marseilles,
Frimaire 14.) "I surrounded the town with my small army."]
[Footnote 33156: Ibid., 331. (Orders of Representative Bassal, Besançon
Frimaire 5.) "No citizen shall keep in his house more than four months'
supplies.... Every citizen with more than this will deposit the surplus
in the granary 'd'abondance' provided for the purpose... . Immediately
on receipt of the present order, the municipality will summon all
citizens that can thresh and proceed immediately, without delay, to the
threshing-ground, under penalty of being prosecuted as refractory to the
law.... The revolutionary army is specially charged with the execution
of the articles of this order, and the revolutionary tribunals,
following this army with the enforcement of the penalties inflicted
according to this order."--Other documents show us that the
revolutionary army, organized in the department of Doubs and in the five
neighboring departments, comprises, in all, two thousand four hundred
men. (Ibid., vol., 1411. Letter of Meyenfeld to Minister Desforges,
Brumaire 27, year II.)--Archives Nationales, AF., II., 111. (Order
of Couthon, Maignet, Chateauneuf, Randon, La Porte and Albitte,
Commune-Affranchie, Brumaire 9, year II., establishing in the ten
surrounding departments a revolutionary army of one thousand men per
department, for the conscription of grain. Each army is to be directed
by commissioners, strangers to the department, and is to operate in
other departments than in the one where it is raised.)]
[Footnote 33157: Archives des Affaires étrangères, 331. (Letter of
Chépy, Frimaire II.)--Writing one month before this, (Brumaire 6) he
says: "The farmers show themselves very hostile against the towns and
the law of the maximum. Nothing can be done without a revolutionary
army."]
[Footnote 33158: Mercier, "Paris Pendant la Révolution," I., 357.]
[Footnote 33159: Hua, 197. I do not find in any printed or manuscript
document but one case of resistance, that of the brothers Chaperon,
in the hamlet of Leges, near Sens, who declare that they have no wheat
except for their own use, and who defend themselves by the use of a gun.
The gendarmerie not being strong enough to overcome them, the tocsin is
sounded and the National Guard of Sens and the neighborhood is summoned;
bringing cannon, the affair ends with the burning of the house. The two
brothers are killed. Before being overcome, however, they had struck
down the captain of the National Guard of Sens and killed or wounded
nearly forty of their assailants. A surviving brother and a sister are
guillotined. (June, 1794. Wallon, IV., 352.)]
[Footnote 33160: Moniteur, XVIII., 663. (Session of Frimaire 24, report
by Lecointre.) "The communes of Thieux, Jully and many others were
victims to their brigandage."--"The stupor in the country is such that
the poor sufferers dare not complain of these vexations because, they
say, they are only too lucky to have escaped with their lives."--This
time, however, these public brigands made a mistake. Gibbon's
son happens to be Lecointre's tenant farmer. Moreover, it is only
accidentally that he mentions the circumstance to his landlord; "he came
to see him for another purpose."--Cf. "The Revolution," vol. II., 302.
(There is a similar scene in the house of one Ruelle, a farmer, in the
commune of Lisse.)]
[Footnote 33161: Passim Alfred Lallier, "Le sans-culotte
Goullin."--Wallon, "Histoire du Tribunal révolutionnaire de Paris,"
V., 368. (Deposition of Lacaille.)--In addition to this, the most
extraordinary monsters are met with in other administrative bodies, for
example, in Nantes, a Jean d'Héron, tailor, who becomes inspector of
military stores. "After the rout at Clisson, says the woman Laillet, he
appeared in the popular club with a brigand's ear attached to his hat by
way of cockade. His pockets were full of ears, which he took delight in
making the women kiss. He exposed other things which he made them kiss
and the woman Laillet adds certain details which I dare not transcribe."
(" Le patriote d'Héron," by L. de la Sicotière, pp.9 and 10. Deposition
of the woman Laillet, fish-dealer, also the testimony of Mellinet, vol.
VIII., p.256.)]
[Footnote 33162: Wallon, V., 368. (Deposition of de Laillet.)]
[Footnote 33163: Ibid., V., 37'. (Deposition of Tabouret.)]
[Footnote 33164: Ibid., V., 373. (Deposition of Mariotte.)]
[Footnote 33165: Monieur, XXII., 321. (Deposition of Philippe
Troncjolly.)--Berryat Saint-Prix, "La Justice Révolutionnaire," 39.]
[Footnote 33166: Campardon, "Histoire du Tribunal Révolutionnaire,"
II., 30. They have ten francs a day, and full powers conferred on
them. (Orders of Carrier and Francastel, October 28, 1793.) "The
representatives.... confer collectively and individually, on each
member of the revolutionary company, the right of surveillance over
all 'suspect' citizens in Nantes, over strangers who come to or reside
there, over monopolists of every sort.... The right to make domiciliary
visits wherever they may deem it advisable.... The armed force will
everywhere respond to the demands made upon it in the name of the
company, or of any individual member composing it."--Berryat Saint-Prix,
p. 42.--Alfred Lallier, "Les Noyades de Nantes," p.20. (Deposition of
Gauthier.) Ibid., p.22. "Damn," exclaims Carrier, "I kept that execution
for Lamberty. I'm sorry that it was done by others."]
[Footnote 33167: Alfred Lallier, ibid., pp.21 and 90.--Cf. Moniteur,
XXII., 331. (Deposition of Victoire Abraham.) "The drowners made quite
free with the women, even using them for their own purposes when pleased
with them, which women, in token of their kindness, enjoyed the precious
advantage of not being drowned."]
[Footnote 33168: Campardon, II., 8. (Deposition of Commeret.)--Berryat
Saint-Prix, p. 42.-Ibid., p.28. Other agents of Carrier, Fouquet and
Lamberty, were condemned specially, "for having saved from national
vengeance Madame de Martilly and her maid... They shared the woman
Martilly and the maid between them." In connection with the "dainty
taste" of Jacobins for silk dresses M. Berryat Saint-Prix cites the
following answer of a Jacobin of 1851 to the judge d'instruction of
Rheims; on the objection being made to him that the Republic, as he
understood it, could not last long, he replied: "Possibly, but say it
lasts three months. That's long enough to fill one's pocket and belly
and rumple silk dresses?" Another of the same species said in 1871: "We
shall anyhow have a week's use of it." Observers of human nature will
find analogous details in the history of the Sepoy rebellion in India
against the English in 1803, also in the history of the Indians in the
United States. The September massacres in Paris and the history of
the combat of 1791 and 1792 have already provided us with the same
characteristic documents.]
[Footnote 33169: Alfred Lallier, "Les Fusillades de Nantes," P.23.
(Depositions of Picard, commander of the National Guards of the
escort.--Cf. the depositions of Jean Jounet, paver, and of Henri
Ferdinand, joiner.)]
[Footnote 33170: Sauzay, "Histoire de la Persécution Révolutionnaire
dans le Département du Doubs," VII., 687. (Letter of Grégoire, December
24, 1796.) "An approximative calculation makes the number of the authors
of so many crimes three hundred thousand, for in each commune there were
about five or six of these ferocious brutes who, named Brutus, perfected
the art of removing seals, drowning and cutting throats. They consumed
immense amounts in constructing 'Mountains,' in reveling, and in fetes
every three months which, after the first parade, became parodies,
represented by three or four actors in them, and with no audience. These
consisted, finally, of a drum-beater and the musical officer; and the
latter, ashamed of himself, often concealed his scarf in his pocket, on
his way to the Temple of Reason. ... But these 300 000 brigands had 2 or
300 directors, members of the National convention, who cannot be called
anything but scoundrels, since the language provides no other epithet so
forcible."]
BOOK FOURTH. THE GOVERNED.
CHAPTER I. THE OPPRESSED.
I. Revolutionary Destruction.
Magnitude of revolutionary destructiveness.--The four ways
of effecting it.--Expulsion from the country through forced
emigration and legal banishment.--Number of those expelled.
--Privation of liberty.--Different sorts of imprisonment.
--Number and situation of those imprisoned.--Murders after
being tried, or without trial.--Number of those guillotined
or shot after trial.--Indication of the number of other
lives destroyed.--Necessity and plan for wider destruction.
--Spoliation.--Its extent.--Squandering.--Utter losses.--Ruin
of individuals and the State.--The Notables the most
oppressed.
The object of the Jacobin, first of all, is the destruction of his
adversaries, avowed or presumed, probable or possible. Four violent
measures concur, together or in turn, to bring about the physical or
social extermination of all Frenchmen who no longer belong to the sect
or the party.
The first operation consists in expelling them from the
territory.--Since 1789, they have been chased off through a forced
emigration; handed over to jacqueries, or popular uprisings, in the
country, and to insurrections in the cities,[4101] defenseless and not
allowed to defend themselves, three-fourths of them have left France,
simply to escape popular brutalities against which neither the law nor
the government afforded them any protection. According as the law and
the administration, in becoming more Jacobin, became more hostile to
them, so did they leave in greater crowds. After the 10th of August
and 2nd of September, the flight necessarily was more general; for,
henceforth, if any one persisted in remaining after that date it was
with the almost positive certainty that he would be consigned to a
prison, to await a massacre or the guillotine. About the same time, the
law added to the fugitive the banished, all unsworn priests, almost an
entire class consisting of nearly 40 000 persons.[4102] It is calculated
that, on issuing from the reign of Terror, the total number of fugitives
and banished) amounted to 150 000[4103] the list would have been still
larger, had not the frontier been guarded by patrols and one had to
cross it at the risk of one's life; and yet, many do risk their lives
in attempting to cross it, in disguise, wandering about at night, in
mid-winter, exposed to gunshots, determined to escape cost what it will,
into Switzerland, Italy, or Germany, and even into Hungary, in quest of
security and the right of praying to God as one pleases.[4104]--If any
exiled or deported person ventures to return, he is tracked like a wild
beast, and, as soon as taken, he is guillotined.[4105] For example,
M. de Choiseul, and other unfortunates, wrecked and cast ashore on the
coast of Normandy, are not sufficiently protected by the law of nations.
They are brought before a military commission; saved temporarily through
public commiseration, they remain in prison until the First Consul
intervenes between them and the homicidal law and consents, through
favor, to deport them to the Dutch frontier.--If they have taken up arms
against the Republic they are cut off from humanity; a Pandour[4106]
taken prisoner is treated as a man; an émigré made prisoner is treated
like a wolf--they shoot him on the spot. In some cases, even the
pettiest legal formalities are dispensed with. "When I am lucky enough
to catch 'em," writes Gen. Vandamme, "I do not trouble the military
commission to try them. They are already tried--my saber and pistols do
their business."[4107]
The second operation consists in depriving "suspects" of their liberty,
of which deprivation there are several degrees; there are various ways
of getting hold of people.--Sometimes, the "suspect" is "adjourned,"
that is to say, the order of arrest is simply suspended; he lives under
a perpetual menace that is generally fulfilled; he never knows in the
morning that he will not sleep in a prison that night. Sometimes, he is
put on the limits of his commune. Sometimes, he is confined to his house
with or without guards, and, in the former case, he is obliged to pay
them. Again, finally, and which occurs most frequently, he is shut up
in this or that common jail.--In the single department of Doubs, twelve
hundred men and women are "adjourned;" three hundred put on the limits
of the commune, fifteen hundred confined to their houses, and twenty
two hundred imprisoned.[4108] In Paris, thirty-six such prisons and more
than "violins", or temporary jails, soon filled by the revolutionary
committees, do not suffice for the service.[4109] It is estimated that,
in France, not counting more than 40,000 provisional jails, twelve
hundred prisons, full and running over, contain each more than two
hundred inmates.[4110] At Paris, notwithstanding the daily void created
by the guillotine, the number of the imprisoned on Floréal 9, year II.,
amounts to 7,840; and, on Messidor 25 following, notwithstanding the
large batches of 50 and 60 persons led in one day, and every day, to
the scaffold, the number is still 7,502.[4111] There are more than one
thousand persons in the prisons of Arras, more than one thousand five
hundred in those of Toulouse, more than three thousand in those of
Strasbourg, and more than thirteen thousand in those of Nantes. In the
two departments alone of Bouches du-Rhône and Vaucluse, Representative
Maignet, who is on the spot, reports from 12,000 to 15,000
arrests.[4112] "A little before Thermidor," says Representative
Beaulieu, "the number of incarcerated arose to nearly 400,000, as is
apparent on the lists and registers then before the Committee of General
Security."[4113]--Among these poor creatures, there are children, and
not alone in the prisons of Nantes where the revolutionary searches have
collected the whole of the rural population; in the prisons of Arras,
among twenty similar cases, I find a coal-dealer and his wife with their
seven sons and daughters, from seventeen down to six years of age; a
widow with her four children from nineteen down to twelve years of age;
another noble widow with her nine children, from seventeen down to
three years of age, and six children, without father or mother, from
twenty-three down to nine years of age.[4114]--These prisoners of State
were treated, almost everywhere, worse than robbers and assassins under
the ancient régime. They began by subjecting them to rapiotage, that
is to say, stripping them naked or, at best, feeling their bodies under
their shirts; women and young girls fainted away under this examination,
formerly confined to convicts on entering the bagnio.[4115]--Frequently,
before consigning them to their dungeons or shutting them up in their
cells, they would be left two or three nights pell-mell in a lower hall
on benches, or in the court on the pavement, "without beds or straw."
"The feelings are wounded in all directions, every point of sensibility,
so to say, being played upon. They are deprived one after the other
of their property, assignats, furniture, and food, of daylight and
lamp-light, of the assistance which their wants and infirmities demand,
of a knowledge of public events, of all communication, either immediate
or written, with fathers, sons and husbands."[4116] They are obliged to
pay for their lodgings, their keepers, and for what they eat; they are
robbed at their very doors of the supplies they send for outside; they
are compelled to eat at a mess-table; they are furnished with scant
and nauseous food, "spoilt codfish, putrid herrings and meat, rotten
vegetables, all this accompanied with a mug of Seine water colored red
with some drug or other."[4117] They starve them, bully them, and vex
them purposely as if they meant to exhaust their patience and drive
them into a revolt, so as to get rid of them in a mass, or, at least, to
justify the increasing rapid strokes of the guillotine. They are huddled
together in tens, twenties and thirties, in one room at La Force, "eight
in a chamber, fourteen feet square," where all the beds touch, and many
overlap each other, where two out of the eight inmates are obliged to
sleep on the floor, where vermin swarm, where the closed sky-lights,
the standing tub, and the crowding together of bodies poisons the
atmosphere.--In many places, the proportion of the sick and dying is
greater than in the hold of a slave-ship. "Of ninety individuals with
whom I was shut up two months ago," writes a prisoner at Strasbourg,
"sixty-six were taken to the hospital in the space of eight days."[4118]
In the prisons of Nantes, 3000 out 13,000 prisoners die of typhoid fever
and of the rot in two months.[4119] 400 priests[4120] confined on a
vessel between decks, in the roadstead of Aix, stowed on top of each
other, wasted with hunger, eaten up by vermin, suffocated for lack of
air, half-frozen, beaten, mocked at, and constantly threatened with
death, suffer still more than Negroes in a slave-hold; for, through
interest in his freight, the captain of the slaver tries to keep
his human consignment in good health, whilst, through revolutionary
fanaticism, the crew of the Aix vessel detests its cargo of
"black-frocks" and would gladly send them to the bottom.--According
to this system, which, up to Thermidor 9, grows worse and worse,
imprisonment becomes a torture, oftentimes mortal, slower and more
painful than the guillotine, and to such an extent that, to escape it,
Champfort opens his veins and Condorcet swallows poison.[4121]The third
expedient consists of murder, with or without trial.--178 tribunals,
of which 40 are ambulatory, pronounce in every part of the territory
sentences of death which are immediately executed on the spot.[4122]
Between April 6, 1793, and Thermidor 9, year II., (July 27th, 1794)
that of Paris has 2,625 persons guillotined,[4123] while the provincial
judges do as much work as the Paris judges. In the small town of Orange
alone, they guillotine 331 persons. In the single town of Arras they
have 299 men and 93 women guillotined. At Nantes, the revolutionary
tribunals and military committees have, on the average, 100 persons
a day guillotined, or shot, in all 1,971. In the city of Lyons
the revolutionary committee admit 1,684, while Cadillot, one of
Robespierre's correspondents, advises him of 6,000.[4124]--The statement
of these murders is not complete, but 17,000 have been enumerated,[4125]
"most of them effected without any formality, evidence or direct
charge," among others the murder of "more than 1200 women, several of
whom were octogenarians and infirm;"[4126] particularly the murder of 60
women or young girls, condemned to death, say the warrants, for having
attended the services of unsworn priests, or for having neglected the
services of a sworn priest.
"The accused, ranged in order, were condemned at sight. Hundreds of
death-sentences took about a minute per head. Children of seven, five
and four years of age, were tried. A father was condemned for the son,
and the son for the father. A dog was sentenced to death. A parrot was
brought forward as a witness. Numbers of accused persons whose sentences
could not be written out were executed."
At Angers, the sentences of over four hundred men and three hundred and
sixty women, executed for the purpose of relieving the prisons, were
mentioned on the registers simply by the letters S or G (shot or
guillotined).[4127] At Paris, as in the provinces, the slightest
pretext[4128] served to constitute a crime. The daughter of the
celebrated painter, Joseph Vernet,[4129] was guillotined for being a
" receiver," for having kept fifty pounds of candles in her house,
distributed among the employees of La Muette by the liquidators of the
civil list. Young de Maillé,[4130] aged sixteen years, was guillotined
as a conspirator, "for having thrown a rotten herring in the face of
his jailer, who had served it to him to eat." Madame de Puy-Verin was
guillotined as "guilty" because she had not taken away from her deaf,
blind and senile husband a bag of card-counters, marked with the royal
effigy.--In default of any pretext,[4131] there was the supposition of a
conspiracy; blank lists were given to paid emissaries, who undertook
to search the various prisons and select the requisite number of heads;
they wrote names down on them according to their fancy, and these
provided the batches for the guillotine.
"As for myself," said the juryman Vilate, "I am never embarrassed. I am
always convinced. In a revolution, all who appear before this tribunal
ought to be condemned."--
At Marseilles, the Brutus Commission,[4132] "sentencing without public
prosecutor or jurymen, sent to the prisons for those it wished to put
to death. After having demanded their names, professions and wealth they
were sent down to a cart standing at the door of the Palais de
Justice; the judges then stepped out on the balcony and pronounced the
death-sentence." The same proceedings took place at Cambrai,
Arras, Nantes, Le Mans, Bordeaux, Nîmes, Lyons, Strasbourg, and
elsewhere.--Evidently, the judicial comedy is simply a parade; they
make use of it as one of the respectable means, among others less
respectable, to exterminate people whose opinions are not what they
should be, or who belong to the proscribed classes;[4133] Samson, at
Paris, and his colleagues in the provinces, the execution-platoons of
Lyons and Nantes, are simply the collaborators of murderers properly so
called, while legal massacres complete other massacres pure and simple.
Of this latter description, the fusillades of Toulon come first, where
the number of those who are shot largely surpasses one thousand;[4134]
next the great drownings of Nantes, in which 4,800 men, women and
children perished,[4135] the other drownings, for which no figures may
be given;[4136] then the countless popular murders committed in France
between July 14, 1789, and August 10, 1792; the massacre of one 1,300
prisoners in Paris, in September, 1792; the long train of assassinations
which, in July, August and September, 1789, extends over the entire
territory; finally, the dispatch of the prisoners, either shot or
sabered, without trial at Lyons and in the West. Even excepting those
who had died fighting or who, taken with arms in their hands, were
shot down or sabered on the spot, there were 10,000 persons slaughtered
without trial in the province of Anjou alone:[4137] accordingly, the
instructions of the Committee of Public Safety, also the written
orders of Carrier and Francastel, direct generals to "bleed freely" the
insurgent districts,[4138] and spare not a life: it is estimated that,
in the eleven western departments, the dead of both sexes and of all
ages exceeded 400,000.[4139]--Considering the program and principles of
the Jacobin sect this is no great number; they might have killed a good
many more. But time was wanting; during their short reign they did what
they could with the instrument in their hands. Look at their machine,
the gradual construction of its parts, the successive stages of its
operation from its starting up to Thermidor 9, and see how limited the
period of its operation was. Organized March 30 and April 6, 1793,
the Revolutionary Committees and the Revolutionary Tribunal had but
seventeen months in which to do their work. They did not drive ahead
with all their might until after the fall of the Girondists, and
especially after September, 1763 that is to say for a period of eleven
months. Its loose wheels were not screwed up and the whole was not
in running order under the impulse of the central motor until after
December, 1793, that is to say during eight months. Perfected by the law
of Prairial 22, it works for the past two months, faster and better than
before, with an energy and rapidity that increase from week to week.--At
that date, and even before it, the theorists have taken the bearings of
their destinies and accepted the conditions of their undertaking. Being
sectarians, they have a faith, and as orthodoxy tolerates no heresy, and
as the conversion of heretics is never sincere or durable, heresy can
be suppressed only by suppressing heretics. "It is only the dead,"
said Barère, Messidor 16, "who never return." On the 2nd and 3rd
of Thermidor,[4140] the Committee of Public Safety sends to
Fouquier-Tinville a list of four hundred and seventy-eight accused
persons with orders "to bring the parties named to trial at once."
Baudot and Jean Bon St. Andre, Carrier, Antonelle and Guifroy, had
already estimated the lives to be taken at several millions and,
according to Collot d' Herbois, who had a lively imagination, "the
political perspiration should go on freely, and not stop until from
twelve to fifteen million Frenchmen had been destroyed."[4141]
To make amends, in the fourth and last division of their work, that is
to say, in spoliation, they went to the last extreme: they did all that
could be done to ruin individuals, families and the State; whatever
could be taken, they took.--The Constituent and Legislative Assemblies
had, on their side, begun the business by abolishing tithes and all
feudal rights without indemnity, and by confiscating all ecclesiastical
property; the Jacobin operators continue and complete the job; we have
seen by what decrees and with what hostility against collective and
individual property, whether they attribute to the State the possession
of all corporations whatever, even laic, such as colleges, schools and
scientific or literary societies, hospitals and communes, or whether
they despoil individuals, indirectly through assignats and the maximum,
or directly through the forced loan, revolutionary taxes,[4142] seizures
of gold and silver coin, requisitions of common useful utensils,[4143]
sequestrations of prisoners' property, confiscations of the possessions
of emigrants and exiles and of those deported or condemned to death.
No capital invested in real or personal property, no income in money
or produce, whatever its source, whether leases, mortgages, private
credits, pensions, agricultural, industrial or commercial gains, the
fruits of economy or labor, from the farmers', the manufacturers' and
the merchant's stores to the robes, coats, shirts and shoes, even to
the beds and bed-rooms of private individuals--nothing escapes their
rapacious grasp: in the country, they carry off even seed reserved for
planting; at Strasbourg and in the Upper Rhine, all kitchen utensils; in
Auvergne and elsewhere, even the shepherd's pots. Every object of
value, even those not in public use, comes under requisition: for
instance,[4144] the Revolutionary Committee of Bayonne seizes a lot of
"cotton cloth and muslin," under the pretext of making "breeches for
the country's defenders." On useful objects being taken it is not always
certain that they will be utilized; between their seizure and putting
them to service, robbery and waste intervene. At Strasbourg,[4145] on
a requisition being threatened by the representatives, the inhabitants
strip themselves and, in a few days, bring to the municipality "6,879
coats, breeches and vests, 4,767 pairs of stockings, 16,921 pairs of
shoes, 863 pairs of boots, 1351 cloaks, 20,518 shirts, 4,524 hats,
523 pairs of gaiters, 143 skin vests, 2,673, 900 blankets, besides 29
quintals of lint, 21 quintals of old linen, and a large number of other
articles."