I
Évariste Gamelin, painter, pupil of David, member of the Section du
Pont-Neuf, formerly Section Henri IV, had betaken himself at an early
hour in the morning to the old church of the Barnabites, which for three
years, since 21st May 1790, had served as meeting-place for the General
Assembly of the Section. The church stood in a narrow, gloomy square,
not far from the gates of the Palais de Justice. On the façade, which
consisted of two of the Classical orders superimposed and was decorated
with inverted brackets and flaming urns, blackened by the weather and
disfigured by the hand of man, the religious emblems had been battered
to pieces, while above the doorway had been inscribed in black letters
the Republican catchword of "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity or Death."
Évariste Gamelin made his way into the nave; the same vaults which had
heard the surpliced clerks of the Congregation of St. Paul sing the
divine offices, now looked down on red-capped patriots assembled to
elect the Municipal magistrates and deliberate on the affairs of the
Section. The Saints had been dragged from their niches and replaced by
the busts of Brutus, Jean-Jacques and Le Peltier. The altar had been
stripped bare and was surmounted by the Table of the Rights of Man.
It was here in the nave that twice a week, from five in the evening to
eleven, were held the public assemblies. The pulpit, decorated with the
colours of the Nation, served as tribune for the speakers who harangued
the meeting. Opposite, on the Epistle side, rose a platform of rough
planks, for the accommodation of the women and children, who attended
these gatherings in considerable numbers.
On this particular morning, facing a desk planted underneath the pulpit,
sat in red cap and _carmagnole_ complete the joiner from the Place
Thionville, the _citoyen_ Dupont senior, one of the twelve forming the
Committee of Surveillance. On the desk stood a bottle and glasses, an
ink-horn, and a folio containing the text of the petition urging the
Convention to expel from its bosom the twenty-two members deemed
unworthy.
Évariste Gamelin took the pen and signed.
"I was sure," said the carpenter and magistrate, "I was sure you would
come and give in your name, _citoyen_ Gamelin. You are the real thing.
But the Section is lukewarm; it is lacking in virtue. I have proposed to
the Committee of Surveillance to deliver no certificate of citizenship
to any one who has failed to sign the petition."
"I am ready to sign with my blood," said Gamelin, "for the proscription
of these federalists, these traitors. They have desired the death of
Marat: let them perish."
"What ruins us," replied Dupont senior, "is indifferentism. In a Section
which contains nine hundred citizens with the right to vote there are
not fifty attend the assembly. Yesterday we were eight and twenty."
"Well then," said Gamelin, "citizens must be obliged to come under
penalty of a fine."
"Oh, ho!" exclaimed the joiner frowning, "but if they all came, the
patriots would be in a minority.... _Citoyen_ Gamelin, will you drink a
glass of wine to the health of all good sansculottes?..."
On the wall of the church, on the Gospel side, could be read the words,
accompanied by a black hand, the forefinger pointing to the passage
leading to the cloisters: "_Comité civil, Comité de surveillance, Comité
de bienfaisance._" A few yards further on, you came to the door of the
erstwhile sacristy, over which was inscribed: _Comité militaire_.
Gamelin pushed this door open and found the Secretary of the Committee
within; he was writing at a large table loaded with books, papers, steel
ingots, cartridges and samples of saltpetre-bearing soils.
"Greeting, _citoyen_ Trubert. How are you?"
"I?... I am perfectly well."
The Secretary of the Military Committee, Fortuné Trubert, invariably
made this same reply to all who troubled about his health, less by way
of informing them of his welfare than to cut short any discussion on the
subject. At twenty-eight, he had a parched skin, thin hair, hectic
cheeks and bent shoulders. He was an optician on the Quai des Orfèvres,
and owned a very old house which he had given up in '91 to a
superannuated clerk in order to devote his energies to the discharge of
his municipal duties. His mother, a charming woman, whose memory a few
old men of the neighbourhood still cherished fondly, had died at twenty;
she had left him her fine eyes, full of gentleness and passion, her
pallor and timidity. From his father, optician and mathematical
instrument maker to the King, carried off by the same complaint before
his thirtieth year, he inherited an upright character and an industrious
temperament.
Without stopping his writing:
"And you, _citoyen_," he asked, "how are you?"
"Very well. Anything new?"
"Nothing, nothing. You can see,--we are all quiet here."
"And the situation?"
"The situation is just the same."
The situation was appalling. The finest army of the Republic blockaded
in Mayence; Valenciennes besieged; Fontenay taken by the Vendéens; Lyons
rebellious; the Cévennes in insurrection, the frontier open to the
Spaniards; two-thirds of the Departments invaded or revolted; Paris
helpless before the Austrian cannon, without money, without bread!
Fortuné Trubert wrote on calmly. The Sections being instructed by
resolution of the Commune to carry out the levy of twelve thousand men
for La Vendée, he was drawing up directions relating to the enrolment
and arming of the contingent which the "Pont-Neuf," erstwhile "Henri
IV," was to supply. All the muskets in store were to be handed over to
the men requisitioned for the front; the National Guard of the Section
would be armed with fowling-pieces and pikes.
"I have brought you here," said Gamelin, "the schedule of the
church-bells to be sent to the Luxembourg to be converted into cannon."
Évariste Gamelin, albeit he had not a penny, was inscribed among the
active members of the Section; the law accorded this privilege only to
such citizens as were rich enough to pay a contribution equivalent in
amount to three days' work, and demanded a ten days' contribution to
qualify an elector for office. But the Section du Pont-Neuf, enamoured
of equality and jealous of its independence, regarded as qualified both
for the vote and for office every citizen who had paid out of his own
pocket for his National Guard's uniform. This was Gamelin's case, who
was an _active_ citizen of his Section and member of the Military
Committee.
Fortuné Trubert laid down his pen:
"_Citoyen_ Évariste," he said, "I beg you to go to the Convention and
ask them to send us orders to dig up the floor of cellars, to wash the
soil and flag-stones and collect the saltpetre. It is not everything to
have guns, we must have gunpowder too."
A little hunchback, a pen behind his ear and a bundle of papers in his
hand, entered the erstwhile sacristy. It was the _citoyen_ Beauvisage,
of the Committee of Surveillance.
"_Citoyens_," he announced, "we have bad news: Custine has evacuated
Landau."
"Custine is a traitor!" cried Gamelin.
"He shall be guillotined," said Beauvisage.
Trubert, in his rather breathless voice, expressed himself with his
habitual calmness:
"The Convention has not instituted a Committee of Public Safety for fun.
It will enquire into Custine's conduct. Incompetent or traitor, he will
be superseded by a General resolved to win the victory,--and _ça ira!_"
He turned over a heap of papers, scrutinizing them with his tired eyes:
"That our soldiers may do their duty with a quiet mind and stout heart,
they must be assured that the lot of those they leave behind at home is
safeguarded. If you are of the same opinion, _citoyen_ Gamelin, you will
join me in demanding, at the next assembly, that the Committee of
Benevolence concert measures with the Military Committee to succour the
families that are in indigence and have a relative at the front."