THE FALL OF THE GIRONDE.
The first sitting of the National Convention was held on the 21st
September, 1792. The Parisian deputies, elected two or three weeks
before, under the eyes of the Insurrectionary Commune, belonged
almost entirely to the Jacobin party. Their election is a significant
example of the methods of Jacobin organisation, and in that election
Robespierre, always a vigilant wire-puller, had shown the adroitness
of his tactics and had taken the most prominent part. The meeting
of the electors took place on the 2nd September, the day when the
prison massacres began. No sooner had the electors assembled, than
they were transferred, by the directions of the Commune, from their
ordinary meeting-place to the Jacobin Club. Some of the electors, who
held moderate opinions, were then excluded by a preliminary vote. The
system of secret voting was suspended, and all were obliged to vote
openly before an audience loudly and watchfully alert. As one Jacobin
speaker admitted, his party would have been 'beaten, even in Paris,
in any election in which the voting had been secret.' The result was
the victory of the extreme politicians. Robespierre, Danton, Marat and
Collot d'Herbois were among the best known deputies elected, and all
the heroes of the Insurrectionary Commune were brought triumphantly
into the Convention.
In the provinces, however, the Jacobins were less successful. There
too the minority carried the day, and most of the electors stayed away
from the polls. But still the minority in the provinces represented a
considerable bulk of opinion. Everywhere the result of the elections
was to confirm the _Coup d'etat_ of the 10th August. All who still
took part in politics seemed to realise that the cause of the King was
incompatible with the defence of the country, and preferred to put the
interests of the country first. The consequence was that the Girondist
party had a large following in the new Assembly. The Jacobins, it is
true, were more compact and vigorous, and the great majority of members
in the centre had no very definite views, and could not be depended
on to vote consistently. But still the Girondist position was strong.
They had the command of the Government. They had eloquent and effective
speakers. They had several men of character and ability. They had
behind them the weight of moderate opinion, which was shocked by the
fearful disorders of September. The massacres had produced a reaction
which tended, now that the danger of invasion was over, to strengthen
the Girondist ranks. Had the Girondists possessed any organisation, any
instincts of party management, or any leaders of authority and insight,
they might have formed a powerful party, and have guided the Revolution
yet.
But unfortunately the Girondists had none of these things. Vergniaud,
their most splendid orator, had none of the qualities needed for
a leader. Guadet and Gensonné, the two brilliant advocates who
accompanied him from Bordeaux, were no better able to guide a party.
Pétion, the ex-mayor, had proved his incompetence already. Roland, with
all his honesty and aspirations after order, had little real capacity
or strength. Condorcet, the philosopher of the Gironde, brought to the
pursuit of politics all the characteristic vices of the academic mind.
Barbaroux, the hero of the Marseillais, was only distinguished by his
beauty from the rest. Isnard and Louvet, Lanjuinais and Gorsas could
not supply what was wanting in their colleagues. The party itself had
no cohesion. Brissot, who had for some time been its leader, could not
impose his ascendency for long, and found his authority challenged by
the rising reputation of Buzot. Gradually two sections of Brissotins
and Buzotins grew up within the ranks of the Gironde, and rendered
still remoter than before the prospects of united and decisive action
on the part of the majority of the House.
Buzot owed to Madame Roland much of the influence which he enjoyed
with his party. Her house was the chosen resort of the Gironde. Their
policy was largely arranged in her drawing-room. Her husband was
their chief representative in the Government, and her interest in her
husband's policy was as well known as her attachment to Buzot. Madame
Roland is known to us by the portrait which she herself has drawn,
and that portrait shows us clearly her undoubted courage and ability,
her enthusiasm for the philosophy which she had studied and for the
ideals which her bright imagination loved. But the memoirs show us
also the self-conscious genius of the writer, her swift but rather
shallow judgments, the strong personal element in her opinions, the
ill-controlled, ambitious restlessness of her generous and ardent mind,
and her incapacity for moderation, for being just towards opponents or
tender towards fallen foes. What part Madame Roland played in politics
it is impossible to say exactly. We know something of her words and
actions upon a few occasions, and those, in spite of the charm and
romance which surround her, are not always creditable to her head or
heart. She died bravely, and posterity, recognising that, has perhaps
been bountiful towards her virtues. But in so far as she inspired the
Girondists, her political influence can only be regarded as disastrous,
for there never was a party worse advised.
Other women, fair and unfair, lovely and unloveable, appear in the
story of the French Revolution. There were the salons of the early
days, where the Royalists gathered at the houses of Madame de Chambonas
and Madame de Sabran, while the other side found more congenial company
in the rooms of Mesdames de Beauharnais and Talma. There was the salon
of Madame de Genlis with its traditions of Orleanist intrigue, the
official society of Madame Necker's circle, and Madame de Broglie's
coterie of young, well-bred reformers. Later on, there was the salon of
Madame de Staël, where the accomplished hostess pushed the interests of
Narbonne as devotedly as Madame Roland pushed the interests of Buzot,
and the well-lit tables of Madame de Sainte-Amaranthe, who expected
to profit by the guests whom she received. There were the quieter but
happier homes of Madame de Condorcet and Lucile Desmoulins. There
were the not less happy women whom Danton, Robespierre and St. Just
loved. There was the Queen, always gallant and unfortunate, but in
her political influence most unfortunate of all; Charlotte Corday,
the Girondist avenger, whose enthusiasm veiled from her the ugliness
of murder; Theresa Tallien, who gave up her life and honour to a
worthless man and used her power afterwards for purposes of mercy;
Olympe de Gouges, the hapless dramatist and pamphleteer, who played
her triple part as hostess, celebrity and victim in the Terror; and
many another notable woman, of reputation high or low, of influence
worthy or unworthy, such as the Demoiselles de Fernig, who served as
aides-de-camp in Dumouriez' camp, Théroigne de Méricourt, known by all
and loved by many, who, armed with a naked sabre, led the wild women
in October to Versailles, Sophie Momoro, who headed the orgies on the
Feast of Reason, and Rose Lacombe, the queen of the vile women who
haunted the clubs and streets and galleries, disgraced the National
Assembly, and knitted round the guillotine. It is strange, but it would
seem to be indisputable, that, in many of the worst excesses of the
Revolution, women of the worst character were specially conspicuous,
and that when politics degenerated into savagery women without
womanliness excelled the most.
The nine months which followed the meeting of the Convention were
occupied by the struggle between the Jacobins and the Gironde. Even
before the 10th August that struggle had begun. After the fall of
Louis, it had become acute; and as soon as the Convention met, the
animosities of the rival parties blazed out afresh. The difference
in principle between Girondists and Jacobins is not altogether easy
to define. Many tenets they professed to share in common, and until
the 10th August their aims had been in some respects the same. One
noticeable difference, however, between them, lies in the character
of the men. The Jacobins, as a whole, though the rule is subject to
exceptions, were men of a rougher stamp, occasionally ill-educated,
coarse and unscrupulous, in some cases cruel, in many cases corrupt,
but practical, alert and intrepid politicians, prepared to run great
risks, merciless to their enemies if they conquered, sometimes ready
with gay desperation to suffer if they lost the game. The Girondists,
as a whole, were men of higher intellectual calibre, of more education
and refinement, of a better cast. They were honest and decent. Their
intentions were pure. They were embarrassed by scruples in a struggle
with opponents who had none. They were distinguished by a fine
enthusiasm for their vague and delusive ideals, which, if it seems
theatrical now, was genuine then, and to which, while lamenting its
waste and its errors, one may pay the tribute of respect.
But when one comes to principles, the difference between the two
parties is less clear. The truth is that in the French Revolution
there was no place for the Gironde. Two parties, and only two, were
possible. One was the party which, representing the great majority of
French feeling, had made the Revolution, had swept away the Ancien
Régime, had founded the first constitution and had taken its name
from its creation, the party which had aimed at establishing political
freedom and a new system based on that in France. This party cared for
liberty and order but wished for little more, and its mistakes and the
fortunes of the time gradually lost it the control of events. The other
was the new party, which rose to power on its rival's faults, which
cared little for liberty and less for order, but which hoped to use the
forces of distress and discontent to grasp the power which its rival
had monopolised, to found a new social and industrial system in which
it would secure a fairer profit for itself, and to destroy without
scruple or compassion all who impeded the realisation of its aims.
Between these two parties the Girondists stood. They belonged to
neither, but they shared to some extent the views of both. Like the
first, they had moderation, a sense of restraint and a love of order.
Like the second, they repudiated any compromise with the past and hoped
to establish their Utopia. But though they were strong enough to defeat
the first, they were not strong enough to resist the second, and they
could not fuse with either. They could not join with the Constitutional
party, or rally the moderate majority round them, because, though
they shared its feeling of propriety, they scorned its tenets and
prejudices, its king and its religion. They could not throw themselves
into the arms of the Jacobins, because, though they liked some of their
democratic schemes, they could not countenance the Jacobin excesses or
the Jacobin intrigues, the ruthless levelling of the Jacobin maxims,
the Jacobin contempt for property and life.
Nor could the Girondists found a party of their own. Their ideas were
not sufficiently definite for that, nor sufficiently different from
those of others. The only principles which belonged distinctively to
them were an enthusiasm for the forms of a republic, and an enthusiasm
for the policy of war. The latter was partly an ill-considered emotion
and partly a tactical device. The former was not a principle at all.
The essence of republicanism, which is government by the people, had
been accepted by all parties except the most reactionary, and was not
peculiar to the Girondist belief. The forms of it, which, possessed
by an extraordinary desire to emulate the Greeks and Romans, the
Girondists esteemed so highly, were hardly worth a struggle to obtain.
The fact that the Girondists should have cared for republican forms
so much more than for anything else, is perhaps the clearest proof of
their incompetence as practical politicians. For, as Robespierre had
the sense to see, the term republic is an empty name, which the faith
and heroism of men have sometimes associated with ideals of purity and
freedom, but which has often been only a disguise for governments that
were neither free nor pure.
As soon as the Convention opened, the Republic was proclaimed,
and the struggle between the rival parties began. For the moment
the Girondists were the stronger, and they were determined to use
their power to suppress and, if they could, to punish the leaders
of the Insurrectionary Commune. In that attempt they were partially
successful. The steady persistence of Roland, supported by the majority
of the Convention, succeeded at last in dissolving the Insurrectionary
Commune. On the 30th November, a moderate politician, Chambon, was
elected Mayor by a large majority, after two other moderates, Pétion
and d'Ormesson, had previously been elected and had refused to serve.
The council and the other officials of the Commune were also renewed.
On this occasion the voting was secret; and although the Jacobins
spared no efforts, and succeeded in carrying Hébert and Chaumette, the
smallness of the Jacobin vote and the abstention of the vast majority
of voters showed how weak numerically were the forces which the
minority could command.
But in other respects the Girondists were less successful. Their
proposals for the formation of a guard for the Convention resulted only
in bringing to Paris a small force of Fédérés from the departments.
Their demand for the punishment of those concerned in the September
massacres fell to the ground. Their attacks upon Robespierre, Marat and
others produced only bitter personalities, which tended to weary the
Assembly, and by giving Robespierre opportunities of dilating on his
services to the Revolution, to increase his popularity in Paris. The
Jacobins began to threaten their monopoly of office. In the middle of
October, Pache, the newly appointed Minister of War, and till then an
intimate friend of Roland, cast himself into the arms of the Jacobin
party. Suddenly turning on his Girondist colleagues, Pache made the
War Office the meeting-place of the politicians of the Commune, placed
his influence and his funds at their disposal, and to the disgust of
Dumouriez and Danton, threw the military arrangements into confusion.
The Girondists were further weakened by the trial of the King. The long
debates upon that question, which began early in November, 1792, and
which ended in Louis' execution on the 21st January, 1793, certainly
damaged the reputation of the party. They showed in a clear light
the stern logic of the Jacobin leaders and the weakness and disunion
of their opponents. They gave fresh opportunities for excitement and
disorder, which the Jacobins knew how to use. The vote which condemned
the King to death was carried finally by a narrow majority, but it
could not have been carried without wholesale intimidation. The
violence of the agitation in the galleries, in the streets, in the
Sections, which steadily rose as the debates went forward and as a
feeling of sympathy for Louis appeared, produced so general a panic,
that it is recorded that fourteen thousand people fled from Paris in
the last week of the year, under the impression that the massacres of
September were about to be repeated[10]. It is true that in the end
the leading Girondists voted for death; but they voted openly in the
presence of an armed and vociferating crowd, amply sufficient to decide
the wavering and almost sufficient to terrorise the brave. Vergniaud,
who voted with the majority when the critical moment came, had already
pleaded for mercy in the finest speech which he ever delivered, and had
declared the night before the verdict that it was an insult to suppose
him capable of voting for Louis' death.
With the trial of the King the demoralisation of politics increased.
The Convention lost all dignity and decorum. The violence of the
rival parties deepened. Deputies came down armed to the meetings of
the House. The president, powerless to keep order, was frequently
insulted in the chair. Abusive terms were shouted across the floor.
The voices of the speakers were constantly drowned in the din from the
galleries, where, according to Brissot, 'the brigands and bacchantes'
ruled. The same demoralisation appeared in the public service. On the
proclamation of the Republic, in September, 1792, all administrative
and judicial officers were renewed. The Convention declared that a
knowledge of the law should no longer be a necessary qualification for
judicial appointments. Education was regarded as equally unnecessary,
and a number of ignorant and incompetent officials were thus imported
into the administration. The multiplication of offices and places, so
profitable to those in power, rapidly increased as time went on, and
with the spirit of plunder the spirit of corruption spread. Under Pache
the War-Office became a centre of Jacobin intrigue, where the Minister
and his associates could display with effect their bitter distrust of
the Commander-in-Chief, undermine Dumouriez' authority in the army,
and, regardless of his wishes and designs, promote their own theories
and provide for their friends.
From the beginning of the new year the Girondists steadily lost ground.
In January, Roland, their most active supporter in the Government,
resigned his office. The control of the Ministry of the Interior, with
all its authority and resources, thereupon passed into the hands of
Garat, a man of amiable intentions and moderate views, but entirely
lacking in force or decision, and with none of Roland's devotion to
the Gironde. Early in February, Pache, who had been compelled to
retire from the War Office, to the delight of Dumouriez and Danton,
was elected Mayor in Chambon's place, and in his person the Jacobins
finally regained control of the Commune of Paris. About the same
time Condorcet brought forward the Girondist proposals for a new
constitution, proposals wildly unpractical in their nature, which
gave satisfaction to no one at all, and which lent some colour to the
charge, which the Jacobins pressed against the Gironde, that they
wished to confer powers upon the departments which would make them
almost independent States, to destroy the influence of the Government
in Paris, and to break up the unity of the Republic. The Girondists,
who had no large following in the capital, proceeded to alienate what
following they had. They declared irreconcilable war upon the Commune.
They denounced the disorder of the Parisian mobs, and their demands
for exceptional legislation in their favour. They boasted unwisely of
the devotion of the provinces to themselves. They threatened to punish
heavily any attempt at intimidation by the Sections, but they took no
steps to guard effectually against it. Finally, they made an attack
upon Danton as ill-judged as it was unprovoked, and thus alienated
the only man who had influence and ability enough to save them, and
who, weary of factious animosities and earnestly desiring to found a
Government strong enough to make itself respected, might with a little
tact have been induced to offer them his powerful support.
Moreover, the course of external politics once again assisted the
Jacobin designs. The victory of Valmy had been followed by a series
of successes on the Rhine, in Savoy and in Nice, by the defeat of the
Austrians and the conquest of Belgium. But the reckless policy of the
Convention, its disregard of treaties, and its determination to spread
revolutionary principles at any cost, multiplied the enemies of France.
The French Government's resolution to attack Holland offended and
alarmed the English. The execution of Louis created deep and general
indignation in Europe. Early in 1793, England, unheeding Pitt's pacific
dreams, and roused by the warning tones of Burke's hot anger and
imagination, plunged into the war. Spain, under its Bourbon princes,
followed suit. The difficulties of the French troops increased as
their spirit and discipline diminished. The allied armies resumed the
offensive. At the beginning of March a succession of reverses overtook
the French arms, and the invasion of Holland was abandoned. On the
18th, Dumouriez with the main army was defeated by the Austrians in the
battle of Neerwinden, and Belgium was lost. Dumouriez, disappointed by
the turn of events, long weary of the Jacobin ascendency and meditating
means to overthrow it, rejected Danton's friendly encouragement, talked
openly of restoring the Constitutional throne, and determined to
declare against the Convention. The Convention, aware of his designs,
sent off commissioners to arrest him in his camp. On the 3rd April,
foiled at the last by his own irresolution and by the apathy of his
troops, Dumouriez left his army and took refuge in the Austrian ranks.
Once again the French commander had deserted in the face of disaster,
and the danger of invasion reappeared.
The events on the frontier reacted immediately upon politics in Paris.
Danton at last succeeded in convincing the Assembly of the absolute
necessity of a strong Executive. In the end of March and the beginning
of April, a series of decrees passed the Convention, establishing,
for the first time since the outbreak of the Revolution, a powerful
Government in France, and founding or re-organising at the same time
the three chief instruments of the Terror. One decree created the
Revolutionary Tribunal, a court with summary process and extraordinary
powers, to try conspirators against the State; another, the famous
Committee of General Security, to hunt down and punish political
crime; and a third, the still more famous Committee of Public Safety,
soon to become the most redoubtable despotism in the history of
the world. With these decrees went other energetic measures--fresh
powers for the commissioners, the 'Representatives on Missions,' sent
into the provinces to execute the orders of the Convention; a fresh
levy of 300,000 men for the campaign, to be raised, if necessary,
by conscription; fresh decrees entailing penalties on Emigrants and
non-juring priests, outlawing all enemies of the Revolution, and
establishing in every Section of Paris a Committee of Supervision,
armed with despotic powers, to watch, disarm, arrest, and tax all
politicians on the other side. The national danger once again called
to the front the vigilant minority, which created a despotism to save
the Revolution and dragged the reluctant majority behind.
How far in all these measures the Jacobins were acting from patriotic
motives, and how far they were merely working for the advantage of
their party, it is hardly possible to say. Danton's motives stand above
dispute, and many others, it may be, deserve to be associated with him
in their love of France. Probably the Jacobins, like other politicians,
believed or could easily persuade themselves, that the cause of the
country and their party interest were the same. But whatever the motive
may have been, there is no doubt that the result of all these measures
was to strengthen the Jacobins and to weaken their rivals, although in
most of them, the Gironde joined.
There were, however, other measures passed in the spring of 1793,
which were little in harmony with Girondist ideas, and which owed
their origin to the Jacobins alone. Economic causes were at work to
increase the agitation in Paris. In spite of the sale of the Church
lands and of the property of the Emigrants, the financial position of
the Government was most unsatisfactory. The taxes were ill-paid. The
credit of the State had sunk very low. The expenses of the war and of
the administration were increasing every day. Specie was very difficult
to obtain. The Government, in consequence, fell back upon fresh issues
of Assignats, and the value of the Assignats steadily fell. At the same
time prices rose with alarming rapidity. Trade, already dislocated by
the confusion of the time, tended to leave Paris, where the Assignats
were most abundant. Speculation naturally increased. Large dealers,
contractors and capitalists made considerable profits by laying in
stores, by holding back commodities, and by turning the fluctuations
of the market to account. It is true that, early in 1793, wages began
to rise rapidly as well, because of the large drafts of men drawn from
Paris to the seat of war. But the wages of the working class were
paid not in money, but in depreciated Assignats; so that, while the
poor felt the rise in prices and the scarcity of food, and while they
resented the apparent prosperity of the dealers whose machinations
their leaders denounced, they did not feel the full advantage of the
rise in wages, and their angry discontent increased. The economics of
the destitute are always blind. They were easily persuaded that the
rich were profiting by a system which brought only suffering to them.
The result was an outcry in the poorer districts of the city against
all speculators and capitalists. Demands were raised for the rigid
regulation of trade, for cheap food, for the fixing of prices, and
for imperative laws to keep up the value of the paper money. The
Commune took up the popular cry, and demanded with success large
grants from the Treasury, in order to provide the capital with bread.
Marat, as usual, denounced his opponents and incited the people to
help themselves; and at the end of February, Marat's encouragement
produced a somewhat formidable riot, in which many tradesmen who were
not Jacobins suffered serious loss. The leaders of the Mountain, that
is the leaders of the Jacobins in the Convention, who had little
economic knowledge, and who, seeing distress and scarcity, believed
it possible to end them by arbitrary laws, supported the demand for
exceptional measures. The indifferent members of the Centre, whose
acquaintance with economic laws was probably no wider than that of the
Mountain, gave their consent to proposals which they hoped would quiet
Paris and avert insurrection. Danton suggested that the price of bread
should be regulated by the rate of wages. In April and May a series of
summary decrees were passed by the Convention entailing the most severe
penalties on all who trafficked in the currency, establishing a Maximum
price for grain, and imposing a heavy tax in the shape of a forced loan
upon the rich.
These measures, again, damaged the Girondists in Paris. They had as
a party a clearer conception than their opponents of the danger of
arbitrary interference with prices and with trade. Some of their
leaders opposed the proposals of the Commune, and even ventured to
protest against the grants spent in providing cheap bread for the
capital. But their protests only increased their unpopularity in
Paris, and led to demands for their punishment and removal, to fresh
threats and denunciations. On the 10th March, a fresh insurrection was
set on foot in some of the Sections, with the object of marching on
the Convention and getting rid of the Girondists by force. But it was
discountenanced by the Jacobin leaders, and it ended in an ineffectual
riot. The alarm, however, created by the bad news from the frontier
tended to heighten the political fever, and with that the risk of
insurrection. In March and April the danger was increased by the
serious rising in La Vendée, which, beginning in a series of isolated
outbreaks occasioned by the conscription and by local causes, developed
into a widespread political movement on behalf of monarchical ideas,
and by its spirit and its successes seemed to threaten the safety of
the Republic.
While the Girondists wavered and lost ground, the Jacobins were
organised and were preparing for the battle. They had behind them all
the authority of the Commune of Paris, the prestige of the well-known
leaders of the Mountain, and the forces of the two great Clubs. They
had, owing to the apathy of their opponents, obtained the control of
most of the Sections. They had practically the military power too.
After the 10th August, the National Guard had been organised afresh
into forty-eight battalions, one for each Section. The artillery
of the Guard had been separately organised, and the artillerymen,
recruited from the poorest class, formed a body on whom the Jacobins
could generally depend. The old bourgeois members no longer appeared,
but paid Sansculottes to do their duty for them; and the nucleus
of a fighting force was formed by the men of the 10th August and
of the 2nd September, who could be relied on to act as the Commune
required. Besides that, in the middle of May, the Commune ordered the
enlistment of a special force of Sansculottes, which was organised
later as the Revolutionary Army. Further, the Jacobins had the control
of the police. Each Section had its elected police-commissioners,
acting under the direction of the Commune, and as a matter of fact
police-commissioners became in many Sections insurrectionary leaders.
Thus the forces which existed nominally to protect the friends of
order, had become the active agents of the other side. The Committees
of Supervision lately instituted by the Convention, and known before
long as Revolutionary Committees, sat in every Section, denouncing,
disarming, and fining their enemies, dealing out certificates of
'civism' to their allies, forming ready centres of Jacobin intrigue,
and arranging plans for a general rising. If ever the Moderates dared
to assert themselves in the Sections, the Jacobins could call in the
authority of the police, and thus secure the arrest of their opponents.
All that they wanted was time to organise their forces, so as to make
the success of an insurrection certain.
To these preparations Girondists had nothing to oppose. They too must
have realised that the question had come to be one of force, and yet
they took no steps to gather forces for themselves. They inspired no
enthusiasm in the capital. There was no class in Paris on whom they
could rely. The National Guard would not rise to defend them. They had
no guard or organisation of their own. Neither the aristocrats nor the
bourgeois recognised them as leaders, and they made few efforts to
rally the partisans of order round them. The Girondists, it is true,
had eloquence and parliamentary battalions, and they were probably
right in believing that the majority of citizens preferred their policy
and conduct to those of their opponents. But these advantages were of
little weight or value when physical force lay in the other scale.
At last, however, the Girondists began to recognise their danger.
In April they attacked Marat, and sent him before the Revolutionary
Tribunal. But Marat was triumphantly acquitted. They denounced the
insurrectionary plots in the Sections. But the plots went merrily on.
They refused to listen to Danton's overtures of conciliation. They
obtained addresses of confidence from the departments. They proposed
to appeal to the country against Paris. They suggested that the
Convention should be moved to Versailles or Bourges. But all these
proposals were without result. Later still, as their apprehensions
increased, they boldly talked of dissolving the Commune, and on the
18th May they carried a motion appointing an extraordinary Commission
of Twelve, to enquire into the conspiracies against the Convention.
At the end, though they lacked unity, they did not lack vigour. The
Commission intrepidly challenged the plotters, and struck at the chief
by arresting Hébert. Hébert's arrest precipitated the crisis, and
the alarm which it caused in the camp of the Commune showed that the
Jacobins felt the gravity of the Girondist attack. But in order to make
their attack effective, the Girondists must have had a force behind
them, and this they had not the penetration to perceive or the power or
resolution to create.
Yet it cannot be said that their leaders were unwarned. Garat, their
principal representative in the Ministry, complacently shut his eyes
to the danger, and to the last moment assured his colleagues that
Paris was quiet and that nothing need be feared. And yet Garat had
at the time in his service a small staff of secret police, who were
daily reporting to him on the condition of Paris, and among them one,
Dutard, an observer of singular acuteness, whose reports the minister
apparently laid on the shelf unread, but whose name and counsels
deserve to be rescued from oblivion. In Dutard's reports we have
striking evidence of the apathy of the great mass of the Parisians,
of their indifference to Girondists and Jacobins alike. If Dutard's
opinion is to be trusted, most of the small traders and working
people, who had welcomed the Revolution with enthusiasm and who had
acquiesced in the downfall of the throne, had since passed into the
ranks of disaffection. The butchers, the tailors, the shoemakers,
the wine-dealers, even the market-women and the better artisans had
ceased to belong to the advanced party. The recruits of the Commune in
May were drawn from a lower and more reckless class, from unemployed
or idle workmen, from porters, hucksters, foreigners and domestic
servants, reinforced by criminals and outcasts, and swelled by the
social refuse of great cities, which no legislation or philanthropy
has yet been able to remove. This ignorant and undisciplined body,
easily led and easily misled, very sensitive to want and panic, not
very sensitive to principle or order, formed a force on which the
party of violence could depend, and the agents of the Commune were
busily appealing to its interests, drilling it into battalions, and
rousing it to act. But after all, compared with the population of
Paris, this force was small. The great mass of Parisian citizens
dreaded and disliked it. They hated its doctrines. They shuddered at
the recollection of its outbreak in September, and were cowed by the
fear lest that outbreak should recur. The aristocrats held themselves
aloof, provoked opposition and made mischief. The bourgeois declined
all public duties, and shunned the assemblies of the Sections, the
debates of the clubs, the gatherings and demonstrations in the streets,
the political discussions in the cafés. They only wanted to be left
alone, to amuse themselves, to gather in the Champs Elysées or in the
Gardens of the dismantled Tuileries, to enjoy the sunshine and the
summer breezes, to attend to their own small affairs, and to escape
the bewildering and dangerous vicissitudes of public life. They had no
union, no rallying-point, no leaders. Worst of all, they had for the
most part little courage, and had not learned, as they learned later,
that if they wished to be delivered they must assert themselves and act.
Yet at times there were traces of a better spirit among them. The first
attempts made to raise the forced loan from the rich and to compel
them to enlist for service in La Vendée seem to have stirred them to
resistance, and in the course of May, Dutard reported signs of a rally
of moderate politicians, and the reappearance of the majority in the
Sections. Could the Girondists have taken advantage of this spirit,
could they have used their influence in the Government and in the
Convention to bring troops to Paris, to shut the clubs, to overawe the
Commune, to enlist and draft off to La Vendée some of the destitute
and unemployed, to appeal to the instincts of property and order which
every civilized community retains, and to encourage those instincts to
assert themselves by an adequate display of force, they might yet have
won the day. But the Girondists could not seize the opportunity. Very
few of them saw as clearly as Garat's clever agent what was wanted.
They had not the authority, the union or the promptitude to induce the
Convention to take the necessary steps. So the majority relapsed into
submission, and the minority, helped by force and terror, secured the
lead again.
The arrest of Hébert, on the 24th May, marked the climax of the
struggle. It startled the Commune and it forced them to act. Their
plans had long been maturing, and in the days which followed they
were rapidly completed. On the one hand the insurrectionary leaders
organised their forces in the Section of the Evêché, and elected a
variety of committees and commissioners to direct the operations of
the insurgents. On the other hand the Convention and the Committee of
Public Safety hesitated and trimmed between the rival parties, while
the bolder spirits among the Gironde persevered in their attack. Some
of the more desperate Jacobins proposed the murder of the unpopular
deputies, but the responsible leaders insisted that the Girondists
should be disposed of by more legitimate means. In the end, the tactics
of the 10th August were closely followed. An insurrectionary municipal
body, elected by the most extreme Sections, met at night on the 30th
May, declared the regular authorities of the Commune superseded,
appointed Hanriot Commander-in-Chief of the National Guard, ordered
the tocsin to be rung, and proceeded to recruit the battalions which
were to intimidate the Convention into proscribing the Gironde. Even
then the result was very doubtful. The insurrectionary leaders found it
difficult to raise the force which they required. Some of the Sections
and of the National Guards showed a disposition to take the other side.
On Friday, the 31st May, and again on Saturday, the 1st June, the
insurrectionary leaders failed to obtain their objects, and although
they induced the Convention to cancel the Commission of Twelve, they
were unable to secure the proscription of their opponents. It was
not until the third attempt, on Sunday, the 2nd June, that Hanriot's
Sansculottes, aided by the artillerymen of the National Guard and by
a disorderly battalion of foreigners, which was then leaving Paris
under orders for La Vendée, were able to muster in sufficient force
to overawe the Convention, and to induce it to vote the arrest of the
twenty-two leaders of the Gironde.
The fall of the Girondists was thus accomplished in Paris after a
close and doubtful struggle, in which with energy and union they might
very possibly have saved themselves. It produced a general outbreak
in France. Lyons, Marseilles, Bordeaux, Toulon, Grenoble, Caen, many
of the greatest cities in the country, declared against the Jacobin
Government in Paris. The great majority of the departments prepared to
raise the standard of revolt. On the Northern and Eastern frontiers
the Allies took Condé, Valenciennes, Mayence, and again threatened to
advance on Paris. In the South-West the Spaniards, in the South-East
the Sardinians made way against the French. On the Loire the insurgents
of La Vendée beat the troops of the Republic in battle after battle,
and threw themselves on Nantes. The English fleet blockaded the French
ports. All the enemies of the Revolution hurried to enlist on the same
side. Some of the Girondists escaped from Paris, and began to organise
resistance in the North; and Charlotte Corday, determined to avenge
their injuries, travelled up alone from Caen, and assassinated the
famous Jacobin leader who had made himself the apostle of assassination
as a method of political advance.
In the midst of these perils the Jacobin Government displayed undaunted
vigour and resource. The threatened resistance of the departments,
which had little union or organisation, was averted by vigorous and
prudent measures. The revolted cities were isolated and gradually
reduced. New generals were found and new levies raised for the war.
The appointment in turn of Houchard and Jourdan to the chief command
resulted in victories at Hondschöten and Wattignies, and from the
beginning of September onwards, the tide turned in favour of the
French. The Allies, always divided and lethargic, gradually fell back
before their enemies. After the autumn of 1793, all serious danger
of invasion passed away. The French army began to learn the uses of
discipline and the secrets of conquest, and under its great commanders
entered on its irresistible career. In the West the Vendéans were at
last defeated, and their heroic insurrection crushed. The Girondists
in the provinces failed, as they had failed in Paris, to raise the
forces essential to success, and one by one they were hunted down, or
disappeared. Before the end of October, the Jacobins were everywhere
triumphant, the Terror was established, and the Revolutionary Tribunal
was busily at work.
It is not necessary to linger here over the fate of the victims. The
Girondist ideals will always command sympathy. Their eloquent hopes,
their courage and disasters will always win respect. But when they are
tried as statesmen, their lamentable incompetence stands clear, and
their failure, though pitiable, seems scarcely undeserved. The triumph
of the Jacobins was celebrated by the death of their opponents. They
dealt their blows on all parties alike. Many of the Girondist leaders
perished in the provinces, and in the autumn and winter of 1793, a
long train of illustrious prisoners mounted the scaffold in Paris.
Marie Antoinette, undaunted to the last, expiated her rank and ended
her misfortunes. Madame Roland, with equal bravery, followed in the
steps of the unhappy queen whom she had so unsparingly assailed. A few
weeks later, the sinister irony of their judges sent to the guillotine
another woman, who like them had for a brief time tried to rule the
destinies of France, the once omnipotent Madame Dubarry. Vergniaud and
Brissot, once the heroes of the Republic, Bailly, once the hero of the
Parisians, Barnave, once the hero of the Assembly, Philippe Egalité,
once the hero of the mob, Houchard, only a few weeks before the hero of
the army, atoned by suffering the same indignity for the many different
parts which they had played. But to the last the Girondist enthusiasts,
with the tranquil courage of the Ancients whom they loved, bore witness
to their republican ideals, and as they passed from their prison to the
scaffold chanted the Marseillaise.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 10: The only authority for this statement that I know of is
the _Chronique de Paris_, of Dec. 26, 1792, quoted and accepted by Von
Sybel (Eng. Tr.), ii. 287. Whether entirely accurate or not, it serves
to illustrate the undoubted panic in Paris.]