"The Convention was established in September, 1792, and terminated in
October, 1795, Its reign, which lasted nearly three years, presents four
eras.
"The 1st, from its commencement to the 31st of May 1793—epoch of the
destruction of the Girondists.
"The 2nd, to March 1794—overthrow of the Commune of Paris.
"The 3rd, to July, 1794—fall of Robespierre.
"The 4th to the 14th Vendémiaire (4th October, 1795)—installation of the
Government of the Directory.
"Its _first era_ consisted of eight months, its second of ten, its third
of four, its fourth of fourteen. Total, three years.
"During its first era the Convention was constantly divided between the
parties of the Mountain and the Gironde.
"Danton, Robespierre, Marat, Collot-d’Herbois, Billaud-Varennes, Carnot,
Heraut de Sechelles, were the leaders of the party of the Mountain.
"Brissot, Condorcet, Vergniaud, Gaudet, Gensonnè, Péthion, Lasource,
Barbaroux, headed the party of the Gironde.
"The two parties were equally hostile to the Bourbons and the royalists.
"The men of the first were distinguished for superior energy, those of
the second for superior talents. They were both the partisans of a
republican establishment. The Mountaineers were desirous of a Republic,
for the purpose of destroying what was in existence before the
Revolution, both men and things. The Girondists were animated by the
infatuation of youthful feeling, which presented at once Athens and Rome
to their view, and revived recollections of sublime antiquity.
"The existence of the mountaineers may be dated from the time of the
Constituent Assembly. They were the firebrands of the clubs so generally
known by the name of Jacobin. The insurrection of the Field of Mars was
planned by them.
"This party did not obtain admission into the Constituent and
Legislative Assemblies.
"The Girondists, who predominated in the legislative, were hostile to
the Constitution of 1794 and to the King. They would not undertake his
defence, and suffered him to be sacrificed to the efforts of the
Mountain, which, however, was also their enemy. It was the Mountaineers
who caused the atrocities of the 20th of June, of the 10th of August,
and of the 2nd of September; they had then no party in the assembly; but
they compelled the Girondists to join them after their victory.
"The _first era_ of the Convention presents the struggle of the
Girondists and Mountaineers; the Girondists prevailed at that time in
consequence of their superior talents, their eloquence, and their
already acquired reputation. The presidents were nearly all Girondists;
they charged the Mountain with the design of destroying the National
Assembly, and substituting in its place a Parisian Dictatorship. They
also reproached it with the massacre of September.
"The Mountain, in its turn, charged them with wishing for a federative
republic like Switzerland, with being hostile to the capital, and with
having, without cause, placed the republic in a state of warfare with
the whole of Europe.
"The Mountain had at its command the Jacobins of Paris, and the greatest
part of the popular societies of the republic; the commune of Paris, the
sections, the revolutionary tribunal, and the lower classes of the
people of the capital were devoted to its interests.
"The Girondists possessed great influence over the departments in
general and the enlightened part of the nation; their partizans were
more numerous among the upper class of society. The Girondists, who had
occupied the left side in the Legislative Assembly, and had shewn such
animosity against the King, the ministers, and the right side, or
moderate party, were forced to shift places, and become in their turn
the right side or moderate party, opposed to the vehement and
overbearing Mountain, which henceforth formed the left side.
"The Mountaineers, working on the plan they had adopted under the
Constituent Assembly, enlisted all the passions in their service, and
demanded, with loud cries, the death of the King. The Girondists might,
by openly defending him, have preserved his life; they had recourse to
the singular system of condemning him, and, after having thus destroyed
the monarchy, they wished the sentence to be confirmed by an appeal to
the people: in other words, they wished to destroy France by the horrors
of a civil war. This false combination ruined them.—Vergniaud, one of
the pillars of their party, proclaimed the sentence of death passed upon
the King.
"The Girondists were so powerful in the Assembly, that several months’
labour and several days’ insurrection were necessary to destroy their
influence in the Convention.
"This party would have governed the Convention and crushed the Mountain,
had its system of conduct been more direct and candid. The
metaphysicians had too weighty a preponderance in it.
"The _second era_ of the Convention is the reign of the Mountain.
Twenty-two of the principal Girondists perished on the scaffold, or fell
by their own hands; seventy-three were thrown into prison. The Mountain,
ruled with absolute power; it created the revolutionary government, and
the Convention in a mass placed itself, of its own accord, under the
yoke of the Committee of Public Safety and of the Revolutionary
Tribunal.
"In this second era, the sittings of the Convention no longer resembled
those of the first; there was an end of discussion and of liberty; it
was the despotism of the Decemvirs. Some of the Deputies governed the
Committees of General Security, of Finance, &c. Others were dispatched
by the Committee of Public Safety to the Armies and the Departments, and
became real Pro-consuls.
"Every month, every week, every day, the government became more
ferocious and sanguinary. All those, in the higher classes of society
who had not emigrated were crowded together in the prisons, as objects
of suspicion, and sent by hundreds to the scaffold.
"After treating in this way every one who was of a noble family, a
priest, a merchant, or a considerable proprietor, the excesses of the
party recoiling upon itself, it ruled the Jacobins and the Commune of
Paris with an iron hand: it enslaved the Convention, and threatened it
with absolute annihilation; it preached up Atheism, and proscribed the
arts, the sciences, and every species of talent. The artists and men of
science were thrown into prison, as objects of suspicion, and there was
a time when the National Library and the Garden of Plants were on the
point of being burnt and laid waste.
"Robespierre and Danton, filled with indignation at these outrages,
united their efforts to put a stop to the frightful progress of the
popular madness. The capuchin Chabot, Bazire, Fabre d’Eglantine, Hebert,
Chaumet, Vincent, and all their associates perished on the scaffold.
"For the first time since the commencement of the Revolution, the people
saw persons put to death as ultra-revolutionary, and no longer as having
wished to stop the Revolution. Their ideas were turned up-side down, and
underwent a real revolution.
"The prisons were filled with sans-culottes, and with all that was
basest in society. It was remarked, that the apostate priests were
numerous in that class.
"The people beheld, without surprise and with joy, the punishment of
those who had until then governed them, and that feeling was a
revolution, which escaped the observation of Robespierre and Danton, and
which they knew not how to convert to their advantage.
"The _third era_ presents a spectacle different from the other two.
Danton and Robespierre had without effort stopped the Revolution, and
put a period to the power of the Commune of Paris; but after their
success they fell out between themselves.
"Danton, Camille des Moulins, Heraut de Sechelles, and Lacroix, were
desirous of going a step farther, and putting an end to the
assassinations of the Revolutionary Tribunal. Danton and Lacroix had
enriched themselves in their mission to Belgium. Camille des Moulins,
who, from the beginning of the Revolution had given himself the title of
the Attorney-General of the Lantern, was captivated and softened down by
a young wife. They had the boldness to demand, that the blow which had
been just struck against Hebert, or the rest of Marat’s party, should be
turned to the benefit of the whole Republic—that no innocent person
should in future be condemned—that the system of terror should be
abolished—and that a Committee of Clemency should be established.
"Billaud-Varennes and Collot-d’Herbois, who took the lead in the
Committee of Public Safety and among the great body of Jacobins,
rejected these demands with indignation and fury; and Robespierre, after
some hesitation, did not dare to support Danton, and made a sacrifice of
him. Danton, Camille des Moulins, Heraut de Sechelles, &c. perished on
the scaffold, to which they were dragged by the whole Committee of
Public Safety, and by the enraged Jacobins. The people were struck with
consternation, and for the first time expressed no sign of satisfaction.
"What Robespierre, however, had not dared to do, and what he could have
easily effected had he supported Danton, he had the presumption to
undertake after the death of Danton. In order to put a period to
Atheism, he caused the existence of God to be proclaimed, and he
endeavoured to reinstate the virtues, the sciences, and the arts.
Billaud-Varennes, Collot-d’Herbois, and Barrere, were struck with horror
at seeing the termination of the revolutionary government. They formed a
coalition with all the representatives, who, in their missions, had
caused the effusion of human blood, and with all the numerous friends
whom Danton had in the Convention, such as Tallien, Fréron, Legendre;
and when Robespierre was bold enough to give a glimpse of his plan for
suppressing the administration of the pro-consuls, and for the necessity
of bringing to justice the base characters, who had rendered the
Revolution odious in the provinces, he was consigned to the scaffold.
"The transactions of the 9th Thermidor constituted, in reality, the
triumph of Collot-d’Herbois and Billaud-Varennes, men more horrible and
bloodthirsty than Robespierre; but that victory could not be obtained
over the Jacobins and the commune, without calling into action the whole
of the citizens; so that, with respect to the middling classes and the
people, the death of Robespierre was the death of the revolutionary
government; and after various oscillations, those who wished to continue
the system of terror and had sacrificed Robespierre, as he had
sacrificed Danton, because he was desirous of softening down and
moderating the revolution, found themselves drawn along with, and
overpowered by, the public opinion.
“During the last ten months, Robespierre frequently complained that he
was rendered odious by having all the massacres, which were perpetrated,
attributed to him. The men who caused his destruction were more
sanguinary and dreadful than he, but the whole nation, which had for a
long time imputed all the assassinations to Robespierre, exclaimed that
it was a triumph over tyranny, and that belief put an end to it.”
Here the dictation ended; the Emperor joined in common conversation, and
as he never resumed it, we are deprived of the fourth era.