Prussians have taken Longwi, and La Vendée is in revolt against the
Revolution. Danton gets a decree to search for arms and to imprison
suspects, some four hundred being seized. Prussians have Verdun also,
but Dumouriez, the many-counseled, has found a possible Thermopylæ--if
we can secure Argonne; for which one had need to be a lion-fox and have
luck on one's side.
But Paris knows not Argonne, and terror is in her streets, with defiance
and frenzy. From a Sunday night to Thursday are a hundred hours, to be
reckoned with the Bartholomew butchery; prisoners dragged out by sudden
courts of wild justice to be massacred. These are the September
massacres, the victims one thousand and eighty-nine; in the historical
_fantasy_ "between two and three thousand"--nay, six, even twelve. They
have been put to death because "we go to fight the enemy; but we will
not leave robbers behind us to butcher our wives and children."
Horrible! But Brunswick is within a day's journey of us. "We must put
our enemies in fear." Which has plainly been brought about.
Our new National Convention is getting chosen; already we date First
Year of the Republic. And Dumouriez has snatched the Argonne passes;
Brunswick must laboriously skirt around; Dumouriez with recruits who,
once drilled and inured, will one day become a phalanxed mass of
fighters, wheels, always fronting him. On September 20, Brunswick
attacks Valmy, all day cannonading Alsatian Kellerman with French
Sansculottes, who do _not_ fly like poultry; finally retires; a day
precious to France!
On the morrow of our new National Convention first sits; old legislative
ending. Dumouriez, after brief appearance in Paris, returns to attack
Netherlands, winter though it be.
France, then, has hurled back the invaders, and shattered her own
constitution; a tremendous change. The nation has stripped itself of the
old vestures; patriots of the type soon to be called Girondins have the
problem of governing this naked nation. Constitution-making sets to work
again; more practical matters offer many difficulties; for one thing,
lack of grain; for another, what to do with a discrowned Louis
Capet--all things, but most of all fear, pointing one way. Is there not
on record a trial of Charles I.?
Twice our Girondin friends have attacked September massacres,
Robespierre dictatorship; not with success. The question of Louis
receives further stimulus from the discovery of hidden papers. On
December 11, the king's trial has _emerged_, before the Convention;
fifty-seven questions are put to him. Thereafter he withdraws, having
answered--for the most part on the simple basis of _No_. On December 26,
his advocate, Deséze, speaks for him. But there is to be debate.
Dumouriez is back in Paris, consorting with Girondins; suspicious to
patriots. The outcome, on January 15--Guilty. The sentence, by majority
of fifty-three, among them Egalité, once Orleans--Death. Lastly, no
delay.
On the morrow, in the Place de la Revolution, he is brought to the
guillotine; beside him, brave Abbé Edgeworth says, "Son of St. Louis,
ascend to Heaven"; the axe clanks down; a king's life is shorn away. At
home, this killing of a king has divided all friends; abroad it has
united all enemies. England declares war; Spain declares war; they all
declare war. "The coalised kings threaten us; we hurl at their feet, as
gage of battle, the head of a king."
_VII.--Reign of Terror_
Five weeks later, indignant French patriots rush to the grocers' shops;
distribute sugar, weighing it out at a just rate of eleven-pence; other
things also; the grocer silently wringing his hands. What does this
mean? Pitt has a hand in it, the gold of Pitt, all men think; whether it
is Marat he has bought, as the Girondins say; or the Girondins, as the
Jacobins say. This battle of Girondins and Mountain let no man ask
history to explicate.
Moreover, Dumouriez is checked; Custine also in the Rhine country is
checked; England and Spain are also taking the field; La Vendée has
flamed out again with its war cry of _God and the King_. Fatherland is
in danger! From our own traitors? "Set up a tribunal for traitors and a
Maximum for grain," says patriot Volunteers. Arrest twenty-two
Girondins!--though not yet. In every township of France sit
revolutionary committees for arrestment of suspects; notable also is the
_Tribunal Révolutionnaire_, and our Supreme Committee of Public Safety,
of nine members. Finally, recalcitrant Dumouriez finds safety in flight
to the Austrian quarters, and thence to England.
Before which flight, the Girondins have broken with Danton, ranged him
against them, and are now at open war with the Mountain. Marat is
attacked, acquitted with triumph. On Friday, May 31, we find a new
insurrectionary general of the National Guard enveloping the Convention,
which in three days, being thus surrounded by friends, ejects under
arrestment thirty-two Girondins. Surely the true reign of Fraternity is
now not far?
The Girondins are struck down, but in the country follows a ferment of
Girondist risings. And on July 9, a fair Charlotte Corday is starting
for Paris from Caen, with letters of introduction from Barbaroux to
Dupernet, whom she sees, concerning family papers. On July 13, she
drives to the residence of Marat, who is sick--a citoyenne who would do
France a service; is admitted, plunges a knife into Marat's heart. So
ends Peoples'-Friend Marat. She submits, stately, to inevitable doom. In
this manner have the beautifulest and the squalidest come into
collision, and extinguished one another.
At Paris is to be a new feast of pikes, over yet a new constitution;
statue of Nature, statue of Liberty, unveiled! _Republic one and
indivisible_--_Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death_! A new calendar
also, with months new-named. But Toulon has thrown itself into the hands
of the English, who will make a new Gibraltar of it! We beleaguer
Toulon; having in our army there remarkable Artillery-Major Napoleon
Bonaparte. Lyons also we beleaguer.
Committee of Public Safety promulgates levy _en masse;_ heroically
daring against foreign foes. Against domestic foes it issues the law of
the suspects--none frightfuller ever ruled in a nation of men. The
guillotine gets always quicker motion. Bailly, Brissot, are in prison.
Trial of the "Widow Capet"; whence Marie Antoinette withdraws to
die--not wanting to herself, the imperial woman! After her, the scaffold
claims the twenty-two Girondins.
Terror is become the order of the day. Arrestment on arrestment follows
quick, continual; "The guillotine goes not ill."
_VIII.--Climax and Reaction_
The suspect may well tremble; how much more the open rebels--the
Girondin cities of the south! The guillotine goes always, yet not fast
enough; you must try fusillading, and perhaps methods still
frightfuller. Marseilles is taken, and under martial law. At Toulon,
veteran Dugommier suffers a young artillery officer whom we know to try
his plan--and Toulon is once more the Republic's. Cannonading gives
place to guillotining and fusillading. At Nantes, the unspeakable horror
of the _noyades_.
Beside which, behold destruction of the Catholic religion; indeed, for
the time being, of religion itself; a new religion promulgated of the
Goddess of Reason, with the first of the Feasts of Reason, ushered in
with carmagnole dance.
Committee of Public Salvation ride this whirlwind; stranger set of
cloud-compellors Earth never saw. Convention commissioners fly to all
points of the territory, powerfuller than king or kaiser; frenzy of
patriotism drives our armies victorious, one nation against the whole
world; crowned by the _Vengeur_, triumphant in death; plunging down
carrying _vive la République_ along with her into eternity, in Howe's
victory of the First of June. Alas, alas! a myth, founded, like the
world itself, on _Nothing_!
Of massacring, altar-robbing, Hébertism, is there beginning to be a
sickening? Danton, Camille Desmoulins are weary of it; the Hébertists
themselves are smitten; nineteen of them travel their last road in the
tumbrils. "We should not strike save where it is useful to the
Republic," says Danton; quarrels with Robespierre; Danton, Camille,
others of the friends of mercy are arrested. At the trial, he shivers
the witnesses to ruin thunderously; nevertheless, sentence is passed. On
the scaffold he says, "Danton, no weakness! Thou wilt show my head to
the people--it is worth showing." So passes this Danton; a very man;
fiery-real, from the great fire-bosom of nature herself.
Foul Hébert and the Hébertists, great Danton and the Dantonists, are
gone, swift, ever swifter, goes the axe of Samson; Death pauses not. But
on Prairial 20, the world is in holiday clothes in the Jardin National.
Incorruptible Robespierre, President of the Convention, has decreed the
existence of the Supreme Being; will himself be priest and prophet; in
sky-blue coat and black breeches! Nowise, however, checking the
guillotine, going ever faster.
On July 26, when the Incorruptible addresses the Convention, there is
dissonance. Such mutiny is like fire sputtering in the ship's
powder-room. The Convention then must be purged, with aid of Henriot.
But next day, amid cries of _Tyranny! Dictatorship_! the Convention
decrees that Robespierre "is accused"; with Couthon and St. Just;
decreed "out of law"; Paris, after brief tumult, sides with the
Convention. So on July 28, 1794, the tumbrils go with this motley batch
of outlaws. This is the end of the Reign of Terror. The nation resolves
itself into a committee of mercy.
Thenceforth, writ of accusation and legal proof being decreed necessary,
Fouquier's trade is gone; the prisons deliver up suspects. For here was
the end of the revolution system. The keystone being struck out, the
whole arch-work of Sansculottism began to crack, till the abyss had
swallowed it all.
And still there is no bread, and no constitution; Paris rises once
again, flowing towards the Tuileries; checked in one day with two blank
cannon-shots, by Pichegru, conqueror of Holland. Abbé Sieyès provides
yet another constitution; unpleasing to sundry who will not be
dispersed. To suppress whom, a young artillery officer is named
commandant; who with whiff of grapeshot does very promptly suppress
them; and the thing we specifically call French Revolution is blown into
space.
* * * * *
LAMARTINE
History of the Girondists
Alphonse Marie Louis de Lamartine, poet, historian, statesman,
was born at Macon, in Burgundy, on October 21, 1790. Early in
the nineteenth century he held a diplomatic appointment at
Naples, and in 1820 succeeded after many difficulties, in
finding a publisher for his first volume of poems, "Nouvelles
Méditations." The merits of the work were at once recognised,
and the young author soon found himself one of the most
popular of the younger generation of French poets. He next
adopted politics, and, with the Revolution of February, became
for a brief time the soul of political life in France. But the
triumph of imperialism and of Napoleon III. drove him into the
background, whereupon he retired from public life, and devoted
his remaining years to literature. He died on March I, 1869.
The publication, in 1847, of his "History of the Girondists,
or Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution,
from Unpublished Sources," was in the nature of a political
event in France. Brilliant in its romantic portraiture, the
work, like many other French histories, served the purposes of
a pamphlet as well as those of a chronicle.
_I.--The War-Seekers of the South_
The French Revolution had pursued its rapid progress for two full years.
Mirabeau, the first democratic leader, was dead. The royal family had
attempted flight and failed. War with Europe threatened and, in the
autumn of 1791, a new parliament was elected and summoned.
At this juncture the germ of a new opinion began to, display itself in
the south, and Bordeaux felt its full influence. The department of the
Gironde had given birth to a new political party in the twelve citizens
who formed its deputies. This department, far removed from the _centre_,
was at no distant period to seize on the empire alike of opinion and of
eloquence. The names (obscure and unknown up to this period) of Ducos,
Gaudet, Lafondladebat, Grangeneuve, Gensonné, Vergniaud, were about to
rise into notice and renown with the storms and the disasters of their
country; they were the men who were destined to give that impulse to the
revolution that had hitherto remained in doubt and indecision, which was
to precipitate it into a republic.
In the new parliament Brissot, the inspirer of the Gironde, the dogmatic
statesman of a party which needed ideas and a leader, ascended the
tribune in the midst of anticipated plaudits which betokened his
importance in the new Assembly. His voice was for war, as the most
efficacious of laws.
It was evident that a party, already formed, took possession of the
tribune, and was about to arrogate to itself the dominion of the
assembly. Brissot was its conspirator, Condorcet its philosopher,
Vergniaud its orator. Vergniaud mounted the tribune, with all the
prestige of his marvellous eloquence. The eager looks of the Assembly,
the silence that prevailed, announced in him one of the great actors of
the revolutionary drama, who only appear on the stage to win themselves
popularity, to intoxicate themselves with applause, and--to die.
Vergniaud, born at Limoges, and an advocate of the Bar of Bordeaux, was
now in his thirty-third year, for the revolutionary movement had seized
on and borne him along with its currents when very young. His dignified,
calm, and unaffected features announced the conviction of his power.
Facility, that agreeable concomitant of genius, had rendered alike
pliable his talents, his character, and even the position he assumed.
At the foot of the tribune he was loved with familiarity; as he ascended
it each man was surprised to find that he inspired him with admiration
and respect; but at the first words that fell from the speaker's lips
they felt the immense distance between the man and the orator. He was an
instrument of enthusiasm, whose value and whose place was in his
inspiration.
Pétion was the son of a procureur at Chartres, and a townsman of
Brissot; was brought up in the same way as he, in the same studies, same
philosophy, same hatreds. They were two men of the same mind. The
revolution, which had been the ideal of their youth, had called them on
the scene on the same day, but to play very different parts. Brissot,
the scribe, political adventurer, journalist, was the man of theory;
Pétion, the practical man. He had in his countenance, in his character,
and his talents, that solemn mediocrity which is of the multitude, and
charms it; at least he was a sincere man, a virtue which the people
appreciate beyond all others in those who are concerned in public
affairs.
The nomination of Pétion to the office of _maire_ of Paris gave the
Girondists a constant _point d'appui_ in the capital. Paris, as well as
the Assembly, escaped from the king's hands.
A report praised by Brissot in his journal, and by the Girondists in the
Assembly, afforded no longer any pretext for delaying the war. France
felt that her strength was equal to her indignation, and she could be
restrained no longer. The increasing unpopularity of the king augmented
the popular excitement. Twice had he already arrested, by his royal
veto, the energetic measures of the Assembly--the decree against the
_emigres_ and the decree against the priests who had not taken the oath.
These two vetoes, the one dictated by his honour, the other by his
conscience, were two terrible weapons placed in his hand by the
constitution, yet which he could not wield without wounding himself. The
Girondists revenged themselves for this resistance by compelling him to
make war on the princes, who were his brothers, and the emperor, whom
they believed to be his accomplice.
The war thus demanded by the ascendant Girondist party broke out in
April, 1792. Their enemies, the extreme radical party called "Jacobins,"
had opposed the war, and when the campaign opened in disaster the
beginning of their ascendancy and the Girondin decline had appeared.
These disasters were followed by a proclamation from the enemy that the
work of the revolution would be undone, and the town of Paris threatened
with military execution unless the king's power were fully restored. By
way of answer the populace of Paris stormed the royal palace, deposed
the king, and established a Radical government. Under this, a third
parliament, the most revolutionary of all, called the "Convention," was
summoned to carry on the war, the king was imprisoned, and on September
21, 1792, the day on which the invading armies were checked at Valmy, a
republic was declared.
_II.---the Fall of La Gironde_
The proclamation of the republic was hailed with the utmost joy in the
capital, the departments, and the army; to philosophers it was the type
of government found under the ruins of fourteen ages of prejudice and
tyranny; to patriots it was the declaration of war of a whole nation,
proclaimed on the day of the victory of Valmy, against the thrones
united to crush liberty; while to the people it was an intoxicating
novelty.
Those who most exulted were the Girondists. They met at Madame Roland's
that evening, and celebrated almost religiously the entrance of their
creation into the world; and voluntarily casting the veil of illusion
over the embarrassments of the morrow and the obscurities of the future,
gave themselves up to the greatest enjoyment God has permitted man on
earth--the birth of his idea, the contemplation of his work, and the
embodied possession of his desires.
The republic had at first great military successes, but they were not
long lived. After the execution of the king in January 1793, all Europe
banded together against France, the French armies were crushingly
defeated, their general, Dumouriez, fled to the enemy, and the
Girondins, who had been in power all this while, were fatally weakened.
Moreover, their attempt to save the king had added to their growing
unpopularity when, after Dumouriez's treason in March 1793 Danton
attacked them in the Convention.
The Jacobins comprehended that Danton, at last forced from his long
hesitation, decided for them, and was about to crush their enemies.
Every eye followed him to the tribune.
His loud voice resounded like a tocsin above the murmurs of the
Girondists. "It is they," he said, "who had the baseness to wish to save
the tyrant by an appeal to the people, who have been justly suspected of
desiring a king. It is they only who have manifestly desired to punish
Paris for its heroism by raising the departments against her; it is they
only who have supped clandestinely with Dumouriez when he was at Paris;
yes, it is they only who are the accomplices of this conspiracy."
The Convention oscillated during the struggle between the Girondins and
their Radical opponents with every speech.
Isnard, a Girondin, was named president by a strong majority. His
nomination redoubled the confidence of La Gironde in its force. A man
extravagant in everything, he had in his character the fire of his
language. He was the exaggeration of La Gironde--one of those men whose
ideas rush to their head when the intoxication of success or fear urges
them to rashness, and when they renounce prudence, that safeguard of
party.
The strain between the Girondists, with their parliamentary majority,
and the populace of Paris, who were behind the Radicals, or Jacobins,
increased, until, towards the end of May, the mob rose to march on the
parliament. The alarm-bells rang, and the drums beat to arms in all the
quarters of Paris.
The Girondists, at the sound of the tocsin and the drums, met for the
last time, not to deliberate, but to prepare and fortify themselves
against their death. They supped in an isolated mansion in the Rue de
Clichy, amidst the tolling of bells, the sound of the drums, and the
rattling of the guns and tumbrils. All could have escaped; none would
fly. Pétion, so feeble in the face of popularity, was intrepid when he
faced death; Gensonné, accustomed to the sight of war; Buzot, whose
heart beat with the heroic impressions of his unfortunate friend, Madame
Roland, wished them to await their death in their places in the
Convention, and there invoke the vengeance of the departments.
Some hours later the armed mob, Henriot, their general, at their head,
appeared before the parliament. The gates were opened at the sight of
the president, Hérault de Séchelles, wearing the tricoloured scarf. The
sentinels presented arms, the crowd gave free passage to the
representatives. They advanced towards the Carrousel. The multitude
which were on this space saluted the deputies. Cries of "Vive la
Convention! Deliver up the twenty-two! Down with the Girondists!"
mingled sedition with respect.
The Convention, unmoved by these shouts, marched in procession towards
the cannon by which Henriot, the commandant-general, in the midst of his
staff, seemed to await them. Hérault de Séchelles ordered Henriot to
withdraw this formidable array, and to grant a free passage to the
national representations. Henriot, who felt in himself the omnipotence
of armed insurrection, caused his horse to prance, while receding some
paces, and then said in an imperative tone to the Convention, "You will
not leave this spot until you have delivered up the twenty-two!"
"Seize this rebel!" said Hérault de Séchelles, pointing with his finger
to Henriot. The soldiers remained immovable.
"Gunners, to your pieces! Soldiers, to arms!" cried Henriot to the
troops. At these words, repeated by the officers along the line, a
motion of concentration around the guns took place. The Convention
retrograded.
Barbaroux, Lanjuinais, Vergniaud, Mollevault, and Gardien remained,
vainly expecting the armed men who were to secure their persons, but not
seeing them arrive, they retired to their own homes.
There followed the rising of certain parts of the country in favour of
the Girondins and against Paris. It failed. The Girondins were
prisoners, and after this failure of the insurrection the revolutionary
government proceeded to their trial. When their trial was decided on,
this captivity became more strict. They were imprisoned for a few days
in the Carmelite convent in the Rue de Vaugeraud, a monastery converted
into a prison, and rendered sinister by the bloody traces of the
massacres of September.
_III.--The Judges at the Bar_
On October 22, their _acte d'accusation_ was read to them, and their
trial began on the 26th. Never since the Knights Templars had a party
appeared more numerous, more illustrious, or more eloquent. The renown
of the accused, their long possession of power, their present danger,
and that love of vengeance which arises in men's hearts at mighty
reverses of fortune, had collected a crowd in the precincts of the
revolutionary tribunal.
At ten o'clock the accused were brought in. They were twenty-two; and
this fatal number, inscribed in the earliest lists of the proscription,
on May 31, at eleven o'clock, entered the _salle d'audience,_ between
two files of _gens d'armes,_ and took their places in silence on the
prisoners' bench.
Ducos was the first to take his seat: scarcely twenty-eight years of
age, his black and piercing eyes, the flexibility of his features, and
the elegance of his figure revealed one of those ardent temperaments in
whom everything is light, even heroism.